Menino and the accountability gap
HOW DO you get to be mayor for life without accountability?
Boston's homicide rate is climbing and some city streets resemble shooting galleries. Nearly half of Boston public school students fail to graduate from the city's regular high schools in four years. There's a shocking lack of urgency when it comes to confronting systemic problems at city agencies such as the Fire Department.
Despite those facts of real life in Boston, Mayor Thomas M. Menino cruises along, contemplating reelection to a fifth term. Once again, he's stocking his war chest to fend off would-be challengers. This year, he already raised about $350,000.
"I haven't finished my job yet," Menino recently told the Globe.
He's right about that. But how much time does a mayor get before his unfinished business warrants some serious scrutiny?
The mayor has tolerated rising homicide rates, ignored warnings that go back a decade about mismanagement of the Fire Department, and accepted a high school dropout rate among poor, minority students that is a stain on the city that was the birthplace of public education.
Meanwhile, he diverts attention from the serious by promoting the frivolous. He wants to move City Hall to the South Boston waterfront, build an iconic 1,000-foot skyscraper, and make the city more bicycle-friendly. These goals are far removed from the concerns of bullet-dodging residents of Dorchester and Roxbury, or of students attending struggling schools.
Fighting crime and providing quality education are tough challenges for any mayor. But, if Menino isn't accountable, who is? He has been in office since July 12, 1993. He is known for hands-on, micromanagement of the police and fire departments. The School Committee is under his control; once an elected body, it's now a panel appointed by the mayor.
Menino, a renowned booster of Boston's positives, periodically resists the grimmer mind-set of residents with little cause for cheerleading.
"This city is working," he told some 900 mourners at the Morning Star Baptist Church last April, after an 18-year-old Hyde Park resident was shot in the head while on a city bus. "There are good things happening. Let's not focus on the negatives."
But, as Nicole Marden of Roxbury Crossing wrote in a letter to the editor that was published in the Globe: "Maybe that is the problem: No one is focusing on the negatives. . . . It's time we stop sugarcoating the situation. The bloodshed needs to stop."
For years, Menino's famously thin skin discouraged public criticism. But listen carefully, and some brave voices are beginning to acknowledge certain truths about the city over which he presides.
After a new school system report showed only a 53 percent graduation rate for Boston's regular high school students, former Boston schools superintendent Michael G. Contompasis said, "There literally is no ownership across the board. The city and school district has a moral obligation to address the needs of these kids."
In the wake of reports that a firefighter was legally intoxicated and another had traces of cocaine in his system when they died in a West Roxbury fire in August, Samuel R. Tyler, longtime president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, pointed out that previous reports urging Fire Department reforms went unheeded.
"What was disturbing from the other reports is there was no public accountability," Tyler said. "I would expect that this time the mayor will use his leadership and political capital to ensure the key recommendations are implemented." So far, what Menino has done is call for yet another report.
As he closes in on 16 years in office, Menino isn't exactly standing still. Over the past year, he installed new fire and police commissioners, a new chief of staff, and Cabinet chiefs for administration and finance, transportation, public works, and information technology. But how many chances does he get to show progress?
In 2005, Menino chose to ignore the race and his opponent, Maura A. Hennigan. The media, the business community, and a complacent electorate helped him. The mayoral election is two years away. People are whispering about running, but none have announced plans to challenge him if he seeks reelection. It's sad if their reluctance comes from his recent fund-raising, not his recent accomplishments.
Menino is a mayor of good intentions. But, after 14 years in office, good intentions shouldn't be enough.
Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com. 