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It's a contested race for Suffolk County Register of Deeds again
By adamg on Mon, 08/20/2018 - 9:30am
Jamaica Plain News interviews Katie Forde, who, for the second time in two years, is running for Suffolk County Register of Deeds against former City Councilor Steve Murphy - only this time she's his only opponent in the Democratic primary.
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Comments
The Machine
It's hard to go up against The Machine here in Boston. I am heartened, however, that little by little the idea of "transactional politics" that keep folks like Steve Murphy in office may be disappearing. More and more people are voting based on their values, not based on whether they know (and will get something from) a particular candidate.
That said, I still don't understand why this is an elected position.
Because
It would be a PITA to change it to be appointed (or eliminated) and no current politician cares enough to make that happen.
"Transactional Politics" is alive and well
I love to go on about the chain of "pols" who have began their life at the trough by being elected to the City Council, specifically at large.
Murphy begins my chain. He's run for anything and everything since 1992, always keeping one eye towards the next office, be that sheriff, lt. governor, or some kind of register. He's the original.
Then came Connolly. He ran for City Council to become mayor or who knows what else, since he ended things abruptly by running for the mayor's office, thus leaving him without a place to return to. That said, never say never, since Flaherty tried the leap to the big seat only to end up third, returning 4 years later ironically because Connolly created an open seat.
Now we have Pressley. Doesn't quite look or sound like the others, but basically the same. She made the case to be elected to the City Council as basically "I'm black and a woman," and won. When it looked like she might lose 2 years later, she when to Connolly and asked for help, only to not help Connolly at all in return, even noting how she got the most votes of all the candidates. Now, she is running for Congress on the same platform that got her on the Council, only there's not an open seat. If she loses, will she learn the lessons the others missed and redouble her efforts to be an effective City Councilor? Or will she running for office in both odd and even years like Murphy did? By all accounts, Murphy was decent at doing what Councilors should do, learning the budget down cold and doing constituent service work. He was just a bad politician.
Murphy sucked in council and sucks at deeds
Remember how he lives part time in Florida in the winter?
Remember how he was literally the least qualified guy to run for Deeds?
Remember how he voted against commemorating the people who fought for better schools for minority residents in Boston in the 60s?
I mean, if you're a throwback patronage job white guy, maybe Murphy was good at constituent service work but he's emblematic of the insipid corruption-lite which this city has only ever succeeded in spite of, not due to. Murphy is (hopefully) the last dying embers of the decades of 'leadership' that predated Menino - the White, Flynn era of good old boys trading up jobs and retiring with fat pensions, vampires on the public coffers.
Provide examples
On the Deeds part.
If he's not screwing up the Registry of Deeds, he should stay in the job. His views on busing has nothing to do with that. If the Registry is in bad shape (kind of like another Suffolk registry was) he should go. But I've heard no tales of Murphy doing a bad job there. It's as simple as that.
Frequent UHub commenter (and
Frequent UHub commenter (and former candidate for register of deeds) John Keith frequently tweets out the inexplicable errors that are constantly made in registry filings under Murphy.
For examples
Just try using masslandrecords.com, you'll see there is plenty of room for improvement. Most documents are hard if not impossible to find, and insufficiently indexed.
I believe this position gets paid over $140,000 based on the new salary increases Beacon Hill voted in last year. For that kind of pay we should get better services right?
Website
The Registry has not fixed or improved their website, for one. Murphy said he would do that when elected. If you need to research property, it's still very clunky. Forde seems to have a lot of energy. I'm willing to give her a shot to see if she'll actually fix some of these things.
The Secretary of the
The Secretary of the Commonwealth (i.e. the state) owns MASSLANDRECORDS.COM and seemingly pays Xerox to provide it as a service to MA counties. Murphy probably does not have any power to change how it works.
Okay
If that is true, then why did the current registrar pledge to fix it when campaigning last time?
I have had enough of your #fakenews Parkwayne!
Parkwayne- enough. You have a hair across your arse about Steve Murphy and it's getting a bit much. Heaven forbid someone, elected or not, takes two weeks off during the winter. That's not living part time. Stop lying. Re-read the Globe and they said and stop making it sound far worse then it was. There are many other electeds who take the whole summer off down the Cape but you're not complaining about them. And having just re-read the Globe, in his 19 years, Murphy only missed 3 council meetings- so how the heck could he be living part time in Florida? Not possible.
And for the record, he was the most qualified candidate for the Registry, and he won. And he is going to win again. Support your candidate and stop these false attacks. It hurts your credibility and your candidates's.
Hey, hey, hey there
A lot of us have a distain for Stephen Murphy. I'm still not quite over the time he tried to unseat Angelo Scaccia. I mean, Scaccia is a great state rep.
That said, it does seem that people are ignoring a certain other Hyde Park politician who served on the City Council a bit before Murphy who also had a winter home in Florida. I do believe that it is widely accepted that the other politician did a good job in the final elected post he held.
Oh, and Murphy was not the most qualified candidate 2 years ago. That was John A. Keith. Murphy's main qualification was being a well seasoned politician, as he would run for seemingly any position out there. As for this election, at least he can say that he has experience doing the job.
For the record, two years ago
For the record, two years ago, Murphy was the only candidate running who had actually worked at the Registry. He is the only qualified candidate this year too.
I guess I just don't like the straight out lies I see on this blog. I remember the Globe stories about Murphy in FL but as a fellow pashioner at the Blue Hills Collaborative (St. Anne's, St. Pius and Most Precious Blood) I saw Murphy and his wife every Sunday at the 10:30am mass. There was no way they were living anywhere but HP. And everyone deserves a vacation when they can take it.
As for the time Murphy ran against Scaccia, it was because, Scaccia had previously announced that he was not running. I know this because I worked for Conley who also ran against Scaccia in the same race.
Who is this other Hyde Park politician who had a house in FL? Having grown up in HP, I don't recall that info.
When the heck did Murphy work at the Registry of Deeds?
Remember, he was "elected" to the City Council in the 1990s.
As for the identity of the other Hyde Park politician that had real estate in Florida, my final hint, which one a surprising number of Bostonians could get, is that the politician lived on Chesterfield Street in Readville. If that doesn't get you, his brother's name is Carl. And his daughter is a Fenton (or his son married a Fenton, one of the two.)
Yes he was elected to the
Yes he was elected to the Council in the 1990's and worked at Registry before that.
And for the record, his brother was not Carl, that was his Dad.
I thought it was both
And I want to say that Carl still lives near where the family has lived for generations.
Not so much The Machine as name recognition.
Old people go in booth, see a name they know and pull the lever. It all happens during the primaries since everyone around here votes for the Democratic nominee. No need to get all Grassy Knoll on this one.
Is this the position that is
Is this the position that is mostly useless?
Not quite
Someone has to be in charge.
The question that vexes a lot of people is whether or not it should be an elected or appointed position, but someone has to run the office.
And before anyone writes that anyone could do the job, let's all remember what happened when Patricia Campatelli ran the Suffolk Registry of Probate.
1990?
I think it was 1990 when someone who had been laid off in the downturn ran unopposed for and won one of the registrar seats. She was definitely qualified, but her new job paid a lot more than she made as supervising administrator.
Very much a feel good story. As I recall she did just fine.
Wow I feel better already
Thanks for all the details on that!
Robo calls from Murphy
Steve is reaching out to the community with neighborhood meetings to help his constituents deal with deed problems or questions.. It will save us a trip downtown. I've gotten two robo calls already.
I hadn't been following this race but I put two and two together and said to myself: "Steve must have some competition in the primary." I skipped the neighborhood meeting because my deed is in a shoe box on a shelf in my closet and I couldn't think of any problems or questions.
What type of robocall?
Robocalls saying "Hi, I'm Steve Murphy, your friend down the street and I'm running for Register of Deeds, I'd like your vote .."
Or,
"As a public service, this is Steve Murphy inviting you to a community meeting to discuss ways I can help you file your deed .."
Cuz if it's the second, that's ...
Sign
I saw a Doug Bennet for Registry of Deeds sign.
Anything but that.
I'm sure people won't want to have to submit their deeds on plywood.
Replacing City Council Members.
Who replaces Boston City Council Members Pressley and Zakim if Elected to State Office or Congress?