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Mayoral debate notes

Notes from tonight's debate:

What to judge you by?

Menino. Financial issues, especially with state cuts coming. I've been prudent.

Flaherty. Performance review, literally dept. by dept. Eliminate the BRA.

Health care costs, 200% in six years?

Flaherty. Have to have a frank discussion with employees and retirees, put retirees into Medicare. GIC.

Menino. We've cut insurance costs $5 million past year. Putting retirees into Medicare not fair.

State public-records law. Why should voters believe you're accountable?

Menino. I put more than requested online. We've been responsive as best we can. We have more transparency in my admin. than ever before. I insisted all my individuals made more than $50,000 report income.

Flaherty. Matter of public trust. This is about finding out what happened and why and making sure it will never happen again. We haven't seen the mail FROM Kineavy yet. Wholesale destruction of documents is troubling to say the least.

Can you assure us no e-mails related to federal probe?

I haven't heard of any of my administration at all. Charge made out there the last three or four weeks. Another political move, a few weeks before election.

Flaherty. My comments based on reports in the media that what was given to the feds may not have been complete.

Flaherty, what about your open-meeting violations?

Flaherty. I accepted reponsibility for open-meeting law violations. And will ensure no open-meeting violations under my administration. I've accepted responsibiliity, I'd like the mayor to accept responsibility.

Menino. BRA meetings are evening meetings, on TV. Haven't had any corruption issues over the past several years. Let's talk about issues important people: crime and housing.

Flaherty, nobody cares about the e-mail flap; aren't you just wasting the public's time?

Flaherty: Very important issue: public trust and responsibility.

Menino: Issues that don't exist.

Menino: Councilor, what would you do about foreclosures?

Flaherty. Bank on Boston, give school children tools they need to handle finances. Financial literacy skills. Eliminate predatory lending. Mayor's done some good things around foreclosures. Help immigrants get connected with responsible lenders. Also, need to get people back to work, keep them in their homes, reduce crime and violence at one time.

Surely there are some things Boston schools do things right, right Flaherty?

We're fortunate, we have a good school for our children, but 100 schools are failing. One program that works, which I helped bring here, is SAT prep, the administration failed to help.

Menino. What Councilor Flaherty talking about, yes, schools need improvement, but 50% of all schools in the state need improvement, it's not just a Boston issue. Brookline, Wellesley, Weston/

Flaherty. I'm sick of families leaving Boston for a better education.

Have you failed in making the schools great again?

Our numbers show numbers dropout rate has gone down. We don't discriminate, we have to take all kids. I want in-district charter schools.

Flaherty: 24k kids dropped out over past 16 years. That's an embarassment. Where are those kids today? Most expensive school district in the country.

Mayor, you've had 16 years to work on the school issue, why should we trust you?

Menino. Enough with the negative. 2006, award for best urban school system in the country. We have dropout programs. We take every kids. Carol Johnson doing a great job, we have a difficult job because of all those kids who come from different places into our school system.

Flaherty: Mayor, What's been your biggest mistake?

Menino. Haven't worked hard enough to get more revenue from the state: We pay more to state than we get back.

Flaherty. 1) Moving City Hall to waterfront.

Menino. Trying to create a new economy for Boston, also move city agencies out to Dudley, help that economy.

Flaherty. He's yet to enforce the Boston jobs policy, to put people to work in the neighborhoods.

Menino. Policy might not be legal. We're trying to come up with a plan to make this work.

Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan voters often don't feel safe even during the day.

Menino. Issue out there is how we help young people get back into the system. CORI reform. They need jobs. It's not just what comes out of City Hall, it's what the neighborhoods want.

Flaherty. 1,000 murders under Menino. Crime stats don't tell the whole story. Unreported crime, particularly in immigrant communities. Improvements in trauma care at BMC.

How do you preserve police force when you lose a ton of money?

Flaherty. Continue to use some of our reserves. But you can't continue to run city on one-time revenue. Not a single police officer or firefighter laid off. I would use more reserves if I had to.

Wouldn't eliminating BRA make it even harder to get things built?

Flaherty. End the pay to play system. Right now, no predictability in the system. That delays development. Or personality clashes because of the naughty list. Put community back in development. And neighborhood and citywide plans.

Menino. BRA reduced wait from 18 months to 8 months. Citywide plan doesn't work, every neighborhood is different. We've done plans for some specific neighborhood. BRA brought in over $200 million this year.

Flaherty, are you saying the mayor would not be involved in development? What would your signature building be?

Flaherty. Clearly as CEO, I would have some say, but I want to keep City Hall where it is and get Sam Yoon involved.

Menino: What's next step for developing housing in Boston?

Flaherty. Preserve the middle class. Boston's becoming a city of the very rich and the very poor. Lotteries for affordable housing is broken - people make too much but can't afford to stay here. Linkage funds. We have vacant units today.

Menino. Where are those vacant units?

What made you decide to take on the mayor?

Flaherty. Probably a combination of things. I have tremendous respect for the mayor. Kitchen meetings, felt it was time for a new mayor. Thwarting efforts to bring SAT prep, thwarting efforts for green stuff, it was just time for a change.

Double digit unemployment in minority communities, they're sicker, don't live as long, what to do?

Menino. We're first city in country to work with hospitals to deal with health-care inequities. Other folks are following us.

Flaherty. Not enough minorities in admin ranks, only two. Challenge private companies to match me 1-1 in hiring CORI people.

Bruce Wall says you're buying off other minority ministers.

Menino. Not true at all.

Why aren't there more blacks in your administration?

Menino. Sandra Henriquez at BHA, just lost her to Obama. 50% of my appointments on boards and commissions are people of color. I'm not satisfied. Don't forget Barbara Ferrer at public health.

Flaherty: Look into camera and grade yourself A-F about Boston schools.

Menino. I already answered that. But again, dropout rate down 33%. Yes, we have schools need improvement. But some of it's special ed.

Flaherty. As parent of kids in public schools, I'll grade you, I'll give you an F.

Menino. I'll give myself a B. I'll be generous.

Flaherty. We have some of the best colleges in the country. Some of our kids will never see those.

Menino. Five colleges in the city put $10 million in to help better public schools.

What's your responsibility for failed developments and the Greenway.

Menino. Greenway works, People are there enjoying life. Also, the national economy is driving this. Cambridge Biomedical staying in Boston thanks to BRA.

Flaherty. We need degree of predictability, so at 11th hour the BRA, the mayor is the BRA, won't drop an anvil on the project.

Filene's Hole: What's going to go in there?

Working with Asian investors. Two theaters opening up in the next year or so. Real progress. Yes, 1 Franklin is an eyesore, but it's not our fault, blame the national economy.

What's Mayor Flaherty's plan for bringing high paying jobs to Boston?

Flaherty. We have a lot of natural strengths, but we could do better. Meet CEOs at the airport. I will actually call people back, even if I don't like them. Young people don't feel climate conducive here to start their careers in Boston.

Menino. We as a city continue to grow every day. Two months ago, we had a bunch of CEOs, take 'em on a tour of Boston. Not big businesses, but they will fill vacant buildings. Liberty Mutual, Gillette, John Hancock are good business partners, help the city. P&G is much better today than they were several years ago. We have a great business community, let's support them.

How many jobs would Mayor Flaherty bring?

Enforce jobs policy, bring back 100s, thousands of jobs. Let's bring rail back to bring back real jobs, use our deep port.

Menino: What would you do differently with public health?

Flaherty. Substance-abuse epidemic destroying families, we need treatment on demand, more recovery programs, enough beds.

Flaherty: Crime as public-health issue. What will you do to reduce youth violent crime?

Menino. Removing the guns from our streets. Co-chair nationally with Bloomberg to get guns off the streets. VIP program, works with some of those kids, community centers, help with jobs. Safe street teams. Get kids into programs. And CORI - I have filed legislation six years now.

Menino: What would you cut from budget?

Flaherty. Not a revenue problem so much as a spending program. Performance review, CitiStat, 311. I will actually bring colleges and universities and make them pay their fair share in taxes. 53% of property is tax-exempt.

Menino. We have CitiStat-like program. We have double-A bond rating.

Flaherty. Bond rating only good if you borrow money. But we should be putting people back to work.

Closing

Menino. Next four years in Boston are going to be years of excitement, working with you on a greener, safer city.

Flaherty. Under Flaherty administration, Sam Yoon and I will bring new ideas. This is about your future.

Neighborhoods: 


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Comments

Is it me or did Flaherty dye his hair?

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Neither candidate gave a clear unambiguous standard, a standard to judge them by 2 years in the term as Mayor.

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Can somebody please help me? Why wasent Yoon invited to participate in this debate? Unbelievable....

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and is not a candidate, just a cheap pawn for the votes of liberals who ought to know better than what he's asking them to do.

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A real snoonzer of a debate. I voted for Yoon but have no real compelling urge to vote for Flaherty, another South Boston pol. Too bad, too sad.

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According to the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education...

Boston has a 59.9% graduation rate

Wellesley has a 96.2% graduation rate

Newton has a 93.7% graduation rate

The Mayor said surrounding towns share the same problems, I guess this isn't one of them.

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And Chelsea is 49.9%, Revere is 67.5%. Look, I can choose which stats I want to use depending on which point I'm trying to make too!

(Also, to accurately compare graduation rates, you need to add in the percentage that DOE lists as "still in school" and "non-grad completers." A kid who has a severe disability and doesn't talk gets schooling up to age 22, thus is going to still be in school four years after 9th grade starts, and not usually because s/he dropped out. Some families may opt for four years of public school and then a private vocational or day habilitation program, in which case their kid completed high school but didn't graduate. Remember that families of kids with severe disabilities flock to cities with good medical and social services for these kids.)

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not that he had a great or coherent point or anything, but just sayin'.

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Menino says 75% of Boston students go to college. How is that possible if only 59.9% graduate?

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Probably means 75% of graduates, but the 2008 stat shows that along with the 59.9% who graduated in four years, there were another 15% who were still in school (many of whom likely graduated in five years) and 2.3% who got their GEDs. So you actually have more than 75% of kids who have the credentials to go to college. Still, that would be nearly impossible anywhere, so it's probably 75% of graduates.

I think I mentioned here before that the high school I attended boasted some stat about [some asshuge number] percent of grads go to college. My school had a super-low graduation rate, and "go to college" referred to having set foot in any sort of college classroom within something like five years after graduation. Oh, and this was out of the people they could find several years later.

It seems perfectly reasonable that 75% of Boston graduates -- or even of attenders, for that matter -- would take a college class at some point in their career. Especially recently, it's been common for employers to ditch in-house training and send semi-skilled workers to a community college class in whatever, and/or to arrange partnerships where the employee gets a college credit for taking the first aid course at work or something.

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BPS like most low-income students are very bad at completing college. For instance the ones who go to community college are unlikely to ever achieve a four year degree.

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They call 'em "Associate of Arts" or "Associate of Science". These are the bread and butter of community colleges. Most community college grads don't need, don't want, and don't seek a four year degree. You don't need one to clean teeth or be a nurse aide or any number of vitally needed jobs that require a bit of skill and training and provide a decent living.

The problem isn't that too few people finish four year degrees ... the problem is that too many start them because school types push them to college when they really would do better and be happier if they undertook more vocational programs.

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What was Menino talking about referencing Brookline, Wellesley and Weston school systems being in the same boat as Boston's? Is he kidding? They are some of the best school systems in the nation. 100 of Boston's schools are failing and young families are moving out, hoping to afford to live in the very towns instead of staying in our city?

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He meant they have issues related to special education, too, but, um, yeah.

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and Mayor is correct, at one point, there were 6 such schools in Brookline.

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There are 8500 students on waiting lists for charter schools in Boston. Proof that Boston families are dissatisfied with our city's schools.

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There are currently 8500 kids on the waiting list for charter schools in Boston. How much more proof do you need that Boston families are dissatisfied with the city's public schools?

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Over 50% of our schools are underperforming and we have the most expensive school system in the country. We pay over $20,000 per student per year. That is unacceptable.

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A weak showing from Flaherty, a deer in headlights when he's forced to face the issues. Menino was on point. No game-changer tonight.

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agreed

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Forgive my failing memory after a too-long Monday at work: where/when is the non-TV (last mayor's) debate, and who is sponsoring it?

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Final debate (forum?) is at Faneuil Hall, next Tuesday October 27, from 6:30 - 8:00 PM, Sponsored by http://massvote.org

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http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/...

MICHAEL FLAHERTY, VIA E-MAIL

Mayor’s grade: A-

Why: Given the devastating cuts in funding the city has seen from the
state and federal government, I think the mayor deserves high marks
for keeping the city "working" and for reaching out to Boston’s
residents to build partnerships since he understands better than most
that the city cannot do it alone.

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...like that the dropout rate has reduced by a third on his watch. That's simply not true - it's gone from 7.2% to 7.6%. Just because he keeps saying it doesn't mean that it's true.

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He keeps saying stuff - and the Globe reports it like gospel. A few more examples:

Our high bond rating is evidence the city is well managed (only means we have a high probability of paying our bonds back - considering 60% of our revenue is backed by property tax revenue, highest in the country of any big city, which means payback is guaranteed - if they raise the taxes to pay the bills it's pay up or they take your property)

Property taxes are lowest in the area (actually very average for the area - and probably going to skyrocket in 2010)

City is in a budget crisis (inflation has run about 25% and the budget is up 50% in the past 10 years - if there's a crisis it's because the mayor spends every penny he can get his hands on-I think the real crisis is when the BTU called his bluff and told him to sit and spin - and lay off all the fluff in the budget).

Not that I'm voting for Flaherty - I'm still undecided - neither of these guys is a walk in the Arboretum!

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Our taxes are very low. I am in the real estate industry in West Roxbury. I see our taxes compared to surrounding towns and we have the lowest. Dedham, for example, has higher assessments and much higher taxes. Don't even need to mention Newton's and Brookline's.

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Here are the residential rates of the larger surrounding communities (you can't use Dedham because it's apples and oranges - I stick to cities with populations over 100k and a large commercial base)

Boston $10.63
Brookline $10.69
Cambridge $7.56
Newton $9.96
Quincy $12.60

Puts Boston essentially in the middle and we are about to take a beatdown. As I've posted before - commercial properties pay almost 2/3 of the taxes but commercial valuations have tanked far worse than residential. That means residents get to eat the entire $60 million increase in the tax levy plus probably some of what the commercial used to pay as taxes shift over due to the formulas - TBD - that's another double digit increase for 2010 that will probably be repeated in 2011 as commercial values continue to deteriorate due to rising vacancies and cost of capital. Residential taxes have already roughly doubled in the past 10 years from $250 million to $500 million. We could easily see a further 30-40% increase over the next 2-3 years.

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Brookline does not have a population over 100,000. More like 55,000.

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Sorry meant 50k - that's essentially the cut-off for the 25 largest towns in the state.

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What do you think of that Worcester study (from the conservative Pioneer Inst.) that concluded that Worcester's high commercial rate was driving business into neighboring Shrewsbury, which has a flat rate around $9?

I suspect that our high commercial rate (around $27) is a major reason that so much land is now in the hands of non-profits. We would probably make more money by lowering the rate and getting some of that non-profit land back in the commercial category.

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But doesn't surprise me (do you have a link). A few thoughts -

1) Boston businesses may be slightly less price conscious - we tend to have very high value added businesses that are more interested in attracting talent from all three sides of Boston and geography is key to them to get the talent they need (although Cambridge may be an option for some)

2) The hardest part of going back to a flat tax (non-classified) system would be the transition - you'd lower the commercial rate to about $18 but the residential would rise to that level - you'd have to do that slowly over time or there would be a riot and you would hammer residential real estate values either way - higher taxes means less for homeowners to spend on mortgage - reducing demand/price pressure - double riot.

3) Classification in a backhanded way actually works. If you look at the typical office tower and many commercial properties you will find that they sell on average at almost twice their assessed values (has to do with using the income method of valuation). Classification actually gets businesses back to paying what they would pay if a market value method (similar to what they use for homes) were used instead.

My opinion is that

1) we actually need some laws restricting the amount of land that can be owned tax-exempt - you can't have 40% of the properties supporting 100% of the burden or you end up in a death spiral as tax exempts take up more and more land. Personally I'd like to see the limit at 40% tax exempt down from the current 53% or so.

2) And much more controversial socially and legally - tax exempts can buy and use land - but should not be able to "land bank" and leverage/profit from their tax exempt status. When they sell, any and all profits should revert to the municipality (possibly with an inflation level protection) - thus taking away any profit incentive to pull properties off the tax roles - 99.9% not going to happen politically - but would probably make for good policy.

As an aside I am working with a neighborhood group discussing one tax exempt's claim that if they build an office building and rent it to private for-profit businesses, they are still exempt from property taxes. Unlikely they will succeed in pulling this off assuming they even get permitted for construction and obtain financing - but actually haven't heard anyone from the city telling them they can't do it yet. This is the kind of thing we have to put a stop to or the whole city is going to be tax exempt!

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http://www.wrrb.org/documents/TheCaseforaSingleTax...

They are basically business trying to get a lower rate...

Of course you would never get away with raising residential to 18%. But it's doubtful that non-profit land will ever be taxed, also doubtful that you could ever get a limit on non-profit ownership in the city.

But the study makes a point that both residential and business have a lower rate in Shrewsbury than Worcester.

If even under your scenario we brought 13% of the land back online, would we really need to raise the rates? That would be a huge expansion in the proportion of taxable land. The valuations would be higher as a matter of course, because of more competition for the commercial space.

On top of that would be the improvement in local living standards simply by access to better commerce. Look at all the non-profit storefront on Centre St in JP. Or Centre St. in W Roxbury, underachieving in my view.

Many other goals would be aided in this way. It's all well and good to demand that people take public transportation, however if the stores they want aren't on the train/bus lines what is the point?

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Sadly you are right - most independent analysts would probably agree that my two reforms are good policy - unfortunately bad politics (and possible, but probably surmountable, legal obstacles as long as a church isn't involved).

Re. the 13% back online - depends. Technically the city can use this as "incremental revenue" as an addition to the total amount of taxes collected as they come back online - this is what would probably happen. What should happen is that as the new property comes online - all or a part of it would be used to offset existing levy amounts to keep the same taxes only spread across a bigger base. I've never heard of any of our elected officials offer to do this except Menino as a one year teaser to get his meals/parking taxes passed a couple of years ago (I asked the sponsoring rep to institutionalize this in the law - but of course was ignored) - this year they passed the law with no one year waiver because the 50% increase in the budget over the past 10 years - even after all the state cuts - just wasn't sufficient to cover all their bennies and the thousands of new employees they keep hiring.

As for the non-profit storefronts - those are probably rented space - and therefore taxable even if occupied by a non-profit (likewise, a commercial operation like Taco Bell with a location at a hospital is taxable).

Note - although I use them myself for some comparisons - you need to be careful about comparing rates - probably works for say the 25 biggest towns in the state with populations over 50,000 - but comparing a bedroom community like Shrewsbury with Worcester is apples and oranges. Unfortunately I think every large community in the state has a split rate - but I haven't checked all of them.

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I would rather see the land issue addressed in a positive way. For instance you could restrict the non-profits from owning more land, but that doesn't mean businesses will want to locate on that commercial land if the r.e. tax rates are too high for a marginal business to survive, given the demographics of the buyers. You might just have more empty land.

The residential component in say Allston Brighton simply doesn't have the financial power to counteract Harvard. You need an alliance with a healthy commercial sector fighting with Harvard over the land, and a population with high incomes to support those businesses.

To get Pioneer on you, I don't think it's a coincidence that Harvard supports high business r.e. taxes and high income taxes. It's a marriage of liberal economics and mega-development, and the middle class is driven out.

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I'm involved with a non profit in Roslindale - we rent out and pay property taxes on the four stores downstairs (our upstairs space is taxed at or close to zero I believe) - the total tax on the property is about $11,000 for four stores. Divide that by four and it's $3000 per store per year. If $3000 vs. say $2000 a year will put a business out of business - it needs to go out of business. Unfortunately businesses can't compete with non-profits in an A/B situation - Harvard can outbid everyone knowing that they will pay no taxes - on a discounted cash flow basis they have a substantial advantage over businesses - no matter how profitable the competing business. In the end - we agree - the poor are subsidized, the rich just pay and the middle class gets driven out (that may not be an accident - politicos get their power giving things to poor people and collecting money from rich people so they can afford to tell the world all the good things they are doing for poor people. They hire the few middle class that vote and perpetuate their power - simplistic - but that's the gist of how things work in Boston)

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The idea of a profit-making business out-competing Harvard is so mind-blowing to us because it's been such a long time since we've seen in it Boston. But it should happen by definition. It happens other places with the same general population -- people in the burbs are of the same ethnic and educational stock and equally as stupid as people in Boston. Why are they doing better?

I don't think we've arrived at this situation by accident but by efforts which turn your $2000 expense into $3000 in many different ways, R.E. taxes being only one of those.

The comparison to other cities in Mass is telling, to me. These are mostly cities which chose (wisely at the time) ethnic corruption over old-money corruption in the early part of the 20th century. Let's not forget that the Curley-era structures, were populist measures in his time. But now they are punishing.

That's why small to mid-size cities are hurting, hanging on to ethnic corruption, even after discrimination showed it could be cured by widespread growth. Boston and other cities will be in trouble perpetually until they can break out of it. And this mayor's race did zero to advance us.

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I'll have you know that 87% of the trees there are above average, and the leaves on the trees have increased 11% since Menino came into office. Including on the coniferous ones.

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I think it's important to note that nearly *every* Bostonian has an above-average number of legs.

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You win the internet.

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A certain city counselor wants to limit Arboreal Americans to a mere 4 trunks per 10,000 square foot. Arburritos are nothing but a drain on the tax base, ya know?

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Is that what you get at the Taco Bell Mike Ross wants to build in the middle of Boston Common?

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national Speak Like A Pirate Day.

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Those are ARRRGGHburitos - same as Arboritos - but served with Grog.

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Added questions for Menino we've wondered about, but have yet to ask
tiny.cc/questions4menino

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