Some of what I would propose if I was giving the Mayor's Speech Tomorrow night:

Changes in Boston to be introduced in the next 100 days:

ETHICS AND GOVERNMENT

1) Introduce legislation to abolish the BRA as an independent agency and put it under the control of the citizens of Boston through their elected officials. All revenue streams will be given to the City of Boston controlled through the budget process.

2) Legislation to eliminate no bid contracts

3) Introduce separate planning and development departments, so that citizen desires for livable neighborhoods can be implemented, and so responsible, accountable, development will be introduced to advance the needs of the city.

4) Enact transparent pension and disability guidelines and reforms for all departments.

5) Introduce the strongest open meeting laws in the country, to assure the citizens that no back room deals are being done.

6) Introduce legislation that the City Budget must include funding for a minimum of 2300 police officers.

7) Introduce legislation that elected officials pay raises may only be voted on 4 months or less prior to their re-election.

8) Introduce term limits for Mayor.

9) Admit a mistake, and fix the Fire Departments Equipment!

FINANCE

1) Double the Financial Commission’s budget so that competent professionals can do the monetary auditing this city needs. Introduce legislation that the Financial Commission is a fixed percentage of the city budget.

2) Save money by putting the City of Boston employee’s health care policy in conjunction with the State policy.

3) Elimination of taxbreak giveaways to rich developers for private projects. If a project does not make sense on its own to commercial developers and banks, the citizens of Boston should not fund it.

4) Require zero based budgeting for all departments so that all expenses in each calendar year are thought about, and justified. Publish all budgets online.

5) Publish on line all expenses and income by the City of Boston and the BRA.

6) List all property owned by the City of Boston and the BRA online, identify which parcels need to kept for future City needs such as Parks, Schools, Transportation, and sell all others reducing the tax burden on existing homeowners, spurring construction and development to create much needed jobs.




EDUCATION

1) Introduce legislation to end mandatory busing. Convene a committee of leaders from across Boston such as Mel King, Superintendent Johnson, Governor Patrick, the Boston Foundation, and others to insure that we get and maintain an exceptional and equitable school system for all of Boston’s neighborhoods.

2) Introduce legislation to build the best in the country science, math and Green Technology exam high school.

3) Develop plans to highlight, challenge, acknowledge and reward the excellence of our students. Use our BNN network to introduce and televise a city wide spelling bee, A “Brain Game” quiz show of school v. school, and televise our high school athletics. Students can get excited by both participating in and producing these shows.

4) Introduce legislation to provide low cost home loans for teachers who live in the city. We need to reward and retain our teachers for the valuable work they do.

5) Introduce legislation to mandate the City Budget provide a minimum of 12/1 student to teacher ratio. We should not lay off a single teacher, we need to build the best in the country education system so that we can continue to be a world leading knowledge based society.


ENVIRONMENT

The goal is to make Boston as energy efficient as any City in America in 4 years.

1) A key part of the environment is clean streets. We need to hire quality assurance professionals to make sure our trash disposal companies are doing the required job they are being paid to do.

2) Mandate that all non-essential city or state vehicles also be hybrid or have 30 mph minimum standards, including the Mayor’s vehicle. Move up the date for converting taxicabs to hybrids.

2) Mandate dual use toilets in new housing developments and renovations.

3) All replacement lights in public buildings and subsidized housing to use fluorescent lighting. Within 5 years all new lighting fixtures will need to be fluorescent or other high efficiency equivalents.
4) Mandate that new hot waters systems, especially in public buildings and subsidized housing be more efficient. All gas hot water systems to be converted to “insta-hot” systems in 10 years.

5) Mandate that shopping centers and parking lots of a certain size provide recycling stations for the public use. Provide similar recycling stations on public property in each neighborhood.

7) Eliminate school busing in Boston and convert needed buses to Bio-fuel. Work in partnership with our local businesses to use all used cooking oil to fuel Boston buses.