mayor

Michael Pahre posts a copy of a "sample" ballot distributed by the friends of local ward boss Naakh Vysoky.

UPDATE: Putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5? There was a fire drill today at Center Plaza. But the Boston Fire Department tells the Herald there were no firefighters involved. And as you'll see in the comments, people who work in the building say they were told ahead of time about the drill by building management. So my apologies to firefighters for jumping the gun after seeing this tweet.

Boston firefighters decided today would be a good day to test the fire preparations at 2 Center Plaza, which happens to be the location of Tom Menino's campaign headquarters.

Menino campaign spokesman Nick Martin says 50 to 60 campaign staffers - in addition to workers in nearby offices - had to evacuate when firefighters pulled the alarms around 2 p.m.

Martin said workers were kept outside for about half an hour. He added that many took cell phones with them so they could try to do some work.

Firefighters Local 718 was an early supporter of Michael Flaherty. They've feuded with Menino for years over a lack of contract and, more recently, mandatory drug and alcohol testing.

Boston residents: Did you vote yet? What are you seeing out there? Report in.

Flaherty’s critique of Menino is less sweeping, but more credible, than those of his fellow challengers.

But, also, he's Menino back to the future! Globies say vote for Flaherty because he's like Menino was in 1993.

John Keith takes a look at the latest campaign finance reports for mayoral and at-large city council candidates (and posts the numbers). Among other things, Tom Menino spent $500,000 in just 15 days on his re-election campaign.

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."

Check out the end of this Herald article which tells how Mayor Menino and his friends joked about the e-mail scandal at a Councilor Tobin event last night. Note: the mayor was skipping an East Boston event to attend this toast.

http://tiny.cc/b9l8m

The mayor turned down the East Boston event and instead attended a ritzy gala on Newbury Street, where he was given an achievement award. Later that night he went to a 40th birthday party fund-raiser for Councilor John Tobin at a West Roxbury Elks Club.

Who would've thought that e-mail issues would rev up the home stretch to the preliminary election!?

Any thoughts/predictions/prognostications on what will happen on Tuesday?

Bobby Constantino makes the case why we saw Obama rallies in Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan in 2008 but haven't seen anything similar for mayoral candidates this year:

... In Boston, young men go into the financial district at 9am on workdays and see nearly all white faces. They walk by restaurants and bars in Beacon Hill and the Back Bay and see the same. They return home to deeply segregated neighborhoods and wonder what is going on. They apply to 10, 20 and even 30 entry level jobs and can't get hired. They wonder why African Americans, Cape Verdeans and Latinos are under-represented in the police and fire departments. They walk past construction sites in their own neighborhoods and wonder why people with out-of-state plates and no vested interest there have jobs and they don't.

People in Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury are tired of hearing about how much racial progress has been made when realities like these speak otherwise. Residents here want and need to know whether the candidates plan to acknowledge these realities, which is a huge step in this city, and secondly, how they plan to address them going forward. ...

Ed. note: Yoon, Flaherty and McCrea have all said one of their first priorities would be to get more minorities into the management ranks in the police department. McCrea has said he would eliminate police details and hire people from economically hard hit neighborhoods as flaggers. Flaherty and McCrea say they would actually enforce city guidelines mandating a certain number of city residents be hired on city-funded construction projects.

The Globe keeps on top of the story. The judge's comments came in a ruling related to the controversial Roxbury mosque, built on land originally owned by the BRA.

Outraged Liberal: Wow, is this what it's like to watch a car crash in slow motion?

... For a group seemingly skilled in fixing problems, the daily drips of information about the Menino administration's failure to understand, let alone follow the state's public records law is mind-boggling. ...

WBUR interviews a computer-security guy on what's involved in retrieving "deleted" e-mail.

The Herald reports Attorney General Martha Coakley has dismissed a request from three Boston mayoral candidate to investigate how and why e-mail disappeared from Tom Menino's City Hall:

Particularly understanding this is the middle of a campaign, we get lots of complaints from folks who are adversaries who have a particular agenda.

But not enough to formally endorse him, the Jamaica Plain Gazette reports.

Back in May, when missing e-mail problem was discovered, he tells NECN this morning. Also says he talked to the US Attorney's office yesterday, which is kind of interesting since his three opponents lodged complaints with state and county officials, not the US Attorney's office. The feds did show interest in City Hall communications during its investigation of Diannne Wilkerson. Adrian Walker has more.

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?

The Globe reports Secretary of State Bill Galvin, in charge of public-records enforcement, ordered the city of Boston to immediately secure its e-mail servers and hire a computer forensics expert to try to recover e-mail the mayor said today disappeared in a "glitch," but which opponents charge is evidence of a coverup of something.

He might make an ad like this:

Literal A-Ha.

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.

The Globe takes a long look at Tom Menino's political machine, quotes Hizzona's top political aide on how they do opposition research:

"There was a guy in the room that was ours," Kineavy said. "What's wrong with that? It's recon. That's not even negative. It's knowing what your enemy’s doing."

The Globe reports at least two top city officials routinely deleted e-mail, in possible violation of state law. But don't worry - Tom Menino wasn't one of them, since he doesn't use e-mail.

Citywide dropout rate hasn't really decreased under Menino, despite what he said in Thursday's debate, Bruce Mohl reports.

With the Three Amigos kvetching about The Desk, a Menino PR person felt compelled to defend its use, the Globe reports:

It's not an empty desk. The desk symbolizes the mayor's presence in the neighborhoods.

Of course, the ad never actually shows the mayor sitting at the desk. It shows a chair, with nobody in it, behind a desk, with nothing on it (except a name plate). But apparently, that's not an empty desk.

Maria Stephanos, who felt it important to ask a debate question about Tom Menino's speaking style, asked all the candidates when the last time they took the T was. Michael Flaherty said "just the other day." Stephanos didn't seem to believe him, asked him where he went. "Downtown," he replied. And then she asked him how much a ride costs.

I don't know.

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

On Monday, Sept., 14, the Wards 4 and 5 (Beacon Hill and Back Bay) Democratic committees hold a mayoral-candidates forum, starting at 7:30 p.m. at the Boston Architectural College, 320 Newbury St. After the forum, Ward 5 will caucus on a possible endorsement in the race.

David Bernstein at the Phoenix describes the Menino camp's growing fixation on winning at least 51% of the vote on Sept. 22.

On Thursday, Sept. 17, the Brighton Allston Improvement Association sponsors a debate between the four people running for the district city council seat in Allston/Brighton: