Thomas Menino served as Boston’s mayor from 1993 through January 2014. He spoke with the Harvard Political Review about new challenges facing mayors in the 21st century.
Harvard Political Review: How do you feel that the institution of the mayor has evolved in the 21st century?
Thomas Menino: Mayors for a long time depended on the federal government. Now the federal government doesn’t help cities much—very little—and state government cuts local aid every year. So we have to manage our resources better. It’s most important that the mayor pays attention to his budget, and makes sure he has a budget that works. In my years as mayor, I brought the city from a $28 million deficit to a $20 million surplus.
I always say, you don’t make headlines with the budget, but it gives you headlines. If your budget works, your city works, and that’s so important. Not enough people pay attention to that. That’s why some of these cities are in real financial trouble. They don’t pay attention to the finances.
HPR: What was your greatest challenge as mayor, and what do you consider the major challenges for Boston in the future?
TM: I think the greatest challenge was to move Boston Public Schools to the position it’s in today. When I took over, we had a 20 percent dropout rate; now we’re down to 6 percent. We had nobody going to college. We had over-enrollment in a lot of the schools. When I first took over, we were looking for teachers and we couldn’t get teachers to come to Boston. Now we have 3,000. We’re getting the cream of the crop in the city.
All those things are factors that make a city better. My biggest problem was keeping my people motivated, getting your staff to understand that we did something yesterday, but we have to do something new next.
HPR: You’ve done a lot of work to curb gun violence. As far as gun laws go, what is your vision for Boston?
TM: Massachusetts has by far some of the toughest gun laws. We need a countrywide program. It’s not gun control; it’s crime control. That’s what it’s all about. Everyone wants bigger gun control; it’s crime control.
Massachusetts has tough laws, and we deal with [guns] well. But there’s an influx of guns coming from the South, from New Hampshire, and some other places. That’s the problem: we all have different laws, and they’re not universal.
HPR: How do you think Boston can reduce gun-related crime?
TM: I think we’ve done some good things in the past on that. Operation Homefront is a program where probation officers and police officers visit parents of the individuals we’re looking at.
But also, how do you reduce crime? You give people opportunity. You know, if they have no opportunity, they turn to the streets. They don’t see any future for them. How are they going to make their money? They’re going to the streets. So we have to do a better job giving people opportunity, and job training for these folks.
HPR: As we saw last April, guns aren’t the only weapon that people can use to create horrible violence. Did the Boston Marathon bombing change the climate surrounding your fight to reduce gun violence in Boston?
TM: Well, it made more people aware [of violence]. I’m co-chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Mayor Bloomberg and I started that nine years ago. Five hundred mayors aren’t making an impression in Washington. They’re deaf down there. The NRA is running Washington when it comes to guns, and that’s unfortunate. These congressmen and senators have to get their heads together and make sure that we have real strong gun legislation in this country, in every state and not just in a few states.
HPR: Given federal prosecutors’ decision to seek the death penalty for marathon bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev, many Americans have been prompted to think more deeply about the tragedy. Take us back to that day. What was going through your mind, and how can we prevent this from happening again?
TM: You know, I don’t know how you prevent it. There are always some folks out there who want to create mayhem, you know, and we just have to make sure that we have better reconnaissance. The police did everything they could. But we had a crowd of two million people—how do you prevent it? For the marathon this year, we’re not going to allow backpacks, no coolers, none of that stuff. That’s part of it.
But one thing you have to be worried about is this whole public safety issue. You can’t put fear into people, or they won’t come to the events. You build trust with the people. They trust you to do it, and they’ll relax. But coming out of the marathon bombing, I think that we’re a much stronger city than we were going in.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons