The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
 
News Features  |  Talking Politics  |  This Just In
Best2012Vote-1000x50

Yoon's move

Staging a city-council demonstration was a good first move, but more will be required to reform Boston — and save lives
By EDITORIAL  |  July 12, 2006

060714_edit_main
KISSING THE BLUE BACKSIDE: Yoon hopes to pry Menino away
First-term Boston city councilor Sam Yoon recently injected a double dose of confrontation and controversy into council proceedings when he helped stage-manage a demonstration by teenagers protesting Mayor Tom Menino’s $2.14 billion budget. Yoon hoped to add $5.1 million for additional youth programs and summer jobs. Not surprisingly, the effort failed when the council, by a vote of nine to four, approved Menino’s budget. Still, we think Yoon’s efforts were well worth the smoke they generated.

For the second year in a row, Boston’s poor, working-class, and largely minority neighborhoods are ablaze with gunfire: shootings occur at an average rate of more than one per day, and the two-year murder toll sits at 144, the highest in ten years. And, if it’s possible to make this shocking news even more depressingly unacceptable, police successfully solve less than a third of all homicides.

The protesting kids, who brandished placards proclaiming YOUR $$$ OR OUR LIVES and warning DON’T WAIT TILL WE’RE DEAD, were not being dramatic. They were speaking the truth. And if the truth hurts, these days the truth is brutal — and deadly. Young people — and many of their elders, who survived violent neighborhoods in youth — face a greater likelihood of being wounded or killed by gunfire than at any other time in recent years. It’s about time people got pissed off.

Truth be told, in the budget just passed, the city increased the number of summer jobs available for young people by 478. And business and nonprofits have increased the number of summer positions they provide by 1000, bringing that total up to 5800. Responsible leaders know the situation is dire. The Republicans’ anti-poor, anti-working-class policies administered by President George W. Bush, in Washington, and Governor Mitt Romney, on Beacon Hill, are making a bad situation even more intolerable. That, however, is little comfort to the kids who, along with their parents, fear the incessant gunfire.

Those who were angered by Yoon’s protesters have to understand that this is no time for business as usual. They need to examine their consciences. They may be working hard, but are they doing enough?

Yoon’s demonstration was symbolic, but it was also symptomatic. The problems Boston faces go far beyond summer jobs for needy youth. And we’re not sure that Yoon and the rest of the council — not to mention Menino — are ready to face those facts.

City finances are strained, as the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a good-government, nonpartisan watchdog group, has repeatedly warned. Yet Boston must reinvent the way it delivers services and administers itself. Sad to say, we doubt that city officials have the guts to exercise the fiscal restraint that ongoing contract talks with unionized employees require. We hope we’re wrong. But Menino, a crafty and skilled backroom operator, is essentially a cautious man. There is little evidence to suggest that he’s willing to risk restructuring City Hall so he can do more with ever-tighter resources.
Nowhere is that deadly inertia more obvious than in his dealings with the police department, which is essentially held captive by its irresponsible and insensitive union.

In opposing adequate civilian review of police operations and actions, Menino kisses the blue backside of the union and citizens suffer.

1  |  2  |   next >
Related: Asians for Yoon — or maybe the other guy(s), Fixing Boston Schools, For Boston City Council, More more >
  Topics: The Editorial Page , Mitt Romney, Politics, George W. Bush,  More more >
| More

 Friends' Activity   Popular   Most Viewed 
[ 02/16 ]   3rd Annual Boston Chili Cup  @ Ned Devine's
[ 02/16 ]   Boston Conservatory Dance Division  @ Boston Conservatory Theater
[ 02/16 ]   Jim Gaffigan  @ Wilbur Theatre
ARTICLES BY EDITORIAL
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   WHY THE REPUBLICAN EMBRACE OF JUST ONE CATHOLIC ISSUE IS THE HEIGHT OF HYPOCRISY  |  February 15, 2012
    We like men in dresses as much as the next person.
  •   'IT'S HALFTIME IN AMERICA'  |  February 08, 2012
    Karl Rove is pissed off, and for once we can understand why.  
  •   OBAMA'S VISION: ''AN AMERICA BUILT TO LAST''  |  January 25, 2012
    By any measure, President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech would have been considered a political winner, but coming just one day after the Republicans' constipated Florida-primary debate, Obama scored an undeniable triumph.
  •   STOPPING SOPA  |  January 18, 2012
    You can almost breathe a sigh of relief, though the fight is long from over. As of this writing, it looks increasingly as if Congress will — miraculously — fail to break the Internet.
  •   ROMNEY'S SECRET FORMULA  |  January 12, 2012
    The Republican nomination thing may not be as complicated as the media is making it out to be, but it sure is fun.

 See all articles by: EDITORIAL

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed