(As part of our continued efforts to bring you the most comprehensive local election coverage around, we invited each of the candidates vying for the Democratic Party nomination in the 16th, 17th and 18th Middlesex Districts to submit their “closing statement” as the campaign winds down. Below is the statement submitted, in its entirety, by the candidate)
Sokhary Chau (18th Middlesex District)
First, let me thank Teddy Panos and InsideLowell for hosting the debate and for giving me the chance to offer a closing statement, and thank everyone who took the time to listen.
My deepest thanks are for my wife, Somong, and our two sons, Philip and Matthew, who have shown remarkable understanding and support while our family life went on hold. To the volunteers who knocked more than 3,000 doors alongside me, and to the interns who gave up a summer and brought their own hard questions to this campaign, thank you. You made the work joyful and meaningful.
For months I have knocked on doors across the Acre and the Highlands. What I will carry out of this campaign is not the politics of it. It is how readily people opened their doors, invited me to sit down, and spoke about their concerns.
They told me their housing costs. What groceries cost. What the electric bill did this winter. Young couples described their worry that there is no real path to owning a home and building generational wealth. Seniors walked me through the budget they rework each month to stay on streets they have lived on for forty years. Parents asked whether their child would receive services the schools cannot quite afford to provide.
I recognized every one of those conversations, because my family began here with nothing. We survived the Cambodian genocide, reached the United States in 1981, and came to Lowell in 1985. My father was among the first killed by the Khmer Rouge, so my mother raised seven children alone. This city welcomed us warmly, gave us opportunity, and gave us a second chance at life. I walked to the Bartlett School every day, and it was my teachers who set me on the path to Phillips Academy and Macalester College. I returned home to Lowell, started a mortgage company, and raised a family here. Lowell gave me everything, which is why I have spent my life giving it back, as a city councilor, and as the first Cambodian American mayor in U.S. history. As mayor, I used my own experience to open City Hall and make it more welcoming. With my Council colleagues and the administration, we worked to see that every neighborhood received its fair share.
Together, we invested $939,000 in Clemente Park and Cambodia Town, more than $9 million in parks and open space, and more than $700,000 in small businesses in the years they could least afford to lose. We advanced Acre Crossing, which placed seventeen families into homes they own, and 733 Broadway, where fifty-two units of affordable housing are now rising. We improved roads, sidewalks and school buildings. As chair of the School Committee, I stood with our teachers, paraprofessionals, cafeteria workers and custodians through contract negotiations, brought back our school libraries, and made field trips free, because no child should miss the world outside the classroom over a fee her parents cannot raise. Long before this race, I advocated for and secured $150,000 in state funding for energy efficiency at the Morey School and $50,000 for the Southeast Asian Water Festival.
None of it was accomplished alone. It was done with neighborhood leaders, stakeholders, elected officials, the administration, and people whose politics differ from mine. That is how a city like ours actually gets something done, and it is the experience and leadership I would bring to Beacon Hill.
It also requires keeping your word and your campaign promises. Seventy-two percent of Massachusetts voters instructed the Legislature to submit to an independent audit. I supported that before this campaign and I will support it in the chamber.
My opponent has served in good faith and has a bright future ahead of him. But this district cannot wait for someone to learn the job. I am running because the people of the 18th Middlesex deserve a representative who listens, fights for transparency, delivers real constituent service, and gets results on day one.
The Democratic primary is Tuesday, September 1. I would be honored to earn your vote.
Sokhary Chau, Lowell city councilor and the former mayor of Lowell.
