Hennigan persuasive, Menino evasive
By Maggie Mulvihill, Boston Herald
Thursday, September 29, 2005
City Councilor Maura Hennigan enhanced her bid to
be the first woman to serve as Boston's mayor with an on-point televised
town meeting performance last night.
But Mayor Thomas M. Menino - while somewhat staggered - suffered
no serious damage to his hopes of defending his seat.
Poised and armed with a ready command of statistics, city budget
expenditures, school information and examples of failures of city
services, Hennigan appeared calm and confident during the session
hosted by WGBH Channel 2's Emily Rooney.
By contrast, the mayor danced around hot topics such as taxes,
housing, potholes and street sweeping. While repeatedly calling
for ``partnerships,'' he at times appeared to be blaming neighborhood
residents for failing to help the city provide better services.
And when pushed back on the city government's shortcomings, he
retreated to a tired defense the state and federal governments are
to blame.
Hennigan appeared to personally connect with the town meeting
audience members - discounting her image as a longtime City Hall
insider and stealing a page from Menino's playbook that has cast
him as the regular guy in touch with the neighborhoods.
When Naida Simpson of Dorchester told Menino her car was falling
apart because of potholes, Hennigan recounted suffering a broken
ankle upon falling in a pothole.
When Eugene Timory of West Roxbury asked about ways to keep fleeing
parents from leaving the Boston Public School system, Hennigan reminded
voters she taught there for many years.
Menino scored points with a largely positive message that sounded
sincere albeit roughly assembled - yet failed to put to rest criticism
he should have seen coming.
On the city's questionable disaster evacuation plan, for example,
the mayor said simply, ``It's a plan that moves people around,''
and ``We're finding locations to put people'' in the event of a
disaster.
Still, with voters hardly focused on an election still six weeks
away and no other TV encounters scheduled, the points scored by
longshot Hennigan might well be a case of too little - too soon.
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