Thumbs up to Sam Yoon for taking a stand on youth violence

As the Boston Globe reported last week, Boston City Councilor Sam Yoon recently sent out an email encouraging supporters to attend a meeting to show their support for his call for more funding for anti-violence programs in the city's operating budget. Yoon's mostly teenaged supporters were evicted from the meeting, the budget passed 9-4 without Yoon's requested funding, and other city councilors accused Yoon of "grandstanding." But Eileen McNamera writes in support of Yoon in the Boston Globe:

"They came hoping to win but expecting to lose," said Yoon, who had urged the city to tap emergency funds for $5 million for youth workers and violence prevention programs. "You never hear the word 'violence' without the word 'youth' in front of it. Here we had a gallery full of young people interested in being part of the solution, and they are told they can only be silent observers. I'm an immigrant. My parents came to America because we can express our ideas here freely."

If that sounds like grandstanding, as Councilors Stephen J. Murphy and Jerry P. McDermott suggested, isn't grandstanding pretty much the only power the Boston City Council has? The councilors, after all, were debating the mayor's budget because the city charter does not grant them authority to draft a spending plan of their own.

What the council does have is a bully pulpit, and Yoon, elected six months ago as the first Asian to serve on the body, decided to use it. That does not make him young and naïve; he's 36, not 16, and veteran councilors Felix Arroyo, Chuck Turner, and Charles C. Yancey voted with him.

If the council used its bully pulpit more often, open and spirited debate might compensate for the City Council's lack of legislative power.