More City Hall Sniping

Boston City Councilor Michael Flaherty seems to believe that one day, Bostonians will trudge to City Hall Plaza to pay their parking tickets, only to find that the hub of city government has closed without warning, much like Alpha Omega. And, like the owners of the now-defunct jewelry chain, the people in charge will have fled to a remote locale—in this case, Southie.

The Councilor At-Large demands in today’s Herald that Mayor Tom Menino be more transparent about his plans to move City Hall to the Waterfront.

“If they want to use taxpayer money to fund this pie-in-the-sky idea, the taxpayers deserve to know what their money is being used for,” Flaherty told the Herald.

Way to kick Menino while he’s on a working vacation, councilor. How mayoral of you.

Unfortunately for Flaherty, Menino spokeswoman Dot Joyce isn’t suffering from a post-Italian holiday funk, and she rebuts the councilor with a common refrain—check the budget.

Told about Flaherty’s request, Joyce said some of the information Flaherty wants – such as the $800,000 cost of examining the pilings at Marine Industrial Park – can be found in the city’s budget, which is online.

But did the spokeswoman make a Freudian slip to our favorite tabloid? (Emphasis ours.)

“Nothing is being done in secret,” said Joyce. “This is standard operating procedure for any new public facility being constructed.”

In either case, we’re going to make sure to pay our parking tickets on time, just in case Menino has tapped some kids at MIT to create an invisibility cloak for construction sites.

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