BRA Ought to Drop the Shovel and Stop Digging

One of the basic rules of crisis management and organizational communications is that when you find yourself deep in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging.

The BRA slipped into that mistake on Monday.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority has been criticized during the last few days over a project manager's emails that were viewed as disparaging towards some Allston-Brighton residents. Mayoral candidate Councilor-At-Large Michael Flaherty, his unofficial running mate Councilor-At-Large Sam Yoon, District 9 City Councilor Mark Ciommo, and Ciommo's challenger Alex Selvig -- as well as Mayor Thomas Menino himself -- all expressed criticism of the BRA's emails on Monday.

The BRA was doing a reasonably good job at crisis management over the issue: the employee was disciplined in response to a Boston Globe reporter's inquiries; the employee offered an apology; criticism from Flaherty was forcefully rebutted by BRA director John Palmieri; etc. Political campaigns are fair game for this kind of back-and-forth; that's what the sport of politics is all about.

All of this followed the crisis management script until BRA spokesperson Susan Elsbree went beyond criticizing mayoral candidate Flaherty's proposals to reform the BRA to point her finger once again at a few Allston-Brighton residents:

Elsbree said [BRA project manager Jay] Rourke has already apologized for his statements and said his comments were not aimed at the Allston-Brighton community as a whole, but rather a product of frustration at “two or three individuals who are trying to stop the relocation of 700 residents” [in the Charlesview redevelopment proposal]. [emphasis added]

Oops.

Who might she be speaking about? I can think of some.

Four Allston-Brighton residents wrote to the BRA on October 13, 2009, stating that they "support a Charlesview relocation proposal incorporating the following revisions and recommendations." And those were some pretty substantial revisions they requested.

They wrote requesting the BRA and developer to: expand the area of land in the development to include the Brookline Machine building; reduce the number of rental units (those that are beyond the low-income units for the current Charlesview tenants); reduce overall the project's density; increase the number of home ownership units; reduce of the height of the eight-story Telford Street building; express a concern about a "lack of open and recreational space" in the project; increase the amount of retail space; and halt further development of Harvard property in North Allston-Brighton until "significant development of the Holton Street Corridor is realized." Pretty broad stuff which will take a while for the BRA and the project's developers to modify and accommodate.

Who are these obstructionist A-B guys who are "trying to stop the relocation of 700 residents"?

State Senator Steven Tolman, State Representative Kevin Honan, State Representative Michael Moran, and Boston District 9 City Councilor Mark Ciommo. (Cambridge State Senator Anthony Galluccio was also a co-signer of the letter to the BRA.)

That hole just got a bit deeper. I think the BRA needs to drop the shovel again and stop digging.


Image of Digging in the Dark by Wessex Archaeology provided through a Creative Commons license.

Flaherty, Yoon, and Selvig Decry BRA Attitude Towards Neighborhood

Mayoral candidate Michael Flaherty, currently a Boston City Councilor-At-Large, came to the Brighton Mills shopping center this morning to decry the negative attitude expressed in email by some city officials towards Allston-Brighton residents over the proposed Charlesview relocation development project. He was joined by his unofficial running-mate, Councilor-At-Large Sam Yoon (together, "Floon"), as well as District 9 City Councilor candidate Alex Selvig (together, "Floonig"?).

Flaherty noted at the press conference that he and Yoon "work for you, and Mayor Menino works for you, [and] the BRA does, too. But you would never know it from the emails. One of the things we don't need to be doing is disrespecting [residents of] the neighborhood."

"The residents of Allston-Brighton deserve better than this," added Yoon. The emails "communicate a message that the people [of Allston-Brighton] don't matter."

"What we're up against is resistance, what we're up against is contempt," said Selvig. He said that their campaigns are about trying "to build us a city hall that will fight for us... instead of rich and powerful developers."

The Boston Globe published extracts Saturday from internal emails written by Boston Redevelopment Authority officials -- particularly by senior project manager Jay Rourke, who is in charge of the BRA's review of the proposed project -- which were disparaging towards a number of people in the community. The emails were obtained by North Allston resident Harry Mattison in response to a request for documents under the state's Public Records Law, and were published by Mattison on his Allston Brighton Community Blog.

The Globe article states that the BRA last Thursday, in apparent response to their reporter's inquiries, issued a verbal reprimand to Rourke and a letter in his personnel file. Rourke also issued some kind of apology to the neighborhood. “These are internal e-mails," the Globe quoted him saying. “They are my comments to staff members and should not reflect on the agency."

Flaherty said that he, as a city-wide official, wanted to apologize to the neighborhood residents on behalf of the city for the "disrespectful" language of the emails, even though he did not author them.


Candidates Propose Change in Development Process -- Including for Charlesview

The press conference was held at the site of the proposed Charlesview relocation project, which would construct 360-units of low-income rental and market-rate home-ownership housing.

In response to several questions about the development Floon flailed a bit, not appearing to be knowledgeable about controversial aspects of the project -- such as an allegation that the project entails economic segregation by spatially separating the low-income housing units from the market-rate ones. Selvig was well-versed on the project, however, and noted that the proposed development only includes far less than the city-wide average of green space and a lower home ownership rate than both the city-wide average and Allston-Brighton itself.

Both halves of Floon pointed instead to broader deficiencies in the approval process itself, and the BRA's role relative to Mayor Thomas Menino, in describing how they would have approached the Charlesview project differently.

Yoon said that the development process works better starting with community input and a blank sheet of paper, rather than have the BRA run it based on a developer's proposal. Yoon's community-led process "respects [the community's] integrity. It's doable. It's been done. It's not happening now." It's ironic that he didn't seem to realize that a group of residents of North Allston-Brighton obtained the services of a city planner to do exactly what he envisioned by creating an alternative development plan for the Charlesview relocation.

Flaherty took a more direct tack. People need to "realize the mayor is the BRA," said Flaherty. "The whole sham needs to be disclosed. They make decisions unilaterally." He was also deeply critical of the BRA's public meeting process.

He repeated his proposal that developers should submit to a "performance bond," whereby they would "commit to doing what they promised to do." He broadened his criticism to the mayor's handling of Harvard's expansion into North Allston-Brighton. "I wouldn't have sat on the sidelines while Harvard used straw buyers" to purchase many acres of land.

Added Selvig: "Harvard has really done wrong to this community. The Charlesview plan is only good for Harvard."


Councilor Ciommo Responds to BRA Emails

Reached by telephone later in the day, Councilor Mark Ciommo had some choice words to say about the BRA emails.

"Without question, totally unprofessional, disrespectful, and inappropriate," said Ciommo of Rourke's emails. "It just doesn't help the public discourse or process."

When asked whether he thought that Rourke's verbal reprimand and letter in his personnel file was an appropriate punishment, Ciommo responded that he as a supervisor ascribes to a procedure of "progressive discipline action."

"If [Rourke] had no other prior issues," then this would be the appropriate first step of discipline, he said. "I hope he's learned a valuable lesson from this."

As for whether these emails indicate that the BRA is responding to community input, Ciommo noted that, between the Charlesview project's first filing in 2008 and its revision in 2009, the emails as a whole indicate that the BRA was pushing the developer to modify the project to be less dense and have more home ownership. Both were issues voiced by neighborhood residents and the elected officials -- although Ciommo acknowledged that it is difficult to identify exactly whose input the BRA was being responsive to. Ciommo also noted that he assisted Mattison in obtaining the emails from the BRA without the cost that the agency had originally proposed to charge.


Media Coverage of Event

Monday's press conference was attended by a number of media outlets, including NECN, Fox25 News, the Boston Globe, WBUR, the Allston-Brighton TAB, and the Boston Bulletin.

The Globe received no comment from the Menino campaign, but NECN did:

The mayor says the BRA has done a good job, both in present projects and in the future. Menino bristles at the accusation that the BRA is a failure of his administration. He acknowledges the poor taste of the e-mails, and says action has been taken.

John Palmieri, director of the BRA, responded angrily to Flaherty's salvos:

"It's more a reflection of a desperate campaign than the way we try to conduct business at the redevelopment authority," Palmieri said. "I found it insulting"...

"[Rourke's] lapse doesn't reflect the authority's point of view in how we deal with the neighborhood," Palmieri said. "On the contrary, we make every effort to maintain our balance and integrity with how we deal with these neighborhood issues."

BRA spokesperson Susan Elsbree echoed these comments to the TAB, pointing at frustration with “two or three individuals who are trying to stop the relocation of 700 residents." She also criticized Flaherty's performance bond idea:

Elsbree called the plan “a bit of political rhetoric” and questioned how the Flaherty administration would replace the BRA, which currently has a $50 million operating budget generated by leased properties throughout Boston. She also stated the BRA has requested Harvard reactivate empty business properties throughout the neighborhood, but did not set any deadlines for the school to make these locations available.

There were a lot of hugs offered, too, at least metaphorically.


BRA's Rourke a Familiar Name in Mayoral Campaign

Followers of the mayoral election may remember Rourke's name as having appeared in the Boston Globe last month. A Hyde Park resident and Menino campaign contributor, Rourke bought a city-owned parcel of land for 5% of its assessed value -- one of around 600 such far under-market-price sales of city land over the last 16 years:

Another property, which McCrea highlighted during the debate, went to James Rourke, who works for the city’s development agency. He and his Hyde Park neighbor got a 10,000-square-foot property for $5,000 in June. It was assessed at $99,400.

Then-mayoral candidate Kevin McCrea brought this property sale arrangement to the public's notice during a mayoral debate and on his blog.

All 13 members of the Boston City Council, including Flaherty and Yoon, voted unanimously on November 2, 2008 to surplus the land at 0 Prescott Street to the city; Mayor Menino subsequently signed the surplus order on November 10, according to the deed for the property on file at Suffolk County Registry of Deeds.

Rourke this year contributed $200 to Mayor Menino's reelection campaign on June 19th -- ten days before the city concluded the sale to him of the Hyde Park parcel. He also contributed to Menino's campaign in 2005 and 2006.

Earlier this year, Rourke appeared to be uninformed about statutory requirements of the state's Open Meeting Law which permit public videotaping of a public meeting held by the BRA as part of the regulatory review of the Charlesview relocation development proposal submitted to the city.

Rourke was also the project manager several years ago overseeing review of St. Elizabeth's Medical Center institutional master plan amendment to construct a new emergency room -- and approving a neighborhood-opposed access road alongside an historical monastery building. The access road encountered its own roadblocks in subsequent review at the state level, and was never built.

Saturday's Globe article noted that Rourke lived in Allston for 27 years when growing up.


Image of, left-to-right, Michael Flaherty [blue jacket], Harry Mattison [blue shirt], Alex Selvig, and Sam Yoon.

Update (10/27/09): Added comments by Elsbree from TAB article.

Indictment of the BRA's Public Meetings

During the Floon press conference this morning, I was busy taking some photos when Councilor-At-Large Michael Flaherty, candidate for mayor, launched into a hard-hitting criticism of the way that the Boston Redevelopment Authority runs its public meeting process as part of the review of proposed development projects.

Fortunately, Michael Levenson of the Boston Globe got the quotation:

“A lot of the community meetings you reference -- I got to be honest with you -- they're dog-and-pony-shows,” Flaherty said, jabbing his finger in the air. “The cake is baked. The decisions have been made. They’ll comment out there and 'yes' you to death. But most of your concerns are never, ever reflected in the final submission of a project. So you can go to a hundred community meetings and you'll be banging your head up against a wall because that's the way development works in the Menino administration."

Flaherty's soliloquy was offered in response to North Allston resident Paul Alford's criticism of Flaherty's and Councilor-At-Large Sam Yoon's spotty attendance record at community meetings in A-B. Brent Whelan offered a defense of Yoon, mentioning a two-hour tour Yoon attended with neighborhood residents (including me) a while back to give him a visual layout of the area.

I have in the past obtained pages and pages of sign-in sheets for BRA public meetings as part of finding out which candidates for public office have been involved in the community in this particular way. Flaherty's office (whether him or his staff) have fared poorly, while Yoon (mostly his staffers) have been a bit better. Alford's criticism is not inaccurate.

Yoon's retort in the form of a question -- How many BRA public meetings has Mayor Thomas Menino attended? -- was met with the Socratic answer: zero, i.e., fewer than either Flaherty or Yoon. (It should be acknowledged, however, that a member of the mayor's staff, the Allston-Brighton coordinator in the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services, is a regular attendee.) None of the three has a particularly good record of attendance at community meetings, while Yoon noted that Mayor Menino is a regular attendee instead of ribbon cuttings all over the city.

Flaherty's impassioned statement shows the frustration that he feels at the public process in these development project reviews.

And Flaherty's response is a dead ringer with dozens and dozens -- if not hundreds -- of identical comments that I have heard repeatedly expressed by Allston-Brighton residents about the BRA review process. Literally -- I'm not exercising hyperbole here. I have heard such comments so often that I don't write them down anymore. Flaherty's words could've been spoken verbatim by many of the residents lined up behind him who have been at all those community meetings, week-after-week, month-after-month, year-after-year.

Alford can raise Flaherty's absence at public meetings as possibly indicating that Flaherty's new-found involvement in North Allston-Brighton is a campaign ploy.

But while Flaherty may have been AWOL, his summation of the BRA public meeting process makes it clear that he has heard, and taken to heart, repeated complaints by Allston-Brighton residents.

Councilor Ciommo Running Reconnaissance for Mayor Menino?

In Mayor Thomas Menino's escalating Delete-Delete-Gate controversy, the Boston Globe reported that the city released on Friday a set of 5,018 emails sent by, or received by, Michael Kineavy, chief of policy and planning and one of Menino's top aides. The emails appear to be those found on city backup servers that were saved by other city employees, not Kineavy; the city's forensic contractor has not yet retrieved additional emails from Kineavy's computer hard disk.

In the newly-released emails, Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor Mark Ciommo was apparently tipping Mayor Menino off about what two of his competitors in this year's mayoral campaign might be planning to do:

Some city councilors, including Allston-Brighton District Councilor Mark Ciommo, also offered Kineavy a heads-up about separate issues that the mayor’s reelection challengers, [Councilors-At-Large] Michael F. Flaherty and Sam Yoon, were preparing to raise in council hearings.

This is not particularly surprising, since "Ciommo is considered a Menino ally," according to politics reporter David Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix.

Earlier this year, Councilor Ciommo ran interference with Councilor Yoon over a hearing about the Boston Redevelopment Authority's review process of Boston College's Institutional Master Plan, where Ciommo got Yoon to scale back the language of the hearing order in order to "remove politics from the discussion and focus on the BRA process," according to Ciommo. Ciommo's actions minimized the potential fallout from hearings that could have been critical of the BRA -- as well as the mayor's oversight and control of the agency.

Meanwhile, the city's computer forensics contractor has estimated the cost of the email recovery work to possibly reach as high as a quarter of a million dollars. Since the recovery is the direct result of Kineavy's own failure to save his emails as he is required to do under the state's Public Records Law, will he be asked to foot the bill himself?

Cost Per Vote in A-B District 9 Preliminary Election

Incumbent Mark Ciommo yesterday sailed into a first-place win in the preliminary municipal election for Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor.

But challenger Alex Selvig outspent him by nearly three-to-one in the cost-per-vote metric. Selvig's expenditure of more than $26 per vote cast for him puts him in the same ballpark as mayoral candidate Michael Flaherty and incumbent Mayor Thomas Menino.

Ciommo took 3,493 votes compared to second-place Selvig's 1,353, third-place Abigail Furey's 784, and fourth-place Benjamin Narodick's 188.

Comparing these vote totals to the money spent by the campaigns as of the last reporting period (through September 4th), the candidates rank differently in the price per vote:

• Selvig: $26.57 per vote
• Ciommo: $9.41 per vote
• Furey: $7.46 per vote
• Narodick: $2.45 per vote

Of course, none of this money was directly handed to voters in exchange for their votes. The big expenditures were primarily mailings, polling, phone banking, consulting and staffing, get-out-the-vote efforts, and so on.

There were some significant expenditures in the last couple of weeks -- i.e., bulk mailings -- that have not yet been accounted for in the campaign finance reports to date, so this estimate of cost-per-vote will be revised upwards next month upon receipt of the new reports.

The A-B District 9 City Councilor expenditures compare to the city-wide costs of $26, $25, $17, and $4 per vote for mayoral candidates Flaherty, Menino, Sam Yoon, and Kevin McCrea, respectively.


Image of "Day 4 - Paying off debt" by quaziefoto provided through a Creative Commons license.

No-Shows at Allston-Brighton Day Parade

The Allston-Brighton Day Parade normally occurs one or two weekends before the fall primaries or preliminary municipal election.

Sure, crowd-wise this parade is nothing compared to the St. Patrick's Day Parade in South Boston. But the timing has, in recent years, made it a popular event for political hopefuls to attend a public event and gain publicity before the A-B voters.

This year was no different -- except for a surprising number of no-shows, particularly among the candidates for councilor-at-large.

Little did they know that we in A-B would be taking attendance -- and broadcasting it on the intertubes.

You know, if Mayor Thomas Menino himself thinks a parade important enough to show up, then it is probably important enough for a councilor-at-large wannabe, too.

[right] Mayor Menino, his wife, and state Representative Michael Moran lead the parade ahead of the Boston College Marching Band.


Mayor's Race

In attendance:

• Thomas Menino, incumbent
• Michael Flaherty
• Sam Yoon

No-show:

• Kevin McCrea

McCrea as a no-show is not too surprising. He's running a gadfly-like insurgency campaign, not following conventional wisdom in his unconventional campaign. His anti-BRA message had the potential to resonate with A-B voters bothered by the issue of institutional expansion, but he doesn't appear to have been spending much time in the district and spent the afternoon at the Allston Village Street Fair and Moran's barbecue.


Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor

In attendance:

• Mark Ciommo, incumbent
• Abigail Furey

No-shows:

• Alex Selvig
• Ben Narodick

Narodick's absence is not surprising, since he is running a very-low expense campaign that probably couldn't afford the parade entrance fee given the Rosh Hashanah holiday season.

But Selvig's absence is very surprising because of family commitments (attending a nephew's birthday). Two years ago he ran the 5-K race and then marched in the parade.


Boston City Councilor-At-Large

In attendance (in order of appearance):

• Stephen Murphy, incumbent
• Andrew Kenneally
• Ayanna Pressley
• Doug Bennett (no, he does not look like a auto-dialer-machine)
• Robert Fortes
• update: John Connolly, incumbent

No-shows:

• John Connolly, incumbent
• Ego Ezedi
• Tomas Gonzalez
• Tito Jackson
• Sean Ryan
• Jean-Claude Sanon
• Scotland Willis
• Bill Trabucco
• Hiep Nguyen
• Felix Arroyo, Jr.

Most surprising was Connolly's absence as an incumbent in the race. He has been seen periodically in the last two years at community meetings in A-B, so we know that he's not ignoring the district. He has a politically-savvy team, however, and may have calculated that he would get better exposure elsewhere. On the other hand, could Connolly's no-show have something to do with an imminent bundle-of-joy?

Update: Connolly's team tells me that he was, in fact, in the parade. He had no banner, only a small group, was marching out-of-order (nearer the front), and I obviously missed him. Sorry!

Another surprising move is the absence of Nguyen, since A-B has a substantial Asian-American population -- not just Chinese-American, but a growing number of Vietnamese-Americans, too.

The bottom six candidates in cash-in-hand as of the end of August were all among the ten no-shows in the A-B parade. That can't be a coincidence, suggesting that a parade entrance fee (and the effort/expense of organizing people to attend) was considered by many of them to be a poor use of limited resources. But Felix Arroyo, Jr., is wallowing in cash -- and his father attended the parade back in 2007 -- so his absence is hard to explain.

Party Rules vs. Convention Rules

The Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee is holding a public meeting on Saturday, May 31st in order to address the issue of whether or not to seat at their August convention the delegations from Michigan and Florida. Those two states violated Democratic party rules by holding their Democratic presidential primaries before February 5, 2008 -- and are currently allowed no delegates to the convention, according to those 2007 rules.

Readers of this blog may remember my February 2008 reference to Boston City Councilor-At-Large Sam Yoon being named to the DNC's convention Rules and Bylaws Committee.

Councilor Yoon will not, however, be part of this Saturday's meeting -- he's on the DNC's convention's Rules and Bylaws Committee (which won't meet until just before the convention itself), not on the DNC's standing Rules and Bylaws Committee (which meets this Saturday). (The MSM often confuse the two committees in their terminology.) Only time will tell if the convention's committee, on which Councilor Yoon sits, will have to rule on any procedures related to the Florida and/or Michigan delegates left unresolved by the standing committee.

TalkLeft goes through the delegate math for a couple of proposals that will be considered by the DNC's Rules Committee at its May 31 meeting. The meeting will be held at a hotel in the Washington area -- but the Lyndon LaRouche-ies appear unable to use google to figure out the address, so they think it is a secretive conspiracy. (Maybe they were actually thinking about the informal dinner for committee members on Friday night.)

Of the 30 members of the committee, 13 openly support Senator Hillary Clinton's bid for the nomination, eight openly support Senator Barack Obama, and the remainder (including both co-chairs) are neutral -- although four apparently lean towards Senator Obama. One of Senator Obama's supporters is from Florida and will not be allowed to vote on that state's challenge; one undeclared committee member is from Michigan and will likewise not be allowed to vote on that state's challenge.

Massachusetts members of the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee are: co-chair James Roosevelt, Jr. of Waltham, the President and CEO of Tufts Health Plan; and Dr. Elaine Kamarck, of Harvard's Kennedy School (of Government). Dr. Kamarck correctly predicted in February that the committee would again have to take up the issue of Florida and Michigan before the convention. Roosevelt, who once ran for the 8th Congressional District seat (losing to Joe Kennedy), is profiled in the Chicago Tribune.


Image of head scratching by PhotoJonny provided through a Creative Commons license.

More On 311 -- And Could It Be Flaherty's Issue in 2009?

In a nice piece of investigative reporting, the Boston Globe found out how little the city has progressed in the last two years in rolling out a city-wide constituent complaint tracking service (often referred to as a "311" service). While the city has a system called the Mayor's 24-Hour Constituent Service Hotline, the system doesn't provide full tracking of complaints throughout the city's various departments, resulting in little knowledge as to how well complaints are resolved.

The Globe story fails to note five rather important angles to the story:

1. There already is an online constituent service webform (actually two webforms!) that generates a small (but non-zero) amount of tracking information;
2. The online webform that accepts complaints about building, health, housing, code enforcement, environmental services, and weights and measures has been broken for more than one year for at least some web browsers;
3. The city has begun regularly summarizing various departments' performances through average response times to complaints, despite not having a system fully trackable to the public;
4. Mayor Thomas Menino may very well be slow to embrace a city-wide 311 system because he has already associated constituent services with his "Mayor's Constituent Service Hotline"; and
5. One of Mayor Menino's likely challengers next year, Councilor Michael Flaherty, has been pushing the 311 service, and may renew his push if Mayor Menino doesn't get the new system running soon.
   

The Globe story noted that Mayor Menino vowed two years ago to roll out such a complaint tracking service by the end of 2006, but city officials now say that it may be 2009 or 2010 before the system is ready -- and for a total price tag of $4 million.

Why the service has been so slow to roll out was not addressed in the Globe story. I can guess that the basic problem is that various city departments probably use different software to do their core tasks, so the process requires bringing all of their work under a common system. That is an awfully hard task when you're dealing with a large organization -- although New York City was able to do so relatively quickly for $20 million in 2003. Where there's a will there's a way.


Online Constituent Services. The Globe story completely missed the fact that constituent complaints can be submitted online, not just by phone (617-635-4500). Why does this matter? An online complaint (eventually) returns a ticket number, so that you can keep track of the complaint; phone calls do not generate a ticket number. The number helps for follow-up calls -- but you still cannot view the status of the complaint online, ticket number or not.

Weekend staffing for the online form has been spotty in my experience: once I even received an email on Monday morning from a city employee saying that I shouldn't use the online form over the weekend because it wouldn't necessarily be answered. (I have subsequently been told that requests submitted online during the weekend are being read over the weekend, but I have not confirmed that in practice.)


Broken Web Forms. One or more of these web forms has been broken for well over one year, at least in my browsers (Firefox, Konqueror, Opera). The form fails to identify any street address that I enter in order to submit a building complaint (e.g., work after hours). The building, health, housing, code enforcement, environmental services, and weights and measures departments probably think that nobody is submitting complaints online; in fact, since the web forms fail for at least some people (like me), people are stuck sending their complaints back to the Mayor's 24-hour line.


City Department Tracking of Response Times to Constituent Complaints. To his credit, Mayor Menino is using measured metrics to track the response of his various departments to constituent complaints. For example, in 2006 88% of potholes were filled within 24 hours. Obviously, some amount of information is getting stored and analyzed in the current system -- which seems to obviate the need for the Boston Globe to do their own investigation of the city's response to 50 randomly selected complaints, since the city's statistics cover a much larger statistical sample.


Why Turn the "Mayor's 24-Hour Constituent Service Hotline" Into the "City of Boston Constituent Service Hotline"? Come on, Globe, recognize the obvious reason why the Mayor doesn't want to get rid of the "Mayor's 24-Hour Constituent Service Hotline" by creating a "311 Constituent Service Hotline." Do you detect a word that would disappear from the name? Much of an elected municipal official's work is in constituent services, so they understandably want to claim the credit for their (staff's) work. Why not call it the "Mayor's 311 Constituent Service -- That You Can Also Access By Calling 617-635-4500?" I think that name is catchy.

Wait... Councilor Sam Yoon already thought of that idea, and told it to the Boston Globe two years ago:

Some inside City Hall believe Menino may be reluctant to give up a number that's become part of his own urban brand. ''I recognize the mayor, for good reason, could be worried that he'll lose the connection he has with people through the mayor's hot line," says Yoon.

Yoon's solution: ''Let's call it 'the Mayor's 311.' "

Councilor Flaherty Has Been Pushing For 311 Service. In last fall's campaign for Boston City Councilor-At-Large, three of the current office holders -- Councilors John Connolly, Michael Flaherty, and Sam Yoon -- responded to a questionnaire here on the Brighton Centered Blog about revamping the constituent services system. Councilor Connolly called for a 311 service; Councilor Yoon expressed how impressed he was with Somerville's 311 service, and that Boston should improve their service; and Councilor Flaherty noted that he called for the city to implement a "CitiStat" system four years ago:

COUNCILOR MICHAEL FLAHERTY: The city has an obligation to responsibly and efficiently meet the needs of constituents. However, I am unsure that the 24-hour hotline is the appropriate tool as it lacks the ability to track constituents’ requests. That is why we need CitiStat, which is a government accountability program that I called for in 2004. CitiStat enables every request to be tracked so that the city – and its residents (by phone or internet) – can comprehend how quickly and adequately requests are addressed.

I am under the impression that Councilor Flaherty and his team consider this one of his signature issues, so the Globe story in Sunday's paper will add fuel the fire of his Mayoral ambitions by giving him a strong issue for campaigning. Mayor Menino therefore has a deadline for rolling out his version of the system before election day in November 2009 -- not in 2010, the date told to the Globe by Bill Oates, the city's chief information officer.

Councilor-At-Large Yoon Named to DNC Convention's Rules Committee Which May Impact Democratic Presidential Nomination

The Boston Bulletin and Allston-Brighton TAB carried a story in January that was probably passed over by everyone except political junkies: Boston City Councilor-At-Large Sam Yoon was appointed by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean to sit on the DNC's National Convention Rules and Bylaws Committee.

Councilor Yoon's appointment means that a local elected official may have a key role in influencing the Democratic Party's nomination for president. The Rules Committee may have to rule on two related issues: (1) whether Florida or Michigan can hold "make-up" primary or caucus contests before June 7th; and (2) whether or not those two states' delegates can be seated at the DNC's national convention this summer, should they not hold the "make-up" primaries.

Upon his appointment in January, Councilor Yoon foresaw what might happen:

Yoon said there could be a lot for the Rules Committee to look into this year.

Because they scheduled their primary early, Democratic leaders stripped Michigan of all its delegates to the national convention.

"We’ll have to consider whether to allow the delegates," Yoon said.

The Rules Committee might normally be considered an obscure and relatively unimportant body within the Democratic Party, but this year it could play a crucial role in determining whether Senator Hillary Clinton or Senator Barack Obama wins the party's nomination for president. The reason is that the DNC stripped two states, Michigan and Florida, of their delegates -- both pledged (elected) and super-delegates -- prior to the two states' primaries, because both states scheduled their primaries earlier than February 5th, which was against party rules adopted in 2007.

Governor Charlie Crist of Florida has recently proposed that the state hold a "make-up" Democratic primary election before June 7th, and that proposal appears to be headed for a public hearing this Spring in front of the DNC's Rules Committee, according to this morning's broadcast on WBUR. (I missed the interviewee's name on the broadcast, but he identified himself as a co-chair of the DNC's Rules Committee, so it may have been David Walters.)

The TAB and Bulletin stories both include the same incorrect statement: "Only 25 party leaders and elected officials from across the country are chosen to serve on the Rules Committee." (Identical wording that was probably taken from the same press release.) Actually, Dean only appoints 25 committee members; the remaining members, the vast majority of the overall composition of the committee, are selected by the presidential candidates in a proportional formula based on the results of the various states' primaries and caucuses. New England Ethnic News pretty much got it right: "An additional 161 members elected by each of the states' and territories' convention delegations will join the committee later this spring." [161 is close enough to the correct answer of 162, four of which share a single vote.]

Should the Rules Committee have to address any divisive issue between the two leading Democratic candidates, Councilor Yoon's appointment by Dean can be considered a win for Senator Obama. Yoon noted that he has campaigned for Obama.


Rules Committee vs. Credentials Committee

There is some confusion among political commentators about which DNC body will determine whether or not the delegates from Michigan or Florida are seated. Many commentators have mentioned the Credentials Committee, not the Rules Committee, as the body that will decide whether or not those two states' delegates will be seated.

According to a document on the DNC's website, the Credentials Committee has a role:

The Credentials Committee is responsible for resolving any questions regarding the seating of delegates and alternates to the Convention.

The Rules Committee, on the other hand, "is responsible for recommending the rules for the convention, rules of the Party, and other convention business," which includes "resolutions on any matter not addressed by other standing committees."

On a February 2008 broadcast of "On Point" on WBUR, Elaine Kamarck, lecturer at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, said that she was on the Rules Committee when it decided to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates. She confirmed in an email that it is the Rules Committee that will likely have to decide whether or not to seat those two states' delegates.

I interpret the DNC document and Dr. Kamarck's statement together to indicate that the Credentials Committee would rule on seating particular delegates and alternates within the rules laid out by the Rules Committee.


UPDATE: A member of Councilor Yoon's staff has contacted the DNC to inquire if the Rules Committee's work includes potentially deciding on whether or not to seat the Florida and/or Michigan delegates. The DNC responded to Yoon's office that the issue of seating delegates is for the Credentials Committee, not the Rules Committee, in contradiction with the statements [above] by both former (Kamarck) and current (Walters?) members of the Rules Committee. Obviously there appears to be some degree of confusion on the issue, so stay tuned for more.

UPDATE: A member of the Rules Committee last year is quoted anonymously at The New Republic blog both that it was the Rules Committee stripped the delegates and that Michigan is leaning heavily towards running a "make-up" caucus before June 7th.

UPDATE: DNC Chairman Howard Dean on ABC Thursday:

We would love to have them [Michigan and Florida] seated, but they would have to be seated within the rules. A year-and-a-half ago, we set a primary schedule which Florida and Michigan both voted for. What you cannot do is change the rules in the middle of a contest. I think every American understands that.

There's been a lot of talk about things they can do; we've been very clear what they can do. One, they can resubmit to the Democratic National Committee Rules Committee a set of rules to pick delegates that are within the rules that they agreed to. Or two, if they don't want to do that, they can appeal to the Credentials Committee and hope for the best in July.

Spending Like Crazy At the Last Minute on City Council Campaign

I have been carefully trying to keep track of all the money that the candidates for Boston City Councilor-At-Large have -- not just their standard checking accounts, but also the money that they transfer to savings and/or money market accounts.

By my accounting, John Connolly did not have money in savings accounts at the end of 2006, but had transferred $90,000 to savings between June and October 2007. Combined with his checking account ending balance of $25,916.52 as of 10/15/07, he had a good amount of cash on-hand for last minute spending.

Between October 16st and 31st he pulled in another $23,428.10 in contributions, such that I think he should have had nearly $140,000 on-hand at the end of October. His campaign did not itemize the transfers from savings to checking in the expenditures on their 10/31/07 filing, but they do give the total in receipts during 10/16/07-10/31/07 as a whopping $220,279.73! The $220,000 should include the $23,428.10 in contributions above, plus any additional savings account money transferred into checking; since I thought they had another $90,000 in the savings account, that leaves around $106,000 mysteriously showing up in their receipts in the 10/31/07 report.

Where did that extra $106,000-plus come from??? I'm bamboozled. I knew he had a lot of money lying around, but not that much. I hope to see some clear accounting of this money beyond the mere itemization of around $23,000, because I really cannot figure out where the extra $106,000 came from. Then again, maybe I'm just dumb. That must be it: stupid me.

On the expenditure side, Connolly spent like crazy during the second half of October, making two wire transfers totalling more than $200,000. Past campaign finance reports indicate that such expenditures are usually updated later to indicate that they are media buys -- which can include mailings, radio advertisements, and television advertisements. (Councilor-At-Large finance reports get audited at some level, which appear to result in the OCPF requesting the campaign to clarify such expenditures with an amended report.) We also know that Connolly has been sending out some mailings city-wide in the last week, which probably account for some of the total. (Councilor Michael Flaherty lists two different expenditures on mailings of $27,000 and $28,000 during the second half of October, so this gives an indication of the cost of a city-wide mailing.)

Connolly has now spent more than $330,000 on the campaign to-date this calendar year, according to my calculations. Councilor Flaherty has topped him with $350,000 this year, spending nearly $60,000 in the second half of October. During late October, Councilor Stephen Murphy spent another $52,000, Councilor Sam Yoon only spent $10,000, and Councilor Felix Arroyo spent $4,600.

My estimates have the total in expenditures currently around $957,000 by all candidates in the Councilor-At-Large race.

Is this a quiet City Council election? Not with that kind of money being spent.

When it's all over, I will assemble the reports and figure out the total expenditures. I'm predicting the 2007 City Councilor-At-Large will be by far the most expensive race on record. With predicted low voter turnout, the expenditure cost per vote cast will also undoubtedly be a record for Boston.



Campaign Finance Year-To-Date to 10/31/07
Boston City Councilor-At-Large

NAME	END DATE	BEGIN BALANCE	RAISE	OWN MONEY	SPEND	END BALANCE
Felix Arroyo	10/31/07	3720.04	29878.49	0.00	32498.19	1101.30
John Connolly	10/31/07	35926.65	309174.77	10000.00	334722.83	20378.19
William Estrada	10/31/07	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Michael Flaherty	10/31/07	447262.56	337821.15	0.00	350947.80	434135.91
Matthew Geary	10/31/07	0.00	3672.01	0.00	3147.35	524.66
Martin Hogan	10/31/07	0.00	1621.13	0.00	1601.80	19.33
Stephen Murphy	10/31/07	43710.09	100000.00	250.00	96192.66	47767.43
David Wyatt	10/31/07	0.00	363.00	0.00	341.78	21.22
Sam Yoon	10/31/07	47636.17	209257.33	0.00	138422.17	118471.33
TOTAL	10/31/07	578255.51	991787.88	10250.00	957874.58	622419.37

Councilor Murphy Strikes Back at Challenger Connolly in Councilor-At-Large Race

Councilor Stephen Murphy has managed to get a mailing out attacking challenger John Connolly for the latter's anonymous mailings late last week attacking Murphy.

It reads, "We deserve better than cowardly attacks by a desperate campaign... Call John Connolly and tell him you won't stand for this Mud-Slinging! 617-327-5646" The adjectival choice of "cowardly" represents a bit of mud slung back at Connolly.

The anonymous mailings came out Thursday, and Connolly's campaign on Saturday admitted to being behind them. That Councilor Murphy was able to produce a response mailing, get it printed and mailed, and then have it appear in mailboxes today (Monday) is amazingly fast and nimble. Based on the information on the Murphy mailing, it was produced before Connolly's campaign admitted they were behind the anonymous mailing. Murphy's mailing gets into people's mailboxes the night before election day. I never received the original Connolly mailing -- but I got Murphy's mailing -- so I think the Murphy mailing's reach will go far beyond the Boston Herald and the blogosphere to connect with the electorate city-wide.

Score: Murphy 1, Connolly 0.


On other news, I got an automated message from Tim Schofield today asking me to vote for... Councilor Sam Yoon, not law partner John Connolly, in the Councilor-At-Large race.

I have also been informed that Governor Deval Patrick not only endorsed Councilor Stephen Murphy in the Councilor-At-Large race, but also Councilors Felix Arroyo and Sam Yoon.

Mayor Menino Dangles a Toe Into A-B City Councilor Waters

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has not openly endorsed any candidate for Tuesday's election of a new Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor. Like any election campaign in the city, word constantly swirls about the neighborhoods, wondering if the Mayor is pulling strings behind the scenes for this candidate or that. Maybe some rumors are true, others not, but without a clear endorsement, the Mayor isn't making a major move to support his favorite candidate -- if he had one.

A week ago at the Brighton Main Streets annual gala, the Mayor spoke briefly about the race. He said that he wasn't making any endorsements, but then said of candidate Mark Ciommo, who was in the crowd, that he would do a great job if elected. Ciommo's opponent, Greg Glennon, wasn't there that night.

Is Ciommo the Mayor's candidate? He was asked this in the September 17, 2007 candidates forum, when two of the other candidates nominated him as the Mayor's candidate. (Both have subsequently endorsed Ciommo following the preliminary election.) Here's what Ciommo had to say:

QUESTION: Since the other candidates also closely associate you with the Mayor, is this a blessing or a curse?

CIOMMO: All I can say is that for the past 20 years in this community, I've been in an executive position for the better part of those 20 years working on the behalf of the citizens of this community -- first, as the assistant director of the Jackson-Mann Community Center, and for the past 14 years, at the Veronica Smith Senior Center. And I have to work with the Mayor. He helps provide services that I deliver to the seniors in Allston-Brighton. I have to work with the Mayor as president of Little League, to make sure our parks and playgrounds get cleaned and the fields get mowed. As a Hobart Park Neighborhood Association founding member, I had to work with the Mayor to re-design the park, organize a community build, find funding from the grounds funds to erect the ornamental fencing and the historical markers. So, I will work with the Mayor, but I've always been a strong and independent voice on behalf of the citizens of this community, and I will continue to be that as your next City Councilor.

I'm not sure that the Mayor makes sure that the grass in the parks gets mowed, but that's beside the point. Instead, Ciommo was eager to connect anything to he could between him and the Mayor -- even mowing the grass -- to make it look like he was working with the Mayor. Methinks Ciommo counts the Mayor's good words as a blessing, no matter how well the Mayor might pretend it is a non-endorsement. (wink-wink)

(In the City Councilor-At-Large race, it sounds like Councilor Stephen Murphy has received similarly nice words from the Mayor this weekend.)

Why hasn't the Mayor come out more strongly with a full-fledged endorsement of a candidate? One City Hall insider told me, "What's the upside?" After the Mayor endorsed a candidate in the East Boston special election for State Representative last month, and his candidate tanked, he must have been leery of making two bad endorsements in a row and looking like a liability. Another possibility is that the Mayor thought that Ciommo's position in the election is strong, and so he didn't need to intervene. Nonetheless, if a sitting Mayor can only think of downsides for endorsing a candidate, then how strong a position must the Mayor think he's in?

New vs. Old Boston in the Councilor-At-Large Race

Some pundits are predicting a low turnout in Tuesday's municipal election, which would favor "old Boston over the new, white over minority, and seniors over younger voters."

People generally put Councilors Felix Arroyo and Sam Yoon in the "new Boston" typecast, and there is little question that they are also minorities. Councilor Stephen Murphy, on the other hand, is clearly white and most would associate him with old Boston (cf. David Bernstein's case made in the Boston Phoenix). Councilor Michael Flaherty makes a more difficult case: many perceive him as blocking Team Unity's proposals in his former role as Council President, while the Phoenix claims that, since losing the Council President post, he has "become a more vigorous, daring, and thoughtful Councilor."

Putting aside the incumbents, let's ask the questions: Where lies challenger John Connolly? He is clearly white and young, but does he represent old Boston or new?

The mainstream media thinks Connolly represents new Boston. The Boston Herald thinks he would bring a "fresh approach," the Boston Globe quotes Connolly as promising to be "a voice for people who want to build a life in this city," and the Boston Phoenix says Connolly pitched himself as a progressive in 2005 -- he may be trying to be even more progressive this time around -- and has "thought deeply about a host of urban issues."

Is their combined assessment on target?

In what has probably been the most clever part of the 2007 municipal election campaign, Connolly has convinced the powers-that-be that he represents new Boston, when in reality he doesn't.

Old Boston Political Lineage. The obvious argument for Connolly as old Boston insider focuses on lineage: his father was the Secretary of the Commwealth, his mother is currently a Superior Court judge, and his uncle used to be Boston City Councilor. The Irishman doesn't seem to have the background of an urban progressive.

His connection to the Boston politics of old became all too clear in the last week as his campaign sent out two anonymous mailings attacking Councilor Stephen Murphy, and may have sent out another two "anonymous" mailings (supposedly from the "Parkway Coalition" and the "South Boston Association," both of which don't exist, according to the Herald's Howie Carr). Vicious, anonymous attack mailings are lore of old-time politics, not YouTube or internet-savvy young 'uns. Embarrassing thing (for me) is that Howie Carr seems to agree with this assessment: "Just when you think the old Boston is dead and buried, things like these farcical flyers pop up."

Casino Gambling. Connolly has come out solidly in favor of casino gambling in the state -- and in Boston itself -- although he notes that he wants East Boston residents to have some kind of say in the matter. Putting Governor Deval Patrick aside, gambling as revenue generation is usually more a conservative position than a progressive one: conservatives who don't want to raise taxes instead support raising "voluntary" taxes through gambling, while progressives express strong opposition to the terrible human cost gambling inflicts on the under-priviliged classes. It's no coincidence that Councilor Arroyo strongly opposes casino gambling and Councilor Yoon expresses strong reservations about it based on the human costs. Connolly mostly sits on the other side of the aisle from new Boston Councilors Arroyo and Yoon.

City Planning. The formation of the Boston Redevelopment Authority in the 1950s gave every Mayor since then a cover to undertake large-scale urban renewal (like razing the West End), thereby keeping his hands clean. What has made the situation far messier now than then is the breadth of land ownership by tax-exempt institutions, and their massive proposals to develop on those lands. The BRA regulates their development proposals while simultaneously promoting economic development in the city and undertaking city planning. Those three functions of regulation, promotion, and planning often conflict on a fundamental and unresolvable level.

Recent years has seen a surge in the interest in splitting off at least the planning arm of the BRA into a separate city planning department; Councilor Arroyo proposed the current ordinance. These are the realities of the new Boston: dealing with the complicated and messy problem of planning a city's redevelopment while simultaneously regulating the developers. Connolly favors the status quo to keep the half century-old BRA as has been since old Boston times.

Public Schools. More than anything else, Connolly's stance on schools betrays his old Boston roots. He's 34-years-old, so when he grew up Boston was already under court-ordered desegration and mandatory busing. He told me he did not attend the Boston Public Schools himself, and he also strongly favors returning to neighborhood schools. In fact, he sat down with me in August and lectured for probably a solid 10-15 minutes on why neighborhood schools were the key towards improving the public schools.

The problem with wanting a return to neighborhood schools is that the city may revert to pre-1970s battle lines with schools segregated based on neighborhood demographics, and uneven school quality from neighborhood-to-neighborhood. It's not a surprise that new Boston Councilor Arroyo opposes continued movement towards neighborhood schools. Councilor Yoon summed up a progressive take on the issue by ensuring equality of schools for all: fix the schools first so that every neighborhood has a good school, and only then can overhauling the school assignment system occur. Connolly instead thinks doing the latter will accomplish the former, which sure sounds like an old Boston approach to me.


In the end, voters on Tuesday may well choose Connolly's ideas over one of the incumbent Councilors-At-Large. Good arguments can be made on both sides of each of these issues in the election. But somehow Connolly has convinced the mainstream media that these ideas are new and even urban progressive, when they sure seem like they are old -- and sometimes even conservative.

Will Team Unity Fall to Team Low Turnout?

The last week or so has seen the politics punditry a-flutter with speculation that there will be low turnout in Tuesday's municipal election that might result in the defeat of Councilors-At-Large Felix Arroyo and Sam Yoon. Wrote blogger Marry in Massachusetts, "Will Team Unity survive a low-interest contest?"

The argument goes like this. Tuesday's election will have low turnout because: (1) it is an off-year municipal election because the Mayor is not up for re-election until 2009; and (2) the mainstream media has not covered the race, totally ignoring the preliminary municipal election, for example, until only after it had taken place. Low voter turnout emphasizes "reliable" voters -- elderly, wealthy, and white -- while de-emphasizing the opposite. On BNN's Talk of the Neighborhood show last Tuesday, David Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix told host Joe Heisler that a low turnout vote emphasizes old Boston over the new, white over minority, and seniors over younger voters.

Minority candidates like Team Unity's Councilors Arroyo and Yoon will get hit hard by the low turnout, while majority candidates -- like Team Irish's challenger John Connolly and Councilors Michael Flaherty and Stephen Murphy -- will fare well. Wrote the Boston--Bay State Banner:

For Arroyo and Yoon, success depends largely on who will turn out. In the last off-year election in 2003, Arroyo garnered 75 percent of the vote in predominantly African American Ward 12. Flaherty got 25 percent of the vote.

In South Boston’s Ward 6, Flaherty garnered 86 percent of the vote to Arroyo’s 25 percent.

While people of color make up more than half the city’s population, the whites in Flaherty’s voting base turn out in greater numbers.

But that article then contradicted the story line by noting that Connolly and Councilor Murphy are both courting people of color in this election; if they, too, are reaching out to minority voters in order to get elected, then why would low turnout work in their favor? More likely is that Connolly and Councilor Murphy have far less support in minority neighborhoods than their supporters would like you to believe, reinforcing the point that they would benefit from low turnout. Retired school teacher Bob Marshall was quoted by them as saying, "I’m not voting for anybody else," he said. "These Councilors [Arroyo and Yoon] have been on the front lines when it comes to dealing with communities of color."

Bernstein argued on BNN that city politics are steadily moving towards to the point where no one can run city-wide unless they appeal to minorities and urban progressives. He predicted a voting bloc on the City Council to develope in the next 4-6 years, representing the new Boston -- whether explicitly minority, like Team Unity, or not.

Allston-Brighton may buck some of these voter turnout trends, since we have a lively race for the open District 9 seat being vacated by Councilor Jerry McDermott. Turnout of 4500 voters at last month's preliminary municipal election may have been a little lower than expected, but may very well set the stage for proportionately higher voting in A-B in the municipal election November 6th as compared with the rest of the city. (A-B historically turns out the vote at lower percentages of registered voters than most of the rest of the city, so I am referring to A-B potentially delivering a larger percentage of the overall number of voters than in past elections.) That all of the active candidates for Councilor-At-Large showed up last month for our Brighton candidates forum speaks not only to their renewed interest in the issues of our neighborhood, but likely also to a political calculation that A-B turnout this year could be more important than usual to the Councilor-At-Large election.

Boston Globe Covers City Council Race (on Page B4)

The Boston Globe has exploded onto the scene with 3/4 of a page of coverage of the issues in the Boston City Councilor-At-Large race! Toss aside the front section! Pick up the City/Region section -- and flip through to page B4! Marvelous... I'm delighted that the Globe's newsdesk has chosen to cover some of the issues in the race.

The article actually notes which District City Councilors face competition for re-election, although it fails to name any challengers. Shame on you, Globe!

The article manages to name both finalists for the Allston-Brighton Distict 9 seat, Mark Ciommo and Greg Glennon, although the Globe newsdesk continues in their dogged insistence of not once giving either candidates' position on any issues. The Globe once previously mentioned District 9 race on September 26th, the day after the preliminary municipal election.

The Globe also previously devoted one article to the Councilor-At-Large race in their Sunday City Weekly section, although that article consisted mostly of a discussion of bullet-voting -- not the issues -- and included a print-only set of contact information for the candidates.

Their latest article continues that tradition of print-only content: the wonderful table containing the responses of all nine candidates for Councilor-At-Large to three different questions, is not included in the online version of the article. Sigh. They were so close -- and yet so far -- from delivering information to the online masses!

Since the Globe can't figure out how to deliver this (sidebar) content on their website, I've scanned and provided the thing below.

Boston Phoenix Endorses Ciommo and Re-Election of All Councilors-At-Large

The Boston Phoenix has endorsed Mark Ciommo for Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor, and the re-election of all four Boston City Councilors-At-Large -- Felix Arroyo, Michael Flaherty, Stephen Murphy, and Sam Yoon.

Actually, they tried to endorse a fifth candidate for Councilor-At-Large, John Connolly, by writing, "If Phoenix readers looking for guidance in next week’s election disagree with one of our endorsements, we hope they will vote for Connolly." Maybe they couldn't quite make up their mind.

In endorsing Ciommo, they write:

In the hard-fought district race in Allston-Brighton, the Phoenix urges the election of Mark Ciommo, a life-long resident of that neighborhood and the executive director of the Veronica Smith Senior Center. In the years to come, Allston-Brighton will have to cope with the continued growth of Boston College and the unprecedented expansion of Harvard University. During the campaign, Ciommo has made his mark as the candidate best able to fight for the interests of his neighbors while simultaneously engaging the educational powerhouses as potential allies.

In the Councilor-At-Large race, the Phoenix has been the only city newspaper to provide regular, in-depth coverage. The Phoenix's local politics endorsements ought to carry weight from the politically-astute crowd, because their news and op/ed pages have provided information and analysis on which to base editorial board endorsements.

Their endorsements for Councilors Flaherty and Murphy seem to be based on their records and perception that both are continually improving during their time in office. For Councilors Arroyo and Yoon, the Phoenix editorial board appears to be encouraging both to better reach to their potentials as voices for minorities and those who are less fortunate economically. The near-endorsement of Connolly says that he too would be a "welcome addition" to the council.


So there you have it. Between the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, and Boston Phoenix you have endorsements for both candidates (Ciommo and Glennon) in Allston-Brighton, and all five front-runners (all four incumbents plus Connolly) for Councilor-At-Large. Well, actually the Globe said to "throw the bums out" in the Councilor-At-Large race, and the Phoenix says to "keep the bums in, but maybe substitute a new guy if you want to throw one bum out." The Allston-Brighton TAB will be coming out with their recommendations in the next day or so, and I expect they will stay within these seven names.

So go ahead and try to figure out who to vote for based on media endorsements. You won't see any endorsements here, though.


On a related note, within 24 hours of the Herald endorsement of Glennon I saw stickers plastered to Glennon lawn signs reading, "Endorsed by the Herald," as well as a one-page photocopied flyer left about. No such response from Ciommo, at least that I've seen, about his endorsement from the Globe. Schofield had same-day flyers out in A-B after he was endorsed by the Globe in September.

Ward 21 Democratic Committee Endorses Ciommo, Arroyo, Connolly, and Yoon for City Council

The Ward 21 Democratic Committee met two weeks ago to consider endorsements in the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor and Boston City Councilor-At-Large races.


Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor

In A-B, they had endorsed Tim Schofield in September, but he took third place in the September 25th election thereby failing to make the final election. This time around, the Ward 21 committee endorsed Mark Ciommo. Their selection is not surprising, since Greg Glennon was yet another no-show -- this time not even responding to the committee's invitations to meet with them. You would think Glennon would learn how to send a nice letter, email, or phone call saying, "I'm sorry, but I will unfortunately have to decline your invitation to meet with you." That kind of politeness is standard teaching in charm school, be it in Massachusetts or Pennsylvania.

Attendance wasn't the only thing leading to their endorsement; the issues also mattered. Nan Evans, acting chair of the Ward 21 committee, said that Ciommo "has a record of accomplishments in the A-B community, and his basic political orientation is compatible with that of the [Ward 21 committee] members." As for Glennon's stance on the issues, she was more harsh, saying that Glennon "appears to prefer the goals of Bush Republicans to those of most Democrats."


Boston City Councilor-At-Large

Residents will have the opportunity on November 6th to vote for up to four candidates for Boston City Councilor-At-Large. There are nine candidates on the ballot.

The Ward 21 committee chose to endorse three candidates for the seats: Councilor Felix Arroyo, John Connolly, and Councilor Sam Yoon.

There were not quite enough votes to make a fourth endorsement; the leading contenders for that slot, Councilors Stephen Murphy and Michael Flaherty, appear to have lingering issues with some members of the committee, although the exact nature of that history is not clear.

When looking at those three endorsements, one thing struck me as odd: Councilor Arroyo (more so than Councilor Yoon) has many positions on the issues that are at odds with John Connolly.

In particular, Connolly is a vocal cheerleader for returning to neighborhood schools, while Councilor Arroyo opposes it in favor of the current system (with minimum 50% walk-zone). Connolly favors casino gambling -- including within Boston's city limits, albeit only after the input from East Boston residents -- while Councilor Arroyo opposes casinos, full stop. Councilor Arroyo proposed to split of the planning responsibilities from the BRA and instead create a city planning department, but Connolly opposes this plan.

If I kept researching the candidates and the issues, I am willing to bet I would continue to find many more issues on which they disagree. Councilor Arroyo is Boston's leading populist in politics, and is a rallying point for the city's minority and immigrant communities. Connolly, on the other hand, represents an older Boston full of Irish Catholics and political dynasties -- his father was, after all, the long-time Secretary of the Commonwealth. Connolly and Councilor Arroyo's stances on neighborhood schools is a classic confrontation between old and new Boston, representing the schism that engulfed the city in the 1970s over desegration and busing. It is an argument over issues like the "white flight" to the suburbs and making the schools serve every child -- no matter their race or economic background.

Why would the committee simultaneously endorse two candidates with such substantive differences?

Acting Committee Chair Nan Evans's Answer: "The decisions were not based on single issues, but on records as a whole (with the known candidates [e.g., Councilor Arroyo]) and the perception of potential (with those who have not yet held office [e.g., Connolly])."

My Answer: Connolly is a law partner of Schofield; the latter temporarily stepped down as chair of the Ward 21 committee while running for City Council. It is simply a lot easier to endorse Connolly when he is the friend and colleague of a guy you trust. But they could also have been making a more politically-adept move, as suggested by one committee member: if elected, Connolly might be more accessible to members of the Ward 21 committee due to their connection to him through Schofield.

Access buys a lot. The Ward 21 Democratic Committee got none with Glennon and therefore endorsed his opponent; the same committee appears to have picked character and access, rather than the issues, when they chose to endorse Connolly.

TAB Profiles of the Candidates for Boston City Councilor-At-Large

The TAB newspapers has been running a series of articles to "get to know the candidates" for Boston City Councilor-At-Large.  They have trickled out since July, so I am linking to the articles they have published to-date -- and will update this page as more articles are published.  The individual articles appear to have sidebar links to each other from within the TAB webpage.

Here are links to their individual stories:

1. Councilor Felix Arroyo
   
2. John Connolly
3. William Estrada
4. Councilor Michael Flaherty
5. Matthew Geary
6. Martin Hogan
7. Councilor Stephen Murphy
8. David Wyatt
9. Councilor Sam Yoon

The Allston-Brighton TAB also wrote a story about the forum for the candidates for Councilor-At-Large that was held in Brighton on October 10th, 2007.

The A-B TAB editorial page ran a short blurb in the same issue that was not an endorsement...  but threatened non-endorsement of one or more candidates "who are so uninformed that they are not even worth considering."  Ouch.  I think I can guess who they're referring to... can you?

Finally, the TAB had all four active challengers into their offices for interviews on the issues.  Kind of odd that none of the four incumbents bothered to show up.

Councilor Sam Yoon Responds to the Brighton Centered Questionnaire

Councilor Sam Yoon responded to the Brighton Centered questionnaire for the candidates for Boston City Councilor-At-Large.

1. QUESTION: If you could reverse one decision made by the City Council in the last five years, what would it be and why?
   
   RESPONSE: Although I was not on the Council at the time of this vote, I am certainly aware of the impacts of the decision by the City Council to approve extensions for the Urban Renewal plans and thus giving up oversight from the City Council. This vote decreased the accountability that the Boston Redevelopment Authority had to the City Council around development decisions in much of the city. This is certainly the City Council decision I would most like to reverse in the last 5 years.
   
   
2. QUESTION: What specific changes do you think should be made to Article 80 of the zoning code?
   
   RESPONSE: The Article 80 process, while well intentioned, is limited as the process which gives the community a voice in development. I would like to see the current Article 80 process improved. Right now residents can comment on a project but that is as far as it goes, there is nothing that requires the developer to listen to the community. Additionally, there is very little accountability for ensuring that developers keep promises made to the community during this process. A perfect example of this is Harvard’s Science Complex. While this project went through a complete Article 80 process it was clear to me that the concerns of the community were not addressed.
   
   There need to be incentives to encourage or require developers and the BRA to take a more serious look at the concerns of the community. As someone who worked in community development in Chinatown I understand the importance of building trust between the developers and the community so that the development reflects a shared vision for the neighborhood. This is something that has yet to happen in Allston/Brighton, and without a way to hold a developer accountable to the community, it will be a very difficult task.
   
   
3. QUESTION: Vancouver, British Columbia, requires 25% of their new housing stock built downtown to be “family-friendly.” What is your vision of the specific design elements that would make housing “family-friendly,” and should Boston adopt a similar requirement?
   
   RESPONSE: I am very impressed with the initiative that the city of Vancouver is taking around family-friendly housing. Developing workforce housing for families is a challenge for every major city. As chair of the Housing Committee for the City Council, I know it is a challenge to get developers to build family housing as the space that would be used for a 3rd or 4th bedroom could be used to build another unit – therefore more profitable for the builder. I have two young children myself so I understand the needs of a growing family. My vision of family friendly housing revolves around three key pillars: space, public amenities and affordability.
   
   You cannot raise a family in a one-bedroom condominium or a studio apartment and I constantly hear from families in Boston struggling to find appropriate housing. The City must find ways to encourage developers to build units with multiple bedrooms and more square-footage. Developers need to contribute more to enhancing public spaces. One reason families are moving downtown in Vancouver is the close proximity of everything to where they live. Everything from parks to grocery stores to daycare centers and schools is within walking distance of the family’s home. Finally we need to look at the affordability of living downtown. Again, as a father of two young children I realize the expenses that come with having a young family. Right now housing is too expensive for people all over Boston, not just families. One of the issues I ran on in 2005 and I have worked on during my two years in office is increasing the affordability of housing for all residents of Boston regardless of the neighborhood.
   
   As it pertains to Boston I would support such a measure. I would like to see more of the students who attend college in Boston stay and raise a family here. This could mean promoting family friendly housing downtown. I would be supportive of learning more about Vancouver’s initiative and how it would work in Boston.
   
   
4. QUESTION: Some people have proposed that the BPS return to “neighborhood” or “community” schools. Do you support such a proposal? How would such a move impact the achievement gap?  
   
   RESPONSE: I support the movement toward community and neighborhood schools so long as a every school aged child in every neighborhood has access to a quality school. In schools all across the city, I am seeing families, parents and the community invest energy, volunteer time and interest in their neighborhood school. Education quality and school pride are vastly increased by this investment. I am working to find ways to support parents who want to become active in their child’s school, by increasing the number of Family Community Outreach Coordinators (FCOC’s) and pushing for paid leave time for working parents to visit at their child’s school. Unfortunately, not all schools are functioning at the level or achieving the results we seek for our children and so we have work to do before implementing an overhaul of our school assignment plan based on strictly walk-to schools.
   
   
5. QUESTION: Should Boston College be required to house all of their undergraduate students in on-campus dormitories? If so, where should the dormitories be located? On their 'Brighton Campus' (land recently purchased from the Archdiocese of Boston), on their 'Main Campus,' or both?  
   
   RESPONSE: As for the students who live off-campus, and you will always have some, I believe we should work on developing relationships between the community and Boston College. While Boston College students may be students of the university, they are also residents of the neighborhood and need to behave as such. Mission Hill, which is home to Northeastern University has worked for years to cultivate this relationship. While it is not perfect, Northeastern University’s town-grown relationship is years ahead of Boston College. There needs to be clearly defined expectations of students that are drawn up between the college and the community (including D-14) and clear consequences for those students who do not meet the expectations.
   
   
6. QUESTION: Have you ever used the Mayor's 24-Hour Constituent Service hotline, either the phone number or the online version? Is it an effective tool for delivering constituent services? What, if anything, would you change about it?  
   
   RESPONSE: I use the Mayor’s 24-Hour hotline frequently, and like the Article 80 process mentioned above, it is a good idea that needs improvement. Last year I had the opportunity to tour the 311 call center in Somerville and I was amazed. Unlike Boston’s hotline, in Somerville there is a state-of-the-art, centralized accountability system. Callers can track their requests from the time they are made to the time of completion using modern customer service technology developed from the private sector. All of this information is open and available to anybody with the internet. I believe that residents should have direct access to their city government, especially when it comes to concrete quality of life issues. The mayor’s hotline is not utilized nearly as much as it could, but wholesale improvements would have to be made before its potential is fully realized.