Four months from tomorrow, Bostonians will vote in a mayoral election. Do you know who you'll be casting your vote for? Bostonist will be checking out some of the candidates over the next few months. Today, Michael Flaherty.
Moments after the Drinking Liberally crowd had discussed his status as part of the "in-crowd" of Boston politics, Boston mayoral candidate Michael Flaherty showed up at the Globe Cafe in Copley to emphasize that he is a separate entity from Tom Menino and his cronies. The theme of the entrenched Boston political machine continued throughout the evening, with Flaherty repeatedly stressing his attempts to work outside the machine and criticizing Menino's cronyism. After 16 years of this, Flaherty suggests, we need a mayor who'll work for the city—not for himself. And is Flaherty that mayor? He'd certainly like you to think so.
Flaherty started off the evening aggressively, calling out Menino for his cancellation of the Parade of Sails at Tall Ships 2009 (which is still going on, at a $1 million cost to the city). He then moved on to assert that the one-third of Boston residents in their 20s and 30s (giving rise to One in 3 Boston) who come here for education and other opportunities often don't stay here due to lack of jobs and inflated housing prices. As a person who came here for graduate school and is looking to leave, this Bostonist relates to the dilemma Flaherty described. Unfortunately, he didn't have any specific solutions—but at least he realizes that this is a problem, and wants to take steps to keep this city's best and brightest here for longer than their university careers. Flaherty acknowledged that "There are lots of things that could and should be happening in this city," but said that Menino's administration is not getting them done, and implied that his administration would.
The rest of the evening continued in this vein, with Flaherty espousing some attractive political positions but not always offering specific policy proposals to back them up. He also didn't offer many specific examples of actions he's taken over the past nine years that would qualify him to become mayor. Still, his priorities seemed to be in place, and we're intrigued by any candidacy that ends 16 years of sameness.
Flaherty spoke at length of his background: born in the housing projects of South Boston, and educated at BC and BU, he worked as a DA for years, interacting with the kids on the streets, and his own children currently attend public school in the city. He's been on the city council for nearly a decade (nine years: the same number Menino served before being elected mayor), and has well-developed neighborhood "connections"—albeit apparently of a different sort than the ones that corrupt Menino 'n co.
Moving on to the issues, Flaherty provided a broad perspective on a range of topics:
On City Hall: "I want to make city hall the greenest building in our city." Flaherty would like to add a green roof, solar panels, and light sensors so we're not paying to light the building all night when no one's at work. He may even add the cutting-edge new technology of voicemail—which the government apparently doesn't use yet. As far as government processes, Flaherty would like to "put everything on TV" and online, to increase transparency for citizens.
On crime: Of the city's crime problem, Flaherty asserts, "We're not going to be able to arrest our way out of this." We should instead make inmates into street workers who can complete tasks and gather information simultaneously, performing valuable services to the city rather than sitting in jail. Flaherty also pointed out that CORI reform may be instrumental to mitigating crime, pointing out that many of the largest employers in the city—schools, hospitals—will not employ people with criminal records, driving those folks right back to the streets they came from. Flaherty supports community policing and has been told firsthand by ex-offenders (who "can do time standing on their heads") that job opportunities are the only thing that will keep kids away from criminal activity.
On disaster preparedness: Whatever plan the city has, the citizens don't know about it—so it's pretty much worthless.
On Downtown Crossing: "It looks like Fallujah." The development has not progressed because the developers are working on other projects. Flaherty proposes performance bonds that would require developers to complete projects by a certain date or pay steep fines.
On education: Flaherty supports charter schools, saying that parents should have choices about where to send their children, and acknowledging that not all Boston schools are able to offer education of comparable quality. He would like to work with the schools of education at local universities to create partnerships that would have the potential to improve public schools' efficiency and educational levels, not to mention graduation rates.
On efficiency: Flaherty wants to follow the lead of Somerville (among other cities) and implement CitiStat to keep track of the productivity of various government endeavors.
On snow: We can melt our pain away! Flaherty would also "give teeth" to the "green tickets" that building owners get for not clearing their sidewalks as they're supposed to, creating greater incentive for successful shoveling, snowblowing, or snowmelting.
On transportation: Flaherty had few specific proposals, but did support the idea of later T service and lament the fact that poor neighborhoods are the first ones to get service cut when budgets are tight.
On trash: Flaherty says he has spoken to the the city official in charge of trash collection, who doesn't know how many barrels the city has nor what the plan is for collecting trash from them. Flaherty supports having an actual plan for cases like this.
On universities: Flaherty asserted that nonprofit institutions, including colleges and universities, own more than half (53%) of the land in Boston, yet don't pay taxes on it. He would investigate ways to make school-owned land more useful and profitable for the community as a whole, but opposes the idea of taxing students (!!!) that has been floated by some of his colleagues.
Throughout the evening, Flaherty repeatedly emphasized his commitments to education and environmentalism, and his experience with criminal prosecution, as factors that set him apart from his competition. But don't take our word for it. Check out Flaherty's positions on the issues on his own website, and consider the other declared candidates like Sam Yoon and Kevin McCrea.
We know Boston is a city that loves its history, but that doesn't mean we're doomed to repeat it for four more years. We'd like something "better"—in whatever form that may take.
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