Scot Lehigh doesn't like the Tom Menino on display during the whole Tall Ships fiasco.

The Globe reports.

Mayoral candidate Sam Yoon says he's filing legislation to eliminate the Boston Redevelopment Authority and replace it with "a comprehensive City Department for Community Development & Planning." He said the city needs a planning department that can help guide smart growth and development centered on pedestrians, bicycles and public transit rather than cars.

Our disjointed, dysfunctional planning process is choking the city's development. Boston's future needs to be guided by better planning and real public participation. ...

Boston is the only city in the United States without a planning department separate from its redevelopment authority. The Boston Redevelopment Authority has outlived its usefulness and it should be disbanded. In its place, we need a comprehensive city planning agency which is accountable to the public, not just the developers and the Mayor. Boston's development should benefit the entire city and that requires a public process, not a political one.

It is high time to stop being defensive and secretive - let's open the doors and invite in people with fresh ideas to participate in planning for a new, forward-looking Boston.

More.

Mayoral candidate Kevin McCrea agrees with his opponents that charter schools can be A Good Thing. But they're not enough, he writes:

... The two elephants in the room are busing and failing schools. Raising the cap on charters only slightly addresses getting more kids out of the regular schools and into better charter schools. In addition, there is no guarantee that the kids who need it most will get into those charter schools, instead it could be that many of these favored seats will go to favored people. ...

As if the changes and cuts to Boston's community-center based daycare and pre-kindergarten programming was not enough, it now appears that some additional critical staffing at some community centers is also being cut.

The large community center "clusters," those centers that were joined at the hip for management purposes (2, 3, and 4 buildings in some instances) are cutting their "assistant cluster administrator" position. While that may sound a tad administratively heavy, these people are often the equivalent of a ship's executive officer of "chief of the boat," and are irreplaceable.

Councilor Sam Yoon said yesterday that if elected mayor, he would fight to gain a half-cent increase in the sales tax in Boston to pay for new efforts to combat juvenile murders and other crimes in the city.

Yoon's made his proposal in an interview with Channel 4's Jon Keller. The proposal, which would require the approval of the state legislature and the governor, would raise $35 million and would help bring Boston back to the best years of the "Boston Miracle," when the city went two straight years in the 1990s without a single youth homicide.

Yoon also called incumbent Tom Menino stale and said it's simply time for a 21st-century mayor, one who would act on things such as a Boston Finance Commission report that identifies $70 million in savings through "common sense" reforms:

Politicians, just like anything else, have a shelf life.

Kevin McCrea reports a meeting between representatives of the various campaigns and media types ended in a standoff between Menino's minions and the media:

... The media sources had clearly laid out to the candidates that they wanted to lay have two debates and that the candidates needed to agree to both debates or there would be neither.

So, since Menino balked the Media sources rescinded their offer and we have no debates scheduled.

MassEquality's political action committee today backed Tom Menino's re-election bid:

Tom Menino ranks among the most-pro LGBT mayors across the country. From Day One he has always stood with us in building a stronger, safer, and more equitable city for all. Whether it was his refusal to participate in the St. Patrick's Day parade after organizers barred an LGBT group from marching or his early advocacy and action on behalf of the campaign for equal marriage, Tom Menino has always been our champion.

Complete statement:

Ross Levanto explains why he'll be filling in an oval for Tom Menino again this fall:

... I am supporting the Mayor because I really do not have much to complain about. I have attempted to contribute to my neighborhood over the past several years to clean the streets, provide my input on an agreement with a local university, and to debate the merits of additional liquor licenses. I played a minor role with my neighbors creating a new program to replace and prune trees, I assisted with the transition to new trash pick-up schedules, and I participated in neighborhood "welcome wagons" to greet new neighbors in September. Each and every step of the way, I felt as though Mayor Menino acted in concert with the interests of the city and supported my efforts. ...

Still, he lists challenges he thinks the mayor needs to deal with, including education, payments in lieu of taxes and getting Boston ready for the future.