City Council Candidates Responds to Chinatown Issues

Next Tuesday, April 17 is the City Council District 2 elections. District 2 includes Chinatown, South Boston, Bay Village, Leather District and the South End. There are 7 candidates running. After the preliminary election on April 17, the final 2 candidates will square off in May. For those who may be unfamiliar with Chinatown politics, former District 2 City Councilor Jim Kelly passed away recently, thus creating the need for this special election. The candidates running for the City Council seat are:

Robert O’Shea
Bill Linehan
Brian Mahoney
Susan Passoni
Mary Cooney
Bob Ferrara
Ed Flynn

Seven candidates can be confusing. Let’s separate them by the issues. The Asian Pacific American Agenda Coalition (APAAC) submitted a questionnaire for each candidate to answer. There were seven questions in which each candidate can respond with a YES or NO. Some candidates chose not to answer some of the questions – which the Chinatown Blogger interprets as a NO. (Since none of the candidates actually gave a NO on any issue, any questions left unanswered was assumed to be a NO.)

These were the questions (and because the Chinatown Blogger hates cryptic messages, I will also explain in plain English what the implications for supporting each issue will be):

1) Creation of a City Planning Department which separates the planning and redevelopment (of the city)? (Plain English: This is an obvious attack on the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), the development arm of Mayor Menino. The criticism of the BRA is that there is a conflict of interest to act as both city planner and developer – with revenues gained from redevelopment primarily driving the city planning process. A YES on this questions means going against the Mayor.)
YES: O’Shea, Passoni, Cooney, Ferrera
NO: Linehan, Mahoney, Flynn

2) Tenants Right to Organize? (Plain English: Property owners and landlords generally do not like having their tenants organize. A NO means siding with the property owners.)
YES: O’Shea, Passoni, Cooney, Ferrera
NO: Linehan, Mahoney, Flynn

3) No more zoning relief for luxury towers around Chinatown? (Plain English: See question #1. Stop developers from continuing to violate the zoning codes. The BRA generates revenues by encouraging developers to build over the allowable zoning laws in the City – revenues before planning. The BRA would dispute what I just wrote.)
YES: O’Shea, Mahoney, Passoni, Cooney
NO: Linehan, Ferrera, Flynn

4) Retarget affordable housing resources to those most in need? (Plain English: The income affordability guidelines are out of whack, a person making $50k/yr is considered eligible for affordable housing. Use those money to build more low-income housing targeting people making incomes of $30k or less per year.)
YES: O’Shea, Mahoney, Passoni, Cooney, Ferrera
NO: Linehan, Flynn

5) Support Chinatown branch library? (Plain English: No-brainer why any of the candidates would not support it. It’s a safe issue.)
YES: Everyone

6) Support increased bilingual beat police (officers) and emergency medical technicians? (Plain English: Hire more Asian officers and ambulance helpers.)
YES: Everyone

7) Support integrated English ESOL and skills training? (Plain English: Spend money to help bilingual speakers with job training.)
YES: O’Shea, Linehan, Mahoney, Passoni, Cooney
NO: Ferrera, Flynn

Whew, that was a lot. Let me get back later and give some analysis of the candidates position and what people are saying in Chinatown. Also I’ll check in on what the word on the street is.