City Council campaign notes

Sco posts an interview with Susan Passoni of the South End, running against Bill Linehan of South Boston in a May 15 special election for city council (whoever wins will have to run again in the fall). Among other things, she calls for increased tax revenue from large commercial landholders and for more money from the city's non-profit landholders:

... So I would argue that if these institutions are going to sit on half our land and collectively are only contributing 1% of our revenue, that we need to get more in return for the services we're providing, whether it's emergency medical, fire, police, snow removal, in some cases trash removal. I would be a proponent of pushing that, and having worked in the corporate world and private sector for 20 years, I'm very accustomed to negotiating and dealing with CEOs and COOs and people of that level. That's effectively what it would be like negotiating with the university. That's something that I would really like to work on, to see if we can have a better balance, to get something in return for the land that they're sitting on.
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Over in Allston/Brighton, Buckospal explains why he hopes whoever replaces Jerry McDermott this fall will share his enthusiasm for local issues:

... Brighton needs a person who is concerned with the issues impacting Allston and Brighton. We don't need a Menino cheerleader!