Michael Flaherty no longer only mayoral candidate with a YouTube video

By adamg on Mon, 02/09/2009 - 9:30am

Kevin McCrea stays out of the kitchen (suggestion: next time, get a little closer to the camera and the mic):

Comments

Cause and Effect?

By massmarrier on Mon, 02/09/2009 - 9:51am.

So open/transparent government would let him solve all of the economic, criminal and cultural problems of Boston, eh? How's that?

He seems determined to remain a one-trick pony.

He says that, really?

By Steve M on Mon, 02/09/2009 - 10:39am.

Massmarrier - did you check out his website and his issues or just watch the video - might change your mind about one trick pony. Some good stuff to ponder in there for all the candidates and the voters. I think Yoon and McCrea are a welcome and overdue addition to the old boy politics of our grand old city.

Honest, open government is a "one-trick pony"?

By Shirley Kressel on Mon, 02/09/2009 - 2:21pm.

What does government become if it's not honest? How does the commonwealth survive the loss of public trust? How can we use public money for services instead of cronyism and corruption if we don't know it's being diverted? How much more evidence do you need of the impacts on our finances and our services than the recent exposes of public corruption?

McCrea's video on Hayward Place exposes a loss to the taxpayers of $23 million in City land value, the price an honest bidder offered in 2001. The Ritz tower developer, to whom it was "leased" (for a refundable deposit) instead, will have raked in about $30 million in parking revenues without paying a dime in property taxes, while he ties it up for a decade. Just from what we lost in this one boondoggle, we could have gone a long way toward the Chinatown library, which candidate Sam Yoon has been promising without progress, or the wage freeze the Mayor is demanding, or the public school cut he is threatening.

And Hayward Place is just one of the financial fiascos this mayor and this city council have enabled. McCrea can film a whole season's series of boondoggle exposes. I hope the children who have been coming to public meetings to beg for their education, and the residents and small businesses who have seen their taxes soar while their services decay, watch the videos and storm City Hall and demand their rightful services. When we get the full use of all the money that's being secretly taken from us, yes, we can go a long way toward solving our community problems -- including the problem of citizen alienation from an increasingly out-of-reach, out-of-touch, undemocratic government.

lots of people employed in closed government

By EM Painter on Mon, 02/09/2009 - 3:05pm.

Shirley that was an effective response. However lots of people are employed because of our system of closed government and "honest graft". I for one believe that the severe restrictions on private development are there to drive up the prices of bribes. However they do serve to slow down the infill of Boston with cheap crappy buildings.

I said this in response to an earlier post on McCrea: eliminating corruption and cutting city spending will only serve to increase unemployment among the voting population unless McCrea can also eliminate the barriers to the growth of good private sector jobs in Boston. And to do it in a way that uses the real estate of the minds here, rather than the scarce open space.