Our latest Press Release

***MENINO NOT KEEPING PROMISES***



Mayor Menino has been breaking promises to the citizens of Boston for years, and as recently chronicled in the Boston Herald, Christine Colley the woman in charge of making developers keep their promises to the neighborhoods in which their work is being done hasn’t produced a single report let alone a database since being hired 5 years and more than half a million dollars ago. Kevin McCrea, candidate for Mayor says “When Colley was hired, then BRA director Maloney said ‘a promise not kept is a lie’. The Mayor has had many, many promises not kept and the citizens should hold him accountable.” McCrea continues, “Menino hired her as payback for getting the Columbus Center Parcel shepherded through, and now the citizens have paid her and her assistants around one million dollars with nothing to show for it. We simply can’t afford this wastefulness while we are threatened with police and teaching layoffs.

Other recent promises not kept by the Mayor which he could follow through on if he wanted to keep his word:

• In December 2004 Menino promised to renovate the Ferdinand Building in Dudley Square
and house City workers there. 4 years later the plan has been put on hold. In addition, two thirds of the work done on the building was done by out of town workers, not living up to the promise of the Boston Jobs Policy.

• Menino promised to debate his challengers and to meet with us by July 1, 2009 to go over formats. Instead, he has refused to even respond to Flaherty, Yoon or myself.

• On September 30, 2008 Menino promised about the Rose Kennedy Greenway not “to have the Greenway be made a canyon, Manhattanized.” and about tall buildings putting shadows over the public parkland he said“We don’t want to allow that” But, he is having his agency, the BRA, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars reviewing plans by developers wanting to put 700 foot buildings where zoning only allows 150 feet when he could just say no and save taxpayer money. (Boston Globe)

Of course, we also have older Menino promises like only serving two terms which he has reneged on. McCrea says “This is why citizens get cynical and decide not to engage in local government to the detriment of all. I have put my promises in black and white so that citizens can hold me accountable, I hope that we start holding the Mayor accountable as well.”