These are copies of 1021 of the signatures, in two bound volumes, arranged in no particular order. I, John Spritzler, will show them to you personally at a mutually agreeable time and place so you can flip through them randomly to verify their existence, although they cannot be photographed or otherwise recorded or searched for a particular name; this is in order to protect the privacy of the signers. Contact information is at the white-on-black bottom of this page.
ALLSTON-BRIGHTON* RESIDENTS WANT AFFORDABLE, NOT LUXURY, HOUSING AND AN END TO GENTRIFICATION
More than a thousand Allston-Brighton residents did something wonderful in 2019!
[Click here to read The Boston Bulletin newspaper article about it (it starts at the bottom of page 1)]
[Click here to see photos, and click here to see a related video, of Brighton residents saying what they aim to do to get affordable housing for ALL]
1021 Allston-Brighton residents signed (and also provided their printed name and street address, and optionally their email address and phone number) the following WONDERFUL statement:
NO RICH AND NO POOR
We the undersigned joined (or are hereby joining) the Brighton Allston Community Coalition (BACC) because its goals, including adequate affordable housing and good public transportation and an end to gentrification, are part of our larger goal: removing the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor. We hope that the BACC will declare that it also aims for this larger goal; that would make us be even more enthusiastic members of it.
Read here about gentrification: what it is, what causes it, how to end it, and why the BACC's maximum demand of 20% affordable units in new developments is NOT sufficient to end gentrification.
I, John Spritzler, collected these signatures for the NO RICH AND NO POOR statement during the months of February, March and April, 2019, in public places in Allston-Brighton. Every person who signed was required to read the statement in full first, and every signer was given a copy of the BACC Mission Statement (online here.) I gave all 1021 signatures (and associated printed name, address and optional email address and phone number) to the person in the BACC in charge of memberships. On May 6 I sent an email letter to the BACC steering committee members (and on May 7 to the BACC founders who are not on the steering committee) saying why it would be a wise and wonderful thing for the BACC to do what these new members say they hope it will do (my letter is online here.) The total membership of the BACC not counting these 1021 almost all new members was, I was told, a bit less than 500.
UNFORTUNATELY, IT TURNS OUT THE BACC LEADERSHIP IS TOTALLY ANTI-DEMOCRATIC
In response to all the new members joining the BACC, the BACC's Vice Chair (Joanne D'Alcomo) and Chair (Kevin Carragee) declared that no member of the organization would be allowed to post anything to the BACC's email group if it even hinted at being about the larger goal that is described in the NO RICH AND NO POOR statement these members (two thirds of the total membership!) signed, and in which they say they hope the BACC will declare that it is also for this larger goal. (You can read the emails in which Joanne D'Alcomo said she was enforcing this censorship in the section about what happened after May 20, 2019 here.)
A NEW EMAIL GROUP
If you agree with the above NO RICH AND NO POOR statement, then I invite you to join the new email group created for people with that larger goal. Click here to see how to subscribe to that NO RICH & NO POOR group.
HERE'S WHAT WE CAN DO TO WIN MORE AFFORDABLE HOUSING
The key to winning more affordable housing is to make the rich and powerful afraid of what will (or might) happen if they don't create a lot more affordable housing. Right now they're not afraid, because the BACC (and similar organizations) make it very clear that they have no intention of removing the rich from power.
But We the People can make the rich and powerful afraid of being removed from power. We can start by declaring publicly (in the way that is described here) that we do indeed know that the only way to win affordable housing for ALL is to remove the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor, and that we aim to do just that.
When the rich and powerful see that their refusal to create adequate affordable housing is leading to the development of a movement that explicitly aims to remove them from power, and that more and more people are expressing support for this movement, then the rich and powerful will start to have second thoughts about the wisdom is ignoring us they way they have been doing up till now.
WHAT DIRECTION FOR THE BACC?
This is an email I sent to a neighborhood email group:
From: JOHN SPRITZLER <spritzler@comcast.net>
To: AllstonBrighton2006 <AllstonBrighton2006@googlegroups.com>
Date: June 27, 2019 at 7:20 AM
Subject: What direction for the BACC?
The Brighton Allston Community Coalition (BACC) Chair, Kevin Carragee, and Vice Chair, Joanne D'Alcomo, prohibit (and block) any speech by BACC members on the organization's email group if it even hints to be about why the BACC should expand its mission to include a larger goal, as two-thirds of the BACC membership said (by signing the statement below) they hope the BACC will do.
This is the statement that 1021 BACC members signed:
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NO RICH AND NO POOR
We the undersigned joined (or are hereby joining) the Brighton Allston Community Coalition (BACC) because its goals, including adequate affordable housing and good public transportation and an end to gentrification, are part of our larger goal: removing the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor. We hope that the BACC will declare that it also aims for this larger goal; that would make us be even more enthusiastic members of it.
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The BACC leadership is notoriously anti-democratic in suppressing any conversation by its members about how best to win the BACC's demands. The Mayor and the Big Money developers are far more likely to build more affordable housing and to end their devastating gentrification if they are afraid of what will happen if they don't. What will make them maximally afraid is seeing that anger at the lack of affordable housing is leading to the growth of a movement for the larger goal that 1021 BACC members want the BACC to aim for. By suppressing all discussion about the pros and cons of aiming for this larger goal, the BACC's Chair and Vice Chair are actually helping the Mayor and Big Money developers continue their gentrification without having to worry about the consequences.
The BACC Steering Committee was elected in January in, literally, a few seconds with no discussion of policy, and certainly with no indication that the candidates intended to suppress all conversation by the members about whether to expand the BACC's mission to include a larger goal that would make the BACC more able to win its demands.
When an organization is run so anti-democratically, it discourages people from participating in it. The BACC is in danger of being an organization only for those who--very naively and foolishly--hope to be effective by gaining "credibility" in the eyes of the Mayor by proving that they have nothing to do with radical ideas such as wanting to remove the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor. Most people (many of whom signed the NO RICH AND NO POOR statement) know that the rich and powerful don't care what We the People want until they become afraid that We the People might remove them from power. People who understand this tend not to take an organization seriously and not to be active members of it when it has leaders who a) believe (or pretend to believe) that the rich and powerful will treat us nice if we treat them nice, and b) prohibit the expression of any disagreement with this notion.
To read the emails from Joanne D'Alcomo prohibiting any mention of "no rich and no poor," etc., on the BACC email group go to https://www.pdrboston.org/dear-bacc-founders-steering-c-membe and find her emails to me near the bottom (in the section reporting email exchanges after May 20).
John Spritzler
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* Allston-Brighton is a neighborhood of Boston, MA, USA. It consists of the two zipcodes, 02134 and 02135 and has a total population of about 68,000. It is a mostly white and mostly white collar demographic with a median income about the same as the U.S. national median income.
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