12-11-2013

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The Daily Free Press [

Year xliii. Volume lxxxiv. Issue LIII

ON THE LINE

Wrestling team determined to prevent being cut, page 3.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013 The Independent Student Newspaper at Boston University

KEEP RUNNING

BU students train to run in 2014 Boston Marathon, page 5.

]

www.dailyfreepress.com

BATTLE ON COMM. Women’s basketball braces for clash with BC, page 8.

WEATHER

Today: Sunny, high 33. Tonight: Clear, low 17. Tomorrow: 24/13.

Data Courtesy of weather.com

Mayor Menino leaves lasting legacy on Boston Boston Police report decrease in crime for December 2013 By Felicia Gans Daily Free Press Staff

ALBERT L’ETOILE/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino smiles at the crowd after stating future plans for Boston in his inaugural address at Faneuil Hall on Jan. 19, 1994. He would go on to serve five more consecutive terms as mayor. By Kyle Plantz Daily Free Press Staff

With less than one month until he is expected to leave office, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino gave his final major address as mayor to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, and visited a political science class at Boston University on Tuesday, reflecting upon his 20 years as mayor and the changes he made to the city of Boston. “If you asked me 30 years ago, I never thought I was going to be mayor,” Menino said in an interview with The Daily Free Press. “I got into politics later than a lot of people, but once I did, I knew this is where I belonged.” Menino was elected Boston City Councilor for the Hyde Park district in 1983 and served that district for nine years, eventually becoming President of the City Council. When Mayor Ray Flynn accepted the position to be the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican after U.S. President Bill Clinton’s appointment in March 1993, Me-

LUKE HARTIG/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino announced new requirements for school emergency response procedures at a conference at the Boston Middle School Academy on April 11, 2000.

nino became acting mayor until the November election. He decided to run for his own term, and won, securing his first mayoral bid. He regained his seat after each election, but on March 28, he decided to not seek an unprecedented sixth term. “I’ve been mayor for 20 years and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” he said. “However, I don’t like the term ‘legacy.’ I accomplished many things during my terms, but there are things I could have improved. I just want to be remembered for helping to make a change in the city.” During his annual address to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, he highlighted successes during his 20 years in office. “The thing that makes a city most is change, the fact that something new is always just around the corner,” Menino said. “It’s change that attracts immigrants. It’s opportunity that draws students. It’s action that invites visitors. And it’s progress in a city that compels neigh-

JUSTIN HAWK/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino speaks to the Boston University class Politics and Policy of HBO’s “The Wire” Tuesday afternoon in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences building.

bors to stay neighbors, and to stay here.” Some of the changes he noted were making Boston Public Schools one of the best urban school districts in the nation, building new housing, leaving the city with an estimated $200 million dollars in reserve, cutting crime in half and leading the way on same-sex marriage. In 1996, one in four high school students passed the state math exams, but now approximately 90 percent do. 94 percent of BPS parents report that their child’s school is a good or great place to learn, according to a Tuesday release from the mayor’s office. Menino has also been an advocate for more affordable housing in Boston, especially with his Housing Boston 2020 plan that he released Sept. 9 to create 30,000 new housing units by 2030. Menino also took some time Tuesday to come to BU and talk to students in a political

Menino, see page 4

NYT columnist David Carr to join BU journalism faculty By Rachel Riley Daily Free Press Staff

New York Times columnist David Carr will begin as a professor at Boston University’s College of Communication in January 2014, university officials announced Tuesday. BU spokesman Colin Riley said Carr will work part-time at BU in a new professorship, where he will teach creative business models in journalism designed for an increasingly digital era. “There’s a lot of changes going on in the world of journalism and media, and he is certainly someone who has followed and commented on it,” Riley said. “… To have someone of that caliber on the faculty is tremendous for our students.” Carr will continue to work at The New York Times while teaching at BU two days per

week, Riley confirmed. Although he will join the faculty in January, his class will be offered once each semester beginning in the fall 2014 semester. For the last few decades, Carr has focused his writing on the topic of media as it relates to business, government and culture. He has also worked as a contributing writer for The Atlantic Monthly and New York Magazine. COM Journalism Department Chairman William McKeen said COM officials are excited to have Carr on its faculty team. “I’m thrilled because he brings a great mind, great wit and a real love of journalism and concern for the future of journalism [to COM], and that means he’s interested in students,” he said. “Having seen him work with students, I know he’s a great choice for a classroom teacher because he’s engaging and he’s funny.”

Although COM officials are unsure exactly what the focus of Carr’s courses will be, the esteemed journalist has several ideas in the works, McKeen said. “He could teach a course in media criticism, but he’s mostly interested in the new economic model and business models for journalism,” McKeen said. “He’s interested in journalists as entrepreneurs, so he might teach a course on that. He’s got three or four things that he wants to develop, and he’s already started on that.” McKeen said he looks forward to watching Carr transition into an academic position. “He’s a person who has been an educator all of his career, but it’s been in a newsroom,” McKeen said. “Now, he’s going to be in the classroom. He has a lot to contribute, and he’s

Carr, see page 4

The Boston Police Department released information Monday showing crime rates decreased in Boston by 6 percent between Jan. 1 and Dec. 9, compared to the same period in 2012, a trend which many residents said they could see in their neighborhoods. Amy Farrell, assistant professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, said she studies crime patterns, both locally and nationally, and Boston has one of the best responses to crime. “They [decreases in crime rates] are certainly important because they represent success, particularly in the strategies that are being used in Boston to deal with crime,” she said. “Boston has a very proactive, community-based response to crime, particularly to violence. And the fact that they [crime rates] are going down across the board means that this isn’t just a saturation of one program in one area, but rather it represents broad-based influences.” By Dec. 2012, Boston saw 21,756 crimes, while only 20,451 crimes were reported in 2013 at the same time, a decrease of 1,305 reported crimes, according to the statistics. The report released by the BPD broke crime into seven categories including homicide, rape and attempted, robbery and attempted, aggravated assault, burglary and attempted, larceny and attempted and vehicle theft and attempted. Numbers decreased in 2013 city totals in every category, except vehicle theft and attempted, according to the statistics. District 14, the district that encompasses Boston University, saw an increase in burglary and vehicle theft in 2013, but overall 2013 crime rates dropped 7 percent, from 1,475 crimes in 2012 to 1,376 crimes in 2013. Monalisa Smith, president and chief executive officer of Mothers for Justice and Equality, an organization founded in 2010 that works closely with community leaders to find solutions for ending violence, said a decrease in crime would encourage more people to move to Boston. “From an economic development perspective, if we have less crime, more people will want to come into our city,” she said. “More young people will want to go to college in our

Crime, see page 4

Uncertainty of transportation funding looms as new mayor takes office By Steven Dufour Daily Free Press Staff

EMILY ZABOSKI/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

The MTBA reached peak ridership and revenue in 2013 amid uncertainty over the future of transportation priorities under Mayor-elect Martin Walsh.

Boston has been ranked among the country’s most bike-friendly and energy-efficient cities with one of its most trafficked public transportation systems in 2013, but how those trends will continue is uncertain with Boston Mayor-elect Martin Walsh set to replace Thomas Menino after two decades. Menino has pushed for a citywide shift from cars to alternative modes of transportation for years by petitioning to keep fares on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority affordable and creating a branch of city government dedicated to biking. “Mayor Menino has always said the car is no longer king,” said John Guilfoil, spokesman for Menino’s office. “He’s enacted several of these [alternative transit] policies over his 20 years in office, so this has been a gradual shift … and the incredible popularity of the programs show Boston is ready for the kind of transition he has advocated.” The MBTA announced on Dec. 3 that they

will offer public transit until about 3 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday in 2014. Boston has been ranked as one of the worst cities to drive in, but due in part to a shift in preferred mode of transit, the city has also seen one of the largest shifts to bicycling as a major mode of transport in the United States over the past five years, according to a Dec. 4 report. Nicole Freedman, president of Boston Bikes, an organization founded in 2007, said they have helped create a total of more than 120 miles of bike paths in Boston, more than double the 55 miles in 2008 and at least an additional 75 miles are expected to be completed by 2018. “The results speak for themselves,” she said. “It’s a very natural transition to bicycling, as shown by the popularity of it, and we’ve had a tremendous transition to making Boston one of the most bike-friendly cities in the nation, and we’re naturally going into phase two where we try to make it a world-class bicycling city.” To read the rest of this story, please visit us online at www.dailyfreepress.com.


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