Nestled in womb chairs on a platform, four of the eight candidates seeking at-large seats on the Boston City Council in the Nov. 7 election fielded questions last Tuesday night (Oct. 3) from more than eighty students at a forum organized by Boston University College Democrats. The topics ranged from housing needs to climate change to the city’s ongoing crisis over drug use and recovery.

The setting for the event was the 17th floor of BU’s Center for Computing and Data Science, with a high-rise view of Boston and Cambridge. From here, the city was a distant pool of shadow, sprinkled with lights and the tiny lozenge of a Citgo sign. In words used by At-large Councillor Ruthzee Louijeune, it was the “city of meds and eds,” a source growth, pressure on the housing market, and persistent questions about tax-free status for institutions.

It wasn’t long before the meeting began that Louijeune, sitting at-large colleagues Julia Mejia and Erin Murphy, and first-time candidate Henry Santana, were asked about housing needs—for students and graduates, as well as for those displaced by institutional growth.

“As someone who grew up in the community in Mission Hill, around college students,” said Santana, “I know the value that you all bring into the neighborhood, and I want to make sure that’s distributed across neighborhoods.” A native of the Dominican Republic who grew up in public housing, Santana said he wanted that supply to be expanded.

Mejia and Louijeune were more explicit about asking for larger contributions from universities.

“So, what happens is all the universities are occupying space,” said Mejia. “What they’re offering is maybe a scholarship here or a scholarship there, but they’re not doing their part in really helping to build a pipeline so our Boston Public School students could also occupy space here. So, as college students, I want to encourage you to take on that fight.”

Mejia said she favored increasing affordability commitments for new developments and considering a “displacement tax.” Murphy encouraged students to look up information about institutional “payments in lieu of taxes,” but to look beyond the numbers: “We do need to acknowledge that a community benefit does have a financial value.”

Louijeune responded with a different tone, calling for institutional master plans to have more student housing built by colleges and universities, to allow more off-campus units for families with children. “Challenge your institutions,” she told the students, “whether it’s BU, Northeastern, or Harvard: What does your institutional master plan do to address housing for students?”

Murphy noted the tax burdens of gentrification on tax bills for older homeowners. She said she favored more housing production – up to a point. “People don’t want the fabric of their neighborhood to completely change,” she said, “But, at the same time, we have to be building more so that the prices can come down.”

Mejia favored pushing for a higher percentage of new units to be affordable and said that “we should also look at a displacement tax.” Santana said there should also be attention to institutions that increase the supply of student housing while also boosting enrollment.

All four candidates expressed support for unionization of university employees. Answers to questions about climate justice converted the global into the local: safe bike lanes, respiratory ailments related to pollutants, exposure to flooding, even the threat to use open space from drug injection needles. But Louijeune said there should also be more climate mitigation from corporations.

There were differences on whether to allow voting by non-citizens in municipal elections. Mejia and Louijeune were in favor. Murphy said, “Voting is not the only way to have your voice heard and to make sure that your needs are being listened to.”

Serving until recently as Mayor Wu’s director of Office of Civic Organizing, Santana said he would continue that work on the City Council.
The last question at the forum was from Merkeb Amanuel, a BU sophomore and political science major who grew up in Roxbury and Roslindale.

She asked about “drug abuse and drug violence,” citing problems at the restaurant and market operated by her parents near Nubian Square. Because they’re immigrants from Ethiopia, she said, they are reluctant to seek help from police.

While helping her parents, Amanuel said, she saw people using drugs on the premises and that she was used to requests for breaking twenty-dollar bills into tens – for buying a gram of crack. “I carry pepper spray at the cashier,” she said after the forum. “Sometimes they’re violent with you. It can be super hard to manage a situation.”

In response, Louijeune acknowledged that a hub for “meds and eds” could also be a hub for a drug use crisis that, as the candidates noted, affects many parts of the city. “The state,” said Louijeune, “has to commit a lot more money and resources to making sure that people are able to stay in treatment for longer periods of time.”

Santana drew attention to problems for residents trying to use nearby parks. “I really want to be protective of our youth and our young people,” he said, “and I want to be taking a holistic approach when we talk about ‘Mass. And Cass.’”

Murphy also talked about the needs of neighbors and needs for services. She said the addiction and recovery services concentrated near Mass. Ave., Melnea Cass Boulevard, and Atkinson Street need to be decentralized.

The debate over Mass. Ave and Cass Boulevard has been marked by different positions, with Murphy putting more emphasis on the need to “clean up” problems with crime and illegal placement of tents. Like Bridget Nee-Walsh, another of the at-large candidates, Murphy has said she favors a strategy of “treatment first,” instead of “housing first.”

Mejia acknowledged the impasse. “We have to be able to try different things,” she said, “but we can’t get stuck—which is what the problem is right now, that you have two opposing views about how to handle the problem, and both views are not listening to each other.”

The vice president of BU College Dems, Thomas Larsen, said the group made a “conscious decision” to reach out to six of the eight candidates on the ballot for city councillor at-large. He said two of the six did not respond “to multiple invitations.”

He described the forum as a way to get students politically engaged, and possibly join campaigns. “As the candidates pointed out multiple times, even if we can't vote, we take up space here,” he wrote after the forum. “If we're going to take up space, we should give back to those around us. We have a responsibility to be civically engaged and that includes here in Boston.”

The eight certified at-large candidates in their order on the ballot on Nov. 7 are:
Clifton A. Braithwaite,1430 Blue Hill Ave., District 5
Henry Santana, 401 Mount Vernon St., District 3
Catherine Vitale, 43 Moultrie St., District 4
* Julia Mejia, 48 Capen St.,DFistrtict 4
Bridget M. Nee-Walsh, 118 G Street, District 2
Shawn Nelson, 15 Folsom St., District 7
* Ruthzee Louijeune, 16 Ralston Rd., District 5
* Erin J. Murphy, 138 Msgr. Patrick J. Lydon Way, District 3
Asterisks: Incumbent at-large councillors