Menino preempts Flaherty on the greening of City Hall

GREEN WITH ENVY Intentional or not, the move by Mayor Thomas M. Menino on the day of Councilor at Large Michael F. Flaherty's (above) hearing was good politics.

Councilor at Large Michael F. Flaherty wants to make City Hall a green building. But before Flaherty could unveil his proposals yesterday, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said he wants to make the entire vicinity around City Hall a green neighborhood.

In the war of dueling announcements that marks the unofficial start of the 2009 mayoral race, Menino easily trumped Flaherty yesterday.

Menino's nimble preemption of Flaherty's hearing demonstrates the mayor's advantages if he decides to run for reelection next year. City councilors like Flaherty who are considering challenging him are up against a fleet-footed incumbent and a strong executive branch that gives the council little room to maneuver.

"It sounds like the mayor is doing what mayors do, coopting city councils," said Michael J. McCormack, a former city councilor.

Flaherty held a hearing last night with environmental consultants and architects to showcase ways to improve City Hall, part of the role he has nurtured as chief critic of Menino's plan to demolish City Hall and move it to the South Boston waterfront.

Yesterday, after Menino's proposal for an entire green neighborhood appeared in the newspaper, Flaherty fumed that Menino was trying to have it both ways, to make City Hall greener while pursuing his plan to tear it down. He said those were irreconcilable positions.

"The mayor wants to make Government Center the headquarters of green development, but then take the people's government headquarters out and green it somewhere else," Flaherty said. "This is the type of backward planning that has driven city development for too long."

The one-upmanship on greening Government Center takes place as the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo meets in Boston today through Friday. Menino is scheduled to address attendees today, just before Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Governor Deval Patrick.

Dorothy Joyce, Menino's press secretary, said the mayor's announcement about Government Center was timed to coincide with the conference, not to preempt Flaherty's hearing.

The mayor's plan would encourage government agencies and developers to incorporate wind turbines and solar panels into structures inside the 100-acre zone. He also announced funding yesterday of a program to train workers for so-called green-collar jobs and during a public event today will spotlight a wind turbine placed on top of City Hall.

"It was not intended to circumvent whatever Councilor Flaherty is proposing this week," Joyce said. Joyce said that allowing private developers to redevelop City Hall and City Hall Plaza would be a part of making Government Center more energy efficient, stressing that reuse of the building, as opposed to demolition, remains an option.

"We're greening the district, and we're also [proposing] the possible reuse of the building as part of that green growth district," she said.

Intentional or not, Menino's move on the day of Flaherty's hearing was good politics, McCormack said.

"The mayor is as politically facile as anybody who's been around," he said. "If he sees an idea being promoted by a city councilor or someone else and the idea is a good one, he's going to coopt it and maybe take it one step further."

John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com.