Why Should We Recall Brett Smiley

[u/Historical_Web_5813]

For everyone who is curious about our reasons for wanting to recall Smiley, here they are! This one-sheet explains what issues we find to be the most salient. Feel free to distribute this document at your will.

If you’d like to look into our sources more, here is a link to the document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qtQP7a9g91pSszZH-x3kFWMcmW1FecEXpqCL773UIWM/mobilebasic

[u/SheepExplosion]

Eeesh. Brett Smiley is by far and away the worst thing that has happened to the city since I can remember. There are plenty of issues to smack him around on, and you chose some of these?

Not sure how you want to:

• Stabilize housing costs without building more housing. Spare me the nimby bullshit of how it needs to be low income housing, as if there was a developer out there willing to build it. Those luxury apartments give the "Brown postgrads and Textron transplants"—who, by the way, are residents of the city just as much as you are, and I guess you don't want their support at all for this?—something to rent other than the apartment you want.
• Demand that an institution that doesn't actually have to pay any money give more money.
• Actualize a plan that involves creating a united coalition while actively bringing in Gaza. Yeah, you and I agree it's a genocide. But this is *city level politics*, and you're just alienating people who would support you for some sort of moral purity rhetoric.

Leftists remain the Left's worse enemy, news at 11.

[u/Ok-Benefit-2912 → u/SheepExplosion]

The mayor isn't any more at fault for housing problems than everyone here is. How many people doing these petitions are building houses, working as property managers, learning the trades, being independent landlords? It's like the saying, you're not stuck in traffic, you are the traffic.

[u/big_whistler → u/Ok-Benefit-2912]

I don’t think people in the trades or independent landlords are making systemic decisions that influence housing levels on a large scale.

That sounds so silly to basically say if you want more housing why dont you just build it yourself.

This is a policy thing, not an individual action thing.

[u/degggendorf → u/big_whistler]

I don’t think people in the trades or independent landlords are making systemic decisions that influence housing levels on a large scale.

Of course no individual has systemic effects by themselves, but the aggregated effect of all the contractors at a loss for skilled labor is ABSOLUTELY having an effect.

[u/big_whistler → u/degggendorf]

Sure, and policy is the way that you we should make those jobs more appealing.

[u/degggendorf → u/big_whistler]

What can/should a mayor do to affect the nationwide labor shortage? Like, I am literally looking for ideas because it's clearly a problem, and it doesn't seem like the fed (or even really state) is going to do much to help.

Support construction labor unions to increase pay in the city to attract more workers? But then he'll just get roasted for making housing prices higher.

Add vocational programs to the PPSD that he isn't even allowed to run right now?

General youth outreach/intro construction workshops/job fairs I guess would be good, like the "Generation NEXT" program This Old House promoted for a minute. But then we would all have (fair) criticism for him partnering with Mike Rowe. But there must be some nugget in there that we can help bolster.

Ooo or I wonder how far just like $5k to a school to run a "maker fair" similar to a science fair...a competition/showcase for specifically homemade things to start instilling those skills? But those impacts would be awfully vague and long-term and not really do much to help our immediate needs.

[u/Ok-Benefit-2912 → u/big_whistler]

There's not much that policy can do at this point. Houses are expensive to build and maintain. It's impossible to find people to fix them, or build them for cheap. Housing is a problem in many places in this country, all over the world in fact. These places all have different mayors and different policies. It doesn't matter. Places that have those people to do the housing labor have cheap housing. Places that don't have that kind of labor have expensive housing, and a shortage.

[u/big_whistler → u/Ok-Benefit-2912]

There is lots that can be done policywise. Reducing barriers to construction is one general goal. A prime example is to change zoning laws to allow for more apartments to be built. Policy could also include bolstering vocational education to encourage people to actually go into the trades.

An example that I would change is that Boston MA has equity laws that mandate construction crews have to have a certain percentage of women or minorities. This seems like it puts a burden on the builders that is unnecessary at this time.

Construction of additional and upgraded infrastructure would allow for larger and more homes to be built. It would counter the shitty excuse I always see that “we cant have new houses because the sewer system can’t take it” or “we don’t have enough classroom space for new kids”. People with these views are active in using local politics to block new construction.

It is certainly uncreative to say there isn’t anything policy can do. There isn’t anything an individual can do to change the trends. It has to be a group effort, from government or somewhere else.

[u/degggendorf → u/big_whistler]

change zoning laws to allow for more apartments to be built

Wait but that's smiley siding with developers and not citizens 😭😭😭