Only Maura Hennigan hedges on $2 billion city budget
David L. Harris - West Roxbury Transcript
Thursday, July 7, 2005
The City Council last week unanimously passed $2 billion budget
for fiscal 2006.
Mayoral candidate and At-Large City Councilor Maura Hennigan was the only
councilor who voted against the operating and school department
portion of the budget.
"[Mayor Thomas M. Menino] hasn't provided enough resources for basic
services," said Hennigan, adding that more resources should be
devoted to the police, school and parks departments.
This was only the second time the at-large city councilor has voted
against the operating budget: she did so two years ago.
"This is a budget that shows the city working smarter," countered Seth
Gitell, the mayor's spokesman. "There have been several advances in
several areas."
Gitell said the city had added seasonal park rangers, the installation of
emergency phones in parks, added modern multi-station parking meters
and new "Mighty Mouse" mini-street sweepers.
The council had originally rejected Menino's budget on June 8, demanding
more police officers and summer jobs.
For District 6 City Councilor John M. Tobin Jr., the budget had to focus
more on increasing the number of new police officers and school paid
parental managers, which next year would cost the city $8 million to
implement the program in every school.
A total of 65 new police recruits were added to next year's budget,
said Gitell.
But Tobin said the discussions over the past month taught everybody a
valuable lesson: "In a strange way, it actually teaches you to do
more with less."
"We're going to look to restore those cuts we've made," Tobin added. "It's
times like these that you have to scrutinize the budget even more.
You've got to make tough decisions."
Other city councilors agreed.
"It was important that this budget was going to provide a high level of
city services," said District 5 City Councilor Rob Consalvo.
Consalvo said that tree maintenance and increasing the number of park rangers
were also high priorities in the budget debate.
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