Civics lesson

Part 3

by Yvonne Abraham

What began as your garden-variety neighborhood dispute quickly moved beyond issues of traffic congestion, crowded cafeterias -- and the kids -- to race and politics. "I wouldn't say everybody in the neighborhood is opposed to having the bilingual program here," says Hennigan, "but for some people it is an issue. Some people . . . have said to me that if we get rid of the bilingual program, that might solve the problem."

The neighbors say they are horrified at such suggestions. "We are extremely upset about the accusation that we're anti-bilingual education," says Jack Moynihan, who lives by the school. "For somebody to pull that race card, that's just not right. That is the most reprehensible remark."

"They're saying we're racist and xenophobic," says Linda Murray, another resident whose property abuts the school's. "These are just little children. It's sad. It's terrible sad." Jim Murray, her husband, is equally angry: "What threat does a five- or six-year-old Latino kid pose to our neighborhood?"

The Murrays, a middle-aged couple with indignation to burn, don't think the Lyndon is so hot, anyway: it's a symbol of union-busting, says Jim Murray. And of demagoguery. "I'm telling you," he says, "this is a conspiracy that this city council and this on-site school board is perpetrating on this neighborhood. It's disgraceful. Maura Hennigan didn't want this community to know anything that was going on."

Hennigan is not popular among some of the school's neighbors. In this case, she doesn't mind. "I'm going to do whatever it takes to get this passed," she says. What she has done so far has been to prevent the city's capital budget (which includes the $3.8 million for the Lyndon renovations) from being approved. She has put together a coalition consisting of herself, council president James Kelly, district councilors Maureen Feeney and Diane Modica, and at-large councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen, to prevent a nine-councilor majority, required to pass the capital budget, from forming. Hennigan hastens to add that the Lyndon is not the only issue holding up the budget, but it looks to be the crucial one.

Councilor Dan Conley, meanwhile, is on the neighbors' side. "I've been a city councilor since 1994," he says. "I voted to re-open and renovate the school, and I was not aware that there needed to be an expansion." He wants the Lyndon to be relocated to a new site, which he admits has gotten him some heat from constituents with kids at the school. "My heart is in the right place," he says. "I bet when a new site is found and the school is open, everyone's going to forget about this expansion."

The dispute has prompted some serious political intrigue, and made former council allies into enemies. Conley has been trying to form his own majority behind a proposal to have the Lyndon's $3.8 million allocation taken out of the capital budget. He says Hennigan, as Ways and Means chair, has successfully prevented that from getting to a vote. Conley says it's because she's afraid she'll lose; Hennigan says that it hasn't gotten to the floor because Conley couldn't get the votes.

Hennigan has been criticized for holding the capital budget hostage. "She has to use that position responsibly," says Sam Tyler, head of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, "and be thinking in the best interests of the city and less of parochial or constituent interests." John Nucci, a harsh critic of this city council, sees the current situation as just the kind of thing that makes it "the joke it's become."

"All the councilors holding up the budget are playing silly games," he says. "Each councilor believes the world begins and ends at the borders of their district. There are serious issues involved here."

Hennigan and Conley may well be acting entirely on the basis of their strong feelings about the Lyndon, and the needs of their constituents. But because this is an election year, and because this has been such a turbulent few months at City Hall, the fate of the Lyndon School may well be decided on the basis of less-noble considerations.

Revenge, for example.

On June 11, the mayor put together a coalition that pushed the city's operating budget through the council on the first try -- which was unprecedented in Boston. That coalition made an end-run around a dominant, and hitherto nearly invincible, clique of councilors: James Kelly, Diane Modica, Maureen Feeney, and Maura Hennigan. The balance of power in the chamber had shifted. That old majority seems determined not to be undermined this time, especially since the mayor needs nine of the 13 councilors' votes to pass the capital budget. So Hennigan's four traditional allies may be siding with her on the Lyndon to re-assert their authority. (Peggy-Davis Mullen, usually an opponent of school expansions, and a natural ally of Conley on the issue, declined to support his amendment, for which Hennigan says she is grateful.)

As the Lyndon saga has dragged on, the key councilor on the issue has turned out to be Gareth Saunders (see "Campaign snapshot"), who, back on June 11, made it very clear that he was voting with the anti-Kelly majority to strike a blow for the new order. He may be the key to a Conley victory on the Lyndon. Hennigan says Saunders was originally in favor of the school expansion. "Usually, on education, Saunders and Charles Yancey are very supportive," says Hennigan. "I told the administration that I already had Gareth's vote. But, Hennigan says, Saunders changed his mind.

Hennigan says Menino adviser Peter Welsh went to Saunders and told him he could have "anything he wanted," perhaps even support in his tough upcoming re-election fight, if he opposed the expansion. "I've always gotten along with Gareth," says Hennigan. "But if you can't be your own person and vote the way you want to, why be here?"

Saunders denies that anyone from Menino's office has put pressure on him to oppose the expansion. Indeed, he insists that he is undecided and has been from the start. "I'm making my decision right now," he says. "I've always kept an open mind to both sides of the argument." He did take a tour of the Lyndon last week, though, and believes "it won't affect the neighborhood as much as some of the abutters say it would."

He is, however, angry with Hennigan. "The chair of Ways and Means has been able to put her political capital and her relationships with other councilors on the line to make this happen," he says. "It has strained our relationship."

Saunders says Hennigan has lobbied him too aggressively, had too many constituents bombard his office with calls, and spread the misinformation that he is against bilingual education.

He has also had pressure from the other side. But there is more at stake for Saunders than the school. He says he has found himself in a "very delicate" situation, politically, since June 11. "We have a new coalition of councilors, who voted for the [operating] budget and pulled some of the power away from that little [Kelly] clique. The clique that approved the operating budget is pretty much the group of people who are advocating for the abutters. It would be a poor signal if I'd have voted against the clique so quickly after we established a new presence on the council."

Saunders hastens to add that he is not playing politics with the school, however. "When I make a decision, I have to make it on the basis first of how it affects the people. But remember, I need six supporters to pass things I need done here."

Clearly, Mayor Menino wants to resolve the Lyndon issue so that he can get his capital budget approved. But the Lyndon renovation issue is troublesome even apart from its entanglement with the capital budget. The whole controversy pits Menino's "Education Mayor" image against his need to retain voter support in an important district. The fact that he's in this pickle, Hennigan suggests, has made him reluctant to act at all.

A feasibility study, done with $46,000 of Boston Public Schools money, was begun several months ago; official word from City Hall is that it hasn't been completed. Hennigan firmly believes the report has been finished for a while, and that Menino is holding onto it because it favors the extension. Either way, at press time, things were basically at an impasse. The whole matter may be decided at the next council meeting, on August 20. Until then, Menino's people will be trying to fashion a compromise so that the budget doesn't get held up yet again.

Meanwhile, kids coming back on September 3 to the little school on Russett Street will have to adjust to a few changes: increased hostility from the neighbors, for one thing, and a satellite campus. They still won't have a library or a gymnasium, and the cafeteria will be even more crowded. And parents whose kids are just entering kindergarten at the Annunciation Church won't be sure where their kids will end up.

Whichever way it shakes out, the Lyndon school controversy is now about more than just its students. Much to the chagrin of their parents.

"People seem to have forgotten this is about educating children," says PTA co-chair Ernest Garneau. "Frankly, I don't care who's doing what to whom on city council. I don't want my children held hostage in political battles."

Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yabraham[a]phx.com.