Category / Politics

by hereandsphere

TO SYRIA OR NOT TO SYRIA ? OUR VIEW

TO SYRIA OR NOT TO SYRIA ? OUR VIEW

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The President is mulling things. He says he has made no decision yet on Syria. We fully understand his predicament.

It arises because the government of Bashir Assad in Syria has crossed the “red line.” They used chemical weapons to kill almost 400 Syrian civilians — women and children too. The results have been posted online, gone viral.

So what do we do about it ? Do we do anything about it ?

Ask around, and you get just about every opinion possible. Our view is that no option we may choose is a good one. We are screwed if we do nothing. We are stuck if we send troops into the battle. We look like jelly if we hit Assad with an airstrike or two. Even if we inflict a continuous air war upon him but send no troops — the option most likely — we may succeed only in adding to Syria’s misery. Can a prolonged air war by itself oust Assad and his men ? It didn’t work in World War II, in Viet Nam, or in the first iraq War. Boots on the ground were needed to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Air attack succeeded in Kosovo in the 1990s, but that was a much lower-intensity conflict and one in which distinct foes faced off. In Syria, there are at least four separate forces, maybe more, all interlocking, almost impossible to separate out. Let us look :

1.Syria’s Sunni muslim majority — is itself divided into three parts :

( a ) secular and moderately obervant, Arab Sunnis are the basic core of those who have opposed Assad from the first, two yreasrs ago when the war began.
( b ) Kurds living in the Northeast of Syria don’t really oppose Assad, but they do want to join their abutting Kurdish fellows in Turkey and Iraq in an autonomous Kurdistan
( c ) zealous Al Qaida-affiliated Sunnis joined the fight against Assad about a year ago and provide the rebels some their fiercest fighters.

2.Syria’s Christians : the oldest Christian congregation in the world, reaching back almost to Jesus’s time, total about 15 % of Syria’s population. They have been protected by Assad and his regime and do not want to oppose him, because the Arabic Sunni rebels already have it in for the Christians, whose neutrality in the civil war they see as giving Assad some legitimacy.

3.Syria’s Alawites : less than 10 % of the nation, the Alawites — an odd mixture, partly Islam and partly Syrian Christianity — are Assad’s tribe and the bulwark of his support. Unlike Syria’s other tribes, the Alawites live almost all in the coastal region — tobacco-producing mountain towns and seaside resorts. It has been guessed that Assad’s plan of last resort is to retreat into this beautiful, once highly touristed region and set up a separate state there.

6.Hezbollah-backed Shi’ites : Syria has few Shi’ites, but Lebanon has a lot, and they have aligned with the Assad regime and recently joined its fight.

For the United states, protection of Syria’s Christians of course ranks a top priority. But how to do this, without also aiding Assad ?

For our nation, removing Assad the torturer — in 27 “torture centers,” no less — and killer of at least 100,000 Syrians is a moral imperative. But how to do it without endangering Syria’s Christians ?

For America, punishing a warrior who uses chemical weapons on his own nation is something we have promised to do — this time. But why now, when during the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s we aided Saddam Hussein against the mullahs who had kidnapped our diplomats even though he was using chemo weapons ? Explanation doesn’t come easy.

Once into the Syria war, how to we resist calls to get into it even deeper ? every minute a humanitarian tragedy occurs there. Which humanitarian horrors do we punish, and which do we duck ?

These are the questions that we think matter. Among those that do notl in our view, bear on our ddcision are those involving our going into battle on the same side as Al Qaida. we can fight Al Qaida just fine elsewhere and another day. If they and we happen to concur in wanting Assad gone, why is that a problem ? It is said, though, that if we go into Syria on the rebel side, some Al Qaida militias will acquire American weapons. Maybe so; but those weapons eventually become obsolete.

None of the above gives any answer at all to the unhappy options the President is now dealing with. We hope he does not decide to go all-in. We won'[t be thrilled if he opts for a few air strikes. We will not look very tough if he decides to do nothing. As for increasing our arms ales to the revels, that aggravates the Al Qaida acquisition issue, helps fuel battles already occurring among the various rebel factions, and doesn’t do much to punish Assad.

The only option that makes any sense is a protracted air campiagn — and no boots on the ground. It probably won’t work. But it might. It’s more worth trying than any of the other options we’ve heard.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

50 YEARS AGO TODAY ……

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On August 28, 1963, speaking to half a million of his fellow Americans and more, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke words that every American since that day has known by heart. “I have a dream,” King said, “that my children one day will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Every phrase in it counts; but today, perhaps, the phrase most poignant is that first part : “I have a dream.” A dream : in other words, a vision, a hope, not yet present but still to come.

America’s very existence arises from the dreams of men and women, for a life better than the one handed to them. America never gets to the finish line. we always have more work to do, progress to bring, as we move always forward toward social justice and civil rights and dignity for all. We may never get all the way there ? Perhaps; but every generation of Americans must keep on keeping on. We live in the future, and it is ours to make.

That is what America is. And we are all in it, all of us.

And yet ….. the progress forward is not unbroken. Often we as a nation stop moving forward; sometimes we even step backwards. Because there are some of us who do NOT believe in the dream. Oh the fine words, yes; the reality, not so much.

And so we struggle. Today we struggle. 50 years after Dr. king spoke calling us to move forward boldly, many parts of America are moving resolutely backward.

If there was any civil right that Dr. King cared for most of all, first of all, it was the right to vote. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was as much his doing as it was President Johnson’s. Yet today, 48 years after the VRA was enacted, there are several states that have legislated — or are trying to legislate — making it much more difficult for many of us to vote. Especially the poor and the isolated among us. Those who need the right to vote most of all — because it is the one thing that people disadvantaged can do as well as people with all advantages — are to have a “voted ID” — often next to impossible to get, and costly, or they will not be registered to vote. Those who live far from a polling place, or who work two or three jobs all day long and so cannot vote on polling day, will have early voting hours cut down. Anything to keep those who most need the vote from voting.

Nothing legislative could be more immoral, not to mention un-American, than efforts to impede any American from voting. Yet that is what we see going on in NC, in TX, in KS and, to a less rigorous extent, in several other states. We abhor the “vote suppression” movement.

The Department of justice is moving to block Texas’s vote-suppression laws. It has signaled that it will soon sue to block North Carolina’s even more onerous vote-suppression laws. his we thoroughly applaud. Nonetheless, it is a shame that it has come to this, 50 years after Dr. King spoke his dream, 48 years after our Congress and President enacted the most all-encompassing Voting Rights act ever adopted by our nation.

We cannot turn back. We dare not allow the nation to turn back. We must not stand by and watch any state turn us back. Our destiny as a nation demands we move forward, always forward, until every one of us has the civil rights, the respect, and the protection that our nation has always, on its truest days, promised to all.

—- The Editors / Here and Sphere

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by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR RACE : CONNOLLY, GOLAR-RICHIE TAKE COMMAND AT “STAND UP FOR SENIORS” FORUM; BARROS EFFECTIVE TOO

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^ John Connolly : the day was his

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The Deutsches Altenheim, on Centre Street in West Roxbury, put itself center-stage in Boston’s mayor race by hosting a “stand Up for seniors’ forum. Because there are 12 candidates in the action, the sponsors divided the field into two parts. On Saturday over 100 seniors at the “old ones’ home” — which is what “Altenheim” means in German — the home was founded by Boston’s then German immigrant community — heard from Dan Conley, Felix Arroyo, Marty Walsh, Bill Walczak, David Wyatt, and Rob Consalvo. Yesterday, an even larger crowd, maybe 150, listened to — and questioned — the other six Mayor hopefuls. Between them there was much difference, both in positions advocated and in command of city governance.

The day belonged to John Connolly, who lives in West Roxbury and grew up in Roslindale, and to Charlotte Golar-Richie, who delivered her most authoritative Forum argument to date. In response to a question about quality of life in the neighborhood, she emphasized her focus on the safety of women, which also is, as she noted, an issue for seniors, most of whom are female.

She spoke with unforgettable detail about seniors who find themselves plagued with scams, because older people often save their money and credit rather than spend it : “late at night they may answer the phone and respond to a voice and give their credit card number. then  the credit card bill arrives with unwarranted charges. There should be a way to get those charges removed !”

Golar-Richie also put forth suggestions for improving women’s safety on public transportation.

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^ Charlotte Golar-Richie : her most authorotative Forum performance yet

Still, as effective and on point as Golar-Richie spoke, John Connolly assumed command of the Forum. Confident in speaking on home ground, to voters who know him a well as he knows them, he first addressed a question about scams that plague elderly people more than most, that “it’s hard to block phone numbers because they can always switch to another and then another. This is a problem of outreach and awareness. Seniors are often unaware, living often in isolation. we should use the city’s elderly commission to increase outreach.” Given a question about broken sidewalks being a serious hazard for older people, he responded with impressive command of detail : “this sis partly a public utilities issue. The phone company and electric dig up the streets, their contractors do, and then they don;t pout it back the way it it was. we need to set city standards, a check list, for such digs and see that the contractors adhere to them.

Connolly had more to say on the streets and sidewalks issue (which though hardly epic, are matters that every city resident is plagued by all the time). Given a question about the difficulty that seniors have in crossing a main street before the stoplights change, Connolly said, “we need to do a thorough streets and intersections assessment, so that when we design an intersection, we take into account pedestrians as well as motorists.”

And then came a moment that candidates hope they will have. A question was asked about money to keep the West Roxbury library open on weekends : is there the money to do so, or not ? Connolly said that funding for the library was tenuous at best; that it’s always low on the list of funding priorities. Candidate Charles Clemons — often given to blanket assertions that sound good — smiled widely. “Of course the money is there.” he roared, in the loud voice of an ex-policeman (which he is) “The city just paid 13 million dollars to buy a particular building in downtown that was assessed for six million !”

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^ Charles Clemons : one blanket assertion too many

It was Connolly’s chance. “It’s two different things, Charles. Libraries and the staff salaries are paid out of the city’s spending budget. Capital purchases are made from a different budget, the capital budget. You can’t use the capital budget to pay salaries or open libraries, it’s against the law.”

This is what winning candidates show that they can do. And though there was much well-informed discussion thereafter, by John Barros especially — Golar-Richie had had to leave the Forum to get to another event, and her comments were missed — of streets, snow removal, and phone call blocking, the big moment was Connolly’s, and the Altenheim voters knew it.

There was one other dramatic moment. Someone asked candidate Chares Yancey why he is running both for Mayor and for re-election to his city council seat, when all the other councillor candidates in the Mayor’s race were giving up their council seats ? It was a question many voters have wanted to ask. Why, indeed ?

Yancey — who ceaselessly repeated his mantra “My name is Charles Yancey, and i’m running for Mayor” — said, “i’m glad you asked that question.”

No one laughed, but…

He had an explanation, too ; “I am providing the voters of my district a choice. If I am re-elected councillor and am elected mayor, i will make my choice then, at that time.”

This, from the candidate who over and over again touted that “I have 30 years of experience in city budgets, more than any other candidate in the race.” Maybe experience isn’t an unmixed blessing.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

BOSTON CITY COUNCIL RACE : Jack Kelly Makes Name for Himself, One Barbecue at a Time

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^ Having Their Cake and eating It Too ; Allston-Brighton liaison Angela Holm enjoying cake with City Council at-large candidate Jack Kelly — outside a barbecue in North Allston this past Sunday.

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Because the highly contested Boston Mayoral Race commands most attention, the race for Boston City Council has, for the most part, been pushed to the side stage.

Jack Kelly hopes to change that.

He graduated  from the University of Massachusetts at Boston with a degree in Political Science. Most recently, he’s been working as a Community Liaison for Massachusetts General Hospital, helping to bring awareness to the plight of Substance Abuse and HIV in various high-risk sections of the City.

In our profile of Kelly, we noted his interesting bio. As his campaign has gained serious momentum, we decided to follow up. How is he gathering the strength that has become so evident in his run ?

Thus Here and Sphere caught up with Kelly at a neighborhood barbecue in Allston. We asked him especially about the response he has received so far, from Boston voters.

HnS: How is the Campaign going so far?

Kelly: The Campaign is going very, very well. We just picked up another endorsement today from State Rep. Carlo Basile (D-East Boston) amongst many. We’re here in Allston today. It’s not only diverse economically, but culturally as well as with history.

HnS: What has been the most important thing that you have learned so far on the campaign?

Kelly: Lots of things. I go to a lot of barbeques, and I want to eat, but I don’t (laughs). In fact, I think that I’ve lost about fifteen pounds, walking around, going from barbecue-to-barbecue.

HnS: Well, you do look great.

Kelly: Thanks (Laughs). I think that the issues for most Bostonians are universal. I think that sometimes people here see these issues differently because they are segregated in a sense. But if you do go into those neighborhoods, the issues are very, very similar.

HnS: Say you’re elected to the City Council, and regardless of who is elected Mayor, in four years from now, where do you see Boston?

Kelly: I think that there are several good Mayoral candidates, and whoever is elected Mayor, if I am elected to the City Council, my hope is that I can help steer the City in the right direction. I want to continue the good work that Mayor Menino has done. Boston is going to be very good. Not just because of its leadership, but because of its people.

HnS: What has been the most pressing issue in this campaign that you have heard from voters?

Kelly: I think it’s a combination of schools, public safety, and sometimes they sort of migrate into one big conglomerated issue. A lot of people are also concerned about public parking and development. It also depends on what neighborhood you’re in, as far as issues are concerned. If you wanted to pick one issue that is universally applied to all people, it would be the schools.”

The campaign continues. We expect to see Kelly often in the four weeks that remain till Primary day.

— Dave Morrison / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

WE PROFILE BOSTON’S CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATES : RAMON SOTO

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^ Ramon Soto : from co-ordinator to candidate.

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We met RAMON SOTO yesterday, in the North End, as the celebration of St. Anthony’s day was winding down. Even at 5 P.M. the day was hot and sunny and the crowds lively as Soto talked to us in one of the many new bar-terrasses that offer a touch of Europe to those who live or visit Boston’s oldest residential neighborhood. Soto is making his first run for elective office, seeking one of Boston’s four city-wide Council seats. He’s had events in Jamaica Plain, South Boston, and among the city’s Latino communities, and he is pumped.

No sooner has our talk begun than he makes a headline.

“I live in Mission Hill,’ he says. “at 16 Parker Hill Avenue.”

“But that is the street that Donna Summer grew up on!” we exclaim.

To which Soto responds, “Yes ! She lived in the exact same house that I live in now ! The owner often talks to me of her. On the anniversary of her death he had the house all decked out in pink.”

“So tragic, her death vat age 63,” we say.

“Yes, and I can never forget her, can I ?”

Immediately we like Ramon Soto a lot.

Beyond being a Donna Summer fan, Soto enjoys a long resume of Boston-area political work at the center of power. “My first time (in politics), I worked for Michael Morrissey, who was running for state senator in Quincy – Braintree. In Braintree, he finished third, but in the part that I was in charge of, he was first. (He won the race and) brought me aboard.

“From there, i joined the communications staff of Mayor Menino. Job title ; “constituent service co-ordinator.” Which meant that I worked on his e-mails. There were hundreds of e-mails on every issue, so he said to me, ‘if i have to sign them, I want the answers to be what I am saying.’ And together we worked out the right answer for him, for each issue. These weren’t boiler plate answers. I rewrote them all. it taught me all about the broader issues and gave me a knowledge of the people to go to if the Mayor wanted an issue dealt with.

“That was only my day job, though,’ Soto notes. “I wasn’t making much just doing his e-mails, so at night I bartended. I learned a lot about (city) life doing that.”

Soto rose even higher in the political backstage. He took a leave to work on the 2008 Hillary Clinton campaign. As a Clinton delegate, he attended the Democratic national convention and, after Clinton released her delegates, he became known to the Obama people and was hired to work much of Eastern Massachusetts — “in reality, New Hampshire,” Soto notes — in the Fall campaign.

After Obama’s victory, Soto was back in City Hall, now as co-ordinator for resources going to the Boston School system. “Our goal was to gather all these resources into one arena, so that parents can do one-stop help at their kids’ schools.”

Yet for this tireless man being a schools co-ordinator was not enough. “I also was the City;s co-ordinator to the 2010 census process,” he says. “(My mission was) to go into the nail salons, bodegas, barber shops, and churches an d make sure the people knew that 400 million in federal dollars would come to the City if we counted everybody; those were the stakes. They got the message. We had the highest city census participation in thirty years.”

Such is the life of Ramon Soto, who can justly claim a nuts-and-bolts, working connection to every corner of Boston.

Because this bio fully answers our usual first question to candidates, “what qualities single you out as a potential Councillor,’ our interview moved directly to the other six questions. The questions and Soto’s answers follow.

Here and Sphere (HnS) : What are your two top priorities to work on if you’re elected ?

Soto : First, continue and expand the ‘circle of promise’ program. Second, youth violence. If we can get the guns off our streets — advocacy groups need to come together on this — maybe a gun buy back — we can end this scourge. Background checks for all gun sales, including between family members, which is how many youths obtain their guns.”

HnS : Casino vote — citywide or East Boston only ?

Soto : “East Boston only. It’s their neighborhood, it’s their autonomy.”

HnS : School reform — longer school day, yes or no ? Do you favor any of the other reforms in Connolly’s agenda ?

Soto : “Stronger Court Street structure. Everybody there is doing a great job, but it’s too centralized. more voices need to be heard. Bi-lingual education is a mistake — it delays a kid’s mastering English. Dual-language schools, that’s more like it, indeed vitally important.

“We need at least a five year plan to assess the state of our schools. A full scale, flexible but comprehensive analysis of where we are now. Today the assignment process puts school quality against assignment rules. We need to assure that kids have better options, closer to home. And (when we do this analysis) we need to engage the parents !

“Longer school day make sense. Bring the school day in line with the work day. But until we totally assess the schools we can’t decide what to do with the longer school day. (Also,) I’m a realist about the funds available. (Perhaps) we can get after-school programs (from outside the teachers’ time constraints.”

5. HnS : Charter schools — lift cap ? {Partial lift ?

Soto : “(I’m) against lifting the charter cap. If we want to get the public schools right, then we have to focus on the schools we already have.”

6. HnS : BRA — re[place reform (and, if so, in what ways) ? Should there be a separate board for planning ?

Soto : “the Council does not have the final word (here). The mayor has to sign off. But as far a i am involved, I do not want to increase the red tape. Developers fund the BRA. Just let’s have more transparency and a more comprehensive process that involves the neighborhood.

“Economic development plan ? (Maybe just) more red tape. Better to just open up more communication with the community.”

7. Hns : Marty Walsh says ‘There’s a heroin epidemic in the city now.’ Do you agree ?

Soto : “Yes there is a heroin epidemic. I had my wallet stolen the other day !

“Yes we can do something about it. talk to the kids out there — but it’s really about the family. Families in trouble tend to make bad decisions.

“Government has ways of encouraging families; there’s a billion dollars in the cit available to help families. (Much of it is) plugged into the schools. And it’s about treatment and therapy. You can’t (simply arrest your way out of it. The drug unit at the BPD does a great job, but it’s really about stopping (the drugs). (And) it’s not just Boston. it’;s everywhere.”

You can find out more about Ramon Soto and his agenda by visiting his website at http://www.Ramon4Boston.com

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

WE PROFILE THE BOSTON CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATES : MARTY KEOGH

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^ at his recent fundraiser in Hyde Park

Marty Keogh is no stranger to those who follow Boston city politics. We remember him from when he served Peggy Davis-Mullen as her City Council aide back in the 1990s. He stayed with her through 2001.

Today, the Mission Hill native — “a projects kid,” as he puts it — whose family later moved to Hyde Park — lives in West Roxbury. He’s a practicing attorney — since 1999 — and married to Pamela Corey Keogh (from Lower Mills/Dorchester), has a young son, Nolan, (and an addition on the way), and is running for one of the four city-wide council seats that Bostonians will elect when they go to the polls to choose a new Mayor.

Keogh, like all his City Council rivals, is under no illusions about Council candidates’ struggle to get some voter attention. he knows that voters will focus almost entirely on the mayor campaign — as they must. He has no choice, then, but to campaign a good seventeen hours a day, everywhere in the city that he can find a spot to meet and greet, and anywhere that he can talk to a gathering. Indeed, as we do a question and answer with him in his profile, he is on the move, driving from shaking hands in East Boston to doing the same in South Boston — and points in between.

We asked Marty to answer the seven questions that we pose to all the at-large City Council candidates. What follows is, in effect, a conversation.

Here ad Sphere (HnS) : What in your loife makes you iunqiuely or especia;y qualified to be an effective councillor ?

Keogh : “Public service has been a part of my family’s history for well over fifty years, and I was taught that helping even one person in need was for the greater good of all… I got my first taste of helping people while working for the Boston City Council, serving as the Chief of Staff to (Peggy Davis-Mullen).

“I was in charge of constituent services, researching, writing and filing legislation that originated out of the concerns of these constituents, and implementing, delegating and overseeing the everyday duties that are required to run an effective city council office… actively coordinated and participated in neighborhood meetings throughout the city and served as the direct liaison between (her) and the community on many important quality of life issues.

“I then went to law school and for the last 14 years I have fought to help hundreds of juveniles and kids who had legal problems, elderly residents who have been victimized by scam artists and homeowners who were in danger of losing their homes. I often made little or nothing for my services, but the public servant in me found it difficult to turn a person in need away.

“I will always have the experience, energy and compassion to help people in need, and I hope to carry on this passion if elected…”

2. HnS : What are your two top priorities to work on if you’re elected ?

Keogh : “…I want safer neighborhoods and excellent schools in every neighborhood.
“Part of the reason people settle in a particular neighborhood is because it is safe, and it has excellent schools for their children that they can walk to.

“To the contrary, without safe neighborhoods or neighborhood schools, parents will leave that neighborhood just as quickly. It really is all about our kids, their education and their safety.

“As part my safer neighborhoods effort, I would like to see the Boston Police add 300 more “walking” police officers on the streets, fund the police budget to bring modern crime fighting technology to every officer, and place surveillance cameras in high crime areas in an effort to deter or catch criminals.

“I also want to start the process of building new schools in every neighborhood of the city where they are needed. Right now, there are still kids who don’t have books and cannot get the school in their neighborhood. I want to make sure that we have enough funding to buy new books and supplies, and to put arts, music, sports and special-ed programs back into every school.

“…also want to create a trade shop in every high school, because I know that not every kid wants to go to college, and that some kids want to enter the work force. My goal is to keep kids in school, and keep families in the city. Safe neighborhoods and neighborhood schools will help to accomplish this vision.”

3. HnS : casino vote : citywide or East Boston only ?

Keogh : “I am in favor of a Casino in East Boston, and an “East Boston only” Casino vote, because I recognize that this proposal will create jobs, revenue and capture Massachusetts money that will otherwise be lost to Connecticut. My decision shall rest upon the vote, intent and wishes of the East Boston residents.”

4. HnS : school reform : longer school day — yes or no ? Do you favor any of the other reforms in (John) Connolly’s agenda ?

Keogh : “I am in favor of longer school days, but only if teachers are fairly compensated for their time.

“It would be unfair to force teachers to work a longer school day without being properly compensated. As it stands now, a teacher’s job doesn’t end when the final bell rings. Teachers often work late and/or at home to prepare curriculum, tests and correct papers long after the school day ends, so as to be ready for the children the following day.”

“While I think that all of the Mayoral candidates have excellent ideas for the schools, the bottom line is that I believe in the Boston Public schools, and I believe in neighborhood schools.

“If the next Mayor wants to build more neighborhood schools, help decrease the dropout rate, make students proficient in all areas of education and bring sports, arts, music, trade schools and special-ed programs into every school, then you can be certain that they will have (in me) at least one friend on the city council.”

5. HnS : Charter schools : lift (the) cap ? partial cap (lift) ?

Keogh : “I am not in favor of lifting the cap on Charter Schools… I share the concern of most Boston parents that some Charter Schools are not inclusive enough because they do not accept special-ed kids or kids that can’t meet their educational criteria.

“I think that the Charter Schools we have now are doing well and that parents are satisfied with the education that Charter Schools provide their children, but I am also cognizant…that the Charter Schools are depleting much needed funds and resources from the Boston Public schools budget.

“I am one of only two city council candidates who actually attended the Boston Public schools and I believe we can make our public schools better.”

6. HnS : BRA : replace (it) ? Reform (and if so, in what ways) ? Should there be a separate board for planning (as some Mayor candidates have proposed) ?

Keogh : “The BRA has done a tremendous job transforming our economy, neighborhoods and skyline since the 1960’s, but the BRA needs to be more accountable and more transparent to the public it serves.

“Does that mean the BRA should be abolished? The answer is no.

“But the BRA needs to involve the public, and conduct all meetings, even if on the internet, that are open to the public.

“I don’t buy the baloney that we can’t get rid of the BRA because it is an agency mandated through the state legislature. We can, but when has the City Council actually ever tried to get rid of the BRA?

“The new City Council, if we work together, can make changes or recommendations which would, at a minimum, expose any conflict even if we have no power to stop the conflict. Through Home Rule Petition, the City Council could also recommend changes that would abolish the BRA or create a planning board separate from the BRA, as was the case prior to 1960.

“Or we could draft legislation that requires approval of any BRA project be brought before the City Council for complete review or ratification.

“But before we condemn or condone the actions of the BRA, we need to compare the pros and cons of having an independent redevelopment agency versus not having one at all. The entire reason the BRA was created was to end stagnant growth, urban blight and decay, which, for decades, was caused by the politics and inaction of the city’s leaders of the 30’, 40’s and 50’s.

“One area I would like to see the BRA focus on would be on inner city development as opposed to development among our city’s waterfronts. I love the way the city’s skyline looks, but I would love to see our inner city neighborhoods given as much attention as the Seaport District.”

7. HnS : Marty walsh says ‘there’s a heroin epidemic in the city now.”
Do you agree ?

Keogh : “I agree that there is a heroin, oxycontin and overall drug epidemic in the city of Boston and beyond.

“It is pretty clear that we have to offer help to drug users to get them off of drugs, but a much stronger emphasis has to be put on incarcerating the people who actually deal those drugs. I was impressed with the recent coordination of the many police agencies who tracked, found and arrested everyone connected with the Marathon bombings. It was through the concerted effort and sharing of information of all of our police that this happened in such a short period of time. It proves that good police work can yield great results and it helped put the public’s mind at ease.”

“If posible, I would like to see this effort re-created to reduce the amount of drugs, guns and violence, particularly in our inner city neighborhoods.”

HnS : thank you, Marty, for your thorough and detailed responses.

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^ answering a supporter’s question, at his Hyde Park “time.”

We summarize : Keogh’s responses make clear that he is as serious as a serious candidate can be. And that he will not be easily rolled in a candidate debate, or in Council meetings if elected. Fun is fun, and nobody we have met in this campaign is more fun to be with than Marty. And when there is business to attend to, Keogh is all business. It will be interesting to watch him bring his thorough preparation and fighting intensity to a Council debate this Fall.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR RACE : WALSH, ARROYO, BARROS and ROSS DOMINATE YOUTH GROUP FORUM

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^ the Nine : Yancey, Wyatt, walsh, Walczak, empty chair (Ross came later), Golar-Richie, Clemons, Barros, Arroyo

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Nine of the 12 candidates running to be Boston’s next Mayor took their seats at tonight’s Youth Group Forum held at the newly steepled parish Church on Meeting House Hill in Dorchester. About 150 residents of the neighborhood sat in the old New England pews to listen as the Mayors-to-be answered questions posed by speakers selected by the Cape Verdean Community UNIDO’s Youth Leadership Academy.

Dan Conley, John Connolly, and Rob Consalvo did not participate.

Questions to the candidates addressed dual-language education, school reform and preparation for technology jobs, and how to curb violence in the community. Mike Ross — who arrived late, but apologized — gave strong answers; even stronger, John Barros and Felix Arroyo, whose eloquence is second no nobody’s on behalf of those who live in Boston but lack access to the best. Strongest of all, surprisingly, was Marty Walsh, who had obviously prepared himself for the types of questions likely to be asked him. He spoke deliberately, in detail and with feeling, applying his work as a legislator and stating his goals for changing how the Mayor’s office confronts the problems that this Forum’s youth sponsors will be dealing with.

One issue that has turmoiled Boston voters recently, that of a longer school day, was settled. All the “major” candidates called for a longer school day, even Felix Arroyo, who has aligned himself with the Boston Teachers Union most closely of all the hopefuls. He, Walsh, and Barros gave the directest answers on what a longer school day should focus on. Barros’s call for a two-shift teaching force might roil the BTU a bit, however.

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^ John Barros (Felix Arroyo on his right): “for the longer school day we should have teacher shifts, an early shift for the morning and lunch hours and a late shift for the afternoon.”

On the question of dual language schools, Both Arroyo and Barros spoke with personal experience. Said Arroyo,  “I grew up in a subsidized apartment with immigrant parents who spoke ‘espagnol.’ I know what it’s like to grow up among kids who I did not understand because they spoke English… we have only four dual language schools. Parents of all backgrounds want dual language education. Look at the Hernandez School, it works well. I look for the day when we have many different language’d dual-language schools. French, Cape Verdean Creole, even Mandarin. Why not mandarin ?”

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^ Felix Arroyo (John Barros on his left) speaking to the schools issue : “every Boston school child deserves the best education because every child is a best child.”

Barros ; “I’m a son of cape Verdean immigrants. When I joined the city’s school committee, and in my work, I fought to assure that all Boston public school students learn English fully.” These sentiments were of course reiterated by other candidates at the forum, of whom Charlers Clemons nloted that he was ideally suited to understand the disconnecvgt between studenyts who come to bostyon with anoyher language and the Ejglish-language adyuklt world. “Not by language but by my heritage. My father descends from slaves brought here on slave ships; my mother from the Brewsters on the Mayflower.”

It was a memorable, if not conclusively Mayoral moment. And led almost inevitably to Walsh’s comment : “My parents didn’t face a language challenge, but they were challenged too. Both had less than a high school diploma.” Walsh, who grew up and still lives in the Dorchester section directly abutting Meeting House Hill, discussed the funding process for dual language education and his part in it as a 16-year legislator. He concluded with a challenge: “We should have two different kinds of dual-language schools. When a child’s first language is English, we should have them learn another language !”

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^ Marty Walsh ; “with a longer school day we shouldn’t just have more classroom but also some programs, the arts.”

The question on preparation for graduating to the City’s best jobs brought this comment by Arroyo : “The next mayor has to have as a priority closing the ‘achievement gap.’ And it begins very young. If a child falls behind in the third grade, even , it is already too late. We need to teach financial literacy, too, to all our children.”

Walsh ; “we don’t just need to change our city’s jobs policy for the kids, We need to rewrite it. Right now we’re being sued because our city jobs policy doesn’t meet the US Constitution !”

Many of he candidates mentioned Madison park High School — the technical high school closest to Meeting House Hill — in their answers to this question. Barros ; “We absolutely do invest in technical High schools in Boston. Now we have to make sure that Madison park has a technology center. And more ; Boston residency, for Boston jobs.”

Charles Clemons, a former Boston police officer, was skeptical ; “residency policy ? It has never been enforced. We give parking tickets and licensing fines but we don;t enforce residency. Why not ?”

The forum moved on to discussing the problem of violence in the Meeting House Hill neighborhood and others.  Many of the candidates addressed the issue well.

Mike Ross had now joined the group and, with his usual grasp of big-picture basics, said : “there’s diversity needed (on the police force). It’s not OK that there is not one police captain of color nor one who is female….the opposite of violence is opportunity (for kids at risk).”

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^ Mike Ross : was at another event; apologized for coming late; and, as always, spoke well and to the point

Arroyo : “there’s a short term strategy and a long term strategy. Short term : back to community policing. Police bicycling through the community. Long term : if we are not serious about ending the cycle of poverty we’re not serious about reducing crime.”

Walsh, who has said “there’s a heroin epidemic in the City right now,” gave this pledge : “(if I’m elected,) The first meeting that i will have in my office will be on violence. we have to attack this problem one street at a time, one family at a time.”

I have highlighted the answers given by candidates Walsh, Arroyo, Barros,and Ross most of all because they addressed the questions, gave answers which signal that some thought has taken place in the brains about these issues, and demonstrated seriousness about doing the job, not just campaigning for it. The other candidates present either gave rambling, conversational responses — Charlotte Golar-Richie — or ones that seemed too narrowly focused, locally and in minutiae — Charles Clemons and Bill Walczak. Others of the nine on stage seemed to be talking more to themselves than to the voters. One wonders why they are running. At this stage, with less than five weeks till Primary day, there’s no time left for candidacies that won’t, or can;t command the issues on a large scale. Mayor of Boston is the most difficult political job, maybe, in all New England. Fumble-itis, vagueness, and circuitous thinking are NOT in the job description.

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR RACE : CONNOLLY RECOVERS NICELY; WALSH FOCUSES; THE FIELD GETS SOME MOJO

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^ John Connolly : what schools flap ?  — here he is in East Boston

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We will admit it : we didn’t think that John Connolly would be able to surmount the huge flap over a $ 500,000 “outside” money dump that that smothered his campaign. But he has.

We thought sure that his schools agenda would look less reformist, — as a result of his being gifted by Stand for Children, an Oregon-based advocacy group debunked by some for relying hugely on corporate money of a seriously regressive sort — than insidious. For about three quarters of a day, it looked like we had it right.

But then, in less than an evening, Connolly struck back, fully. Supporters rallied to his side — publicly and unreservedly. He touted his “green-ist” credentials as the campaign voice of Boston’s “park people.” Big-name Democrats like Ian Bowles stepped up.  And he rejected the $ 500,000 for once and all, in a statement that left little doubt that he was quite angry at being ambushed by a group purporting to support his candidacy.

How effective was Connolly’s response ? Rival Dan Conley congratulated him on rejecting the money. THAT good.

Connolly also benefitted by an over-reaction by Felix G. Arroyo, who not only touted his support for Boston Teachers (and their Union, the BTU),which was OK, but then proceeded to assert that as Mayor he would work to eradicate poverty in Boston. Oh really ?

So here we are, on August 22nd, with a Mayoral Forum, taking place tonight at the newly re-steepled white church on Dorchester Center Hill, and 32 days left before Primary Day, and all is back on course. What WERE we thinking ?

Yes, a few doubts linger about Connolly’s commitment to school reform that isn’t a corporate take-over. You can see the doubts in his Twitter feed. But he is confronting the doubters, indeed, allowing their doubting tweets to stand in his Twitter list for all to read. this is a smart move.

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^ Marty Walsh on L Street : pressing some Wards 6 and 7 flesh and moving on up

Meanwhile, in South Boston, Marty Walsh is taking care of some unattended business. Last night former Senator Jack hart co[-hosted a huge party for him; during the day, Walsh greeted voters along L Street. Jon Connolly has cozied big-time up to South Boston’s State Representative, Nick Collins. Bringing Jack Hart into play allowed Walsh to send Connolly a message — and one to Coll;ins as well. It has always seemed sure that the strongly labor-backed Walsh would dominate in South Boston, but lately that primacy has come into doubt. Today there seems less doubt in play.

The Walsh campaign moves ahead to another neighborhood where support from his fellow State Representative has eluded him : East Boston. In this case, the legislator (Carlo Basile) has actually endorsed a rival. So, on Monday Walsh will host a “Mondays with Marty” in East Boston. It will be interesting to see who and how many come to hear him speak.

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^ Rob Consalvo : neighborhood schools. In Kenmore Square ?

The rest of the Mayor race’s bigger hopefuls seem finally to have found their stride. was it the Connolly flap that tweaked them ? It seems so. Many of his rivals suddenly became advocates for neighborhood schools (Consalvo), or opponents of charter school increases (Ross), or voices for public school teachers and the under-performing schools (Arroyo). Golar-Richie pushed a women’s safety agenda — significant certainly,l in light of the murder of Amy Lord, not to mention the killing, in nearby Waltham, allegedly by Jared Remy — Jerry Remy’s son — of his girlfriend.

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^ Charlotte Golar Richie in the North End,. with St. Rep. Aaron Michlewitz.

Connolly also launched his first television ads. So has Consalvo. Marty Walsh probably has them running also, though we haven’t yet seen any.

Every night now, Boston voters have a vast choice of campaign events to drop in on, or events of their own for candidates to appear at (for us at Here and Sphere too). Every day there’s a meet-and-greet — or three, or five — going on somewhere in the City. It’s all out sprint time, indeed a typhoon of sprints, as the campaign approaches the first week of September and all that that portends for political weather.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

Meranwhile, top rioval marty walsdh is tak

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR RACE : SCHOOLS FLAP — THE BTU FIGHTS BACK

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^ The BTU’s Richard Stutman : a man who insists.

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The fat is in the fire. Boy, is it ever. A Mayor campaign that was already hotting up pretty good has now, beginning with yesterday’s announcement by SFC that it would spend at least $ 500,000 on John Connolly’s campaign, become a heat wave. Even yesterday, the Felix G. Arroyo campaign expressed its anger at the SFC money dump and at the schools agenda it advocates. Now comes the release, by the Boston Teachers Union (BTU), of a poll which — so it told the Globe — that it had intended to keep private until the SFC money dump made it imperative to release to the public.

Believe that one, and I’ll offer you a bridge in Brooklyn.

In any case, the BTU now has its poll, which, according to the Globe, reported low support for an increase in charter schools and strong support for “working with” the BTU. Upon its poll the BTU has now made explicit that it will endorse a candidate, for the first time in twenty years, and it will almost certainly endorse a candidate who opposes any increase in the number of charter schools, any lengthening of the school day, and any additions to the rigor of teacher evaluations and of school performance.

Here the BTU has set itself against state schools policy enacted into law in 2010 and further agreed to by all parties in 2012; against Governor Patrick’s schools agenda; against what the Boston Globe, the Boston business community, and most school parents want.

Of course the BTU doesn’t need to take the entire State into account as does the statewide Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA). It need only answer to Boston voters. The BTU is relying upon Boston voters’ well-attested favorability to Labor Unions and their mission, indeed hoping that Boston voters will put protection of the Union’s bargains above the large changes that candidate Connolly — and others — want to bring about in the ways of Boston schools. This is a risky move for the BTU to make. After all, schools exist for the benefit of children first, the society at large second. Schools do not exist to give teachers jobs. Teachers obtain school jobs because they are wanted for the work of educating children.

As children, not teachers, are the focus of schools, so the BTU must recognize that, either it gets on board the school priorities that best educate children for the workplace they will face in this age of technology, social media, and a world economy, or parents and the workplace community will have to act without the BTU.

This would be unfortunate. No one wants to consider teachers an adversary. their job is difficult, the pay less than they could make, with similar skills, in the corporate workplace. Teachers make the City stronger.

The changes enacted into State law, and which Mayoral candidates like Connolly are now resolving to establish in Boston, do not erase the BTU. All they intend is to get the city’s public school teachers to adjust their job descriptions to the needs of schools today. Adjustment is difficult for labor unions; only by hard bargaining did they win the job rules that they now have. Their reluctance to unbargain those bargains is understandable.

Understandable, but not final.

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^ Felix G. Arroyo : will the BTU endorse him ?

Combat about Boston schools policy has given Felix G. Arroyo his chance to break free of the five other “new Boston” candidates and become a serious contender in the Primary. If Arroyo secures a BTU endorsement, his rise will almost certainly cut down the prospects of John Connolly, already a bit embarrassed by the infusion of “outside” money into his campaign.

And more : the rise of Arroyo and the downturn of Connolly will almost certainly advantage the campaign of Marty Walsh, whose strong Labor support, accompanied by a compromise approach to schools policy, looks — for now — like the ultimately winning agenda in November.

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^ Marty Walsh : the winner in any Arroyo vs. Connolly donnybrook

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR RACE : THE SCHOOLS ISSUE GETS DIVISIVE

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^ John Connolly : SFCs $ 500,000 guy

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The cat is out of the bag now. Big-time.

About a week ago we mused, on our Facebook page, that there would soon be huge money entering the Mayor election on behalf of a “major” candidate. As Marty Walsh had already said, “and it won’t be for me,” we concluded that the money at issue would go to John Connolly.

Today’s Boston Globe confirms it. Stand for Children (SFC), a non-profit, school reform advocacy group based in Oregon, will spend at least $ 500,000 to promote John Connolly’s candidacy. And why not ? His schools agenda conforms almost exactly to SFC’s. He, like SFC,supports a longer school day, more stringent teacher performance standards, counseling for all children, and — yes — an increase in the number of charter schools. None of this should have been fire-storm news.

Still, no sooner did the Globe article appear than all hell broke loose. The brother of candidate Felix G. Arroyo attacked SFC on his Facebook page as “anti-teachers union, pro-privatization …group ‘Stand ON Children'” and linked to an article about SFC headlined “profiteering and Union-busting repackaged as school reform.”

Nor is Arroyo the only candidate who supports the Boston Teachers Union in opposing authorizing more charter schools. So do candidates Charles Clemons, Rob Consalvo, and Michael Ross.

Meanwhile, candidates Barros, Conley, Connolly, Walczak, and Walsh support lifting State law’s current limitation on how many there can be of charter schools. Of these five, SFC picked Connolly as its “most aligned with us” candidate. That is what advocacy groups do.

Of course a hue and cry also arose about “outside money” coming into what has paraded itself as a locally funded, “people’s pledge” campaign (the pledge refers to an agreement made between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren in their 2012 Senate race, not to accept outside PAC money.) Candidates opposing SFC’s schools position cried the loudest; Consalvo even asked all Mayor candidates to take that “people’s pledge.”

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^ Rob Consalvo : people’s pledge not to accept SFC money …

It is a given that big money is spent on big elections, and in Boston there’s none bigger than an open election for Mayor — especially now, with the City in the midst of a construction boom and a Downtown revitalizing as a place to shop, work, party, and live. Connolly has latched onto the downtown wave, and his schools agenda hews close not only to SFC’s but also to that of Governor Patrick, to legislation adopted in 20120 and to a schools agreement concluded in 2012. It signals that he absolutely means to see the agreements enacted in 2010 and 2012 adopted throughout the Boston School system. Also that he, if elected, will powerfully push for more charter schools and for a longer school day. Radical ? Not at all. most voters agree with all of it. Anti-union ? only if the Boston Teachers Union (BTU) sees it that way.

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 Marty Walsh : Labor’s guy supports lifting charter schools cap

Fascinating it is, to see how far out of step with voter sentiment the BTU has become. Forty years ago, Boston teachers were being elected to the City’s School Committee simply because they were teachers. the profession had that much respect. The schools of that day were racially segregated, and that was wrong; but to most parents they provided an education that comported well with what parents then expected : preparation to enter the then industrial and public-employee workforce.

Today public employee jobs still exist aplenty, but industrial employment mostly does not. If your child is going to be hireable into the technologically savvy economy — even into public employment — he or she needs more than just to pass an MCAS test or three. He or she needs to become computer fluent, conversant with mobile technology, program languages capable; failure-free in spelling, grammar, technical writing, Windows, Unix, network administration, mathematics, and, yes, current events; as well as able to create an Adobe PDF document, not to overlook all kinds of other forms and formats that today’s businesses create and modify every minute. These skills and arts cannot be mastered in a school that settles for average achievement in a short school day. The children of 40 years ago needed to know mainly how to respond to a boss and to concentrate on tasks repeated over and over. Today’s child needs to master work teams, social graces, how to take and respond to criticism and give it; how to book travel and negotiate airports; to speak and read more than one language; and such like.

That corporations might just have an interest in seeing that Boston’s school graduates can handle strongly all these skills and arts may seem like “corporatism” to some. To us it seems only common sense. Corporations hire a large number of those graduating. If they cannot fill that large number of hires in Boston, why shouldn’t they relocate to cities whose graduates can fill them ? The same is true for start-ups. Boston has far more than its share of these because we care about education. we will not settle for the out of date or the average. Teachers Unions, like all institutions, develop an institutional undertow of their own; the Union is led by those who began in it decades ago and then rose to power inside it, notwithstanding the huge societal and economic changes going on outside. Because Teachers’ Unions leaders must respond to its membership, and because its membership goes by seniority just as it insists on seniority as a job securement, so the Teachers’ leaders fight to hold on to bargains already won — even as these bargains lose their cogency to what is needed of schools. And thus the Teachers; union has lost a great deal of the solid support and respect that it once had among Boston voters.

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^ Felix Arroyo : advocate for Boston Teachers Union

The BTU seems not to understand how cornered it is in the arena of public opinion. While the MTA (Massachusetts Teachers Alliance) has heard the message and opted into the State’s reform process, it is not clear that the BTU has faced the music. Until charter schools, it was the BTU way or no way; public schools, or off to the suburbs or to parochial school. The coming of charter schools, however, which operate something like parochial schools, in which teachers are paid less but have much more input, along with parents, into curriculum and administration, parents now have choices. No wonder that they are exercising those choices.

It is no way a bad thing that Boston school parents now have choices. Heck, they want even more choices ! Why should they not have them ? It is their children who are going to school, after all; and schools exist for their students, not for their employees. School employees only serve. SFC’s backing of John Connolly’s campaign puts the ball of school improvement and school flexibility directly into the Teachers’ court — and to the voters.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

UPDATE : Because of today’s release, by the BTU, of a poll purporting to show that few voters support more charter schools, we will be posting a follow-up to the above story. This story is likely to grow even bigger as Primary Day approaches.