Riad Mahayni has been at the forefront of the most anti-student abuses of the city council — and now he expects our support?

Let’s look at the record: Mahayni claims he will “listen to community concerns,” yet at every turn he has managed to dismiss or outright attack student concerns when they are presented to him. Indeed, Riad has been behind every anti-student ordinance passed in recent memory — the drink specials ban, the couch ordinance, the occupancy ordinance crackdown — all thanks to someone who is supposed to be representing a heavily student-populated district.

Riad has taken a hard line siding against students, even voting to gut Mayor Tedesco’s reasonable compromises on the overoccupancy problem. His justification? “The law has always been that way” — despite the fact that the occupancy ordinance crackdown has only been felt very recently, and to that end, disproportionately by students. Yet instead of trying work to correct the underlying problem this presents with regard to students, he has instead stubbornly chosen to ignore it completely. Is this what he means by “listening to community concerns?” It would seem the only community Riad is interested in hearing from is the non-student community.

It’s time for students in the fourth ward to band together and flex their collective muscle — it’s time to evict Riad.

Steve Skutnik

Graduate Student

Physics & Astronomy