“The City of Boston is excited about the partnership that the Together campaign is creating among cities, non-profit organizations, and major corporations to bring to our residents additional tools for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in their daily activities and limiting the risks of climate change. The City of Boston is already setting an example by reducing municipal energy use, expanding single-stream recycling, initiating the Solar Boston project, and purchasing alternative-fuel vehicles, among many other measures. We look forward to working with The Climate Group, ICLEI, Mayor Bloomberg, and all the other partners on this valuable effort.”
- Thomas M. Menino, Mayor of Boston

About Thomas M. Menino, Mayor of Boston

Thomas M. Menino is serving his fourth term as Mayor of the City of Boston. The first Italian-American Mayor of Boston, he was elected to his first term on November 2, 1993, winning 64 percent of the vote and 18 of the city’s 22 wards. Mayor Menino was re-elected to a second term without opposition in 1997 and won a third term in a landslide victory in November 2001. Most recently, Mayor Menino won a historic fourth election in November, 2005 with 68 percent of the vote. Prior to his election in 1993, he previously served four months as Acting Mayor and nine years as a District City Councilor from Boston’s Hyde Park neighborhood.

A lifelong resident of Hyde Park, Mayor Menino is a graduate of St. Thomas Aquinas High School. In 1963, Mayor Menino earned an associate’s degree in business management and advertising and sales from Chamberlayne Junior College. In 1988, he earned a degree in community planning from the University of Massachusetts. Mayor Menino and his wife, the former Angela Faletra, have two children, Susan and Thomas, Jr., and six grandchildren.

During his tenure as Mayor of Boston, Mayor Menino has worked hard to improve the quality of life for all of Boston’s 589,000 residents. As President of the United States Conference of Mayors from 2002-2003, Mayor Menino championed homeland security and housing availability. He has been an advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation since 1989.

In the summer of 2004, Mayor Menino brought the Democratic National Convention to Boston. The convention put a national spotlight on Boston, showcasing all that Boston has to offer. Estimates put the economic contribution of the convention at more than $150 million dollars and its positive effects will be felt for years.

Mayor Menino’s reputation for getting the job done has earned him a high approval rating among Boston residents. Among his main priorities, are: providing every child with a quality education; creating affordable housing; lowering the crime rate; revitalizing Boston’s neighborhoods; and promoting a healthy lifestyle for all city residents.

Education

In the city where public education began, Mayor Menino has committed himself to strengthening the quality of the Boston Public Schools. The city’s education plan centers on aligning district goals with state and federal curriculum standards, while providing the tools and resources to help teachers and students achieve success. In the past year and a half the success of Boston’s schools has been recognized repeatedly with awards for the city and scholarship money for our students. The National School Boards Association chose the Boston School Committee as the first recipient of its Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) award and recognized the city again in 2005 citing our improvements in math as unmatched by any school system in the country. Last year, Boston Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Payzant was recognized as a Public Official of the Year for his focus on math, literacy and teacher training. Also in 2005, Boston was selected as a finalist for the Broad Prize for Urban Education for the fourth year in a row. Last year’s awards brought the total scholarship funds received by the city to $500,000.

Affordable Housing

Recognizing the importance of affordable housing for all of Boston’s residents, Mayor Menino made the creation of affordable housing a top priority in 1999 and boosted housing starts by 135%. The following year, Mayor Menino implemented Leading the Way, a comprehensive housing strategy that directs city departments to sell vacant land for housing development, increases housing funding by selling surplus city buildings, and works to keep affordable housing from going market rate. The highly successful three year plan led to the city’s permitting more than 7,900 new units of housing, 2,200 of which are affordable; rehabilitating more than 1,000 vacant public housing units; and preserving more than 3,100 affordable rental units from going to market rate rents. In 2004, Mayor Menino launched a new housing plan, Leading the Way II, which sets out new, ambitious housing targets.

Public Safety

Under Mayor Menino’s leadership, Boston has become a national model for neighborhood policing, bringing crime to its lowest point in 30 years. Mayor Menino has embraced the community policing philosophy utilized by the Boston Police Department working with community leaders, faith-based leaders, residents, as well as the many local and federal law enforcement agencies to address crime and the fear of crime in the neighborhoods of Boston. The success of the security plan of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, designated as a national special security event by the President, was largely attributed to the hard work of the Boston Police Department and the cooperation that took place between local, state, and federal authorities. That successful cooperation has grown into a number of successful programs including our interfaith and ATF partnerships as well as a wave of new police operations targeted at local crime prevention. In addition, Mayor Menino created a Strategic Crime Council which employs a six-pronged approach to addressing crime, including: a regional and national legislative agenda; the involvement of public health and healthcare agencies; targeted law enforcement strategies; education and awareness efforts; community outreach; and judicial system changes. Today, Boston is at the onset of what will become a 3-5 year plan of action bringing us to a new, national model of neighborhood policing in the post 9/11 era.

Neighborhood Revitalization

Mayor Menino’s plan for a prosperous Boston in the 21st century focuses on improving quality of life in all of the city’s neighborhoods. With funding from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in 1995 Mayor Menino launched the nation’s first citywide Main Streets Program, which is bringing new life to 19 neighborhood business districts. Mayor Menino also oversaw the successful completion of Pave the Way 2000, the largest resurfacing program in Boston’s history, which paved more than 100 miles of roads and sidewalks throughout the city. In 2004, Mayor Menino initiated an ambitious Capital Plan with a budget of over $1.1 billion, which will improve the condition of Boston’s assets and infrastructure.

Health Care

Since taking office, Mayor Menino has made tremendous strides in improving the health of Boston’s residents. Immediately following his first inauguration, Mayor Menino successfully guided the merger of Boston City Hospital with Boston University Medical Center. Today, the resulting Boston Medical Center stands as the largest employer in the South End with more than 5,250 employees and serves as largest safety net hospital in Massachusetts, providing more than $352 million in free care. Mayor Menino also created the Boston Public Health Commission, which seeks to keep Boston residents healthy by providing information on education, treatment and prevention on a range of health issues. Closing the gap in health care disparities across racial and ethnic lines has always been a primary concern of Mayor Menino, but recently his leadership and dedication to this issue have earned him and the city national distinction. Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded Mayor Menino the “Director’s Award” for making Boston the first city in the country to produce a report detailing the problem locally as well as a blueprint for how to address the issue.