Mr. Menino, tear down this wall!
Why does Tom Menino hate freedom?
Turns out the barricade his minions put around Faneuil Hall block the Freedom Trail and could violate an agreement by the city - in federal court no less - not to interfere with the First Amendment rights of street performers. Dan Kennedy posts e-mail from local street-performer activist Stephen Baird - along with an embarrassing photo of the Freedom Trail blocked by a barricade:
The fence is a blight not only on the city, but the country. The fence, similar to the old Berlin Wall, is a symbol of Mayor Thomas Menino's and other government officials' failure to develop intelligent and equitable public policies and regulations.
There was no warning or public process before this crackdown. Portrait artists, living statues and street performers were suddenly told they could no longer exercise their First Amendment artistic expression in this public park by the police. There are no written guidelines or laws, just the arbitrary whim of the police officers and government officials of where people can perform and audiences can gather.
More from Baird, including copies of filings from the 2004 lawsuit against the city street-performer regulations.
Earlier:
Staring down from his cave with a sour, Grinchy frown.
Comments
No wonder Menino wants to move City Hall
No street life to speak of in the South Boston Waterfront / Seaport / whatever name pleases you. While this will change, much of the "public" spaces there will likely be privately-owned - which means easier control over who can go where, and what they can do there.
There was a great article recently about this phenomenon out west, but I can't remember which site had it.
I don't get it
Why do people keep voting for this asshole? Serious question.
To piss people like you off, obviously
OK, OK, not the reason.
Menino voter here: Is he perfect? No, but who is? I've voted for him because my neighborhood is safe, the trash gets picked up and the schools are getting better. That having been said, this incident is making me consider seriously voting for somebody else next year.
I think he is an easy
I think he is an easy target. He doesnt have an advanced pedigree, he didnt go to Harvard/Yale/Duke/MIT , in fact he didnt get his B.A. until 1988 , he is not a supermodel, he doesnt have an elegant voice, he has been a Bostonian all of his life, and to the best of my knowledge has almost always lived in Hyde Park. Yet thats what people like about him, after all his story sounds similar to the stories of the average person. YET his character is strong, he is committed. He wants the best for Boston and when you listen to him you know it is true. While others go into office with hopes of becoming something bigger real fast (like every governor we have had for about as long as I have been alive) Menino has a goal of being the Mayor of Boston for as long as he can, which means he wants to fix problems now rather than push them off for two years. When Menino finally steps down I can gurantee the next Mayor will have graduated from a top 50 school, will have good looks, a divine voice, and will do whatever the people want right now regardless of future costs, and thats when you will realize that you miss mumbles, foibles and all.
Thanks
For filling in the gaps. You're right - it's nice to have a major elected official who isn't just using us as a steppingstone to something else.
better the guy we know ?
It sounds like your argument is that we should feel lucky to have an unsophisticated,inarticulate, college graduate with no advanced degree, who is decisive but incapable of dealing with complexity, running the city.
And that if we had an educated person, they wouldn't care, and they would only be using the position as a stepping stone.
How about comparing candidates who actually ran against Menino rather than manufacturing them and allowing your anti-education anti-intellectual bias drive your conclusions?
Voters in Boston are likely to choose a mayor who knows Boston, a local. That makes a lot of sense to me too. Why not consider a candidate who can express them self clearly and deal with complexity, like balancing the rights of street performers with Houston's restaurant cafe patrons? It's a small issue in the scale of things but Menino stepped in it. Imagine him thinking it was a good idea to create a fenced off NO FREE SPEECH ZONE around Fanueil Hall? There's a history on the issue - court cases, findings and agreements - and Menino appears to have ignored all that.
More importantly, he has not been able to manage BFD issues that cost taxpayers millions such as fraudulent permanent disability claims and tax-free retirements at the next pay-grade level. He also has not negotiated a agreement that allows firemen to be tested for substance abuse.
Menino's police commissioner was stonewalling the Woodman's. They decided to hire a lawyer. The incidence of lethal gun and knife violence is up in the city.
I think Menino is ok but I also think we could do better and I believe we deserve better. Writing off mayoral candidates because they did well at demanding academic institutions or developed a record of accomplishment is counterproductive.
Some street performers had
Some street performers had their feet stepped on, I dont think its time to break out the tea and toss it in the harbor just yet. I think everything will work out ok, and if not I will look into the issue again to see what went wrong.
Im not saying people with big name degrees and other accomplishments are bad, per say. It just seems like we have so many politicians in this state at the upper levels who didnt grow up here and dont understand the locals who have been living here. Romney and Patrick and Kerry and so forth. They all seem like nice enough guys but Kerry spent more time everywhere else besides here even though he claims to be from "here" and spends most of his days working on issues that have nothing to do with the state (at least Kennedy seems to spend a great deal of time on the issues that affect Massachsuetts) Romney who is "from Belmont" spent all of five minutes in the Governors office before leaving town and dissing us in SC in his bid for the White House (Menino would NEVER diss Boston in another city like that), Patrick seems to be a little better but has been spending his time buyings expensive curtains and a nice car and had that incident where he LEFT the state during a crucial vote on casinos that he started because he knew he was going to lose and instead went to NY to complete a book deal. Weld, Celluci, Romney, Patrick just cant wait to get out of here while people like Menino just keep on truckin. At least Dukakis had the integrity to be governor for a long time before running for president, and even after his lose he came back home and continues to work on issues that affect us.
Even when Menino fails at least he attempts to fix the problem. For all their advanced degrees all of the Harvard educated pols weve seemed to have lately are here just long enough to blame the last guy for the problem, come up with a short term solution that makes them look good, they move on, and then the next guy steps in and blames the last guy, the cycle goes on.
I'm not so sure that photo
I'm not so sure that photo is an accurate representation of things. I was just down in that area, and the barriers are cutting off a part of Faneuil Hall, in between that building and the Quincy Market building. I have a feeling that is for something else and not the street performers, as the break dance guys were performing next to the Sam Adams statute during this, and they are the ones that supposedly sparked all this furor. Notably, they were performing on the other side of the Sam Adams statute, i.e. not next to Houston's like before.