BU-ACLU LOG

No more than two

By Ryan Menezes on 10/30/2009 at78:10am

Judging from the Freep's photo, only me and Yi attended Monday's Council debate. A photo from any other angle though would show a room that was, well, also mostly empty, but the candidate was facing a couple dozen people, including students from at least three universities.

No one debated because the candidates' schedules conflicted, and rarely did more than one candidate share the room, let alone the stage. To fill dead time, administrators entertained us with remarks they asked we not repeat ("I hate the Dutch," for instance, was a remark that no one said) and James Sappenfield failed to entertain us because he ignored our juggling requests.

The candidates showed great skill at a) tailoring their speeches to students and b) not tailoring their speeches to students.

They tailored their speeches to students by emphasizing our vote's power - if Boston's 400,000 students unite, God help the establishment. Ayanna Pressley said she used to lead CGS government. Tito Jackson said he's the best dancer on the ballot. Doug Bennett said students can give defendants legal advice. Andrew Kenneally said enjoying yourself can be a good thing.

Several of them though, as politicians will, emphasized their simple backgrounds and tried to sound folksy. Why would candidates would want to appear "regular" in front of an audience so l33t?

Kenneally didn't do that, but he unashamedly described policies he knew his audience would not like. At one point, with little provocation, he described why we should tax universities. He said some schools, such as BU, pay their fair share in various ways, but others, like Northeastern, don't. (He didn't know the students he was answering were from Northeastern. Or did he?) Tax exemption protects public interest institutions, he said, but colleges' and hospitals' large endowments or profits put them in a separate category. A different audience member gave him a chance to change his position ("Are you really saying we should tax colleges, or do you just mean we should look at the situation?") but he held firm.

Kenneally also spent time on the evening's other controversial topic, which was the only one about government intrusion - night owl trains, parties for students and clean streets, though interesting, don't really concern us. Kenneally supports "No More than Four," which bars more than four undergraduates from sharing an apartment. Some say the plan prevents landlords from exploiting tenants, but it doesn't - tenants know housing they prefer, the plan raises rents per person and the fire code already prevents overcrowding. The plan really aims to keep where college kids live, and Kenneally admitted this.

"We have to consider just what sort of city we want," he said, and it took dome Eier to criticize college towns in front of this crowd. An audience member called the attitude discrimination against students, but Kenneally said student parties and cars hurt families whose seniority gives them more right to their neighborhood than students have. When asked though if he'd ask colleges to submit students' addresses so the city could enforce the rule, Kenneally didn't say he would.

The election's on Tuesday. Take a look at the candidates' websites and learn more before all is lost:

Felix Arroyo www.felixarroyo.com
Doug Bennett www.bennettforboston.com
City Councilor John Connolly www.connollyforcouncil.com
Tomas Gonzalez www.votetomas.com
Tito Jackson www.titojacksonforboston.c om
Andrew Kenneally www.andrewkenneally.com
City Councilor Stephen Murphy www.steve-murphy.com
Ayanna Pressley www.ayannapressley.com