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CITY HALL
A tale of two Toms
BY ADAM REILLY

Love him or hate him, Tom Menino is a regular guy — not, most Bostonians would agree, the second coming of either Albert Schweitzer or Attila the Hun. But if you walked the length of the union picket lines outside Menino’s State of the City address Tuesday night, or scored a seat inside John Hancock Hall for the event itself, you’d never have guessed it.

Let’s take the unions first. While some picketers’ signs were measured responses to the lengthy impasse between Menino and labor, others were a wee bit harsher. For example, TOYS FOR TOM: $20 MILLION PARTY, $25K RAISE, FREE GOLF gave an overly cynical take on (among other things) the upcoming Democratic National Convention. But that paled in comparison to this one: TOM MENINO — THE DEMOCRAT WHO HATES UNIONS. Meanwhile, anyone arriving at Menino’s speech risked being shouted down as though they were headed to afternoon tea with Pol Pot. As guests walked past metal guardrails set up to keep protesters separate from attendees, various angry shouts — "Shame!" "Hang your head, you scumbag!" — filled the air.

The good news, for all those Menino fans out there, is that the mayor more than made up for it inside. The State of the City speech itself was moderate in tone, assertive but not boastful. But the same can’t be said for the lengthy tributes dedicated to Hizzonah at the start of the evening. Stephanie Alves, a recent Jeremiah E. Burke High School graduate and recipient of an award from the mayor’s City of Boston Scholarship Fund, welcomed the crowd with a cheery laundry list of all the ways Menino has improved Boston over the past decade. It was a neat, somewhat dirty trick, warming up the audience with a gushing tribute from a photogenic teen who mentioned that — despite her recent knee surgery — she just had to be there to sing Menino’s praises. And then Sister Maryadele Robinson of South Boston’s Labouré Center gave the invocation and took it to the next level. "We thank you," Robinson told God, "for our mayor’s strong leadership, his hard work, his practical approach to finding good solutions to problems, his frequent presence in our neighborhoods, his achievement in improving our schools, his fine partnering with the business community, his belief in the mission of nonprofit service organizations, the way he values long-time residents with their history of stability, hard work, and faithfulness, and the way he welcomes new immigrants with the vitality and creativity which they bring." That should cover it. (Then, for good measure, Robinson thanked God for the directors and staff of various city agencies, departments, and commissions.)

It was almost a relief when the man himself took the stage and offered his 2004 State of the City address in his infamous half-mumble, referring to himself as "The Urban Mechanic" and "not a fancy talker" and delivering such lines as "Boston is getting back on a roll — like the Patriots!"

Forget all that Evil Tom/Holy Tom back-and-forth. This, for better or worse, is the real Menino.


Issue Date: January 16 - 22, 2004
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