Mayor lauded on city's race issues

Last in a series of occasional articles examining the mayor's performance on major issues during his 12 years in office.

In Boston politics, no issue is more combustible than race, not merely because of the city's turbulent history, but also because race relations are tied to everything from education and crime to delivery of city services and economic opportunity.

So people took notice when, about a year into office, Mayor Thomas M. Menino, known as a cautious politician, drew a bright line around the issue of race, in the very neighborhood where he grew up.

Responding to neighbors' complaints about noise and disruptions at night by black youths on a Hyde Park basketball court, Menino weighed in unambiguously, infuriating the white abutters.

''People talk about crime, but that's just a smoke screen," Menino said in a September 1994 interview with the Globe. ''They say crime, but they mean race. It's the most important issue we face as a city. If I haven't done one other thing when I leave office, I hope I can say I've helped us learn to live together as a city."

As he seeks a fourth term in next month's election, Menino and his administration receive generally good marks from leaders of Boston's minority communities for stimulating development in once-neglected neighborhoods and improving the racial climate in public housing developments that had been flash points for violence. Menino also wins praise for his frequent visits to neighborhoods that are mostly African-American, Latino, and Asian.

Several of those interviewed, however, said they wished that the mayor would more aggressively challenge the private sector to expand economic opportunity for members of minority groups. They also criticized the mayor because his administration is dominated by white appointees.

Among those impressed by Menino's 1994 remarks about the Hyde Park basketball court was Ralph C. Martin II, an African-American and a Republican who defeated a white Democrat in the election for Suffolk district attorney.

''It was a very clear, honest, and, in some respects, confrontational statement by a white male who at the time had nothing to gain among his most immediately recognizable constituents: white, working-class people," Martin, now in private practice, said recently. ''What he was saying was: 'Folks, what you're really talking about is the fact that the neighborhood is changing. It's causing you discomfort, and we've got to be honest about that.' "

One statement does not a record make, but Menino set a rhetorical tone for his 12 years in office, building upon progress made under his predecessor, Raymond L. Flynn. Moreover, in a city where the white population has slipped below 50 percent since Menino took office, good policy makes good politics.

Statistics tell part of the story. The number of crimes with evidence of racial bias investigated by police has declined for the past three years, according to annual reports of the community disorders unit of the Boston Police Department. After spiking to 285 in 2001, driven by a spate of crimes against Arabs and Muslims after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the total has fallen: 208 in 2002, 207 in 2003, and 137 last year.

Menino has also launched initiatives that benefit minority communities, among them earmarking $1 million for 30 organizations to help close the gap in healthcare among different racial and ethnic groups and establishing in 1998 the Office of New Bostonians, a clearinghouse to assist immigrants and other newcomers in obtaining services and information.

But there have also been some blemishes, including the lawsuit in July by the US Justice Department alleging that the city violated the rights of Latino and Asian-American voters who had limited proficiency in English. The complaint lacked specifics, and Menino reacted angrily, vowing to fight the suit. But the city, acknowledging some problems, settled out of court last month, agreeing to a federal monitoring program and more bilingual assistance for voters.

''Yes, there have been some improvements, and he should be commended for those changes that have taken place, but the core issue that changes the quality of life for people of color in Boston has been slow in improving," said Leonard C. Alkins, president of the Boston chapter of the NAACP for the past 10 years. He cited disappointing performance of the public schools and hiring and promotion patterns during Menino's tenure, but he applauded the improved delivery of services to neighborhoods that historically have felt shortchanged by City Hall.

Menino receives his highest marks for channeling resources into poor, overwhelmingly black and Latino neighborhoods.

''The Menino administration has been seen by [community development corporations] and business groups as an ally, particularly in terms of physical development in communities of color," said Councilor Chuck Turner, who represents Roxbury.

''He's followed through on his commitment to be supportive of the Blue Hill Avenue development," Turner said.

The city's investment in Blue Hill Avenue is evident on virtually every block of the 1.2-mile stretch between Dudley Street and Grove Hall, along the Roxbury-Dorchester line in the heart of Boston's black and Latino community.

Long a swath of urban blight and disinvestment, that section now features dozens of new or refurbished storefronts and scores of new affordable housing units. Vacant lots have been cleaned up and bordered by white picket fences. Several are earmarked for commercial or residential projects still in the approval process.

At either end of Roxbury, the large business districts in Dudley Square and Grove Hall are rebounding, boosted by publicly assisted projects.

The benefits of Menino's policies for Roxbury are borne out by data compiled by the city's Department of Neighborhood Development, which oversees and allocates public funds to leverage private financing for housing and commercial developments outside the downtown area. Since 1997, the city has steered $142 million in public aid to projects in Roxbury.

That means that a neighborhood with about one-tenth of the city's population received more than one-quarter of the more than $550 million in citywide aid over that period.

''We do not direct our programs to areas based on race, but the work that we do here is definitely directed in terms of need," said Charlotte Golar Richie, director of neighborhood development. Low-income areas and neighborhoods with the most vacant lots and abandoned buildings are priorities, she said.

Among Boston's 15 planning districts, only Fenway-Kenmore, with its large student population, ranked lower than Roxbury in median household income, according to US Census figures.

Since 1997, the number of abandoned buildings in Roxbury plummeted from 384 to 141. That figure represents more than one-third of the city's abandoned buildings at the end of last year, according to a city inventory.

''The mayor made a commitment around Blue Hill Avenue," Golar Richie said. ''He does not want to have any neighborhoods that are considered the bad part of town. That's not acceptable to him."

Menino said the city has come a long way since the turmoil of school desegregation in the mid-1970s, and he sees his role as continuing the advances with a simple credo: ''to make sure the quality of life is better in the community than it was previously."

''I was at Hyde Park High in '74-'75, and saw the kids when they were throwing stones at priests and buses," he said. ''That was really a bothersome time in our city's history. . . . But we've gotten away from it. . . . We've improved immeasurably on this issue."

Menino's always-hectic schedule takes him all around Boston, and he has made an extra effort to be visible -- ''and not just at election time," as he says -- in the city's predominantly African-American, Latino, and Asian neighborhoods.

''He's one of the contemporary white politicians who is most comfortable in any neighborhood he walks into," said Martin, who threw a reception at his home in Jamaica Plain for Menino in August that drew a racially diverse crowd of professionals.

''He knows more people by their names regardless of whether he's in Roxbury or West Roxbury," he said.

Once a civic embarrassment because of racial problems, the Boston Housing Authority became a national model for dealing with civil rights issues under its administrator, Sandra B. Henriquez. Public housing developments in South Boston and Charlestown, tinder boxes of tension after desegregation began in the late 1980s, are fully integrated and calmer, despite sporadic flare-ups of violence, including a fight at the Charlestown development last June that left a white teenager dead and two Hispanic youths wounded.

''I think that the BHA has shown remarkable strides in trying to address the problems that festered for a while following the desegregation," said David Harris, executive director of the Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston. As an investigator for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in the 1990s, Harris helped document ''systematic discrimination" by the BHA against a number of families living in South Boston and Charlestown developments.

''The mayor has done well to keep Sandra Henriquez there, as she tries to change a very difficult culture," Harris said. ''They're very open about it now."

Henriquez, now in her 10th year as administrator, is not prepared to declare victory.

''It's gotten better," she said. ''It doesn't mean people don't still have biases, but I think we've turned a corner in terms of our professionalism and responsiveness."

She credits intensive staff training, outreach to tenants, and a tough eviction policy with changing the climate. Henriquez, who is African-American, can also measure the progress by her own experience. In the late 1970s, when she was working for a court-appointed master before the BHA went into receivership, Henriquez would only visit the then virtually all-white developments in South Boston and Charlestown between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., ''and I generally didn't walk around unless I was escorted."

''Now, I walk everywhere," she said. ''I don't have the same worries I had before."

That is reinforced by a steady decline the past four years in the number of ''civil rights incidents" at 54 BHA developments. In 2000, there were 267 incidents reported citywide; these included everything from assault to graffiti. Last year, there were 60, BHA statistics show. Most dramatic was the drop-off in racial incidents in BHA developments in Charlestown and at Old Colony in South Boston. In 2000, there were 57 incidents in Charlestown developments and 62 at Old Colony. Last year, there were five and six, respectively, the reports show.

If Menino gets high marks for racial sensitivity and service delivery to minority neighborhoods, his hiring and promotion practices receive dramatically lower grades from several black and Latino leaders interviewed.

''My concern is the same concern I had in 1983 and earlier, that the City of Boston ensure that every department is reflective of the demographic makeup of the city," said Councilor Charles C. Yancey, who represents Mattapan and much of Dorchester. ''On that, I would give him a C. We need a lot of improvement."

In a city with a white population of 48.5 percent, according to the US Census Bureau's 2003 estimates, the municipal payroll is top-heavy with whites, 63.5 percent. In core city departments, where 1,048 employees earn $70,000 or more a year, 88 percent are white, a Globe analysis indicates.

African-Americans, who make up 26.7 percent of Boston's population, constitute 24.9 percent of the municipal workforce and hold 8.3 percent of the highest-paying jobs; Latinos, 14.5 percent of the population, hold 8 percent of city jobs, and 2.2 percent of top-salaried positions; and Asians, 8.3 percent of the population, hold 3.4 percent of jobs in city government, and 1.4 percent of jobs with salaries of $70,000 or more.

That reflects only slight improvement, about a 5 percentage-point increase in minority hiring during Menino's 12 years in office. When he became mayor in 1993, 91 percent of employees in the highest salary category were white, compared with 88 percent now, the Globe's examination found.

The salary data are based on the city's most recent reports to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission but do not include 5,700 education professionals in the Boston Public Schools. Separate data supplied by Menino's office, while not providing salary breakdowns, show that minorities are increasingly well-represented in administrative positions in the school department.

In the past 10 years, the percentage of principals has increased from 35 to 43 percent for African-Americans, from 12 to 16 percent for Hispanics, and remained at 4 percent for Asian-Americans. Among other school administrators, half are now minorities (33 percent black, 12 percent Latino, and 5 percent Asian), up from 46 percent in 1995. In the teaching ranks, the percentage of whites has remained steady at 61 percent over that period.

Of seven appointees to the School Committee, Menino has named three African-Americans and two Hispanics.

At the department- or agency-head level, Menino's hiring record roughly parallels that of Flynn. Of 51 top administrators, eight are black, one is Asian, and none is Hispanic, according to a list provided by the mayor's office. The highest-ranking are Golar Richie, Henriquez, and J. Larry Mayes, chief of human services. They are in his 14-member Cabinet.

Overall, Menino said: ''I take those issues of diversity very seriously in our city, and that's why I think the city has worked."