Kelly's parking pitch hits national arena

He is about to hit his stride, face reddening, lips pursing. Surrounded by recording equipment in his City Hall office yesterday, James M. Kelly lets loose on Los Angeles-based "Weekend America," a nationally syndicated radio talk show.

ADVERTISEMENT

"These are things we do!" he huffs, launching into a heated exchange with another guest on the show.

With the rough-cut voice familiar to anyone in local politics, the 64-year-old city councilor from South Boston lectures a Chicago activist and a moderator in California about the traditions -- nay, the passions -- about parking in his neighborhood. It's something he's been doing a lot lately. Wednesday, it was a taping of "Good Morning America." Before that, he was in reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Not since he was the angry voice of South Boston's campaign against busing 30 years ago has Kelly been such a hot interview. The fight he's picked with Mayor Thomas M. Menino over Southie's sacred you-shovel-it-you-own-it tradition of saving parking spaces after snowstorms has become a national story.

It's just the kind of spectacle that resonates these days, featuring characters whose accents are straight from central casting, and with a story line played as both epic and ridiculous. The tales of ironing boards and household furniture reserving curbside spots has become a novelty in places where parking is not so scarce and winters not so snow-packed. And after a bitter presidential campaign in which the Northeast showed itself to be out of step with much of the rest of the country, this part of the the world offers another curiosity.

"By itself, it's not life or death, but it gets at this great cultural divide," said Bill Radke, cohost of "Weekend America," a slice-of-American-life radio show that has interviewed Kelly twice in the past month. "It's not just about saving your parking spot with a chair. It's something we can talk about when were really talking about a bunch of other values and approaches to life."

Besides, Radke added, "It's funny."

The phone calls from nationwide media outlets began shortly after Christmas. A big snowstorm had prompted the mayor to order public works crews to clear city streets of myriad parking-space markers, vowing to enforce a no-tolerance policy. Kelly immediately defied him, placing a trash barrel in a spot he'd cleared of snow near his Bantry Way home. Others in South Boston followed suit, replacing objects taken by the city with everything from oil cans to an old toilet.

Turns out a couple other cities have similar traditions, including Philadelphia and Chicago. (One Windy City newspaper columnist has called the local version "droit du shoveleur," pidgin French for "the rights of the shoveler.") But none has a mayor willing to take on the tradition as Menino has. And only Boston has Kelly, who rarely shies away from a fight.

In his first appearance on "Weekend America," Kelly was pitted against a Chicago woman who leads a movement dubbed People Against Space Saving. "Stop whining and start shoveling," he told her.

Referring to his intention to defy Menino come what may, Kelly told The Washington Post that he had more barrels than the mayor had trucks to take them away. And on "Good Morning America," he talked about sweat equity and moral rights. Radke said he can't wait to have Kelly on air again.

"We have this opinion these days that we need to couch everything, but Jim just lets it fly," he said. "And there's that accent. He sounds like he's from South Boston, even if you've never been there. It's great for radio."

Kelly said he's somewhat befuddled that the parking standoff has commanded such attention. He said he wishes other issues he works on would play so well.

"I'm really amused by it," he said in his office, where a bust of Ronald Reagan decorates a credenza.

Then his tone changed. The issue speaks to the basic principle of what it means to be an American, he said; it's about when government should intervene in citizens' lives and when it should stay out. Like the gold miners and pioneers, Kelly said, residents have a right to stake their claims.

The issue certainly hasn't won the national attention given to busing, when Kelly says he was consumed 18 hours a day, seven days a week as the voice of the South Boston Information Center, which fought against busing nonwhite students to schools in that neighborhood.

But Kelly said no other issue he's worked on has elicited such fervent, widespread response in Boston and from around the nation.

The issue and accompanying attention have triggered more than one guffaw amid colleagues at City Hall.

The mayor's spokesman, Seth Gitell, remarked, a little tongue in cheek, "It is truly inspiring that Councilor Kelly is taking the national spotlight on such a substantive issue."

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.