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The most West Roxbury political thing of the year
By adamg on Sun, 11/05/2017 - 4:46pm
Both Marty Walsh and Tito Jackson showed up to campaign at the Roche Bros. entrance this afternoon.
Walsh was there first, accompanied by City Councilor (and retired Rochies bagger and cashier) Matt O'Malley, state Rep. Ed Coppinger and a couple of aides. Then Jackson showed up with a crew of a dozen or so sign waving supporters and a WGBH reporter - possibly one of the few times this campaign where a Jackson standout was larger than a Walsh one (Ed. confession: We were there to pick something up for dinner, not chronicle the closing days of the race).
When we got home, we found some enthusiastic Walsh supporter had left this on our door - sorry, we're not going to vote today:
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Comments
Interesting thing about the flyer...
Either someone made a stupid mistake, it's not a real Mayor Walsh flyer, or someone's pulling your leg.
Any Walsh campaign paraphernalia will have a 'union bug' on it. Flip it over. No bug, not from Walsh.
If you can, post a reverse image. It's called a bug because, well, it looks like a bug.
So, to find out if it's real...
...you have to "look for the union label"...
no Union afl-cio print mark
no Union afl-cio print mark on that flyer, something fishy going on here.
Don't worry, it has a union bug
It's a two-sided door hanger, the bug is on the back side.
for full disclosure
What did you buy for dinner? and Why are you not sharing with us?
We made a progressive choice
Chicken alfredo. Don't know if it has the union label, though.
Did you check the back?
...
Two candidates, one door
Both candidates were allowed to stand outside??! I was told by store management that only one candidate was allowed out front .. and that it was first-come-first-served based on who signed up on the very-important sign-up sheet kept at the customer service desk.
don't ask
Tito had a big crew of sign holders. Walsh had a half dozen handing out lit. Roches is good about accommodating candidates and signature gatherers out front. In addition to the two candidates there was a lady from RaiseUpMA getting signatures for $15 min and paid leave From what I saw, people from the different campaigns were friendly with each other,
walsh at roche's
A woman and her daughter were at Roche Bros yesterday and wrote about her interaction with the mayor in a post on a listserve, which I'm not on. Someone else shared the post on twitter: "I got this mass email today and I'm thoroughly creeped out by Marty Walsh. Why do we normalize this behavior?"
Always great seeing you, Adam, but...
Same here, but don't leave us hanging
The dotdotdot means there's more to that thought. What did I leave out or get wrong?
...Trying again...
...my Rochies career began as a bagger, then cashier, and ended in the Courtesy Booth. There were brief stints in both the maintenance & grocery departments; but produce = #FakeNews. ;)
Gah!
How could I get such an important thing wrong? Will fix immediately.
Is Matt O'Malley is trying to
Is Matt O'Malley is trying to cover up his secret past as a member of the #Fruits&Veggies?
Easy to check
Go to the top of the hill in the Arbs where the Parkway kids drink and look for a sunblock dispenser.
I think...
the Russian (dressing) are behind it!
Privilege
..a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most.
And what about Tito? He found a empty spot 100 feet from the door. But I read in the Herald parking fines could harm his campaign:
That's $600 year or $50 a month. illegally parking in a handicap spot is $100 fine.
We drove by long after the
We drove by long after the candidates left and there was a homeless guy with his basic belongings piled into a shopping cart holding a big Tito for Mayor sign with the last glimmer of hope in his eyes.
big joke ---> the homeless
No doubt Tito would do a better job for homeless Bostonians.
I held a sign for Tito yesterday at Roche's and I helped the event organizer pack-up the remaining signs in the back of his car so nice story a-hole but it's a lie.
Just goes to show Tito's opponents will lie to make him look bad and in some cases those opponents are Walsh voters. Walsh lies too. He lied at WGBH debate about working with MAMLEO to increase diversity in the police and fire depts and he lied about opposing the Olympics.
I am not the only person who notices how easily and effectively Walsh lies. Sometimes it take the media a long time to call out liars for lying. It's taking Boston media far too long.
Only one candidate in the race closed the facility for homeless and people in recovery at the beginning of one of the coldest winters on record that included snowpocolypse and the death of the mbta. It took the city two years to provide the same capacity for homeless beds bc the decision had been taken without a plan. People showed and protested Walsh's handling of this snafu. Over the last year Walsh had ended programs that support homeless people and homeless people in recovery to transition to a new programs, yet more uncertainty for people at risk a relapse.
Wait
Only one candidate also recreated the facilities for homeless and people in recovery that were affected by the closure of the bridge. In a sense, he took the problem that festered for at least a decade and tried to find a solution to it. You're probably new to this site, but typically I reference articles that note how the man who held the office 4 years ago often tangled with officials in the city where one end of the bridge is located, who were more than happy for the bridge to deteriorate to the point that the services had to be moved to the mainland, but I'm too lazy to track those down today.
But hey, it's not like you have any biases in this race.
in a sense
Bridge repair occurred whenever engineers called for them under Menino and a bridge repair job was cancelled when Marty closed the bridge on an emergency basis and then scrambled to replace the 5,500 homelesss beds, which took over two years while Boston 2024 booked the island for shooting and archery events and Marty said we'd replace the bridge and started that effort with a $20 million demolition contract. It took orgs that ran recovery housing programs on Long Island almost a year to open new facilities.
To believe Marty's story that an engineer advised him to close the bridge because collapse was imminent you'd have to believe that all the prior repairs and current repair were pointless, that Menino had spent millions against all reason and had risked lives and was willing to spend millions more and risk more lives.
At the time Marty closed the bridge his plan was to replace the bridge. That priority changed after the Olympics shooting events venue changed.
The Long Shadow of Long Island
You moved a decimal
Long Island had no more than 500 shelter beds.
http://www.bphc.org/healthdata/other-reports/Documents/2008-2009Key_Find...
Your data is from 2009
Your data is from 2009. About 700 people used homeless beds on LI the buildings we heat could accommodate thousands.
https://digboston.com/the-long-shadow-of-long-island/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/06/22/new-shelter-opens-long-isla...
I think my number was closer
And the Dig article you cite is in line with the data I saw.
So yeah, 500 or 5,500. I mean, if President Trump can use those estimation skills, so can you.
Here's a sign to print out
I will once again note
A friend started a job out that way about 6 years ago. When she started, she noted how she worked by the Methadone Mile.
Unlike the Thomas Menino Memorial Hole (which in the end became a very nice tower,) the Mile predates the current Mayor (and sadly the one before him, though in a smaller scale.)
It's not fair but it goes both ways
Is the skyrocketing value of my house anything to do with Walsh? Or the sustained success of the regional economy? Of course not. Just like Menino, Walsh can and does claim credit for all that good stuff so he can go ahead and get the blame for issues larger than what he can deal with as well.
EDIT: I'd also add that he is by a large, large margin the most powerful politician in the city. So sure this problem predated him but he's had years in charge. It's his problem to solve or at least address in a meaningful way in his last term and it's still his problem over the next term.
I’ll give you this much
He didn’t create the problem, he inherited it. That said, yes, after 4 years even I say he owns the problems.
Of course, lots of other cities have similar problems (I mean, how long has the Tenderloin section of San Francisco been sketch?) but if we want to consider ourselves better, solving these problems need to be done.
Look at those poorly worn
Look at those poorly worn cheap looking suits..
Is Roche Bros. union, UFCW,
Is Roche Bros. union, UFCW, etc.?
No
They've never been unionized.
Yet.
Wasteful campaign spending
Slightly off topic (still filed under questionable advertising choices)- I've been living in Colorado for the last two years and am a registered voter here. Over the last week I've gotten a stack of Walsh campaign flyers with my Colorado address on them. Definitely makes you wonder if anyone is tracking their spending on outreach and how much $$$ is being wasted by useless advertising.
Spending
One big area that neither candidate has spent on is tv/radio advertising; Tito doesn't have the money, Marty doesn't see the need. A cynical person might wonder if this explains the lack of local media campaign coverage.
As for your own situation, please let us know if you receive an unsolicited absentee ballot or suspicious facsimile!
funny how a complaint about marty
funny how a complaint about marty is recast as a complaint about both sides:
What complaint?
That's a comment about how advertising dollars have been used generally in this race.
Whether advertising or news, is there any City Hall coverage?
As recently as Ray Flynn's administration, City Hall (mayor, council and boards) was extensively covered by journalistic legends of Boston TV and print. Ch. 2 had Christopher Lydon, ch. 4 had John Henning, ch. 5 had Joe Day and ch.7 Andy Hiller. Howie Carr would be chasing the Mayor around. There was a "City Hall Desk" to accommodate all of the media. Now crickets, other than Adam. Just the way Menino and now Walsh like(d) it, I'm sure. We have government by press release (often from former reporters) and nobody questions it. Sad state of affairs.
Was gonna make a straw poll
It appears that Adam's dissolved the ability to post polls currently.
I'm of the opinion that Marty isn't the right mayor for the city. However, Tito isn't the right person to replace him. Marty also isn't so bad at mayor that another 4 years will doom us by any means.
Not because I hate polls ...
But something broke a long time ago with them and I never figured out what.
Four more years? no
I was a big Walsh supporter last cycle but I am not sufficiently impressed with his time in office to give him four more years. In many ways his time in office has been disappointing due to priorities, decision-making, ignoring dissent, and not learning from mistakes. From priorities to scandals to new initiatives Marty and his team have disappointed. I am not alone #MartyLostMeWhen
For example, he's good at streamlining building but we're building a ton of luxury condos not housing for median income.
His BPS reforms started with cutting costs, $140 million over 4 years. Those cuts were real but rather than talk about them he says we've raised the school budget. Ok, what have we added and why did it come at the expense of the other cuts?
Those cuts, in the third year's budget, brought parents and students out to protest and Marty discredited them by delegitimizing them. To date, he is not forthcoming about his plans for Boston Schools going forward. He has said we'll renovate and he budgeted $1b over 10 years to renovate. But his own cost estimate to renovate is $3.2b. He's made a decision which he won't explain. Good public servants explain their decisions.
Walsh is political in an old school 17 years on Beacon Hill sort of way. He didn't come by his politics studiously, he learned them in neighborhood associations, building trade union and on Beacon Hill, which hasn't really done much to help him deliver for Boston except pass a shadow law exception and hear his testimony of his charter cap lift bill.
Amy Ryan
I soured on Walsh when he threw Amy Ryan of the BPL under the bus. The prints got mis-shelved for pete's sake. It's a huge library, but they made a federal case out of it. I'm sure there was other stuff going on, but it just seemed mean.
That's when I realized he
That's when I realized he was using Stephen Murphy as a hatchetmen. Marty was consolidating power. It may have been about his plans to renovate the lobby for all we know.