The Dorchester Reporter reports councilors Sam Yoon and John Tobin hold an emergency hearing tomorrow afternoon on the fate of workers at pre-school and after-school programs at city community centers, who could lose funding for their jobs under Mayor Tom Menino's current budget plans.

Michael Jonas argues we should be celebrating a city councilor who calls a hearing on ways of saving money instead of concentrating on dirty tricks like City Hall sending a guy in a wheelchair down to the hearing site because somebody there knew there wouldn't be a ramp available and then alerting the Herald.

Earlier:
Hearing didn't go so well for Sam Yoon.

Sam Yoon's campaign has been making a big push to get people to tonight's city-council budget hearing in Codman Square (chaired by, ta da, Sam Yoon).

Nothing wrong with that, here's your chance to see the Next Mayor of this Great City in action and all, but in addition to the money he's spending on polling ($27,000 to Kiley and Company last month), Yoon might want to throw a few bucks toward somebody who can advise him on how to do a proper e-mail campaign.

Kate Hutchinson reports on the e-mail she got from the Yoon campaign: From the generic "Dear {FIRST NAME}" header to the lack of a way to unsubscribe from mailings she never asked for, she says her only question now is whom can she vote for besides Sam Yoon?

Sam Yoon has, as a city councilor, not made much of a name for himself outside of "the first Asian-American on Boston's City Council." This email doesn't add much to my impression of him. For example, this looks like a news update from a concerned city councilor. What gives this away as an election shill piece is the text at the bottom of the email:

Paid for and Authorized by the Committee to Elect Sam Yoon. ...

Yoon today claims the Globe is misrepresenting his stance on a return to an elected school committee, that he only said we should talk about whether we should bring it back.

As Adam Reilly notes, Yoon should really be careful claiming he never said something like that when he said stufff like that in his campaign announcement, the one he thoughtfully posted on YouTube:

In order to become the Boston that we know we can be, we have to be willing to face our problems head on, and be willing to be bold, innovative, creative. And we need to talk. We need to talk about what it would mean to go back to an elected school committee. At a time when our schools are facing the largest budget shortfall they've ever seen, we have to question whether an appointed school committee--appointed solely by the mayor--can truly be the educational advocates we need them to be.

Now, yes, technically, Yoon did not say "Elected School Committee. Let's get one. Now." But he sure sounds like that's the direction he's fancying.

Calls for an elected school committee, and notes that Boston's three favorite pastimes are sports, politics and revenge.

Sam Yoon may not have updated his campaign blog since 2005, but he's now Twittering away.

David Bernstein writes Yoon could get elected mayor in November - but only if several specific things happen, from Yoon raising enough money to Menino and Flaherty making each other the main focus of their campaigns.

The Globe breaks the news that Sam Yoon is running for mayor this year, although a formal announcement won't come for awhile. Yoon is in his second two-year term on the council.

He joins fellow at-large Councilor Michael Flaherty and Kevin McCrea. Tom Menino has yet to say if he'll spend his $1-million+ war chest and try for an unprecedented fifth term.

Jimbo wonders:

... Yoon would appear to be the most liberal of the three Democrats, while Flaherty should have strong backing from unions and Menino has a vast political machine at his disposal. Does Yoon's candidacy weaken Flaherty's chance to unseat Boston's longest-serving mayor?

Yoon's campaign Web site (perhaps now that he's running for mayor, he'll update his blog for the first time since 2005).