At-Large Campaign Looking Like a Campaign -- Finally

The candidates for the four City Councilors-At-Large seats will be busy during the next week with four different forums around the city, including one here in Brighton:

1. Oct. 9, 5:30pm., Boston Public Library Copley Square
2. Oct. 10, 7:00pm, Brighton Elks Lodge
3. Oct. 11, 6:00pm, Roxbury Community College
4. Oct. 15, 7:00pm, Florian Hall, Dorchester
   

Boston Globe columnist Adrian Walker isn't all that impressed, though. He moderated another forum in Charlestown last Wednesday, October 3rd, and reports that the candidates repeatedly described how little power the job commands:

I'm not being unfair to the candidates, but the event was a reminder of just what an impotent body the City Council is. The answers to many questions boiled down to, "There's only so much the City Council can do about that, and it isn't much."

I have the feeling the incumbents and challengers will be taking stronger positions here in Brighton on Wednesday. Our District 9 City Council candidates sure did during three previous forums.

Walker was happy that eight of the nine candidates showed up for his event. A recent event in Jamaica Plain had only three show up on time (Arroyo, Geary, Yoon), another three came in late (Connolly, Flaherty, Hogan), and final three missed it altogether (Estrada, Murphy, Wyatt). Hint: the easiest questions are at the beginning... the tough ones get saved for the end.


Who Are All Those Guys, Anyway?

One of the most popular blog comment lately in Boston is a data dump of all the candidate names, address, phone numbers, website URLs, and medical records. Problem is, many of those data only dump their home phone numbers and addresses. Sure, it's public information contained right there in the elections department filing papers... but most of them have campaign offices that are a better bet for campaign-related calls.

The Boston Globe's news department decided to do some coverage of the At-Large City Council race in last Sunday's City Weekly section -- although the article didn't really discuss the issues, just the concept of "bullet voting." But they did publish the names, addresses, etc., of the candidates. But while they did not publish the campaign addresses, they did publish the web addresses.

By "publish" I meant that the Globe put it in their print edition... but not in their online edition (see the sidebar). Is the Globe really as clueless about online publishing as they sometimes appear?

One candidate actually decided to send me some of the information as a comment to a previous blog post. I'm putting that information instead here, since it is better formatted (and blog comments don't get aggregated in the readers). First address listed below is generally home; second is usually campaign office or mailing address for donations.


Councilor Felix Arroyo: website; 93 Montebello Road, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130; 617-777-9070, 617-635-3115; Boston City Hall, 1 City Hall Square, 5th Floor, Boston, MA; email

John Connolly: website; 12 Shaw Street, West Roxbury, MA 02132; 617-323-6672, 617-447-1302; 1408 Centre Street, Roslindale, MA 02131; email

William Estrada: no website; 212 Lexington Street, East Boston, MA 02128; 435-650-4933

Councilor Michael Flaherty: website; 1726 Columbia Road, South Boston, MA 02127; 617-269-4673, 617-635-4205 (office); The Michael F. Flaherty Committee, P.O. Box 122, Boston, MA 02127; email

Matt Geary: website; 85 Stoughton Street, Dorchester, MA 02125; 978-994-0988, 617-825-0381; SA Office, 9 Bentham Road, Dorchester, MA 02122; no email given, instead use webform

Martin Hogan: website; 491 Ashmont Street, Dorchester, MA 02122; 617-297-5771, 617-412-9822; The Committee To Elect Marty Hogan, 491 Ashmont Street, Dorchester, MA 02122; email, alternate email

Councilor Stephen Murphy: city (not campaign) website; 141 Warren Avenue, Hyde Park, MA 02136; 617-361-3339, 617-635-4376; email

David Wyatt: website; 62 Weaver Court, Roxbury, MA 02119; 617-442-4191, 857-492-3076

Councilor Sam Yoon: website; 39 Waldeck Street, Dorchester, MA 02124; 617-569-2194, The Committee To Elect Sam Yoon, P.O. Box 51824, Boston, MA 02205; email