Unpacking the Emily Lazarro Newsletter
- mcc021557
- Jul 12, 2025
- 4 min read
I recently had an interaction on Facebook with City Councilor Emily Lazarro and she has written about it in her most recent newsletter. I am not going to spend too much time on this, but some corrections are in order. One can only wonder why she didn’t post it as a blog. Emily is involved in neither the planning of the zoning nor the methadone clinic, but she seems to have some things to say about both.
Emily stands accused of being a “poverty tourist” and that seems to have angered her a great deal. Poverty tourism is the “voyeuristic exploitation of poverty.” Even though the methadone dispensary application was pulled from the 360 Salem St location in the summer of 2024, Emily is still using it as a weapon to beat the residents of Glenwood with. Last summer, she attended community organized meet ups to shame the residents for opposing and tried to record them for whatever purposes even when she was asked not to. She wrote a letter to the Community Development Board further attempting to shame the neighbors. She went out of her way to meet with the applicant to try and help them to open at that SPECIFIC LOCATION despite neighbors opposition. She mentioned it at the March 12th City Council meeting on the Salem Street zoning as the reason that she was voting for Matt Leming’s motion to remove all neighborhood protections from the areas outside of Haines Square such as a methadone dispensary opening by right. And she mentioned it in her newsletter this week as a reason why she is in favor of dense neighborhood zoning that again hits Glenwood hard as we are outside transit and are facing a high level of density because of what Alicia Hunt, the Director of Planning and Permitting calls “developer pressure.”
Why was it so important for them to open? According to Emily it was because of “how difficult it was for folks to have to travel all day to get their doses.” Why do they travel so far when there are at least TWO medication assisted outpatient treatment centers within 2 miles of the Salem Street location and both are near train stations? Doesn’t Emily know that? Doesn’t she know that transportation for this type of medical treatment is paid for by the insurance company? Or that all of these other facilities combined treatment with the medication?
The location on Salem Street was a shallow glass storefront with a few parking spaces for employees and zero setback…meaning that there would be neither treatment nor privacy at this methadone dispensary. Full-service facilities exist nearby and that is why a Dover Application was not mounted as it would have failed due to the many treatment options close to that location. This information was available at the time (and shared with Emily) as well as the poor reputation of the applicant whose facilities bring crime and other issues in their wake. Had Emily led with empathy rather than exploiting the guests of the warming facility for her purposes (which she continues to do today), she would have understood that. But she did not and continues to refuse to reflect and learn.
Emily is now seeking to exploit the history of West Medford as a black community and rewrite their origins. There is an interesting piece about the actual history of West Medford for those who are interested to read it here:
I recommend that Emily read it as well. If you are going to continue to exploit people, then perhaps get their history right.
Is that true, Emily, or are you just seeking to exploit black people as you attempt to shame the residents who are opposed to the neighborhood density?
“Mabray Kountze, born in 1910, stated that the neighborhood “originally developed through choice; not a forced segregation, as some younger generation might believe.”” The story is an interesting one, again, Emily and others should feel free to read it before exploiting a community.
“We all lived together and thought nothing of it…” this is the current state of Glenwood. We are being gentrified into more “urban luxury” and are seeking to lessen the proposed density as it will accelerate that conversion pricing out our neighbors faster. Emily doesn’t understand that and seeks to drive the density with her claims of “racism.”
STOP exploiting environmental justice neighborhoods for your own ill-conceived purposes!
This is really just virtue signaling, poverty tourist behavior! Emily CHOSE where she wanted to live:
She CHOSE a quiet neighborhood on a cul de sac with no density and little diversity. She chose that. If she wanted to live what she claimed, that choice was available to her; and still is. Emily, sell your house and come live in Glenwood. If you really want the density, make sure you move to the north side of Salem Street. No one will bother or harass you. We are just trying to live our lives in peace with some quality of life. It seems you can’t empathize with us, so maybe if you lived among us then you could understand what we are dealing with. Maybe. But you will keep living in West Medford protected from the density and any methadone dispensaries or shelters or six-unit multiplexes. You can choose where you live and you should. Join us! Until then, maybe you would do better to listen to the communities you are speaking over. Don’t speak FOR us when you are actually speaking OVER us!
You can find the referenced newsletter here:
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