Cambridge Mayor Ken Reeves landed some body blows against his opponents in a funny and fast-paced recent appearance on WTKK 96.9. Reeves attacked the Cambridge Chronicle (“I think it’s a newspaper”) as a “vendetta-ridden rag,” and charmed his host, disgraced bigot “Islam is a terrorist organization” Michael Graham, into accepting his invitation to tour, “the most fascinating, interesting, funky little city in the world.” Graham, standing in for make-believe Pulitzer winner Jay Severin — probably off at a Hillary Clinton fundraiser — accepted right away: “I can’t wait to go.”
Reeves has been the subject of a months-long Starr-esque investigation into his travel spending by the Chronicle. The story was given a bit of extra juice three weeks ago when Reeves revealed that he does not keep detailed receipts for his expenses and relies on credit card statements — a practice, however deficient, that meets official City of Cambridge requirements. The Herald caught up last week.
The controversy appears now to have been reduced to a single issue: who did Reeves have a $521 dinner with one night in New York. The Mayor says it was City business and he’s not obliged to tell Michael Graham. The former comedian/Pat Buchanan staffer (is there a difference?) was reduced to plaintively repeating this single question. A few final Hail Mary gotchas were crushed: Reeves earned $13,000 a year as a Legal Services attorney when he lived in a rent-controlled apartment years ago; he repaid in full salary overpayments he received last time he was Mayor. If this is the best the Cambridge Starrs can do, I’m shifting my hopes for excitement from Republic politics to Graham’s broadcast of his Ride with Reeves. That should be good.
With all due respect this isn’t the typical right vs left issue, Reeves in the past fraudulently abused the now defunct rent control system by pretending to be poor enough to qualify, he double dipped the last time he was Mayor illegally getting two salaries, and he committed IRS tax fraud in the mid 1990s.
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On top of this his excuses are fairly lame on the radio show, the Mayor has no authority to recruit teachers, the Mayor must show receits which is the law in Cambridge, and his budget is nearly twice that of his predecessor and more than other cities like Boston and NEW YORK. The Mayor of NEW YORK, the mayor of BOSTON, bigger cities than Cambridge in every respect, have SMALLER budgets than the city of Cambridge. The dinner question is important since is on the tax payers dime. No other mayor has hired an official spokesperson again on my dime, and this Mayor has continually supported increasing his own salary, getting a fancier car for himself, and approving “research assistants” aka favors to campaign workers.
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Lastly he got the least amount of votes of any incumbent last election and yet he got elected to the most important ceremonial position through backroom deals. Now I gave him the benefit of the doubt before, but its fairly clear that shady buisness is going down. “The voters of Cambridge trust me with this office” NO MORE REEVES your friends on the Council not the voters made you Mayor, less than 10% of the population voted you as their first choice for councilor you have no mandate to spend our money frivilously.
is the Dianne Wilkerson of Central Square. Thank god his job is completely fictitious, or he could do some real damage.
The Word of the Day for February 27 is:
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shill SHILL verb
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1 : to act as a decoy (as for a pitchman or gambler)
*2 : to act as a spokesperson or promoter
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Example sentence:
She’s starring in a new sitcom this season and also shilling for a shampoo in a series of newly released ads.
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Did you know?
Professionals licensed to shill won’t necessarily knock you dead, but they may not do you any good either. They might simply be pitchmen employed to extol the wonders of legitimate products. But in the early 1900s, when the first uses of the verb “shill” were documented, it was more likely that anyone hired to shill was trying to con you into parting with some cash. Practitioners were called “shills” (that noun also dates from the early 1900s), and they did everything from faking big wins at casinos (to promote gambling) to pretending to buy tickets (to encourage people to see certain shows). “Shill” is thought to be a shortened form of “shillaber,” but etymologists have found no definitive evidence of where that longer term originated.
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*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
jconway,
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When you say that the budget is bigger than New York and Boston, do you mean the city’s actual budget or the budget for the mayor’s office? Anywhere I can check this out online?
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I would be shocked if the budget itself was bigger, and only a little less shocked if the budget for the mayor’s office was larger in the People’s Republic
but I’d imagine it has to be the budget for the mayor himself — travel, whatever. NYC has 80 times the population of Cambridge (8 mil vs. 100k).
has a $13 million budget; in Cambridge the figure is $706,000. Menino’s office is budgeted at about $1.5 million.
Thanks for that. To what then is jconway referring?
I believe he’s referring to the City’s mayoral travel budget. This Herald story says that Boston spent only $8,700 on Mayor Menino’s travel last year. They don’t mention a figure for NYC, but since Bloomberg is a billionaire, he might finance his own travel.
…One of the job of a leader is as a salesman for his city, state, whatever. Although, on the other hand, maybe he shouldn’t.
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What is the travel budget for Boston’s economic development office (presuming it has one) in comparison to, say Cambridge’s (same presumption).
I’m assuming that this doesn’t include all of the trips Mayor Menino took last year. Privately funded trips and those where he may have used other funding sources don’t seem to be included in that total.
…the mayor were to discuss the matter with the city attorney or auditor, and, if they agree with the mayor that the dinner was on city business, that should be the end of it. Something of an ethics 2d opinion.
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Things must be very slow at the Cambridge “fish wrapping and birdcage liner” newspaper if they have to make an issue of something like this.
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I don’t know why, at this point in time, Reeves doesn’t want to reveal who the dinner was with, but maybe there’s a good reason for future city business, that might be jeopardized by early divulgation.
I would not waste an ounce of political capital on this guy. If we can excuse this kind of chronic fiscal irresponsibility, then there is something very, very wrong with our moral compass. Employing the “best defense is a good offense” doesn’t mean Reeves has the upperhand…is only means that he’s using a time-honored and shopworn stragegy to shred the credibility of those who question him and avoid accountability.
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Why, Bob – would you waste good space on BMG for this kind of crap?
If you think it is such a worthless subject. You’re free to write your own posts. đŸ™‚
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I already wrote some other posts on this subject, which criticized Reeves. I try to call them as I see them, and this one struck me as a win for him.
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Personally, I think the discussion is interesting at a number of levels — Cambridge politics, accountability of elected officials, the role of newspapers, standards of proof, and the definition of wrongdoing, to name just a few.
I thought I was clear but specifically the travel budget for the Mayor, the Herald reported it was larger in Boston and NYC has no official budget for a Mayors travel expenses but he can be reimbursed for up to $1500 in travel expenses per official trip which is a much smaller figure than the average trip Reeves has made. Also it explicitly states in a code of ethics that the city will no reimburse personal meal expenses that are not on city time, i.e Mayor Reeves eating with friends of his in Philadelphia like the Chronicle reported.
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Again politically I have no qualms with Reeves, but in a city full of smart liberal Democrats there are definitely people qualified for the position that will bring far more honestly and integrity to the process. Not a lot happens locally in Cambridge and the Chronicle is not inventing a story but it found a story, one the Mayor tried to cover up, and did its job reporting the facts to the people.
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Bob you don’t live in Cambridge, this isn’t a right vs left issue, its a right vs wrong issue, and Reeves on this one is clearly in the wrong.
So far as I can tell, he’s complied with the City’s documentation requirements, and spent about $11,000 of a $40,000 annual travel budget. I understand that you don’t like the optics, but where is the actual specific offense. Does he have a legal obligation to tell a talk show host whom he had dinner with on a given night in New York? I don’t think so. It seems to me your objection is first with the City’s lax documentation and disclosure requirements — and with the fact that the Council saw fit to approve such a big travel budget. As to Reeves, there may be a case but it doesn’t seem particularly strong to me to date. I’ve been critical of Reeves on some aspects of this matter — I personally think it is outrageous, for example, that he didn’t keep detailed receipts — but the truth is he wasn’t required to by his employer. I think one should be careful before one throws phrases like “clearly in the wrong.”