Results tagged “menino”
The Fire Fighters Local 718 contract saga won't end. Last week, the firefighters offered to delay their 2.5% raise for a year. The Menino administration was reflexively skeptical of this seemingly reasonable offer. Menino suggested the raise might work if applied only to current firefighters. The City Council is apparently sick of this and arranged for Menino and the firefighters to meet today, and even supplied calculators. Representatives of the Menino administration and Local 718 met today from 10-10:45 a.m. in the Curley Room. No word on what was said in the meeting, or if they simply stared at each other.
Say, do you like it when your city is run like a furniture store? Us too! That's why it's pretty cool that Mayor Menino was motivated by a call from Jordan's Furniture to have his staff call constituents back! Yes, all it took was a furniture giant's courteous customer service to point out the obvious counterpart to taking complaints by phone: following up by phone. Now, if you call the city (at 617-635-4500) with an easy complaint that it can successfully resolve, someone might call back to tell you that your woes have been whomped! The city has had an always-open call center since 1986, spending taxpayer money so bored city employees can take information requests by phone from people who don't know how to use the internet. It's pretty easy to see why the city likes calls: they're somewhat harder to track and report on than online requests would be, making it easier for the city to shroud its shortcomings in phone line static. Next up: get out of your taxes free if a Red Sox player homers to Menino's face on an outfield billboard! We can't wait. [Globe]
According to the Globe, over 40,000 ballots were cast by noon today in Boston's mayoral and municipal election. According to Twitter, 20,000 more votes came in by 3pm to raise the day's turnout to 16.7% so far. If you haven't already voted, check out if your city is having an election and where you should go to participate. Scandalous update: A Vietnamese translator at a polling place in Dorchester was apparently given the boot for telling voters to support Flaherty. Another Dorchester site complained of having no Vietnamese translator.
The chatter has been rampant for months, and today's the big day. Not only will Tom Menino and Michael Flaherty face off in the race for mayor of Boston, but there are many other municipal elections going on around the state. Find out if your town is having an election today and, if so, where you can go to vote. If you're in Boston proper, you can locate your polling place here. Happy voting! Check Blue Mass Group, Red Mass Group, and Universal Hub for voter comments (or leave your own here).
NYC is going all FiOS, but Boston's getting left in the fiber-optic wayside. ArsTechnica opines that Mayor Menino's desire (which the Globe supports) to tax telecom companies like Verizon for the infrastructures they establish here may be keeping the city a few steps behind when it comes to connectedness. There may be other factors at work, too: though you'd think a city would be easy to wire due to its density, the Globe points out that cities also have a lot more problems to deal with: faulty or outdated infrastructure is common, as is landlord resistance. Verizon media relations dude Phil Santoro confirms that the company is committed to bringing FiOS to Boston, but couldn't give a timeline. We imagine FiOs will eventually make it up here, but whether its arrival will be affordable remains to be seen. In the meantime, we'll have plenty of opportunities to eat donuts (ordered in semi-high-tech fashion) while we wait.
- Kick a guy when he's down! Former schoolmate remembers Philip Markoff as an arrogant nerd. [Boston Herald]
- CT AG wants Craigslist to tighten controls on erotic services. [Hartford Courant]
- Mayor Menino makes it official and will likely overstay his welcome at City Hall without debating his opponents. [Boston Globe]
- Unlike Boston College, Brandeis is allowing Bill Ayers to appear on campus. Some people are pissed off about it, of course. [The Justice]
It was bound to happen. A day after street artist Shepard Fairey protested the timing of his arrest, somebody at the Wooster Collective street art blog has run a lengthy narrative suggesting a Boston police conspiracy designed to bring down Our Popular Mayor.
-- Bikers and drivers share the "love" in this "so Boston" signage. Good thing bike lanes are on the way. [Boston Biker]
Bostonist made our way to City Hall Plaza on Sunday to catch the 2008 Peace concert, a free hip hop event sponsored by the city and featuring classic hip hop artists EPMD, Das EFX, and Chubb Rock as headliners. We'd been hoping to get a shot of Our Popular Mayor popping and locking along with the b-boys. Instead, we ended up with drenched trousers and a long ride home on the Orange Line.
When Bernard Margolis lost his job as president of the Boston Public Library in a power play with Mayor Menino, Bostonians called foul. It looked as if Our Popular Mayor was trying to politicize the BPL, a treasured -- and independent -- Boston institution. Now, amid revelations that three BPL trustees had undisclosed financial dealings with City Hall, the front-runner for the position appears to be former state Senate president Thomas F. Birmingham. The only problem? He has no library experience. The search committee for the position has also shortlisted five token professional librarians who are not friends with Menino.