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Whassup, kid?
/1 Comment/in Blog, News /by Liam DayWhen I was a ridiculously skinny, cocksure undergrad, that was how I addressed everyone. “Hey, whassup, kid?” It didn’t matter if the person I was addressing was a fellow student, dorm tutor, or professor. I bring this up in light of Scot Lehigh’s column this morning commenting on both Mayor Menino’s and Mike Flaherty’s reference to Sam Yoon as kid in last night’s mayoral debate on WCVB. Like tonic or bubbler, “kid” is a Bostonism, particularly “good kid” or “great kid”. I have kids I grew up with, who are now, like me, unfortunately approaching 40, with kids of their own, and if you were to ask me what they were like, I’d still respond with something like, “Macca? Macca’s […]
The City's Hotline Really Does Work
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byThe City of Boston has a 24 hour constituent service line — 617-635-4500 (which should be 311, but that’s another story). It works apparently. Particularly when the Mayor calls it: Page 8 of the first batch of Kineavy emails posted on the Globe website has a city employee checking in with Kineavy about a call to the service line from none other thanTom Menino inquiring about the permits for a dumpster in the North End.
Pension Reform Commission Kicks It to the LEG
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byJust got back from the last meeting of the Pension Reform Commission, where they declined to decide which of their proposals (now complete with cost estimates) to recommend to the Legislature. It’s a pretty unsatisfying outcome to a process that promised, at one point, to provide a cost-neutral set of recommendations to the Legislature. However, a close reading of their enabling statute shows that their were entitled to conduct a study and not make recommendations. An interesting subtext to this discussion is the primary public source of conflict on the commission — between PERAC and the Board chair (previously mentioned here). I encourage you to give PERAC’s costing analysis a close read. To paraphrase a colleague, there are plenty of […]
Read and Learn
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byKen Lewis of BofA to step down before the new year. Who called it many months ago?
Will the state keep passing the buck?
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byMatt Murphy of the Sun (and the associated Sentinel and Enterprise) reports that state revenues will come in $150 to $200 million below budget estimates for the month of September. On top of subpar revenues in July, we have to gird ourselves for some real tough actions — and fast. The State Treasurer and Lowell City Manager are both right to call for one quick, clean cut early in the fiscal year. Murphy paraphrases Lynch as suggesting “he’d rather have the Band-Aid ripped off quickly than endure a slow peel.” Lynch also notes “hopefully the governor will find other savings at the state level.” He’s right. Our view is that local cannot be the first option, to the point that […]