5 Questions For: Steve Quist, Worcester D5 Council Candidate

WORCESTER, MA — Worcester residents living in City Council District 5 will get a new City Councilor this year. Four people are running to replace Councilor Matthew Wally, who is running for an At-Large City Council seat in 2021.

Worcester Patch has asked each District 5 candidate to answer a questionnaire to help voters get to know them better ahead of the Sept. 14 primary, which will narrow the field down to two candidates.

Steve Quist, 60, has been an active voice in Worcester politics — online and off — for years. One of his main reasons for running in 2021 is to bring attention to neighborhoods that he feels are falling behind as Worcester booms, he says.

Here's what Quist had to say about his 2021 bid for the District 5 seat:

D5 will have a new Councilor in November. What would you do differently than the current representative?

I'm a lifelong city resident. I've spent 35-plus years volunteering across the city. I've spent many years as an activist in the city leading protests, whether it was supporting the vote —we had Mayor Petty and Congressman McGovern with me at City Hall — supporting the U.S. Postal Service and their rights and what [Postmaster General Louis DeJoy] has done. I'm pro-union, I'm very much pro- communities.

What my whole life has been is a sense of urgency to help, and never giving up, and never taking no for an answer. I plan on building on what [District 5 Councilor Matthew Wally] has done and accomplished, and I'm going to take it a step further. Because I think, from Webster Square to Tatnuck Square to Newton Square, I feel neighborhoods have been left out in the cold. I believe we've concentrated and done a successful job in the downtown core. Now we have to turn around and bring that out into the neighborhoods.

That means economic opportunities. That means when you're on Park Avenue, the auto dealership that left to go to Auburn, you've got massive swaths of land, you've got the old Price Chopper on Mill Street that's been sitting vacant for all these years; we've got to get the city manager and the administration to really start taking these seriously and start marketing them and start creating opportunities for everyone within the district. We need to step up and get the job done and bring economic development into the neighborhoods.

If you could have your way, what kind of transportation upgrades would you make in D5? This could be for vehicles, but please include thoughts on trails, bike infrastructure and pedestrian upgrades.

We have [federal stimulus] money coming into the city, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to increase and improve pedestrian safety, whether it's widening the sidewalks to make it pedestrian friendly, adding bike lanes ... lowering the speed limit on the main roads and side streets.

My kids went to West Tatnuck, they went to Tatnuck Magnet; I'm from that district, spent over 30 years in District 5. The same issues are affecting us today as they were back then. What needs to be done is side streets need to be down to 20 mph, and the main roads should be 25 mph. We need to make this city pedestrian friendly, not vehicle friendly. That's our issue right now. We cannot allow vehicle traffic to supersede the safety of our kids. And at the same status quo is unacceptable. It's just no longer tenable.

The City Council voted 8-3 in March to adopt ShotSpotter Connect. How would you have voted and why?

I spent five years in public safety dispatching. When I first started, we were filling out 911 calls and they were on like 4x9 index cards. Obviously when they transferred it to enhanced 911, it allowed the city to really turn around and start categorizing the calls, start really utilizing a computer system to say, "Hey, how do we better send out resources?"

ShotSpotter came in and has been a tremendous success in the city. It's able to differentiate between a firecracker, a backfire and a gunshot, and that allows the police to respond even before anyone's picked up the phone to call 911.

So in that respect, when you go to ShotSpotter Connect, that's just the next step in being able to allocate resources to those trouble areas. That's good for public safety. That's good for the safety of our police officers, that protects our neighborhoods, families and kids. So if that came up for my vote, I would wholeheartedly support ShotSpotter [Connect].

What's your stance on making WRTA buses free permanently? Following up on that, when was the last time you rode a WRTA bus?

I don't use public transportation. My job essentially does not allow me because I run to multiple buildings and venues throughout the city, so I could be on call at any moment, and taking the buses would not allow me to be able to respond to my full-time job.

The bus fleet sucks. We need a bus fleet that can turn around in 24-7, 365 [days per year]. We have to be able to give people confidence that if they go to work at 3 or 11, because of a storm, they're going to get there ... we need to have a service that everyone can rely on.

Something everyone keeps talking about is it being free. Everyone wants something for free, you know. Well there's no more free tomato plants at Spagg's these days. It's going to cost someone from somewhere. If I'm on the Council, it's not going to be city dollars to provide free fare. We need to have the federal government and the state step in. So I don't believe the answer is taking city taxpayer dollars to provide free bus fare, but there has to be a way to get the revenues, either through federal or state assistance, that would make that a reality.

You have a visitor from out-of-town. Where are you taking them to dinner in D5?

If I'm going to pizza I'm going to Leo's T-Bird Pizza on Chandler Street; if I'm going to go to a watering hole, I'm going up to Scruffy Murphy's; if I want to just grab a quick cold beer and a hot dog, it's Stake's Pub.

I hate to leave anyone out because I do love getting out there. No matter where you want to go, no matter what your appetite is, the west side is the place to come, and it's accessible.

This interview was transcribed from an audio recording and edited for length and clarity.