Large turnout at the forum, sponsored by the Wards 4 and 5 Democratic committees at the BAC on Newbury Street. Here's the blow by blow:
Public safety - do Beacon Hill, Back Bay residents feel safe?
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Sam Yoon
By adamg - 9/14/09 - 11:09 am
Yoon, Flaherty and McCrea this morning.
The three mayoral candidates today charged Tom Menino and his aides with deliberately covering something up, although exactly what, they couldn't say, since the e-mail doesn't appear to exist.
At a press conference with Flaherty and Yoon outside City Hall, however, McCrea said he would not be surprised if mail related to Dianne Wilkerson's attempt to get a liquor license for a contributor were among the large volumes of mail deleted by Menino aide Michael Kineavey. In an affidavit in the Wilkerson case, the FBI noted extensive contact between the former state senator and City Hall.
By adamg - 9/14/09 - 7:52 am
If so, look for the knot of mayoral candidates and camera crews: Michael Flaherty, Sam Yoon and Kevin McCrea are holding a press conference to call for criminal investigations into the way top city officials allegedly deleted massive amounts of e-mail, which is against the law (right out front).
As the Outraged Liberal reminds us, there's a certain irony in Flaherty teaming up with McCrea on the issue (which the Globe follows up on today - one guy was going into his deleted folder and deleting stuff there). McCrea won a lawsuit against the City Council - Michael Flaherty, president - for violations of the Open Meeting Law (Flaherty acknowledged the issue in announcing his run for mayor).
Meanwhile, if any probes do get launched, Michael Pahre has volunteered 19 pieces of e-mail that he or people he knows either sent or received from Menino aides Michael Kinneavy and Tom Tinlin.
By adamg - 9/10/09 - 4:52 pm
Tomorrow is 9/11. Why don't you want neighborhood cops to be armed with semi-automatic weapons?
By adamg - 9/8/09 - 6:34 pm
Sam Yoon, speaking to a group of bloggers tonight, says he would start a formal process to changing the city's current strong-mayor system.
Yoon says city government under the control of a "strong" mayor is not working and that after 100 years of the system, it's time for a more democratically run city.
A charter commission would take 12 to 18 months to recommend changes to the city charter - essentially, its constitution.
Charter reform "is something I'm really excited about," he says. "We haven't had a real debate about our charter since 1909. ... I think it's worth absolutely working on. Does [the current system] really fit way our city is in the 21st century. No other city works like this."
By adamg - 9/2/09 - 10:31 pm
Jim alerts us there'll be a mayoral debate on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 6:30 p.m. at the East Boston Social Center, 68 Central Sq. Three candidates have agreed to participate.
By adamg - 9/2/09 - 8:08 pm
What follows are my notes on the debate tonight. Props to Jon Keller for coming up with a form that allowed for an actual debate, rather than one of those stilted side-by-side affairs where the candidates never really address each other. Although with four people running, an hour was too short.
Who won? I'm terrible at judging things like that. At times, it seemed like a debate between Menino, Yoon and McCrea, with Flaherty on the sidelines. Yoon seemed too focused on Menino as the leader of SPECTRE, McCrea seemed too focused on getting the other three indicted, and Menino veered from the question sometimes (like answering some question about city finances by talking about how diverse city commissions are). But if you watched it, what do you think?
By adamg - 9/2/09 - 6:17 pm
The mayoral campaigns organized standouts outside WBZ studios in advance of tonight's debate.
Menino and Flaherty supporters were out in force along both sides of Soldiers Field Road. Scores of them and they just kept coming.
Some Yoon kids and grandparents showed up relatively late and never tried to muscle into the fray - maybe the beefy union workers for the Flaherty and Menino campaigns scared them, so they stayed clumped together more than a block away. They did have cute little maraca-like shaker things - which were completely inaudible to anybody driving by, unlike the air horns that a number of Flaherty men blared.
McCrea people? When we left, around 5:20, we hadn't seen a single one (and we walked up and down the road a couple of times). Maybe they got stuck in traffic on the way over from the South End.
By adamg - 9/2/09 - 2:23 pm
EatBoston asks the four candidates for mayor about their favorite foods and restaurants.
By presspass - 8/30/09 - 2:57 pm
Press Pass TV looks into the Mayor's controversial "brownout" policy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itLvZFGYZl4
By adamg - 8/20/09 - 12:19 pm
David Bernstein is put out that Sam Yoon and Michael Flaherty both used "Shipping Up to Boston" on their music face-off today on WFNX:
... Maybe [Yoon] was trying to be funny, using the Dropkicks to beat the Irishman. I don't know; all I know is that they USED THE SAME GODDAM SONG!!!!! ...
By adamg - 8/14/09 - 4:14 pm
Mayoral candidate Sam Yoon wants City Hall to take a page from banks and stay open past normal business hours at least once a week so people who work for a living could have a chance to conduct city business. In a statement, he says:
One of the most appealing solutions is to shift hours to offer later services on Wednesday and close earlier on Fridays. We would stay open until 8:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and close at 2:30 p.m. on Fridays. We would also be able to move the regular City Council meetings to Wednesday evening to allow more people to attend.
By adamg - 8/10/09 - 12:07 pm
Former state rep and mayoral candidate Mel King said today he'll be voting for Sam Yoon this fall:
We need to raise our expectations of what the city can do for young people. The school-to-prison rate is too high and the graduation rate is too low. Sam offers leadership driven by people and communities, the kind of leadership that will engage residents in improving the health and education of all the city's children.
Complete statement:
By adamg - 8/10/09 - 9:09 am
A couple weeks ago, somebody sliced up a Flaherty sign at Baker and Centre streets in West Roxbury (but, gosh, left the Menino signs across the street alone). The Flaherty campaign replaced the sign. Based on what we saw yesterday, above, the vandal didn't waste any time returning.
Around the same time, somebody defaced a Yoon sign on Poplar Street in Roslindale. The Yoon campaign replaced the sign. Based on what Daniel Farnkoff saw last week, below, the vandal didn't waste any time returning.
What's interesting is that the spray pattern on both signs is very similar - look at the swirls on the left. So we're probably dealing with somebody from the Parkway area - who knows how to get from Poplar to Baker. And given which signs got hit, we're probably dealing with somebody who supports one of the other candidates, specifically one who isn't Kevin McCrea, I'm thinking.
By adamg - 7/29/09 - 1:55 pm
Sam Yoon proposes giving a tax break to building owners who retrofit their roofs with waterproof membranes on top of which they pour on dirt and then plant vegetation:
These roofs promote energy efficiency, reduce storm-water runoff, improve air quality, lessen the urban heat island effect, reduce noise, promote productivity, beautify rooftops, and extend roof life. They also create new markets and jobs for rooftop garden products.
By adamg - 7/29/09 - 11:06 am
Sam Yoon was tearing into the city's Elderly Commission (for handing out shwag with prominent "Mayor Thomas M. Menino imprints") at a campaign stop in Mattapan when three Menino functionaries (including his chief of staff) rose to object. The Dorchester Reporter chronicles the interchange.
By adamg - 7/28/09 - 8:02 am
Dan Farnkoff passes along this photo of a defaced Yoon sign on Poplar Street in Roslindale.
By adamg - 7/23/09 - 2:52 pm
Over at the Dorchester Reporter, Mike Deehan and Gin Dumcius have started a podcast on this fall's elections. In their first 'cast they talk about the mayoral candidates' differing approaches to charter schools and take a look at "reprecincting" - turns out that some precinct lines haven't been redrawn in 50 years, so some precincts are humongous while others are minuscule. Podcast feed.
Obligatory disclosure: I do Web stuff for the Reporter folks.
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