Results tagged “citycouncil”

Tonight, Mayor Thomas Menino was reelected to a historic fifth term, which, if served, will make him the longest serving mayor in Boston history. He beat Michael Flaherty by a wide margin of 57 percent of the vote to 42 percent, according to unofficial results. Incumbent City Councilors at large John Connolly and Stephen Murphy also retained their seats by hefty margins. Felix Arroyo and Ayanna Pressley will join city council with 16 and 15 percent of the vote, respectively. Pressley will be the first African American woman to serve on city council in Boston's history. In District 7, Chuck Turner blew away his competition despite a cloud of legal troubles, and Sal Lamattina, Michael Ross, and Mark Ciommo each held off challenges in their respective districts. [City of Boston]

During yesterday's municipal primary, 81,641 Bostonians, an impressive 24 percent of eligible voters, cast ballots, according to the City of Boston. Most of them voted for mayor—only 439 voters didn't—but a lot of people didn't use all of their votes for city councilor at-large. Each voter could choose 4 candidates for the at-large seats, but most probably didn't. In fact, of a possible 326,564 votes for city councilor at-large, only 194,247 were cast. That's only 60 percent! What gives, Boston?

Something... like cars! Boston mayoral candidate Sam Yoon is proposing a Zipcar-like car sharing program that would allow government employees to make better use of city vehicles and help save the environment at the same time. Technology would allow city workers to schedule specific times to use vehicles, and enable unused vehicles to see some action rather than sit around all day. The city currently maintains 1125 vehicles at an average cost of $10,000 per year, meaning Boston spends over $11 million annually on employee transport alone. The program would focus on the city's 871 passenger vehicles. In addition to sharing technology, GPS units in the cars will also enable the practice of "geo-fencing," setting off alarms when cars go outside specific areas. No more side trips to Ikea, city workers! Yoon will propose the sharing program at the City Council tomorrow.

In a sensible move, the city council has finally voted to unregulate things that don't really need regulating, okaying sidewalk dining year-round (though why anyone would want to be outside in Boston for the cold half of the year remains uncertain). Next thing you know, maybe there will be beer in 7-Eleven! Or items sold without price stickers! It's almost unthinkable! Anyway, to accompany the announcement of the new outdoor dining anarchy, the Globe assembled a gallery of outdoor dining spots, which actually does a decent job of pointing out places not on Newbury. What it doesn't do, however, is show a knowledge of how to spell Wisconsin, thus earning the gallery a place in the typo of the week hall of fame/shame/spellcheck.

Yesterday, City Council President Maureen Feeney's civic summit brought about 400 people together to get people more involved in city government. Mayor Menino even showed up, although Michael Pahre noted, "Mayor Thomas Menino breezed in -- and out -- of the convention center probably feeling a little bit unwelcome" since it wasn't his idea. Adam Gaffin at Universal Hub live-blogged the event and summed up the takeaways, with education and crime high on the list of concerns.

http://seattlest.com/2008/02/28/foo_fighters_da.php">announced his presidential bid.

Well, City Councilor John Tobin has a solution for low voter turnout, and it's not a MoFee Style Public Kvetch-Fest. If Mayor Tom Menino thought he didn't like the idea of Kvetch-Fest 2008, he must have blown his stack when he heard what Councilor Tobin proposed.

City Council president Maureen Feeney (aka "MoFee") had plans to host a big gathering--or kvetch-fest, if you will--at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. At the time it was originally announced, it was seen as a potential irritant to Mayor Menino and a possible traffic nightmare.

So, the first anniversary of Aqua Teen Hunger Force's attack on Boston falls close to the Super Bowl. The creative minds behind Aqua Teen merge both ATHF and the Super Bowl in one clip, which Bostonist stumbled across on the Best Week Ever blog. However, they're rooting for the wrong team:

The fight over the mayor's pet project of moving City Hall to South Boston is about to fire up again. Mayor Menino has been dreaming of escaping the concrete confines of the current City Hall and its depressing plaza. Hence, the City Council is putting up a fight by launching an exploratory committee. (That's how American politicians do things--they don't get into a fistfight. They form opposing committees.)

--Dr. Judah Folkman, who found a new way of fighting cancer by cutting off blood supply to tumors, died yesterday. [Boston Globe]

Peter Berdovsky--VJ, artist, and one of the men behind last year's "Mooninite Menace"--and the city of Boston better learn to live with each other because Berdovsky isn't going away anytime soon.

While the idea of living with seven or so people in an apartment that should only hold four sounds disgusting, it's kind of fun and a reasonable option for cash-strapped college students. However, Boston City Councilor Michael Ross wants to put an end to it.

Update: WBZ has pictures of an SUV crashing into the bus. Another car plowed into the back of the car that hit the bus. The people involved were lucky--only three people on the bus and four in the SUV were hit.

--What would happen if you threw a Christmas mass and the priest never came? [Boston Herald]

Some City Councilors have complained about the mayor's blame game regarding the snowstorm, but one city councilor might be contributing to the problem. WBZ sent cameras to Chuck Turner's house in Roxbury, where his sidewalk wasn't shoveled.

After a brief flash of clarity in which City Councilor Marjorie Decker suggested things might be getting a bit out of hand, Cambridge has up and banned the leafblowers, for five months of the year, anyway.

--Maybe Fung Wah isn't so bad after all. The local press picked up on a b0st0n LiveJournal story that a Peter Pan bus driver felt that his passengers on a trip to Boston should be punished and forced to stay on the bus in Framingham because one of them called the company about his poor driving. The driver's sorry ass is about to get fired. [WBZ, b0st0n Live Journal]

In Cambridge, some residents are irritated by the sound of leaf blowers--as opposed to all the other noises one can hear in Cambridge. So, the City Council is spending its valuable time debating when and where the dastardly leaf blowers can be used. According to Matt Dunning at the Cambridge Chronicle, the City Council spent the "better part of two hours" discussing how strong bans on leaf blowers should be. Exceptions to the ban kept...

After all the sturm und drang of a recount, Watertown City Councilor Marilyn Devaney has reclaimed her hotly contested seat following a recount. Initially, tallies showed that challenger John Donohue barely beat her. Then came the recount, which was a wild ride documented by the Watertown Wicked Local Blog and H2oTown. Devaney won that, and now the town's local scribes are waiting to find out if Donohue will challenge the initial challenge. Here's Jillian Fennimore...

Blue Velvet and The Twin Peaks Pilot Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge Monday, December 3 Tickets and showtimes It's not on any wall calendars, but December 3rd is David Lynch Day in Cambridge, at least according to the Brattle Theatre. Last year, Lynch debuted Inland Empire at the Brattle, and the Cambridge city council honored the director by giving him his own day. This year, the Brattle will celebrate by offering theatergoers a pair...

Beauty and the Geek: For the next-to-last episode, the teams traveled to wine country for an "I Love Lucy" challenge. They had to pick grapes, stomp them, and bottle grape juice--while tied to each other. Despite the disturbing sight of Big Dave and Little Jasmine hunkered over each other while stomping grapes, the pair won the challenge, prepared three bottles of grape juice laced with Eau de Foot, and guaranteed themselves a spot in the...

SFist witnessed a new apartment building tszuj the skyline with spectacular, gaudy turquoise aplomb, the (informal) renaming of the Mission/SOMA neighborhood border, the return of the Maltese Falcon, the Mayor Gavin Newsom mea culpa-ing over his Hawaiian getaway during the oil spill, and double-decker buses hitting the streets of San Francisco. Oh, and some baseball player named Barry Bonds is a liar whose pants, it seems, are totally on fire. LAist continues to cover the...

This rounds up the best of local blogs. Now that we're doing "Bite Size News," "Series of Tubes" will repeat those links, too. --Matt O'Malley, who has run for city councilor himself, analyzes the votes in the Boston City Council election and finds out what may have gone wrong for Felix Arroyo and right for John Connolly. [O'Malley on the Web] --Brace yourselves! Bobby Brown will perform at the Boston Music Awards on December 1....

Boston city councilors Stephen Murphy and John Connolly aren't the only ones who have to learn how to get along. City councilor Chuck Turner, he of the stunning goatee, will also need to learn how to get along with Northeastern University, or vice versa depending which side you're on. Before the city council elections, Turner was angry with the school for not treating the neighborhood he represents with enough respect. He didn't mince words on...

Boston City Council: The four winners in the at-large race were incumbents Michael Flaherty, Stephen Murphy, Sam Yoon, and new arrival John Connolly. Incumbent Felix Arroyo didn't make the cut. Now Murphy and Connolly will need to figure out how to live with each other after Connolly's anonymous mailers, which accused Murphy of always looking for other jobs. Michael Pahre at Brighton Centered reports that Mark Ciommo defeated Greg Glennon for the District 9 slot...

Boston residents have two elections today--one for District 9 (Allston-Brighton) and one for the at-large city council position. Here's the rundown by District: District 3: Michael Cote is running against incumbent Maureen Feeney. District 4: J.R. Rucker is running against incumbent Charles Yancey. District 7: Carlos Henriquez is running against incumbent Chuck Turner. District 9: Gregory Glennon and Mark Ciommo are running for an open seat. And then there's the at-large election for four open...