The assassin

Every mayor needs one

by Yvonne Abraham

Nex to the mayor, he is one of the biggest shots at City Hall -- and the one with the scariest reputation.

His name is Peter Welsh, but municipal insiders call him the Assassin.

"He wields incredible power," says one city councilor. "He's got that instinctual connection with the mayor -- they both play politics as blood sport."

Welsh, the mayor's chief policy adviser, earned his reputation four years back, with Tom Menino's ascension to the mayor's office. By that time, Menino had been Welsh's district councilor, and City Hall colleague, for 10 years (Welsh had worked for Mayor Ray Flynn since his 1983 election), and the two had become good friends.

When Flynn left for the Vatican, Welsh, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, was almost through a night-school law degree, and on his way out of City Hall. But Menino, then acting mayor, asked him to stay on, and Welsh helped him get elected in 1993, promoting the Urban Mechanic image that would eventually become a millstone around the mayor's neck.

"We were victims of our own success," says Welsh, sitting at the conference table in his office overlooking Faneuil Hall. "We got elected on the basis of being able to do nuts-and-bolts government very well. Then the press said, `Okay, where's the vision?' "

It's a knee-jerk criticism that continues to dog the Menino administration to this day, despite the mayor's strenuous efforts. Those early impressions sure can be hard to shake, as Welsh discovered firsthand.

It was he who presided over the transition between the Flynn and Menino reigns. "When you first become mayor, there have to be changes in an administration," Menino says. "Peter was the person to make them, and he did it effectively and without many problems." Translation: folks had to be canned, and it was Welsh who did the canning (often, municipal wags say, when Menino was out of town).

There was irony in Welsh's role as chief henchman for the new order. A few years earlier, he'd been the acclaimed, highly visible head of the city's Inspectional Services Department (ISD) when the Herald busted some of his inspectors for literally snoozing on the job. In response, Flynn hung Welsh out to dry, kicking him down to a job as city liaison to the Central Artery/Tunnel project. Menino, unlike most city officials, publicly defended Welsh, and criticized Flynn. "It's a witch-hunt," he told the Globe. Those who knew him at the time say Welsh was deeply embarrassed by the transfer to administrative oblivion.

Welsh's critics accuse him of having exacted revenge after his political rebirth, dismissing Flynn loyalists from the Menino administration with relish. Not so, he protests. "I did what I had to do, and I'm happy to be doing other things now," says Welsh, who insists his firing days are long gone. "Would the mayor come to me now and ask my opinion about who stays or goes?" he asks. "Absolutely. Would I be the one who [fires them]? No. I don't do that any more."

After more than 15 years at City Hall, Welsh, 46, knows his way around the bureaucracy. And despite his Ivy League education and law degree, he's much more neighborhood guy than policy wonk. A devoted father of two boys, ages nine and 13, he has coached kids' sports in Forest Hills for years, and holds weekly meetings with the city's neighborhood services people. He's in close touch with ordinary folk.

If Menino wants anything done on schools, youth programs, public safety, inspectional services, or public health -- all issues to which the chief policy adviser is genuinely committed -- it's Welsh who usually gets it done. And if people want to get to the mayor on any of those issues, they've usually got to go through him.

"I'm one of the mayor's closest advisers, a real sounding board for him," says Welsh, proudly. He seems happy to have relinquished the visibility of his ISD days for the prestige of the inner circle.

When Menino announced the 2 to 6 After School Program for the city's children, he put Welsh, not the school department, on the job to make sure things happen. And when he announced plans to ban smoking in restaurants a couple of weeks ago, it was Welsh who dealt with the angry hospitality-industry folks. "I'm in the best position to persuade those restaurant people," Welsh says. "They know I speak for the mayor, and that my door's open to listen to them."

Menino is the most hands-on of mayors, but he trusts Welsh more than he trusts most of his employees. That gives Welsh more muscle than city councilors, and even his admirers say he isn't shy about flexing. Those who like him call him extremely straightforward. Those who do not call him ruthless.

Welsh proudly owns the hardball reputation, but insists he uses his powers for good, not evil. "I'm very involved in this city," he says. "I'm the one taxpayers come up to -- me and the mayor -- and say, `This baseball field is a disgrace.' I hate that. It's the most embarrassing thing to me, so I come in here on a tear. And I wouldn't want to change that. Taxpayers have a right to be demanding."

Chief of staff David Passafaro, another of the mayor's top advisers, says he's responsible for as many unpopular decisions as Welsh is, but only Welsh gets called the bad guy. "That's just really a very unfair and cheap characterization of the role he plays," he says. "We all have duties that upset people. Sometimes I'm the heavy and sometimes Peter is. I know him personally, and we do a lot of things together, and he's a big teddy bear."

The plush-toy characterization will no doubt have many at City Hall diving under their desks for a good guffaw (including, perhaps, Welsh himself). Folks are often happy to comment, on the record and for attribution, about teddy bears. But few normally reliable City Hall sources would go anywhere near Welsh -- on or off the record.

One who would is former Boston Redevelopment Authority chief and Flynn loyalist Paul Barrett, who charges that Welsh's devotion to Menino extends to punishing those who offend the mayor. "He feeds the petty part of the mayor's personality," Barrett says. "He keeps score and exacts retribution. And I don't think that serves either the city or the mayor well."

Welsh's critics accuse him of such unseemly acts as getting involved in city council elections on Menino's behalf, retracting City Hall parking privileges to punish wayward officials, and making sure councilors who offend the mayor have trouble getting things done for constituents.

Bosh, says Welsh, amused but not irritated. "We don't spend a lot of time punishing enemies," he says. "People make more of that than is true. It's amazing to me that people think we sit over here and worry over them. We're really much too busy to do things like that. To think we sit here and make lists is foolish."

Still, reputations endure. Just ask the Urban Mechanic.

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