Medford Candidate Profile: Matt Leming For City Council

MEDFORD, MA — The municipal election is fast approaching in Medford, and the city council race is highly contested.

Medford Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles leading up to November.

Incumbent Matt Leming is running again for a City Councilor at-large seat in Medford.

Age

32

Position sought

Medford City Council

Party affiliation

Democrat

Family

I have a wife, a sister who lives in Oregon, and parents who live in Oklahoma.

Education

B.S./M.S. in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge.

Occupation

I'm an AI scientist. I worked as a postdoc at Mass General Brigham for five years studying AI for dementia diagnostics in Alzheimer's, and I now work for a company that develops CT scanners. I'm also an officer in the reserves.

Previous or Current Elected Office

I have served on Medford City Council for one term

Campaign Website

mattleming.com

Why are you seeking elected office?

This past term I've been able to make key investments in affordable housing, our capacity to repair our roads, and our school system. I worked with a group of parents to put $7 million into the public schools and $500,000 annually to the DPW for a road repair crew, and I've been working to fund our affordable housing trust via updates to our developer impact fee programs. We need City Councilors that are willing to boring, behind-the-scenes work to make these long-term investments to improve our city, and I hope to continue that work.

The single most-pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is __________ and this is what I intend to do about it.

Housing affordability and our city budget. Most of the issues residents rightfully bring up — the state of the roads, schools, lack of city services — is related to our dwindling budget — which, per capita, is not that great in the context of Massachusetts. This is due to state laws that disallow our budget to keep up with inflation without significant development or periodic tax overrides; we only just had our first tax override this past year, and moving forward we'll need to develop in our business districts to really make a dent in the budget problem. Bringing life to Medford Square and West Medford Square by making the permitting process a lot clearer and changing what is allowed to go there are both within the power of City Council.

The housing crisis is complicated, but it's also another one of those all-pervading problems. Young people can't afford rent and seniors who would like to downsize without moving out of the city often don't have that option. Changing incentives around building affordable housing and continuing my work to fund the affordable housing trust are both levers that the city can pull to address this issue locally.

What are the critical differences between you and other candidates seeking this post?

I tend to be the most data-oriented in my decision making since that's my profession, and I'm the only one who brings military experience, which allows me to connect with veterans more.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

In addition to affordable housing and proactively working to address our budget problems, the other issues that are important to me are road safety, support for veterans, and incentivizing environmentally friendly building practices and policies.

The best advice ever shared with me was __________

"When leading, aim to serve rather than dominate."

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I'm in favor of putting a debt exclusion on the ballot for a new high school, if that's what the high school building committee recommends.

See Also:

Medford Candidate Profile: Emily Lazzaro For City Council

Medford Candidate Profile: Patrick Clerkin For City Council

Medford Candidate Profile: Nicholas Giurleo For City Council