Who Wants To Be... MAYOR!

underground said:
Can't say I'm really surprised that a first term mayor wouldn't want to take on restructuring a bureaucratic agency as his first project. That's a ton of effort for something that's not exactly going to look sexy to voters. I mean, I get turned on by the ins and outs of city agencies, but I'm willing to admit that it's not normal.
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I don't think it's so much that, but rather he's now assuming the powerful trappings of the Mayor of the City of Boston. Why would he want to reform the BRA in way that his office loses authority? It's the same issue as when Obama campaigned on reigning in the surveillance state, but then maintained and expanded it. Candidates are happy to talk about taking power away from their preferred office until they actually hold that office and have that power.
 
This ain't right. The private sector does not get these types of percs.
I'm sure Kineavy never took these days off. This is a scam.

These are vacation days and sick days, This is not a BONUS Check. You should either use them or lose them.
(This is outright stealing at this point)

Tom Menino aides cash out
On his way out the door, former Mayor Thomas M. Menino stuck taxpayers with a tab of more than a quarter-million dollars for vacation and sick time payouts to his inner circle, including nearly $50,000 to his top aide Michael Kineavy, according to payroll data obtained by the Herald.

At least 10 of Menino’s longtime Cabinet members, commissioners and advisers cashed in on the maximum two weeks of unused vacation time from last year, plus as many as six weeks of new vacation time they accrued as of Jan. 1 — just days before most of them left as Mayor Martin J. Walsh took office.

In addition, four of Menino’s top brass who had 20 years of city service scored hefty payments for unused sick time, with former public works deputy commissioner Elmo Baldassari raking in $25,645, Kineavy $22,305, and former Transportation Commissioner Thomas J. Tinlin $10,843.

Total payouts to former top officials include:

• Kineavy: $47,580;

• Baldassari: $37,613;

• Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis: $26,987;

• Tinlin: $24,311;

• Chief of Staff Mitchell Weiss: $20,684;

• Fire Commissioner Roderick J. Fraser Jr.: $20,100;

• Corporation Counsel William F. Sinnott: $18,749;

• Press Secretary Dot Joyce: $18,544; and

• Mayoral aide Howard Leibowitz: $18,544.

All told, those payouts totaled $233,115, the data shows.

The goodbye checks raised the eyebrows of former City Hall watchdog 
Joseph Slavet, who said they were unprecedented.

“Historically, I have never heard of an administration leaving and there being any kind of buyouts. I’ve been around (Boston city politics) 50 years and I’ve never seen that,” said Slavet, former head of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau.

“And didn’t Kineavy get a big fat job?” he added, referring to a Herald report yesterday that Menino’s right-hand man was hired by South Boston restaurateur and developer Jon Cronin.

Slavet also questioned how closely the city keeps track of vacation days and why Meredith Weenick, the city’s chief financial officer under Menino and Walsh, would approve the payouts given the city’s fiscal constraints.

“Here we are going into a $50 million deficit,” he said, “and we have buyouts?”

Weenick defended the payments, saying nonunionized city workers are entitled to them under federal labor law. She added that vacation days at most city departments are recorded by employees signing in and out of log books, a de facto honor system.

“Just like any other employer, we are required to pay people for the vacation time that they have earned. At the beginning of each calendar year, all employees are awarded the vacation time that they earned for their service in the previous calendar year,” Weenick said.

Joyce said the Menino administration “was very careful” about following the law. “There was no special compensation,” she said. “It was what people were owed based on human resources rules. ... There was nothing special done for anyone.”

Matt Cahill, executive director of the Boston Finance Commission, a city watchdog agency, said the Menino administration didn’t break any rules, but it didn’t do Walsh any favors, either.

“It’s definitely a huge payout,” Cahill said. “It’s not going to help Mayor Walsh get the budget back in line.”
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http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2014/02/tom_menino_aides_cash_out
 
TheRifleman said:
This ain't right. The private sector does not get these types of percs.
I'm sure Kineavy never took these days off. This is a scam.

These are vacation days and sick days, This is not a BONUS Check. You should either use them or lose them.
(This is outright stealing at this point)
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Uhm, when I worked at Home Depot they let you cash in your vacation and sick time as you earned it, without actually taking days off. And I always used it as a 'bonus'. I hadn't done it in a while when I quit, and I wound up getting two paychecks, with the vacation/sick one being almost double my normal check.

So its not exactly unheard of.
 
Mayor Marty Walsh

Transition report out: http://www.cityofboston.gov/images_documents/Walsh-Working-Group-Reports-041614_tcm3-44455.pdf

some highlights:

Analyze neighborhoods for appropriate
planning and development: Planning at the
neighborhood level will be critical to the
development of new mixed-income housing.
Many neighborhoods across the city could
handle increased density. A thorough analysis
would determine appropriate densities for each
neighborhood.
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Better community and citywide planning: As
part of a top-to-bottom review of the Boston
Redevelopment Authority (BRA), reforms must
strengthen the city’s planning efforts. Boston
needs a neighborhood process that is inclusive,
transparent, and respected so that development
decisions actually adhere to neighborhood
plans. At the same time, these efforts must
retain the flexibility to address changing
market conditions and encourage responsible
development. In addition, existing community
task forces and oversight committees need
to reflect the cultural, ethnic, income, and
generational diversity of the neighborhoods.
Neighborhood plans need to help advance
critical citywide goals, such as the production
of more affordable and middle-income housing,
and increases in neighborhood density. These
plans should address racial and economic
equity for each neighborhood and consider
environmental and health impacts. In short, we
need to move from an approach that is ad hoc,
reactive, and siloed, to one that is proactive and
comprehensive.
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Reduce cost of building housing: The city
needs to convene key stakeholders to develop
a concrete action plan for reducing the cost of
housing development, looking at such issues
as density, parking requirements, building
techniques, design standards, labor costs,
permitting, etc.

...Seize large-scale development opportunities:
Boston has several opportunities over the next
decade to undertake large-scale development
in transit friendly locations. The mayor should
identify transit-oriented lots across the city, in
which high-density, mixed income, mixed use,
green developments that utilize the best current
thinking in urban planning can be built. The
scale and location of these sites should allow
for significant income diversity, with the goal of
creating housing that is one-third low-income,
one-third moderate/middle-income, and onethird market rate.
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Coordinate with the MBTA on:
a) Signal prioritization for light rail and bus
routes.
b) Funding and planning for new vehicle
maintenance yards and the potential to
expand existing facilities.
c) Bus stop consolidation.
d) Piloting of off-board fare collection for
buses.
e) Initiate an independent analysis of the
transportation impacts of proposed casino
sites. Work with all relevant parties to
seek mitigation and direct responses to
the impacts of neighboring casinos on
the transportation system and services
of specific neighborhoods as well as the
Greater Boston region. This mitigation
should also include specific measures to
address issues pertaining to trash and street
cleanliness.
f) Insist on efficient use of federal funds and
collaborate to seek additional resources.
g) Convene Mayors along the Northeast
Corridor (NEC) to advocate for
improvements.
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Poor guy is going to be bombarded with idiot Redditors telling him he sucks for not supporting marijuana. I also expect people to ask him about our beloved state agency, the MBTA.

I'm sure there will also be plenty of idiots with questions about things completely outside of the control of the mayor's office.
 
BOSTON – Today Mayor Martin J. Walsh met with representatives of Boston’s 22 colleges and universities to address the safety of students living in off-campus housing.
“The City of Boston and its academic institutions must work together and take action together to protect students from irresponsible landlords,” said Mayor Walsh. “There are small steps we can take now to make large strides in the safety of students who are living off-campus.”
The meeting included representatives from the following: Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts; Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology; Berklee College of Music; Boston Architectural College; Boston College; Boston University; Emerson College; Emmanuel College; Fisher College; Harvard University; Massachusetts College of Art & Design; Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences; MIT; New England Conservatory; Northeastern University; Roxbury Community College; Simmons College; Suffolk University; Tufts University; UMass Boston; Urban College of Boston; and Wentworth Institute of Technology.
At the meeting, the college and university representatives expressed support for Mayor Walsh’s emphasis on student safety and resolving quality of life issues in Boston’s Neighborhoods. Mayor Walsh called on attendees to submit the addresses of students who are living off-campus to the City within 30 days. This information, already being collected by colleges and universities in Boston, will allow the City to ensure that landlords are adhering to the city’s zoning regulations, which limits the number of full-time undergraduate unrelated students sharing an apartment to four, preventing overcrowding, unsafe living, and dangerous egress conditions.
Mayor Walsh also requested that colleges and universities identify a common set of information to be included on student IDs such as the student’s date of birth and enrollment status; explore launching a collaborative cross-sector partnership to create more on- and off-campus housing specifically for students; and encourage colleges and universities to update materials provided to students and parents regarding off-campus housing to include detailed information about safe and healthy housing, and the steps they can take to protect themselves from unsafe living conditions.
During the meeting, Mayor Walsh laid out a plan to meet again with the most senior executives from all of Boston’s universities before student move-in this fall to discuss progress on the initiatives and partnerships begun today.
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http://www.cityofboston.gov/news/default.aspx?id=10649

The main thing I'm worried about is whether this will induce students to start lying about their address. Need to find some way to counter that effect.
 
Marty Walsh takes his time picking a BRA director

By Shirley Leung GLOBE COLUMNIST DECEMBER 05, 2014

Turns out Marty Walsh is a betting man — and he’s not afraid of long odds.

I bet him that by the time Charlie Baker is sworn in as our next governor on Jan. 8, he will have his full Cabinet in place — and Walsh still won’t have a permanent Boston Redevelopment Authority director.

I am so confident of victory that I am betting the house on this. If I lose, I will hand over — just for a day — one of the most precious pieces of real estate in this city: my column space.

“That would be great,” said Walsh. “Would they publish what I write?”

Yes, I told the mayor. But, of course, it would be subject to editing.

“Sometimes,” he said, “your editors don’t edit enough.”

He’ll come to regret that if he wins, but that’s not going to happen and here’s why: Baker has wasted no time getting down to business. A week after being elected Nov. 4, he named his first Cabinet head, followed soon by a chief of staff and three more secretariat appointments. With eight secretaries to pick, that means our incoming governor is halfway to making the Cabinet his own.

Walsh moves at a different pace. He didn’t make his major appointment until two days before he was sworn in. Now a year after his election — yes, it has been that long — Walsh continues to keep holdovers from the Menino administration in acting roles, most notably the superintendent of schools and the BRA director.

He makes no apologies for taking his time to make critical personnel moves. In fact, he thinks slowing down the school chief search helped the city attract 20 more candidates, bringing the total pool to 60. “I’d much rather be more cautious and get something right,” he said.

He is even more deliberative when it comes to finding the next BRA director. He tells me he hasn’t offered anyone the job, nor has he begun interviewing candidates.

When might he start this process? “We’re heading toward that time now,” said Walsh.

We’ve been down this road before. At the beginning of the year, Walsh told me he would have a permanent director by the summer or possibly the fall. Now, Walsh says it’s going to be more like “the early part of next year.” He wouldn’t get any more specific than that.

The mayor said he can take his time because, as far as he is concerned, he does have a BRA director. His name is Brian Golden, the second in command who has been filling in and, I am told, still would like to get the job. Walsh hasn’t decided if Golden should get the gig permanently, but the mayor told me several times he is happy with Menino’s man.

The proof is in the number of cranes in the sky: The BRA this year has approved about $3 billion in projects and broke ground on $3.2 billion worth of development.

“If Brian Golden or somebody were in a role of an acting director of the BRA and development plummeted 50 percent, I would have concerns,” said Walsh.

To be fair, Walsh hasn’t been twiddling his thumbs, though it may seem like that. Revamping the planning and development agency was a big campaign issue, and when he got into office, Walsh launched an audit of this powerful arm of City Hall.

The review uncovered a disorganized BRA that was incapable of basic functions such as collecting millions of dollars in payments owed from developers.

He vowed to create a more transparent agency with a building process that did not favor certain developers. Board meetings are now streamed online, and projects require more public disclosures.

A second audit on the agency’s planning functions is in the works.

But this is why Walsh should be in a hurry. We are in a period of tremendous transformation, and we don’t know for how long Boston will remain one of the world’s hottest real estate markets.

Until Walsh hires a permanent director, Golden remains a caretaker. The business community craves certainty, and it’s time to act less like the state legislator he once was and more like the executive he needs to be.

It’s OK to spend some time fixing the city’s foundation, but now the mayor needs to look up, reach for the skyline, and make a decision on who will lead the BRA.
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Boston Globe
 
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