{"id":28702,"date":"2021-11-04T16:31:06","date_gmt":"2021-11-04T20:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=28702"},"modified":"2021-11-04T16:32:47","modified_gmt":"2021-11-04T20:32:47","slug":"boston-students-reflect-on-mayoral-candidates-policies-personalities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2021\/11\/04\/boston-students-reflect-on-mayoral-candidates-policies-personalities\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Students Reflect on Mayoral Candidates&#8217; Policies, Personalities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/1154018260&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc; line-break: anywhere; word-break: normal; overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 100;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/wtbu\" title=\"wtbu\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wtbu<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/wtbu\/boston-mayoral-forum-students-reactions-oct-29\" title=\"Boston Mayoral Forum, Students' Reactions, Oct. 29\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Boston Mayoral Forum, Students&#8217; Reactions, Oct. 29<\/a><\/div>\n<p><strong>By Taylor Coester, Haley Paraday and Annie Mayne<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>WTBU News<\/em><\/p>\n<p>BOSTON \u2013 <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">College students from around Boston came to the Howard Thurman Center at Boston University on Friday for the Boston Mayoral Forum with candidates Annissa Essaibi George and Michelle Wu. With less than a week to go before the election, many students commented on how they were hoping to hear about affordable housing, public education and public transportation policies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BU senior Safin Rouf said despite his leaning towards Wu, he felt both candidates were looking out for the city.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think both of them want what&#8217;s best for the city in one sense, but at the end of the day, you have to kind of choose what you think is the future rather than just reality,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gabriela Reyes, a graduate student at BU, commented before the event on her interest in having a woman of color as mayor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt&#8217;s not just enough that we have a woman or a woman of color in this position of power,\u201d Reyes said. \u201cWhat are some of the actions that she wants to implement to actually move Boston to the, you know, the progressive Haven?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BU students and student government members, Hanna Dworkin and Dhruv Kapadia, mostly enjoyed seeing the human side of each candidate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI really liked hearing both of their testimonies about their families and background,\u201d Dworkin said. \u201c[Essaibi George&#8217;s] testimony about her father, trying to prove him wrong, and then the [Wu\u2019s] testimony about her children and, like, raising her sisters \u2013 that really spoke to me,\u201d Dworkin said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dhruv agreed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think, like, at the end of the day, like we know so much of their policy,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was just nice to get to know them as people rather than just pundits.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, not every student at the forum said they supported the candidates. Suffolk student Craig Anderson said he did not support either candidate, but was open to conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI wouldn&#8217;t vote for either, because I&#8217;m more on the conservative side,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cBut I do like to hear different perspectives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His stance on the candidates had not changed after the forum.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt was good to hear from both candidates. I&#8217;m glad that they got to come out and talk to the voters. Still, same position as before \u2013 wouldn&#8217;t vote for either, but it was certainly very interesting,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BU Student Government President Nyah Jordan and Vice President Hessan Farooqi were mainly excited about the turnout and student engagement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe just had such a good turnout. I think it really speaks well on, not only Boston University students, but college students in general,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cPeople are getting more civically engaged.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Farooqi agreed, and said he hoped that the forum helped student involvement in elections.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThat&#8217;s really the most important part,\u201d Farooqi said. \u201cMost folks here are not from Boston, may not be registered to vote here, but there\u2019s still a really important part that we can play in these campaigns. And it&#8217;s good that we understand that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>wtbu \u00b7 Boston Mayoral Forum, Students&#8217; Reactions, Oct. 29 By Taylor Coester, Haley Paraday and Annie Mayne WTBU News BOSTON \u2013 College students from around Boston came to the Howard Thurman Center at Boston University on Friday for the Boston Mayoral Forum with candidates Annissa Essaibi George and Michelle Wu. With less than a week [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18160,"featured_media":23443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1599,14,1],"tags":[1880,1878,1876,1877,1881,1879],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28702"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28702"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28706,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28702\/revisions\/28706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}