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Let's go AG
OK - no more stalling from the AG's office. We need an investigation right away. What is going on in city hall? These people have been in power way too long. They think the rules don't apply to them. Menino has got to go.
The current AG is currently
The current AG is currently running for Senate. She therefore doesn't have the time to deal with her job as AG. Also, it's unwise to get involved in a battle between two (or I guess three in the case of the mayoral election) candidates from your own party.
While I support special elections, this is clearly an unfortunate side effect of them. When there is a special election, people have less time to do their own job.
Kineavy Hard Worker
No one works harder for our city than Kineavy, I personally look forward to when he returns to serving Bostonians.
Don't hold your breath. I
Don't hold your breath. I think he double deleted himself out of a job in government.
To Serve Bostonians
Kineavy's favorite cookbook, no doubt.
Public service != self service.
Shadowy Figure Returns to Shadows
Kineavy is known for being the guy in the shadows behind the guy. How exactly do we know he won't still be playing Cyrano with Menino?
On the plus side, I'm glad to see my tax dollars will be diverted to better use while he's on leave.
Holy crap
Could these guys act any MORE guilty???
Where's he going - the campaign?
So Kineavy probably going to run the campaign now. Kineavy is Menino's right hand at City Hall. If he is doing something illegal, you know the mayor knows about it. We got to get rid of this machine on November 3rd. Can anyone even imagine four more years of this?
Of course Flaherty's
Of course Flaherty's salivating about Kineavy running the campaign. That would just be another chance to let this linger. Which would entirely defeat the point of him stepping aside in the first place.
Menino is a criminal
Please, he is just taking a leave during the election. As soon as Menino buys the election Keneavy, Meninos Scooter Libby will be taking tax dollars and bribes as he has done the whole time.
ANYONE BUT MENINO IN 2010!
?
Huh?? The election is in three weeks. Geez.
Brilliant move.
MK parries the conversation right back to the real issues - which Baby Flats is unable to address.
Thank god Kineavy's stepping
Thank god Kineavy's stepping down. Now maybe Flaherty's campaign will discuss issues instead of this distraction. This election is about Menino. Not Kineavy.
Innocent, etc.
Corruption
Isn't an issue?
what corruption?
find anything in his e-mails yet?
Flaherty is the only one found guilty - of violating the Open Meeting Law.
Absolutely
Corruption WOULD be an issue. But the facts are these:
1. Kineavy has been deleting emails.
2. Of the emails recovered so far, they perhaps show the ugly side of city politics, but they in no way incriminate anyone.
3. The most incriminating thing that Flaherty's campaign has pulled from the emails is "the naughty list", clearly a facetious phrase and it wasn't even said by a City Hall staffer.
Innocent, etc.
You are a troll
Of the e-mails they received so far, 5000 have been from OTHER people's inboxes because Kineavy has been double-deleting his in violation of the Public Records Law (not that someone like Coakley would ever think to prosecute such an open-and-shut case).
THAT is the most incriminating thing. Period.
They couldnt find anything because
Kineavy got rid of the computer that he had used during the period of time when wilkerson was trying to get that liquor license. Do you not read the newspaper? If you are going to come on here and spout this pro menino mumbo jumbo then please at least be informed. It's not good for this blog to see people on here who clearly work for the city and are being told to come on here. I am supporting Michael Flaherty and Sam Yoon because they are self-less enough to put their personal gains aside and team up to bring real change to our government.
Michael took responsibility for violating the open meeting laws, when in fact it was the entire council that participated. This is called leadership. Everytime something goes wrong in Boston the Mayor blames it on someone else. When the papers hit him hard on the BRA he claims it's not a city agency. But he loves to talk about all the development that he's responsible for in our city. Does that make sense to you?
They also created a problem
They also created a problem for themselves when Kinneavy's computer was replaced and the documents on the old computer did not get found under subpoena and delivered to the US attorney on the bribe case.
His request to take the
His request to take the distraction, that has become this email saga, away from city hall will be viewed as guilt.....and that is unfortunate. There has yet to be a single email that shows any illegal activity. Is the act of deleting emails illegal? That has been debated by both sides. That gray area alone speaks to the divide between the new technology and older rules/law issue.
I can tell you that no one works harder FOR the city than Kineavy. Both while on the clock and off. It is a shame that the game of politics being played by Flaherty has pushed such a man out of city hall.
Full disclosure: I voted for Menino and plan to again.
FOR the city AGAINST good government
disclosure: this is an edited version of a post elsewhere
Nice how you tell us that Kineavy is a hardworking guy. But there are many who understand the veracity with which he has unleashed that purpose only to limit the governance of this city and further his own goals, and that of his benefactor.
That you give short shrift to his dismissal of public records law, or generally accepted IT practice says so much about what we have come to expect from this administration. And will we see Messrs. Sinnott and Oates come next to the sword?
It is a hallmark of this administration to drill down the words of legal precedent to find a loophole when necessary. Perhaps you continue to believe we, the residents of this this City, suffer your (his) behavior in ignorant bliss.
Just because a man works long (or clean as the case may be), does not imply he works well. After sixteen years do you not expect there are enough of us who understand the dysfunctional side of a singular vision?
Why do you defenders keep making this about Flaherty--this is a Globe story up and down--and the strong editorial today from a paper that endorsed the Mayor only bolsters the notion that something is wrong here...
second disclosure: today i asked for a Flaherty/Yoon sign
Are you kidding me?
I mean, are you fucking kidding me?? This "gray area" you're talking up ISN'T GRAY! The act of deleting the e-mails is illegal and I haven't seen ANYBODY say otherwise. The ONLY excuses from Menino are "glitches", "mistakes", "Kineavy thought it was backed up", "the CIO didn't know the law", "it's not a big deal"....and on and on.
There's no "divide" between the law and the technology! The state specifically addresses e-mail in a pdf describing the Public Record Law:
Of COURSE there's no e-mail related to illegal activity!! THERE'S NO E-MAIL FROM KINEAVY'S OWN FILES AVAILABLE!
You make me sick. Go spin your crap somewhere else.
Give it up Kaz. You
Give it up Kaz.
You regularly slander on UHub with no evidence because it's politically expedient to your candidate. It is as shameful as it is apparent.
let their be an investigation if there's enough evidence of misconduct, and let the pieces fall where they will if anythings found. But stop spreading the bullshit to make your candidate get elected.
I'm sure you'll also be the first to apologize to Kineavy, and help repair the damaged baseless accusations have done if we find it was IT or an administrative fault not of his own.
I was undecided, but your ilk is whats driving me back to Menino. This crud is no better then the supposed "Menino Machine"
Expedient?
This from someone who intentionally avoids accountability for his/her blather by failing/refusing to log in.
"Your ilk" has ZERO credibility.
Because "Fenwayguy" is so
Because "Fenwayguy" is so transparent. I'd send you a postcard, but oh, wait, you're just as anonymous us us too lazy to sign up.
Avatars and pseudonyms are just as anonymous as visitor logins. Post your name, address, and contact info if you want to take your foot out of your mouth, FENWAYGUY.
Wrong again
People with pseudonyms have a "brand" -- and, thus, a track record as to believability or not.
Unregistered anonymous posters have nothing -- and often one can hardly tell them apart (as many are troll-ish in roughly similar ways).
Oh ho, brave anon
Since you didn't give yourself a name or separate yourself in any way from the vast pool of uninformed "anon (not verified)" opinions that bubble up at election times, I'm just going to call you Mrs. Kineavy.
So, Mrs. Kineavy, I'm sure you're going to be the first to call Coakley and request an investigation, right? I mean, you want the investigation don't you, based on what you've written?
What candidate is "my" candidate, Mrs. Kineavy? I would rather vote for McCrea, honestly. But at this point, I am definitely NOT voting for Menino. Rather than talk about me, point to one piece of "bullshit" that I've spread here. Mrs. Kineavy, the fact that you want to focus on me and your prerogatives based on reading what I have to say demonstrates exactly what kind of critical thinker you aren't and suggests that you don't have anything valid to add anyways.
Mrs. Kineavy, vote however you choose. It's your right. But if another private citizen's observations about City Hall are what cause you to go hug the mayor, then you've got bigger issues on being able to make informed decisions than to be here telling me off.
Go take a trip with your son while he's on unpaid leave. You'll both feel better for it.
Is the act of deleting emails illegal?
yes, it is. And it is twice illegal if the purpose of deleting the e-mail goes beyond record-keeping to conspiracy with others to conceal the information.
Deleting IS illegal.
Deleting IS illegal. Doesn't mean it is covering corruption, as has been charged.
May the punishment fit the crime.
stonewalling = something to hide
City Hall stonewalling the Secretary of State does not bode well for the Menino Administration. They are making it look like they have something to hide. Galvin asked Coakley to get involved so they could use subpoena power to force cooperation under penalty of law.
Putting the City First
Kineavy realize this story was putting him in the way of the campaign so he did the right thing and stepped away for a while. Let's see how it turns out. Thousands of e-mails have been read and nothing has been found.
Remember when Flaherty was caught breaking the law and holding secretive, closed, City Council meetings that violated the open meetings laws? What did Flaherty do? He strung it out even thogh he knew he was wrong and cost the city over $300,000. He now says he made a mistake but won't own up to what back door deals he made behind closed doors.
Even the Globe Editorial Board isn't buying this from Menino
If the Menino Machine wants to know how serious this is, look no further than the Menino apologists at the Globe Editorial Board. Even they are saying Menino can't be trusted on this.
"Coakley ... needs to gain physical control of the physical hardware in this case before anything goes missing."
Tough times ahead for Menino.
The Globe editorial
Here.
Distraction
Stepping aside until the investigation is complete is the right thing to do. From the emails already recovered there appears to be nothing there so I hope for kineaveys sake there isn't anything in the others. From what i hear he is a decent guy who works hard and I would hate to see a career ruined over speculation.
from what I hear
he's a bully. Where did you hear "he's a good guy"?
Where did you hear
he's a bully?
Facts please, not hearsay. Just curious.
There was a Globe story a couple weeks ago
Where it looked like they tried pretty hard to find someone who would testify to his supposed "dark side", but there were no takers. The picture that emerged was of a hardworking guy who is also known for helping guys in AA and so forth. But that doesn't mean he didn't violate the public records law, and maybe do some other unethical and/or illegal stuff during his 16 years as a pretty powerful dude. Like all of us, he's probably a mixed bag.
Distraction
Kinnealy's leave of absence is a distraction from his egregious records violation scandal.
But what is more egregious is his claim that he forgot about his own computer problems in April, that he called IT, that they replaced his computer and that his computer was the only place documents responsive to a Federal subpeona could be found. He's not only a had working government official, he's a hard working plumber. If they can prove intent, he'll go to jail.
Minor correction
Kineavy.
Kenneally is the guy running for city council and no relation.
shyte. thanks. i'll fix it where i can
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he's a good guy?
Facts please, not hearsay.
He has done nothing to show he is a good guy.
Never said he was a good guy
My point was that character assassinations are running rampant with little or no proof of anything. The Menino haters are going wild, ready to hang a guy for deleting emails. Yes, allegedly deleting emails. I'd like to see a little more substance, that's all.
ok first, you said you "hear he's a decent guy"
I was simply showing how silly that statement is so stop it with picking on my hearsay when all I was doing was calling out YOUR hearsay.
Secondly, he didn't "delete some emails", he "destroyed thousands of public records" what if this was 20 years ago and he was required to keep copies of every letter he sent and then put every copy in the shredder because he assumed someone else was copying them?
Thirdly, there is nothing "alleged" here. He DID delete them. In fact, he DOUBLE DELETED them. Now if he wasn't trying to hide anything, but rather just trying to keep his inbox clean, he would have deleted them once and let his deleted items folder empty itself. This is clearly not on the up and up. I don't see how with a straight face you can take your position.
Their story has changed some 3-4 times every time they get caught in a lie, they make up an excuse, stonewall, etc.
Never said that either
Please take a look back and you'll see I've never made any character assessments of Kineavy at all. None. Nothing calling him a good guy or a bad guy. And frankly, I don't even live in Boston and have no affiliation, admiration, or detest for any of the mayoral candidates. I'm an outsider looking in, and find that people's detest for one candidate blurs their vision of their favorite candidate. It's comical.
Anyways, of course I'll admit something is going on with the emails, what with the mayor's office stonewalling every effort to find the emails. Public records aside, he did something we do every day - deleted emails. Do I think there's something incriminating in the emails? Of course, but I'd have to see it. The emails could have easily been a phone conversation, which is not public record. I'm done, thanks.
I have no problem ending his career now.
How about we end his career for obtruction of justice or for just being an idiot?
I just don't understand how you can get into a position that he is in while being clueless about how your computer can change shape and appearance from one day to the next or about how your e-mail system works or about how a federal subpoena works.
Look, we're not all IT guys.
Look, we're not all IT guys. There's still people, not involved in tech industries, that have trouble with computers.
Hell, we have congressmen that don't own one or use one. One of the last presidential candidates had to be taught of to use "the email". There's still a huge amount of "magic box" and computer illiteracy out there.
Let's stop with the hearsay and BS, shall we?
You don't need to be an IT guy to understand easy concepts.
Well, we certainly know that the Menino administration isn't full of IT guys or legal guys. Maybe, they like it that way. It makes for a very convenient excuse when situation like these come up.
Computers didn't just show up on people's desks yesterday. People have been using them in the workplace routinely for more than a decade. Are they really that brain dead over there?
It was his job to know the law and how it impacts himself and the city and you want to give him a pass on it. Don't you think that when there is a federal subpoena for all city business dealing with Wilkerson and Turner that the city's chief of policy would know what the city's policy on e-mails was? Don't you think that once that subpoena was delivered they would have worked then to retrieve all relevant e-mails? Why did they wait until now to realize they have a problem?
I don't excuse people's ignorance especially if those people are actually responsible for something like a city of 575,000.
Yes and no
I have been surprised at the number of people I meet who just have no interest in learning how to use a mouse, let alone figuring out something like how Outlook works. However, Kineavy showed that he *did* know how Outlook works! *Anyone* who goes to the trash folder to empty it to FULLY delete something is operating with *some* higher knowledge of Outlook! MOST people will say "I put it in the Trash, it's 'gone'" but not Kineavy. But when a MD hospital I used to work in recently went paperless for all of their systems, there were classes for a large percentage of the nurses that amounted to "this is the power button. this is a mouse. this is a cursor...".
However, your second point is spot on. This is the executive branch of the city government (no matter what kind of kingdom power we've given it). They are at the most BASIC level responsible for executing the laws. Assumption that it was all being saved for the Public Records Laws was an illegal assumption to make. If you don't know the answer in that kind of position, you DON'T assume! You ask and find out...because it could be that it was supposed to work the way you assume, but is broken...and that's not executing the laws as per your job description! The e-mails have indicated Kineavy was WELL aware that Public Records Law applied to e-mails of little governmental content (like the St. Patrick's day jokes). So, for him to just gosh, golly assume that he was okay with the way he was using Outlook was a breach of public trust in how government should be run at best. At worst, it's been his modus operandi for destroying Public Records to avoid the very laws he was put in place to help execute and acknowledged to apply to the records he was destroying.
Incompetence is just as illegal as defrauding the public when it comes to this issue. You or I wouldn't be able to talk our way out of a ticket or criminal charge by arguing technical incompetence. Otherwise, like Will said yesterday, I wish I could be elected, just so I could ignore the laws too.
Actually...
The city has maintained a law department of 58 since 2003 through 2009 (I can't give you the 2010 numbers because the new budget, passed in June, has not been posted online yet).
The MIS department had 110 people on staff in 2003 and that has grown to 125 (there are lots more in the school department - but they are under a different budget category).
Excluding the school department, cops and firemen, that would be almost 5% of the staff. If you looked strictly at administrative workers (further removing people like DPW, Public Health etc) - you are probably in the 10-20% range of adminstrators working in legal or IT.
ignorance of the law in no excuse
Kinealy left no tracks. it's hard to imagine anything about the way he operated was out of ignorance.
But wait, Menino said
But wait, Menino has said repeatedly that the budget is posted online. Do you mean he wasn't telling truth about that? Shocked, I'm shocked, I say! (I haven't checked myself, b/c the city's website -- that was redesigned several years ago after then ISD boss Kevin Joyce awarded a no-bid contract for the redesign -- is now so much less useful after said redesign.)
You can find it here
www.cityofboston.gov/budget
there is a 2 page summary budget and some other slanted propaganda - that's it - otherwise you only have access to 2006-2009. God forbid anyone wanted to do a little competitive research on the budget for Flaherty or Yoon!
Disclosure - I think Lisa Signori does an excellent job - it's her boss I have less confidence in.