Candidates make case at New Majority forum

Toussaint Losier

“I gotta admit, I’m more nervous talking now to all of you than I’ve been at any of the previous forums. And sitting here reflecting why, it’s because this is just so exciting,” commented at-large city council candidate Sam Yoon in response to the rousing applause of more than one hundred residents and community activists who greeted his introductory remarks to the New Majority Coalition’s candidate’s forum on Thursday night.

For two and half hours, Yoon and seven other candidates staked out their stances on a range of issues, vying for votes in the four weeks before the November 8 general election.

Held at the Viet-American Community Center in Fields Corner, the candidate forum was the first such event sponsored by the coalition, an organization formally established a year ago to increase civic participation from Boston’s traditionally marginalized communities of color.

Recently, this new-found political power has brought these communities greater attention from the city’s political establishment.

In contrast to a similar forum co-sponsored by Roxbury VOTE several weeks ago, all the candidates stayed through the end of Thursday’s event. This is partly an indication of how important the votes of these communities have become.

It is also a sign of how contested the race for the four at-large councilor seats remains. Only fifteen percent of eligible voters participated in the September 27 preliminary election and just 6,700 votes separated frontrunner Michael Flaherty from last place finisher Ed Flynn.

Throughout the night, housing and environmental justice activists pushed each candidate to take a clear stance on pressing issues.

All voiced their support for incumbent councilor Felix Arroyo’s plan to redefine affordable housing standards, which are currently $40,000 higher than the Boston median household income of $42,600.

Flynn called Boston a city of only the very rich and the very poor and decried the lack of housing for “working class families in this city, for those on fixed income, for elderly and for veterans.”

Senior at-large councilor and fourth place finisher Stephen Murphy called for college and universities to increase their contribution to the city to build more affordable housing and Seventh-place finisher Matt O’Malley proposed using the Boston Redevelopment Authority control of vacant land to build rent-to-own housing.

Several audience members responded with enthusiasm when Arroyo suggested changing not only the guidelines but also the BRA’s power of imminent domain to give communities more control over their own future.

All the candidates voiced their support for reforming the CORI laws, the rights of tenants to organize and increased funding for youth employment.

Yoon, who finished fifth in the preliminary, highlighted the hypocrisy of the policy of underfunding youth programs throughout the year and then complaining about rising youth violence during the summer.

Candidates also supported having multilingual poll workers on Election Day, though both Flaherty and Murphy remained undecided on the question of same day voter registration.

O’Malley’s suggestion that legal residents without citizenship should be able to vote in local elections drew cheers from some in attendance.

Commenting on the need for diversity, Sam Yoon urged the audience to “elect people to city council and elected positions who look like you, who understand your culture and your background.”

In response to a question on reversing cuts to funding public education, Patricia White, who finished sixth, spoke to her experience fundraising for private sector support of the public school system.

In addition to more funding, Yoon offered that good leadership is needed from the next school superintendent. Likewise, Arroyo and Flaherty both called for a return to an elected school committee.

White, on the other hand, later mentioned that she opposes a return to an elected committee, though she does support an aggressive search for a person of color to serve as the next school superintendent.

Flynn noted that the system is not working and the council needs to take a look at pilot programs, vouchers and other options.

On other issues, however, opinions differed even further. Flaherty, Murph, and O’Malley reiterated their opposition to the Community Stabilization Act, which would have allowed tenants in buildings larger than three families to contest unreasonable rent increases in court. The council voted down the measure 8-5 last December.

In contrast, White termed the CSA “a measured response to a real crisis.” Similarly, Yoon shot back at those who cast the CSA as rent control, calling it “consumer protection that is absolutely in order.”

“People are hurting out there,” said John Connolly, who finished fourth in the preliminary. “This helps the people out there who are hurting.”

Arroyo reminded the CSA’s opponents that the bill exempted small landlords, helping “simply and exclusively the people who have been paying your mortgage for many years. If you cannot be humane to those people then we don’t need you, really, being a landlord in this city.”

When asked about views on BU’s plans to build a level 4 biological laboratory studying incurable and highly contagious diseases in the South End/Lower Roxbury, the candidates took different positions.

While calling for more hearings on the issue, Connolly, Flynn, White and Murphy all indicated their support for BU’s plans.

Flaherty, who recently shifted his position, explained there should not be construction until there is a “comprehensive and coordinated evacuation plan” to respond to the dangers of this lab or any of the other hazardous facilities around the city.

Yoon, O’Malley and Arroyo reiterated their opposition to BU’s plans. O’Malley pointed out that there are more biotechnology jobs in Cambridge, which has a ban on level 4 labs, than in Boston, so opposition to this lab should not effect attracting future labs to the city.

Yoon derided the “erosion of trust” caused by BU’s delay in notifying the public about the tularemia infections at a lower level facility last year.

Arroyo echoed these safety concerns, offering that if there is an outbreak like the tularemia incident, “It’s not evacuation. Think again. It’s quarantine. Nobody is going to leave if there is a mistake.”

Throughout the evening, former mayoral candidate Mel King, current District 3 councilor Maureen Feeney, and mayoral candidate Maura Hennigan mingled in with those in the back of the audience.

“It was good to see the candidates, to look them in the eye and hear how they will be representing us,” said Rui Santos after the event. “Their job is to be our voice.”

Lydia Lowe, executive director of the New Majority Coalition, described the forum as an indication that “Boston politics is changing and its new majority communities are a priority.”