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Letters from Maura Hennigan, Candidate for Boston City Mayor, former teacher and IAQ Champion, Comments on Boston Public Schools' extensive mold problems
A Quote: "As Mayor of Boston, I will lead the charge for safe indoor air quality for all."
My name is Maura Hennigan and I am campaigning to be the next Mayor of Boston because I believe in a better Boston. For almost 24 years I have served as a Boston City Councillor and fought hard to make sure the people had a strong voice.
I am writing to you today as a fellow advocate for addressing the issue of indoor air quality in our schools, public buildings, homes and offices. I am asking for your help.
As a former Boston schoolteacher I have a unique and personal perspective on the issue of air quality in our schools. I understand the problem of mold in schools that is endangering our children here in Boston, across the state, and across our country.
When I am elected Mayor of Boston, I will work to make Boston a pilot for our nation in the standards and implementation of indoor air quality in our schools and other public buildings. I pledge to work with the most knowledgeable and independent medical professionals, Congressman John Conyers, Jr., the Massachusetts Congressional delegation, professional indoor air quality experts, advocates and others to find the federal, state, city and private resources necessary to make our schools as safe as they can be and make sure our children can safely focus on the business of learning. Exposure to mold can severely harm our health and for once and for all this serious issue needs to be addressed openly and honestly. It can be done in Boston and all across our country.
As Mayor of Boston, I will lead the charge for safe indoor air quality for all.
In order to make that pledge a reality, I need your help to win my campaign to be elected Mayor of Boston this November. I am writing today to share with you my vision of a Boston as a nationwide leader in the fight for safe indoor air quality and to seek your support.
I Believe in a Boston that Leads the way on the Issue of Air Quality.
Let me share with you my history of working for safe indoor air quality standards in Boston:
It was in 1994 while working with teachers, staff and employees of the Agassiz Elementary School in Jamaica Plain that I first became educated about the problems of air quality in our schools.
In 1995 I worked with the City of Boston’s Public Health Commission to develop what I understand to be the first-of-its-kind ordinance in our country setting standards for indoor air quality. That ordinance passed the Boston City Council, was vetoed by my opponent in this campaign for Mayor, Thomas Menino, and then was returned to the City Council, where with my leadership we overrode the veto and put this law on our books.
That ordinance set forth a law requiring inspection of indoor air quality at Boston public schools every year and other buildings when requested or warranted. It even offered to help property owners who requested assistance. However, under the administration of my opponent in this campaign, that law had not been implemented. Public schools and other buildings in Boston went without this mandatory inspection process until the Boston City Council discovered this non-compliance. Thomas Menino did not implement the law to improve the indoor air quality of our public buildings until he was forced to do so.
Last December, I held a Boston City Council hearing, lasting five hours with people who traveled from across the country, Joel Segal from the office of Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), the Boston Urban Asthma Coalition, Healthy Schools Coalition, Massachusetts Coalition of Occupational Safety and Health (MASSCOSH), nationally acclaimed doctors, and representatives from Schoolmoldhelp.org, Sickbuildings, and others at the Boston Teachers Union to address this major health issue effecting not only Boston but each and every city and town across this country. What came across loud and clear is untold numbers of defenseless children and adults across this country are crying for meaningful leadership to address the very real problems associated with exposure to mold.
When I am elected Mayor of Boston, I will work to set the pace for cities and towns across this country to work to eliminate poor air quality in our schools and other public buildings by:
1. Ensuring there is adequate funding in our city’s maintenance budgets for the upkeep required to prevent poor air quality and mold setting in.
2. Working with the Public Health Commission and the medical community to train our community doctors and medical personnel to recognize the illnesses brought on by poor indoor air quality. I will urge each and every doctor, at a minimum, to review the University of Connecticut’s “Mold Exposure Guideline for Clinicians” to help recognize, diagnose and treat mold illnesses.
3. Pushing for the research and dissemination of information about the issue of indoor air quality gathered by unbiased scientists and experts, rather than by special interests.
The ordinance I worked to pass laid the groundwork for a proactive effort to protect our students, our public workers, and the taxpayer money that is invested in our public buildings. As Boston’s next Mayor I will build on that foundation to make Boston, a city already recognized for its leadership in healthcare and the sciences, a leader in safe indoor air quality.
I will make Boston a leader in the fight for safe indoor air quality. You can ensure that Boston will lead the way in the issue of air quality by supporting my campaign for Mayor, today!
• Reach out to everyone you know who lives in Boston and ask them to cast his or her vote for me on Tuesday, November 8th. THANK YOU!
• Please consider helping me get my message out by making a donation.
Just visit my website www.maurahennigan.com and clink “Donation” on the left to make your safe online contribution today. You can also mail a donation to “Committee to Elect Maura Hennigan” and mail it to: Post Office Box 31, West Roxbury, MA 02132. Corporate donations are not allowed. Any donation in any amount up to the limit of $500 would be gratefully accepted.
Working together, we can and will make a difference.
Sincerely,
Maura A. Hennigan
At-Large Boston City Councillor
Candidate for Mayor of the City of Boston
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Boston City Councillor Maura Hennigan
Comments made to staff of Senator Edward Kennedy’s Health Committee on Health Effects of Mold Exposure
September 28, 2005
First I want to thank Senator Kennedy for his commitment to addressing the considerable dilemma of health problems associated with poor indoor air quality, particularly exposure to indoor mold. I am especially grateful to Sharon Kramer who has taken the bull by the horns with her personal commitment to continue to bring this health issue to the forefront. I must voice my outrage at the personal legal attacks Sharon is suffering by exposing the relationship between big business funneling money to influence medical papers that harm the health of our fellow Americans: medical papers that are relied upon by less knowledgeable physicians who are attempting to treat our citizens who have been harmed by mold exposure. The Boston Globe did a piece recently on the unreliability of some peered reviewed medical papers, so it should be no shock that Sharon is facing this battle.
Our country is facing an enormous challenge dealing with the recent horrific flooding and loss of life and property in the Gulf region because of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. At this point in our understanding of mold growth and its devastating effects on the health of our people, I am alarmed about the mixed messages being sent about how dangerous mold exposure is to those who return to their homes, schools and other buildings in the south. If no one comes to the plate on this, we are relegating untold numbers of our southern citizens to a lifetime of health problems on top of everything else they have suffered.
Someone needs to do something about this now, and I am grateful to Senator Kennedy for his continued support and leadership with this issue. I know that last September, during Mold Awareness Week in Washington, Senator Kennedy arranged for meetings with doctors from both his HELP (Health Education Labor and Pension) and Health Committees to sit down with national advocates to bring his office up to speed on that mold exposure is doing to harm the health of so many in this country and I am grateful that this meeting was arranged today. Someone needs to do something now to help people who are suffering from a myriad of health problems due to mold exposure. So many people are sick and are receiving no treatment. I am encouraged by the University of Connecticut’s “Guidance for Clinicians on the Recognition and Management of Health Effects Related to Mold Exposure and Moisture Indoors” released September 30th of last year. It is a tremendous start and I urge Senator Kennedy to do everything in his power to make our doctors aware of this important step forward in helping people who are ill due to mold exposure. I also urge him to look at some of the medical issues reported by countless people across this country referred to in this document that need further research and attention. Medical research needs to catch up with illnesses reported by our citizens.
The City of Boston is personally faced with the challenges of lack of meaningful approach to poor indoor air quality in our schools and other public buildings. I authored the Indoor Air Quality Ordinance of 1996, which offered a rational approach to inspecting our schools and other buildings to flag properties that needed repair. Unfortunately, the required testing of our schools did not take place as the law dictated until recently. I am neither a doctor nor a scientist, but I am gravely alarmed by the results of the testing done in our schools and the possible correlation between the recently released Pediatric Asthma in Massachusetts conducted by the Massachusetts Department of Health and the Boston Globe’s reporting today of some of our Boston schools on a federal watch list due to failure to reach goals. There may in fact be many reasons for that, but exposing our children to poor indoor air quality in schools should not be a possible contributing factor.
I know that some of our children are being exposed to poor indoor air quality in some of our Boston Housing Authority properties. In addition, it recently came to my attention that an employee at the BHA’s offices on Chauncy Street in Boston is suffering from hypersensitivity pneumonitis, alleged to be caused from exposure to poor indoor air quality in the building and an investigation is currently being conducted.
Massachusetts has seen its share of poor indoor air quality in its public buildings as well. Courthouses, police stations, schools, hospitals, libraries, nursing homes, municipal and state buildings, including our own Boston City Hall, have been the subject of environmental problems. Homes have been gutted and leveled because of indoor mold proliferation. People are crying out for help and they are met with deaf ears because of a lack of focus on credible research already done on the health risks, proper diagnosis and treatment, and in some cases, the interference of progress by big business afraid to face their culpability.
This problem is bigger than any city or town in this country can handle, and indeed, it is a problem. Last December, I co-chaired a Boston City Council hearing, lasting over five hours, where people testified from across the country on how exposure to mold destroyed their health. The stories were heart wrenching and just about all who testified voiced their sense of frustration and helplessness in dealing with the problem. They desperately need help from their elected officials.
I urge Senator Kennedy to continue his work on this very serious health issue, especially in light of the problems we will face as a nation in the Gulf. Mold exposure harms our health and we need to work together to put a stop to it.
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