Comments on: Boston’s Four-Term ‘Accidental Mayor’

By: Ginnette Powell

Ginnette Powell — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:24:07 +0000

I love it! Democrats, Republicans and incumbents…
Menino isn’t the champion of the average man. He is an embarassment to the city of Boston! This is what no term limits gets you! A meglamaniac who doesn’t know when the party is over!!!

By: DorchesterResident

DorchesterResident — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:42:27 +0000

Eononymous wrote: “I have a deep respect and admiration for Mayor Menino. Although I live on the South Shore…There is an elected School Committee, Frank. Who did you vote for in those elections?)”

Yeah, thanks for the input dude, but actually the mayor appoints the school committee in Boston. And he specifically asked to be judged “harshly” on the performance on the schools since he was given all this power. So, we appreciate the thought, but why don’t we let the citizens of Boston decide this one.

By: Southie Jon

Southie Jon — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:09:31 +0000

I have to chuckle at how critical Mr. Menino’s challengers are about his deep involvement in the development of Boston. I for one think the city has benefitted tremendously from the Mayor’s hard work and community-oriented perspective on development. The BRA takes the blame because they are a change agent and the Mayor’s opponents try to paint the BRA like some evil empire that doesn’t listen to the community, but in my experience as a South Boston resident this couldn’t be further from the truth – the BRA does listen, and projects get changed or stopped based on community feedback. The mention of Chiofaro is comical – Mr. Chiofaro clearly has no respect for anyone, least of all the zoning and state laws that his towers would violate by many times. It is a testament to the Mayor and the BRA that Mr. Chiofaro has gotten nowhere with his plans and will continue to get nowhere. WBUR should focus more on Mr. Flaherty’s private practice of law, representing clients with business before the city, while he is serving as a city-wide elected official.

By: katieb

katieb — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:47:16 +0000

Everyone seems to be so critical of the BRA, saying that the planning side of the agency can’t get anything done because it’s always overridden by the development side. I don’t work for city government, but I’ve talked to planners there who completely disagree and say that although there are competing ideas between the development side and the community planning side –the disagreements actually make for more strategic and efficient planning. These so called ‘repressed’ planners also say that without the structure of the BRA (a quasi0city govt. agency) they would have absolutely no funding for city [read community] planning. Flaherty is so quick to jump on “abolish the BRA” but he didn’t even attend their budget hearing. The bottom-line is that abolishing the BRA with no understanding of how to bring in money (Flaherty and Yoon’s plan) would leave a bankrupt city planning agency. No one is claiming that the BRA is perfect, but it’s been a great solution for how to fund community planning, and the people who actually have knowledge of how it functions don’t want to see it go (both people who work there and people who don’t). Flaherty’s promise of a golden age without the BRA is based on nothing, no facts whatsoever, he hasn’t even presented a plan or process for how to go about it. Change for the sake of change isn’t going to get us anywhere. I’m sticking with Menino!

By: euonymous

euonymous — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:22:53 +0000

I have a deep respect and admiration for Mayor Menino. Although I live on the South Shore, I’ve watched him pick up the job from Kevin White and Ray Flynn, and the city has thrived under his leadership. Hey, politics is a sport in Massachusetts. The Pats, the Bruins, the Celtics, Beacon Hill. Lots of strong personalities. Lots of players, lots of interests. It would be naive to think a mayor would not favor those who supported him. ((And it’s stupid, Frank Smith, to think that the mayor is directly responsible for the situation in the city schools… There is an elected School Committee, Frank. Who did you vote for in those elections?)) I still think Menino is a good person doing a difficult job as well or better than we’ve seen anyone else do it. When you compare MA and Boston to the US federal government behavior and results, particularly under George W. Bush, we are trying to do the best possible for the population and we’re doing better than most states. There’s room for disagreements and personality conflicts, but there’s a reason Menino is popular. He gets the job done.

By: Skip

Skip — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:19:13 +0000

I hope Mumbles gets another term. He’s certainly a better choice than his opponents, and an accidental mayor is much better than an absentee one (read: Republican) would be. Their models (Weld, Celluci, Swift, Romney) were a disaster for the Commonwealth!

By: Frank Smith

Frank Smith — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:18:00 +0000

It’s sad that Menino can get away calling himself the champion of the ‘average man’ in Boston. Tell that to the 24,000 children who have dropped out of school under his tenure or the kids who go to one of the 100 schools in Boston that are ‘under-performing’ and not up to standard.

By: Nancy Sableski

Nancy Sableski — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:59:00 +0000

“Accidental”? Once a campaign manager told me that there are three parties in America: Democrats, Republicans, and Incumbents. We have a mayor with a campaign war chest of over 1.7 million dollars, and a voting populace that stays at home during municipal elections. This speaks to machine politics and the depression of expectations for our city. Add the bogus “poll” from the Globe and you see why our discourse in Boston is so limited.
I’d love to see WBUR do a story on this!