Menino's development policies finally discussed

Who are you, John? King of the internet? I see nothing wrong with his post. I have not read the whole story but I was interested in seeing that that Mayor made a pledge and then broke it.

Btw, Deselby posted 275 words from the Globe article. You posted 475 words from that same article in this thread on archboston.org:

http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php...

Now go ahead and edit your comments so that nobody can track your hypocrisy.

Tom Menino has done all that he can for the city of Boston after 16+ years. I really should say he has done a lot more for all of his friends and family members, but this city does need a change and new ideas!

People need to know The Truth about Mayor Menino and how corrupt he really is:

Menino wants to lay off cops and teachers while he still takes care of his very own close friends and family. Menino does not eliminate jobs of high paying city officials that we could afford to eliminate. Instead the Mayor wants layoff teachers and brown out fire stations and risk our lives. He was going to use the layoffs of police officers as a scare tactic and had no plans on laying off the police at all because he wanted to turn it around at election time and use the following to try and secure their endorsement and look like the goog guy. "I didn't layoff any cops and saved their jobs"

THE PLAN - Mayor Menino wants to leave in the middle of the term and hand over the office to his Godson Rob Consalvo. They both deny that Menino is Consalvo's Godfather but it is a fact. Do you really think the city council is going to elect Rob Consalvo to council president within the next 4 years knowing that this is the plan? Tom Menino could end up leaving within the next term as mayor do to some health reasons and we could end up with someone who none of us want as mayor!!!

He also runs this city like a mob mentality and is forcing city employees to help out in his campaign. City employees are afraid not to support Menino such as holding a sign, getting nomination papers signed, placing a sign in front of their house, etc. He is outright forcing people hands. City owners of businesses are also afraid not to place a sign up for Menino because. These Business owners and city employees are afraid of Menino's backlash if he wins another term and finds out they supported another candidate such as Flaherty, Yoon or McCrea.

People are afraid because they know if Menino does win again and if he finds out you went against him, he will find a way to eliminate your job, transfer them to the worst division within their department or whatever the mayor can find to make these people lives a living hell for supporting someone else for mayor.

Here are some more reasons:

Tom Menino, Jr. (the mayor's son/baby mumbles) - Menino's son was promoted to Detective. This is after years and years of being on the list. The real reason the BPD did not have another Detective's Exam for so many years is because Mayor Menino wanted to make sure they reach his not so smart son on the Detective's list. Menino Jr. is currently working Suffolk Construction part time. (To obtain a second job, you need the BPD Commissioner's approval but we all know Commissioner Davis is in Mayor Menino's pocket) Also out of the entire Boston Police Department his son happends to be the most qualified Police Officer for the job.

Peter Welsh - Former staff from Menino's Office is working for Suffolk Construction.

Suffolk Construction receiving various contracts for the city of Boston.

There is also a cousin of Mayor Menino's also working for Suffolk Construction.

VINNY MARINO - Mayor Menino's cousin who owns property and most of us already know what kind of guy he is. Back in the day he used to run numbers. He is forever receiving permits without no problems and being taken care of and is not the nicest guy in the town.

John Hamm - How his next door neighbor BPD Detective John Hamm who just retired this past May and was working as the Director of Security for the Boston Public Health Commission for the past 3 years. Detective Hamm was receiving two paychecks, one from the BPHC and the other from the BPD. The Detective's Union has endorsed Menino in the past and I am sure Menino will receive the endorsement for the Detective's Union this year as well because Detective Hamm had been on the excutive board for the past several years.

GAME ON INCIDENT - The Mayor and his people told the owners of GameOn that they are not going to have the Fundraiser for Flaherty that was scheduled to be held on June 24th. The General manager Mike Brucklier said: We are certainly not in the habit of turning down business, particularly in this economic climate. This was merely a case of the venue being double-booked. http://tinyurl.com/l5fng2
Source: www.BostonHerald.com

Now this sounds good. But let me put a few things in perspective, The owner of Game ON! is the Lyon's Group. Now, as we all know they own and operate many fine establishments in the City of Boston. So it would make sense that since the double booking was their error that they would try to accommodate for the mistake and offer us a new venue for the event. Sounds reasonable right? The problem with this logic is that they couldn't offer us a new venue because they were TOLD (by the Mayor and his cronies) not to allow events for Michael Flaherty. The truth is, its not about our event (we already have a great new location at the Baseball Tavern). Its about an ugly culture and bullying tactics that people in our great city have come to expect as the status quo under Mayor Menino.

FIRE HOUSE BURN OUTS - The Mayor of Boston is playing Russian Roulette with our lives. He is only punishing the fire fighters for endorsing Michael Flaherty and using this as a scare tactic for other unions to endorse him and not Flaherty. A Tale of Two Cities- What Happens When Menino?s Firehouse is Browned Out?
Source: www.changeforboston.org

A person for Menino was seen taking pictures at a fundraising event for Maura Hennigan back in 1995 and now someone has been going around the city writing down the addresses of the people who have Flaherty Signs up. Why Flaherty you ask? because it is his first real challenger since holding office and the mayor is running scared.

THE REP. BRIAN WALLACE INCIDENT - A union was having a fundraiser for Brian the day after he came out and supported Michael Flaherty. The union cancelled the fundraiser because of the pr essure and retailation from the mayor.

Mayor Menino has even place a Menino HQ's next to the Flaherty HQ's on Belgrade Ave in Roslindale. The mayor is also planning on placing HQ's in each town. This is unheard of and a first for Menino.

Also tearing down signs and peeling off Flaherty bumper stickers in Dorchester and Hyde Park.

I wish Michael Sullivan did not stop with Turner and Wilkerson because if you think these two are dirty they are nothing compared to Menino.

This needs to stop, its time for a change!!!!!

John - I agree with most of what you say - just want to keep the facts correct for the purpose of the discussion. The budget has gone up by 50% over 10 years - from $1.6 billion to $2.4 billion (inflation was 25%). Residential property taxes though have indeed doubled over the past 10 years and due to the collapse of commercial real estate values we are likely to see another large increase in residential taxes in 2010 and probably again in 2011 (assessments are set each Jan 1 and the worst of the commercial price declines were spread across the end of last year and beginning of this year).

James - I have commented here and elsewhere that we seem to be growing the commercial space in Boston without respect for demand. While many are willing to move into the new buildings (thus the incentive for developers), this seems to generate almost a perfect offset to total valuations within the system. For example, after the last building boom during the dot com era, total commercial assessed valuations in the city flatlined at about $22 billion. Over the past 3 years or so during the most recent commercial boom we had a 50% upturn to about $33 billion in total commercial assessed valuation. While assessments are not reflective of actual commercial valuations they are highly correlated. Many reports have indicated a 40% drop in commercial valuations which, if indeed correlated to the assessments means that we will see a return to the $22 billion in total valuation, despite growth in gross square footage. With a flat population and static percentage of the population working in office buildings, does further development of office/retail in the city of Boston beyond replacement of obsolete space make sense? Do we need it? Does it add any value to the region's financial base? Would be curious to hear your opinion on the need for building at rates we saw under Flynn and White or even greater than what we have now under Menino and whether there is demand for such space without a significant change in demographic trends.