Vowing to listen, learn, and lead, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh puts his humility front and center in an inaugural address that comes more from the heart than the head, CommonWealth reports. The Globe ’s Jim O’Sullivan and Kevin Cullen sound similar themes in sizing up a new mayor whose more inclusive inclinations contrast sharply with the style of his predecessor.
Cullen says that, in the immigrant household Walsh grew up in, “humility was valued, bragging and arrogance frowned on.” O’Sullivan says the “listen and lead” tack dates back to Walsh’s reelection as state rep in 2012 in a reconfigured district with new constituents. As part of the mayoral inaugural address, he reports that Walsh insiders viewed it as a “fringe benefit” that the theme also served to signal a sharp break from Tom Menino’s top-down style, in which dissent and debate were as welcome as a Yankee fan in the Fenway bleachers.
The Herald doesn’t waste time raining on the inaugural parade. If some view the transition in City Hall as a breath of fresh air, Howie Carr sensed the stale stench of the Ray Flynn years — “minus the nightcaps at J.J.’s.” One good thing, he said, was the absence of much focus on income equality or A Tale of Two Cities. Those were themes of New York’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, and Walsh had many progressive types in Boston panting at the idea that he was cut from the same cloth. This sliver of good news, in Carr’s mind, may be a cautionary moment for Walsh’s new lefty friends.
Joe Battenfeld thinks less than a day on the job is about enough time to render a verdict on Walsh, and it won’t please the liberals and minority activists who flocked to his camp. He points to yesterday’s word that state Rep. Eugene O’Flaherty, Walsh’s closest pal in the Legislature, will be named the city’s corporation counsel as evidence that Boston’s “old boy network” is alive and well in Walsh world.
Walsh is hardly the unabashed liberal some tried to make him out to be, but it does seem Batts is jumping the gun just a little in wondering whether all the talk of inclusive, diverse leadership is just that. But nuance isn’t the Herald’s thing. Neither, it seems, is an abiding devotion to facts. So it is that Battenfeld mistakenly says throwback City Councilor Bill Linehan, who was elected the body’s president yesterday, is “now in charge of the wretched South Boston St. Patrick’s Day roast.” Did Battenfeld sleep through the huge dust-up over this just four months ago, from which state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry emerged with the undisputed (though perhaps dubious) honor of emceeing the breakfast? He also turns John Barros from Cape Verdean to “Haitian-American,” but whatever.
A Globe editorial sums things up best by essentially calling off all the soothsayers and tea leaf readers who tried to find great meaning in what was fundamentally a day of pomp and ceremony. “It was a fine, well-managed event,” says the paper. “But the most important work is what comes next.
–MICHAEL JONAS
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
A Worcester family complains about the neighbor from hell, a Catholic church.
New mayors took the keys to the city in Brockton , Chicopee , West Springfield , and Leominster while returning occupants of the offices in New Bedford , Fall River , Pittsfield , Quincy , Westfield , Holyoke , Gardner , Fitchburg , and Northampton vowed to renew their efforts and energy to keep the status quo that voters apparently liked so much.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
The Supreme Court issued a temporary halt to gay marriages in Utah while the state appeals a federal judge’s decision to overturn its ban on same-sex marriages.
Janet Yellen is confirmed as chair of the Federal Reserve Bank. Business Insider proclaims her the the most powerful woman in US history.
ELECTIONS
Tech types are (understandably) bullish on Marty Walsh’s chief of staff, Daniel Koh.
Tom Menino takes his leave.
Steve Koczela of the MassINC Polling Group tracks fundraising in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race and points out that while pols like to talk about the number of small donors they have their real money comes from big donors.
Bill Linehan of South Boston is elected president of the Boston City Council by an 8-5 vote over Ayanna Pressley, WBUR reports.
EDUCATION
St. John’s Prep in Danvers goes on high alert after written threats are discovered inside a school bathroom, NECN reports.
Two Brockton school employees were placed on paid administrative leave after officials discovered they were lending department supplies to private businesses.
HEALTH CARE
Health care spending as a share of the economy shrinks, according to statistics compiled by the Washington Post’s Wonkblog.
WBUR crunches the data and comes up with an analysis comparing Massachusetts hospitals on five aspects of childbirth, including Cesarean sections, early elective deliveries, and episiotomies.
MARATHON BOMBINGS
The family of Marathon bombing victim Martin Richard establishes a foundation that will support education, athletics, and community efforts in his memory.
TRANSPORTATION
State transportation officials are extending the use of the Southeast Expressway’s HOV “zipper lane” by two hours, opening it to traffic at 1 pm rather than 3 pm, to help ease expected congestion from the closure of the Callahan Tunnel.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
Lowell turns its former landfill into a solar farm, the Sun reports.
Somerset residents at a public hearing last night urged state officials to explore switching the coal-fired Brayton Point power plant to natural gas to keep the plant from closing and eliminating the tax revenues the town receives.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
The Board of Bar Overseers, in a decision handed down in November but just made public, reprimanded former Probation Department counsel Christopher Bulger for leaking information to his former boss, John O’Brien, during the investigation of O’Brien.
A chemist at the state crime lab in Amherst pleads guilty to stealing drugs and is sentenced, the Lowell Sun reports.
In an editorial, the Salem News condemns the Supreme Judicial Court decision barring life sentences without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders. The paper said the court is too eager to protect the rights of killers.
MEDIA
Using Ezra Klein’s departure from the Washington Post as his chief example, Northeastern’s Dan Kennedy suggests news organizations should embrace a network approach to the news.
