brendan halpin

I’ve sifted through a bunch of questionnaires and news articles to try to figure out who to vote for on Tuesday, and I thought I’d share some thoughts.

A note on me: I’m significantly to the left of most folks in city government. I don’t agree with everything Mayor Wu has done, but overall I believe she’s doing a good job. I’d like to see more bike lanes and center-lane busways, and a more aggressive push for rent control, but overall, I’m a fan.

A note on strategy: I’ve had people asking me about “bullet voting,” where you vote for fewer than the 4 people you’re allowed to vote for in an attempt to boost the vote totals of your chosen candidates. But this is really a strategy for when you’re trying to get a single candidate into a body that’s largely against your priorities. We’re lucky in Boston right now in that our city council is pretty progressive. There are a number of bad candidates in the mix, so we need to fill the available spots with progressive candidates in an effort to shut the conservatives out.

Here we go!

The obvious choices:

Ruthzee Louijeune

Henry Santana

Louijeune is a star. Santana is a reliable vote on the right side of the issues. They get 2 of my 4 votes.

The less obvious choices, but both are getting my vote:

Julia Mejia—you know that person at work who is really annoying in meetings and talks for ages about things that are only tangentially related to the topic at hand? Yeah, that’s Julia Mejia. But she is a reliable progressive vote, and I’m not the one who has to sit in meetings with her. (With the exception of the occasional community meeting.)

Marvin Mathelier—I’ve been put off by his campaign materials in which he touts his status as a small business owner (of Ula Cafe, which has gotten significantly worse since he took it over) and a Marine (I mean, fine, but Pete Hegseth was a marine too. It’s not a relevant or impressive qualification for city government). But looking at his questionnaire answers, he’s on the right side of a lot of important issues, and people I know and respect have been really impressed by him.

The Nopes:

Erin Murphy—The “Old, racist Boston” candidate . I mean, okay, it was her sister who sent racist communications to her fellow city councilors, but I think the difference between Erin and her sister is just that Erin is smarter at hiding her bigotry. Hard no.

Frank Baker—Another conservative. Let me say this—the only vehicle I have ever seen parked in Jamaica Plain with a Trump sticker belongs to a family with big Frank Baker signs all over their yard.

Will Onuoha—Yet another conservative candidate. In pre-election forums and questionnaires, hewed very closely to Murphy and Baker in his answers.

Alexandra Valdez—Not terrible on most issues, but said in a forum that she supports Boston Police sharing their inaccurate, racist gang database with Federal authorities through the Regional Intelligence Center, so that’s enough to get her a no from me.

Rachel Miselman—unlike right-wing democrats Murphy and Baker, Miselman is an actual Republican. No actual fascists on Boston City Council, please.

Yves Mary Jean—possibly interesting candidate who hasn’t attended any candidate forums or filled out any questionnaires. This isn’t a serious candidacy, so I assume he’s doing some resume building here.