Quick Local Notes, 3/23

Typing while listening to Sen. John Kerry live, talking on the Senate floor about community service...

--A local accountant, Hiep Q. Nguyen, has opened a campaign committee and tells the Phoenix he is exploring a possible run for city council at-large. Nguyen is president of the board of directors for the Vietnamese American Civic Association.

--Nguyen would be, by my count, the 11th at-large candidate, joining Felix G. Arroyo; Doug Bennett; John Connolly; Ego Ezedi; Tomas Gonzalez; Marty Hogan; Andrew Kenneally; Steve Murphy; Jean-Claude Sanon; and Scotland Willis. And still no women. (Run, Ayanna, Run!)

--Sam Yoon's credit card expenses reveal a fundraising trip to San Francisco last month.

--The arbitration hearing began today for Firefighters Local 718 and the City of Boston. I'll blog more about this later, but the city is narrowing its focus to the types of egregious abuses that we've been reading about in Globe exposes the past couple of years, rather than large, organizational change. 

--The American Conservative Union's 2008 ratings score Delahunt as the most conservative (or least liberal) of the Bay State's 10 US Reps last year: he rated a 10 on a scale of 0-100. It was his votes against the bailout bills that did it -- and pushed his lifetime rating all the way up to 4. Six Mass. Reps scored perfect zeroes for '08, while Tierney and Capuano each scored 4, and Lynch posted an 8. Over in the Senate, Ted K. chalked up another goose egg (lifetime rating: 2), and Kerry scored a 4.