Left Ahead

He was Boston's education City Councilor. Then when John Connolly stepped down to run for mayor, his heart and head stayed with schools. Even after he lost that race, he rebounded to a new focus, one he calls his mission.

He founded the 1647 organization (its website has no real content yet).He has his vision, has begun staffing up, and has a pilot underway involving students, parents and teachers. He is off tweaking the schools one kid at a time.

Connolly joins us to explain how intensive home visits by teachers find out how each student learns best and what the parents and teachers can do to foster that. 

The nascent project gets some funding from Chris Gabrieli and his National Center on Time & Learning. For his part, Connolly is serious as ever. He has turned down offers from law first and others and he swears he won't run for any office. He’ll tell us what results he's seen, how the system works and what his aims are.

The easy part is the snow, but it hides and reveals much. Underlying the white stuff, the ice, the subzero weeks, what does Boston's ability to manage itself say now and beyond?

Chums around the country and beyond ask us how we are faring, whether our roof can take it all, and more. We can report good — as in no power outages, we have heat, water, power and internet. Outside that small fence, it's not so good.

The city's T, as in subway, trolley, commuter rail and bus have been totally shut, then mostly shut, and running only on the few underground lines. Workers, students, shoppers and plain folk are back in previous centuries, at the mercy of the elements. 

The mayor and governor have avoided blaming each other for various failures, likely knowing there is plenty of shame and naming to share. Yet there will be reckonings, as businesses tabulate many millions of losses, schools calculate federal dollars, required dates, vacations and such, and ordnary citizens wonder whether they can trust Boston to provide basic services.

This is the big town that won the US bid for the 2024 Winter Olympic Games. Granted blizzards then are extremely unlikely, but what does all of his say of its transportation system? Can students' [parents rely on the city to keep its skeds? If the city can't haul away snow, i9s it ready for more acute emergencies?

As much as we in Boston and New England consider weather talk a sport, we're tired. In the past 10 days or so, we've had over five feet of snow, with no melting. It's Buffalo/Rochester levels and no longer amusing.

With closed offices and many emergencies, potential guests here have begged off short-term. Expect some activist City Councilors and likely Boston's Mayor...when we stop being Thunder Bay South. 

Meanwhile, I'll set the stage with some of the trends and issues. 

Of course, there'll be more 2024 Summer Games. We've already had a couple of Olympics shows. More are likely. One Councilor, Josh Zakim, is mirroring United Independent Party head Evan Falchuk calling for a referendum on whether Boston should or may host the games. The UIP wants a statewide vote and Zakim a citywide one. The Boston vote would be nonbinding and would be on the November 2015 ballot, when the whole Council is up for election. That really squeezes Mayor Marty Walsh.

Maybe more fun and only a little less loaded, if you pardon, a topic is the BYOB one from Councilors Steve Murphy and Michelle Wu to allow restaurants without liquor licenses to permit customers to bring their own wine or beer.  Sure, that's common in towns around here as well as in much of the country. I'll provide a little background on our Blue Laws, liquor-license caps, and such exotic counterpoints as South Carolina’s mini-bottle and liquor locker games. Culture and greed collude here.

Maybe we can get to the failed (so far) effort to start a city commission to foster the interests of Black and Latino men and boys. The Council passed it unanimously and Walsh vetoed it. It already has something comparable for Black women and girls. This isn't over.

From fellow pols to constituents, everyone in Boston seems to love Matt O'Malley. The City Councilor for the West Roxbury and Jamaica Plain neighborhoods (and smidgens of two others) will be on again with us.

He is indefatigable and seems to0 appear everywhere. We'll likely touch on many subjects. He has strong opinions on the city's 2024 Olympics bid and in other sports is likely to talk underinflated footballs. We've had big shifts in the Mayor's office and the police force. He can tell us what he sees there. For some folk, the topics might but mundane, but he heads the city's Environment and Parks Committee and co-chairs the Education one. He has driven the likes of recycling and composting to make Boston cleaner and greener. We'll ask about those and what he sees with the search for a new schools super.

In short, if you want to know that is happening, will happen or should happen in Boston, start with Matt.

Everyone in Boston seems excited about the 2024 Olumbics bid — but not all in a positive way. Last week'a ahow was just Mike presenting the plus side's position. In fairness to them, they are not pretending the city won't have to prove itself in many ways to win the final bid against the several foreign competitors.

Thi time, I'll have Aaron Leibowitz representing No Boston Olympics on to discuss theywhy not of it all.

To the boosters, the city would end up with vastly improved transportation sysatems and other infrastructure and more...all with little or no resulting debt. In faxct a big sales tactic is that only by preparing for a 2024 games will Bosotn make these upgrades.

Listen in for a differing view.

Mirabile dictu! Somehow, the IOC chose Boston over San Francisco, Los Angeles and D.C for the US bid to host the 2024 Summer Games.

It's certianly not a done deal. Entries from many other nations are in the running for that — to be settled in 2017. Apparently that will involve much dining and wining, bribing and cajoling. PR meets politics meets pride.I figure Rome or some other city that's already done this will get it.

Meanwhile, Bostonians aer in two camps. One are the hucksters and boosters, typified by ty the Boston 2024 promoters. On the other side are detractors, including those on No Boston Olympics. Next week's show will have one of the three principals of the latter on.

This time, I'll do my best to present the case for the Olumpics. There's much to overcome on the way to winning the bid. The commonwealth's feasibility study on the bid, which came out in February, details the infrastrtucture, venue, transportation and other issues. The boosters say they have it under coontrol or soon to be.

This week is the pro-side run through. Next week will be the anti one.

This week is big in Massachuseetts. Lefty Dem Gov. Deval Patrick steps down and wishy-washy GOP Gov Charlie Baker steps in. 

I'll talk Patrick's challenges, successes and stumples. Then I'l get to dish on Baker and the commonwealth's GOP.

A fiirst-time politician, as well as African-American, Patrick wasn't supposed to have even a slim chance of winning eight years ago, then four for the re-election. He did and was reearded with troubles. The terrible nationwide recession hit the high-tech MA particularly hard. The anti-gay sorts kept pushing to overturn same-sex marriage. He inherited big debts. There was the "little" matter of implementing former Gov. Mittt Romney's health plan. It went on and on. Like the Energizer Governor, so did Patrick.

And nwo for something maybe not all that different...