Why Tom Menino deserves four more years

• Boston's bicycle program, which has been trying to get off the ground for years, and recently took off...and gave us about a dozen miles of scattered bike lanes and a hundred or so bike lockup loops. Look at what NYC and Chicago have done- hundreds of miles of bike lanes, shower/locker stations, thousands of bike racks and lockup loops.
  
• Highly preferential neighborhood treatments. Go walk around Beacon Hill or the North End and notice the nice fancy gas lanterns, perfect sidewalks, and brick/cobblestone streets. Now go walk around Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan...where they can't even keep the streets clean, literally and figuratively.
  
• Speaking of which...the fustercluck that is the BRA, making decisions and power-plays in the background to "improve" our city, which seems to only consist of "increase BRA oversight into every aspect of a neighborhood." And, of course, only in the rich, predominantly white sections of the city. Historical houses in Mattapan? Who gives a fuck about them? But hey, want to change the color of your shutters on your house in the South End, and you gotta file that form in triplicate, buddy.
  
• Menino's obsession with having his name plastered on absolutely everything, practically down to road signs. Is it any wonder that, when seniors are carted to the polls by the Mayor Thomas Menino Senior Shuttle to the Thomas Menino community center, that they vote for Thomas Menino?
  
• Menino's complete failure to hold the police department accountable to performance standards or even its own citizens. The review board is a complete joke. BPD officers perjure themselves on the stand repeatedly and BPD management is so powerless over their rank and file that they can't even get them to park in legal parking spaces (or take public transit to/from work like the rest of us!) Roads are utter chaos because BPD won't do any traffic enforcement unless it is speeding or Driving While Minority related. They can't even handle ticketing people who park in bus stops.
  
• Menino's inability to call the MBTA to task for routinely crippling his city on what seems like a weekly basis. The T goes down because someone yanks the wrong plug, and Menino doesn't say a word. How about a nice press-release body slam to tell Danny-boy to get his ass in line?
  

You want to see what a progressive, productive, well managed city looks like? Just cross the river into Cambridge or Somerville...

I will give the mayor credit for doing an excellent job from 1993 to about 2001. However, once the last recession hit there was a palpable change in the city's ability to get things done and labor negotiations seemed to fall off a cliff.

What I've concluded is that the mayor was good in tackling some low hanging fruit especially when times were flush. It's easy when you have lots of money (inflation over the past 10 years has run about 28%, the city's budget has increased 58% and total residential property taxes have increased about 95% and will probably get a lot worse in the next two years due to a drop in commercial values that will drive up residential taxes even as home values continue to decline). The mayor is at his worst when financial reality hits home as it did about 7 years ago and he starts blaming everyone but himself for the problems.

The city's not falling apart - yet - but the budget, despite the liberal funding and a flat payroll - somehow remains an issue, the schools (as Ross points out) are some of the best funded but worst performing in the state especially exclusive of the exam schools, public safety has taken a distinct turn for the worse, the fire department is a chronic basket case on both sides of the bargaining table, the BRA (which the mayor wants to give more power to) runs roughshod over the downtown neighborhoods. Most residents are blissfully unaware of the billions in unfunded retirement benefits that the city has (over)committed itself to that threaten to literally bankrupt the city in the next 20-30 years - think social security and medicare but better benefits and less income to the system.

Anyone who truly understands the city's financing scheme knows that these are all ticking time bombs. There is possibly still time to defuse them with an honest accounting and realistic budgeting but the mayor has knowingly let this fester for 16 years despite vocal warnings from the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, the FinCom and the Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods. Four more years could be too late - but I recognize that far too many will vote for the mayor because they shook his hand and their street lights work.