City Councilor-At-Large Maura Hennigan may be facing an uphill battle when it comes to winning next week’s election for mayor of Boston against the incumbent Tom Menino. But she would bring a fresh start to the Office of the Mayor that has been lacking since Menino took over 12 years ago.
Though Hennigan, who was first elected to the Council in 1981, often criticizes Menino more often than explaining the details of her platform, she has shown an openness to students that the incumbent seriously lacks. In the last week, a Daily Free Press reporter went through great difficulty in setting up an interview with Menino, while Hennigan cheerfully and willingly took up the offer, touring the reporter through Boston in her car and pointing out what would be improved under her administration.
Hennigan’s down-to-earth attitude toward students makes her a more favorable choice to lead this city, especially because Menino has proven that he is completely out of touch with Boston’s overwhelming student population, seen through his many uninformed comments about students and through actions he has taken against them. Menino consistently calls university students “kids,” and this newspaper has few quotations on record in which Menino refers to students by their true identity, namely “students” or “people.”
It was Menino’s plan to jumpstart Operation Student Shield, a misnomer that gives the impression that it is an operation to protect students when in fact it serves more like an offense against students living independently off campus. Menino drafted the plan to help calm loud parties from disturbing residents in off-campus neighborhoods by imposing stricter punishments on students, while punishments for other residents hosting loud parties were not increased.
In enforcing the operation, Menino chose to punish the least protected and most convenient demographic in the city, even though they are a large part of what gives Boston its name. Hennigan seems unlikely to support such an operation because she has shown her willingness to listen to students’ concerns and represent them as their mayor.
Menino’s recently proposed “entertainment zones,” which he defined as areas specifically meant for venues that cater to under-21-year-olds by not serving alcohol – such as coffee shops – further reveals his misinformed, out-of-touch attitude toward students and underage drinking. These “zones” would do little to encourage under-21-year-olds from not drinking, as several non-alcoholic venues already exist for a student’s weekend entertainment. The plan might be more convincing if its details were laid out, but the vagueness in which Menino described this idea makes it unworthy of being taken too seriously, and is almost insulting to students.
Menino has rarely scheduled meetings with student leaders to hear their concerns, but only seems to cooperate with Boston University’s administrators, who often do not convey student concerns as well as the students themselves.
And with 12 years as mayor behind his back, Menino doesn’t deserve an extra four years to carry out his platform. Hennigan has proposed that the city consider having mayoral term limits, an idea worth discussing further. She has said that the absence of a term limit allows the mayor to act on an “I’ll do it next year” mindset instead of focusing on his goals in a timely manner.
In March of this year, Hennigan defended students’ ability to vote in the preliminary election after one politician tried to turn away voters from the 111 Cummington St. polling station, telling students they should not vote because they are not long-term residents of Boston and therefore don’t have the right to be represented.
At a City Council meeting soon after, Hennigan fired back, saying it is the city’s responsibility not to single out students with intimidation or voter suppression techniques.
Hennigan also has pledged to improve maintenance by the city’s services, and respond to neighborhood concerns by bringing all complaints into the public realm. This way all complaints would be taken into consideration at Council meetings and released as public information.
Though Menino has said he would call for Neighborhood Response Teams, perhaps another misnomer, he has had 12 years in office to consider such a basic and necessary idea, and his plan would not even allow private complaints to be released into the public.
Menino has continuously refused to participate in campaign debates with his opponents, while Hennigan has been pushing regularly, sometimes crudely, for a one-on-one confrontation.
Though the limited debates between Menino and Hennigan have obscured both candidate’s stance on one another’s views, this should not discount the importance of voting for mayor – especially among younger freshmen who have more than three and a half years left at BU and in the city of Boston. Students should choose a candidate who shows concern for students in Boston, and for this reason The Daily Free Press endorses Maura Hennigan.
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