July 25, 2009
City Councillor At-Large and mayoral candidate Michael Flaherty launched a new website on Saturday that hit Mayor Thomas Menino over city spending.
The website features a new flyer Flaherty volunteers are distributing this weekend: One side, titled "Dollars," says Menino has spent $416 million on personnel, including pay raises, new hires and overtime. The other, titled "$ense," features a photo of Flaherty pledging "real savings and better government."
A calculator at the top of the website says Menino spent $1 million on a social networking site. The charge is based on this October 2008 story in the Globe.
The other two mayoral candidates, City Councillor At-Large Sam Yoon and South End businessman Kevin McCrea, have also touted available savings in City Hall.
Menino's website touts a "fiscally sound" Boston: "To increase accountability and transparency, he has implemented new systems to handle constituent service requests quickly and to track city performance and budget information on-line."