appetites

I wish you had been there to watch the young people who waited till 4:30 to testify in favor of some of the Governor’s tax proposals yesterday in a packed Gardiner Auditorium.  The pretty thorough reporters from WBUR, the State House News via the Globe, and the Patriot Ledger missed them.

Here you see Wilne Ledesma from the Boston Arts Academy and the Youth Education Collaborative 

 

Here you see Co Chair Jay Kaufman asking Secretary Bigby earlier in the day, "If we give you this much in revenue, how does that correspond in the way of restored services to vital youth human service programs”?

The Youth Education collaborative got up after a parade of public officials, public health advocates and small business groups had testified and left, and these four young people out of a delegation of 18 from Sociedad Latina, Hyde Square Task Force, Boston Student Advisory Council, Boston Area Youth Organizing Project, Chinese Progressive Organization, Youth on Board, Sub/Urban Justice, and the Boston Student Alliance for the Future of Education, told the Committee their story of a year long self imposed civic lesson majoring in budget and tax policies affecting public education: they had gathered student opinion via interviews; held a series of student forums and briefing sessions within their organizations; brought delegations to meet with the Superintendent of Schools, the Mayor and every single member of the Boston School Committee and were in the midst of adding to the 1000 signatures in a petition supporting the following statement:

In the short term we support a local option meals tax and a local option hotel tax to allow cities and towns to raise much needed revenues and we support long term efficiency measures including “greening” of our buildings and eliminating waste in the school lunch program.

Props to the Youth Education Collaborative for sitting in the gallery for 6 hours after all the press had left and submitting some informed testimony. They promised to follow up with each member of the Revenue committee individually and I bet they will.

They've developed an appetite for taxes!