In Bay Windows, Sue O'Connell and Jeff Coakley endorsed Mike Ross:
A strong mayor needs empathy along with leadership. Ross has consistently and reliably been a leader on LGBT issues—most recently on the challenges facing our community's senior population. As mayor, his experience in both public and private life would positively inform his leadership of the city.
The Globe reports on a transportation forum, in which Marty Walsh said 30 m.p.h. is too fast for most Boston streets, John Barros blasted Walsh and Menino for not doing more to get more T funding and John Connolly and Felix Arroyo praised true dedicated bike lanes.
Connolly, Walsh and Charlotte Golar Richie are the leaders in a WBUR poll.
The Boston Teachers Union's leadership will ask for the vote during a regular union meeting this afternoon, a couple days after the Globe endorsed Connolly and Barros, both of whom want to see more charter schools in Boston, an idea that offends the union's sensibilities. Consalvo and Arroyo, both of whom say they would oppose an expansion of the number of charter-school seats, are expected to be on hand around 4:45 p.m. after the vote.
Mike Ross traveled to Uphams Corner this morning to criticize Marty Walsh's plan to let a developer bulldoze City Hall - and to push his plan to build 10,000 housing units along the renovated Fairmount Line.
Boston is hungry for new ideas, not just a recycled debate about moving City Hall. The next mayor needs to be focused on developing our neighborhoods, many of which haven't shared in Boston's boom.
The Connolly campaign might want to double-check photos before posting them (h/t Kevin Gilnack):
Marty Walsh says he would pay for universal K-1 classes by selling off City Hall. Unlike Mayor Menino, who once proposed selling off City Hall as well, however, Walsh says he would keep city offices downtown rather than trying to move them to South Boston.
Walsh says the money from selling off the 4.5-acre property would raise up to $150 million and add an estimated $6 million in tax revenues to city coffers from a landlord willing to buy the property, tear down the nine-story concrete bunker and build a new mixed-use development on it.
The Globe reports the mayoral forum sponsored by the Boston Teachers Union was just what you'd expect: Candidates opposed to expanding the cap on charter schools (Consalvo, Ross, Yancey and Arroyo) got a much warmer reception than those who didn't (Connolly, Walsh, Walczak and Barros, with the strongest charter supporter of them all - Conley - not present). Golar Richie continued her position of not really taking a position on the issue.
The Globe reports on a forum in Dorchster last night, in which Barros, former head of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, compared the law-enforcement response to the Amy Lord murder with the response to murders in Roxbury.
The Ward 19 Democratic Committee is hosting a forum for the two Democratic mayoral candidates advancing to the general election. The forum will be Tuesday, October 8 at 7:00 PM at the First Baptist Church, 633 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain. Ward constituents are welcome. Time will be provided for the candidates to take questions from the attendees.
In a debate that at times devolved into an incomprehensible roar as moderators did little to try to keep order, 11 candidates offered their opinions on everything from a casino vote to education. David Wyatt also attended, but spoke only during the two times he was asked a direct question.
John Connolly said East Boston residents will be hit far harder by a potential casino than anybody else, so they should be the ones to vote.
Dan Conley, however, says all Bostonians should vote. "It will affect our character, our culture and it needs a citywide vote." Almost said he opposed the casino when he compared it to the proposal to move the Red Sox to the South Boston waterfront. "Can you imagine if that had happened?"
Bill Walczak opposed the casino, period, called it "a public health disaster."
Charlotte Golar Richie didn't say who she feels about the vote - although she said she would oppose ramming a casino down East Boston's throat if it voted against it and the rest of the city voted for it, but said she would take some casino revenue and use it for crime prevention.
Bill Walczak has bought ad time on NECN tonight for this commercial. Why NECN tonight? It'll be broadcasting the not-Joyce-Kulhawik debate at 8 p.m. Meanwhile, Dan Conley, who hasn't really said if he's for or against a Suffolk Downs casino, might go after other candidates on the issue of a citywide referendum on the question - he's in favor of one, rather than the East Boston-only vote that Mayor Menino is backing.
Mike Ross thinks we need more fiber in our diet:
Press Pass TV sits down with the candidates and takes their views on the crime rate and the ongoing violence for Boston's first mayoral race in over two decades.
Seems that instead of unifying the black community around a single candidate, a closed-door meeting of elders may have only fractured it.
The Golar Richie campaign yesterday issued a statement denying involvement in the effort to get certain candidates (who happen to be named Yancey, Clemons and Wyatt) to drop out:
No one from the Charlotte Golar Richie Campaign attended the event, nor did Charlotte or the campaign have any affiliation with the event or the individuals involved.
First cyborg mayor? Bill Walczak tries on a pair of Google Glass.
The Dorchester Reporter alerts us that Nick Collins is going to endorse John Connolly, rather than, say, Marty Walsh, whom the Reporter notes stayed neutral in Collins's failed state-senate bid.
Conor writes: "I aggregated all the TV ads I could find onto one site" bosmayorads.tumblr.com
Connolly will be out in front of the Apple Store on Boylston Street today to convince voters he will install a genius bar in City Hall create the kind of customer-driven attitude in City Hall that Apple customers expect, specifically, by "making city services, licensing, and permitting easier and more user-friendly."
Marty Walsh says the city needs its own Ethics Commission to ensure officials and their families don't suckle at the public teat:
In this post-Labor Day world, it's no longer sweetness and light and pick-up basketball games on the campaign trail, the Herald warns:
The gloves are coming off in Boston's mayoral race with candidates trading accusations of ideas-poaching and flip-flopping as they head into a red-hot sprint to undercut their opponents and sway undecided voters before the 12-way Sept. 24 preliminary election.
The Arroyo campaign provided this snippet from a pick-up match in a city with enough candidates to field two entire teams, including, of course, Rob Three-Pointer Consalvo.
The Bay State Banner says Yancey, Clemons and Wyatt should drop out of the race and help get one of the other minority candidates who actually has a chance get elected:
Sometimes it is heroic to quit. Politicians are competitive, highly motivated and aggressive individuals who will fight to the end. It is unnatural for them to throw in the towel before the political battle is over. However, there is a strategic aspect of politics that just might call for such a maneuver.
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