I am so pleased to formally introduce myself and the team. Because of redistricting – and should the voters agree – I will have the honor of representing Athol, Ashburnham, Petersham, and Winchendon in the coming session. I have loved working alongside Senator Anne Gobi and she has been a mentor in the Senate and Representative Whipps has shared considerable expertise about the region and been a tremendous partner. I love the North Quabbin region and I am very much looking forward to strengthening my work in Worcester County.
Please consider this a very brief introduction.
A little about me: I was first elected to serve in the State Senate in 2018 and am now in my second term. I am a social worker by training and have lived and worked in western Massachusetts since the late 1990s.
In my first session as a State Senator, I was appointed as Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Public Health, which passed numerous bills into law including a ban on toxic flame retardant chemicals in certain products, reform of the states’ mosquito control law, as well as a law to strengthen local public health. Multiple bills that I filed were also passed into law, including legislation focused on carbon sequestration and soil health, a study of the restart of passenger rail along the Route 2 corridor, establishing a net zero energy building code, and evaluating the impacts of enrollment on school funding and intersections with the Proposition 2.5 taxation cap. I am also laser-focused on budgets and bond bills.
At the request of the Senate President, I was appointed to chair a Senate working group on COVID-19 which led the Senate’s response to the pandemic. I co-chair the legislature’s Food System Caucus and Higher Education Caucus, and serve on the Massachusetts Food Policy Council. You can see a full list of my assignments and committees here.
Now in my second session in the State Senate, I have been reappointed as Senate chair of the Public Health Committee and also chair a newly formed Joint Committee on COVID-19 and Emergency Preparedness and Management.
Our Team
I work with a team of five staff members, you can read about them here.
Elena Cohen, District Director
Jared Freedman, Chief of Staff
Rachel Klein, Director of Constituent Service
Cameron Lease, Director of Communications and Engagement
Brian Rosman, Legislative Director
Work with Municipalities
You can reach out to me directly at any time. My District Director, Elena Cohen (elena.cohen@masenate.gov) will also be a point of contact for you for my office. Elena leads our team’s work on state grants, frequently emailing updates about state grant opportunities to municipalities and working with towns to send the strongest letters of support on their behalf. She’ll also help navigate any regulatory issues you may have with state agencies. And finally, Elena, along with Chief of Staff, Jared Freedman (jared.freedman@masenate.gov), are the major contacts for fiscal year budgets and annual bond bill work.
Website
In the interest of transparency and accountability to the municipalities and constituents I serve, my team updates our website almost daily. Please consider our website a tool for your use.
- We have an extensive Constituent Services guide, which we hope will be a useful resource for your constituents on how to get help from our office with a particular state agency. We put a great deal of energy into constituent work. Please encourage people in your community to reach out any time to jo.comerford@masenate.gov, to call my district or Boston offices by phone at the numbers linked below, or to fill out this form on our website and we’ll jump in to help.
- We have a section which includes all testimony, audio & video, press releases, letters of support, letters, reports, and statements written over my time in the Senate. All the votes I’ve taken are listed here.
- Should you ever be in need of a Senate Citation, we have a citation request form on the website as well.
Mailing Address
Our mailing address is:
Senator Jo Comerford
24 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02133
Our district and State House phone numbers are available here.
It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve in the Massachusetts State Senate and I have been grateful for the partnership with Senator Gobi and Representative Whipps to serve the North Quabbin region and western Worcester county.
My team and I are really looking forward to getting to know you and getting to work for your community.
