SPEAKERS
Maria Rodriguez, Brendan Crighton, Maya Smith, Aleena Mangham, Chris Mancini, Youth Staff
Maya Smith 00:00
I'm cool. We're recording this. Um, hi, everyone, thank you so much for joining. I'm Maya. I use she her pronouns. And I am the Director of Partnerships and program development from say the harvest. Hold for applause lots of Save the harbor folks out here. And we're super excited to have her on here. Today, we're gonna be talking about our beaches. What do we think about boats? Do we feel safe there? Can we access them? What do we want to see, they're just general thoughts and feelings. And we're going to be doing a lot of cool stuff about these general thoughts and feelings. So I will pass over to Christmas, you need to talk a little bit more about the awesome opportunity we have today before we get started.
Chris Mancini, STH/STB 00:55
Hi, everybody, thank you so much for coming on a Monday afternoon. Probably one of the more tired parts of the day. But we really appreciate you being here. My name is Chris Manzini, I use he him pronouns. I'm the Executive Director of Save the harbor, Save the Bay. And what we're doing here is a feedback session with all of you, as part of our work with the Metropolitan beaches Commission, which is a group that we manage for the state legislature. And what we're going to do with your feedback is use it as part of the third report that we've done of this kind with the MVC, which will act as a roadmap for about five years so that we can make real effective change on the beaches.
And the first two reports, which happened in 2007. And 2014, helped us get some real change done on the beaches, including taking sewage pipes off of some of our beaches, fixing, putting new bathrooms in making sure bathrooms were open for people getting trash schedules improved. So we didn't have trash on the beach, they were really focused on a lot of infrastructure issues. And you were welcome to talk about infrastructure issues on on this meeting, as well. But what we're focusing on, and we've held three hearings so far on different themes on racial justice, and inequity on the beaches, on access for people with disabilities, on our beaches, and on language, barriers, so making sure that we did a survey of every sign on every state beach from the Hans Nantasket, and found out of 250, signs, only four were not in English, or were translated into any language at all.
So through that process, we found you know, we haven't really done a focused conversation with people under 24, or something, and that there's really specific needs and wants, I think of teens, especially that that we can work to improve. And so we'd really, like we're really looking forward to hearing from you hope you'll, you'll feel really comfortable letting us know, and I would really encourage you to speak either. Generally, if you have something you notice that's very general about a lot of places. And also to get very specific, if you live in Dorchester, you know, I go by Malibu beach all the time. And I've noticed that this there's literally always garbage or that there's always a neighbor, they're yelling at me, because I'm, they seem to be a young person. Like, that's the stuff we want to know. Because we are really in the NBC is really advocate for really broad, equitable access to these resources, because they belong to everybody. And we want to see that actually be true.
Maya Smith 03:43
Yeah, so all of your feedback is super important to us. Can I also ask folks to just put their names and they're already in the chat. If you're saved the harbor, feel free to just say s t h, so you don't have to type it out. And yeah, everyone can just introduce themselves. And then I'm going to pass to Maria to introduce herself as well.
Maria Rodriguez 04:12
Hi, everyone, you most of you already know me. My name is Maria COVID Igos. I am the environmental policy assistant and senior harbor educator at save the harbor safe debate. I'm really excited to be here. Really excited to hear all of your opinions on what's working on beaches, what can be improved. And yeah, really excited. All of your opinions are super important. And I know there'll be used to make real change on our beaches. So yeah, go ahead and voice your opinions. Thank you.
Student 04:45
Cool. Yeah.
Maya Smith 04:47
Our first part of this that we're going to get into we're going to be utilizing some of we've really spent a lot of time on Zoom. So we're really getting into all the zoom features today. So we're going to be using some polls and also the whiteboards to talk a little bit. And we are starting with accessibility buffer. Oh, very exciting. So we have some questions that we are going to pop out for everyone to answer. So in a second, hopefully, you're going to see some questions pop up on your screen. For folks who work on the beach, could you try to think of how many times you've been there? Outside of work? I'm going to pass back to Maria so that she can read out some of the questions.
Maria Rodriguez 05:38
Yeah. So the first question is, what neighborhood Do you live in? And their list house lists out a lot of foster neighborhoods?
Maya Smith 05:47
What is the closest beach to you?
Maria Rodriguez 05:49
And there you can answer more than one beach.
Maya Smith 05:53
sorry, if your neighborhood is not listed for just put it in the chat. Yeah, we weren't able to put all of the options. Sorry, folks.
Maria Rodriguez 06:02
Um, yeah. And then there, you're able to select more than one beach? How many times have you have you been to the beach this summer? And for this question, try to think also outside of work if you are we already work on the beaches? And other question is, I feel like I can access and enjoy the beaches safely. Yes or No question? Do you have a safe and direct way to get to and from the beach? Yes or No question? Is cost a different factor when getting to the beaches? Yes or No question? And do you feel safe going to the beach alone? Yes, or No question.
Maya Smith 06:34
Yeah, so go ahead and fill those out to the best of your ability. This is going to be an anonymous when it comes in for us. And these questions are going to help us figure out what types of things to prioritize like a free shuttles or something we may get prioritized first. You know, a million other things as well that I'm sure gonna come out of this. I'm gonna give folks a couple minutes. 14 out of 35 people have already filled this out nice.
Maya Smith 07:14
And we have some like discussion questions to get a little bit more into some of these. And why we asked Chris, if you could pull up the whiteboard? Think some folks just need a little bit more time for the poll. So we'll just give it a minute. Show pop the shrimp back up.
Maya Smith 08:06
I'm going to close this out. If no one has any objections was everyone who was able to fill this out? I'm saying let's put that I can't see.
Chris Mancini, STH/STB 08:18
There we go. There's like, maybe there's maybe like for people who haven't done it. But we can get as many as possible. That'd be great. I know I can't do it, because we're the CO hosts.
Maya Smith 08:30
True. Great point. All right.
Maria Rodriguez 08:34
Someone in the chat said that they're having trouble rooting for whiteboard.
Chris Mancini, STH/STB 08:42
You can slide the view of your screen. That could be it. If you put your cursor over the bar in the middle, you can slide it to the right, so the faces and the Zoom Room is minimized. And you get more of the whiteboard that way.
Maya Smith 08:59
There's also the ability to zoom in and out on the bottom right corner of the whiteboard.
Maya Smith 09:12
We can talk through what's on here so that people are able to share in the chat or on just in general. So we'll be able to share.
Chris Mancini, STH/STB 09:27
When we'd love to have people speak as well. So this is just we have multiple ways to provide feedback. So for this open discussion, we'd love to hear from folks with the raise hand and hear from you directly.
Maya Smith 09:40
Yeah, let me see the whole thing magic.
Maya Smith 09:52
Okay, yeah. So we wanted to ask folks if they're able to share why you Go to the beaches or what stops you from going to the beaches. If you're someone who goes often is that because you work there or because you love to go we are trying to make sure that we can help foot like fill the gaps and accessibility as much as possible. And we also to make things easier for folks if someone puts something up there that you agree with already feel free to like draw a little like checker exclamation point, just some way to show that you agree with something that's already on there to make it a little bit easier. So if anyone wants to share on the board itself or in the chat or unmute to share, we would love to hear why people go to the beach or not.
Maya Smith 11:16
If you click I know this is a little weird to navigate if you click either the text or sticky note on the left side bar, so the T symbol or the square right underneath that makes it so you can add to the board.
Chris Mancini, STH/STB 11:34
And if you're having trouble with the board, please just re either raise your hand or just unmute and share shares or verbally the more feedback we get the better. Thanks Ariana.
Ariana 11:53
Um me personally I really like constitution beach because I feel like it's an easy your beach to get to. I mean, it's kind of a little bit of a long walk to get there. But I believe there's like a kind of a shortcut of getting the beach but I really do like that beach I think it's like really pretty there and I think the water there's really nice and amazing.
Student 12:15
Thanks. Thanks.
Maya Smith 12:20
Anyone else want to share about like what beach they go to? Or whatever beach is nearest to them?
Chris Mancini, STH/STB 12:27
Or why not? Why don't you go
Aaron 12:31
Hi. My name is Aaron. So I don't really go to the beach very often. Partially because like I don't know it's not just it's just not something I do for fun frequently. But also because they're all kind of far away from me. Because I live in JP on the pole I put Carson beach because that's the one I've gone to the most often I'm really not sure but also like even going to Carson beach like it the area where you're trying to go from the JFK stop like to the beach it's it's all weird and road feels kind of dangerous. So like crossing
Maya Smith 13:13
Yeah, let's make sure to make note of that because I definitely feel like I have also had to cross at that like wild rotary from JFK to Carson. And do you not always feel safe there for sure.
Chris Mancini, STH/STB 13:30
Yeah, thanks Aaron. I see Lauren's agreeing with that in the chat that's a that's exactly the type of feedback that's really important for this.
Maya Smith 13:46
So for this one we're specifically talking about is one of the questions I don't remember if it was in the poll or on here but feel free to share about that or it also the accessibility of getting to the beaches that in Boston or in the area
Student 14:10
I know for me personally, I know they're like in real chairs or in canes or whatever. And like I like to go to Carson just because like there's a lot of events that go on like the care like the Caribbean events and stuff like that. But I know for the people that are that are in canes or like in crutches or whatever, like crossing the streets are very intimidating, because you don't have a car and even if you have a car parking is very limited. So like all the crossover there has to walk. Like kind of intimidating people that are like disabled because it's like, more crazy. It's kind of hard for you to get from point A to point B so issue
Maya Smith 14:54
Yeah, thank you do you know If there's another question on here, too, that people can feel free to share about about how would you get to the tee is there even as Erin was saying, like, is there a stop that goes a tee that goes directly to where you live to a beach? If not, what would that journey look like? Are you able to drive yourself? Is someone else able to drive you in your life? Or would it be a scenario of taking multiple trains to a bus to another train type of situation?
Maria Rodriguez 15:45
So you guys can start sharing out either by talking or by writing using the writing ocean on the whiteboards you can share out how you how do you usually get to the beaches? There, personally, I always walk because I'm really close to Carson beach, and Malibu Beach. There are other places that I have to take transportation to public transportation. So how do you guys get to the beaches?
Student 16:23
Me? I'd say public transportation. I take the orange line, or the red line, to get the most of the beaches.