Mayor for a New America

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by Thomas M. Menino

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  school budgets and, [>]

  separate/unequal school systems and, [>]

  School Committee enabling legislation (1991), [>]–[>]

  School Committee referendum (1996)

  campaign, [>]–[>]

  Menino and, [>]–[>]

  polls on, [>]

  presidential election year effects, [>]–[>]

  race and, [>]

  results, [>], [>]

  those for appointed, [>], [>]

  those for elected, [>], [>]

  School Spirit Awards, [>]–[>]

  schools. See education

  Seaport Square, [>]–[>]

  Sennott, Charlie, [>], [>]–[>]

  Sheehan, Mike, [>]

  Shields, Bill, [>]

  Simco’s on the Bridge, [>]

  Simpson, Dalton

  background, [>]–[>]

  crime background, [>], [>]

  deal made with assistant district attorney, [>]

  killing Anderson, [>]–[>]

  Sinatra, Frank, [>], [>], [>]

  smart parking sensors, [>]

  Smith, Amani, [>]

  Smith, Kennedy, [>]

  St. Clair, James D., [>]

  St. Clair Commission, [>]–[>], [>]

  St. Patrick’s Day parade

  as anti-gay protest, [>]

  city workers and, [>]

  description, [>]

  Flynn and, [>]–[>]

  gays banned from, [>], [>]–[>], [>]

  gays marching/abuse and, [>]–[>]

  history, [>]

  veterans and, [>], [>]

  veterans with AIDS and, [>]

  veterans canceling, [>]–[>]

  stadium (new) for Patriots. See New England Patriots/new stadium

  Star Tribune, Minneapolis, [>]

  State of the City address

  of 1996, [>]

  of 1997, [>]–[>]

  of 2001, [>]

  of 2009, [>]–[>]

  of 2010, [>]

  of 2012, [>]

  last, [>], [>]

  State Street Bank & Trust, [>], [>]

  Stephanopoulos, George, [>]–[>], [>]

  Stith, Charles, Reverend, [>], [>]

  Stonewall Riots (1969), [>]

  Stop Handgun Violence, [>]

  Stratton, Jonathan

  on disrespect for cops, [>]

  Simpson apprehension, [>]–[>]

  Strictland, Jemaro Reheem, [>]

  Stuart, Carol/Charles

  Bennett identification, [>]

  Carol’s death and, [>]

  police misconduct/black community and, [>]–[>], [>], [>]

  suicide of Charles, [>]

  Suffolk Construction, [>]–[>]

  Sullivan, Neil, [>]

  summer camp for city kids

  Camp Harbor View, [>]–[>]

  generous rich and, [>]

  idea for, [>]

  Menino and, [>]–[>]

  Summer Jobs program, [>]–[>], [>]

  Super Bowl (1997), [>], [>]

  Tagliabue, Paul, [>]–[>]

  Tea Party, [>]–[>]

  Teens Against Gang Violence, [>]

  This Old House (television show), [>]

  This Week (television show), [>]–[>], [>]

  Thomas, Clarence, [>]

  Thomas, Reverend Mickari D., Jr., [>]

  Timilty, Joe

  after final defeat by White, [>]

  background, [>]

  Boston City Council/candidate and, [>], [>]

  legacy of, [>]

  mayoral campaigns, [>], [>]–[>], [>]

  Menino and campaigns, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]

  Menino staff job and, [>]

  as state senator, [>]

  Tobin, Maurice, [>]

  toy drives, [>]–[>]

  Truman, Harry, [>], [>], [>], [>]

  Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar

  escape/manhunt for, [>]–[>]

  finding, [>]

  See also Marathon bombers/manhunt

  Tsarnaev, Tamerlan

  death, [>]

  FBI information/investigation on, [>]–[>]

  trip to Russia (2012), [>]–[>]

  See also Marathon bombers/manhunt

  Tyler, Sam, [>]

  Ullian, Elaine, [>]

  Unlocking Potential, [>]

  UP Academy

  longer school hours and, [>]

  reforms/experiment and, [>]–[>]

  success, [>]–[>]

  Urban League, [>], [>]

  U.S. Conference of Mayors

  demonstrations/picketing and, [>]–[>], [>]

  Kerry and, [>]–[>]

  neighborhoods/Menino and, [>]–[>]

  Romney and, [>]

  USA Today, [>]

  “Vault,” [>]

  Vertex Pharmaceuticals, [>]

  Violence Intervention and Prevention (VIP) program, [>], [>]

  Walker, Adrian, [>]

  Wall, Bruce, Reverend, [>]

  Wallace, Brian, [>]

  Wallace, George C., [>]

  Walsh, Martin J.

  biracial vote for, [>]

  on Boston racism, [>]

  mayoral campaign/race (2013), [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]

  Walsh, Robert, [>]

  Warburg, Max, [>]

  See also Max Warburg Courage Curriculum

  Warren, Elizabeth

  becoming senator, [>]–[>]

  Marathon bombings and, [>]

  water bills

  Boston Harbor cleanup and, [>]

  Menino freezing rates, [>]

  waterfront development. See Innovation District

  Weiss, Mitch, [>], [>], [>]

  Weld, Bill

  “Boston megaplex” and, [>]

  death penalty and, [>]

  family history/status, [>]

  as governor, [>], [>]–[>]

  Patriots stadium and, [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]

  political ambitions, [>]

  State of the State address (1997), [>]–[>]

  Susan (wife), [>], [>]

  Toronto SkyDome and, [>]

  welfare reform and, [>]

  Westinghouse, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>]

  WGBH, PBS station, [>]

  White, Kevin

  “climate of corruption” and, [>]

  Collins and, [>]

  as “downtown mayor,” [>]–[>]

  elected School Committee and, [>]

  funeral, [>]

  as mayor/mayoral campaigns, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>]

  on Menino, [>]

  political ambitions, [>]

  Wilkerson, Dianne, [>]

  Williams, Accelynne, Reverend

  background, [>]

  SWAT team/death and, [>]–[>], [>]

  Williams, Mary

  Evans and, [>]–[>]

  settlement for husband’s death, [>]

  Wilson, Laval, [>], [>]

  Wolcott, Diane, [>]

  Wolf, Mark L., [>]

  women’s issues

  African American women/breast cancer screening and, [>]

  Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings, [>]

  Boston Women’s Compact, [>]

  equal pay and, [>]

  firefighters (Boston) and, [>]–[>], [>]

  “first” women appointments (Menino), [>]

  numbers of women in U.S. Congress, [>]

  Year of the Woman and, [>]–[>], [>]

  Woods, Icandace, [>]

  Year of the Woman, [>]–[>], [>]

  Yoon, Sam

  after mayoral race (2009), [>]

  background, [>], [>], [>]

  mayoral race (2009), [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]

  Youth Violence Strike Force, [>]

  Zobel, Hiller, [>], [>]

  About the Author

  THOMAS M. MENINO, elected five times as mayor of Boston and five times as a city councilor, has spent a lifetime building a better city for residents and businesses. Menino was known as a mayor of th
e people and has been widely recognized for meeting more than half of Boston’s residents. Following his final term, which drew to a close in January 2014, Mayor Menino joined Boston University, where he serves as codirector for the newly founded Initiative on Cities.

  JACK BEATTY is the news analyst for On Point, the NPR program broadcast from WBUR in Boston. He is the author of several books, including The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley, 1874–1958, a biography of the legendary Boston mayor.

  Footnotes

  * “The FBI has repeatedly asserted that even knowing what it now knows, it would not have revisited the Tsarnaev investigation. This case-closed mindset cannot keep pace with the evolving threat of terrorism here at home.” See “How Did Tsarnaev Go Off FBI Radar?” by Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and Representative Bill Keating, Democrat of Massachusetts, a senior member of the committee, Boston Globe, March 27, 2014.

  [back]

  ***

  * The tide flowed back in the November 2013 election pitting Martin J. Walsh against John R. Connolly. However, in the September preliminary election, the candidates included an African American woman who had served in my administration, a Hispanic city councilor, a Jewish city councilor, and a former school committeeman from a Cape Verdean immigrant family.

  [back]

  ***

  * First the schools had to be wired for the Internet. Volunteers from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers laid seventy-one miles of cable to get the job done. They weren’t the only volunteers. At an October 1997 event at the Curtis Guild School in Charlestown, Ted Kennedy, Bill Cosby, and I saluted the parents and teachers who donated ten thousand hours of personal time to bring computers to Boston’s schools. A year later every school in the system was online.

  [back]

  ***

  * From my interview with Katie Couric on the Today show, May 17, 1994:

  KATIE COURIC: You know, you’re a lone voice in another area, welfare reform. That’s a big cause right now across the country and in . . . Massachusetts. Governor Weld has cut the number of people on the rolls dramatically. He wants to cut an additional seventy thousand families. And you’re a public official who is saying, “Whoa! Wait a minute . . .”

  MAYOR MENINO: It’s another one of those things [like crime]. While there are welfare cheats—do all those young women and men want to be on welfare? Probably not. . . . If we cut welfare, where do they go? They go to the streets, and they go into the shelters. . . . Let’s have a comprehensive plan . . . to get people off welfare and [into] jobs—job training programs, attracting new industries to this state and this country. . . . We can’t just say we’re going to cut welfare for the sake of headlines. Let’s get real about it. The problem is that we—we tend, as elected officials, to worry more about headlines than really doing something for people.

  [back]

  ***

  * In June 2002 Trina Persad was playing in Jermaine Goffigan Park when a stray bullet hit her. “We as a government can put program after program in place,” I told the press. “But there has to be some sense of caring and a focus from parents on their children.” I visited Trina at the Boston Medical Center. She hung on for two days. She was ten years old.

  [back]

  ***

  * I was a pro-union mayor. For example, I took the side of SEIU janitors in their struggle for higher wages and better health care, helping settle a 2002 strike on terms favorable to the janitors.

  [back]

  ***

  * Foreclosure Intervention Teams case-managed every notice of foreclosure that appeared in city or neighborhood papers. At Northeastern University’s Reggie Lewis Center, we brought together people in danger of losing their homes with representatives of the banks that held their mortgages. In “work-out” sessions, deals were struck between home owners and lenders. Not all homes were saved. But many were. And our activist approach was adopted by other cities. With Washington blocking a national solution to the wave of foreclosures, we could not sit back and do nothing while good people were thrown out on the street because of the financial crisis.

  [back]

  ***

  * “If there were a trophy for excellence in financial management, Menino would have won it. . . . His administration has been notably cautious in managing taxpayers’ money. Rating agencies examine management practices, debt burden, reserves, and liquidity before determining a city’s creditworthiness. . . . Boston is on target to fully fund its $2.1 billion pension liability by 2023, seven years ahead of statutory requirement.” From a Boston Globe editorial, October 26, 2009.

  [back]

  ***

  * Two individuals I depended on to advise me on the merger were Dick Nesson of Partners HealthCare and Dean John McCarthy of the Harvard Business School. They were the ones I called on continually whenever we reached an impasse.

  [back]

  ***

  * “Seemingly overnight Boston has become the new startup capital of the state’s tech economy. . . . Last year, in fact, Boston accomplished a previously unheard of feat by having more venture capital deals than Cambridge—for years the center of gravity of the startup scene in Massachusetts.” Kyle Alspach, “Boston Suddenly Finds Itself the State’s Tech Startup Capital,” Boston Globe, April 6, 2014.

  [back]

  ***

  * “We’ve been able to do something that none of these other cities can do, and that is attract a lot of the very wealthy from around the country and the world. . . . And they’re the ones that pay a lot of the taxes. . . . And we take tax revenue from those people to help people throughout the entire rest of the spectrum. And you know, it gives you this income-inequality meas­ure.” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on his weekly radio show, September 20, 2013.

  [back]

  ***

  * It was true. I didn’t want citizens calling City Hall to talk to a machine. I’m told voice mail is considered a “blocking technology” anyway. In my last term, spurred by my tech-savvy chief of staff, Mitch Weiss, the city adopted “engagement technology” like Citizen Connect, a mobile app allowing people to send in photographs of potholes, graffiti, and broken streetlights and track the response to their complaints.

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