mayor

Wicked Local Allston/Brighton reports that at-large Council candidate Tomas Gonzalez has an idea for City Hall Plaza: A community vegetable garden, at least until the city finally figures out what to do with the barren stretch of brick:

Mike Ball reminds us of all the stories circling around Boston, most of which seem unlikely to affect upcoming elections:

• The Mayor's top aide deleting thousands of emails, including those likely relating to subjects of federal corruption cases.
• A mayoral candidate with a long history as Council president in foiling public access to public meetings and records.
• A Senate candidate who refused to prosecute or even investigate corruption.
• A Councilor running for re-election under federal corruption indictment.

The Globe reports Michael Kineavy is stepping down, at least for awhile.

That's the position city officials are taking on releasing the news that the reason they couldn't find several thousand e-mail messages from Menino aide Michael Kineavy was not because of some "glitch" but because, as the Globe reports, they were sitting in an old computer that had been swapped out from Kineavy's desk.

That explanation also doesn't really explain the disappearance of the e-mail messages, since Boston City Hall uses a server-based mail system, which is supposed to keep copies of a person's e-mail, but, well, you can see why Michael Flaherty might just call for an independent investigation into what happened to the e-mail: "At first, they were infrequent email users. Then it was a glitch. Then it was a double delete. Today we are being told a computer was replaced days after the Globe request for emails. This appears to be a cover-up."

The Globe has the dry account of Flaherty boycotting some variety show because they wouldn't let his young ward Sam on stage since he's no longer a candidate (but they made an exception for Tito Jackson and, um, the rest of the Jackson 10), while the Herald has the photo suggesting a post-November career for Yoon as a Blues Brothers impersonator.

Meanwhile, Bruce Mohl fact checks assertions by both Menino and Flaherty in Thursday's debate; finds both played a bit loose with the truth.

Also, there's apparently a shortage of pens and paper at Flaherty HQ. Won't you help?

Basic news accounts: Globe | Herald.

Notes from the debate at Channel 5:

Is City Hall too white?

7 p.m. on Channel 5, for an hour.

The Globe reports Boston will hire a company to "scan" all the internal City Hall messages to and from Michael Kineavy and then post those (so sounds like PDFs, although maybe they'll make it even more fun and post 5,018 GIF images). No word on the other messages, the ones the city claims would cost $250,000 to retrieve - or the messages that were forwarded to the feds.

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.

Mel Miller says only fools would question his decision not to endorse, in reply to a question from Adam Reilly about the impression it had anything to do with that $200,000 loan Tom Menino got for him.

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.

Dear Universal Hub,

Tomorrow, we are announcing our historic ticket to change Boston politics forever.

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.

The Boston Globe has made available a sample of the 5000 e-mails that City Hall finally coughed up related to Kineavy (these are e-mails from other people's mailboxes that included Kineavy in the To/From/CC fields not from his own mailbox, because he was double deleting his e-mails to avoid archival).

Particularly telling as to Kineavy's motivation for double-deleting all of his e-mail is a heavily CC'd discussion related to 2009 Saint Patrick's Day breakfast roast jokes. Kineavy ends the discussion with his colleagues by stating:

"reminder...even though we are joking...these are foiable" (Freedom of Information Act-able)

This shows that he was obviously WELL aware of the MA Public Record Law and actively seeking to help others at City Hall avoid it with their own potentially damning e-mails.

Michael Flaherty heads to Suffolk Superior Court today - for jury duty - the Lit Drop folks at the Dorchester Reporter report.

Josh Dawson looks at some factors that could swing the November vote for at-large city council candidates, including endorsements by current elected officials and more "sample ballots" such as the ones that told elderly Russian Jews in Brighton how to vote. Also? Doug Bennett is toast.

The Globe reports voter turnout was up in "predominantly minority neighborhoods" in the preliminary elections - Codman Square saw three times the turnout off 2005.

Mike Ball was quite enjoying himself at the Beantown Jazz Festival yesterday when all of a sudden Tom Menino showed up and was introduced effusively by Berklee's president as the next mayor. Also:

... Our longest-serving mayor wore an apricot-colored pullover. The effect was somewhere between someone with a failed paint-on tan and a Shmoo ...

The Globe shows off printouts of the 5,000 extra e-mails the city managed to find belonging to Menino aide de camp Michael Kineavy; says it also found, gosh, some missing e-mails that might be relevant to the federal investigation into indicted ex-Sen. Dianne Wilkerson and her alleged liquor license issues. Says there are far more, but city officials balking at complying with the state open-records law say it would cost $250,000 to recover them.

The Herald, meanwhile, starts reading the messages and tears into Hizzonah for the way he released the paper copies of the e-mail:

Mayor Thomas M. Menino used classic stall tactics and flouted public records laws in the release of e-mails improperly deleted by his top lieutenant, making various payment demands and dumping the public records to reporters after darkness fell outside a locked-up City Hall. ...

Jay Fitzgerald considers the costs:

Some in the adminstration are apparently bellyaching that reproducing the emails is "cost prohibitive." Maybe if they had kept track of emails in the first place and didn't require expensive computer forensics teams to retrieve them, then perhaps the costs might have been a little lower, right guys?

The Outraged Liberal suggests a ritualistic solution:

If Michael Kineavy is as loyal to Boston Mayor Tom Menino as is widely reported, he ought to think about falling on his sword -- today.

Can you say "obstruction of justice"?

The "discovery" of more than 5,000 e-mails previously thought lost -- some related to the federal investigation into City Councilor Chuck Turner and former State Sen. Dianne Wilkerson -- adds a whole new life to what Menino has tried to dismiss as an innocent mistake by an overzealous clean freak off a top aide. ...

The Globe reports Flaherty's getting feisty and implying he'll never cut any ribbons as mayor.

The also-rans: Yoon adjusts to life as a lame duck. Still no endorsement from him; the Herald reports Flaherty will shmooze him over coffee). Yoon's four-year-old daughter, Naomi, tried to console her dad. The South End News reports Kevin McCrea is relaxed and planning a weekend getaway to Maine.

The Herald reports a gleeful Chuck Turner sees his victory Tuesday as proof voters want him to fight those federal corruption charges. The South End News quotes him as predicting a 60-40 win over Henriquez in November.

Reporters love tips.

The two candidates for mayor exchanged some pleasantries tonight:

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.

Half of Boston voters who showed up at the polls said yesterday that "good" is good enough. Can Michael Flaherty overcome that?

Possibly the most important thing for Flaherty is something he can't control: Will Donovan Slack at the Globe keep digging into City Hall? Can she find more than the e-mail flap? What about 16 years' worth of BRA development deals? Ooh, what about the Roxbury mosque - a fun little project that involves both the BRA and missing e-mail?

Because while Flaherty was chanting "We can't wait!" last night, 51% of the people who voted yesterday were saying "Yes we can wait!"

In today's preliminary election, Mayor Thomas Menino topped a self-imposed 50% margin - if just barely - and he now enters the campaign against Michael Flaherty with a far larger bank account.