E-Mail This Article to a Friend Boston’s mayoral race — so far Plus, slot machines and judicial-pay raises

In the race to see who will be Boston’s next mayor there is no doubt that incumbent Thomas Menino is the favorite among the city’s political insiders and it is clear that his challenger, City Councilor Maura Hennigan, has scored more debating points. But both have — so far, at least — one thing in common: they are doing a miserable job of coming to grips with the big issues that most affect Boston’s future. The reason? They are afraid of offending the city’s unionized workers, who — in relative terms — vote in larger numbers than average citizens. Because voters accept this sort of cowardly behavior in election after election, the city suffers.

Boston may be in decent financial shape at the moment. But as a recent report from the Boston Municipal Research Bureau points out, dark days and ominous challenges lie ahead. In the years to come the city is going to be hard-pressed to deliver anything more than basic services such as education, police, and fire protection. Underfunded "amenities" such as parks and libraries will suffer. The quality of life Bostonians cherish will suffer. There is all but no room for what numbers crunchers call discretionary spending and what the rest of us might call good or new ideas. The fact of the matter is that the $200 million city workers have received in pay raises in recent years did not, as the Research Bureau points out, produce any improvements in the delivery of city services.

Boston is not alone. Most cities and towns across the state face a similar squeeze because state legislators lack the guts to change laws that give public workers protections that those in the private sector don’t enjoy. The idea of linking wage-and-benefit increases to higher productivity is almost unspeakable on Beacon Hill. Menino, for the record, favors changing the law. But there is little chance of that happening in time to offer the sort of relief Boston is going to need. What’s Hennigan’s position?

A complex and intra-dependent web of wage increases, pension benefits, and skyrocketing health-insurance costs are combining to create what the Research Bureau calls an "unsustainable" situation for Boston. Menino and Hennigan owe it to voters to spell out in precise detail how they would deal with it. Promising more when they will be faced with delivering less would be dishonest. Wouldn’t it?

Public safety, and the police department’s role in providing it, should also be a key issue in this campaign. So far it hasn’t been, not in any meaningful way. It took a degree of courage for Hennigan to blame Menino for the shooting death last year of Emerson College student Victoria Snelgrove, outside Fenway Park. Menino was wrong as wrong can be to suggest that the subject, an admittedly painful one, was outside the realm of legitimate political discussion. He’s been mayor for more than 12 years, and during that time he’s been willing to take fulsome credit for the department’s accomplishments while dodging responsibility for its failures. And those failures are mounting at an alarming rate. Hennigan may have pushed her attack too far. But Menino has yet to shoulder the uncomfortable executive responsibility for his administration’s failure to police the police.

With the city’s murder rate rising and the rate at which killers are arrested and convicted falling, we’ve all but given up hope that Menino will exhibit the right stuff and institute massive reform of the homicide squad. But we challenge Hennigan to come to terms with the reports of Phoenix writer David S. Bernstein, who has found that not only does Boston have the worst homicide squad in the nation for a city of its size, but that it’s supported by a bush-league ballistics department that is ill-trained and inept (see "The Worst Homicide Squad in the Country" and "Bad Ballistics").

When it comes to dealing with the schools, both candidates have some thoughtful ideas about how to improve the educational environment. But neither one seems to want to tackle the painfully incompetent bureaucracy that administers the system. It’s not a sexy issue. Still, anyone with children in the system knows that while the situation in the classroom is improving, the system that services the schools stinks. School assignments, an admittedly thorny problem, may be the most important matter to address. But the performance of the non-teaching workforce continues to compromise the gains made by Superintendent Payzant. Menino and Hennigan should speak up. And please be specific.

SLOT MACHINES

The State Senate has passed a bill that would allow horse and dog tracks to install slot machines in race parks. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on it any day now.

The big problem with this bill is that it smacks of special interests. It’s a bailout for a form of gambling that the public has long since lost its taste for. Without slots, horse- and dog racing could die. Horseracing in its various forms has some very definite economic benefits that derive not only from the tracks, but also from the farms needed to support the horses. Dog racing — with its too-often inhumane treatment of greyhounds — on the other hand, is a sport that few will mourn if it passes.

Gambling is a fact of economic life. A University of Massachusetts study found that the Bay State’s residents spent $831 million in Connecticut casinos last year, enriching that state’s treasury by $116 million. There is a good-to-reasonable chance that Rhode Island will soon legalize casino gambling. Massachusetts should do the same. The benefits are tangible: more tax revenue and more and perhaps even better jobs than the tracks now offer.

Treat gambling like an economic opportunity, not a narrow special interest.

JUDICIAL-PAY RAISES

The good news is that judges in Massachusetts appear ready to receive a long-awaited and much-deserved pay raise. The amount — 15 percent — may seem like a lot, but judges haven’t had a raise in almost six years. As it is, Massachusetts has one of the lowest judicial-pay scales in the nation. The time and effort that it has taken to get even this raise through is just another indication that in this state, the court system is a branch of government less equal than the legislative or the executive. Elected officials of all stripes are quick to criticize the judiciary and paint it as an out-of-control branch, when in fact its fortunes are all too often held hostage to the whims and grandstanding of those who do the criticizing. Even as the raise approached its final days of consideration, some were suggesting that it be spread over three years in order to slow down the exit of judges who might retire because the lump-sum increase made the prospect more appealing. If that were to happen, the reasoning goes, Romney would be able to make more appointments to the bench. It’s probably safe to say that few have been more critical of Romney than this paper, but playing politics with the courts has to stop somewhere and this raise is a good place to start.