Mayor thomas m menino biography

July 12, Becomes acting mayor when Flynn accepts an ambassadorship to the Vatican. January Oversees the merger of the declining Boston City Hospital with BU Medical Center, an effort to improve care for poor citizens that results in the creation of the privatized Boston Medical Center. May Becomes president of the U. Conference of Mayors, a position he holds for 13 months.

The Seaport District is born. July 26—29, Displays his national muscle by bringing the Democratic National Convention to Boston, where John Kerry is nominated for president. Menino took office amid the "Boston Miracle", a successful joint effort by police, churches, and neighborhood groups which worked to decrease youth-on-youth violence.

This ended on December 11,when a sixteen year old was murdered in Dorcester. In NovemberMenino appointed James M. Hussey as acting police commissioner, following the departure of Commissioner Paul F. Evans to serve as interim police commissioner following Davis' departure. In Octobercontroversy arose surrounding Menino's decision to evict members of the Occupy Boston protest on the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

Menino later commented that "I sympathize with their issues, some of those issues we really have to look at in America, but when it comes to civil disobedience I will not tolerate civil disobedience in the city of Boston. The encampment had been running for seventy days before this. The removal of it occurred peacefully. In his last year in office, the Boston Marathon bombing took place.

Menino, who had been recovering in the hospital from a leg fracture he had been hospitalized for three days prior to the attacks confining him to a wheelchairchecked himself out of the hospital against the advice of his doctor in order to attend to the aftermath of the attacks and be present at the city's initial press conference after the attack.

No adversity, no challenge, nothing can tear down the resilience in the heart of the city and its people. Menino oversaw negotiations that led to the January merger of the Boston City Hospital which had been declining, and was in financial trouble with the BU Medical Center. This merger had been arranged with the aim of improving healthcare for the city's more impoverished residents.

Mayor thomas m menino biography

This merger resulted in the establishment of the privatized Boston Medical Center. In the early s, Menino was an early supporter of efforts to pass a statewide ban in Massachusetts on smoking in indoor workplaces. As he had during his tenure on the Boston City Council, Menino supported needle exchange programs as mayor. In Menino publicly criticized drugstore chains for failing to open clinics in the city of Boston.

The state of Massachusetts had moved to permit drugstores to open clinics, and while many had opened in the suburbs, none had opened in the city of Boston. Inin an effort to fight childhood obesityMenino banned sodas from Boston Public Schools. One of the most innovative ideas has been green building zoning, which requires large-scale private construction to be "green" by LEED standards.

Boston is the first city to revise its building code to ensure green construction. Under Menino, Boston became the first major city in the United States to incorporate green building standards in its zoning codes. Boston changed its zoning codes to require private construction larger than 50, square feet to adhere to the U. The plan was ultimately shelved.

Davey jointly announced a number of planned changes aimed at quelling this. This included the installation "time to destination" message signs intended at informing drivers of when to avoid taking routes through the district, pedestrian enhancements, re-striping the Evelyn Moakley Bridge 's surface to direct mayors thomas m menino biography towards Interstate 93"smart parking" sendsors to allow mobile applications to help drivers find vacant parking spaces, and the previously discussed creation of ferry boat service between South Boston and East Boston with plans for such service to be launched the following year.

Menino was mayor for most of the years of the Big Dig[ ] a state-run megaproject overseen by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. InMenino commented against the state's plans to replace the Monsignor William J. Casey Overpass in Jamaica Plainsaying that he would preferred them to instead reconstruct the overpass with a park below it.

He negatively referred to the planned demolition as a "second Big Dig" in reference to the Big Dig's difficulties. Three times between the years andBoston was ranked by Bicycling magazine as one of the worst cities in the United States for bicycling. Olympic cyclist Nicole Freedman headed the program for several years. O'Brien worked to find a new location on the city's waterfront for the venue.

Menino was an important supporter of the revitalization of Dorcester's Strand Theatre. Menino was an important supporter of the construction of the Calderwood Pavilion. Support from the city and its Boston Redevelopment Authority were critical to the construction of the venue. Menino gave some financial assistance and in kind services to support the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company 's free performances of the works of William Shakespeare on the Boston Common.

InMenino relaunched the Boston Arts Festival. Menino created a position of city poet laureateinstalling Samuel James Cornish as the first holder of this position in Among the nonprofits that were asked to participate were ten cultural groups. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts complained about the program, and instead contributed only one-fifth the amount that the city had asked it to contribute.

The remaining seven cultural groups disregarded the city's request. This program was ultimately seen as straining Menino's relations with many of the city's major cultural relationships. During Menino's tenure, the city had regularly ranked towards the bottom five among the United States' 30 largest cities in regards to the total amount of funds that it spent annually on arts, per data collected by Americans for the Arts.

This mayor thomas m menino biography lasted two years. Early into his tenure, Menino promised to help open more grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods, in order to combat food deserts. Among other actions, Menino would, during his tenure, use city funding and American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funding to catalyze the establishment of grocery stores.

Inin an effort to fight childhood obesity, Menino banned sodas from Boston Public Schools. In NovemberMenino launched the Urban Agriculture Initiative, which piloted urban agriculture at two city-owned pieces of land in Dorchester. This ordinance allowed food trucks to operate on the streets of Boston. Started inthe Mayor's Youth Council, which consisted of high school students representing each of the city's fifteen neighborhoods, met with Menino twice a month to discuss youth issues in the city of Boston.

InMenino vetoed two consecutive City Council-approved maps for redistricting. There was controversy regarding the maps' impact on racial distribution among constituencies. Menino approved a third map that had amendments by City Councilor Tito Jackson. Inthe FBI opened a corruption probe into Menino, which it ultimately closed without any charges.

Menino defended these comments as a "joke". The Boston Globe found there was no actual telecommunications contracts that were up for bid when Menino made these comments. Criticism of Menino included accusations that he took actions as mayor that benefited his supporters and punished his foes. Menino enjoyed strong popularity. Menino's perennial popularity garnered him the tongue-in-cheek epithet "Mayor for Life.

Menino made appearances at community events, such as parades and community meetings. Menino, who famously was dubbed, and even styled himself, as an "urban mechanic", had a reputation for focusing strongly on "nuts and bolts" issues. In Marcha Boston Globe poll not only showed Menino with a strong approval rating, but also found that nearly three-fourths of respondents believed that the city was heading in the "right direction".

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. Tenure of Thomas Menino as the mayor of Boston. Politics [ edit ]. Acting mayoralty July—November [ edit ]. See also: Boston mayoral election. Reelection campaigns [ edit ]. See also: Boston mayoral electionBoston mayoral electionBoston mayoral electionand Boston mayoral election.

National politics [ edit ]. Fiscal matters [ edit ]. Social issues [ edit ]. Gay rights [ edit ]. Urban development [ edit ]. Accusations of favoritism towards developers [ edit ]. Downtown Boston Business Improvement District [ edit ]. Dudley Square Nubian Square [ edit ]. Housing [ edit ]. Neighborhood development [ edit ]. Seaport District [ edit ].

Sports venues [ edit ]. Education [ edit ]. Charter schools [ edit ]. Public safety and law enforcement [ edit ]. Public health [ edit ]. Mayor Menino's reputation for getting the job done earned him a high approval rating among Boston residents. His main priorities were: providing every child with a quality education; creating affordable housing; lowering the crime rate; revitalizing Boston's neighborhoods; and promoting a healthy lifestyle for all city residents.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino records, City of Boston Archives. Skip to main content. Menino records Series. Identifier: Citation Print Generating Staff Only. Tom Menino did all this big stuff, but he did the small and the not-so-small stuff, too. He launched rolling rallies to celebrate champion- ships. He started a vibrant bike program and fixed up schoolyards.

He drove around the city, scouting potholes, graffiti, and light outages—and getting them fixed. His home phone number was listed and he would often respond to constituent calls late into the night. Following his final term in JanuaryMayor Menino joined Boston University to serve as Co-Director of the newly founded Initiative on Cities, where he continued to help mayors and community leaders make cities safer, more prosperous, and more sustainable.

Tom Menino and his wife, the former Angela Faletra, have been the proud and devoted parents of Susan and her husband, Williamand Thomas, Jr.