STAFF EDIT: President vs. residents

City Council President Mike Ross had a hard time making up his mind when he spoke with the Boston University community at the George Sherman Union on Monday night. As a BU alumnus and resident of the Mission Hill neighborhood, which is highly populated by students, Ross should know what it means to be a college student in this city. And though he was issuing rapid-fire clich’eacute;s to his BU audience last night ‘- saying they’re the energy of the city, the inspiration for the rest of the nation, the eyes for Boston’s neighborhoods ‘- when it came to speaking about the brass-tacks legislation, there were no clich’eacute;s in sight, leading BU students to believe that his true priorities don’t lie with students.

Ross was notably general when ‘praising’ Boston’s student population, but all too specific about defending the ‘No More Than Four’ ordinance, which forbids more than four undergraduate college students to live together in the same apartment. Ross has, until now, been touting the legislation as a service to students, who would otherwise be taken advantage of by landlords and end up living in cramped conditions in unsuitable apartments. But during Monday’s speech, he wasn’t too defensive of that aspect of the law, and instead pled the case of the families and Boston non-student residents whose neighborhoods off-campus students are, to him, ravaging. This kind of rhetoric came during the same speech that Ross outlined the problems with the city that he believes are the reasons that 75 percent of students leave Boston after graduating. It seems hypocritical that Ross would call students essential members of the city, mourn their penchants for wanting to leave the city and blame this on an overall sense of unwelcome and then go on to argue that these same students should stop moving out of the confines of their campuses and muddling Boston’s neighborhoods.

It has become evident that not only does Ross not know how to compromise the needs of Boston’s students and non-student residents, but he also does not understand the student population he tries so desperately to isolate. During his talk he said he wouldn’t ‘bat for [students’] keg parties’ when discussing the politics of ‘No More Than Four.’ Not only is that insulting to the thousands of young people who comprise his city’s world-class intellectual capital, but it is patently inaccurate. It seems Ross has missed the point.

As long as he sees the one-third of Boston’s population that is made up of students ‘- taxpaying, voting, economically-stimulating and community-serving students ‘- as a group of wily drunks who must be kept caged within their campus, he will find it hard to run the city smoothly. As City Council president, Ross represents all Boston residents, not just those he prefers ‘- in the mean time, his credo of ‘having no respect for those who don’t respect others’ will resonate throughout Boston’s campuses. That’s one thing he and the city’s students will have no problem agreeing on.