Boston mayoral candidates on some issues

Some notes from today's Radio Boston interviews with Tom Menino, Michael Flaherty, Kevin McCrea and Sam Yoon. Although Menino didn't show up in person, it didn't really make much of a difference, since the four were interviewed separately - and asked different sets of questions:

Tom Menino
"I'm not going talk about the past," but he said he has "the experience and thoughtfulness" to make this a city that works for all its people.

Menino said he opposes proposals to bring back an elected School Committee - he said the current committee is non-partisan and strictly focused on improving education, rather than on politics or special interests, as he says it was back in the day. And he says he's proud of his record with education: "I have all my grandkids in Boston Public Schools," MCAS scores are up and so are K-1 and K-2 applications. "If our schools were failing, would they want to send their kids to school? I daresay no."

He also said it was the Coast Guard that required Sail Boston to have the tall ships come into Boston Harbor at night and that the battle over public-safety payments up front is to ensure Boston is reimbursed for all the work it would have to do. "They're not in this because they're Goodwill Industries." He said this is just another example of how Boston is forced to shoulder almost all the costs for events that benefit people far beyond the city borders, such as post-championship celebrations. Boston, he said, contributes more to the state than it gets back.

Michael Flaherty
Flaherty said he would reduce busing by increasing the number of seats guaranteed in local schools to local students from the current 50% to 70 or 80%. He said he would use the transportation savings to bolster educational resources in underperforming schools, which he said outnumber "performing" schools in the city.

He said there is just too much violent crime in the city and his part of his answer would involve decentralizing the police department, giving district police captains more authority, because they know their areas better than anybody. Also, local community leaders would need to be more actively involved and the city needs to crack down on "quality of life" crimes, which often lead to enviroments that encourage more violent affronts.

Flaherty said that despite his early backing by the firefighters union, he supports mandatory drug and alcohol testing for firefighters.

He said the city needs a more consistent approach to development, with more emphasis on planning.

Kevin McCrea
McCrea would eliminate the BRA and create separate development and planning agencies answerable to the city council. "There is no (development) process in Boston; the only thing that matters is whether the mayor likes it or not. ... We have a pay for play system in Boston and it's not good for Boston." He would also oversee creation of a master plan for the entire city. And, he said, he would stop giving away valuable city property to developers and would fight for greater control over non-profits buying up property that they then take off the tax rolls.

Sam Yoon
Yoon said that despite what Menino said, Boston schools as a whole are not doing well - as shown by the fact that only 60% of Boston ninth graders graduate high school and only 15% of Boston public-school students in college graduate. He called for more pilot and charter schools.

Yoon would seek limits on campaign contributions. "Democracy depends on regular people. And you can't do that when the incumbent has that much power." And if that doesn't work, he would fight for term limits. He acknowledged raising a lot of his money out of state, but said that that's really a byproduct of the current lack of campaign financial controls, in which the incumbent has a large warchest.

Yoon sees some parallels between his campaign and that of Barack Obama: "There really is an interest and a desire when there is the right candidate with the right messages at the right time."

He said gun violence "hould be seen just as much as a public-health issue as a public-safety issue" and that in addition to traditional crimefighting, the city needs to do things such as expanding summer youth jobs programs to reduce young people's exposure to the criminal element.

Yoon would restructure the BRA, to split its development and planning roles.