Transcription of Justin Alfond for the show Maine Vision #156
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 156, Maine Vision. Airing for the first time on Sunday, September 7th 2014. Having lived in the Portland area for many years, I’m excited to see the growth and new energy being invested in Maine’s largest city.
Today, we speak with Maine Senate President Justin Alfond and Real Estate Developer Jim Brady. Two individuals who are bringing jobs, housing and visitors to our state and who are both involved in promoting the high quality standard of living for which Maine has become known. Jim and Justin have also been featured in recent issues of Old Port Magazine.
We hope you enjoy our conversations and learn more about Maine Vision. Thank you for joining us.
We were fortunate a few episodes ago to speak with Greg Powell about the work that he’s doing with the Alfond Foundation. Today, we speak with somebody who actually bears the name Alfond and is doing very different things within the state of Maine. This is Justin Alfond who was elected the 115th Senate President of Maine in December 2012.
Justin is a Mainer with roots in Dexter and Waterville. He serves on a number of boards in Portland and around New England including Avesta Housing, Opportunity Maine, Kennebec Valley Community College, The New England Board of Higher Education and The New England Secondary School Consortium.
Justin lives with his wife Rachel, son Jacobe, daughter Ester and their dog, Tippy Tina in Portland. Justin, thanks so much for coming in today. I know you have a very busy schedule and especially with this new baby in the house. We’re really grateful that you’ve taken the time to be with us.
Justin: Thanks for having me, Dr. Lisa.
Dr. Lisa: I want to talk to you a little bit about Dexter and Waterville. It’s a far cry from where you are now in Portland. It’s a very different growing up experience, I would think.
Justin: Growing up in Waterville and Dexter was just awesome. Both communities were small, both communities you knew your neighbors. In particular, when we’re in Waterville, there were Lebanese, Jewish, all kind of different families and cultures coming together in a great molting pot. We were there until about six, started school in Waterville. Then my family moved to Dexter because of my dad’s work with Dexter Shoe.
Moving to Dexter now even a very, very, very small town, back then it was probably around 4500 people living in Dexter. It was an awesome community grow up. I was there until I was 16. Again, everyone knew everyone. Sports was a big part of keeping the community together. Dexter Shoe was doing great. There were other manufacturing companies in Dexter and then the region at the time. People and the region were doing very well and everyone was very confident and very robust and things were looking very good for Maine back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.
Dr. Lisa: I like that Waterville is this interesting sleeper hot bed of Maine leader creators. We’ve got George Mitchell who came on our show. Obviously, his family is Lebanese. I believe that Greg Powell also has Waterville roots there. Then of course, we have your family. I mean, I’ve never thought about Waterville as being particularly ethnically diverse from what you’re describing. Not only is it ethnically diverse but it also seems to be very supportive of Maine leaders.
Justin: It’s interesting that you bring that up. I never really put all of those people together and you also have someone on Maine’s law court, Judge Jabar on the law court. You also have Bruce Poliquin who grew up and has Waterville roots. There’s all kinds of I’ve said I guess came from the Waterville area. I don’t know what’s in the water up there but it’s a great place, it’s a great community. It still is.
We still go back to the area quite often in the summertime just outside of Waterville to Belgrade. It’s just a community that I think is very supportive educationally. I think that’s always one of the foundations of a strong community. I think it’s just always been a place where a lot of commerce and business has been done.
Dr. Lisa: Dexter also, I think having spent some time working as a family doctor in various rural parts of Maine including the Dexter area just as a temporary family doctor, what I noticed is that people are very supportive of their children. You talked about sports but even academically I think people really understand that the next generation is going to be the generation that continues to make Maine the state that it is.
Justin: I think that’s right. Growing up in Dexter, you had one big community. As a child, you felt that whole community truly was watching after you and looking out for you and trying to elevate the bar for you whether it’s your friends or your sisters or whatever it might. It was just an amazing way to grow up. I mean, not only academically did they really make the bar high. Athletically, it was a town that always seemed to be winning sports titles.
Then how we used the outdoors, I never remember sitting and watching TV. I don’t remember a computer being a big part of my life. That was just not an option. We always were outdoors in the woods farming and agriculture being such an important part of our lives up in the Dexter region. Always having fresh foods. It was just a really wonderful, almost rockafell way of growing up. It really worked for me and my family. I’m thrilled to be a Mainer.
Dr. Lisa: You also spent some time temporarily not a Mainer. You got your degree from Tulane University in New Orleans. That must have been an interesting and perhaps startling experience at times.
Justin: I told you about Waterville and I told you about our next door neighbors. Our next door neighbors every year would give me a Tulane sweatshirt from age three. Every year, I would have a Tulane sweatshirt and it started branding on me about New Orleans. When I got to the age of looking at colleges and I was a good golfer, I of course, want to go down and check out this Tulane University. It was the perfect fit and it was an awesome four years.
I have a couple regrets. One that I only took four years and I should have taken five or six because it’s such an amazing place, New Orleans and the school and the academics and just the culture and food and parades and festivals and everything else. New Orleans was a great experience for me. It was the first time that I have ever felt being a minority. When you’re in a city where it’s 70% Black and you’re a White person, it’s a really interesting experience to walk through, understand the differences of what it’s like to be in the opposites sides especially growing up in Maine, one of the widest states in the country. That was incredibly interesting. My love affair for music began, food, it was just an awesome four years.
Dr. Lisa: Golf, I know has become more and more important for high schools around the state. At the time that you were pursuing that sport, I’m not sure that it had quite the cache that it does now.
Justin: Yes and no. I mean, clearly it was pre-Tiger Wood. I think here in the United States, it was a little bit of a low. We didn’t have that big star that really could capture the imagination of this country and world. Coincidentally, Tiger Woods were going through junior golf together, high school golf, college golf. I played out at Stanford my sophomore year when he was a freshman and he was still winning back then. He was still the best golfer on every golf course usually back then.
Growing up playing golf in Maine, it was a pretty sleepy. We played in the fall because it was too wet in the spring. You’d play a nine-hole golf course, it’s all through Central Maine. They’re not going to be on Golf Digest front cover anytime soon but there are great golf courses to teach you the fundamentals of golf. What golf in New England, the cache of that is that college coaches scour across United States to find the best potential collegiate golfers. They want golfers that can play on any condition.
Golfers coming out of New England usually can farewell because we play on snow, we play on rain, we play on dirt, we play on pretty poor conditions in comparison to some of our neighbors like in Arizona or Florida or California where every day is like today a beautiful sunny day with no clouds in the sky. It was something that college coaches looked at me, looked at my resume and I got quite a few offers to go play college golf and I chose Tulane.
Dr. Lisa: You went beyond that. You pursued this passion for an additional couple of years.
Justin: I did. After graduating from Tulane, I turned pro and made my way over South Africa and played over in South Africa as a pro, came back to United States and tried to play up in Canada and then up and down the East Coast of the United States playing on many tours. I would probably relate it. People know here in Portland we have the Sea Dogs and it’s Double-A baseball.
I probably was in between Single-A and Double-A, so I had a long way to go. I was a plus one which means that every time I got into a golf course, I was usually beating par by one shot. I was a very good golfer in my mind but in comparison to the 20,000 other men out there that want to play on the PGA tour, Asian PGA tour or other professional tours that you really can make a salary that can support you and your family. It was tough going.
After two years, I said, “I did everything I could.” I looked in the mirror, I felt good about my journey but said, “It was time to put that chapter to bed.”
Dr. Lisa: You’ve been back in Maine for quite a while. You’re in Portland now. You’ve really done some very interesting things including becoming one of Maine’s youngest senate presidents. What caused you to go in the direction of public service? This isn’t something that’s for everyone and it’s definitely not something that many younger people are pursuing right now.
Justin: Just a little bit of a background, even though I came from Waterville with all the political folks that came out of Waterville, Maine including Senator Mitchell and so many others, my family, our public service look very different. We were very involved in our schools. We were very involved in our sports teams, very involved in our community but no one in my family has ever taken any sort of steps towards political office.
I didn’t have any role models. It wasn’t something that I grew up doing high school politics, college politics. In fact, I probably shouldn’t say this but I say it all the time that I didn’t even really understand what a Poli Sci major was in college. I was like, “What do you guys do?” I really don’t get it.
When I moved back to Maine, it was to do an economic development project in Central Maine. When that did not go through, I started networking and previously before I came back to Portland, I was living in New York City and there was a guy that I had become friends with who is starting this national chapters around the country to get young people more involved in local and state politics.
Billy Wimsatt was someone that really captured my imagination and through those conversations and reigniting with Billy, I started the League of Young Voters here in Portland, Maine in 2004. I did that for four years. It was an amazing four years of learning more about my community, learning more about issues both local and state and really giving so many young people the confidence and that aha moment that, “I can do this. I can have a big impact in my local and state learning,” what it’s like to go up to Augusta, to the State House, Lobby, all those experiences I and others took for four years.
Then in 2008, it was time for me I felt to move aside and give someone else an opportunity to run the League of Young Voters. Actually, my wife and I were thinking about going to graduate school in the West Coast. As the timing worked out, the state senator at the time decided to run for higher office, the seat in Portland became open, the state senate seat. After many mentors and many folks came up to me and said, “You should run,” I decided to run for public office and that was in 2008.
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Dr. Lisa: Over time, you’ve come to really have an interest in housing and housing Maine people. It’s not something that many of us think of but it’s so fundamental to people’s ability to live a decent existence.
Justin: This is a fun story too when I moved to the hill in 2003. I started renting and then eventually said, “You know what? I’m definitely going to be here. Maine feels right. Portland feels great and I want to plant my roots.” I still was on the hill and found a place on Sheridan Street to buy. Right behind my property was an empty lot. For those of you that know Munjoy Hill, there’s not a lot of empty lots in Portland especially on Munjoy Hill.
This was actually a very big empty lot and I started inquiring, “What’s going on to this?” because I felt probably a better and higher use was better than the dogs coming in and running around in this huge weeds. You couldn’t even see your dog when your dog was running around in this empty lot.
I started calling the owner of the property and about two months before I started calling the land was sold to someone in Portland. I started then getting notices that this empty lot was going to turn into a housing project. I went to the meetings and met the developers. They were nice people and I was very supportive and that’s great.
One of the developers decided to pull out after a decision by the City Council and knock, knock, knock on my door, the guy that I knew best in the development asked if I wanted to become a partner in this housing project. Housing’s been part of my family as far as developing apartments. I said, “Sure.” I think that would be a really good opportunity for me to get my feet wet using the other side of my brain, my entrepreneurial side and my business side. We developed 20 condos on Munjoy Hill on Sheridan Street.
They came out in the worst possible time that you could ever imagine. Then October of 2008, we had 20 condos for sale right as the market was crashing and our economy was entering probably the second part of our great recession because the first part had clearly gone by in my mind. The sellout took a lot longer but we sold all of our condos up on Munjoy Hill. Then I’ve gotten involved in apartments here in Portland. I’ve gotten involved in commercial projects in Portland.
I think to me, Portland is one of the best, if not, the best small city in America. To be able to invest here, to be able to employ people, to be able to provide people homes, whether it’s permanent homes or apartments is something that I’m going to continue doing.
Dr. Lisa: You must feel pretty positive about the number of hotels that have come to this area and the commerce that will potentially mean.
Justin: I feel great about where Portland is and where it wants to go. I think that’s a reflection of a lot of decisions that have been made by our elected leaders, by our community leaders and by having a great community dialogs. We’ve got a great chunk of hotels being built. We have the first market rate apartment building being built in the West End that people can remember in probably two decades because most of the housing that we built in Portland over the last decade or so has been affordable housing.
On the West End on Pine Street, there’s actually a new market rate apartment building being built which shows the strength of our economy and it shows the strength and need of more market rate apartments. We have condos, multiple projects happening on Munjoy Hill. The housing stock is growing and that’s important because I know as someone who owns apartments, we never have much vacancy.
I mean, out of our 56 units, we might have one apartment open and that’s just for a very little time. People want to come to Portland. People want to live here. People want to get rid of their cars and take out their bikes and walk everywhere. People want to live on the peninsula. I’m excited about Portland’s future. I think we have to continue to balance our history with progress. I think we have to continue looking at the trends as far as what’s happening, as far as rental rates to make that they’re keeping up with salaries because we don’t want to make Portland a place that people of all working types can’t live and enjoy.
There’s some challenges but when you look at all the cranes around Portland right now, it’s a very exciting time for the city.
Dr. Lisa: You also have a streak of fun in you which I can tell because you’re involved in a bowling alley.
Justin: I am. Four years ago, actually this month, we, my business partner Charlie Mitchell and I decided to open up a bowling alley. This bowling alley has to give its credit to a place in New Orleans, an incredible bowling alley called Rock and Bowl. Both Charlie and I lived in New Orleans at the same time and didn’t know each other. Both loved to go to Rock and Bowl.
Charlie started a league called Bayside Bowl. I joined in the second year and Charlie and I quickly became friends and quickly realized that we both felt that we should open up a bowling alley in Downtown Portland. We together found a great place in Bayside and built Bayside Bowl. It’s four years old and we think it really has hit a great gap of bringing people together of all ages, all types to bowl and to eat good food and have a restaurant and listen to live music and have outdoor time, botchy down there and corn hole and a great outdoor patio and have movies once or twice a month during the summer time.
It’s a great place and there’s not a lot of things that you can do. I mean, how these things sometimes brings us smile. When people walk into a bowling alley and they have a good throw or have a good meal, most people are smiling when they come into Bayside Bowl or leaving Bayside Bowl. That’s a really fun thing to be a part of.
Dr. Lisa: You and your wife, Rachel have two kids now. You have Jacobe and Ester and your dog, Tippy Tina. How has this shifted things for you in the way that you approach your life, the way that you approach things personally and professionally and how you want Portland to look for your children growing up?
Justin: It’s a pretty smart question, Dr. Lisa. Let’s see here but I think how I would start this is that for 10 years, I’ve been in Portland and I’ve seen Portland through a lot of eyes. First, through a single person then through someone in a relationship and then we got married and then having a kid. First, having a dog and then having a kid and now another kid. Having all those experiences I think is important because it gives me a sense of how dynamic this city is and how it needs to continue being dynamic and fun and lively and robust.
I think of all the work I’ve done in education for the last six years in the statehouse and especially early education. As we all know and former, the Speaker of the House, Steve Rowe is great at talking about how important the first five to eight years of a child’s life is but especially those first three years where the brain is just working so hard and absorbing so much and learning so much. If we can create environments for those youngsters to be really, really successful and challenged and in the right environments, their lives and your lives as a parent are going to be a lot easier.
That has really become much more clear to me as I’m having my own young children. Watching my son, Jacobe is almost three as he’s a sponge. Every day, he’s learning something. He’s on a great child care center. You just can see how much they are giving him and he is giving them as far as the learning curve and learning experiences.
I also think about housing. As our second child is about to come, we realized we were outgrowing our first house so I had to look at the housing stock in Portland. That really gives me a good sense of where are we in Portland for young families. I think if I had to talk about one of our biggest challenges in Portland is trying to make sure that we have enough housing for young families, working families because right now, I talked to a lot of my peers and see a lot of my peers and they’re leaving Portland and they’re moving to the suburbs of Portland which are unbelievable spots with great schools. I think we need to do everything we can to keep a lot of those young families here.
Those two pieces in particular I would say as a family, as a young dad, I’m starting to see some of these things come too for us.
Dr. Lisa: The fact that you’ve now been in the state senate over a period of years is important because it’s probably enabled you to I guess, grow legs in some areas that you needed to before you could really affect permanent change. What are some of the projects you feel best about?
Justin: I’ll go to education for a second. One of the things that I really felt very strongly about is how many students were dropping out of school or falling through the cracks throughout the state of Maine. At one point, I think we’re definitely much below this but somewhere between 2000 to 2500 students per year were dropping out of school or falling through the cracks and leaving school.
I and other said, “We need to look at all of our loss around truancy and this means coming to school every day, looking at our loss around suspensions, expulsions, zero tolerance.” There was a time during the ‘90s where we got very hard on our schools and we had all these very, very strict lives that swept the nation. I think they probably played a role but it might have been an overreaction. I think what I and others did to update how we try to create schools to be a productive and welcoming and nurturing environment for our students and giving them accountability but also giving them the chance to make mistakes because we all did and still be able to be in a supportive school environment.
That was something that I felt very strongly about. Also, creating some high bars and we’re coming up one by 2016. Every school in the state of Maine should be reaching 90% of all their students graduating high school need to graduate. It’s not 100%. That’s obviously the goal but 90% of every school in the state needs to graduate 90% of their students. That’s something that I felt in order to create the lives and ideas around this. You need to have a high bar and 90% was something that at the time we were in the mid-‘70s. It’s a big jump and I’m proud to say we’re about at 84% here in 2014. I think we’re closing in on 90% throughout the state.
The final issue is student hunger. Sadly, poverty connects our state whether you’re in Dexter, Maine or Portland, Maine. It’s something that it was really, really troubling. We have around 170,000 K through 12 students in the state and 46% of them just around 83,000 students are food insecure or hungry. That is a troubling number. It’s a troubling number because when a child is hungry, clearly they’re going to have challenges in school, challenges at home, challenges in their community.
When they’re hungry all the time, I mean, it creates all of these stresses in their lives, stresses in their families’ lives. What I and others are trying to do are trying to look at how we increase the amount of food in our schools during the summertime working with partners in the business community, working with partners in our religious communities, nonprofit communities to figure out how we do a better job of feeding our students here in Maine because we are not going to be able to become the Maine we want to be. Whatever town you live in, it will never be able to achieve what it can when you have students hungry daily and in the summertime.
Dr. Lisa: I was going to ask you a question about being a member of such a recognized family. I’m the oldest of 10 children, so even though my family is not nearly as well recognized as your family, there are a lot of people who will say, “Oh, I know so and so Belisle or Charlie Belisle, the doctor.” It’s a Maine thing. What it’s been to distinguish yourself from that family and simultaneously remain linked to that family. I think over the course of this interview, you’ve actually already spoken to that that you seem to have very similar ideals and family values but you’re doing it in a very different way.
Justin: I would agree. I mean, one of the things that my grandparents Bibi and Harold Alfond really instilled in me was this idea that Maine made our family very, very successful and we couldn’t have done it alone. They always encouraged me to get involved, be involved in my community. No one ever took the route of public service as an elected official but I feel like that is my interpretation of how they felt I and other Alfonds should give back.
Being a public servant is something that I love. I’m passionate about it. I want the state to really be the best state it can be for all Mainers and those who come to have a piece of Maine during all of our four seasons. I love giving back to the state. I’m really proud to be an Alfond. Wherever I go, someone always has a story about my grandmother and my grandfather. They have given back in so many ways and continue to do so through their foundation. It’s just an amazing thing to come back to a part of the state that I didn’t grew up in, chart my own course but always have my last name to connect me to others.
Dr. Lisa: Justin, how can people find out about the work that you are doing with the state senate or perhaps Bayside Bowl?
Justin: Both as you might imagine have websites. You can go to baysidebowl.com and see what’s happening down there. For myself, you can contact me at [email protected] or you can find me on my website at justinalfond.com. I try to keep that pretty regular so you’ll find things that I’m doing and projects that I’m interested in and I’d love to hear from you.
Dr. Lisa: We will also be featuring an article about you in the upcoming Old Port Magazine for the fall so people can read about you there. Justin, thanks so much for all the work that you are doing for the city of Portland and really the state of Maine and congratulations to you and Rachel, the birth of Ester and the fine work I’m sure you’re doing, for raising your son also, Jacobe and your dog, Tippy Tina. I appreciate you’re spending the time to have this conversation with me today.
Justin: Thank you for having me.