TOM MENINO, who once vowed he would serve only two terms as mayor, has finally deigned to let us know that he will run for an unprecedented fifth.
Which means it's time for Boston voters to consider this question: Does he really merit another four years?
Perhaps Menino will turn out to be the city's best choice, but the job isn't his by divine right. Fresh ideas and fresh approaches - and fresh temperaments - are healthy things in government.
So if he's to have yet another term, Menino needs to truly earn it.
Here's one easy test. Does he intend to campaign like a king for whom the demands of democracy are little but a nuisance?
Announcing on Wednesday, Menino said he looked forward to "debating our city's future." Sounds good. But as observers of the master of municipal misdirection know, that doesn't necessarily mean debating the other candidates - not, at least, in times, settings, or media designed to attract an audience. Will he participate in a series of high-profile debates this time?
"I have to run the city in very difficult economic times," Menino told reporters. "We'll get to those discussions."
Pressed on whether he intends to bob and weave once again, the mayor did just that, recycling his tired answer that he discusses issues with voters daily. "I think there's a little difference between me . . . being out there on the issues every day and what you perceive as me ducking," he told me.
There's a far larger difference between chatting with voters and meeting one's rivals in meaningful TV debates. If the mayor can't show a healthy respect for voters by participating in a series of prime-time encounters, does he really deserve your vote?
As he'll tell you, Menino is not a fancy talker. That doesn't matter. The real problem is that he's an incrementalist, one who shies away from thorny controversies and conflicts until forced to confront them.
And that does matter, because it leaves problems to languish. The Boston Fire Department, for example, has long been an insular outfit with a counterproductive culture and a number of costly and dubious practices. Although problems have been highlighted time and again, Menino has never been able to get the department in shape. City Hall has pushed only sporadically for drug and alcohol testing, which still isn't a requirement, despite a 2007 tragedy in which alcohol or drug use may have contributed to the deaths of two firefighters. Last year, former Globe superstar Walter Robinson, now a professor of journalism at Northeastern University, and Jesse Nankin and Nikki Gloudeman - two Northeastern graduate students - revealed a pattern of suspicious disability-pension claims by firefighters filling in at higher pay grades. That has led to a federal probe.
Question: If Menino hasn't been able to establish a well-managed department after all these years, why should we think he'll do so in another term?
Healthcare costs are soaring, yet some 1,700 Medicare-eligible city retirees get their healthcare through city plans. Transferring them to Medicare would save $5 million to $7 million a year. Where's the mayoral leadership been?
"We're doing some of that now," Menino told me. Well, not really. Under the mayor's approach, all 1,700 would be grandfathered in city plans, says Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau.
Although Menino has done a fair job with the schools, he hasn't been a persistent, high-profile prod for progress. The school department isn't moving fast enough to fix underperforming schools. Meanwhile, the Boston Teachers Union is still sandbagging pilot schools, with hardly a peep from the mayor.
And despite President Obama's call for lifting caps on charter schools, Menino opposes more such schools. He's trying to camouflage that opposition by noting that he doesn't have a problem with individual charters, but rather with the funding formula. Yet the bottom line is that he has opposed lifting the charter cap.
If the incumbent has his way, he'll slide into another term with as little scrutiny as possible.
This election is too important to let that happen. It's time to demand more - both from Tom Menino the mayor and Tom Menino the candidate.
Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com. 
