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Somerville mayor: Feds can pull all the funds they want, city won't stop being a sanctuary
By adamg on Tue, 11/22/2016 - 4:23pm
Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone posts a statement:
Somerville will stand with you regardless of your race, creed, color, sex, nationality, legal status, religion, gender identity, or sexual orientation. So if you are afraid, or if you feel targeted, don't go into isolation. Reach out. And if you want to help or speak up or share you skills to support others, reach out. We're putting together resources and support. We're doubling down on our advocacy. And we will need each of you and your voices to continue to move forward as a community. ...
One-third of Somerville's residents are documented immigrants. These are our neighbors. We will not treat them like suspects at every turn. Sanctuary means we don't hand over persons for deportation for civil offenses like driving with a broken tail light. That breaks up families and fuels a broken immigration system. Sanctuary also means that when undocumented persons are victims of or witnesses to crime, they don't have to fear deportation if they come forward. That keeps our community safer.
How much federal funding could we lose? A lot. Currently Somerville receives approximately $6 million in recurring federal funds per year for things like special education, school lunch programs, substance abuse prevention, and homeland security. That constitutes about 3% of our annual budget. Additional grants for programs such as housing are also sought each year. If we lose this funding, we will tighten our belts, but we will not sell our community values short.
Earlier:
Walsh vows to protect immigrants; move could cost city $250 million.
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Comments
FUnding
I believe Somerville could get by without the funding. I bet in 1950's the town did fine without funds for special education, substance abuse prevention, and homeland security.
Is Curtatone a dictator, or
Is Curtatone a dictator, or do the Somerville aldermen have a say in this?
Well taxpayers will
Once their home value starts dropping and their property taxes start increasing.
Does nobody remember Barbara Anderson?
Sheesh, you'd think the sort of person to have their blood pressure rise at the idea of a sanctuary city would also be the sort of person who knows that Prop. 2 1/2 will keep the city from raising its taxes more than 2.5% a year short of an override.
Econ 101
Teaches basic supply and demand and the effect on pricing.
You have a limited geographic area, available housing stock, plus you add in the reduction of said housing stock because if subsidies and income restricted housing = the working class gets f*#ked.
Must be nice being old from NY and being able to buy prior to these BS building laws.
Government 101
Teaches that the powers of the president have limits, and that most appropriations are made by the congress (and vetoed or signed by the president).
Consider this as well: how much of that money that Somerville gets is going to be targeted for cuts to fund tax cuts for the wealthy? In other words, maybe Somerville is just getting a head start here.
I doubt that any of the aldermen disagree with this
Certainly not the ones I know personally.
One big Problem
How many poor immigrants can afford to live in Somerville?
Somerville is big and very
Somerville is big and very diverse. Lots of affordable housing for renters as long as you don't insist on living in Davis, union or porter square.
You're currently correct
However look at JP and Rozzy as a president. Shit, Tony who owns Tony's Market and immigrated here DECADES ago was fourced out the Square. Think about who's next.
And he had an established business.
It's out of town liberals who can't afford JP who are pushing people out, not blue collar locals.
Roslindale will be another JP, CTown, Southie, Lower Roxbury and HP by the end of next year. And then those changing the neighborhood will be those bitching about "gentrification"!
Oh, please
Tony wasn't forced out of the Square by incipient JPness but because he and his fellow Italian-American landlord got into a beef (some of which played out at a public hearing) over plans to stick a couple new floors on the building.
I don't understand why you posted that link
to an article about a Harvard toga party?
The residential and
The residential and commercial markets are entirely different. If anything, it's greedy landlords pushing businesses from the square, not gentrifying hipster businesses selling artisanal mustard. Hence why so many of the storefronts are EMPTY, not full of delicious pickles / craft brew / fair trade quinoa
TIL:
4.2 square miles is "big".
Sounds good
until taxes make up the difference in millions lost. Like it or lump it, somebody's got to give
Don't think for a single minute
That this congress and president aren't going to cut all funding that goes to cities anyway.
Think about it - the transfer of wealth from blue to red is only going to accelerate once the red states get that trough running! They like to talk as if cities are being subsidized, but the funding goes the other way big time.
How about the loss of $1B Fed GLX funding?
Willing to pass that up Joe?
The MBTA is run by the state,
The MBTA is run by the state, not Somerville (common mistake) and Baker has been dithering about the green line for a year waiting for someone else to make a decision about it, so will be happy to have his fellow anti public transit republican Trump kill it.
common mistake
This made me LOL
Kudos
Kudos to Joey Cupcakes. Willing to speak out for the least among his constituents (who, contrary to knuckle-dragger opinion, cannot vote). While the actual working situation is not all that different between Somerville and Boston, this is not a popular position, so it's interesting to see how it's presented by both mayors. Joe's got the bigger balls.
For those who might be clutching their pearls over this you can always move down to Dartmouth or Attleboro or something, where "Old Irritable Bowel" Sheriff Hodgson of Bristol County is more than willing to enforce broken federal immigration laws for the feds. Mighty white of him.
LOL
LOL that made me almost spit up my coffee...