Random thoughts about town

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At what point will Mayor David Cohen reach the obvious conclusion that his perpetual feud with the Newton Firefighters Association has finally run its course? A few weeks ago, the union staged yet another rally to get Hizzoner’s attention. This time they marched from Newton Corner to City Hall, with more than 200 in attendance, including firefighters from as far away as Worcester and Providence. Of special note were the prominent union leaders who showed up, including the head of the International Firefighters Association (who flew in from Washington) and the president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. In typical fashion, the mayor ran and hid, this time in a police cruiser to Boston for what was surely pressing business.

The same four aldermen — Paul Coletti, Tony Salvucchi, Scott Lennon, Ken Parker — showed up to voice their support. The other 20 aldermen didn’t. Neither did any of the state reps. Even the enticement of TV news coverage couldn’t pluck Cynthia Creem or Ruth Balser from their State House perch.

The firefighters’ major issue with the mayor isn’t over money, although they’re so underpaid few can afford to live in Newton. Nor is it the fact that they’ve been without a contract a lot longer than any other city union. The primary dispute is one of respect. For a few years now, the mayor has inflicted a draconian policy of checking and rechecking on firemen who call in sick. He requires them to get a note from the doctor, and not just any doctor, but the mayor’s own city-appointed one who works out of Westborough.

Picture for a moment if your own employer forced you to run to their doctor every time you called in sick.

And consider that most of the fire stations are nearly five decades old, badly in need of replacement. Some of them are barely habitable, and ought to be condemned. Yet all the focus has been on paying an astronomical sum for a high school that’s hardly 30 years old. The discrepancy here is one of choice. Mayor Cohen has chosen to do everything in his power to build a new high school, regardless of the outrageous cost. He has also chosen to ignore the more pressing problem of the dilapidated firehouses, regardless of the much cheaper cost.

Just like he’s chosen to ignore every other request from the firefighters.

If you ever see David Cohen at Suffolk Downs, make sure you’re not betting on his horse. Once again, Hizzoner backed the wrong candidate. In last year’s Democratic primary for governor, Cohen, in typical fashion, threw his support behind the losing candidate, Tom Riley, who came in a distant third. Deval Patrick won overwhelmingly in Newton, despite the mayor’s best efforts to prevent it. But it’s not as bad as when he was a state rep and backed Ritchie Volk for Speaker of the House instead of Tom Finneran. Until that point, Mr. Cohen had been a ranking member of the General Court, in line for a top three position. But Finneran won and then proceeded to strip unlucky David of all his political power that he had built up over two decades. Which is why he extricated himself from the State House to the corner office at City Hall.

This time, Mayor Cohen wasn’t there for Deval Patrick in the primary when he needed him most. So it’s a safe bet the mayor won’t be departing us anytime soon for some high-level state position.

David Cohen’s political blundering aside, state reps Ruth Balser and Kay Khan, long exiled by the now-discredited Tom Finneran, have both moved up the pecking order in the legislature with the ascension of Sal DiMasi as speaker. That, coupled with the election of a very liberal Democratic governor, should translate into Newton getting a much better share of its tax dollars from the State House. So this means that the exceedingly patient residents of lower Waban should expect to see construction begin on those long overdue sound barriers along Route 128 that Kay Khan has lobbied for, but which have supposedly been held up largely because of a vindictive Speaker Finneran and a succession of Republican governors.

This is Kay Khan’s political litmus test. If she gets the sound barriers up within a few years, it means she really does have political clout on Beacon Hill. If she doesn’t, she’s political dead weight. Which is what I’ve been saying all along.

It’s long since become apparent that Martin Luther King Day has become the favored holiday of the Newton liberal establishment. The Newton schools routinely devote an enormous amount of attention to this day, while marginalizing most other holidays. Few holidays will feature such a core of prominent civic figures as David Cohen, Barney Frank, Lisle Baker and Jeffrey Young, arrayed together to pay homage to a genuine American icon. Yet they never seem to orchestrate such public pageantry for Washington’s or Lincoln’s birthday (i.e., Presidents Day), which will pass again this year with minimal recognition. As usual.

One prominent member of the left-wing Newton Clergy Association used the Martin Luther King public commemoration to lodge a political protest against the war in Iraq, even introducing a trio that belted out an anti-war song for the occasion.

Tom Mountain can be reached at tmount117@hotmail.com