My latest for the Globe checks in on the least-famous pit in Boston’s cityscape – the hole in the ground in back of Ferdinand’s blue store in Dudley Square.

Ferdinand’s, and the pit behind it, were supposed to transformed into a gleaming new $80 million municipal building.

And as you an see by clicking this link right here, that didn’t happen.

HOWEVER. These are minor revelations, compared to what the Dot Reporter has been able to dig up. And that is: Michael Kineavy, City Hall’s very own Machiavellian Rasputin-y Cheney, has fine taste in subversive journalism. Or, maybe, “journalism.” Thanks to Hizzoner’s grudging compliance with the laws of this great and free nation, we now know that Michael Kineavy was giddily (guessing there) forwarding along great works of journalism by Weekly Dig alums including Chris Faraone and, uh, myself.

Newly un-double-deleted emails show Kineavy felt it was important for municipal workers busy doing the people’s business inside City Hall to read Faraone’s merciless demolition of Dianne Wilkerson’s don’t-call-it-a-comeback rally, and a B&T story of mine in which Nick Varano turns a North End licensing meeting into the most laff-tastic assemblage of people in a Bingo hall, ever. Check them both out, and find out what all the hype’s about!

Also, plz consider this post a test of City Hall’s Google alert system. Thx.

It’s the way the thing closes that I can’t get over. The story paints Hizzoner and the BRA as some sort of development-crazed vampires – only by feasting on steel and concrete may they avoid turning to ash and vanishing into the wind. And that just isn’t the case. For better or worse, development in Boston is tough. It moves slowly. That’s not so fun when times are good and developers are itching to go forward, and they can’t. But when the crashes come, it’s not such a bad thing to not have a skyline full of shiny new buildings.

Every day, I talk to brokers and developers who are currently quite thankful for that fact. The city’s commercial real estate market is hurting, but we’re not nearly as bad off as New York. And don’t even talk about Atlanta, which is quite literally littered with vacant towers. Why did Atlanta developers build these empty, useless towers? Because they could.

We all know that signs don’t vote. The question is: Can construction sites?

So here’s a couple things to keep in mind this morning.

First off, it goes without saying that, since Kevin McCrea is no longer unopposed, that endorsement of his unopposed candidacy no longer applies. It was fun while it lasted, no?

Secondly, there’s this question that Larry DiCara asks in today’s Herald: “Can Michael Flaherty, a son of South Boston, be representative of a new city?” The answer may depend on what other candidates punch their dance cards in the upcoming weeks. 

And here’s another. In my May ’08 Power profile of Mayor Menino, Rob Consalvo dubbed Hizzoner “unbeatable.” It wasn’t because the guy’s giving Barack Obama pointers on the fine art of public speaking. It was because Menino doesn’t sleep, and he’s never home. For the past 15 years, the guy’s been on the job 24/7. And that’s a high bar for any challenger to match.

He quickly cemented his authority by applying the ethos of a district councilor to the mayor’s office, shaming would-be challengers with a drive that even now has him pulling 16-hour days and fielding calls from constituents at home—a regimen that’s to thank for his ballyhooed grassroots support. “He outworks everybody,” says city Councilor Rob Consalvo. “He’s at every event he’s invited to, whether there are two people there or 2,000.”

From the Google/LIFE image archives, here’s some irrefutable logic dispensed during one of James Michael Curley’s 37 runs for mayor:

After wondering out loud whether the press should start referring to Kevin McCrea as Boston’s mayoral frontrunner, by default, David Bernstein has ratcheted up the pressure on Michael Flaherty, Sam Yoon, and Hizzoner. He’s giving the three men seventeen days to officially jump into the mayor’s race. If they don’t comply, the Phoenix, internet edition, will begin referring to the South End developer/warblogger as “presumptive mayor-elect.”

I like where Bernstein is going with this. So much so that I don’t think anybody should have to wait seventeen days. We’ve all been waiting long enough.

This blog is officially endorsing Kevin McCrea’s unopposed bid for mayor. If anybody else wants to jump onto the dance floor and give Kevin a race, then, well, maybe you can talk me into rescinding this endorsement. Until then, put the champagne on ice.

Moreover, I endorse the bloodbath that this race will devolve into, assuming it ever gets going. (That one’s not revocable.) And that’s where McCrea’s candidacy really helps.

He’s not shy, and he knows how to use the internets, which means he’s got the potential to really piss some people off – and possibly goad them into front-page screaming-headline mistakes or misstatements. This story, for one, isn’t dead by a long shot.

And, given McCrea’s animosity towards the BRA, you can expect every real estate deal gone bad from the last fifteen years to get a full, public airing. Reporters: Save yourselves the trouble at deadline, and start boning up on some old Hayward Place clips now.

And here’s one other reason that McCrea changes the race: He lengthens the campaign schedule by guaranteeing a preliminary. That plays into Mayor Menino’s warchest, but it also leaves him much more vulnerable to extended public battering. Before, with Yoon and Flaherty thought to be in but undeclared, everybody assumed that we’d have a long, hot summer campaign; now, it’s virtually assured. Even if Yoon gets cold feet.

[Boston magazine image]

Yesterday, he whacked Hizzoner over Boston’s not-quite-frosty hiring freeze. And today, it’s free tax breaks for anybody who wants them.

This is what some people would refer to as “not going away quietly.” Far from it. And neither mayoral wannabe has even announced yet.

Last week’s Hill and the Hall detailed how Mike Ross was able to wrap up the City Council presidency so early. But it’s the other side to that discussion — the why — that should really shake up city politics.

Mayor Tom Menino rode the council presidency to Kevin White’s doorstep. And, balky limbs and dust bowls permitting, he’ll ride it beyond. Michael Flaherty used the presidency to become Menino’s heir apparent. His five-year run atop the rostrum raised his public profile and expand his fundraising base so successfully that the mayor’s people decided they had to destroy the monster they’d created.

This year’s council president race looked to be so competitive because observers thought the prize—a spot second in line behind Menino at a time when Hizzoner’s future was uncertain—was great enough that no councilor with an outside shot at the mayor’s office (roughly half of them) would ever put a potential rival inches away from the very thing they themselves coveted.

The potential was great enough that ambitious councilors would avoid elevating a potential rival at all costs. Why let somebody else pull the trick Flaherty had already pulled?

Ross is young and has broad citywide appeal. He’s the type of politician that any councilor should want to keep out of the public eye—assuming that those councilors see futures for themselves beyond the council’s awful concrete walls. But Ross is about to step closer to the mayor’s office than any of his colleagues, and he’s doing it with their help and unanimous support.

He can thank Maureen Feeney.

The two-year term limits Feeney placed on the presidency didn’t just change the timing of the vote-wrangling and arm-twisting that surrounds the position. It also caused a fundamental shift in councilors’ perceptions of the presidency as a zero-sum position.

The councilors wanted to dump Flaherty two years ago because they felt they were “Enabling him to become mayor,” one says. That’s no longer the case. “It felt different this year,” this person says. Most people figured, “never in a million years would the young guys pick another young guy to be the leader.”

Some of the younger faces on the council were different five yeas ago, but the dynamic is the same. The body then was largely split along generational lines with the young members, backing Flaherty, cooperating and running the show.

Steve Murphy called the arrangement “a house of cards.” He predicted that competing ambitions would eventually turn councilors against each other. “It’s all bound to come down,” he promised the Globe. And he was right.

Some, frustrated by a lack of advancement, left city politics. Others backed Feeney in a bid to take Flaherty down a notch. But then Feeney changed the rules of the game.

Term limits have weakened the political potential inherent in the council presidency, and that means that councilors aren’t giving away their own futures by backing an equally ambitious colleague. It’s a bit like SALT treaties for small-time politics. Nobody is gaining an extraordinary advantage, so everybody’s free to trust each other again.

Because now, all the new council president is guaranteed is two years of reaction quotes in the dailies, and then a swift return to the back bench.

Barack Obama warned supporters yesterday against getting cocky in the final weeks before Election Day. “We don’t take anything for granted,” David Axelrod told the Times.

Seems like a perfect time to begin speculating about what will happen when Obama wins, taps John Kerry for a spot in the State Department or Defense or anything else that’ll save the 2004 presidential loser from worrying about Uxbridge, and Massachusetts finally gets the bloody Senate race we’ve been drooling after for four years now. That wouldn’t jinx the whole thing for everybody, would it?

So, hypothetically and not at all lustily speaking, if Kerry moves up and out, who jumps in?

Attorney General Martha Coakley would seem to be a sure entrant. She’s smart, effective and very well liked by both sides of the Democratic party. But with just over $115,000 in her campaign account, she has less cash on hand than the head of the RMV. That’s a hurdle that needs to be addressed.

War chest-wise, Treasurer Tim Cahill is in better shape—for somebody still schlubbing around Beacon Hill. He’s sitting on top of $312,000, and he’s widely believed to be interested in moving up.

The question is whether he guns for Kerry’s seat, or Deval Patrick’s. We reported back in July that Cahill was feeling bearish about his chances in an open Senate race and might be hedging his bets, beating up on Patrick and waiting for the governor to flub any response to a possible economic collapse.

Well, the damn thing went and collapsed on us, and thus far, Patrick is still standing. Cahill’s strategy may change if the governor continues to refuse to fall on his face for everybody to see. A run for Senate would vaporize the war chest Cahill has worked so hard to amass, but the streets of this town are lined with the bodies of pols who didn’t take the first shot that came their way.

Still, Cahill and Coakley would be fighting any Senate race uphill. The state’s Congressional delegation mobilized for Kerry’s imminent departure once before. They didn’t get to slaughter each other then, so they’re sure to be ready this time around.

There are two fewer contenders now: Marty Meehan took his $4.8 million in campaign cash and decamped to UMass-Lowell, while Barney Frank has ridden the Democrats  majority in the House to a plum committee chairmanship, and all the perks that come with that office.

But that just means that the remaining Reps see the numbers breaking in their favor. Most are well armed for the fight.

Bill Delahunt has $1.28 million on hand. Steve Lynch has $1.3 million. John Tierney: $1.3 million. Richard Neal: $2.1 million. Ed Markey, the delegation’s dean, is sitting on $2.6 million.

Then there are the Congressmen in the poor house. John Olver only has $157,000 to his name. Jim McGovern isn’t too much better off, with $333,000. And Mike Capuano, though sitting on top of a district overflowing with good votes, has just $887,000. Just $887,000.

Yeah, this is the same state where Deval Patrick shocked the political establishment and proved that grassroots blah blah blah. Coakley and Cahill should still get busy getting busy. They may soon find that a couple hundred grand—or even a million or two—doesn’t buy what it used to.

tk

(Cross-posted from Boston Daily)

(Cross-posted from Boston Daily)

Mike Ross beat out Steve Murphy to win the Boston City Council presidency this week. The position comes with a nice big office, the chance to play mayor when the actual mayor blows town, and the honor of presiding over the city’s legislative body during both an economic meltdown and a contentious mayoral race. Congrats, friend.

But it’s only October. And the dreamboat Mission Hill pol already has this thing sewn up. These things usually don’t heat up until November, and don’t get settled until after a series of frantic, eggnog-fueled phone calls. It was a done deal before Hizzoner had a chance to have his say, even. What gives? How’d he pull it off?

Here’s how.

The two-year term limit that Council President Maureen Feeney put on the presidency had a major impact on councilors’ politicking calendars. Last year, Feeney was unopposed when she was reelected president – there was no sense in fighting her because she was doing her job well and will be out of the way in 2009. Everybody wrote off 2008 and focused on 2009. And when they did, the maneuvering to succeed her began exceedingly early.

“Term limits changed the dynamic,” says one City Hall insider. “These things usually go down to the wire.” Instead, everything went down in August and September. “There was no incumbent, and that opened up the gates early,” a second City Hall insider says. At least five councilors could have, conceivably, made a run at the position. Murphy and Ross emerged because they were most successful in cementing their votes early.

Ross might’ve been elected president two years ago, had things broken his way. Six councilors offered to throw their support behind Feeney in 2006. Her own vote would’ve made seven, and won her the office. Instead, she went to Michael Flaherty, who’d been president since 2002, and asked him to stand down the year after. He reportedly agreed. But the next year, he again tried to cobble together the votes to hang on to the presidency. That bid failed, and Feeney won. To the end, Ross stood by Flaherty’s side. In the days before the vote, Flaherty’s remaining supporters began discussing a plan to put Ross forward, in place of the Southie councilor. But it was too late. Feeney already had her votes in place. “Flaherty was doing everything to hold it,” the first insider says, “and it cost Ross the chance to step in as an alternative.”

This time, Flaherty was with Ross. The two are good friends, and Flaherty was Ross’s first backer. Ross also picked up the council’s other prospective mayoral candidate, Sam Yoon, early on. Both would-be candidates worried how Murphy’s ties to the administration might affect their lives on the council, and ambitions. “Yoon’s looking to not get screwed, and Flaherty’s looking for revenge,” the first insider explains. “Flaherty blames Murphy for taking presidency from him.”

In early August, a core of older councilors – Feeney, Bill Linehan, and Sal LaMattina – began coalescing around Murphy. He’s the longest-serving councilor not to have headed the body, and he ran a smooth budget process this year. A Hyde Park resident, he’s generally seen as a Menino loyalist, though he has also bucked the administration – notably, this year, he got the BRA to submit to a Council budget hearing. His detractors seldom mention it, but Murphy is so close to Menino that he can match the mayor, decibel for decibel, and live to talk about it. Let alone remain in Hizzoner’s good graces. Even so, it was the perception that “Murphy will just take care of the administration,” that he “would be cutting deals to protect himself and hammering Yoon and Flaherty,” that helped drive support to Ross.

The Council went on extended vacation for nearly the entire month of August. So when they returned to work in September, things had changed significantly. John Tobin, once thought to be a candidate for president himself, was lining up behind Ross. As was John Connolly, who’s close to Tobin, and, uh, not that close to Murphy. Rob Consalvo, another viable candidate, sided with his Hyde Park neighbor. So in early September, the two factions were deadlocked, with five votes apiece. The thing was over two weeks later.

Chuck Turner broke the deadlock. Ross went to him two days before Murphy did, and he committed. “Nobody else had approached me,” Turner says, adding that he’s been impressed by Ross’s work on the councils Ways and Means and Government Operations committees. “He’s been able to work with every councilor, and he’s been helpful to me. What you need is somebody who’s going to be even-handed. And he has operated in that fashion.”

“That leaves [Mark] Ciommo and [Charles] Yancey,” says a third City Hall insider. “And Yancey’s going to ask for the moon.” “There was the feeling that you can’t trust Yancey,” the first insider adds. “A fear he could dance around,” fishing for a better deal. Ross’s supporters were well aware that Yancey once profited by lining up votes for himself for president, so his colleagues couldn’t break Jim Kelly’s coalition.

Still, Ciommo looked like an unlikely person to give Ross his majority. He won election with the support of Menino, Murphy, and Murphy’s former staffer, State Rep. Mike Moran. Murphy’s camp certainly didn’t anticipate Ciommo siding with Ross. “He’s a mayor’s guy, and there’s the generational thing,” the first insider says. But, again, Ross got to him before Murphy did.

When the Hill and the Hall spoke to Ciommo, he talked about the two coming together around common neighborhood issues, like institutional expansion. He also said he was “proud” to support the council’s first Jewish president. David Bernstein reported Thursday that Ciommo and Ross came together “with help from leaders of Brighton’s Russian Jewish population,” and several people inside City Hall echoed that position. One says that Serge Bologov, who controls the community’s 300-vote bloc, “Helped broker the deal.”

“We’re facing the same issues in our neighborhoods,” Ross says. “We have common friends. Our business is very relationship-based. Common friends go a long way. They were helpful. But he made a difficult decision.”

It was only after Ross had his majority that the real vote-wrangling began. “We had seven, and to me, we could do better as a body,” he says. He had seven votes, and wanted eight or nine or ten. He wound up getting thirteen.

Ciommo committed to Ross last Friday. Word leaked over to the administration. They felt blindsided. “They were bullshit that this happened without them knowing,” the first insider says. Ross’s backers thought it critical that they put together a coalition without the administration’s help, that they walk into a contentious election year and a budget in shambles without owing anybody anything. Otherwise, one said, “The body, and each one of us, would be caught in the crossfire.” “This all came as a surprise as to the administration,” a fourth City Hall insider adds. “They like to be in the mix, and they were clearly taken out of that mix.” That person adds that the mayor “would’ve gotten involved whether Murphy asked him to or not.” Rumors began circulating that the mayor was ratcheting up pressure on Ciommo, viewed as the weakest Ross vote. And for them, it was personal. “The administration thought that, since Yoon and Flaherty were on his team, it was being driven by them,” a Ross supporter says. “It’s not. Look at Flaherty – he’s lobbing bombs with Maureen Feeney as president.”

Then, suddenly, nobody felt like getting bloody. The two sides came together. Ross approached Murphy about merging their campaigns. They spoke Tuesday night, and came to an agreement during Wednesday’s Council meeting, on the Council floor. Their desks are next to each other, anyways. They brought Feeney in on the discussions, and a deal was finalized ten minutes before Wednesday’s surprise press release went out. Some councilors actually learned about the deal from reading the release.

Murphy’s camp believes they might’ve been able to win a protracted fight. They thought their five votes were solid, while a couple of Ross’s backers could be pushed. Ciommo, for one, could’ve been in for a long autumn of vague threats and late-night phone calls. By settling things now, the first insider says, “There’s no civil war.” It’s that concern that ultimately trumped any one councilor’s ambition. “It’s going to be a challenging year anyway,” the second insider says. “To start it off recovering from bitter politicking…”

“I’ve been through this so many times,” Murphy tells us. “It’s so acrimonious, so divisive, so personally troublesome. Everybody would’ve been under pressure. For what? Who needs that? There are things more important than dragging people over a cliff.”

“A battle would look bad for us,” says another insider. “It becomes perverse theatre. People getting calls on Christmas Eve.”

“It was important not get caught in the politics of work, but in substance,” Turner adds. “As a council, we’re showing that we’re not here to play personal politics. People can’t afford politicians to behave the way they have behaved.”

“For the sake of the body, it was important that we all get together,” Ross says. “I like Steve’s people a lot. I like Steve. Three months to go is a long period of time. Why not work with everyone, and pull everyone together?”

The future president, for one, lauds his predecessor for fostering the atmosphere where such a deal could take place. It’s a stark departure from the bitter atmosphere that once shrouded the council. “We’ve had two years where divisiveness wasn’t present, and everyone worked well together,” he says. “She raised the bar for cooperation, for non-acrimony. It’s difficult to keep the workflow going with all the background noise going on. I reached out, I made my case, and he listened and came back and did what’s best for the body. It was harder for him than it was for me. We’ve had a good two years, and we should keep that going.” Feeney spoke Thursday of being “proud” of the détente.

There’s one intriguing theory that surfaced while piecing together this timeline. It went like this: Murphy wasn’t really the administration’s favorite. “Maybe he thought he was legitimate, but they knew that he’d hit the ceiling,” says the theorist. The plan was to peel off a vote from Ross, have Yancey tie up the vote, and send it to a second ballot. Then, another candidate – LaMattina or Consalvo, maybe – would suddenly emerge as a compromise candidate, with the administration’s blessing. 2002, all over again. It’s fascinating. And we’ll likely never know whether or not it’s true.