Speech from the City Council Candidates’ Forum
On August 27th, three weeks before the September 16th preliminary election, each of the 17 City Council candidates were invited and got three minutes to speak (15 showed up in person, one send a stand-in to read his speech, and the other was absent). I’m posting the text of my speech here.
I would like to thank the Medford Democratic City Committee for hosting. As Secretary and Ward 8 Chair, they are valuable colleagues who add so much to the city, though I recused myself from any organizational responsibilities or decisionmaking for this particular event.
*Please note one minor correction from the video that’s reflected in the transcript below: the statistics cited near the beginning are from the past 41 years (all calculated between January 1st, 1984 to July 1st, 2025) rather than the past 30 years, as said in the live speech; data was taken from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and is linked below.
I’d like to thank the Democratic City Committee for hosting this event. My name is Matt Leming. I’m a scientist, a Naval Officer and, for the past two years, a City Councilor in Medford.
I grew up in a military family, moved around a lot, did my PhD in the UK, and moved to Medford as a postdoc at Mass General. When I moved here, I could barely pay for a room in a small apartment. That’s not because brain disease research is not valuable, it’s because something about the system is flawed. In the past 41* years, US rents have risen 323%, average home prices 441%, and median household income a mere 37%, and to even begin addressing this, we need to start locally. In 2023, after lobbying Council to pass an affordable housing trust, I ran for Council myself, talked to a whole lot of voters, and began serving in 2024.
Our state has laws that prevent city budgets from keeping up with inflation, and Medford has stagnated in its growth for a long time. So, Medford has a budget problem, and Medford’s housing is too expensive. This past term, I, and many of my colleagues on Council, have stopped kicking the can down the road. Backed by many parents and young families in the community, we put on the ballot and campaigned for our city’s first ever 2.5 override, which saved forty union jobs in the Medford Teachers’ Association and funded a full-time road repair crew.
This past term, Council approved new public housing for seniors, and I’m working at the state and local level to fund our new affordable housing trust. The City and the community spent years developing plans to rezone the city, both to address our affordability crisis and dwindling budget, and Council is working on that. Our current zoning is patchwork, it leads to patchwork development, it needs to change, and it’s needed to change for a very long time. New zoning will mitigate traffic via a transportation demand management program; mandate greener building practices; and, with an historic conversion ordinance, maintain the many historic buildings that compose Medford while incentivizing housing affordability.
I’ve made Council a more transparent body by instituting a city council newsletter, livestreaming our meetings, holding office hours at the Medford senior center, and writing about all of it on my website nonstop. I instituted a first-of-its kind program to house low-income veterans, and I passed a law that will allow Medford residents to voluntarily donate to an in-need veteran’s fund on their tax bills. In January, Council passed a Welcoming City Ordinance, and in my work with the Democratic City Committee, I spearheaded a campaign to inform non-English-speaking residents of their constitutional rights in these very dire times.
In short, Council has, at long last, stopped kicking the can down the road. We need to take action if we’re to have an affordable and vibrant city, I’ve been putting in the work to do just that, and I will continue putting in the work. Thank you very much for your time and attention, and don’t forget to vote on September 16th!
