Sam Yoon
The City Council today rejected a proposed limit on how long somebody can serve as mayor.
While backers of the measure, sponsored by at-large Councilor Sam Yoon, said it would reinvigorate the political process and prevent the abuses of incumbency, opponents said it was insulting to tell voters they could not vote for the candidate of their choice as often as they want.
Against: Ciommo, Consalvo, Feeney, LaMattina, Linehan, Murphy, Yancey.
For: Connolly, Flaherty, Ross, Tobin, Turner, Yoon.
The council voted 8-5 to reject a proposal by at-large Councilor John Connolly to limit city councilors as well; Ross, who voted for mayoral term limits, voted against.
Comments from councilors before the vote: Read more
In its last week of existence, the current city council this morning is debating a proposal by outgoing at-large City Councilor Sam Yoon to limit Boston mayors to two terms. The council will vote on the measure - which would require approval by the mayor and the state legislature - on Wednesday. Read more
Sam Yoon is asking his supporters to barrage city councilors with phone calls to convince them to vote on a measure to limit Boston mayors to two terms in office. The proposal currently sits in Maureen Feeney's committee on government operations - to which a proposal to keep the city-council president from becoming mayor if the sitting mayor resigns has also been consigned. Read more
The Man Who Would Be Deputy Mayor today endorsed Felix Arroyo, John Connolly, Tito Jackson and Ayanna Pressley. His reasoning, in e-mail to supporters: Read more
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.
At yesterday's deputy-mayor press conference/rally, Michael Flaherty never introduced the guy standing right up there with him and Sam Yoon: Former state Senator Bill Owens, who had endorsed Yoon in August. But is the presence of the man defeated by Dianne Wilkerson in 1992 enough to increase Flaherty's vote getting in black neighborhoods?
Chris Lovett writes it could be the deciding factor in Flaherty's bid for mayor, because Yoon peaked in areas with traditionally low turnout in general city elections, such as Jamaica Plain, Back Bay and Allston/Brighton. Lovett talks to former city councilor Larry DiCara about turnout, especially in minority areas where Menino did particularly well. Read more
As he introduced the man who would be his deputy mayor, Michael Flaherty predicted 40,000 to 60,000 more people would come to the polls in November - and that the majority of them would vote for change.
"About half the people who voted last Tuesday voted for change," Flaherty said at a City Hall Plaza press conference at which he and Sam Yoon outlined their proposed agenda - which includes dismantling the BRA, performance reviews across all departments and a 311 system.
Roughly 81,000 people voted in this month's preliminary elections, which saw incumbent Mayor Tom Menino take 51% of the vote, with Flaherty and Yoon splitting most of the rest. Read more
Dear Universal Hub,
Tomorrow, we are announcing our historic ticket to change Boston politics forever. Read more
File under: Floon!
Sam Yoon and Michael Flaherty have scheduled a press conference for 10:15 a.m. tomorrow. Dale Herbeck tweets it's to announce that Yoon will be "running" as Michael Flaherty's deputy mayor.
Herbeck says this is the "BIG development breaking in Boston mayoral race" that David Bernstein at the Phoenix teases he's writing up right this second. Gin Dumcius at the Dorchester Reporter tweets one of his sources has confirmed the story. UPDATE: Bernstein confirms after he got Twitter-scooped on his own story.
Map showing which wards Menino and Flaherty led in and whether they got more or less than 50% of the vote there. Yoon and McCrea did not win any wards. NOTE: Although precinct lines are shown, the map is based on wardwide numbers.
Complete ward numbers.
Chris Lovett posts some numbers: Flaherty mostly carried South Boston, along with some precincts in Charlestown and Dorchester. Yoon carried nine precincts, in the West End, Fenway, Back Bay, JP and Allston, but as Lovett also notes, Back Bay and Allston had some of the lowest overall turnouts in the city.
Matt O'Malley takes the ward view, notes Menino took 19 or the city's 22 wards.
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. Read more
Tomorrow, 25,000 phones across Boston will ring and people will pick up to hear Sam Yoon pleading with them to not hang up, because this is really Sam, live and in person, and please stay on the line for the city's largest ever teleconference: "They can ask questions or adjust their setting through the phone's keypad," Yoon's campaign assures us.
Meanwhile, and completely unrelated to the above, Tom Menino is crowing about his endorsement by the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters, which cited "his strong leadership on environmental issues that affect both Boston and the Commonwealth."
But not enough to formally endorse him, the Jamaica Plain Gazette reports.
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? Read more
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. Read more
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? Read more
Sam Yoon, speaking to a group of bloggers tonight, says he would start a formal process to changing the city's current strong-mayor system.
Yoon says city government under the control of a "strong" mayor is not working and that after 100 years of the system, it's time for a more democratically run city.
A charter commission would take 12 to 18 months to recommend changes to the city charter - essentially, its constitution.
Charter reform "is something I'm really excited about," he says. "We haven't had a real debate about our charter since 1909. ... I think it's worth absolutely working on. Does [the current system] really fit way our city is in the 21st century. No other city works like this." Read more
Boston.com
September 8, 2009 11AM to Noon
Readers pose questions and Sam Yoon answers them.
Jim alerts us there'll be a mayoral debate on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 6:30 p.m. at the East Boston Social Center, 68 Central Sq. Three candidates have agreed to participate.
What follows are my notes on the debate tonight. Props to Jon Keller for coming up with a form that allowed for an actual debate, rather than one of those stilted side-by-side affairs where the candidates never really address each other. Although with four people running, an hour was too short.
Who won? I'm terrible at judging things like that. At times, it seemed like a debate between Menino, Yoon and McCrea, with Flaherty on the sidelines. Yoon seemed too focused on Menino as the leader of SPECTRE, McCrea seemed too focused on getting the other three indicted, and Menino veered from the question sometimes (like answering some question about city finances by talking about how diverse city commissions are). But if you watched it, what do you think? Read more
The mayoral campaigns organized standouts outside WBZ studios in advance of tonight's debate.
Menino and Flaherty supporters were out in force along both sides of Soldiers Field Road. Scores of them and they just kept coming.
Some Yoon kids and grandparents showed up relatively late and never tried to muscle into the fray - maybe the beefy union workers for the Flaherty and Menino campaigns scared them, so they stayed clumped together more than a block away. They did have cute little maraca-like shaker things - which were completely inaudible to anybody driving by, unlike the air horns that a number of Flaherty men blared.
McCrea people? When we left, around 5:20, we hadn't seen a single one (and we walked up and down the road a couple of times). Maybe they got stuck in traffic on the way over from the South End.
EatBoston asks the four candidates for mayor about their favorite foods and restaurants.
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