As Boston Mayor Thomas Menino tries for his fifth term in office, many Boston University students said they support councilors Michael Flaherty and Sam Yoon’s platform to impose two four-year term limits on the position of mayor .
‘I’ve heard people joke about Menino’s dynasty,’ BU graduate student Candace Cheatham said. ‘I think change is definitely necessary, especially at times like this.’
Flaherty adopted Yoon’s stance on term limits after the primaries in September when Yoon signed on the Flaherty ticket as prospective deputy mayor. Flaherty promises to bring the issue to vote before the City Council within his first 100 days of office.
Flaherty’s campaign spokeswoman Natasha Perez said Flaherty believes the mayor becomes too intent on reelection without term limits.
‘It creates a situation where the focus is on maintaining power and not on serving and getting things done,’ she said. ‘There has to be a check and balance of power in the mayor’s office.’
Yoon campaign spokesman Jordan Newman said Yoon believes term limits would make elections competitive and would inspire civic dialogue.
‘A conversation hasn’t happened like this in 16 years,’ he said.
Newman said Boston should follow the examples of New York City, Philadelphia and San Francisco, all of which have mayoral term limits.
‘We are behind the times,’ he said.
But Suffolk University history professor Robert Allison, author of ‘A Short History of Boston,’ said he is weary of politicians who seek to restructure the system of government.
The pattern of victorious incumbents began in the late 1949 when state legislature changed the charter to weaken the power of city councilors and prevent the reelection of incumbent James Curley, a four-time mayor who had managed to regain office repeatedly despite legal troubles. Curley was the last incumbent Boston mayor to lose an election.
‘Folks who talk about amending the city charter aren’t sitting and thinking abstractly about what would be the best reform of government,’ Allison said. ‘They are thinking either, How can I get out this guy who is in,’ or, ‘How can I engineer the system so that people like me can get in.”
Allison said he is in favor amending the city charter to give city councilors more power to check the mayor, but said the platform that Flaherty has adopted is ‘shortsighted.’
Menino reelection campaign spokesman Nick Martin said voters may get too caught up with the national political theme of change.
‘To advocate change for the sake of change, I don’t think is productive,’ he said. ‘I don’t think that’s the kind of spirit that moves Boston.’
Menino said in a statement that term limits infringe the choice of the voter to pick the mayoral candidate they like best.
–‘The people of Boston decide on term limits every four years.’ the statement said. ‘If they don’t want me to be the mayor, they’ll make that decision on Election Day. It’s not up to me, it’s up to the residents of our city.’
College of Arts and Sciences freshman Francis Mullen-Neem said he agrees with Menino’s argument.
‘The voters can decide whether we want this mayor or whether we don’t want this mayor,’ he said.
But many students said they are not convinced the decision is completely left up to the people of Boston without term limits.
‘It’s hard to say if the people of Boston are really deciding or if he just has a lot of power and he does a lot for certain groups of people,’ College of Communication senior Renee Kimmel said.
College of Fine Arts junior Jacob Leidolf, a Jamaica Plain native, said he has had Menino as mayor ‘for most of [his] conscious life’ and has been disappointed with the administration.
‘I think there is definitely a problem with mayors who can hold on to power upwards of 16, 20 years,’ he said. ‘If you give people too much time they don’t use their time wisely.’
CAS senior and Jamaica Plain native Devin O’Leary said though he can sympathize with both sides of the debate, he supports the term limits platform if it will remove Mayor Menino from office.
‘If this is what gets him out, then this is what gets him out,’ he said.
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