In less than a month, Mayor Thomas Menino will be sworn in for an unprecedented fifth term as mayor of Boston. But what exactly he plans to do once he begins his new term remains unclear.
The mayor’s office is tightlipped about what initiatives Menino will undertake for 2010 and beyond. Mayoral spokeswoman Dot Joyce said the mayor’s Jan 4. inaugural speech ‘will be outlining his aspirational [sic] and visionary goals for the next four years,’ but it is ‘premature’ to comment on the specifics of the speech or the upcoming term.
After winning reelection with 57 percent of the vote, Menino has been recovering knee surgery at his Hyde Park home after a fall at his son’s Hyde Park home five days after the election. The mayor has been preparing for his new term since then, Joyce said.
‘The mayor has been meeting with members of the White House team and members of his own administration and members of the business and education community to see where the city would like to go in the next four years,’ she said.
City Councilors-At-Large Michael Flaherty and Sam Yoon, Menino’s former opponents in the mayoral election, said they hope the mayor will make the school system a priority.’
‘We have too many underperforming schools,’ Flaherty said. ‘The time has come to lift the charter cap.’
Flaherty also said he wants the mayor to start bringing diversity to City Hall.
‘I think he needs to focus on diversifying the upper echelon of his cabinet and his staff,’ he said. ‘There are only two people of color in his cabinet.’
Yoon and Flaherty also hit on economic measures the mayor should immediately take on.
‘There’s a lot that he can do in terms of stimulating jobs,’ Yoon said. Flaherty said Menino should utilize performance review and eliminate wasteful spending.
Since the election, Yoon has been pushing for a City Council hearing on his proposal to limit future mayors to two four-year terms. He said a hearing will take place on Dec. 14.
He listed three reasons why term limits were necessary: getting new faces and ideas into the mayor’s office, providing for competitive mayoral elections and making sure the mayor is focused on his agenda rather than on building a political machine.
‘It’s common sense for me that term limits are going to make Boston a better city,’ Yoon said.
Mayoral term limits were a central theme of Flaherty and Yoon’s joint ‘Floon’ campaign, but there are disagreements on the subject between the two councilors.
Flaherty doesn’t want to stop extension of term limits to the mayor’s office ‘- he said he thinks it would also benefit the city council. But Yoon said term limits are not necessarily best for all forms of government.
Flaherty said even if the term limits proposal gets through the council, it is unlikely to win Menino’s approval.
‘I can’t speak for the mayor, but I’d venture to say [it would] probably not [pass Menino], given the fact that he’s never been a supporter for term limits,’ Flaherty said.
Joyce declined to comment on the topic, but during the campaign, Menino made it clear he was opposed to mayoral term limits.
‘I have term limits every four years,’ Menino said at the televised Sept. 10 WFXT debate.
Yoon and Flaherty take opposing sides on a proposal by Councilor John Tobin to change the rules of mayoral succession. Under the current rules, if Menino were to resign today, City Council President Mike Ross would become acting mayor. Menino was city council president in 1993 when Mayor Ray Flynn resigned to become U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, propelling Menino into the position of acting mayor.
Tobin’s proposal would make the city clerk acting mayor instead of the city council president. Yoon said he would support this measure.
‘It should be an administrative position who can hold it over,’ Yoon said. ‘I support having a hearing to the premise behind that, [which] is to make mayor succession not political, which it will absolutely be if it’s a city councilor who is president.’
Flaherty said the city council president would still the best person to take over, at least temporarily, if the mayor were to resign.
‘I think you need to have a steward that knows the issues, understands city government and will carry out the will of the people,’ he said. ‘That said, there should be an election called within 90 days of the vacancy.’
Joyce declined to comment on any of the proposals.
There have been rumors that the mayor could step down early if one of his preferred successors becomes city council president. Joyce said she is confident the mayor will not be leaving his post before 2013.
‘The mayor just got reelected,’ she said. ‘I anticipate yes, the mayor will be serving out his four years.’
If the mayor does run for a sixth term, Flaherty said he will think ‘long and hard’ about running against him, and is also keeping his options open for any other political races.
‘At the end of the day we came up a little short [in the 2009 race], but we laid a good foundation for the future,’ Flaherty said.
Yoon also said he is ambivalent about his future, and said it was too early to make any political decisions.
‘I do want to stay engaged somehow in the life of the city,’ Yoon said. ‘But what role I do that in is still something I’m trying to shape.’
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