Letter to the editor from Jeff Ramer, Democratic member of the Board of Estimate and Taxation
Thank you for your emails.
I, along with my Democratic colleagues on the BET, received well over a
thousand supportive emails coming up to the vote on the Schools budget on April 27th. We received about five hundred more in the brief interval before the aborted “reconsideration.” More or less four hundred intrepid souls tuned in on Zoom. How do I say thank you ? These were not some downloaded form letters. Each was individually written, heartfelt words of encouragement. By all rights, each should receive an individually written heartfelt note of thank you from me. But it is beyond my ability to complete such a task, and for that I am truly sorry.
This is Teacher Appreciation Week. To the teachers and administrators who may happen to read these words, know this: The outpouring of encouragement that we received was not Public regard for us. It was Public regard for you.
These people, many being parents, were provoked to demand that you be given the resources commensurate with their high appreciation of what YOU do. Yes, there are jerks in the World, but the World is populated by the many more who wanted to stand up for you, and did.
We could not deliver the Budget that we believed appropriate, but a great many in the Community rallied to reward you with a small compensation of another kind.
Jeff Ramer
A proud Democratic member of the BET