Mayoral Race already paying dividends to Citizens!

I was in Dorchester tonight at the Epiphany School giving my stump speech, meeting old friends and new friends. Many people in Dorchester are familiar with me because a number of Dorchester residents who had been doing everything to fight crime asked me to help them sue city hall to put more police officers on the street. There is an ordinance on the city books that the city should maintain 2500 police officers on the force. The ordinance is still on the books, why would the city take an ordinance off the books they go to court to say isn't legal? Although we lost the suit on a technicality, the city was at least partly shamed into hiring 200 more officers. One of my co-plaintiff's, Candice Gartley, was at the neighborhood meeting and it was nice to see her.

Anyway, after I spoke, the head of the Codman Square Health Center gave a talk to the neighborhood group about all the great work that they are doing, the doctors and dentists and facilities they have available and how they are hoping to get federal funds to build a new wing to expand their facility and charter school.

At the end of his talk, he happily told the crowd that the City is going to put an elevator in at the Great Hall which was the scene of the Yoon/Menino dustup over a handicapped man trying to access Yoon's talk on the budget in the neighborhood.

He then said that someone at City Hall called him up and said 'who owns the building?' and he told them that they do! He then went on to explain how the City had been talking about putting the elevator in for 3 or 4 years but they just never seemed to get around to it, but now all of a sudden they are going to do it this July and August. It was sarcastically noted "funny how that happens in an election year" and another women said "this Mayoral election is already benefiting the citizens." It seems clear that people know the Mayor is just playing games with the city like it is his personal sandbox, that he is totally reactive not proactive, and they are not even surprised to hear City Hall is calling to find out whether they even own a building that is theirs.

Amazing how the City can just find money to take care of anything that makes the Mayor look bad just like that!! I thought we had a fiscal crisis going on! We should get Sam Yoon to run around to all the buildings that need handicapped access, then we can get Michael Flaherty to point out all the streets that need repaving, and maybe I can point out the physical problems with all the schools and the Mayor will have it all fixed by September!

Seriously, if you have a problem on your street or in your neighborhood, this is the best time to call up the Mayor's office and get it taken care of. It is his way of buying votes, and as I've said before and shown the numbers, there is plenty of money in his slush fund to make sure these things get done.