Jon Keller: Good evening and welcome to this WBZ TV news special. Welcome also to our listeners on our sister station, WBZ news radio 1030. On Tuesday, Sept. 22, Boston voters will decide which two mayoral candidates will square off for the office of mayor in November. They will choose from among the four candidates gathered here in the WBZ studios for their first debate of this campaign. And the candidates are:
Michael Flaherty: He’s been an at-large Boston city councilor since 2000. He is a resident of South Boston. Welcome, councilor.
Sam Yoon won his at-large seat on the city council in 2005. He lives in Dorchester. Welcome to you, sir.
Kevin McCrea is co-founder of a general contracting firm. He lives in the South End. Good to have you here.
And Tom Menino of Hyde Park was first elected mayor in 1993. He is seeking his fifth term. Welcome, sir.
Before we begin, a word about our format. I’ll ask a question and each candidate will have a full minute to answer it. We’ll rotate the order so everybody gets at least a chance to go first and last. After all four have had their say, there will be open periods of rebuttal or cross-talk, during which time the candidates can engage one another directly. The only hard and fast rules: no talking over one another and no filibustering.
So gentleman, thanks very much for being here, let’s get right to business. And you’ll start first, Mr. Flaherty. Is Boston better or worse off now than it was four years ago? One minute.
Michael Flaherty: Let me first say thank you, Jon, and thanks to the folks at WBZ for hosting us and thanks to the viewing audience at home for tuning in. This is an important race. It’s a race about Boston’s future. It’s about the courage to change, it’s about the ability to learn from Boston’s past. It’s also about the leadership to embrace our collective future. As a life-long resident of the city and as a father raising a family in the city of Boston here, I know that, for me, the future of Boston is not political, it’s personal. I know that in order to get our city back on track, it’s going to require new leadership. It’s going to require all of you to get a role. To your question, Jon, I think that we could be better. There are a number of areas where we’re deficient. Public education. We boast of having the best colleges and universities in the world. When it comes to our elementary and secondary schools, we’re not so boastful. Talk about crime and violence. Over the last 16 years, there’s been 1,000 murders in the streets of Boston. That’s just way too many murders.
Jon Keller: Thank you, Mr. Flaherty. Mr. McCrea, one minute — Boston better or worse off now than four years ago?
Kevin McCrea: Jon, again, I’d like to thank you, I’d like to thank WBZ. I’d like to thank the audience which is tuning in because they care about the future of this city and they know that we need change. I’d also like to thank my wife who’s been beside me through the 100s of hours that I’ve put into this, taking time out of our lives to do something to make this city better. The city is not better off than it was four years ago. We’ve had four years of essentially stagnation. And it’s not just because of what’s going on with the national economy. We’ve had a corrupt city hall. Currently, my city councilor and my state senator or under indictment, yet the three politicians here on stage haven’t done a single thing about that; not a single hearing to look into why licenses are being given behind closed doors. We have stagnating development in Allston and Brighton and downtown, and we need to get this city moving again. I want to make Boston the most open, honest, transparent city in America so that we can move forward together.
Jon Keller: Alright, Mr. McCrea, thank you. Mr. Menino, Boston better off or worse off?
Thomas Menino: Well, thank you, Jon, for having this forum this evening, and to the audience out there, thank you for being interested in a campaign about the future of our city. Boston today is a different city than it was four years ago. When you think about the issue of development, we continue to improve our neighborhoods. The neighborhoods of Boston today are stronger than ever before. When it comes to public education, we’re making progress in the Boston public schools every year. When you think about crime, we have the lowest crime rate in 40 years right now in the city of Boston. That’s what the city’s all about. Jobs — we’re in the green job era. Now, how do we create more jobs for the future? And are there going to be green issues? Let me tell you, this is about the future. We’ve done a lot in green job training. We tend to move fast and forward when it comes to our city. Are we stabilizing tax rates? The last two years the tax rate has been stable. How did we get there? Because of good financial management of our city, and that’s what we do every day — manage the city well for the people of Boston; make sure the taxes and the rates of taxes are stable.
Jon Keller: Mr. Menino, thank you. Mr. Yoon, the same question.
Sam Yoon: Thank you. I also want to thank WBZ for hosting this debate and thank my other fellow candidates as well as the mayor for being here. I think, on balance, we’re not better off. We have over the last four years an average of three young people dying on our streets every month. When we boasted of having the Boston miracle in the late 90s, that was a period of time when we brought juvenile homicide almost to nothing. We have a dropout rate that has held steady for the 16 years of Mayor Menino’s tenure. We have a hole in Downtown Crossing that used to be Filene’s Basement. There is, there are a lot of ways in which we know we can be doing better, but I think what indicts the last four years as well as the last 16 years is really the system of government that we have. This, I think, is the central issue, I think, of this election and this debate — whether we want to continue a system in which a single person, a single person, the mayor, has all the power to control and make decisions in the city government. I submit that this is not the kind of system that we want for modern, 21st-century government.
Jon Keller: Alright sir, thank you. Now, it’s an open period of rebuttal and comment. Go right ahead, Mr. Flaherty.
Michael Flaherty: The mayor just mentioned a crime stat. As a former prosecutor — the only one that actually has prosecutorial experience in this race — I know that crime stats don’t tell the whole picture, but my kitchen table conversations have. Going across our city, sitting with families in their homes talking about hearing gunshots nightly, having, raising their hands when I’ve asked them if they know someone or they’ve lost a loved one to violence. Clearly, not doing enough. We need to put community back in community policing. We need to use “e-policing” very similar to LA, where you can subscribe to getting a text message or an e-mail when a crime happens in your neighborhood. We need the community to partner with the city to reduce crime and violence. It has not reduced over the last four years.
Jon Keller: Alright, you want to rebut that?
Thomas Menino: Jon, we have crime watchers in our city, we have 680 crime watchers. That’s the community working with the police. Safe Street teams in the neighborhoods of Boston. Same cop, same beat with a sergeant. Sgt. Lisa Homes in Grove Hall. She’s out there every day getting to know the people. That’s what we’re doing in Boston. It’s about community involving the police. The police can’t do it alone. That’s why we’ve made a real effort to get the community into, involved in the Boston Police Department.
Jon Keller: Go back a head and then I’m going to get the others first.
Michael Flaherty: When I was at the DA’s office, one of the best weapons we had to reduce crime and violence was our street workers. Our mayor and this administration have cut the number of street workers. If it wasn’t for the Boston Foundation stepping up with that grant in the (Safe Street teams), we would obviously be struggling more than we are this summer.
Jon Keller: He made a specific charge — brief rebuttal, then…
Thomas Menino: We have 59 street workers in the city of Boston today — more than we’ve had in many years. And that’s where we’re … we’re working with the Boston Foundation. We’re one of the incorporators of that idea with the Boston corporation. We’re not alone. It takes everyone working together, and that’s what I’m famous for is people working together to make this a better city for all the people. You can’t do it alone as mayor. You have to work with the community.
Jon Keller: Point made, go ahead, Mr. Yoon.
Sam Yoon: Mr. Mayor, the fact is under this system of government … Let’s be clear about what this is, it’s called the strong mayor system. It means one person, i.e. the mayor, has all the power to make these decisions and that, as a system of government, doesn’t incentivize you or whoever’s in power, frankly, to collaborate, and that’s what we need to have happen. And so you know … I’m not saying that the last 16 years (there’s) been nothing good that’s happened. Of course there have been a lot of good things that have happened, and I think you’ve taken some criticism — some of it unfair. But I think the question is to solve problems like the problems of violence in our streets is going to require giving up some power and, in fact, sharing it with communities, with the dean’s office, and to work in collaborative methods that will really solve the problem, and it comes down to prevention.
Jon Keller: Let him rebut, then we’ll get Mr. McCrea in.
Thomas Menino: Jon, we have a VIP program, which is a group of individuals (that went) door to door in the neighborhoods of our city, the most troubled neighborhoods, seeing what the needs of those individuals were there. Families who have kids under 18 years old. We’re working to see how we can help those families, what their needs were. And we also create peace teams for those neighborhoods to work with us. It doesn’t … I always say, it’s not just the police, it’s the community, and we’re doing more with the community today than we ever have in the past.
Jon Keller: I want to let Mr. McCrea in here, then we’ll go back to you. Go ahead.
Kevin McCrea: Quick thing about the mayor, quick thing about Mr. Flaherty. The mayor likes to say that we have a low tax rate. It’s not true. Boston’s tax rate is 40 percent higher than just across the river in Cambridge. And just across the river in Cambridge, in their high school, their drop out rate is one fifth, one fifth, of what it is in Boston, so we’re really failing on those issues. Now, Mr. Flaherty’s point that he’s the only one with (mispronounces prosecutorial) … I can’t even say it.
Michael Flaherty: Prosecutorial.
Kevin McCrea: Thank you very much. He’s the lawyer …
Michael Flaherty: Assistant district attorney might be easier for you.
Kevin McCrea: Yah, he’s an assistant district attorney, but I actually prosecuted the Boston City Council. The case was called Kevin McCrea vs. Michael Flaherty and the Boston City Council. I won the largest fine in state history finding Mr. Flaherty and the city council guilty of violating open meeting laws over a period of two years. That has to stop.
Jon Keller: Alright, I think if you want it you have a chance to rebut briefly and then we’ll get back to and finish out this topic.
Michael Flaherty: Sure, and I’ll address that. Obviously, on behalf of my colleagues, we’re accepting responsibility for that, Jon, and let me say that I recognize we’ve made efforts since then; we’ve changed some of the rules that would prevent this from happening again, and, although regrettable, there was no malfeasance, there was no specific intent. It was city councilors trying to do the best for their constituents, and so while obviously my counterpart in this race continues to raise this issue, the fact is I’ve moved on from it, I’ve learned a valuable lesson and those incidents won’t happen when I’m mayor of Boston.
Jon Keller: Alright, gentleman … If you want, briefly take 10 seconds and then I do want to move on.
Sam Yoon: I’ll take 10 seconds and just say my agenda on public safety is to do a bottom-up review of the police department. This hasn’t happened in our city in 30 years and it’s long overdue. I think reform is absolutely necessary if we’re going to solve these challenges. Talking points (is) just wrong.
Jon Keller: Alright, gentleman, thank you. As I said, in our open periods you can get back …
Thomas Menino: What happened to my 10 seconds?
Jon Keller: You, you’ll get plenty, believe me, and you’ll have you’re share, mayor. Let’s, let’s move on at this point. This question is for Mr. McCrea. Since we’re talking about public safety quite a bit here, let’s continue on that. This question comes from Ed in Dorchester via WBZTV.com. He says, ‘Given the city’s budget constraints and the need for optimal deployment of scarce policing resources, how can we justify continuing to require police details at city construction sites? One minute, please.
Kevin McCrea: Well that’s, for me, an easy one. I’ve already called for an end to police details here in the city. It’s not … we train our police officers, it takes six months to train a police officer to be on the street. They have probably the toughest job in the city, but yet we ask them to work four or eight hours a day in the hot sun at a police detail before going and doing their police work. These guys are great, but they’re not supermen. It only takes four hours to learn how to be a street flagger, a civilian flagger, to get their certification in Massachusetts. I’m for eliminating police details so that we can have policemen fighting crime in this city.
Jon Keller: Thank you. Mr. Menino, one minute.
Thomas Menino: I’m in favor of police details being given 200 additional police officers on the streets of our city. You know, just think, imagine having flaggers on Massachusetts Avenue as you’re doing construction. Who’s going to get the cars towed? Who’s going to move the traffic? But also, detailed officers help us fight crime. Just look in Charlestown the other day — two officers on detail solved a bank robbery. The other day, two officers on detail helped solve another crime. They work, and the cost is approximately the same as a flag man. So details, there’s a lot of conversation about that, but why do we protect the state police? You know, why do we got the Boston police? We need police officers on Mass. Avenue, Dorchester. On side streets, yes, we can go to flag men, but our main thoroughfares in the city, it’s about moving traffic, it’s about fighting crime, it’s about more officers on the streets.
Jon Keller: Thank you. Mr. Yoon.
Sam Yoon: Jon, is it OK to ask the mayor a question in my response?
Jon Keller: Well, suit yourself. Go ahead.
Sam Yoon: I actually think the number is closer to 400 in terms of police details every day … but my question is, this is the argument that’s been used — that having police details enhances safety. I don’t think there’s ever been a study that has been done that shows, based on data and evidence, that there is that increased amount of safety in a significant way that justifies police details. For my position, to answer your question, I’m against the mayor’s plan, which we’re going to have a hearing about tomorrow, as you know, I think, Michael, about the proposal to expand police details against the governor’s plan, which is to use street … flaggers on state construction projects in the city. So this is a hearing we’re going to be having tomorrow , but I’m the only city councilor that’s actually had a hearing about police details, and I think on a number of issues — on safety, on performance and accountability — my conclusion is that there is much to be desired in terms of the way we manage this program.
Jon Keller: Thank you. Mr. Flaherty, one minute.
Michael Flaherty: Thank you, Jon. I’ll actually agree with Mayor Menino that having the additional police officers on the street is good for our city and our neighborhoods given, again, crime and violence that is plaguing our city. Just think about the amount of drugs that’s out there and the high potency that the kids are getting their hands on. Just think about the proliferation of guns that are also on our streets. So having uniformed, trained officers out there helping assist in an apprehension — and I’ve read those reports. Again, as a former assistant district attorney, I’ve been in court. I’ve read those reports where police officers, while on paid detail, perform, they’re active in apprehending a suspect, intercepted a drug transaction or interceded in a motor vehicle altercation, so they add value. And I have to tell you, because we need to have a performance review on the police department, if it wasn’t for paid details, some neighborhoods wouldn’t see a police officer at all.
Jon Keller: Alright, sir, thank you. Rebuttal time … Go ahead briefly and then he asked him a question, so he should have a chance to respond to it.
Sam Yoon: Absolutely. The evidence or the justification for police details always turns on anecdotes. There was a detail officer who did this, a detail officer who did that. We’re looking for a study. This is the problem with our system of government. If you don’t have a performance-based management culture, a performance-based management system that allows decision makers to make decisions based on real, hard data and evidence, because if there is a real safety increase we ought to be able to measure it and then decide what are the resources that we should be putting toward that.
Jon Keller: Alright, go ahead.
Kevin McCrea: The politicians say that the flag men are going to cost almost as much. Well, one of the reasons that we have crime in the inner city is that we don’t have jobs in the inner city. We could hire tons of people in Dorchester, Mattapan or Roxbury. They’d be happy to get paid $15 an hour to work as a flag man on these details, and the money that we would save, money that the department of public works, the Boston Transportation Department are not spending on $40-an-hour policemen, can go back into the city budget so that we can hire more policemen to actually fight crime, not stand on the street.
Jon Keller: Alright, Mr. Menino.
Thomas Menino: Jon, you can go on to the Boston About Results and tell you what the department is doing when it comes to results and goals and how they’re meeting those results and goals in our city. It’s online. But you know, the study has out there, I saw a study about details versus flag men and it shows you that approximately the same costs. Wouldn’t you rather have a trained officer on Mass. Avenue or Dorchester Avenue in rush hour making sure the traffic moves? And when the construction company comes in, who’s going to allow them to tow those trucks? It’s about public safety, and we do have information that shows that detailed officers have prevented crimes in the neighborhoods of Boston.
Jon Keller: Go ahead, Mr. Flaherty.
Michael Flaherty: Thank you, Jon. What we don’t need is another study. But we also don’t need Boston About Results that publishes results quarterly. City Stat would obviously do something bi-weekly, give us more of an advantage, but most important about what we need to do is we need to listen to the residents. We need to sit down with someone like Shondell Davis (spelling?) who lost her son to violence in our city and talked about reaching out to the city and talked about the fact that she doesn’t see police officers in her neighborhood. That’s who we need to talk to, that’s what we need to do.
Jon Keller: Alright, briefly, gentlemen, because we’re going to take a break.
Sam Yoon: Thank you. Well, Boston About Results, with all due respect, Mr. Mayor, is not performance-based management. I’ve gone to the Web site, I’ve read the reports. This is not what is happening in other cities around the country. This is a system that just displays data, but it doesn’t drive decisions and it doesn’t shape policy, and if we’re going to …
Jon Keller: Go ahead … go ahead, discuss it. If you want to discuss it, discuss it. One at a time.
Thomas Menino: I just say that why are we invited to a conference next month to show how about Boston About Results gives you good management of the city budget? Why … 260 towns are going to be there. Why are we asked? Because we’re one of the experts in this country when it comes to managing our budget and making sure it works for the taxpayers of Boston, for the people in the neighborhoods [inaudible] deliver services for the parks the department, the public works department. That’s what we’re talking about.
Jon Keller: Alright. Go ahead and finish this off.
Sam Yoon: If it is, I would question why we don’t have 311. 311 is the system that is used in LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Oakland, Chicago, Baltimore, Somerville, Albuquerque … New York City, and this is a system that invites citizen participation to feed data into our system of government so we can make policy better. This is something for some reason you’ve resisted when all of us have kind of cried out for such an efficient system that our city needs.
Jon Keller: Go ahead.
Thomas Menino: Jon, we have 635-4500. Two hundred thousand people a year use that phone. This is not about numbers, it’s about results. That’s what I’m talking about. Phone numbers just don’t do it. It’s about results you get when you make that phone call.
Jon Keller: Briefly and then we’ll break.
Michael Flaherty: Just please let those folks know at that conference that the city of Boston has a $140 million deficit based on Boston About Results. We need City Stat. We needed it five years ago and I proposed it as a member of the Boston City Council.
Jon Keller: And Mr. McCrea, you get the last word before we break.
Kevin McCrea: I went down to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to help that city rebuild, and let me tell you New Orleans is years behind Boston on many levels, but they put in 311 and they put in a city accounting system. Councilors Yoon and Flaherty are absolutely right. This city needs accountability and we’re not getting that from city hall right now.
Jon Keller: Alright, gentlemen. Thank you. We will continue in a moment with the Boston mayoral debate. Please stay with us.
Commercial break.
Jon Keller: Welcome back to the first Boston mayoral debate live here on WBZ TV and WBZ news radio 1030 and let’s continue with our debate. And you’ll start first here, Mr. Menino. The Boston Municipal Research Bureau reports that the city has just 300 more jobs now than it did in 1990, yet the bureau also reports that since 2004, more than 1,200 jobs have been added to the city payroll. Why are we continuing to lose private sector jobs and failing to create new ones and how would you reverse that trend?
Thomas Menino: Jon, 1,200 jobs increase because we continue to improve the Boston public schools, the police department and fire. If you look at a number of those, they go into public safety and education in our city. We’re increasing our jobs, we just worked with one of the corporations to bring them to Boston. They’re going from 700 jobs to 1,200 jobs. We continue to invest in new economies down the [inaudible] creative industries of our city. We continue to do those things as we go through the difficulty that is the recession that we’re in. I just want to say looking forward, how do we look forward is we look at the life sciences. How do we continue to invest in life sciences? How do we continue to look at what we’re doing with the Legal Seafood development? How do we create all these things that continue to bring jobs to Boston? You know, the municipal research bureau only looks at small numbers. We look at the big picture and how we create more people to come into our city; how we’re helping businesses grow in Boston. That’s what I’m looking at. Not the bringing in new people. [Inaudible] for business grew in Boston.
Jon Keller: Thank you …
Thomas Menino: Precision …
Jon Keller: Thank you. Mr. Yoon.
Sam Yoon: We’re talking about private sector growth, Jon. What we need to talk about is the BRA. The Boston Redevelopment Authority is the city’s economic development and planning agency and I think here’s a sharp point of difference that’s very important for the viewers to understand between the three of us and the mayor, because we’re all calling for the elimination of the Boston Redevelopment Authority. In my case, I want to replace it with a community development planning agency because the problem is the BRA is an agency that operates under the control of a single person — and that is you, Mr. Mayor — and operates behind closed doors in which millions of dollars changes hands and agencies like the research bureau or the Boston Finance Commission can’t even look in to what what’s going on at the BRA in terms of the way resources are allocated because it is, because of this structure. This point, again, is another example of how we need to change the system. You know, a lot of people out there may be saying, ‘If it ain’t broke, why fix it?’ That may be the question for you this election. Well, I’m here to tell you it’s broke and we need to fix it and we not just need a new mayor, but a new mayor who’s going to change the system.
Jon Keller: Thank you, Mr. Yoon. Mr. Flaherty, one minute.
Michael Flaherty: Thank you, Jon. This administration has actually grown city government. I intend as mayor to make government smaller. We need to do, again, performance review literally department by department. Identify which programs are working, which ones are no longer providing vital services for our residents, talk about elimination and consolidation and obviously look at systems management operation equipment, find out where we need to make upgrades and get our city back on track. Two areas that I think will help our economy is clearly the new, emerging green economy. In order to do that, we need to prepare the next generation for those jobs. That’s starting in our schools. We also need to talk about the creative economy. You know, we boast of some of the best art galleries and museums in the world, but so many bright, young, talented artists are leaving our city, going to place like Providence, R.I., and Pawtucket because it’s affordable to live there, they’re able to provide and use their trade, but they feel that they’re not appreciated here in our city, so there are a number of things. When you talk to CPOs, finally Jon, they tell you that the welcome mat is not always in — that it’s who you know, it’s who you hire, it’s which consultants you have. That’s how you get permits done in Boston.
Jon Keller: Thank you. Mr. McCrea, one minute.
Kevin McCrea: The city budget’s grown and grown and grown and Flaherty has voted for it every single year until this one when he wanted to run for mayor. I was the one that talked about eliminating the BRA four years ago. It’s nice of Sam and Michael to jump on my bandwagon after being in the city council for four years. But let me talk about why businesses don’t want to come to this city. It’s because of the corruption that we have at city hall. I’d like to talk about something that just happened recently. These guys will tell you that they’ve squeezed the budget to the minimum, but just back on June 20, a city hall worker — someone who worked at the BRA, James Rourke — gave the mayor a $200 campaign contribution. Ten days later, the mayor sold Mr. Rourke a piece of city property assessed at $100,00 for a mere $5,000. This is the mayor’s signature on the deed right here. This is the type of corruption that’s gone on at city hall right now under the auspices of our political figures here, so we need to stop the giveaways that’s going on here.
Jon Keller: Okay, that’s a serious, specific charge made against you, Mr. Mayor. I want you to take the first turn to rebut it. Go ahead, sir.
Thomas Menino: Jon, Kevin, that’s nonsense, you know that, and my record shows it. Mr. Rourke got a piece, an abutter lot. We have a program in the city of Boston. Land next to a person’s home, we don’t want to maintain that lot, so we sell it to the abutter next door. We went to our legal counsel, we checked it out. So yah, your charges are out of bounds. Let’s talk about the BRA. The BRA has developed the city over the last several years. But let’s look at the other parts of the BRA. They preserved 9,500 units of housing that were units that were going to be lost because of mortgage come due. So the BRA is doing a lot of good things. Look at what they’ve done around the city and the neighborhoods. They’ve rezoned a lot of our neighborhoods in the city of Boston, helped and redeveloped a lot of the neighborhoods of Boston, because neighborhoods are really where the vitality of Boston is and that’s where the BRA does so many good things. But you know, BRA is a change agent and people don’t like change.
Jon Keller: I’m going to get back to you, but Mr. Yoon was waving. Go ahead.
Sam Yoon: Thank you, Jon. Mr. Mayor, you are very skilled at bringing facts and figures to debates like this.
Thomas Menino: Jon, this is the first debate so I can’t tell what debate you’re talking about.
Sam Yoon: Well, in any kind of public forum, but the fact — you know, it just reminds me of Mark Twain’s line where he says, ‘There are lies, damn lies and then there’s statistics.’ In fact, the Boston Globe did an excellent story about the stats and figures that you claimed in terms of building commercial space in our city, commercial square footage, but what has been revealed to us is that those figures are based on distorted data because our city is, when you compare it to the 10 largest cities in terms of population, the building per capita doesn’t make sense because we have such a small footprint. And in fact, the amount of square footage that was built under your 16 years, it was dwarfed by how much was built by Ray Flynn in seven years. And so, we have to move beyond facts and figures in this debate and in this election, really get to what’s important, which is is the system working? And if it’s not, we not only need a new mayor, but a mayor who’s going to fix the system.
Jon Keller: Hang on, I know you want to rebut but I want to get your fellow candidates in briefly. Go ahead.
Michael Flaherty: I want to respond to Kevin because this was a completely different budget than any other budget that I’ve faced as a member of the city council. I take my legislative responsibilities and my fiduciary responsibilities to the taxpayers very seriously. Prior budgets, we had more, we were able to do more. This particular budget, coming in with a deficit, closing schools, the real cut to talk about laying off teachers and the potential to lay off firefighters and police officers. So I just want to be clear that my decisions on behalf of residents of the city, they’re personal. They’re because it’s a fiduciary responsibility. It has nothing to do with a campaign to run for mayor. This is a completely different budget.
Jon Keller: Alright, go ahead sir. Take a few seconds here.
Kevin McCrea: Sure. Let’s talk about the BRA. The BRA gives away tax breaks and money to connected insiders. Look at the tower at 1 Beacon St. That building gets a chapter 121-A tax break for being in a blighted area. The BRA has given them a $3 million to $5 million tax break every year. We’ve lost $40 million there over the last 10 years. If we had that money, we wouldn’t be talking about cutting any teaching jobs, or not cutting funding for our schools and our … our police department.
Jon Keller: Gentlemen, go ahead, Mr. Yoon. Mr. Menino, I’ll give you the last word, but you go ahead.
Sam Yoon: I think it’s important that we also, for the purpose of this, the viewing audience, help us all realize that there is so much hope in the way we can do community development and planning in our city. We have so much talent, so much energy. The CDC movement may have been born in the South Bronx, but you know what? In Boston it really took off and that’s one of the reasons that I stayed. I was, worked in the community development movement building affordable housing, doing community organizing for 10 years and I realize there’s so much potential here, but the way our city government operates is holding that potential back, and that’s, I think, the opportunity of this election.
Jon Keller: Hold that, I’m going to move on and there’ll be other opportunities later.
Thomas Menino: Jon, Jon. Sam talks about CDCs. Just the other day, 20 CDC executive directors endorsed my campaign for working with them to help redevelop the neighborhoods of Boston. Housing, commercial development, whatever it may be, we work with folks in the neighborhoods. That’s how we get the job done. It’s not just city hall. We had over 200 BRA meetings in the neighborhoods of Boston this past year. We believe that the neighborhood has to be involved in the process and every building that gets done in Boston goes through a process with the neighborhood, not just with the BRA, but with the neighborhood involved.
Jon Keller: Alright, if you have something more to add on this, I’m going to give you each 10 seconds because I do have to move on.
Michael Flaherty: Just to the mayor: the BRA has outlived it’s usefulness. I’m calling for the elimination of the BRA. Calling for a standalone planning committee and a standalone economic development and workforce development committee, and let’s have a body that will govern planning and development that takes the residents concerns and their priorities first. Please take a peek at the Web site, I unleashed my white pages tonight.
Jon Keller: And Mr. McCrea, take 10 seconds please.
Kevin McCrea: Sure. One thing to be clear about is councilor Yoon and councilor Flaherty are talking about eliminating the BRA, but they still want that power under the power of mayor. That isn’t going to change having all the power in the city under the mayor’s hand. I want to give the city council control over planning and development as it is in every other city and town in Massachusetts.
Jon Keller: Point made. Ten seconds, Mr. Yoon.
Sam Yoon: Actually, just to clarify, to create a community development department would just simply operate as a department of the city and would come under the normal oversight of the government, but the strong mayor system — when that gets changed, then you’ll see, you will accomplish what you’re hoping for, Kevin, which is a balance of power within city government such that there’s accountability for every agency. Not just to one person, but to (13 other elected officials) as well as the people of Boston.
Jon Keller: Alright, gentlemen. Thank you. There’ll be ample opportunity later to revisit this if you so choose, but I do want to move on to another topic. We can’t let 35 minutes go by in a Boston mayoral debate without talking about education, so I’m going to skip to question eight here, for the benefit of my producers in the booth. Eight thousand Boston families are currently on the waiting list to get their kids into charter schools, but the number of available seats is artificially restricted by a legal cap. Do you support the immediate lifting of that cap? If not, please explain to those families on that waiting list why their child might get shut out. Mr. Yoon …
Sam Yoon: Thank you, Jon. I do support the lifting of the caps on charter schools, but let me say this first of all. The charter schools will not be a magic bullet for education in our city, but I do believe that they provide an important element of innovation and creativity that has the potential to influence the system as a whole. My proposal is called Smart Caps and it simply means that for those charter schools that do have a demonstrated record of success, let’s let them expand. But you know, we have no excuse. That waiting list that you mentioned, Jon, is — it really illustrates the problem. In the Athens of America, our city can boast like no other city of having the intellectual resources in its academic institutions, and there’s no excuse why we do not have a world class system of public education in our city, and 16 years of a mayorally controlled school committee, I think, is one of the first things that has to be re-examined and changed if we’re going to move our city forward and create the world-class system that our children deserve.
Jon Keller: Thank you. Mr. Flaherty, one minute.
Michael Flaherty: Thank you. I know this issue very well because raising a family with my three youngest attending the Boston public schools. I took the lead in this race and called for the lifting of the charter cap. So many families have left our city in search of quality education, frustrated that they didn’t get their first, their second or their third choice for the Boston public schools, or worse — unassigned. Now again, there’s so many people on a waiting list, tells you that there’s a success there. We should be embracing success stories. It should be less about the politics of public versus private versus parochial versus charter. It should be about the child in the classroom and providing quality, so I’m not just embracing charters, I want to embrace good charters and charters that have demonstrated ability to lead in our city. At the same time, create autonomy within the Boston public schools for our principals, empower parents and teachers to make a difference and also have school-site budgeting instead of the one-size-fits-all that comes out of Court Street. And that’s where we’re going to turn around and have real significant tax dollars available for us that will actually make it to the classroom for teaching and learning.
Jon Keller: Thank you. Mr. McCrea, one minute.
Kevin McCrea: Charter schools are the latest buzz word for these politicians to pretend that they care about what goes on in the Boston public schools. Charter schools were brought in to try new teaching methods and use those methods when they find out what works to go back into the public schools. I’m against raising the charter school cap. We know what works. Longer school days, longer school years, more discipline, getting more parental involvement, accentuating the good things that go on in Boston public schools. I’ve made two key promises. One is not to cut the budget as these gentleman have this past year — $22 million. The second is the same promise I made four years ago. If elected mayor, I’m going to visit each and every school over a period of two years. I’m going to talk to the teachers, the parents and the students, find out what’s going right — and their are a lot of things going right in the public schools — and find out what’s going wrong and fix it. Quickly, if the public schools are so bad, why did these three gentlemen …
Jon Keller: Okay.
Kevin McCrea: I’ll come back to this in the rebuttal.
Jon Keller: Thank you. Mr. Menino, one minute.
Thomas Menino: I propose in-district charter schools. What I want to do is take the under-performing schools, give the superintendent and the school committee the opportunity to move those under-performing schools up to a place of choice schools in our city. We don’t need more schools, we need better schools. In 2006, Boston was given the Broad Prize for the best urban school system in America, and just recently, US News and World Report, eight of our schools were nationally recognized by them. Do we have problems? Yes, we do, because we take every child in. But we’re dealing with some of those issues. You know, the dropout rate’s decreased by 30 percent since I’ve been mayor of this city. That’s important. Also, we take on and put full kindergarten in Boston for 4-year-olds. We went from three K-8s to 28 K-8s. That’s what we’re doing. The charter schools, when I was against charter schools, I was against the issue of financing charter schools because they get more money for their students than I do for the Boston public schools. That’s my issue.
Jon Keller: Alright, gentlemen, I’ve got to take a break, but I don’t want to stop this discussion in its tracks here, so this will be a test of your ability to self edit. You each have 15 seconds to make one trenchant point about his before we do take the break. Mr. Yoon.
Sam Yoon: Mr. Mayor, you’re fond of saying that this election’s about our future and not about our past and right now, we don’t have a world-class system of public education that we deserve. In fact, 40 percent of ninth graders right now in the Boston public schools will not graduate with their class. Fifteen percent of the students that graduate from BPS who are lucky enough to go to college and university there, they graduate with their class. Forty five percent of them don’t. There is much more, there is much to be done and that’s … that is a better future.
Jon Keller: Take your time in rebuttal, then these other two will get in.
Thomas Menino: We have Success Boston, which is a program where you take the kids who have issues in Boston to bring them to summer school so when they go off to college, they’ll graduate from college. That’s important for us. Also, we have this new program that we work with the kids that have dropped out that we help them get back into the school system of Boston.
Jon Keller: Mr. Flaherty, go ahead. Fifteen seconds.
Michael Flaherty: Twenty-four thousand kids, that’s 24,000 kids, have dropped out over the last 16 years. You could fill, overflow, TD Banknorth Garden, and if you asked where are those kids today, many of them probably unemployed, several of them probably incarcerated and several of them probably parents of Boston public school kids themselves. We have too many chronically under-performing schools in our city. The problem with the in-district charter is we’re going to be handing over charters that actually have success rates and we’re going to turn them over to the Boston public schools, which is a major mistake. We need to get our chronically under-performing schools back on track first before we try to ruin others.
Jon Keller: Thank you. Mr. McCrea, briefly please.
Kevin McCrea: These politicians talk to us about expanding the charter school cap. Well why don’t they just expand the cap on the schools that they all send their children to? Boston voters are going to be shocked to hear this next statistic. Councilors Yoon, councilors Flaherty and Mayor Menino all got their children into their first choice of schools. What a miracle. I’m going to change the system that takes care of the connected and forgets about all the rest.
Jon Keller: Thank you. You will have an opportunity, gentlemen, to rebut if you wish as we go forward, which we’ll do after we take a break here in the Boston mayoral debate.
Commercial break.
Jon Keller: Welcome back to the Boston mayoral debate live on WBZ TV and WBZ news radio 1030. This next question comes via WBZTV.com from Eileen, who wants to know in recent years the residency requirement for city employees has been loosened, with several contracts now allowing employees to move out after 10 years. Even some former backers of the residency law now say it has become prohibitively expensive for many workers to comply with. Is residency important enough to protect or isn’t it? Mr. Flaherty.
Michael Flaherty: I think it is. The goal should be to make our city the best possible city it could be. That means improvement in quality of education, giving families options, it means making sure our streets are safe and clean and making sure there’s economic opportunity for everybody. What frustrates a lot of folks, and as I mentioned in the last segment, is that a lot of people have left our city, or they’re in search of a quality opportunity for education for their child, but they’re looking for a safe neighborhood, or they want an opportunity to gain gainful employment that will be able to sustain them and their families. I’ve always supported the residency requirement. I think it’s gone a long way of helping stabilize our city. The goal for me would be I want everyone to move back. I want them to know there’ll be a new mayor in Boston. We’re going to have better schools, safer streets and opportunity for everyone.
Jon Keller: Thank you. Mr. McCrea.
Kevin McCrea: I agree. I’m in favor of the residency program. Who wouldn’t want teachers and police officers and firemen living in their neighborhoods? But that is the problem. The schools are terrible. We heard from Mayor Menino earlier the schools are getting better and better every year, but we know that’s not true. The mayor wants to get rid of 1/3 of the schools. He’s admitting that 1/3 of the schools are failing. One of the things that I’ve proposed is a loan program. Education is my number one priority. I want to say to the teachers of the Boston public schools if you’ll live here in Boston, we’re going to use our good bond rating to give you low interest rates so you can afford to live in this city. We want people that work in Boston to stay in Boston and live in Boston.
Jon Keller: Thank you. Mr. Menino
Thomas Menino: I think the residency requirement is important to our city. Get people started if they’re living out of state. We’re making Boston a more attractive place to live. I mean, look at all the neighborhoods of Boston. They’re much stronger today. When you look at all the numbers of people who do polling in the city, neighborhood people say, 67 percent of the people, think the neighborhoods are in the right direction. That’s sounds like one the best cities in America. Why? Because the crime rate’s down the last three years; lowest crime rate in 40 years. Our schools are getting better. They’re not there yet, folks. I admit that. Our fields are in better shape. Our small business districts, because of the main street program, are doing extremely well. And the worst thing about our neighborhoods, they’re what makes Boston so unique, and that’s why I’m always in favor of people that live in our city. As mayor, I continue to work with these neighborhood groups all the time to make a place where they want to enjoy life, raise their children and send their kids to school in our neighborhoods.
Jon Keller: Thank you. Mr. Yoon.
Sam Yoon: Well, Jon, this question isn’t so fun because it looks like we all agree. I also agree that residency is important. It so happens that the city of Boston is the second largest employer besides Mass. General Hospital in the city of Boston, and so in a lot of ways it’s an economic development, there’s an economic development interest in it. But I think this isn’t going to matter in terms of the way that we hire people in the city to do city work unless we end the system of patronage that has been endemic to our city government for so long. The city of Boston, people know that in order to get things done, to get a job there, it’s about who you know. It’s about who you know as opposed to what you know and I think it’s time that we move our city in to the 21st century and demand modern, efficient government, which is antithetical to that system of patronage that we’ve held on to for so long. And I think a lot of that comes out of — again, I’m going to keep coming back to this because, Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, you have too much power. Your office has too much power, and unless we address that, none of the things we’ve talked about on this debate are going to be solved as challenges that we’re going to face in the 21st century.
Jon Keller: Go ahead, rebut him.
Thomas Menino: Sam, it isn’t just me. It’s the people who work for me who have a say in what happens in state government. I have a cabinet — over half of those individuals, over half of them, didn’t work for me in the campaign. Most of my department heads did not work for me in the campaign. This is not about patronage, it’s about hiring the best people to do the job. Carol Jonson, Ed Davis, Barbara Ferrer. That’s what we continue to do is hire people who are experts in their field to help me do the job because mayors can’t do it alone. You need a good staff. Also, you have to have neighborhood folks you call on every day to help you make decisions about how you move the city forward for the next several years.
Jon Keller: Go ahead briefly. Then I want to bring the others in.
Sam Yoon:. There’s no doubt that there are a lot of the people that work under your employ, Mr. Mayor, are good people, but it doesn’t erase the fact that — I think as Michael Flaherty and I would both be on the same page with this — that it’s, we’re running because this system isn’t working. We’re running because when one person makes all the decisions and controls all the power, that limits us in being to solve these problems. That’s why I think we need term limits. That’s why we need campaign finance reform as well.
Jon Keller: I think you got your point across. Go ahead, gentlemen. You, go ahead.
Michael Flaherty: The Mayor actually, if I’m not mistaken, ran on a platform of residency and save our city. That was years ago. I know that he’s let up on it. Now there’s a 10-year escape clause, if you will, so I’m not quite sure why in year 16, going into year 16, he let up on the residency requirement.
Thomas Menino: Well, it was in year 13.
Michael Flaherty: Year 13? Year 13. It’s been a long time.
Thomas Menino: Let’s keep the facts…
Michael Flaherty: It’s been a long time. But let me just say that, again, the focus really should be on improving quality education, making our neighborhoods safer and cleaner and providing opportunity for everybody.
Jon Keller: Go ahead, sir.
Kevin McCrea: It’s interesting that they bring up patronage. We all respected Teddy Kennedy, who said his most proud moment was when he stood up and voted against the Iraq War. That took courage. These city councilors haven’t stood up to the patronage that’s gone on. I looked into one pension giveaway that councilors Yoon and councilors Flaherty voted for to Paul Walkowski, and I asked the two of them, ‘Why did you vote for this?’ And both of them said, ‘Well, we’re going along to get along.’ And that’s what Mayor Menino signed off on. All three of these guys have been part of this patronage system for the past four years, 10 years and 16 years and they’ve done nothing about it.
Jon Keller: Alright, gentlemen, you will have an opportunity to rebut that after we take our final break of the Boston mayoral debate here on WBZ. Please stay with us.
Commercial break
Jon Keller: You’re watching the Boston mayoral debate live on WBZ TV and simulcast on our sister station, WBZ news radio 1030. And gentlemen, we really don’t have time for another question and formal, one-minute responses, so I’m just going to sort of initiate a final, open period of discussion by noting that much of what you’ve talked about over the last 15 minutes has been oriented toward the issue of money or, more importantly, the lack of it — the constraints it imposes on the city, the need to develop more revenues. So let’s start with you, Mr. McCrea, since it was your turn in the cycle. What’s your brightest new idea to fix this chronic problem?
Kevin McCrea: Well, it’s not a chronic problem. They tell you it’s a chronic problem, but it isn’t. In the last 10 years, the cost of living has gone up by 25 percent, but the city budget has gone up by 50 percent, and residential property taxes have gone up by 100 percent. We all remember back in January the mayor was saying, ‘We’re facing the worst fiscal crisis in city history. We’re going to have to lay off 200 police officers. We’re going to have to lay off 900 people in the schools.’ And you can go to my Web site and you can look — I said, ‘This is not true. He’s being dishonest because he wants to get the hotel and meals tax.’ Here we are eight months later, no police officers laid off, and only a fraction of teachers and that’s because, like … Richard Stuttman, the teacher’s union president, told him that this city has money. And as a matter of fact, since January, the mayor has put $120 million into the bank.
Jon Keller: Alright, rebuttal.
Thomas Menino: That is not true, Kevin. It’s …
Kevin McCrea: I’ve got it all right here …
Jon Keller: One minute time, please.
Thomas Menino: This is capital funds were used to pay our bills in city government through city budget, and that money’s used to pay our bills, and the city government continues to grow — our expenses, our union contracts, salaries, operation — that’s why we have additional money.
Kevin McCrea: Exactly. It grows and grows and grows, but we don’t get better service.
Thomas Menino: Union contracts … let me just tell you, the city’s been lowest, we’ve had the highest bond rating of any of our city ever in the past. Why? Because we know how to manage our city wealth. Also, we reduced, refinanced our bonds, we saved $30 million; $8.6 million was saved by overtime reduction. So also …
Kevin McCrea: Here’s the [inaudible] right here. We have more money …
Thomas Menino: Kevin, we’ll give you a lesson in budget management because you don’t understand it. Now it’s fortunate I like you a lot, but you don’t understand budget management.
Jon Keller: Alright, let’s let the other two in. You’ll have a chance to rebut. Go ahead, Mr. Yoon.
Sam Yoon: Thank you. When we’re talking about revenue, we have to realize that the largest single untapped source of revenue for our city lies in the Boston Redevelopment Authority. That’s why it has to be eliminated. You know, we’re closing on the idea power, on economic resources and public resources — that all comes down to the use of power. That all comes down to the use of power. I want to … It harkens to something that Mayor Ray Flynn actually said the other day … Too much power scares people. It scares people and drives them away from the polls, but hope brings people to the polls, and that’s exactly what’s at stake in this election. It’s about the use of power and whether we want to continue a system in which it’s all concentrated into one person’s hands.
Jon Keller: Mr. Flaherty, go ahead.
Michael Flaherty: Thank you, Jon. I think that we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem in our city, and the thing you don’t do in a down economy is tax its residents. That’s why I didn’t support the Menino meals tax that came before the council last week. What we need to do is put the pressure on the colleges and universities to pay their fair share. Time to revisit PILOT. It’s great in year 16 we’re getting a task force, but we started talking about this when I was president of the council and I formed a committee to address this issue. Didn’t have support of the administration then, probably won’t have it now. And finally, I know because we’ll be rapping up, just for those that are home that may not have asked, been answered a question that they may wanted or they might want to learn a little bit more about where I stand, just please check out the Web site, MichaelFlaherty.com, and I ask for your vote Sept. 22.
Jon Keller: Alright, take a brief moment if you want, Mr. Menino.
Thomas Menino: Our budget is a budget that works for the people of Boston, the people who live in our neighborhoods, delivering services. This summer we put 4,000 kids to work. We continue to improve our neighborhoods. That’s what we’re doing in our budget. And when … We have the highest bond rating in the city’s history. How does that happen? But also, Jon, we haven’t been talking about people in this debate at all. What about the diversity of our city and how the diversity of our city is represented in all the boards of Boston? Fifty percent of the membership of our membership on our boards are persons of color, and also we have another … the Initiative for a New Economy, which I created with Blue Cross Blue Shield to get minorities on boards and get minority businesses to be purchasing stuff from major corporations.
Jon Keller: You two each have 15 seconds. Go.
Kevin McCrea: Sure. The mayor talks about a good bond rating, but what he’s really been doing is Reaganomics. Taking care of the rich while not giving jobs to the poor. He’s given tax credits and tax breaks in the last year to JP Morgan Chase and a bunch of his buddies inside.
Jon Keller: And Mr. Yoon, go ahead. Fifteen please.
Sam Yoon: I love this city, the mayor loves this city, we all do. But we need to recognize that our future looks very different from our past, and in this election, what’s important is that we elect someone who has the courage and the willingness to reform a system that will bring us into the modern, 21st-century economy that we’re entering into rapidly.
Jon Keller: Gentlemen, thank you all very much for being here. you achieved the incredible — you left me wanting more. Thank you for being here. And this reminder: Boston voters head to the polls on Tuesday, Sept. 22 to narrow this field to two for the November election. Get out and vote on Sept. 22. Then watch your vote count on WBZ news. You can go to our Web site right now for more information on the candidates, links to their Web sites and a chance to comment on tonight’s debate. Just log on to WBZTV.com and search “Keller”. Please stay with WBZ news for coverage of the mayoral race, the special Senate election and the upcoming 2010 campaign. On behalf of everyone here at WBZ news radio 1030, for all of us, I’m Jon Keller. Thanks very much for watching.