John Connolly

Boston City Council to consider bike-sharing program

adamg — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:09:03 -0400

At-large Councilor John Connolly is calling for a hearing to consider creation of a European-style bike-sharing program in Boston. The Menino administration has already begun looking at ways of increasing bicycle usage in Boston.

Connolly says the city should look at options from letting people use communal bikes for free to a ZipCar-like bike-rental program for people who need a bike for a short period of time.

Plastic buggy baby bottles to be banned in Boston?

adamg — Mon, 26 May 2008 21:59:34 -0400

The City Council holds a hearing on Thursday on Bisphenol A, a chemical used in many plastic bottles (Nalgene, anyone) that might not be all that good for your health. Councilors could try to ban bottles made with the chemical.

Michael Pahre will tell you way more than you thought you'd need to know about the chemical - and why the council is taking up a matter normally under the purview of the federal Food and Drug Administration.

The hearing, organized by at-large Councilor John Connolly, starts at 3 p.m. in the Ianella Chamber, fifth floor, City Hall.

Mayoral ambition in a trip to Brighton?

adamg — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:32:53 -0500

Michael Pahre takes note of newbie at-large city councilor John Connolly (best known in West Roxbury and Roslindale) and his quick learning of the BC expansion issue and wonders if it might already be time to add him to the list of possible candidates for mayor next year:

We'll watch those fund-raising numbers carefully over the next six months to see how well he replenishes his warchest.

Where's a postal inspector when you need one?

adamg — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:28:51 -0500

Did John Connolly's not-so-anonymous mailings violate federal postal regulations? Connolly only admits to sending out some of the anti-Murphy mailings, although the Herald reports the others had the same postal permit number as used by the Connolly campaign for other mailings.

It's Murphy AND Connolly; Arroyo learns what happens on rainy days

adamg — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:20:13 -0500

Winner:

Loser:

Big winner:

Winner:

Guy whose picture I didn't happen to take at the Roslindale Day Parade:
John Connolly

Steve Murphy proved tonight he's the Model T of elected officials: He can get elected to anything as long as it's an at-large seat on the Boston city council. He came in second tonight, giving him one of the four at-large seats on the city council.

Felix Arroyo, meanwhile, proved that, on a rainy day, when not even 14% of registered voters show up, organization DOES matter, as in: If you don't have much of one, you're going to wonder what the hell happened.

And what the hell happened tonight was that John Connolly, who had an incredibly organized get-out-the-vote effort, especially in his home base of Roslindale and West Roxbury, simply got more votes than Arroyo (who came in second two years ago, which led to a brief Arroyo-for-mayor boomlet). If the flap over Connolly's anonymous anti-Murphy mailings had an impact, in the end, it didn't matter (except to possibly give Steve Murphy some sympathy votes).

Of course, above everybody else sits, again, Michael Flaherty. Not really a surprise there, and you know he already has people thinking what colors to use on the "Flaherty for Mayor" signs. The only question is whether he dares to take on Tom Menino in two years or waits until 2013 - when, who knows, maybe he'll be facing Sam Yoon, who also got re-elected tonight.

Of course, the big question is what this all means for actual policy making in Boston. Granted, we have a "weak" city council, which makes it hard for them to actually get anything done, but they do have the power to hold hearings and get to vote on the mayor's budget, so it'll be interesting to read in the GateHouse and college papers what happens (since we obviously can forget about the Globe and Herald writing much of anything about the council).

In other races:

Mark Ciommo beat Gregory Glennon to win the Allston/Brighton district council race by a roughly 60/40 margin (props to Michael Pahre for calling that margin). He takes over for Jerry McDermott, who moved out of town.

In Dorchester, Maureen Feeney easily maintained her position as the only woman on the council, swamping Michael Cote.

Charles Yancey did even better against J.R. Rucker in his Dorchester/Mattapan district.

It was Chuck Turner over Carlos Henriquez in Roxbury in another trouncing.

All other district races were uncontested.

Vote numbers from the city elections department.

Things Howie Carr won’t tell you about his drinking buddy Ratso/deep throat Murphy

Curley — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:50:44 -0500

In September Murphy was trying to keep two jobs a $100,000 + state job and his $85,000 councilor seat

He is the one that tattled on Flaherty for having an expired City Council President placard in his window. How does Howie get is inside anonymous City hall info? Ratso gives it to him.

Turned his back on 41 well trained battle worn Boston Municipal police offices. They all got laid off in January and most of them were friends who had helped him win elections.

Who says Steve Murphy can't move fast?

adamg — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 11:53:00 -0500

Look what we got in the mail today:

Of course, as I've blathered, if Connolly loses because of this, it'll be because he attacked Murphy anonymously, not because what he said about Murphy was in any way untrue.

Election's tomorrow, natch.

John Connolly: Old Boston disguised in a New Boston coat

adamg — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 07:54:56 -0500

Michael Pahre explains why he thinks John Connolly is really your basic old-line Irish-American pol, not a harbinger of some new politics in Boston - and not just because of all his political relatives from back in the day:

More than anything else, Connolly's stance on schools betrays his old Boston roots. He's 34-years-old, so when he grew up Boston was already under court-ordered desegration and mandatory busing. He told me he did not attend the Boston Public Schools himself, and he also strongly favors returning to neighborhood schools. In fact, he sat down with me in August and lectured for probably a solid 10-15 minutes on why neighborhood schools were the key towards improving the public schools.

The problem with wanting a return to neighborhood schools is that the city may revert to pre-1970s battle lines with schools segregated based on neighborhood demographics, and uneven school quality from neighborhood-to-neighborhood. It's not a surprise that new Boston Councilor Arroyo opposes continued movement towards neighborhood schools. Councilor Yoon summed up a progressive take on the issue by ensuring equality of schools for all: fix the schools first so that every neighborhood has a good school, and only then can overhauling the school assignment system occur....

John Connolly: Gutless candidate

adamg — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:04:49 -0400

Connolly's campaign is admitting sending out an anonymous mailing attacking incumbent city councilor Stephen Murphy.

I agree with the point the mailing makes - that Murphy seems bored with being a councilor, as shown by his repeated efforts to get another job. But if a gutless wunderkind thinks the only way to make a political argument is through an anonymous mailing, then he is equally worthy of scorn - and equally unfit to be a city councilor. There are seven other candidates besides these two running for the four at-large seats. How about voting for one (or two or four) of them?

Thanks to Ron Newman for noticing the statement on the Herald site.

Earlier:
A look at two mailings
What would a Boston election be without last-minute scurrilous attacks?

Probably just a bunch of coincidences, right?

adamg — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 12:03:08 -0400

UPDATE: Connolly just lost my vote. His campaign admits sending out the Murphy piece.

Over the past two days, we've gotten a pair of mailings related to Tuesday's city council elections. One is from John Connolly and basically explains how wonderful he is and why he should be an at-large city councilor. The other is an anonymous mailing telling us how awful incumbent at-large councilor Stephen Murphy is.

What's interesting is the physical similarities between the two mailings. Both are the same size and use the same cardstock. Both make extensive use of dropshadow. The computer-generated mailing "labels" are identical (and in our case, both addressed to "The Gaffin Household"). And then there's the thing I find most interesting: That the cut-outs used to attribute something to the Boston Globe have the same exact scissor-like borders:

The Globe "cut-out" from the John Connolly mailing:

The Globe "cut-out" from the anti-Murphy mailing:

Now, this doesn't prove that the Connolly campaign had anything to do with the anti-Murphy mailing. There probably aren't a ton of union print shops (both mailings have the same union bug) that do political printing and it could be a case of two separate groups using the same shop by coincidence. And the Herald cut-outs on each flier have different borders. It sure would be interesting to find out who at 31 Milk St. (the address listed on the Murphy thing) published it.

And for me, ironically, the anti-Murphy mailing does spell out why I wasn't planning to vote for him: He seems terminally bored as a city councilor and keeps trying (and failing) to get other jobs. But if we do find out that another candidate is behind this gutless (because it's anonymous) mailing, he'll lose my vote as well.