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Linehan barely holds on
By adamg on Tue, 11/08/2011 - 9:47pm
With all precincts now in, city numbers show incumbent Councilor Bill Linehan defeating challenger Suzanne Lee by just 87 votes in District 2 (South Boston, South End, Chinatown).
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Comments
Recount
There will be a recount. In the past, a simple recording error during the end of night count, even on one machine, could cause the initial, unofficial totals to be wrong. Almost always, the campaigns have the best numbers. They have people there and are allowed to inspect the machines, although they do not always do this.
Bt when it is this close, there will be a recount.
Yes I think there should be a
Yes I think there should be a recount. Also I think that Bill Linehan needs to improve greatly the way he operates his constituent services. I remember calling his office last winter to express concerns about Snow Removal in the South End and being sort of blown off by his staff. Apparently because I wasn't from South Boston my concern wasn't taken seriously. He seems like a very decent guy who just needs to have some better people working for him. Let's hope that he takes a bigger role in representing his entire district now. It's up to the residents of district two to make sure we hold him and all of our elected officials accountable.
Care to stand behind that statement now?
You seemed very confident in your prediction that there would be a recount.
Please redistrict the neighborhood ...
For the common (and his own) good, Councilor Linehan needs to complete the city's redistricting process so that the South End is no longer divided in two. I can't think of any other neighborhoods that are split up this way. In the South End, half the neighborhood votes with Chinatown and South Boston (District 2), half votes with Roxbury and pieces of Dorchester (District 7).
It doesn't make much sense, given we're all neighbors here who use the same supermarkets, eat at the same restaurants, deal with the same issues (crime, street-sweeping, trash, public transportation, gentrification, nimbyism, etc.).
District 2 (Linehan's district) has to be split up anyway, due to population growth and shifts during the past ten years. His choice is to keep Chinatown and the South End as part of D2, but smaller amounts of each, or cut out Chinatown or the South End.
If he fears a re-election battle in two years against Suzanne Lee, he might cut out Chinatown, but I don't think he's that transparent. It would make some sense though for Chinatown to be merged with the other downtown neighborhoods such as the Waterfront and North End, since they share common issues.
Merging the east half of the South End with the west makes sense to me, but not everyone agrees.
A third, the most-interesting idea, would be to merge the east half of the South End with the Back Bay, becoming part of District 8 (Mike Ross's district). Linehan (and Kelly) has never won the votes of this section of the South End and the voters have much in common with Back Bay voters. They (we, actually, since I live here) would still have their votes diluted by being lumped in with the Back Bay, Mission Hill, and the West End, but that's at least more logical and reasonable than the way it is now.
Voting districts can never
Voting districts can never match 'neighborhood' districts - the numbers just don't work out. So some neighborhood with always be split, and someone, somewhere will always feel screwed. If enough people from the South End told the South Boston guy that they'd vote against him next time, he'd jump to keep them happy. Because NOTHING is more important than getting re-elected.
If anything, this gives the South End two representatives on the Council.
You can't think of any other split neighborhoods? I can...
Roslindale.
And I think Mattapan has a legitimate gripe in that vein as well.
Gentrify me
Sounds like time is marching on for Southie - with the strong showings by Pressley and Arroyo - looks like one area of support is the growing minority majority in the city. However, the results seem to indicate that the status quo is still STRONGLY supported by the city's most regular voters - city (and city agency) employees, their relatives and friends. Flaherty's message of shaking things up certainly won't resonate with that crowd who come out religiously to make sure they vote in officials that will keep on keepin' on with annual 3% raises and the sacred cows of bennies and pensions.
Noticed that Suzanne Lee had a decent lead of I think about 60 votes with one precinct left to report - but that precinct went HEAVILY for Linehan - anybody know what that was - his home precinct perhaps? She took a drubbing there.
Time marched on for Southie a
Time marched on for Southie a generation ago. You'll find it in Rockland and Abington now.
Pockets
Looks like Ward 6 Precincts 6-9 and Ward 7 Precincts 1-3 had some of the highest turnout in the city-over 30% (my W/P didn't even hit 10% - pathetic - but interestingly threw HEAVY support to Pressley and Arroyo). These areas voted fairly heavily for Flaherty and Linehan - if Flaherty hadn't run, we'd probably be looking at Suzanne Lee as the only non-incumbent winner - maybe. Linehan should do something nice for Mike - he won't, but he should.
shoddy analysis
In the sept. primary there were no blanks in wards 6 & 7. Yesterday- well over 300. These are precincts Linehan won handily and Flaherty was heavily bulleted. Flaherty's campaign was pushing the bullet vote hard to everyone, including all the little old ladies they drove to the polls. Linehan likely has Flaherty to thank for how close the race ended up.
Linehan should probably do something nice for Suzanne, whose smear campaign over last couple weeks in South Boston only worked to galvanize Linehan's home neighborhood.
raises?
pretty sure the city council hasn't voted a raise in like 5 or 6 years. maybe some voters didn't like the idea of giving Lee an $80,000 salary on top of her $100,000 city pension, a better take home than the mayor. so much for transparency...
City workers - not councilors
Babs - I was talking about the average city worker whose total comp has increased about 4% per year for the past ten years (salary/bennies/pension). Unfortunately the budget has only gone up 3% a year which is why we can't afford to do anything else AND we've had to reduce the city's headcount by 1000 people - for now can't say that I've noticed - but even this budget hawk will admit there's not a lot of fat left over there and there aren't a lot of revenue sources either. City council only grants themselves raises when times are flush and it's not an election year when even fewer people are paying attention than the 10% that vote in the odd years.
City council raises
The city council can't just vote itself a raise whenever it wants; it's tied to the mayor's salary. It's one-half his/her salary. They can vote against accepting it, as Turner did (I think), last time.
i've come to realize that no
i've come to realize that no matter how much linehan does for the southenders they would not give him the credit nor would they vote for him...they're still going to vote for any fool who's not of southie and that's a fact.
Barely?
I know a girl who was "barely" pregnant.