CITY OF BOSTON TO HOST NEIGHBORHOOD JOB FAIR IN DORCHESTER

CITY OF BOSTON TO HOST NEIGHBORHOOD JOB FAIR IN DORCHESTER

BOSTON - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - On Thursday, June 28, the City of Boston invites residents to participate in a Neighborhood Career Fair in Dorchester, offering participants the opportunity to explore employment opportunities within the City of Boston and private companies. The job fair is being hosted by the City's Office of Diversity. The event will be held at the Boston Centers for Youth & Families (BCYF) Perkins Community Center in Dorchester, and residents are encouraged to attend to learn more about career opportunities from the 30 participating employers. WHEN:           Thursday, June 28, 2018                        5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. WHERE:        BCYF Perkins Community Center                       155 Talbot Ave, Dorchester WHO: Representatives from: Big Sister Association of Greater Boston Northeastern University TD Garden Boston Centers for Youth & Families City of Boston Office of Diversity Massachusetts Department of Corrections New England Center for Arts & Technology Boston Water & Sewer Commission Boston Public Health Commission Whole Foods Market High Sierra Pools Inc Boston Red Sox Judge Rotenberg Center Massachusetts Convention Center Authority Massachusetts State Police Boston EMS Encore Boston Harbor Northeast Center for Tradewomen's Equity Boston Fire Department USO New England City of Boston Inspectional Services Department Make A Wish Foundation Building Pathways Boston Uphams Corner Health Center

AG HEALEY CALLS ON TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO END IMMORAL FAMILY SEPARATION POLICY IMMEDIATELY

AG HEALEY CALLS ON TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO END IMMORAL FAMILY SEPARATION POLICY IMMEDIATELY 
AG Healey Joins Coalition of 21 Attorneys General in Calling on the Trump Administration to Immediately End Policy of Separating Families at Border

BOSTON – Attorney General Maura Healey today joined a coalition of 21 attorneys general in calling on United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to immediately end the Department of Justice’s cruel and illegal “zero tolerance” policy of forcibly separating children from their families at the border.

“What the Trump administration is doing is immoral and reprehensible,” said AG Healey. “It’s unimaginable that the President would try to play politics by tearing babies from their mothers and leaving toddlers stranded and crying. As a matter of basic humanity, and for the good this country represents, the Trump Administration needs to immediately end this horrible policy.”

In a letter sent today to AG Sessions and Secretary Nielsen, the attorneys general argue that the “zero tolerance” policy the Trump Administration announced in April is not only inhumane, but it is a violation of due process and equal protection. The policy requires immediate separation of children from their parents and criminal prosecution of all adults who enter illegally at the southern border, including those seeking asylum. Under the new policy, adults who enter the United States are brought to federal prisons instead of immigration detention centers, their children are placed with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, and there is no apparent plan for reunification of these families.

 “Put simply, the deliberate separation of children and their parents who seek lawful asylum in America is wrong. This practice is contrary to American values and must be stopped,” the attorneys general write in the letter to Sessions and Nielson.

AG Healey and the coalition of attorneys general contend that these policies are violations of international, federal and state law. According to the letter, laws and judicial precedents almost universally state that children’s best interests are in remaining with their parents, absent a rigorous judicial inquiry. The Department of Justice is inflicting devastating and long-lasting trauma on thousands of innocent children.

        The letter also reads, “These practices directly interfere with the efforts of our offices and other law enforcement officials—locally, nationally, and internationally—to prevent and prosecute crime,” including human trafficking, drug trafficking, and gang violence offenses.

Joining AG Healey in sending the letter are the attorneys general of New Mexico, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.

150+ Groups Urge Federal Court to Strike Census Citizenship Question

150+ Groups Urge Federal Court to Strike Census Citizenship Question

WASHINGTON – The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, The Leadership Conference Education Fund, Muslim Advocates, National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, and 149 other grassroots, advocacy, labor, legal services, and other organizations today submitted a 

The groups write in part:

“A fair and accurate 2020 census is a critical civil rights issue. Not only is the constitutionally mandated census central to apportioning political power at every level of government, but the data collected also influence the annual allocation of more than $800 billion in federal money, along with countless policy and investment decisions by government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and private enterprise. Given its foundational importance to American government and society, the census must be above partisan politics. The misguided decision to reverse seventy years of consistent census practice and insert an untested citizenship question undermines the integrity of the count, damages our communities, and violates the Census Bureau’s constitutional and statutory duties to conduct a full enumeration of the U.S. population.”

The brief notes that the Census Bureau itself has long opposed adding a citizenship question precisely because it would lead to an undercount, which would “impact hard-to-count populations disproportionately.” The brief also notes that collecting citizenship data would undermine enforcement of the Voting Rights Act because it would “undercount the minority populations who rely on that data to bring VRA claims.”

The State of New York was joined by 17 states, Washington D.C., and nine cities, four counties, and the bipartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors in challenging the late addition of a citizenship question, which Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross agreed to add on March 26 in response to a December 2017 request of the Justice Department.  

哈佛報告:美國人擁有住宅率持平 房價漲幅八倍於收入增長

The Joint Center for Housing Studies releases its 2018 State of the Nation’s Housing report

CAMBRIDGE, MA - Since the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies first released its seminal State of the Nation’s Housing report in 1988, more than 40 million housing units have been built in the U.S., the country has added 27 million new households, and last year’s national homeownership rate of 63.9 percent was very close to the 64 percent rate of the late 1980s. At the same time, however, the number of Americans burdened by housing costs has risen by nearly 14 million households over the last 30 years, the number of households with student loan debt has nearly doubled, and the gap between black and white homeownership has widened. 

These and other findings are detailed in the Center’s 2018 State of the Nation’s Housing report being released today at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. 

“By many metrics, the U.S. housing market in 2018 is on sound footing,” said Chris Herbert, managing director of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. “But a number of challenges highlighted in the first State of the Nation’s Housing report 30 years ago persist today, and in many respects the situation has worsened for both the lowest-income Americans and those higher up the income ladder.”

Growing income inequality has helped drive the increase in cost-burdened households. According to the report, the real median income of households in the bottom quartile increased only 3 percent between 1988 and 2016, while the median income for adults aged 25 to 34 rose by just 5 percent. Meanwhile, the median home price grew 41 percent faster than inflation between 1990 and 2016, the median rent grew 20 percent faster, and the nation had 2.5 million fewer units renting for less than $800 a month (in real terms). 

The increases in prices and rents combined with a growing lack of subsidies for low-income households mean that nearly a third of all households (38.1 million) paid more than 30 percent of their incomes for housing in 2016, the widely-accepted metric for affordability. These include 20.8 million renters (47 percent), and of these, 11 million pay more than half their income for housing (see interactive map). While these figures are down slightly from their peak during the recession, they are significantly higher than in previous decades.

“If incomes had kept pace with the economy's growth over the past 30 years, they would have easily matched the rise in housing costs,” notes Daniel McCue, a senior research associate at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and lead author of the report. “But that hasn’t happened.”

The Harvard report also points to constraints in the supply of new housing, which is helping fuel affordability challenges. Construction started on 1.2 million new housing units in 2017, up slightly from 2016. The entire increase last year came from single-family starts, which were up 8.6 percent but, at just 849,000 units in 2017, remained well below the 1.1 million per year historical average. In contrast, multifamily starts declined by 9.7 percent to 354,100 units. The relative lack of new housing, along with Americans’ decreasing propensity to move, limited the number of homes for sale, which dropped to record lows in 2017. 

As a result, house prices rose 6.2 percent in 2017 and now top their pre-crisis peaks in a majority of the nation’s largest metros. While rents also increased by a more modest 3.7 percent, there are signs that rent increases are slowing and vacancies are increasing, particularly for new, high-end units.

The easing of conditions in the rental market reflects the fact that, after a decade of soaring rental demand, U.S. households are returning to homebuying. The national homeownership rate rose for the first time in 13 years to 63.9 percent last year, up 0.5 percentage point from its low in 2016. Although the overall rate is now similar to the rate that prevailed in the late-1980s, the gap in black and white homeownership rates is larger than it was 30 years ago and homeownership rates among young adults is down sharply.

Overall, the new report shows that, if the nation is to make real progress in addressing its housing challenges, there is a clear need to expand assistance for those beyond the market’s reach. “We need strategies to help the private sector produce more moderately-priced housing,” said Herbert. “Doing so will require new approaches for making effective use of public funding, reducing construction costs, and easing regulatory barriers.”

麻州年薪百萬居民 波士頓最多 2131人

(Boston Orange)根據麻州政府2015年資料，麻州有15,900年薪百萬人士，都住哪兒，你知道嗎?

麻州最高法院在6月18日否決了所謂的”百萬富翁稅(millionaires tax)”這選票問題。波士頓環球報順勢做了個麻州百萬年薪人士調查，得出結果並不令人意外，高收入人士幾乎集中居住在衛斯頓(Weston)，多佛(Dover)，衛斯理(Wellesley)等等這些市鎮。

根據可取得的最新麻州政府資料，2015年麻州有15,900人申報的調整後年收入高於100萬元。這裡說的是年收入100萬元，不是個人擁有資產100萬元。

換言之，在那一年內，每一千名麻州居民中，就有2人年收入超過100萬元。

當然，在某些社區，這比率更高。

衛斯頓(Weston)比率最高，每1000人中有46人，其次為多佛(Dover )，有37人，衛斯理(Wellesley) (30)，曼徹斯特(Manchester) (21)，林肯(Lincoln) (19)。

如果以絕對數目來看，波士頓最多年薪百萬人士，有2,131人，其次是牛頓市(Newton)， 1,276人，接著衛斯理(Wellesley)，864人，衛斯頓(Weston) 548人，布魯克蘭(Brookline)490人。

向百萬富翁徵稅 最高法院不同意?

(Boston Orange)麻州最高法院以5對2票，否決了向年薪逾百萬人士徵稅的選票問題，打擊了激進人士及勞工組織士氣，也讓今秋選舉少了一個爭議話題。

           最高法院彷如站到了企業團體這邊，認為該提案不合憲法。

           該辦法要求向收入超過一百萬者徵收更高比率的賦稅，以期麻州在新年度可有大約20億元新稅收進帳。

           最高法院這裁決，勢將震動麻州政界。

民主黨籍的兩名麻州州長候選人，馬希(Bob Massie)和甘沙雷(Jay Gonzalez)都大力支持這徵稅提案，民主黨相關人員也希望這選票問題能在11月時帶動左傾選民出席投票。

一些民主黨員說，法院的決定將使州議員們更需要考慮增稅或加費。

           即將卸下麻州參議會議長職位的參議員Harriette L. Chandler說，”我們得很有創意，認真找可能的新稅收來源，以因應麻州正面對的，非常實在的挑戰”。波士頓市長馬丁華殊(Martin Walsh)也這麼認為。他說，沒人想加稅，但是無論是道路，橋梁或教育等這些基礎建設，麻州和波士頓都面對著些很嚴重的問題。

                       法院的這一拒絕裁定，讓麻州民主黨在今年的州長選舉中失去一個打擊麻州現任州長查理貝克(Charlie Baker)的武器。

                         查理貝克多年來都拒絕對這選票問題表態。他說他不是加稅的大粉絲，法院的決定意味著麻州必須繼續向前，在基礎建設，教育上，以現有可用的工具，繼續投資，而他們做得挺好。

           麻州議員們有權訂定任何數量的新稅，費用，或評估辦法，但麻州憲法禁止他們向不同程度收入人士以不同稅率徵費。選票問題要求向年收入超過100萬元人士加稅4%。也就是第一個100萬元的收入，會以現行的5.1%稅率徵費，但超過100萬元門檻之後的收入，稅率就提高為9.1%。

           麻州稅務局估計過，這辦法在2019年可為麻州增加大約160億元到220億元收入。

企業團體反對這辦法，在法院辯稱那不合法，因為那混合了並不相關的多件事情，包括在交通，在教育上的開銷。麻州憲法規定選票問題主旨必須相關，或相互依賴。

大部分的法官都這麼同意。副法官Frank M. Gaziano寫道，這問題讓選民支持加稅，但未指明資金要用來支持哪個議題，或不理會哪個議題。

他也寫著，如果選民不想把額外取得的經費同時用在交通或教育上，該辦法不讓選民做選擇，

 “扶養麻州(Raise Up Massachusetts)”在一份聲明中表示，大約15萬7000名選民簽署了請願書，才讓這”公平分享修訂法(Fair Share Amendment)”這問題有資格列在選票上，企業團體竟然會推翻它，很讓人震驚。

          副法官Kimberly S. Budd和主法官Ralph D. Gants持不同意見，認為拒絕這一提案，基本上是法院干擾了民眾行使憲法所賦予的立法權。

不過退休的最高法院法官Robert J. Cordy表示，支持者可能過度操作，在一個問題裏要求太多，而不是單純的要向高收入者額外徵稅。

法院的決定，對今年可能呈現在選民面前的幾個重要政治問題的結果，可能會有影響。

                      由勞工，宗教人士及社區團體組成，主要由工會經費支持的聯盟，”扶養麻州”，支持這徵稅提案之外，還支持把麻州最低時薪提高至15元的選票問題，以及規定家庭假及醫療假是有薪假。

                          麻州零售業者協會也正推動法案，想要把銷售稅降低為5%，一旦成功，將使州政府稅收減少10億元左右。

                        最後一輪向麻州政府選務辦公室遞交簽名，申請選票問題的截止日期是七月三日。

昆士市長亞裔顧問委員會匯報 6/18

QMAAAC Update – June 2018/ Quincy Mayor's Asian American Advisory Committee

(To request for removal from the email list, please write a note back.) 

 

1.) "The Eye on Quincy TV Show" 

This coming September will mark the 9th anniversary of the Eye on Quincy TV Show. 

To reflect, here're our accomplishments: 

A. The consistency in the Show's content on Quincy affairs and Asian affairs helps to build a sense oflocalism so that as Quincy residents, we learn where Pageant Field is. We become interested in when, where and what Flag Day is, the progress of the Quincy downtown development projects, the Mayor's annual budget proposal, the new and updated house value and tax rates, the on-line application for building permit, the significance of voter registration and to be well informed before casting a vote, ... etc. 

B. We had formed a team and we still have a team. A team that is made up entirely with volunteers! Many who participated enjoyed the friendship, the knowledge about TV production, the glamour to be close with Quincy, with the Quincy media and the pride to be living in Quincy.   

C. Precious and rare collection of Chinese/ English bilingual materials/ data: It has been a 9 year collection. We hope that some people will help re-arrange the data/ collections and make them into a photo display/ exhibit projects. With that said, Eye on Quincy will continue. 

To celebrate the 9th anniversary, a BBQ is being planned. Stay tuned for details.  

Please note that the next live "Eye on Quincy" is scheduled to 

Monday, June 18, 2018 from 7pm to 8pm on QATV - Channel 8. 

To join us in the TV production workshop and/or in the live production, please click on http://www.quincyasian.org. You can also find us on facebook: Eye on Quincy. 

2.) Constituent service - housekeeping notes:

Asian voting and voter registration:

The above slide was created in 2015 and updated recently in 2018. 

The raw data may imply some thoughts and may lead to some insights.

An on-line survey will be developed to try to learn more about why Asian voters responded disproportionately in voting.  

 

3.) Recent Quincy News Headlines:

on Quincy Sun: http://www.theQuincySun.com & on the City’s Web: http://www.quincyma.gov

* Quincy's 50 Days of Freedom, 50+ Free Events, June 16 - Aug. 4

   http://thequincysun.com/2018/06/14/quincys-50-days-of-freedom-50-free-events-june-16-aug-4/

* Night Work At Wollaston, Quincy Center Stations

   http://thequincysun.com/2018/06/07/night-work-at-wollaston-quincy-center-stations/

* Deer Spotted in Hancock Cemetery

   http://thequincysun.com/2018/06/13/deer-spotted-in-hancock-cemetery/

* Forum Looks At Impact of Public Programs On Poverty In Quincy, South Shore

   http://thequincysun.com/2018/06/12/forum-looks-at-impact-of-public-programs-on-poverty-in-quincy-south-shore/

 

4.) The "Quincy Monthly Gathering"

The "Quincy Monthly Gathering" is a  self-pay activity which was started in Quincy by a group of Asian community workers in the early 1990s.

"New comers" are welcome to join this informal social gathering. 

The time/ date/ place of the next gathering will be in early July at Quincy China Pearl at 12p.  

To request an evite to the gathering to meet new and old friends, feel free to write an email to Betty Yau at Kfyau@aol.com or byau@quincyma.gov

 

Until next time.

Respectfully submitted,

Betty Yau, (member) 
co-writer: Tom Fabrizio of the City of Quincy 
on behalf of

Fire Inspector Jimmy Wong (co-chair)

Mayor's Asian American Advisory Committee

(producer of the "Eye on Quincy" TV Show:)

Vision:

to help create a unified community environment.

Mission:

to provide a bridge between the City and the Asian American residents

Who we are:

We are a dedicated volunteer group. Many of us are Chinese Americans and long time Quincy residents. Our enthusiasm on community matters makes us realize that civil responsibilities are as equally important as civil rights.
http://www.quincyasian.org
facebook: eye on quincy
617-376-1298