CITY COUNCILOR Michael Flaherty, the ultimate insider, and fellow councilor Sam Yoon, the consummate outsider, announced an alliance yesterday to defeat Mayor Menino. Boston voters will have to determine if there is real ardor here or just the political equivalent of a marriage of convenience.
Flaherty earned the right to face Menino on Nov. 3 by virtue of his second-place finish with 24 percent of the vote. The liberal Yoon, out of the running with 21 percent, helps Flaherty run to the left. Flaherty’s decision to run on an informal ticket with Yoon as his “deputy mayor’’ could also sway some voters who favor a combination of Flaherty’s practicality and Yoon’s professorial approach to politics. It’s a smart strategy considering that Menino, with 51 percent of the preliminary vote, is in a strong position in his quest for an unprecedented fifth term.
In theory, Flaherty’s grounded understanding of Boston politics and Yoon’s desire to modernize city management could complement each other well - combining their insider and outsider critiques of Menino. But Flaherty still must show how his deputy mayor device is good for anything other than vote gathering. Would Bostonians really be better off, as he and Yoon contend, by dismantling the quasi-public Boston Redevelopment Authority? In many cities, deputy mayors for planning and development represent the municipal government before businesses and developers. But under the BRA, Boston has built more commercial space per square mile of land during the last decade than any of the nation’s 10 most populous cities. Individually, neither Flaherty nor Yoon made a compelling argument to blow up the BRA. Combined, their arguments are no stronger.
In Yoon, Flaherty is also inviting in a reformer whose pet cause - taking apart the strong-mayor form of government - is losing steam. In some urban areas, including Miami-Dade County in Florida, voters are turning away from city managers or diffused commission-style governments and choosing the political responsiveness that comes with strong mayors. Flaherty could argue that Menino hoards power. But the mayor didn’t get to serve 16 years without knowing something about consensus politics.
Voters should also worry that Yoon’s worst idea - replacing Boston’s appointed school board with a partially elected one - will worm its way into a Flaherty administration. The elected School Committee in Boston was all about political grandstanding. It’s not a coincidence that school reform in Boston got underway in earnest in the early 1990s with the move to make the mayor accountable for student achievement.
Two dogs, goes a folk saying, can kill a lion. Or they can just chase their tails.
