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OPEN GOVERNMENT
Back-door men?
BY ADAM REILLY
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Forget the old saw about bad publicity not existing. During a political campaign, the last thing any candidate wants is to be embroiled in legal action. But this year, members of the Boston City Council find themselves linked to not one but two pieces of litigation. The first, a federal lawsuit accusing Boston of violating the rights of minority voters, only tangentially involves the council. But the second, charging the council with multiple violations of the state’s open-meeting law, is another matter. According to this suit, which has its first Suffolk Superior Court hearing on Thursday, August 11, several councilors have a nasty habit of holding illegal, closed-door meetings without the requisite public knowledge or oversight. Several of these meetings allegedly took place with representatives of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the powerful and opaque agency in charge of city planning and development, prior to a December 2004 council vote to extend the BRA’s urban-renewal powers. And just for good measure, the suit also accuses members of the council of closed-door deliberations involving one of the city’s hot-button issues, Boston University’s controversial new biolab facility. When the lawsuit was filed this spring, a spokesperson for Michael Flaherty, the at-large councilor and city-council president, dismissed it as a political stunt — and to be fair, there’s reason to wonder if it might be. After all, one of the three plaintiffs, Kevin McCrea, is an at-large city-council candidate with a nose for publicity. Earlier this week, however, McCrea insisted that his intentions — and those of his fellow plaintiffs — are beyond reproach. "It’s not politically motivated; it’s motivated for the good of the city," McCrea said. "We need democracy here in Boston, and part of that democracy is having citizen oversight over planning and development in this city." Whatever the plaintiffs’ motivations, one thing is clear: if this case gains momentum, several incumbent councilors may find themselves on the hot seat awfully close to Boston’s final election in November.
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