About 25 residents, staff members, and visitors gathered in the German Centre auditorium in West Roxbury on Aug. 18 and then again on Aug. 19 to hear from the State Senate candidates for the Norfolk/Suffolk District.

The district covers towns from Walpole, Norwood, Westwood, Dedham, West Roxbury, Roslindale, parts of Hyde Park, and parts of Jamaica Plain.

Notably, incumbent Michael Rush and challenger Persis Yu split up their appearances by day. The two will be facing off in a candidates’ forum at the Dedham Middle School on Thursday, Aug. 27, at 70 Whiting Ave. at 7 p.m.

Yu introduced herself and outlined why she is running and what she hopes to accomplish as senator for the Suffolk and Norfolk districts.

“I'm a working mom to two Boston public school kids. I'm also a social worker, a lawyer, but most importantly, an advocate by trade,” Yu said. “I have spent my entire career working on behalf of working families, seniors, and veterans, and I'm currently the deputy executive director and managing counsel at a nonprofit called Protect Borrowers, where we work on economic justice issues. I'm running because I think we have some real big problems here in Massachusetts.”

Rush focused on his history in the position and as a former State Representative in the legislature.

“It’s an honor to be here. I’ve been coming to the Altenheim for a long time to chat with folks about issues and what have you,” he said. “There is not a day where I go to the Statehouse where I don’t pinch myself. I’m blessed to do this and represent this community, as well as the rest of the district.”

Rush explained his history to the crowd.

“I got elected in 2010 to be a Massachusetts State Senate and I’ve been working on Beacon Hill to deal with issues that affect our community, and I love the job,” he said. “I was a high school history teacher before that… and I was a State Rep., and State Sen. Edward Coppinger succeeded me, and I succeeded State Sen. Marion Walsh.”

Rush also explained his service in the U.S. Navy, which included 10 months in Iraq.

“As of today I have served 32 years in the U.S. Navy,” he said. “I went to boot camp in 1994, and I’m still serving. Three days a month, I get on a plane and I fly to Norfolk, Virginia, and I am what they call a dirt sailor. I have never been on a ship. I was with the Seabees for eight years. Now I’m an intelligence officer and I’m the Chief Staff Officer for COMSUBLANT (Submarine Force Atlantic)… and I go down there three days a month and give the active duty sailors a few days to relax and be with their families, and we monitor all of our submarine forces in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s interesting work and I enjoy it, but after 32 years, I’m getting a little tired.”

Yu said many of the Commonwealth’s problems stem from unaffordability, a lack of legislative transparency at the State House, and insufficient action to protect vulnerable communities.

“President Trump and his allies have used classic divide and conquer tactics to convince millions of people across the country that they should be blaming immigrants, LGBTQ people, people of color, for all of their economic problems instead of the billionaires and the corrupt politicians who have been ripping them off.” she said. “But I think we need to acknowledge that here in Massachusetts, there is a democratic trifecta in this state, and we're still not getting the job done.”

Despite the Democratic party control, Yu blames lack of transparency for the Commonwealth’s inability to make life more affordable (even though 72 percent of those voting supported a state audit), and that many elected officials do not have primary challenges, therefore making it difficult to hold an incumbent accountable. Responding to the question of why she is running, Yu reiterated the need for a change in legislative focus. “We need to be protecting our vulnerable communities, we need to make sure that Massachusetts is affordable, but we can't do that in our broken legislature. We can't do that if there is no transparency about how our legislators are voting, about what's happening, and what is the role of corporate lobbyists and influence?”

Rush also touched on national issues, focusing on the recent repeal of Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and other immigrants.

“Massachusetts has had an unbelievable Haitian population for more than half a century,” he said. “They have been an incredible part of our workforce and just wonderful citizens.”

Rush likened immigrants’ current plight to that of his family.

“That’s a big problem,” he said. “We’re at a crossroads. My grandparents came here from Ireland. I went by their graves yesterday for a funeral. I have to explain to my kids because they don’t get it, and I have to explain my grandparents lived a life with no electricity and plumbing, they cannot comprehend that. They came here, John and Mary Rush, they had 10 kids, and my grandfather worked as a hod carrier.”

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A hod carrier is the person who carries the bricks from the staging area up to the building being built, sometimes several stories tall.

“Up the ladder,” he said. “So they had nothing, they came here with nothing, had 10 kids, lived in one unit of a triple-decker in Mission Hill, and my grandfather did the hod carrying, my grandmother was a domestic, and my father, after Roslindale High School, served in the Korean War. And because of Harry Truman, he got the G.I. Bill, and was the first of my family to go to college.”

Rush said he disagrees with the policy change to deport TPS holders, but didn’t say what the Massachusetts State Legislature has done to protect TPS holders or immigrants in general, like the Massachusetts Protect Act, which passed unanimously earlier in August – https://gvimes.link/prtctact

“The fact that there is even a question of changing that – in my mind that’s insane,” he said.

During Yu’s talk, one resident asked about mail-in voting, which is in jeopardy under the Trump Administration for the actual midterms, though not this coming primary – https://gvimes.link/vtebymail

“If my dad's up to it, we always take him to vote in person. If not, if he fills out the mail-in ballot. Can I drop it in the mail that day?”asked one audience member. Yu said that if on Sept.1 a person cannot get to vote in-person, someone can drop his mail-in ballot into one of the designated drop boxes that day.

Another attendee asked about the question of transporting children at the last minute to school if an emergency arises and the effects of Proposition 2 ½ which limits annual property tax increases and can limit money for public schools. “Our transportation system is in shambles across this state. Our schools have been underfunded for many years … the first priority is to fully fund all of these schools and make sure that we do have adequate transportation, in particular, for the schools,” she said. She noted that her son attends the O’Bryant public school in Roxbury.

Another question was about the future of Norwood Hospital, which closed due to a flood in 2020 and remains closed after its former operator, Steward Healthcare, financially imploded and that company’s landlord, Medical Properties Trust (MPT), has failed to sell or find an operator.

Gov. Maura Healey recently signed a bill, co-sponsored by Rush in the State Senate, that will allow Massachusetts to take the hospital by eminent domain in the next couple of months if MPT doesn’t find a non-profit operator in that time.

“I think the state fell down at its job on Norwood Hospital … and so, I think it is good that they have finally passed an eminent domain bill. My question is, why has it taken six years for the hospital to be closed before they took action?” She noted that residents now must seek emergency services by going to Needham and even into the Kenmore, Boston Area. “How do we take action to make sure that it does not happen again?”

Rush celebrated the legislation, digging into the details of what it takes to pass such a bill.

“If I was a hockey player, I’d call it a hat trick,” he said, noting that it passed the Mass House, Mass Senate and Gov. Maura Healey’s desk with no issues. “We got the bill filed in January and we got it passed two weeks ago. Generally we get 7,000 bills in the legislature every year, and on average, to get a bill passed [it takes] four-to-eight years. And [State Rep. John Rogers] and I got it passed in six months. So I’m going to give myself a little pat on the back for that.”

For more information on the upcoming Dedham forum, go to https://gvimes.link/rushyuforum