LISTEN TO VOICES FROM THE SOS PROTEST
SOS organizer Aiyi'nah Ford confronts Mayor Gray's budget director Eric Goulet on March 25
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The District of Columbia is facing a deficit of more than $300 million. April 1, Mayor Vincent Gray will transmit a balanced budget to the D.C. Council. In order to do so, the mayor must either cut services or raise revenue, or both.
All this past week, Save Our Safety Net (SOS-DC), a grassroots advocacy organization, made and brought lunch to the mayor in the hopes of meeting with him to discuss slightly raising taxes on the District’s highest income earners in order to avoid further cuts to safety net services. The mayor, however, declined to meet with the group.
Friday was the culmination of SOS-DC’s week-long “Let’s Do Lunch” campaign and the group brought subs and a cake to the mayor’s office, only to be told they were not welcome on the sixth floor of the John A. Wilson Building.
Before heading down to the second floor to speak with a flack for the mayor, Aiyi’nah Ford, an organizer with SOS-DC, said, “[Gray is] not interested in saving our safety net services and the human services of Washington, DC.” Ford described the Gray administration’s treatment of SOS-DC as “professionally rude.”
The 40-person SOS-DC contingent was met on the second floor by Gray’s budget chief, Eric Goulet. Surrounded by advocates and those who stand to be impacted by cuts in services, Goulet was given an education on the real-life consequences of the bureaucratic decisions he will help the mayor make.
Laura Goldberg, a Ward 3 resident affiliated with Jews United for Justice, said, “I see people from D.C. who are really struggling. And the idea that they should not raise taxes on Ward 3, where I live, and [instead] take it away from people [for whom] every dollar counts is just heartbreaking for me.”
Louise Thundercloud, a member of SOS-DC and a recipient of services from the Department of Mental Health, said, “These cuts that are being proposed will cut a lot deeper into services for the disabled and it will cause a lot of disabled people to become homeless.”
Maria Gomez, president and CEO of Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care, said, “Mary’s Center has been here for about twenty three years and so we know the community who are millionaires because many of those are… our donors. They’re not going anywhere. The millionaires… that live in this city, they’ve been here for generations and generations and generations. They’re not about to step out of this city. Where are they going to go?”
Elizabeth Falcon, a member of the SOS steering committee, confronts Goulet:
Jamila Larson, executive director of Homeless Children’s Playtime Project, held up large photos and said, “I was very distressed to hear this week Mayor Gray say that he does not envision tax increases, so we wanted to give him a few visuals to envision children and families who are homeless in our city, which will undoubtedly continue to rise if those services are cut in lieu of raising taxes.”
Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink and Global Exchange, said, “I personally would be happy to pay higher taxes to know that the poorest people in the city would be able to continue to live here and get the services they require. We’re just asking for the mayor to show the kind of compassion that we thought he had when many of us helped him become the mayor of this city.”
Related Links:
www.saveoursafetynet.com