Hey, there! Log in / Register
Yoon to Menino: Your budget stinks
By adamg on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 1:32pm
City Councilor and mayoral wannabe Sam Yoon says he will vote against the mayor's budget when it comes up for a vote tomorrow.
For Yoon, this is nothing new: He's always voted against the mayor's budget (you may recall the 2006 dustup with then Council President and now also mayoral wannabe Michael Flaherty, who ordered the boys in blue to clear the council chambers of the 300 kids Yoon had brought in to call for more anti-violence programs).
This year, Yoon says Menino's proposed $2.45-billion budget doesn't include $74 million in cuts Yoon says the city could safely make in such areas as overtime and the removal of the city's fire boxes - as well as any savings from eliminating the BRA and moving all its money into the general fund.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Yes it does...
How right Yoon is. What a joke this budget is. How about Boston start acting like the major city it is. No 311; no performance-based budgeting; no new ideas and no vision.
Does City Hall even have a web page
to write in complaints and/or suggestions? Or does the Mayor still want us to call "his" phone line? (Only to have nothing done to fix anything in the end.)
You couldn't spend 30 seconds to find the answer?
http://www.cityofboston.gov/mayor/24/
No. At the time, I didn't have the time.
Thanks though.
To be fair
I was going to be snarky and tell you that you should have made him use a lmgtfy.com link. But to be fair, there's nothing on that page that makes it stand out in common search optimized terms.
Searching for "boston city complaints form" or anything like that doesn't yield that link. All of the terms written on the page are housed in doublespeak like "constituent services" and "service request". I don't even think the phrase "mayor's hotline" shows up on the page anywhere at all, even though the number is on there a few times.
If you didn't work hard or know what you were looking for in the first place, that page wouldn't be the easiest one to find on cityofboston.gov.
I prefer
http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/
Yeah, there's a link on the front page. But yes, it does say "constituent services." Though I don't think it's that hard to figure out that that's the number to call.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Sam Yoon is right!
It's great to see that Sam Yoon is continuing to show the type of political courage that we need in Boston. He is absolutely right when it comes to the budget--we need to completely reform the process, cut government waste, and require that city government be held accountable. My vote for mayor is definitely with Sam.
Time for a Better Budget Process and a New Mayor
I'm glad someone in City Hall is finally calling the budget process out for what it is - an insider's game that is completely opaque to the very people it impacts. I'd like to have a Mayor who spends our tax payer dollars more effectively and efficiently. It's time for a change.
Missed Opportunity
At the national level, President Obama is taking this economic crisis as a chance to make government more efficient. He has a chief technology officer whose job description includes finding ways technology can streamline government operations.
We're clearly not seeing that kind of effort from Menino. This budget debate was all about the wage freeze. Definitely a missed opportunity to modernize municipal government.
It is amazing that Menino
It is amazing that Menino has still not made layoffs. Wage freezes are just delaying the pain, since as soon as things turn for the better all those people will still employed by the city and claiming to need raises to make up for the salary freezes. Companies all over the city are laying off employees, if not going out of business. Menino should take this as an opportunity to make city government more efficient and lean. But, he knows that all the people he keeps on staff will work for his campaign, and most Bostonians seem resigned to bad governance and Menino's technophobic style of government services.
Well, at least one person is getting laid off
A teacher in my daughter's school.
Bogus
The city budget is going down by $25 million from last year after the most recent cuts in aid - but that's offset by $50 million in stimulus money at least for this year - so the budget should be up by about 1% in total including stimulus - you can't tell me there wasn't 2-3% in fat the mayor could cut to save the at least all the licensed teaching positions. Wanna bet the budget gets bumped some time mid year through the amendment process once the meals tax gets passed?
Why should he start laying off anyone?
I think an efficient and lean government should always be a goal. However, I don't agree with assumption above that Menino should have laid off workers by now. Why lay anyone off before you receive your final local aid numbers from the state and federal stimulus money? Just doesn't make sense to me.....
Menino has laid people off: Teachers!
My husband is a Boston public school teacher and he has been laid off. Menino didn't touch a single patronage job - but he cut teachers. Just the facts.
Teachers laid off?
A Human Resources official told me a couple of weeks ago that only 19 teachers would have to be laid off after all, and probably even those would be re-assigned and if necessary re-trained to avoid any lay-offs. Can you tell us specifically why your husband was laid off?