Who Wants To Be... MAYOR!

I'm sad. This isn't how I wanted this to go down. Guy did a lot of good and my (constant) whining was only about how he could do even better.

I hope he is capable of keeping his job. Move back to the Parkman House, have people come to him vs. him going to them. He can easily manage the city from Beacon Street and City Hall. Jesus, Bloomberg managed NYC from Bermuda and Deval Patrick (D-JetBlue) manages MA from every other state in the union!

You heard it hear first, though. If Steve Murphy takes over as acting mayor and gives up his city council seat, it's going to be very hard for me to not get in this fall's race for city councilor at large. There'll be 3 seats available and right now the announced candidates include an ice cream truck salesmen fresh out of Walpole and the guy who cleans the men's room at my Planet Fitness. Well, sort of.
 
IBEW 103 board says
.....BOSTON.......
MENINO STRONG

Just something I noticed while sitting in the endless parking lot that is the SE Expressway this afternoon.
 
So how many people have jumped into this thing? 20? I'm guessing most of them are just hoping to draw attention to their pet projects, but that's a HUGE first round of candidates.
 
What a sick world we live in.

Harvard to give Menino honorary degree
By Andrew Ryan | Globe Staff May 30, 2013

Thomas M. Menino dropped out of Boston College night school as a young man in the early 1960s, defending his decision on grounds that — after all — his political idol, Harry S. Truman, didn’t go to college either. It wasn’t until Menino’s daughter graduated from college in 1988 that he earned a bachelor’s degree.
Click to expand...

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...xX6vTyzSsHotV1zPP/story.html?p1=Well_BG_Links
 
TheRifleman said:
What a sick world we live in.



http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...xX6vTyzSsHotV1zPP/story.html?p1=Well_BG_Links
Click to expand...

This happened there as well!!

960073_10151418829141333_820128919_n.jpg


581168_4991825593511_1049058531_n.jpg
 
Menino Syndrome - The medical phenomena of having every disease, ache, pain, sprain, fracture, virus, infection, and cancer known to man, all at one time.


Sheesh! This guy isn't getting a break, I mean come on... Although I'm only left wondering if some of the "lesser" ailments were all lies to cover up some of the graver issues he's facing.
 
But wouldn't that mean he also has Three Stooges Syndrome, and is therefor indestructible?
 
Prompted by Consalvo interview, mayoral candidates weigh in on BRA

As mayor, Rob Consalvo would keep the BRA.

Thomas Grillo
Real Estate Editor-
Boston Business Journal

A day after Rob Consalvo, the district city councilor who is running for mayor, told the Boston Business Journal he would keep the Boston Redevelopment Authority intact if elected, a majority of his opponents have publicly declared they would abolish the city's powerful and controversial planning agency.

Consavlo's comments were published Thursday as the first in a series of interviews wit the candidates on how they see the future of the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

According to a Boston Globe report that was published after Consalvo's sentiments on the BRA were aired, a majority of the city's aspiring mayoral candidates have now chimed in on the issue -- only to take an opposite stand from Consalvo, a Hyde Park native and long considered by many political insiders to be Mayor Thomas Menino's preferred successor.

The globe report said one candidate, State Representative Martin Walsh, would abolish the BRA as a stand-alone agency; others told the paper they would prefer to cede power away from the authority or add transparency to its operations to better reflect the process by which developers projects are evaluated citywide.

On Thursday, Consalvo took a very different stance, saying he would prefer to keep the BRA intact, given the important role it has played in ushering in a new era of development in Boston.

“I have no plans to abolish the BRA or create a separate planning agency,” Consalvo told the Boston Business Journal. “For all the issues we have, Boston is a very strong city, developers want to build here, the economy has improved and there are cranes everywhere. While the BRA has problems, I will work with my new BRA director to reform them. A leader doesn’t just come in and say they will abolish an agency or split it. A real leader says: if there are problems and issues on transparency or trouble with permitting and a lack of clarity on ground rules, then a leader fixes it and that’s what I will do.”

While Consalvo said he would conduct a “worldwide” search to find the next BRA director to replace Peter Meade, who plans to retire in January, the candidate insisted the new director will not have carte blanche.

“I am the leader, I am the mayor and I will ultimately make the decisions. But I want to harness the power of bright people to help guide me. I don’t always have the answers and I may not be smartest guy in the room. I will rely on experts to guide me. On development decisions, there will be a team process to make sure the community’s voice is heard and all those factors will be weighed to ultimately make a decision as mayor of this city.”

Consalvo is one of a dozen candidates seeking to be the next mayor. After more than two decades, Mayor Thomas M. Menino will step down in January. The candidates who will face off in a September primary include Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley; City Councilor Felix Arroyo;School Committeeman John Barros; former police officer Charles Clemons Jr.; City Councilor John Connolly; Charlotte Golar Richie; City Councilor Michael Ross; William Walczak; state representative Walsh; David James Wyatt; and City Councilor Charles Yancey.

Industries:Commercial Real Estate
Click to expand...

A Mini-Me Mayor Menino= Rob Consalvo. Bottom Line Rob Consalvo will succeed to keep the Machine intact. Business as usual

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/b...wing-consalvos-comments-mayoral.html?page=all
 
An unpredictable mayor when it comes to zoning
By Paul McMorrow

August 20, 2013

Zoning in Boston is sacrosanct — except that it usually isn’t. It isn’t the city’s job to make a developer’s bottom line work — but for the right developer, the city will put millions of dollars on the table. If that’s confusing to read, imagine being a real-estate developer and living it every day.

There aren’t many rules governing Boston development. There’s the stuff that municipal lawyers put to paper, the stuff that regulates building height and density and form and a thousand other little details, but those details aren’t all that important. Most of what the city lawyers have to say about how development in Boston should work is just white noise. The real rules rest with Tom Menino, the man who has ruled over the mayor’s office for the past two decades.

The wide latitude Menino leaves himself comes in handy when City Hall needs to leap to the rescue of an important project, overcome some needlessly stiff neighborhood opposition, or punish a particularly rapacious builder. But, as a flare-up in the Fenway showed last week, when one man inside City Hall sets the rules, there really are no rules. The rules only exist in the mayor’s head, and they seem to change day to day.

Boylston Street in the Fenway is currently in the midst of an epic building boom. New office buildings, scores of apartments, and retailers like Wegmans and Target are poised to completely remake the street and its relationship to the larger city. This stretch of Boylston was once a backwater dotted with gas stations, garages, and fast-food restaurants; it looked like it belonged on an unloved commercial strip in the suburbs, not around the corner from Fenway Park.

The old Boylston is disappearing because of a collective effort between Fenway residents, the city, and private developers. Residents supported an increase in zoning heights along Boylston because new mid-rise and high-rise buildings have helped create neighborhood amenities like new shops and restaurants, and attractive, walkable streets.

When one man inside City Hall sets the rules, there really are no rules.
Quote Icon
Skanska Development wants to do what developers up and down Boylston have been doing. The company wants to tear down a one-story Burger King and replace it with 240 apartments. And for this, the company caught a sharp elbow to the face last week, courtesy of Boston’s mayor.

Skanska’s Burger King project has raised some eyebrows in the Fenway because its proposed 18-story apartment tower is a few stories taller than neighborhood zoning guidelines call for. The mayor made it clear that he sees this as a problem. “It’s not my fault they paid a lot of money for the site,” Menino told the Boston Business Journal. “They knew the zoning rules when they bought it and they have to work within those rules.”

No one should have assumed, as Menino seems to have, that the Fenway’s zoning was written in stone. Boston normally treats zoned heights as a starting point in negotiations, not an absolute end. The Fenway’s zoning was enacted years before Menino announced his goal of adding 30,000 new housing units by 2020 — a goal that will be impossible to hit without meaningful upzoning outside the downtown core. Skanska is proposing an urban solution for a suburban-style space on a street full of significantly sized buildings. It wants to build across the street from a pair of 20-plus story towers that will contain nearly 900 apartments.

For Menino, saying “It’s not my fault” means that City Hall won’t use its regulatory pull to make a development’s economics line up. He’s struck the same pose when showing antipathy toward developers like the Chiofaro Co. (would-be developers of the wretched Harbor Garage) and Vornado Realty Trust (former owners of the Filene’s pit). The problem is, there’s no truth behind the pose.

Menino sweetens the pot on developments all the time, when friendly builders are involved. He’s handed out tax breaks to State Street Bank, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and Liberty Mutual — mega-projects that didn’t really need millions of dollars trimmed off their tax bills. The day after swatting at Skanska, his administration defended a plan to grant tax breaks to the new Filene’s developer — something the mayor refused to do when Vornado owned the site. One day, Menino is laying both thumbs on the scale; the other, he’s refusing to touch it. It’s maddeningly arbitrary, and it’s the way Boston has built for the past two decades.
Click to expand...

Finally somebody else gets it. Mayor Menino is FRAUD.
 
Consalvo makes the usually NIMBY derp of confusing "parking requirements" with parking. Sigh.
 
How would you make housing more affordable?

Consalvo:
"A: I would create a Mayor’s Office of Ideas and Innovation to harness the creative brainpower of Boston to identify innovative approaches and new solutions to lingering problems like increasing affordable housing options... [goes on for 200+ more unbearable words]"

... Or we can approve and build more housing. His answer sounds more bluntly honest though.
 
John Connolly


Q: Would you seek to change or abolish the Boston Redevelopment Authority?

A: The BRA is in need of significant reforms to make it more transparent and accountable. Stakeholders involved in the development process should have their proposals evaluated based on the merits, not based on whom they know. We need to have term limits for BRA board members. We have to end the conflict of interest between planning and development. We need a process where the community has real input, where we are focused on the economic future of Boston, and where we drive development from a plan, not the other way around. And we need to stop the practice of zoning by variance—if the exception becomes the rule, then the rule needs changing.
Click to expand...

If John Connolly really believes this statement then he would probably be the best bet for better developments for Boston in the future.

Michael Ross is a disaster in my opinion reading some of his comments.
Consalvo seems like a mini-Mayor Menino--Why change things they seem to be working attitude.
 
Right...

Connolly: where we drive development from a plan, not the other way around
Click to expand...

This is virtually identical to what Mike Ross said: "plan first, build second."

So you like it coming from Connolly but not from Ross?
 
Mayor Menino is often called the urban mechanic. If you’re elected mayor, what would you be called?

Barros: The innovation opportunity mayor.

Consalvo: The problem solver.

Ross : An entrepreneur who happens to be in government.

Conley: The man that took us from good to great.

http://www.commonwealthmagazine.org...uly-18th-Boston-mayoral-forum-transcript.aspx
Click to expand...

This question that Ross answers seems to be saying I will do anything to make my money and the fact is I need to be in GOVT to make it because I don't think like entrepreneur. That is my opinion.
 
Felix's response is most ridiculous - "I would build more affordable housing and require more affordable housing from developers."

Yes, the best way to increase supply is to turn off the spigot to profits.
 
JohnAKeith said:
Felix's response is most ridiculous - "I would build more affordable housing and require more affordable housing from developers."

Yes, the best way to increase supply is to turn off the spigot to profits.
Click to expand...

He's an SEIU guy.

It's going to be Conley by a mile anyways.
 
TheRifleman said:
If John Connolly really believes this statement then he would probably be the best bet for better developments for Boston in the future.

Michael Ross is a disaster in my opinion reading some of his comments.
Consalvo seems like a mini-Mayor Menino--Why change things they seem to be working attitude.
Click to expand...

The zoning restrictions are put in place BY THE COMMUNITY which causes every single project to go through both a community and zoning review. by loosening restrictions there is no way the community can have real input. geesh.

The BRA process is not opaque - there is a certain group of developers whining because they don't know how to get the neighborhoods on board for their projects - which is basically: hire a good architect, don't piss people off, find out what the neighborhood really wants and give them what they need. The BRA will actually help you do this. they are not the enemy. The real issue with "the community" is that ISD allows substantial changes to a project without community input - this has absolutely nothing to do with the BRA. Connolly has no clue what the BRA does - either that or he's pandering to the know-nothings.

Why don't you try writing to your BRA district rep? they'll tell you what's going on, even tell you when all the public meetings are. It's not some massive conspiracy.
 
Last edited:
kmp1284 said:
It's going to be Conley by a mile anyways.
Click to expand...

if he does - he'll be a one term mayor.

I wouldn't worry to much about Consalvo's derpy NIMBY statements - he seems to have all the right people lined up behind him, but if he could just stop with the cutesy stuff people might take him a little more seriously - he does have some good ideas.

I'm wondering what will come of the "stand for children" fallout - a bunch of candidates sought their endorsement. They're a shady right-wing "education reform" group funded by the founders of walmart. I'm very surprised Walsh sought their endorsement when SFC's board is involved in union busting. This story is pretty ripe - and yet Consalvo is only going with the "ban outside money" angle? I think he knew what was up, but why he hasn't taken it further is beyond me.
 
rinserepeat said:
...They're a shady right-wing "education reform" group funded by the founders of walmart. I'm very surprised Walsh sought their endorsement when SFC's board is involved in union busting.
Click to expand...

Nothing more shady than the liberal democrats in charge of the Boston public school system. You know who's responsible for the eroding education system the past 50 years? I'll give you a hint.....they're all democrats!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top