Hennigan attacks,
Menino parries in lunchtime encounter
By Brian McGrory, Boston Globe Audio
of Mayoral Lunch Debate
October 20, 2005
Mayoral candidate Maura A. Hennigan, opening a new
line of attack in an increasingly contentious campaign, accused
Thomas M. Menino yesterday of sabotaging development on the stalled
South Boston Waterfront because of his longtime dislike of landowner
Frank McCourt.
At an unusual lunch between the candidates hosted by the Globe
at the venerable Locke-Ober restaurant, Hennigan also accused
Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole of negligence in last
year's fatal police shooting outside Fenway Park. Several officers
were suspended or demoted and one retired, after Emerson College
student Victoria Snelgrove was killed. O'Toole faced no disciplinary
action and was praised by the victim's family for her performance.
O'Toole ''herself said that she had not reviewed the plan,"
Hennigan said. ''I believe that's negligence on her part, as well
as on the mayor's part."
Asked if she would have taken action against O'Toole,
Hennigan responded, ''If it was determined, after all parties
involved, that she had not done what she should have, yes, I would
have."
Countered Menino: ''She did everything she could. I wasn't on
scene. I was in contact with the commissioner on that night. There
were people that gave orders to do things that they shouldn't
have done. They were disciplined. All of them."
In the throes of a campaign in which Menino has
taken pains to avoid debates, the councilor at large and mayor
accepted an invitation from the Globe to meet for an hour over
lobster bisque and broiled scrod, without aides and advisers.
The lunch marked the last scheduled encounter of the mayoral campaign
and was the only one in which the candidates agreed to take questions
from each other.
Hennigan arrived first, 10 minutes before the appointed
hour, and was led by maitre d' Tony Accardi up the narrow stairs
of the Downtown Crossing restaurant to a private third-floor dining
room set for three. Menino arrived five minutes later, and the
candidates exchanged brief pleasantries.
The mayor peeled off his jacket and took his seat
next to Hennigan. When lunch arrived, he ate about half his fish,
tore off a slice of flatbread from a communal plate, and later
picked at his sliced carrots with his fingers. Throughout the
encounter, he scanned a notecard, often contorted himself in his
chair, and occasionally sighed. His voice at times took on a tone
of labored impatience.
Hennigan sat ramrod straight, never touched her
scrod, and only took a few spoonfuls of bisque toward the end
of the hour. In an unwavering tone, she remained relentless in
her attack, even taking an amorphous question -- what's your favorite
place in Boston? -- and turning it into an indictment of the mayor.
It's Jamaica Pond, she said, adding that the pathways
are crumbling and the waterside grass was cut only twice this
year.
Asked if she should offer an apology for inaccurately
accusing Menino of preparing for a trip to St. Louis last year
on the night of the Snelgrove death, a trip Menino never took,
Hennigan offered muted penance, but quickly added, ''What I do
not apologize for is asking him to be accountable for the actions
of his police force, for their lack of training."
Some of her most serious accusations involved Menino's
role in the stalled development of three crucial parcels on the
South Boston Waterfront: Fan Pier, Pier 4, and the adjacent, mostly
inland property owned by McCourt.
Hennigan said she once asked executives at Spaulding
& Slye Colliers, a local real estate development firm and
a former partner on the Fan Pier project, why they never carried
forth on the oft-discussed possibility of joining forces with
McCourt to develop both their properties.
''What they said to me is, 'We do what the mayor asks us to do,'
" Hennigan said. ''If we had had a collaboration, if the
mayor had sat down with Frank McCourt, if the mayor had given
him a fair shake, we would have a beautiful development going
on today, which would have provided additional tax revenue, which
would have provided many jobs, and which would be up and operating
now, instead of just a series of parking lots."
Menino, who regards the waterfront as part of his
legacy, angrily denied the charge, pointedly recounting a 90-minute
meeting he had with McCourt representatives to try to explore
a collaborative waterfront deal. ''I said: 'Bring all three together
because you have all that land there. What a great development
you could have.' That was initiative that I had."