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Mayoral run has surprising twist
Priyanka Dayal
Wednesday, May 4, 2005
While thousands of students vacate the city this
summer, the races for mayor and City Council are
likely to heat up.
Mayor Thomas Menino
was elected by a 64 percent majority in 1993,
and is currently serving his third consecutive
term.
Menino helped bring the Democratic
National Convention to Boston in July 2004 and
is also proud of his efforts to improve public
safety.
In January, Menino implemented
Operation Student Shield, a program that
encourages judges to impose stricter punishments
on students committing crimes. Police
Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole also supports the
measure.
Most recently, Menino proposed
his $2.04 billion budget to the City Council.
This year's budget is an $116.1 million increase
over last year's, but Menino said in a statement
on the city's website that Boston is still
facing a fiscal crisis.
Menino won
unopposed in the 1997 election, but the mayor's
seat is up for grabs again in November, and this
time he has competition.
City
Councilor-At-Large Maura Hennigan, a former
Boston public school teacher and 23-year Council
veteran, formally announced her decision to run
for mayor in March.
"I've always made it
a very personal campaign," Hennigan told The
Daily Free Press. "I'm out door to door [to]
hear what the issues are on people's
minds."
Hennigan said she has received a
positive response from Bostonians since she
announced that she is running for mayor. She
said she will continue working personally with
residents during the summer.
"I've been
doing a lot of work with the students and making
the effort to get to know them," she
said.
Beth Leonard, the mayor's campaign
manager, said Menino will also be "out in the
community everyday" this summer.
"We want
to reach out to every single voter in the city
from all walks of life," Leonard said, but did
not specific any campaign plans or how much
money she is hoping to raise.
Nowhere do
Hennigan and Menino clash more than over Boston
University's proposed Level 4 Biosafety lab. The
lab, which BU would use to research potentially
lethal diseases, has been censured by several
politicians.
Hennigan expressed concern
with BU's irresponsible behavior concerning the
lab when an accident that infected three
researchers with a strain of the viral disease
tularemia last year was publicized in
January.
But Menino, along with Gov. Mitt
Romney and has stood behind BU's proposal
because the lab would bring prestige and top
researchers to Boston.
If approved, the
lab will be built in Boston's South End and
Roxbury. Construction is tentatively planned to
be completed by 2007.
In addition to
halting construction of the Level 4 lab,
Hennigan is working on initiatives to turn
Boston's School Committee into a publicly
elected body rather than an appointed one, and
to increase staffing in police
departments.
"Through early retirement we
continue to lose police officers," Hennigan
said, adding that because of the shortage of
officers, more than 1,000 sexual assault cases
have not been dealt with.
Hennigan
criticized Menino's $2 billion budget, which the
Council must approve by June 30, for coming up
short on police funding.
She is also
pushing for police to be more efficient about
publicizing random incidences of
rape.
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