At-large candidates to have at it at forum

1) The presence of David Bernstein, my favorite writer on local politics, was completely wasted - the questions were pre-released (or at least the general idea of what the question would be) so all he did was read a question and sit back and wait for all 6 candidates to answer (Ayanna Pressley had a legit excuse - tending to her very sick mother). Unfortunately he was used as more of a narrator rather than a moderator.

2) Order of finish

a) John Connolly continues to impress - excellent grasp of issues and seems to speak with the greatest sincerity and passion, especially about schools. My only big knock on John is he took time to say that the 4 sitting at large councilors were going to circle the wagons and support each other - this is already too much of a club and not enough of an independent political body - we don't need them formalizing the membership.
b) Michael Flaherty (Version 2.0) would be a great addition to the city council with a firm promise to challenge the current administration - definitely has the experience and given that he will probably run for mayor if re-elected to CC you can probably take him at his word. Would be a huge disappointment from there to simply find out that Version 2.0 is just Version 1.0 in a new box.
c) Sean Ryan - a little wet around the ears and like a lot of people running from the outside a bit vague on the details of issues he hasn't been privy to from the inside. However, based soley on his performance strikes me as a bright guy with passion and experience in the schools. Made some pragmatic statements about understanding that you need to take care of your union employees, but that the unions need to be realistic about what we can afford and felt that as a member of two unions he could uniquely bridge that gap.
d) Will Dorcena - again, very inexperienced and I hope he matures as a candidate, but he spoke with passion and honesty. Probably the least experienced on city issues based on his performance, but none of this stuff is rocket science. I wish him luck though - he'll need it and hopefully he can get some financial support so we can learn more about him.
e) Felix Arroyo - Felix is probably the guy I'd most like to have a beer with and hang out and watch a ball game. However, he continues to disappoint severely in follow through and action. He talks the best game, but his execution ranges from non-existent to confusing - sometimes voting for issues after arguing the exact opposite in his statements. He made some bold statements that played to the audience of downtown residents, but to the best of my knowledge he hasn't acted on any of these (like putting an elementary school in the Back Bay/Beacon Hill which several others supported).
f) Steve Murphy - he obviously doesn't want to be a city councilor and keeps running for other offices. We should help him make his wish come true. He claims to have accomplished many things that I seem to recall were mainly championed by other people and he apparently glommed on. He's lost any passion he ever had and strikes me as little more than a throwback to an Old Boston that doesn't exist anymore. His one claim was that the city is going to get an extra $6.5 million in PILOT from non-profits which is actually a negative unless it's used to offset other property taxes or offset our retiree health care and pension obligatins which amount to billions of dollars - rather than as more sand in the sandbox for the city to play with in the form of pay raises and unnecessary incremental hires which is what they traditionally do with found money.