Bay State Banner February 20, 2020

Page 1

inside this week

A 19th century photo album comes to life pg 7

INSIDE ARTS

business news

‘BOSTON’S APOLLO’ AT GARDNER EXPLORES ARTIST-MODEL RELATIONSHIP pg 11

Transport COO aims to go green pg 10

plus ‘Swan Lake’ gets jazzy update at Greater Boston Stage Company pg 11 Vol. 55 No. 30 • Thursday, February 20, 2020 • FREE • GREATER BOSTON’S URBAN NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1965

www.baystatebanner.com

Black vote looms large in primary Candidates need black support to win delegates in Democratic contest By BRIAN WRIGHT O’CONNOR

BANNER PHOTO

School Committee members Jeri Robinson and Alexandra Oliver Davila and BPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius listen to Excel High School senior Malita Rosa during a budget hearing at the Curley School in Jamaica Plain.

BPS officials detail new funds, parents list cuts Department focuses funds on struggling schools By YAWU MILLER Boston Public Schools officials outlined the plusses of the proposed 2021 BPS budget during a School Committee hearing held at the Curley School in Jamaica Plain last week. The budget includes funding for 64 additional teaching positions,

including arts, music and physical education; 94 additional paraprofessional positions to facilitate the expansion of so-called inclusion classrooms, where students with disabilities are educated alongside those without; and funding for 126 student support positions, including social workers, instructional facilitators and family liaisons. BPS Chief Financial Officer

Nathan Kuder said the budget reflects the district’s push to increase quality at all schools. BPS officials put together the budget after dozens of meetings with parents and school communities across the city. “Our belief is that this budget reflects those conversations,”

See BPS, page 9

After early-voting contests in the cornfields of Iowa and the snows of New Hampshire, the 2020 Democratic primary race now turns to states where black voters could decide who will carry the party banner into the November showdown with President Donald J. Trump. Over 60% of the Democratic primary voters in the critical Feb. 29 race in South Carolina are African American. Blacks and Latinos make up about a third of the voters in the Feb. 22 Nevada caucuses this coming Saturday. During Super Tuesday balloting on March 3, black voters in states like California, Texas, Alabama, Virginia and even Massachusetts, will have an outsized influence on who emerges as the likely nominee. Candidates are accordingly switching menus from the corndogs of the Iowa State Fair to the barbeques of the Palmetto State in a mad rush to convince the gumbo mix of voters they can carry the hope of denying a second term to the ex-reality-TV-personality now starring from the Oval Office.

“Communities of color will be crucial in the upcoming primaries, particularly in South Carolina,” said Melvin Poindexter, a Newton resident who is a 20-year member of the Massachusetts Democratic State Committee and the only African American among the four-member Bay State delegation to the Democratic National Committee. “How candidates do in South Carolina will dictate how much effort they put here in Massachusetts,” which, he noted, will send 114 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Headed to a disappointing fifth-place finish in New Hampshire on Feb. 11, former Vice President Joe Biden flew to South Carolina before sundown to shore up his sagging support among African Americans. “We just heard from the first two of 50 states,” Biden said upon his arrival, as polls showed his share of the black vote nationally dropping from 51% to 27 %. “Not all the nation, not half the nation. Not a quarter of the nation, not 10%. Two. Where I come from, that’s the opening bell, not the closing bell. Up until now, we

See VOTE, page 8

Cullinane will not run again in 12th Race for seat will likely be competitive By KENNEAL PATTERSON State Rep. Dan Cullinane announced last week that he will not be running for re-election, leaving an opening in the 12th Suffolk District. Cullinane has represented the district, which includes

Dorchester, Milton and Mattapan, since 2013. So far, two possible candidates have emerged: attorney Jovan Lacet, who ran for the seat in 2018, coming within 420 votes of Cullinane; and first-time candidate Donovan Birch Jr., who has raised more than $25,000 but says he’s not sure whether he’ll run.

“I’m still trying to decide,” he told the Banner. The district is diverse, with Haitians, Caribbean-Americans, Irish, Vietnamese, Koreans and Cambodians all represented, said Mary-dith Tuitt, who has run for the seat before but has not decided whether she will run this year. She added that the district is split economically: one side of PHOTO: ALEXA GAGOSZ

See 12TH SUFFOLK, page 6

Sen. Bernie Sanders addresses his supporters and volunteers in New Hampshire.


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