Matt Agorist–

The mayor of Baltimore is receiving much-deserved criticism after she allocated $100,000 to bus students to a gun control rally in Washington D.C. later this month. The reason for the criticism is founded in the fact that students froze all winter long because the mayor says they have no money to fix the slew of broken heaters.

Earlier this year, students in Baltimore schools were told to bring blankets and cold weather attire to class every day because the heating systems in over one-third of all the schools were either broken or barely working. Students, faculty, and staff were forced to bundle up inside the school in January until it became so unbearable that the schools actually closed due to unsafe temperatures.

To most people, these underperforming, outdated, and broken heating systems would be a priority to get fixed. However, at the time, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh claimed that there simply wasn’t enough money to make the repairs and upgrades.

It is not just the heat either. The infrastructure in the Baltimore school system is crumbling and many students find themselves unable to even drink the water. But we see where the priorities lie.

Fast forward to March, and all of the sudden—in spite of claiming they have no money—the mayor has miraculously pulled $100,000 out of nowhere to bus thousands of students to a gun control rally in Washington D.C.

“America needs to hear the voices of the young people of Baltimore,” Pugh told the students before announcing the city’s plan to fund the trip to the “March for Our Lives” rally in Washington, D.C., on March 24.

The $100,000 will pay for 60 buses, free t-shirts, boxed lunches and other amenities for a few thousand students who signed up to go to the rally.

While $100,000 isn’t nearly enough to fix the heating systems, it shows that basic necessities for students are taking a backseat to political theater.

As Our Community Now reports, at the time, the mayor’s office explained that the schools’ heating systems were beyond fixing because the city simply didn’t have the money to make the repairs and upgrades. Initial estimates from the American Civil Liberties Union (it’s never good when HVAC systems in schools get the attention of the ACLU) estimated that it would cost at least $2.8 billion to modernize the heating and air conditioning in Baltimore City Public Schools.

The problem became so bad that earlier this year, citizens were forced to take action outside of the government. A concerned citizen then set up a Go Fund Me account to raise money to fix the problem. It was titled, “We Need Heat in Our Public Schools,” and it raised over $84,000 to provide space heaters. The mayor’s $100,000 could’ve stretched that out to further reduce suffering in schools but this did not happen.

Parents and students alike are left wondering why the mayor would justify spending upwards of $100,000 on political activism when children are suffering every single day in school.

It is no secret that Baltimore is one of the worst places in the nation as far as gun violence is concerned. And, if students want to voice their concern over this problem, they have every single right to do so. However, when the mayor spends money they don’t have to bus a few thousand students to DC for a day to call for gun control when Baltimore is already highly regulated, this speaks to the nature of such an act.

http://govtslaves.info/2018/03/baltimore-cant-afford-to-heat-schools-but-is-paying-100k-to-bus-students-to-gun-control-rally/