1.Your personal connection
How has your personal experience with arts, culture, or creativity had an impact on your life and your view of the community?
Music has had the most impact on my life as it usually affects my mood in a positive manner. Music seems to be one of the few things out there that can unite a community.
2. Arts & Culture in Brockton
Brockton is home to a mix of arts and cultural organizations. What is your story about the impact of a local arts or cultural institution in our city?
Education is the foundation for a better life; any organization that successfully provides additional resources for arts and culture would be welcome in any community that I am involved with. An arts institution would provide many more opportunities for a diversified group of people within our city.
3. Addressing City-wide Issues
What are specific examples of how the arts, culture, and creative community can help solve social problems? What are your ideas about how the creative community can drive economic development in Brockton?
Videos can be a very powerful tool when attempting to get a point across. There are essentially no limits to how creative you can get during the production and editing process. The main issue that I have personally been focusing on during the campaign trail is bringing more awareness to the foreclosure crisis that has once again been ramping up within our city. Videos accompanied by the works of local musicians and artists highlighting the efforts of different groups of activists in preventing many more injustices from occurring can go a long way in explaining how the fraudulent activities of these large banks are stifling the economic development in Brockton.
4. Arts Education and Programs for Our Youth
What is your stance on the importance of arts education in schools? Do you support funding of the Creative Challenge Index? The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has pledged to update the Commonwealth's art education curriculum (last updated in 1999) as well as report on access and participation in arts education in school districts. How will you support arts education in the Brockton Public Schools, in the face of never-ending underfunding?
Arts Education and Programs for Our Youth would provide a greater Return On Investment (ROl) than the egregious amounts of Corporate Welfare currently taking place within our Country. Conglomerates have received billions of dollars in the form of tax credits every year where in many instances the funding goes towards contracts promoting the military industrial complex and the deaths of innocent people. Further evidence of Corporate Welfare was the bailout money being received by large banks, but never actually spent towards helping homeowners experiencing injustice as it was allegedly intended. After being bailed out; these same large banks have not skipped a beat as far as scamming hard-working families out of their sweat equity. These fraudulent bankers need to be placed in jail!
5. Partnerships with the Creative Community
How would you promote public-private partnerships to support the Brockton creative community?
Utilizing videos that promote the works of musicians, artists and activists in an integrated fashion would be the approach that I would want to take towards supporting the Brockton creative community.
