A Crackpot Email Archive Design for 21st Century City Halls

How should a city archive its employees' emails in a 21st century information technology environment?

As an astrophysicist, I deal with large datasets which can be updated daily with 10s or 100s of GB every day; the next generation of projects will create TBs of data daily. We need archives in astronomy, and are constantly searching ("querying") them in order to select out data of interest. Some datasets go public immediately; others are always private; while others have a proprietary period (such as the standard NASA 1-year) after which the data become public to anyone. And we store lots of additional parameters in the archives, not just the data themselves, which allow for robust searches for unusual astrophysical objects, date ranges, keywords, etc.

Archiving at city hall shouldn't be much different -- it's just a lower bandwidth problem.


Delete-Delete-Gate

Michael Kineavy, the chief of policy and planning in the administration of Mayor Thomas Menino, daily deleted all of the emails in his inbox and then deleted them again from his trash folder before the automated computer backups would run at midnight every day. The problem with his deletions is that the emails are public records which are illegal to destroy under the state's Public Records Law; Kineavy has taken an indefinite, unpaid leave of absence until the matter is resolved by Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin and Attorney General Martha Coakley.

On his Media Nation blog, Dan Kennedy pointed to some archival ideas in an article in the lifestyle and tech magazine Blast. The city has already announced that they are no longer solely relying on nightly backups of individual employee desktop computers in order to save copies of all the email; instead, they have started an archival system where email that is sent or received on the city's servers is instantly saved in a centralized database:

The city implemented a comprehensive program that immediately creates a record of all user messages sent and received no matter what each individual does with them. All journaled messages are kept in the archive for three years.

While I don't know the details of the city's newly deployed archival system, it sounds relatively similar to the Blast article's suggestion.

Lost in this technological solution, however, is how the storage and retrieval system can be designed in a manner that serves the public interest while reducing governmental waste.

The design of the archive is dictated by the "requirements document," i.e., the text of the state's Public Records Law. The whole current system is arcane, to put it mildly. In this 21st century, we could easily require through state law that electronic public records are archived and served to the public in a seamless, cost-effective, and transparent manner.


An Archive Design to Serve Public Documents in Real Time

A few points about the state's Public Records Law, and how it might be addressed in designing a transparent electronic archive:

• Some public records can be withheld from release according to 16 exemptions listed in the PRL. These exemptions range from personnel matters to personal information (home address of a public employee) to pending litigation. Any archival system should include a classification tag as to whether the document is fully public, or if it is exempt (along with the particular classification).
  
• Documents (letters, emails, etc.) become public records the moment they are created or received. The logical time to classify those documents as either public records is when they are first read by a person. The email application (MS Outlook, Thunderbird, Evolution, etc.) could be configured so that a user must always classify the email as public or exempt before allowing him to move to the next email in the inbox; that classification then gets stored in the archive.
  
• Once a document has been made public it is always public. If someone accidentally released a document, then the person must continue to release it. (No Uruguay Round of copyright law where works in the public domain can be reverted back into copyright.) Once a document is released, it can be tagged in the archive as such, freeing it from ever needing another review.
• State law does not require electronic documents to be provided in electronic form. The city has delivered Kineavy's 5,018 emails in paper form, then scanned the paper versions, and finally put the PDF scans on the internet. This is time-consuming, wasteful of paper, and annoying since the PDF documents are no longer electronically searchable -- a 20th century way that government offers the public its middle finger.
  
• The cost of searching and reviewing documents in response to a public records request can be charged to the requester. This is the most frustrating part of the PRL, since some records requests generate estimated costs of thousands -- or hundreds of thousands -- of dollars mostly in the charge to review all those documents one-by-one. If the search could be done using automated tools available to anyone -- inside or outside government -- then many man-hours could be saved; the member of the public now wastes his or her own time using the search tool, while the government employees are left to go get a cup of coffee instead. Or do their other job duties. The search tools are easily designed so that they only release documents that are public, and can generate summary lists of emails that are being withheld because they are exempt.
  

What does this mean in practice?

A government employee: receives an email; clicks on it to read it; when he clicks on the next email a dialog window asks him to classify the previous one first as either public or exempt; and so on. (The same goes for outgoing email: the employee has to classify it before the mail system will send it out to its recipients.) When the email was received by the city hall server it is immediately archived; when the employee classifies it, the classification is immediately entered into the city hall archive. If the email is a public document, then it is served up on the internet immediately.

A member of the public: wants to obtain some public documents; goes to the city's website; runs a search using a set of criteria (date range; email to/from/cc name[s]; keyword search; etc.); inspects the two sets of documents returned by the search engine (the public records resulting from the query and a summary table of the exempt documents); and downloads the documents he wants or starts a new query. No government employee has to waste a single moment of time responding to the public records request. Now that is efficiency in government!

What are the obvious holes in such a 21st century system? It has to be designed with the idiot government employee in mind. I don't mean to imply that all or most government employees are idiots, but that any system has to be designed in a way that the least clever employee can't release everyone's health records onto the internet. I can also imagine that some employees might think twice about sending so many three word emails when they have to classify each one before it is sent.

All the employees will complain at first about how much time it takes for them to read their email and classify each one when they're done -- although it will become quick and easy-to-do in no time. Nearly all the emails are public, not exempt, so it's usually pretty routine. (97.5% of Kineavy's emails that were found were released, with only 2.5% being withheld due to one or more exemptions listed in the PRL.)

And employees who like to make rude comments about members of the public will think twice before doing so in an email. Actually, that's a good thing.


Reality?

I am under no illusion that any politician would be so crazy as to vote yes for a law that would require government electronic records to be served up in real time on government web servers. Remember: the state legislature has already exempted themselves from the state's Public Records Law. But it is a neat thing to think about.

In this Year of Astronomy celebrating the 400th anniversary of Galileo pointing his telescope at the heavens -- and President Barack Obama gazing at Jupiter from the White House lawn -- city hall might strive to reach the heavens by creating a transparent government whose electronic public records are served seamlessly to the citizenry.


Image of a desk inside the National Archives in the 1950s by C. Getts provided by The U.S. National Archives, and image of the National Archives by marttj, both provided through a Creative Commons license.

BAIA's Boston City Councilor-At-Large Candidates Forum Thursday, October 15th

Boston City Councilor-At-Large Candidates Forum

Sponsored by the Brighton Allston Improvement Association


Thursday, October 15th
6:30 pm --- Informal Meet-and-Greet with the Candidates
7:00 - 8:30 pm --- Candidates Forum
Moderated by: Michael Pahre


Brighton Elks Lodge
326 Washington Street, Brighton, MA 02135
Limited parking available at rear of the building


Light refreshments will be served for a meet-and-greet with the candidates beginning at 6:30 pm. Attendees may submit questions for the candidates prior to the 7:00 pm start. Due to time constraints not all questions submitted will be selected. No campaign signs inside the venue, please.

If you wish to submit a question in advance of the forum, please email pahre@comcast.net by Monday, October 12th.

September's preliminary municipal election narrowed the field to eight candidates for four elected positions of Boston City Councilor-At-Large. The final municipal election will be held on Tuesday, November 3rd.

This election will help shape the future of our neighborhood and this is your opportunity to meet the candidates running for the four seats. Please come and hear where the candidates stand on current neighborhood and city-wide issues, as well as their vision for our community and city.


Candidates for Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor (links to their webpages):

• Felix G. Arroyo
• Doug Bennett
  
• John R. Connolly (incumbent)
• Tomas Gonzalez
  
• Tito Jackson
• Andrew P. Kenneally
  
• Stephen J. Murphy (incumbent)
• Ayanna S. Pressley
  

Note: The BAIA's District 9 City Councilor Debate is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, October 20th at 6:30 pm at the same venue. Coverage of the 9/17 District 9 City Councilor Forum can be found here and here.


Update (10/14/09): BNN has decided to video-record the candidates forum. They will broadcast it at a later date, and will also stream it from their website.


Image from a prior candidates forum cribbed from Adam Gaffin without getting any permission from him whatsoever.

Armed Robbery at Cleveland Circle Store 24

Boston Police are seeking public assistance in identifying armed robbery suspects who held up the Store 24 on Beacon Street at Cleveland Circle early Tuesday morning:

The store employee described one of the suspects as a Hispanic male, about 5’8”, weighing 170lbs, wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, a black t-shirt and a dew rag; the other as a black male, about 5’10”, weighing 250lbs, wearing a black hat and a black jacket.

Surveillance photos of the two suspects can be found here.

French Four-Hand Piano Music at Brighton Allston Congregational Church

In the last couple of years, nearly nightly blues and jazz at Smoken' Joe's BBQ restaurant has been a welcome addition to Brighton Center's otherwise mostly quiet music scene -- which was pretty much just the bands and Irish play-alongs (Seissun) at the Green Briar Pub. But fans of more traditional classical music, or world music, were mostly out of luck.

Last year the Brighton Allston Congregational Church began an eclectic monthly series of music concerts, selected in order to highlight the diversity of its congregants and the community. Their concerts serve as a Brighton mirror to the irregular series of events held in North Allston at the Honan Allston Public Library's auditorium.

The BACC is known around Brighton Center for their Wednesday and Saturday thrift shop, Wednesday night community supper, Saturday food pantry, and church bell that tolls hourly -- but often gets out-of-whack, such as how it presently is tolling at eight minutes past every hour.

I've intended for quite some time to drop by the new BACC concert series, but my schedule just never seemed to match theirs -- until last Sunday afternoon, when I was treated to some four-hand French piano music played by Bert Yocom and Linda Papatopoli, faculty members at the Boston Conservatory and Boston College, respectively.

The first half of the program with Maurice Ravel's magical transcription of Claude Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (originally for orchestra) and Francois Poulenc's Sonata. That the duo have been playing together for nearly a decade showed in their well-choreographed hand-crossing in the the Prelude and first movement of the Sonata.

The second half of the program brought an obscure suite by Erik Satie having far more than three pieces -- but peculiarly named "Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear" -- and the far-better known Dolly Suite of Gabriel Faure. The playful Satie evoked a number of giggles from the audience, while the more lush romantic feel of the Faure flowed naturally and freely throughout.

While the program skipped over Darius Milhaud (he only wrote one work for four-hands), his student Pierre Max Dubois was represented in the encore with three pieces (Pleasantry, Mazurka, and Waltz) that evoked Jacques Ibert's light music.

Next month's event won't be music per se, but will feature poetry read by Boston Poet Laureate Sam Cornish, a resident of Brighton. I haven't yet figured out the date of the event, since the organizers seem to be experimenting with the optimal day and time of the week in order to draw the best crowds.

The BACC is not charging admission to their concert series, but has a suggested donation based on what concert-goers can attend. The money raised is going towards renovations of their basement which holds a community supper every Wednesday night at 6 pm. More happenings are listed at their blog.


Image of Piano by Isa provided through a Creative Commons license.

Allston-Brighton Flu Clinics

The Boston Health Commission has listed dates and locations for flu clinics, so that members of the public can get immunizations for influenza (the flu).

While the calendar does not specify whether the immunizations are for seasonal influenza (ordinary flu) or novel H1N1 influenza of swine-origin (swine flu), my impression from the dates of the clinics is that they will offer both.

Those flu clinics listed for Allston-Brighton are all run by the Joseph M. Smith Community Health Center (617-783-0500), but are being run off-site at the Gardner Pilot Academy or Jackson-Mann Community Center:

• Wednesday, October 14th, 3-6 pm. Run by: Joseph Smith Community Health Center. Location: Gardner Pilot Academy, 30 Athol Street, Allston.
• Thursday, October 15th, 3-6 pm. Run by: Joseph Smith Community Health Center. Location: Jackson-Mann Community Center, 500 Cambridge Street, Allston.
• Thursday, October 22nd, 3-6 pm. Run by: Joseph Smith Community Health Center. Location: Gardner Pilot Academy, 30 Athol Street, Allston.
• Thursday, October 29th, 3-6 pm. Run by: Joseph Smith Community Health Center. Location: Jackson-Mann Community Center, 500 Cambridge Street, Allston.

Boston Public Health Commission website on seasonal influenza and novel H1N1 influenza of swine-origin.


UPDATE (10/21/09): Delivery of H1N1 vaccination doses has been delayed, so public flu clinics will likely be delayed until later in November. Contact the clinics themselves for more information and updated dates.

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?

Winship Elementary Accredited in Early Childhood Education

Two schools in the Boston Public Schools system have recently been accredited in early childhood education by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, including the Winship Elementary School in Brighton.

Winship joins the Baldwin Early Learning Center -- which gained accreditation in 2007 -- as the second public school in Allston-Brighton to receive this distinction. The North Zone, which contains Allston-Brighton, also boasts a third school with the accreditation -- the East Boston Early Education Center.

Said BPS Superintendent Dr. Carol Johnson:

“NAEYC is the gold standard by which all early childhood education programs are judged, and we are pleased to see so many BPS schools undertaking this rigorous process to strengthen and improve teaching and learning for our youngest students."

Mayor Thomas Menino has set a goal to provide universal pre-kindergarten in the Boston Public Schools. The accreditation process evaluates the curriculum, assessment, and environment of the school against national standards.

Via All About BPS.

Predictions vs. Reality for District 9 Race

Before the polls closed, I made a series of predictions about the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor race.

How did I do?

Order of finishers. Prediction: Mark Ciommo -- Alex Selvig -- Abigail Furey -- Benjamin Narodick. Reality: same.

Overall percentage of vote. Prediction: 60%-20%-18%-2%. Reality: 60%-23%-13%-3%. I predicted a closer race for second place between Selvig and Furey, but otherwise my numbers were amazingly close. Almost too close. Dumb luck?

Many of the next predictions had more to do with the race between Selvig and Furey for second place.

Boston College Neighbors Vote. Prediction: Furey would edge Selvig in Selvig's home precinct (ward 22, precinct 8). Reality: Wrong. Selvig took 22/8 strongly this time around with 114 votes, Ciommo second with 95, and Furey a distant third with 58. Brighton Neighbors United leaned Selvig.

Elderly and Jewish Vote Leftovers. Prediction: Furey would pick up votes over Selvig in 22/9 (which includes orthodox Jewish community and more BNU) and add more scraps left over by Ciommo from the Russian Jewish elderly vote in 21/13 (Wallingford Road). Reality: yes, but only a few votes. Similarly positive results for Furey in 21/12 (Patricia White elderly apartments) and 21/16.

Comm Ave Corridor. Prediction: Selvig would pick up votes along the Comm Ave corridor in ward 21 (precincts 3-9), but only a handful in these low-turnout precincts. Reality: Selvig netted 99 more votes than Furey in those eight precincts -- a dozen votes per precinct on average. Outliers: Selvig picked up most of that difference in precincts 6 and 7 (Union Square and Ringer Park neighborhoods with more longer-term residential housing stock).

Oak Square and Faneuil. Prediction: Ciommo rolls over the competition picking up many votes, with Selvig and Furey splitting the scraps. Reality: Ciommo did just that in his base. The surprise was how much better Selvig did than Furey in ward 22 precincts 7 and 10 (Oak Square), 4 and 13 (outer Oak Square), and 11 and 12 (Faneuil), netting 87 votes over Furey in Oak Square, 100 votes in outer Oak Square, and another 42 in Faneuil. Furey got beat two-to-one in her home ward 22 precinct 4.

North Allston. Prediction: North Allston would provide Selvig with the big boost to give him the edge over Furey. Reality: ward 22 precincts 1, 2, and 5 gave Selvig 154 more votes than Furey, a nice boost. But in looking back it was the Oak Square area that gave Selvig an even bigger boost than North Allston.

Turnout. I predicted 12% turnout, but the vigorous mayoral campaign brought Allston-Brighton turnout up to 16.4% (according to my estimates). I am surprised by the higher turnout, since I expected that the voting rolls would not be fully purged of short-term young voters -- many of whom move on September 1st and thus get deleted from the voting rolls -- who registered locally for last year's presidential election.

There were, in fact, 6.6% more District 9 registered voters in the 2009 preliminary municipal election than in the same election in September 2007.

Left-over presidential election registered voters who don't bother with municipal elections should push the turnout numbers lower, but 16.4% turnout is significantly higher than two years ago (12.5%). That's overall a good sign for civic engagement.

Precinct Results for the A-B District 9 City Council Preliminary Election

Here are the unofficial precinct-by-precinct results from Tuesday's preliminary municipal election for the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council seat. The City of Boston does not publish the unofficial results on their website; the official results will be available next week, and will eventually make it onto their website (possibly after the November election).

I've put the results into two tables: the first one has the number of votes per candidate in each precinct; the second has the percentage of vote for each candidate in each precinct. They are preceded by a map of District 9's wards and precincts.

"N_reg" is the number of registered voters in that precinct
"N_vote" is the number of valid votes cast in that precinct
"%Vote" is the percentage of registered voters casting a valid vote

Read this accompanying post for an analysis of what these precinct-by-precinct numbers mean.



Unofficial Results (have not been certified)

Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council Election Results
Preliminary Municipal Election -- September 22, 2009
Number of Votes Per Candidate

Ward	Prec	N_reg	N_vote	%Vote	Ciommo	Furey	Narodick	Selvig
21	3	1570	82	5.2	31	14	10	18
21	4	1187	61	5.1	12	10	9	22
21	5	1401	98	7.0	29	19	17	25
21	6	1158	235	20.3	147	17	8	51
21	7	1423	127	8.9	53	17	9	42
21	8	1651	104	6.3	31	21	12	25
21	9	1736	164	9.4	89	17	7	31
21	10	1270	221	17.4	124	28	6	43
21	11	1686	171	10.1	83	25	7	35
21	12	1682	321	19.1	168	64	14	37
21	13	2080	643	30.9	454	54	18	44
21	14	915	79	8.6	32	21	2	14
21	15	1271	106	8.3	40	23	1	22
21	16	1670	303	18.1	130	79	14	56
22	1	2117	364	17.2	219	17	5	103
22	2	1993	317	15.9	175	32	8	75
22	3	1671	352	21.1	216	28	3	90
22	4	1153	305	26.5	136	49	2	102
22	5	950	151	15.9	113	3	1	28
22	6	979	172	17.6	110	13	1	39
22	7	1460	269	18.4	154	27	3	70
22	8	1386	287	20.7	95	58	5	114
22	9	1380	246	17.8	114	62	8	48
22	10	1653	355	21.5	221	36	7	80
22	11	1066	263	24.7	184	20	4	41
22	12	1074	274	25.5	190	19	6	40
22	13	902	221	24.5	143	11	1	58

Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council Election Results
Preliminary Municipal Election -- September 22, 2009
Percentage of Votes Per Candidate

Ward	Prec	N_reg	N_vote	%Vote	Ciommo	Furey	Narodick	Selvig
21	3	1570	82	5.2	42.5	19.2	13.7	24.7
21	4	1187	61	5.1	22.6	18.9	17.0	41.5
21	5	1401	98	7.0	32.2	21.1	18.9	27.8
21	6	1158	235	20.3	65.9	7.6	3.6	22.9
21	7	1423	127	8.9	43.8	14.1	7.4	34.7
21	8	1651	104	6.3	34.8	23.6	13.5	28.1
21	9	1736	164	9.4	61.4	11.7	4.8	21.4
21	10	1270	221	17.4	61.4	13.9	3.0	21.3
21	11	1686	171	10.1	55.0	16.6	4.6	23.2
21	12	1682	321	19.1	58.5	22.3	4.9	12.9
21	13	2080	643	30.9	78.7	9.4	3.1	7.6
21	14	915	79	8.6	46.4	30.4	2.9	20.3
21	15	1271	106	8.3	46.5	26.7	1.2	25.6
21	16	1670	303	18.1	46.3	28.1	5.0	19.9
22	1	2117	364	17.2	63.1	4.9	1.4	29.7
22	2	1993	317	15.9	60.1	11.0	2.8	25.8
22	3	1671	352	21.1	63.7	8.3	0.9	26.6
22	4	1153	305	26.5	46.9	16.9	0.7	35.2
22	5	950	151	15.9	77.9	2.1	0.7	19.3
22	6	979	172	17.6	67.5	8.0	0.6	23.9
22	7	1460	269	18.4	60.6	10.6	1.2	27.6
22	8	1386	287	20.7	34.8	21.2	1.8	41.8
22	9	1380	246	17.8	49.1	26.7	3.5	20.7
22	10	1653	355	21.5	64.1	10.4	2.0	23.2
22	11	1066	263	24.7	73.9	8.0	1.6	16.5
22	12	1074	274	25.5	74.5	7.5	2.4	15.7
22	13	902	221	24.5	67.1	5.2	0.5	27.2

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.

Ciommo to Face Selvig for District 9 City Councilor

Word from the 27 precincts in District 9 City Councilor race that Mark Ciommo has won the preliminary municipal election with 60% of the vote and will face Alex Selvig, who got 23% of the vote.

Abigail Furey finished a more distant third with 13%, and Narodick had the remainder few percent.

Still waiting for the official returns, though...

UPDATE (10:28 pm): Yep, 60-23-13-3% for Ciommo-Selvig-Furey-Narodick (plus round-off error and 0.4% write-in). 5843 votes cast. I'm estimating around 12.6% turnout of registered voters.

Predictions for the A-B District 9 City Councilor Preliminary Municipal Election

These predictions were filed before the polls closed at 8 pm on election day. This post is intended to show how clueless I am about local politics...

In a re-election bid by a candidate with broad name recognition and long-time ties to the community, Mark Ciommo should have little difficulty taking first place in today's preliminary municipal election.

The main story, however, I am predicting to be that he will only exceed 50% of the votes by a little bit, thereby guaranteeing that he will have to work hard in the next six weeks until the municipal election in order to get re-elected. The second story is that second place is really too-close-to-call between challengers Alex Selvig and Abigail Furey.

Ciommo was first elected in 2007 against Greg Glennon, an opponent who nonetheless got 40% of the vote despite alienating many in the neighborhood with his politically moderate views, lack of civic engagement in the community, modest financial resources, and a campaign that was awful in answering their phones or emails.

Ciommo's two main opponents in 2009 -- Selvig and Furey -- are unlikely to have Glennon's former boss, former state Representative Brian Golden, pulling all those strings behind the scenes. But I sense a significant level of discontent among some voters this time around in Ciommo's record during the past two years.

Selvig and Furey are both motivated, in part, by what they perceive to be Ciommo's too-friendly relationship with Boston College and its campus expansion review process. Selvig has better managed to expand his general criticism of how the city is run -- and, by association, the city councilor -- to issues beyond BC, such as rodents and absentee landlords.

Furey, on the other hand, appears to have some heavy-hitters behind the scenes when Pat Galvin, Mark Alford -- and now, Rabbi Dan Rodkin of the orthodox Jewish community -- all put Furey lawn signs up at their houses. (Pat Galvin later added a lawn sign for Selvig, too.)

The race for second place is really too close to call between Selvig and Furey.

Selvig had problems in his own Ward 22, Precinct 8 in 2007, when he won the plurality -- but only with around 1/4 of the vote. Expect Furey to give him a run-for-his-money, edging him out.

Furey should start racking up numbers next door in the Rabbi's 22/9 precinct, and make some small but significant gains at Wallingford Road's 21/13 precinct with the Russian Jewish community (at least the minority of votes Ciommo doesn't command).

Selvig can be expected to pick up gains over Furey along the Commonwealth Avenue corridor of Ward 21, but, as Tim Schofield showed two years ago, those votes are typically so few that Selvig needs to pick up more.

Ciommo will likely again dominate the Oak Square and Faneuil neighborhoods, piling up the numbers and just leaving scraps for Selvig and Furey to split.

The second-place race will probably be decided instead in North Allston. Selvig set up campaign shop there this time around, and has been knocking on doors like crazy -- including Charlesview, whose relocation is a major issue in this election. I think Selvig will pick up the rodent vote in North Allston and North Brighton -- those who were impacted and outraged by the outflux of rats in the past year, likely due to Harvard's Science Complex construction work -- and this will give him the overall edge for second place over Furey.

Third-year BU law student Ben Narodick, showed himself to be poised, well-spoken, and boned-up on local issues -- at least as much as you could expect a relative newcomer to the neighborhood to be. But people new to local politics, without any broad organizational support, usually get little more than 100 votes in this kind of election.

Prediction: Ciommo-Selvig-Furey-Narodick at 60%-20%-18%-2%.

I'm predicting that the District 9 result will be similar to the mayoral one: two challengers will duke it out in a close race for second place; and the incumbent will take a strong first place, but get a share of the vote close enough to 50% that the story for the next six weeks will be his potential vulnerability in the November election and the continued vibrant campaign.

Turnout prediction: 12% in Allston-Brighton.

Brighton's Russian Jewish Elderly Vote: Menino, Ciommo, Connolly, Murphy, Arroyo

Russian Jewish elderly voters in Brighton (e.g., at Wallingford Road, Ward 21, Precinct 13) have received their directions as to whom to vote for in the preliminary municipal election:

• Mayor: Thomas Menino, incumbent
• District 9 City Councilor: Mark Ciommo, incumbent
• City Councilor-At-Large: John Connolly, incumbent; Stephen Murphy, incumbent; and Felix Arroyo, Jr. (no fourth vote)

These directions usually originate from the precinct boss, Ukrainian-born Naakh Vysoky, and indicate for whom the many elderly residents of the senior housing should vote. A sample ballot for the precinct -- in Russian and filled out with the names of these candidates filled-in -- was obtained from an elderly voter and is shown here [right].

These voting directions normally move up to 500 votes for the favored candidates in the elderly Russian Jewish community in that heavy-voting precinct.

In the 2007 District 9 race, Greg Glennon carried 21/13 in the preliminary, but Mark Ciommo was able to work the vote hard to win the precinct in the final. This year, it appears that Ciommo has a clear edge to rack up these votes.

Given Mayor Menino's influence in that community, and Councilor Ciommo's experience as former director of the Veronica Smith Senior Center, it is not surprising that they are on the voting directions. Councilors-At-Large Connolly and Murphy are not so surprising, either, given their incumbency status.

But why is Felix Arroy Jr., the son of former Councilor-At-Large Felix Arroyo, also getting their vote? I haven't figure out the answer to that one yet.


UPDATE: A Russian speaker has kindly made the following translation of the Cyrillic at the top of the flyer:

The Russia-speaking community calls on you to take part in the elections
On September 22, elections will be held in our city, and we ask you to show your support for the candidates involved with our community. You may address them if you need any help. Please mark in the bulletin the names printed in bold.

No Globe Endorsement in A-B District 9 Race

The Boston Globe made no endorsement in the Allston-Brighton District 9 race for this preliminary municipal election.

The odd thing was that they made an oblique reference to there only being "nominal" opposition in the district city council elections (other than District 7), yet also did not endorse the incumbent.

I was at both District 9 candidates forums last week, where challengers and the incumbent all made good cases for their election. Saying that there was only "nominal" opposition is a mis-characterization of the race.

Candidate After-Election Party Events

After the preliminary municipal election polls close today at 8 pm, all four candidates for Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor will be holding parties to watch results and unwind:

• Mark Ciommo, incumbent, Corrib Pub, 396 Market Street, Brighton
  
• Abigail Furey, "a low-key affair" at her house, 3 Brayton Road, Brighton
  
• Ben Narodick, "an informal gather" starting at 9 pm 8 pm, Sunset Grill & Tap, 130 Brighton Avenue, Allston
  
• Alex Selvig, Deep Ellum, 477 Cambridge Street, Allston

All candidates said their events are open to anyone to attend.


Image of Muppet Beer Glasses by gashale provided through a Creative Commons license.

Information on District 9 City Council Race

See this post, which I've tried to keep updated with information.

Bye-Bye Brain Injury Ads for Children

Looks like Brighton's WGBH is buying the all-classical commercial radio station WCRB. And plans to turn it into an all-classical non-commercial radio station.

Wahoo! No more repeated advertisements for the "Brain Injury Institute" broadcast during Saturday morning "Kid's Classical Hour." And I won't have to answer the question, "Dad, what's a brain injury?"

Globe Decides Boston Has Only Two Councilors-At-Large -- Not Four

For people who read the Boston Globe online, they often miss out little sidebar text that contain nuggets of useful information.

Or misinformation.

From a sidebar on the front page of Sunday's Globe:

Boston city
councilor

CANDIDATES:

13 challengers and
two incumbents for
two at-large seats

No. No. No.

It should have read: "13 challengers and two incumbents for four at-large seats." (Would the Globe have written "Three challengers and one incumbent for zero district 9 seats"? No way.)

Metro Editor Brian McGrory has already admitted that he could hardly care less about the Boston City Council. But at least his guys at the Globe should get their facts straight on the rare occasion that they show a little bit of interest in the city council.

When and where will the Globe's correction run? My prediction: nowhere.

Multi-tasking a Parade and Senate Seat Appointment

The Allston-Brighton Day Parade today, and the Brian Honan 5-K race before it, were a lot of fun to watch and cheer on the participants. My daughter and I banged various noise-makers for the runners, many of whom seemed to appreciate the cacophony.

Several years ago state Representative Michael Moran stepped up his involvement in the parade in order to prevent its possible demise. He also hosted a barbecue at the Oak Square YMCA afterwards, primarily for the parade participants.

If you think organizing a parade is a lot of work, think about how else Rep. Moran has been in the news of late: he is the state representative chair for the state legislature's Joint Committee on Election Laws. His committee recently voted out a new law allowing a gubernatorial appointment to fill temporarily a vacancy in the U. S. Senate caused by the death of former Senator Edward Kennedy; the full House of Representatives passed the legislation on Thursday.

When I spoke with him briefly during the parade, he looked tired but pumped up. It must have been an exhausting week.

Major new legislation plus organizing a parade: effective multi-tasking coming out of Rep. Moran's office.

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.