Kevin McCrea explains why he's voting for Flaherty tomorrow - and how he almost endorsed Menino instead, he and his wife even went to dinner with the Meninos at Hammersley's Bistro in the South End. In the end, he writes it came down to a single issue:

The South End News gets the scoop.

Last week the potential deputy mayor told the Jamaica Plain Gazette that Kevin McCrea didn't get any more votes than Donald Duck would have. Oh, and Floon joked about the number of public-records and open-meeting complaints filed by McCrea - including, you know, the lawsuit against the City Council, Michael Flaherty, president, that McCrea won:

"We'll create a position called the Division of Kevin McCrea Information Requests," Yoon joked. Flaherty quickly added that a better name would be "McFOIA."

Guess what? McCrea tells the paper this week that Yoon called to apologize after the remarks showed up on the paper's Web site.

And what better place to put a "resort casino" than Suffolk Downs?

Unlike Sal DiMasi, who managed to quash casinos, successor Bob DeLeo favors them.

Tom Menino has long supported a casino in Boston - two years ago, he backed a casino at the racetrack - and repeated that support earlier this week at a candidate's forum in the Back Bay, saying it would help create jobs.

Large turnout at the forum, sponsored by the Wards 4 and 5 Democratic committees at the BAC on Newbury Street. Here's the blow by blow:

Public safety - do Beacon Hill, Back Bay residents feel safe?

Yoon, Flaherty and McCrea this morning.

The three mayoral candidates today charged Tom Menino and his aides with deliberately covering something up, although exactly what, they couldn't say, since the e-mail doesn't appear to exist.

At a press conference with Flaherty and Yoon outside City Hall, however, McCrea said he would not be surprised if mail related to Dianne Wilkerson's attempt to get a liquor license for a contributor were among the large volumes of mail deleted by Menino aide Michael Kineavey. In an affidavit in the Wilkerson case, the FBI noted extensive contact between the former state senator and City Hall.

If so, look for the knot of mayoral candidates and camera crews: Michael Flaherty, Sam Yoon and Kevin McCrea are holding a press conference to call for criminal investigations into the way top city officials allegedly deleted massive amounts of e-mail, which is against the law (right out front).

As the Outraged Liberal reminds us, there's a certain irony in Flaherty teaming up with McCrea on the issue (which the Globe follows up on today - one guy was going into his deleted folder and deleting stuff there). McCrea won a lawsuit against the City Council - Michael Flaherty, president - for violations of the Open Meeting Law (Flaherty acknowledged the issue in announcing his run for mayor).

Meanwhile, if any probes do get launched, Michael Pahre has volunteered 19 pieces of e-mail that he or people he knows either sent or received from Menino aides Michael Kinneavy and Tom Tinlin.

Tomorrow is 9/11. Why don't you want neighborhood cops to be armed with semi-automatic weapons?

Mayoral candidate Kevin McCrea posts a copy of a letter that would seem to indicate Allston/Brighton City Councilor Mark Ciommo managed to convince at-large Councilor (and mayoral candidate) Sam Yoon to "scale back" a proposed hearing order on Boston College's expansion plans. Ciommo had promised to recuse himself from BC deliberations because his son got a scholarship there.

Harry Mattison posts Ciommo's reply:

... I have not contradicted any aspects of my disclosure form.

Councilor Yoon approached me to co-sponsor a late-file Order for a Hearing regarding the BRA process with Boston College's [institutional master plan]. I provided him with my feedback that I supported several components of the Order for a Hearing, but that I thought that some of the language was inaccurate. I also felt that some of the language was politically charged.

My intent was to remove politics from the discussion and focus on the BRA process. I think the end result was a more productive hearing. ...

The Globe reports that city programs intended to get small pieces of land back on the tax rolls by selling them to neighbors have meant profits for at least two landowners in Jamaica Plain - just like mayoral hopeful Kevin McCrea said. The city calls these "oversights."