On the voting ballot today, students and residents of Boston will have a few fresh, new choices for city councilors at-large, and the results of the preliminary elections last month have revealed that current Councilor-At-Large Stephen Murphy, who has had a seat on the Council for eight years, may be on the verge of losing his place to a younger, more energetic candidate.
It would not be a shame to see Murphy leave City Hall, and it may in fact benefit residents of this city, because he has a clearly visible anti-student attitude, which is demonstrated through various unreasonable proposals targeting students that he has continually been pushing for during almost all of his eight years as councilor.
Both students and other residents of Boston should consider electing a new face to fill Murphy’s seat. One of the candidates even graduated only recently from the School of Management at BU.
Patricia White, who graduated from BU in 1992, has never served an elected position, but her positive attitude toward Boston’s diversity and her strong advocacy for women’s rights could have a positive influence in City Hall.
Sam Yoon and Matt O’Malley are two more newcomers who would bring about new ideas for councilors to discuss during their weekly meetings (see page 2).
A hot issue among concerned voters is the planned construction of Boston University’s Level 4 Biolab, and several of the councilors have strongly opposing views on that issue. But Murphy finds himself indifferent to the lab’s construction, as he has not taken a strong stance on the lab.
It may be a clue that he lacks the drive and the motivation to debate important issues affecting Boston, having potentially lost his energy from combating students’ rights for the past eight years. Though his intentions may be good from a utilitarian’s point of view, he should not be allowed to infringe on the rights of a certain demographic even for the benefit of others, and for this reason Murphy should be replaced by a new, younger addition to City Hall.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
