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Wu tops field in at-large race; several district races shape up
By adamg on Tue, 09/24/2019 - 9:08pm
In the at-large race, incumbent Michelle Wu is topping the field, by a lot, followed by fellow incumbents Michael Flaherty and Annissa Essaibi-George.
The next five candidates to make the November ballot, trailing far behind the top three, though, are Alejandra St. Guillen, Julia Mejia, incumbent Althea Garrison, Erin Murphy and David Halbert.
Voters in November will select four out of these eight candidates for at-large seats.
In District 5 (Hyde Park, Roslindale, Mattpan), it's looking like Maria Esdale Farrell vs. Ricardo Arroyo in November.
In District 7 (Roxbury) incumbent Kim Janey gets another chance to help Roy Owens extend his losing streak; she's currently leading with about 75% of the vote.
In District 8 (Fenway, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Mission Hill), Kenzie Bok will face off against Jennifer Nassour. Bok could get more than 50% of the vote in the preliminary.
In District 9 (Allston/Brighton), Craig Cashman and Liz Breadon advance to November.
Other districts didn't have enough candidates to warrant a preliminary.
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Comments
Sad to see
Martin Keogh making it past the post.
Dudes entire campaign, in this city with all our problems, is to repeal the 5 cent bag tax.
What a joke.
Edit:. Looks like we were spared that nonsense.
Would have been sad
All that kept me awake for the results was to see that we were, as you put it really kindly, “spared that nonsense”. Made me a David Halbert fan.
See below
District 9's leading vote getter sent a mailer telling us about, I (expletive) you not, the phenomenon of people using GPS to cut through A-B to shun the Pike.
We had seven candidates, and I wouldn't have rewarded a single one of them with a vote. Seriously, more than one of them wanted to make laws deciding who could and couldn't live in a house. What a gross intellectual and humanitarian failure.
I'll be writing myself in once again this November.
Also, you think cutting taxes is a joke? What's wrong with that? What's government going to buy us with five cents a bag?
Bags
The "bag tax" is a mandatory fee retailers must charge but they keep the proceeds. The money isn't transferred back to the public like a real tax.
You can't possibly be this dumb
I know you have to know this, but for the benefit of the people in the back - the point isn't to raise revenue, it's to give people a financial incentive to bring their own bags rather than continuing to use disposable bags that have a much worse impact on the environment both globally and locally. Turns out the free market has these things called "negative externalities" that often require regulation or intervention in order to promote general welfare!
Blam.gif
Blam.gif
No Opinion on Keogh
But the bag tax or banning the bags actually harms the environment more than it helps.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-plastic-bag-...
Your link
directly states that a bag fee/tax is the best way to go, combined with specific types of reusable bags.
Well it's complicated
the article also says paper bag and cotton bag usage goes way up which is worse than for the environment than single use plastic bags. And the episode drives that point home.
further complication
you know, to further cherry pick quotes and info in that article.
David Halbert did the city a
David Halbert did the city a great service by keeping Marty Keogh off the final Council ballot. It's extra sweet since Halbert supports the Centre Street West Roxbury road diet and Keogh has been its most vocal opponent. Everyone should throw him a vote in November for it.
Halbert also seems
like a genuinely good candidate. Check out his interview on the We Need Some Milk podcast.
Halbert
I hope people give Halbert a real closer look in November. He didn't get the fanfare of some of the other candidates who got a million endorsements by fellow politicians. But he quietly has put together the most expansive policy platform that is both very progressive and very achievable. The Globe endorsement and that of numerous progressive groups that actually follow this stuff are probably what put him over the top into the final. Also, it goes without saying that he's the only black man on the at-large ballot in November, on a Council with no black men on it since Tito left.
Agree
Already requested my Halbert sign. Going to be tough to crack the top four but he should never pay for a drink again in West Roxbury.
Keogh has to stop
I think he now knows that Boston is progressive. Even his precious West Roxbury neighborhood. But probably still won’t believe it. Look forward to see if he made the top 2 over there.
He loves to run so he should look at the State Senate seat because he can’t win just a Boston seat.
Or, since he clearly cares more about West Roxbury ...
He should run against O'Malley for the district seat next time. Would be a battle for the ages.
Keogh wouldn’t even win West
Keogh wouldn’t even win West Roxbury against O’Malley, never mind a complete annihilation in Jamaica Plain. It’d be fun to watch him get smoked though.
Not a battle at all
O’Malley is a worker like Menino. He campaigns all year round.
Keogh needs to find a conservative seat which is outside his covered Boston City Council. Conservative voters are Keogh’s base.
Clearly a seat that does not include Jamaica Plain & it seems West Roxbury is more progressive each and every year. Look at previous elections.
But I guess if Marty did finish in the top two of both of those neighborhoods then disregard me.
Didn’t do so well
Marty got 11.7% of the vote in ward 20 which is West Roxbury and nearby Rozzie. He won two out of the 20 precincts and finished second in two others Flaherty won. Then was fourth or lower in the other sixteen precincts. Considering progressive Wu won most of the precincts handily it’s safe to say Matt would shellack him in West Roxbury let alone what would happen in JP.
That result for Marty sticks a fork in the idea that legions of West Roxbury residents are up in arms over the Centre Street safety proposal. They’d have come out and voted to put the leader of the opposition on the city council if they existed. Confirms it’s nothing but a noisy minority. Wu, who supports the proposal trounced him.
Boston Progressive???
What actually do you mean. Housing costs are skyrocketing, new housing beigin built is not affordable, methadone mile is getting worse, every other day someone is murdered in roxbury mattapan, BPS exam school is under attack. MCAS tests are getting worse. So instead of worrying about the above we worry about Bike Lanes, Road Diets and Plastic Bags and Straws. Doesn't sound like Progress. Progress- the city council wants vote out a Black Transgender person because she is a conservative
Nah
Conservative is fine.
Batshit crazy is another thing all together.
Why the hate
Wow for folks who seem
to hate “boring white
Irish Westie You sure
are anxious to live
There!
I'm a West Roxbury homeowner
I'm a West Roxbury homeowner and went out to vote specifically against him. I don't want that old crank representing my neighborhood.
Michael F. Flaherty needs to
Michael F. Flaherty needs to go. He's an outdated dinosaur.
Flaherty old??
Imean when we Markey at 73 and Warren 70 as Senators he is young
Look our Presidential race warren, Biden, Bernie and throw in Pelosi.
Bcc presidency
Can’t wait to see the fight after election for President of the council. With US Attorney around City Hall . Walsh could resign in term.
First time in 15 years as a Bostonian
That I missed a vote. Just simply ran out of time today. Hell, I didn't even read about the District 9 candidates until 3 PM.
I got plenty of mailers from Cashman. "People are using GPS devices to avoid Pike traffic by cutting through Allston-Brighton." Well, knock me over with a feather. Hey Craig, you hear they're smoking the weed and having the sex too? I guess all you have to do is have the biggest sign to win.
Wu, Flaherty and Essaibi-George all lead in at-large? Guess they can't all be as great as Pressley. What an insipid bunch.
Nice timing by Baker to ban vaping too. I think smoking is stupid (expletive), but there goes all my respect for him. Can we get a recall question on the ballot for November?
Nice. Couldn't vote, but
Nice. Couldn't vote, but sure can complain. How about some cheese to go with that whine.
15 years
A primary and a general every other year, so, what, 15 votes in my time in A-B? I've made 14 if I missed this one, so that's still a 93% participation rate for me.
Oh, also, I'm a 35-year old guy in the Northeastern United States. I'll get my way in the end, because this is still America.
Pressley
You are kidding they all can't be a great as Pressley?? She is clearly over her head as a US Rep. As insipid " as Wu, George, and Flaherty" are clearly better choices than Pressley.
Will,
Will,
Did he have a plan for solving it? I threw his flyers into the trash after the first one where he called for total freeze on all new housing.
I mean its a dumb issue, but having been to places like BAIC meetings, thats the kind of crap that those people lap up. Given Craig was Mike Moran's Neighborhood contact guy, I am sure the same grumpy out of touch people called him all the time about that.
Althea Garrison
What’s amazingly sad is that there are many in city government who appear to promote diversity as their full time job, yet these people have shunned the councilor who holds the most characteristic of diversity than anyone in the history of the City Council. Althea Garrison is a black, transgendered, senior citizen. She was not endorsed by any of the establishment politicians, most of whom can’t wait to get their face in front of a camera to tell us all how important diversity is to our city. Here is where they had a big chance to do so and they shun this great candidate who exhibits diversity at many levels. They are all a bunch of hypocrites.
Politics matter
She's outwardly in opposition to many of the policies other elected officials support. She's is far more conservative than the others.
That's why she didn't get much support. Policies trump demographics. (Except for the POTUS where policies are based entirely on demographics.)
Diversity of Opinion
So the only diversities that matter are those of age, gender, sexual preference, and skin color. When it comes to diversity of opinion, one must tow the party line or be slapped down. So it’s really not about diversity at all. It’s about the agenda.
You'd know a lot about agendas
given that the only point to your disingenuous comments is to punch strawmen of your own invention.
Why would anyone vote for someone they vehemently disagree with on virtually every issue under discussion? If a voter disagreed with a candidate on transportation, housing, education, the environment, etc., why would said voter check the box for said candidate?
How many voters have you actually talked to, in person, in a real life conversation, who told you that they would only vote for black, transgender women? We all know the answer to that question is "zero."
Party Line
You are kidding, people always vote the party line. Do you think these Democratic Presidential stiffs believe in "Climate Change", Medicare for All, open borders immigration etc. They just want the Power. A stiff like Beto and Corey Booker have no original thoughts. Just all Party.
and the rebublicans are the same. Then you have the "Squad" AOC, Talib, Ilhan, and Pressley between them they couldn't break 100 IQ
As Billy Bulger once said about Markey "To a battle of wits, he comes unarmed".
I'd thank you for the response,
but it illuminated nothing for me.
AOC
you and the President should want no part of her. Calling Her and the others dumb is a mistake and reeks.
So I should vote for a Republican?
Diversity's great, but don't blame people who didn't vote for her because they object to what she stands for. Politics is a marketplace of ideas and her ideas just don't sell well in Boston. Ask Marty Keogh about that - she and he would've made quite the nice little conservative caucus on the council.
I don't understand what your
I don't understand what your "diversity of opinion" argument is about. Are you saying that people should vote against their own political views? Why would anybody do that?
Yes, exactly
Yes, exactly. A candidate's agenda is by far the most important consideration.
Isn't this exactly democracy
Isn't this exactly democracy working as it should? What a strange conversation these trolls want to have.
"No identity politics! Support the best candidate!"
"Okay, we did."
"But what happened to identity politics!"
Diversity for Diversity's Sake
Is something the right likes to talk about. As in "look our corporate board is diverse - we have a woman a person of color and a person with a disability, they all vote with me and do whatever I tell them, but we are diverse." It's great that these boards aren't all white men anymore, but now we actually need a diversity of ideas. Garrison wants to take us back to the past.
Her ideas aren't diverse or progressive or new. The city council is way more diverse then it ever was and plenty of people are talking about that.
Finally just because someone is black or transgender or a senior citizen doesn't mean that they are anti-racist, pro-gay rights, or advocates for the elderly. When folks talk about diversity I think that's what they want: anti-racist/pro-human rights people who are working to undo hundreds of years of history.
That’s Not What They Say
I usually hear the diversity crowd shouting, “there’s not enough people of color”, “what about seniors?”, “Transgender rights”, “there’s not enough women”. In Althea, we have every one of those boxes checked, but she’s not what they’re looking for because she’s not an activist. They’re hypocrites. It’s never been about having more blacks, or gays, or elderly, or women. It’s become solely about being a loud, obnoxious socialist.
So?
I realize now you're a Republican grasping for something on which to criticize the rest of the city, but it's not hypocritical, when faced with a choice between two outwardly similar candidates (Garrison was hardly the only woman of color on the ballot yesterday), to choose the one who better reflects your views.
I was going to ask you to define "socialism" for us, but, no, don't bother, because your post shows pretty clearly you have no idea what it actually is save a smear against people to the left of Dear Leader (an actual socialist did run for city council a few years ago; he lost pretty convincingly).
As noted elsewhere
5 of the other 7 finalists are people of color, and 5 of the other 7 finalists are women. You're inventing nonsense, and even by the standard of your own nonsense your claim is demonstrably false.
Nobody has said they'd only vote for black, transgender women. Nobody.
People DO want diversity in leadership positions, but it turns out that people also generally vote for candidates whose policy positions they like. Imagine that!
That's an intensely bad faith argument,
which you're probably well aware of. Rather than making vague claims about "many in city government" and things that they "appear" to be doing, how about some direct quotes from other city council candidates that back up your claim? Who exactly, among the various candidates, is supposedly demanding that all city councilors be black and transgender?
You might also have noticed, if you were paying attention to the facts instead of grinding your right-wing axe of nonsense, that 5 of the other 7 finalists are not white, and 5 of the other 7 finalists are women.
Apparently you think you're clever by pretending that base identity politics, rather than actual policies, is what drives people you've decided to despise, but even on your own reductionist terms in turns out that it isn't just a bunch of white guys moving on to the finals - far from it.
I’m showing you that the
I’m showing you that the identity politics of these fake diversity backers is a bunch of bullshit. They could care less about it. They don’t value diversity at all. If they did, diversity of opinion would trump all the box checking.
Nonsense.
"Diversity of opinion" is your way of demanding that people vote for someone who takes right-wing policy positions. Nobody is required to vote for a right-winger, even if they also (rightfully) want a diversity of backgrounds when it comes to leadership.
Diversity doesn't mean that a person needs to vote for someone who takes policy positions completely antithetical to their own. Apparently that's what you've convinced yourself diversity is, but that's your own delusion.
Maybe because she was never voted in.
She is only on the City Council because someone else resigned. She has run multiple times and never garnered enough votes to actually be elected. It has nothing to do with her gender identity, her race, or her age.
Ugh
Cashman and Breadon were the *worst* two candidates in my opinion after hearing them both speak at a candidate forum earlier this year.
If anyone in A-B actually voted, we'd get a representative that cares about the neighborhood-specific issues we have with our location between 3 colleges and beyond the wilds of Brookline where nobody ever seems to care about us.
I am curious what (Liz)
I am curious what (Liz) Breadon's base of support was.
Cashman had the existing Political Machine (IE all the ESSAIBI GEORGE / FLAHERTY / Cashman signs) and the Globe on his side.
It was interesting to see the BTU and the IBEW fighting this race out as well. I am curious how much money they spent, vs the Campaigns.
As A-B has its own district
And since there were votes cast in the race, I’d say that people in A-B voted. It’s just that a lot of the area just doesn’t care, since they have a limited stake in the area (until graduation)
Final tally
Unofficial final results, sorted by vote total:
MICHELLE WU 26,622
ANNISSA ESSAIBI GEORGE 18,993
MICHAEL F FLAHERTY 18,766
ALEJANDRA NICOLE STGUILLEN 11,910
JULIA MEJIA 10,799
ALTHEA GARRISON 9,720
ERIN J MURPHY 9,385
DAVID HALBERT 6,534
MARTIN MARTY KEOGH 6,246
JEFFREY MICHAEL ROSS 5,078
PRISCILLA E FLINT-BANKS 4,094
DOMINGOS DAROSA 2,840
MICHEL DENIS 2,108
WILLIAM A KING 1,809
HERB ALEXANDER LOZANO 1,510
Black, trans Republican. Politics that dare not speak its name.
It was great to see the Honorable Althea Garrison (a former state legislator never loses the Honorable title) make the cut not just because of her prudence on the Council but her refreshing openness in proudly supporting President Trump, even as an elderly African American transgender in Boston. The far-left influencers tell us that this is unacceptable, therefore Garrison is shunned and remains one of the few members of those oppressed groups who can still be openly mocked at the cheese shops and in the refined hallways of "progressive" City Hall.
A true measure of today's left is their adoration and worship of a far-left, blue-eyed, white female knowingly listing herself as a "woman of color" while a true black trans woman is belittled because her views aren't liberal enough. This is really shameless (but telling) by the Dems. Is it any wonder why MLK was Republican?
Hopefully Althea finishes in the top four but five will essentially guarantee a seat. I believe there is a likelihood that the feds have offered Marty a deal if he decides not to seek reelection. Wu's strong showing means Marty is in deep trouble even if not indicted.
Haven't you heard?
You can't indict a sitting executive. Keeps them from doing their job.
Your obvious crush on Althea is a bit surprising...
...but your argument is utterly foolish.
Would you expect the evangelical conservatives to vote for a white male born-again Christian who campaigned on gun control, medicare for all and an otherwise progressive agenda?
The next time you accuse the left of "identity politics" remember this comment you wrote.
Althea is a very nice person
But talk with her a bit, and you realize that the elevator does not go to every floor of the building. And yes, I have spoken with her, during a couple of her many campaigns for public office.
Her views are as incoherent as much as they are conservative. Part of me admires her relentless campaigning, and ability to keep going despite the mockery she endures for being transgender. She also seems incompetent, unable to manage the basics of running a city council office. Althea should not be on the Boston City Council, or hold any other elected position.