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From WGBH in Boston this is the Emily Rooney show. It's Tuesday January 4th 2011. I'm Emily Rooney. On today's show what happened. To Jackman Why there. Was something that was had a level of predictability. And because of that it's even more tragic the skate the whole board under scrutiny after all her old career criminal shot and killed a police officer last week on Beacon Hill. A handful of lawmakers and advocates introduce a measure they say could have saved Officer McGuire's life. Then property taxes snow removal and the Business Improvement District. Those will be some of the topics in our regular. All things Boston. Check in with city council or Michael Ross. And finally at an average of more than eight hundred thousand dollars a year per child. Massachusetts has the highest daycare costs in the nation. We check in with one mother that today on the Emily Rooney show. But first the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying. Revelations of

racy videos produced by naval commander will cost him his job at the Pentagon NPR's Tom Bowman reports the Navy plans to take action this afternoon against Captain Owen Honors the commander of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. The Navy decided that they have lost confidence in the ability of Captain Owen Honors to continue in command of the USS Enterprise. And he'll be relieved later today of command. Now the carrier is set to deploy this month to the Middle East now it will have a new captain. The video's honors produced and starred in include anti-gay slurs and mimics sex acts they were made a few years ago and shown on the ship's TV system while the Navy calls Honor's actions inappropriate. The commander supporters defend honors is one of the best officers in the Navy who clearly knows when to be serious and when to just let off steam. President Obama is back in Washington where he faces immediate tests of his power and influence has a new Congress with a much stronger Republican component.

Rolls into town. NPR's Paul Brown reports the president is also changing his White House staff as he prepares to run for a second term. Mr. Obama returns from his Hawaii vacation to a Republican party committed to repealing his signature health care legislation. And GOP leaders say at very least they will try to take the law apart piece by piece. But if Republicans leave the house in a new Congress Democrats have the majority if a smaller one in the Senate. The president is fresh off several legislative victories including extending unemployment benefits and repealing the law banning gays from serving openly in the military. Mr. Obama is sending senior adviser David Axelrod to Chicago to manage a campaign for a second term. He's bringing his 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe to the White House. He also needs to name a new chief of staff Paul Brown NPR News. Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's campaign for mayor of Chicago is going to court today. NPR's Cheryl Corley has more on the next step in the efforts to remove Emanuel

from the ballot. One of the biggest issues in the race for mayor of Chicago is whether or not Rahm Emanuel former top aide to President Obama meets the residency requirement to be an official candidate. The Chicago Board of Elections ruled that Emanuel could remain on the ballot. Now a Cook County judge will hear the matter as attorneys for manual and citizens objecting to his candidacy argue their case. The objectors say Emanuel does not meet the requirement of living in Chicago for one year prior to the election which is scheduled for February 22nd. Emanuel says he was serving in the president's administration while he was in Washington D.C. but never gave up his Chicago residency and tended to move back and continued to vote and pay property taxes in Chicago. No matter who wins. Both sides say they'll appeal all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court. Cheryl Corley NPR News Chicago. Downs down two points. This is NPR. A lawyer involved in new lawsuits filed against the New York Jets and Brett Farve says the NFL quarterback committed acts of sexual harassment when he was with jets. The

attorney Elizabeth Islander also says the Jets organization has done nothing to prevent a similar problem. Parv announced Sunday that he is retiring from the NFL. He's being sued by former Jets massage therapist for acts allegedly committed in 2008. At least 500 people are trapped on ships in Russia's far east Jessica Ghawi her reports from Moscow they're awaiting help from ice breakers. Russia's transportation ministry says that ice breakers are trying to free five ships that are stuck in the sea of Lacoste. Initial say 3 of the vessels have been stuck since New Year's Eve off the coast of the country aka Peninsula. Rescuers say they are concentrating on assisting a fishing trawler that's located about a half a mile offshore because it's in danger of drifting. Officials say the situation is difficult because the ice breakers are trying to cut through more than six and a half feet of ice. They also say the mission is being hampered by high winds. Russia's state marine rescue center says that all of the crews have sufficient food and water so they're not in immediate danger. For NPR News I'm Jessica

Ghawi her in Moscow. Floodwaters in parts of northeastern Australia expected to rise a few more feet before peaking tomorrow. The city of Rockhampton is cut off. People are traveling mainly by boat and the high waters are now threatening the city's sewage plant. Rockhampton is the latest of nearly two dozen cities and towns in Queensland state to be hit by severe floods. The flooded area of Queensland is about the size of France and Germany combined about 200000 people are affected. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News. Support for NPR comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supporting unconventional approaches to transform health and health care at our WJF dot org slash pioneer. It's live and it's local. Coming up next two hours of local talk the Emily Rooney show and the Kelly Crossley Show. Only on WGBH. Good afternoon you're listening to the Emily Rooney show Governor Deval Patrick is warning against a

rush to judgment about the decision in 2000 8 to parole a career criminal who shot and killed a police officer last week. Investigators say Dominic Cinelli shot Officer John McGuire after a botched jewelry heist on Beacon Hill this morning a handful of lawmakers and advocates reintroduced a measure they say could have saved Officer McGuire's life Melissas bill which is aimed at keeping repeat offenders behind behind bars was filed in the name of Melissa Das Hoola 27 year old Jamaica Plain woman murdered in 1909 by a repeat offender who had served less than two years in jail for a combined 27 criminal convictions. The legislation would create kind of a three strikes form of punishment for habitual violent offenders. WGBH is Relf rin alley attended the press conference this morning and he joins me here in the studio along with Northeastern criminologist Professor James Alan Fox who also writes the crime and punishment blog and

Boston welcome. Thank you. In a family rough so what was going on to the Beacon Hill this morning. Well I think the Republicans clearly see this as an opportunity to file this kind of tough on crime which is a very meat and potatoes issue for them. It is tough on crime bill that's been kicking around for a long time for 10 years and a sickly. It's been stuck in the public safety committee for a while. Is it similar to the California three strikes. It's I'm not that familiar with the California three strikes but it is a very tough three strikes because in combination what happens is if you you're on your third felony conviction of tougher felonies a superior court or a felony conviction with that takes 10 years you get the max. And in a lot of cases those felonies the max is life. And it's intended to be life with parole but the other stipulation this bill is that if you're convicted under Melissa's bill they take away your parole eligibility so the net effect is it's

kind of a three strikes life without parole. Bill in a lot of cases. So they this has been kicking around for a while. There's a lot of new Republicans in the legislature it was a it was a pretty big group for the U.S. who covered the Republicans over the year. Relatively speaking they're clearly feeling their you know newfound power and they're pushing this pretty hard. But you know you've written about this I just going to repeat here for a second what Dominic's Nellie who is now dead himself he was also killed in the shoot out was kind of he shot the officer the officer shot him and they both died. But two decades ago he was convicted of stealing eighty six thousand dollars worth of jewels. He was also trying to rob this Kohl's up in Woburn at the time. Eighty six thousand dollars for the jewels from a downtown Boston Store. He shot a security guard in the chest during that scuffle that as a teenager he stabbed a man in the chest. Both of those people survived in 86 He also pleaded guilty to five armed robberies committed after he failed to return for one day furlough so he had already let you know had been in prison went on a furlough and you know

was robbing people out on furlough. You know we've talked about the parole board before it. They're not they're not willing elites using John Silber the former president of Boston University calls the board of denials claiming they never parole anybody while they do parole summoned but they do have a high rate of denial. This was a 6 0 decision so you kind of wonder Wasn't there something there that the parole board saw. Had it been a split decision perhaps you question perhaps more. I it's very easy for us after the fact knowing how it all came out and tragically of course to point thinkers raise questions and want an assessment and review a review is fine but let's review the entirety of cases. Any parole board anywhere will make mistakes. This is an awful mistake. But when you make decisions whether it be when when a police officer uses discretion or a jury or a prosecutor or a judge or a parole board there will be mistakes. You try to minimize them. But the only way to

eliminate the risk of a tragedy like this is to eliminate parole which I think would be a mistake. The problem with three strikes you're out laws which states have that implemented have been rethinking is that they don't work well. Yeah you should punish the Chua the quality the crime not the quantity. There are some offenders who are one strike to two strikes were far worse than others who have three just came from the baseball analogy which is kind of a silly thing. What it does it first of all fills your prisons with. Older inmates who are well past their prime who are who are no longer dangerous and and filling up prisons when we have scarce resources. Secondly it also causes many third time offenders to be ruthless and desperate and willing to shoot it out with the cops rather than being arrested for the third time. So I certainly believe in long term punishment. But parole has functions. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

You know this guy was 57 so he kind of fits the profile of somebody who you would think would be beyond this kind of behavior. And this is he had a track record of doing this since he was a teenager you'd think. Actually I want to play a little bit of a sound from his parole hearing in 2008 after which he was released. Good job. And that was just a tiny clip of what this guy didn't distinguish himself before the parole parole board I mean you could argue that somebody like Ben McGahee didn't describe yourself either but there are people who have been more articulate or you're a prison for 30 years. Yeah they don't get it right you know. Plus you know at one time prior to the mid 1990s we had all in base going taking college courses we had 3000 inmates a master's taking college courses course the taxpayers started to object to it saying I can't afford riffs on my own kid to college so now we have fewer than

300 taking college courses. If we want to make the best opportunity in terms of the chance that inmates will be successful one parole we need to provide education job training and re-entry services. This is absolutely a tragic case. But let's not judge the entire parole system based on this one case. Well that's why I say Relf we are infamous for this here in Massachusetts as soon as there's an incident whether it's bullying or you just go right down the line somebody falls and breaks their neck diving into a pool. We want to legislate. We want to legislate anything in every. We could not possibly could ever ever happen again. And this is another example of that I mean there is as Jamie points out there is a reason for parole more acting like we want to put more people in prison and you know I think California As a matter fact has tried to rescind that three strikes because it's full of people who are basically habitual drug offenders who out and rob jewelry stores where this guy did he did he had a couple attempted murders. I mean this guy was clearly a bad dude but now

California's prisons are full of people who aren't that right. Not that bad. And when you operate that way. There was a certain law of unintended consequences that comes into play and talking to Republicans today who are pushing this. I kept trying to ask them Well have you done any studies saying how this is going to affect the prison population how do we afford this how do you know how how are we going to pay for this because you know they're like well we shouldn't be give them call of course we should just be sticking more people in jail. And we have a little clip from Brad Jones a Republican who is trying to answer that question for me is the reverse of that question. Yeah it's cheaper to have a dead police officer were you than to keep a vial. Repeat offender behind bars because I tell you if that's the choice my constituents and I will find the money happily within the confines of the budget we face now to keep the citizens of the Commonwealth safe. Happily do so. Easily done. If throwing money into the mix is always a complicated one because you know people say oh well you know let's have the death penalty you know make things cheaper for us. That's not necessarily true either.

So no money is a complicated argument and they're going for political twofer because the Republicans are saying well let's take all this money we wasted on the probation department heading over to probation and we'll and we'll put it towards keeping more people behind bars you know bringing up the slain police officer who's saying oh no that would you would want this to happen. Well it happens. It happens rarely. It's not the usual result which the implication of that clip was the only way to prevent police officers being killed by former offenders is to not let any of them out. Which is obviously not practical. We do believe in second chances for some offenders in life although parole has a has a purpose. First degree murder. Ruthless killers. They deserve life without parole. I don't want to minimize what happened here. But this is hindsight. When you look at what he did previously shot a security officer stab someone else that's bad. But you know it's not the worst of the worst. And there are people who are successfully paroled after many many

years paying the price. Who are some who do very well on the outside. You know I realize how little we really understand about this maybe you do Jamie that and I know I don't I mean I have somebody in prison who's I've communicated with for 10 years now a bad guy let's that's a state that clearly raped you know three different people broke into the house the one time but he didn't come up for parole he would finish his sentence and then went directly to Bridgewater. It's like I mean. I guess my question is how do they decide who comes up. How does it work. Well there are there are rules regarding the sentences for example for homicide second degree murder. They come of parole after 15 years and by the way most do not get paroled. Second man slaughter but not not no second there to second degree murder. It's life with parole eligibility after 15 years now people here life sentences how could be parole because that's part of the law. If we're going to limit a parole then we have to rewrite all our laws because we're not in a position to keep all second of your murders behind bars forever. And

it would make sense either because what why would it be any differences were defenders in a different category of different other. Yes to because a sexual dangerousness law where they are indeterminate sentences and they can be held until they are longest actually dangerous Yeah yeah right. And then he'll ask if you ask the parole officers they say well we'd rather have a guy released for two years of parole at the end of his sentence than to just have him serve the max and then be gone because we have no control over him then we can at least monitor his behavior if he's in a substance abuse program that's going to make sure he stays in. So there are there are reasons. For having parole that go beyond just being nice and giving people a break is not nice it's one it provides incentives for offenders in terms of the institutional behavior because they want to gain parole and too it allows us to individualize punishment. Not all murders are the same and not all criminals are the same. Well we should punish the poster should fit the crime but it all should fit the fit the criminal and what parole does is allows us to figure out years down the road who is a who can be

released released with a small chance of it going bad because as you can know there's no guarantees versus who is clearly dangerous and should be kept behind bars. In the case and Cinelli case he had. Sure he had problems years ago but he's 57 years old and yes it's 1986 even before that it was that that was the second time around I had had. It had a clear record for the past at least five maybe ten years and to the parole board this is their job. He seemed to them that this was a fairly safe risk. What bothers me is Who'd want to be in a parole board. You know every time they make the right decision every case that goes well we don't comment or hear about it we don't even know about it we only hear when things go badly and totally with us like the umpire at a baseball game you can't win the game but you sure can lose it. And predicting human behavior I mean it is a it's a very dicey proposition and and it's there's always going to be something that goes wrong and you're always I mean according to Boston on average people

who are paroled from Massachusetts prisons have a lower rate of recidivism than most other states. Yeah I mean I don't know if that's true but we do very well here. And by the way we're not where this Republican notion that we're soft on crime is just not true when you look at the punishments we have for example for juvenile murderers. We have the toughest we have to leave or do we have the toughest the law in the nation. Every judge every juvenile 14 or over gets automatically tries adult and if convicted first degree murder gets gets incarcerated a life without parole that's the toughest there is nationally even Texas as. Eliminated juvenile life without parole. You know these things always get politicized as you see. Yesterday Ralph with the speaker DiLeo coming out now I don't know this guy's in L.A. but I can look at this record basically saying how have you done this is a huge mistake and then you've got Governor Deval Patrick coming under fire for saying essentially you know you need to take into consideration we need to step back and look at this more carefully and and remember that you know lives were destroyed and of course that's what anybody's talking about so

well instantly people are writing on the politicians for making mistakes are made. Piers I mean the fact that the district attorney's office was not alerted there was some clerical error arrow we don't know who made the error but that was obviously a problem and needs to be resolved and fixed does that mean he would have been paroled. Didn't that happen a few years ago too with that awful case where some guy was were paroled here and then went out to the northwest of Nathaniel Jones he did everything. It was he was released from Bridgewater on the and he said to Mike Hanna we had killed a series of children yeah yeah this is not the first time obviously. I think the Republicans are counting on the LEO actually to put the pressure on the public safety committee to finally bring this out. One of the things they were saying they were frustrated about is not so much that the day had passed but it's never really had a hearing in the opponents of it have never actually heard this. Yeah never never really had to step up and say why this particular bill isn't a good idea and the Three Strikes thing isn't

only aspect of this bill it would close a loophole that right now doesn't count federal felonies as part of you know the three the three strikes. So that's an easy fix that probably should be made. Well a good thing but the fact it took has taken 10 years is there's now evidence from other states that rush to to implement this three strikes you're out law once once Washington state that it sounds so exciting States to be implemented but states have decided this is not the way to go so there's lots of evidence about it. What what what worries me is that when we have unusual cases like this this is unusual in a sense we tend to pass laws in a pen a state of hysteria and I said panic and those kind of laws tend to be bad laws. The bullying things sometimes do that. Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox in WGBH reporter Relf that's exactly the point I'm making. But but it's always you strike while the iron is hot.

If you were you get burned. Yeah exact Well you know but you can't blame For instance Melissa Council's father who's been hot on this issue for 10 years that was a horrible cases remember she was going around a rotary and like the Sagamore Bridge or something your car broke down. So pick the reap comes by in a pickup truck and he looks like somebody who could probably help or you know she gets in the truck with him he said are now going to take her to a gas station or something. He rapes and murders her. I mean it was just awful it was just an awful case and he as I recall it did he plead guilty it was a retrial I guess there was a trial but he basically admitted he was you know a creep in a review and couldn't help himself and he had been out on parole and had a long long string of criminal violence against people and the frustration of this bill not even coming up it's got to be hard on Lescott for dad I mean he was you know he was there today and he was talking about how his first reaction was to swear at the television when he heard about the police officer getting killed he couldn't he was beside himself he was in his living room yelling at his television because he couldn't

believe that the same thing happened again and without there being sort of any movement at all in the bill. I mean it's not like Massachusetts has along everybody sorts of likes to take the cases off starting with you know Willie Horton who is actually on it. He was on a furlough recently and he's never gotten parole very successful program with a very high success rate. And by the way other states had Burleigh programs even Texas where George Bush was governor and the federal government. But Massachusetts and Michael Dukakis obviously got the barest by that if they repeal that from a program that has it was just it was a limited and it had been successful. You know one thing it's like the shoe bomber. One thing goes wrong we all have to care shoot them. I'm not trying to minimize hindsight's 2020 if we if we had if we knew this is going to happen if the parole board believed that this guy was dangerous they wouldn't let him out. You think. All we can expect of them is that they do their job to the best of their ability. The fact that they made an error. Knowing what we know now. We have understood that people are fallible. Any kind of a

judgment is fallible. You know it's not a tax attorney and you're the ONLY AS is saying today though you know the people who sit on the parole board who make these decisions this happened to be a 6 0 decision so you can easily go back and see you know who who made the who made the call but the votes are private and should they be. They're anonymous. Well you know and your is they are too but I have no problem in the being. I would like the names to be associated with it. I have no problem with that because they're afraid of retribution of something you know that's probably the issue and you know where where we tend to want to see in this case the villain was Cinelli. But what we're trying now to do says is he's dead is we're looking for other people to blame the governor or the parole board. People like me in terms of what I write in my blog were all were all bad guys were all to blame. Well that's unfortunate. There was a bad guy here. That's the person who deserve the blame. Other people are doing their jobs the best that they

can. The fact that we disagree with them. Well that's the nature of our society. I. I wonder why the prover it isn't more transparent though. You know they don't they don't ever speak you know they don't come on radio shows not go on talk shows when at. So. I think it comes down to the whole political pressure aspect in a way they're they're similar to judges you don't really find a public servant they are they are public servants but they have to but they have to sit in judgment in and that way I think they're what they are a lot like judges and they the theory is that they need to be walled off from public pressure to a certain extent so they can make well reasoned judgments that don't have to do with public passion about a particular case but their identity is public I think I was one commenter today in the globe. Unlighted said how come the Boston Globe not telling who these people are well it's online their bio is there and the people who think all these guys don't respect cops the chairman of the parole board was a police officer Milton for nearly 20 years and then I've heard people say

well we need we need prosecutors to the problem of. All of them must pass I notice. So former police officers I mean transparency may be almost a red herring issue. I was listening to the radio and Al Johnson the criminal defense the longtime criminal defense for him and he came on and he said it was more an issue of caseload where it's more that. They're not making the wrong decisions they may not be able to handle the case load. So in in looking at the parole board that's probably a healthy thing to examine. Do they have to many cases are you know can they give yet it wasn't aware and has control reasons of cases come up you know every year. Well since not every every parole hearing is a full board. Yeah they could be Harry's of only three members but maybe just maybe we need of a larger But maybe you need a larger appearance like something like 6000 people or every year I mean that's in 350000 you know 300 something days that's a ton of P that is a lot of you know we've had parole for over a century and a half in this country.

I hate to see is eliminated because of this case. I agree with you. All right. James Alan Fox professor of criminology at Northeastern University and Ralph runaway from WGBH radio and thanks for being here in studio. And we'd like to hear from you what your take is the fact that. Suitor burst with a long criminal record or history of US released on parole and outraged. Or is it an unfortunate exception mistake everybody makes a mistake. Email us at. Emily Rooney show at WGBH dot org or visit us on the web at WGBH dot org slash Emily Ronie. We're going to take a short break when we continue. Property taxes snow removal and the Business Improvement District. Those are some of the topics in our regular all things Boston check in with city councilor Michael Ross illicitly Emily Rooney show. Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you and from Elsa Dorfman Cambridge

portrait photographer. Still clicking with the jumbo format Polaroid 20 by 24 analog camera and original Polaroid film. Online at Elsa Dorfman dot com. That's Elsa Dorfman dot com. And from Somerset Chrysler Jeep Dodge featuring the new 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee with select terrain and Quantrell lift systems. You're invited to stop in for a test drive route 105 in Somerset Massachusetts Somerset auto group dot com. On the next FRESH AIR had the CIA penetrated the nuclear trafficking network of AQ Khan and waited too long to shut it down. Journalist Douglas Frantz says the CIA was so obsessed with getting information that it stood by while Khan and his confederates spread dangerous nuclear technology around the globe. France co-wrote the new book Fallout. Joining us.

This afternoon at two on eighty nine point seven WGBH. Sunday January 9 masterpiece kicks off its 40th season on PBS with the smash hit British drama Downton Abbey. If you support WGBH with a gift of one hundred twenty dollars or more you can watch each episode of this acclaimed drama online. A whole week before from years on TV. Already a member. Just go to WGBH dot org and sign your full access begins January 2nd. If you're not a member. Sign up today. WGBH dot org. I'm Cali Crosley up next on the Calla Crossley Show politics from the Bay State to the Beltway and Chris Kimball on taking America's Test Kitchen to the airwaves today and one after the Emily show one eighty nine point seven. WGBH. You're listening to the Emily Rooney show after a two year run as the president of the Boston City Council Michael Ross handed over the gavel yesterday who he

reaches term limit but his counselor Steven Murphy takes the helm has lots more to be done there's plenty of issues facing the council from property tax hikes there's this new business improvement district snow removal maybe we'll start talking there. Here to discuss that and more Michael Ross. Welcome. I'm now just your humble observer humble of there was a savage handing over that gavel and that was I mean you know I'm excited. It's a peaceful transition of power the council can continue to be important influential body working for the people focusing on policy and not politics when it doesn't fight and throw ashtrays at each other. You know that's been the standard that's been better advice in years has been it's been good and I think this you know I'm on for the good old days you just ask the trays of Honor to cover but standing together O'Neill. Well yeah so standing together as as a credible body working together has made this body more relevant and I think has produced a better result for citizens. Let's start talking snow. I just told you my Alleyne never got plowed when I say never I mean and never. You can smell the clutch in my car to prove it. It

never got plowed in and garbage that even though you went on the website and were you know New York got a bad you know they think they really did disastrous job there but we weren't so great. And then on the website of City Hall said if your garbage collection was Monday we'll be there Tuesday. If we can't get there Tuesday will be there Wednesday night. Well they weren't there until Thursday night like midnight or something. OK well listen the good news is we I guess we knew I knew about the alley problem in the back bay but so I wasn't Cory Booker like tweeting and like going out there and that was great. You Corey by LOT of mayor of Newark he was out there shoveling the streets that was obvious to me and easy to read but I was certainly on the phone I didn't know who to call. Well you can call City Hall cell phone you can call my cell that you can and you can actually if you e-mail me I get I have a BlackBerry so I get all me mess. So I was getting e-mail in the night and I was calling the snow line her getting. I never even saw a plow. So the alleys got plowed but they got plowed late and before he had heard the complaint. And so now I'm hearing your complaint loud

and so are the systems of Boston. So I apologize to you. And but I will tell you I was in New York City. I happened to be there did four days after their snow or their storm and it was disastrous. Who was not why didn't people I father lives there it's horrible. I think most Bostonians think that and I know your situation with the alley was a disaster but most Bostonians feel that we did a really good job this were the main streets are clear that's true and they were and you know trash did get picked up and most of this worked out really well and the entire city. You know now though and I want to write this is it I know this disturbs you to think like today I was in the alley it's like oh my god I mean you know the filth in that the garbage that's been smashed into the ER I mean what do you do what you know. We only have the sweepers that go you know April of November and we may have to get you know the the public works they're very good they've been doing some sweeping Here in there so maybe we can get I mean now look outside I mean the snow is stopped most of the snow is clear we have them coming this way you know for them. So if we get like a few days of warm in a row we can probably send a sweeper down

these alleys and try to get him cleaned up. I mean that's what we will do is I'll work with Michelle my office and we'll try to get that done in the public works department otherwise you'll see me out there with us. Oh my God and pitchforks. Sometimes you see these rats that have been completely smashed and I think you got to get that out of there. Yeah. So what else is happening here that maybe there's some maybe there's maybe some news breaking on this business. Well there you and I were chatting earlier I mean I think you know this is the Downtown Crossing area has this business improvement district and they had they're doing a terrific job Rosemary sandstone really great job and I guess 80 percent in Massachusetts the law works. And just so you're listening explain how it works in a business in Burma it's so it's basically in addition to all the other city services the businesses of an area get together and say I we're going to throw in an extra few bucks to do a few extra things could be like fancy garbage barrels it could be you know even. Ambassadors who are welcoming people to the region are you know saying you know welcome to Downtown Crossing and they're doing some great things

down there. Well she's got in Massachusetts the way the law works. You know the Council passed this law that that that said that we have this business approaches or you need to have. It's not mandatory. People can opt out. So these businesses can say no they think you please continue your business improvement district. I'm not going to pay any extra. That's very rare that you know that all the other states and in the country different. So a few of these you know business. No we don't we don't do it. And the globe really laid them out which is you know kind of nice because we were all in this together she is about 80 percent north of 80 percent people competing as if you because I know one of the guys got laid out I knew and I reached out to was the guy who owns a couple McDonald's there and he's like look we kind of missed this one we but we didn't we didn't want to not do it we just you know we weren't paying attention or paying attention kind of the thing came in and we checked the NO box was about it. It was going to it was an accountant you know he said I'm trying to say I'm doing my job right I need this. But he does but you know I prefer what they're doing so he actually refers to reverse the first reversal.

So so what would that mean for like I mean it's only an extra few thousand bucks but you know if they can do it then maybe it puts some pressure on some of these other areas to do it so now if enough of them. It together I mean is there anything they can do to you know strike a match into that whole finally means basement you know hole in the ground site. Well you know I don't think that the downtown will ever be the same until that comes back. But they can come they can do a heck of a lot of things yes. You know in the meantime and you know you should have Rosemary Sansom from the down time in here because she's got some great things she's doing down there. And she used to be it's I think right. Yeah and it was more that she was a city council city council name wasn't. Didn't you also work for one of the mayors I thought way way back yes from day to day like Mayor White maybe but she did. She worked for one of the marriage I thought it was Mayor White I think it's more a way whiter Flynn anyway. She's interesting you may want to have her in here you know they're doing fine it doesn't sound good. Well so we saw what else we have.

Yeah well we have you know property Talman creasing wanted to talk this is what. I want to push back on you on this one. I mean really you know everyone saying oh God the taxes are going up in the city of Boston our average residential tax bill in Boston is still below that of nearly any other so the average tax bill in Boston is $3000. OK which is 30 percent below the state wide. Can't go you can't go by averages. But because it can't go by neighborhoods and the boring thousand dollars a bargain is on people who live in my neighborhood. I don't mind telling you in my listeners my tax bill went up $2000. That's that's a lot. Then those might my salary didn't go up that much did yours. You know you probably got a cut. We're going to talk and we can talk about I mean it works. That's outrageous and you know this but it's something that probably two and a half people think prop two and a half applies to an individual it doesn't it applies to a total tax base. So mine can go up 58 percent or whatever it is. But your tax bill went up $2000 this year. But then the year before Bill before that I'm going to say that your tax bill actually went down the

pit by hundreds of first time in the history of how much of it as it went down like what. I think 2000 but wait wait the year before that it went up 58 percent. I Bahamas if you average out about 300000 or if you average it out over the five years I've been there it's gone up. I'm going to say three thousand a year because the first year it went up eight thousand dollars and some of the property values I mean I don't know but it's like the property values by the way is exactly the same. That's the part I don't stand exactly the same as it was last year. The property value didn't change. Well the tax plan. So there's a year delay in kind of reaction time so during good times you don't get hit with it until the following year during bad times if your property tax is still bad times. Yeah well it takes a year to kind of work through a system. It seems pretty random because when I heard that last year they said well the property tax went down because the value of your property went down I said yeah no kidding. And my value my property is still way down.

That may be probably came up a little bit. So next year you'll probably see another slight increase but I think Emily what you and most listeners should do feel if there's any equity in it I'm not going to do that. I mean I would file a statement Larry is a. Listen there's no. So it's January right now you have a month and your listeners have a month to file their abatement. I say follow your basement if you feel like there's something that's wrong. No seriously if you feel like 2005 the Boehm and then you know bring in the tax guy into this and you know go through that but I think you will learn a lot from that process and you'll see that it's not just real I have agreed there is so much going on the whole this is a year ago or maybe even two years ago when somebody actually was you know talking about city government at your service I mean it was a wonderful explanation of why it had gone up like you know tripled from the year before something like that but you know I getting into the whole thing it's like you know that's a losing that's like the board of denial is going to get a win that you'll be surprised you'd be surprised. Yeah they don't want you to take it to the next level if they deny their basement which is a tax appellate board you know the state and you know there really is I think

people will get an appreciation if they go through the abatement process that there's equity just place. I don't. You know you say $3000 in average but you know I mean the burden is on people who live in that baby can help. I mean it's I mean if you do it by square footage you know Christian everybody would be paying more. I mean everybody you know people in other neighbors who pay more. I mean you know what I mean. Yeah yeah I mean the average there and then on top of that they don't even you know plow the alley. Yeah well so but I listen the alley aside I think Boston is a good job I think one of the reasons why Boston did a good job also is we passed a new law that says if you don't think if you don't clean your Oh I know that we've talked about our sidewalk Yeah right. You're going to this thing you're going to wind up on your tax but your tax bill can go higher at the end of the year by 30 bucks or whatever it is. And now people are taking note of that and now the little lady go quote little old lady like that she can you know she can complain you can write in and say look I did. I could do it and the city is not there to to go after her. But you know the

thing is you have a lot of property managers who for years just ignored it and now they can't so I think that also helped. Having a good sweep and it's also helped you know of our shoveling. It's also helped We haven't had that bad weather he have been lucky in two years two years this was a big one. Yeah maybe another one coming this weekend but last year was not a bad situation at all. That's right we kind of got off on that one a little bit and said I was saving doing in terms of revenue tax base and all that and you know they are still in a hole. Well you know we're for the last 10 years we've seen a steady decrease in money coming from the state. Ten years. I mean we used to you know so we've had to work harder and find ways and you know one of the reasons people don't want to see big buildings and development and growth occur in their city Well that's what's keeping us up. I mean you know you talked about your taxes you know half of that half of the money that we bring in to run our city. So this whole tax levy is 1.5 billion dollars half of it is your taxes and your friends in Back

Bay and all the neighbor West Roxbury mission help my neighborhood. But the other half of it is new development all new growth that occurred the other 30. Thirty eight million dollars was new construction in our city. That was that was so that that is how we are running our city. If we stop that if we said or if they choose other cities like Fort Worth or you know great there are some good things going on there but we have to stake and we gotta get we got to stay on this pilot program. Pain in the taxes that is huge. You know that the big institutions hospitals universities are not paying even a modest fair share of what the value of their properties and institutions would be I mean you know we're not asking. We understand it's nonprofit but my goodness I've had this discussion here many times and it's very marketable. I mean Boston University is paying millions you know Northeastern is paying you know nothing tens of thousands. You know when you're you know some people in taxes are higher practically nothing. Yeah. So it's

very natural I agree that there should be greater equity and. You know at the same time we have cities across America calling us to say how do we bring in all this money with the payment of tax program. You know some cities aren't able to do it at all. I think when these laws were written hundreds years ago to say that nonprofits would be remaining tax free. You know it was a different time. You know the differences too and I was having this debate with somebody that was arguing inside the days that Boston is the capital city it is not necessarily the case they don't like. So all of these institutions are right here in this city I mean a lot of other capital cities aren't really necessarily the epicenter of the state. It definitely is here so everything is drawn here. Everything has red state government is here state government everything you know the hospitals the you know you want to be in Boston you know that's not true of Albany OK I just say it once again. That's right. It's New York City if you forget. But you know so. Now they don't need it the same way. Albany you know that people are crushing to get into you know the city of

Albany to you know go on vacations or you know. But we also have to have their surgeries. We can't act that Boston will never be you know threatened by that same. You know we have to be careful we're northeast city and right now the growth of the in the country were you know about to lose a congressional seat. The growth in our country is in the southern part of this country and we're seeing people move out of you know we're seeing young people leave this region. So we we can't be cavalier about this we have to recognize that if we don't remain competitive and that means continuing to attract these worldclass yes possibly many of them are nonprofit. I don't want to scare them away. No you don't. So you know it's a it's a delicate balance. You know I continue to think that Boston needs to really be careful where you know that we need to continue to be aggressive and go out there and attract new business. And that's why this new construct. I think that's that is exciting and the McDonald's thing with the Business Improvement District. Very good. That's great. Strong arming there for him. Well you know when you want to do the right thing yeah it sounds like they did all right. Boston City Councillor no longer president Michael Ross

always a pleasure to have you here with our all things Boston segment we'll see in a few weeks or months or so. Thanks for coming in here thank you. I mean you know we'd like to hear from you. E-mail us at Emily Rooney show at WGBH dot org or visit us on the web at WGBH org slash Emily Rooney where you can link to our Facebook Twitter pages. We're going to take a short break when we continue a conversation about the startling high price of daycare. You're listening to the Emily Rooney show Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you. And from Providence Country Day School in East Providence. You can experience the school's dynamic learning environment firsthand on Open Class Day. Wednesday January 12th from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon. More at Providence country day dot org. And from the members of the WGBH leadership circle who support the news with a gift of a dollar a day. To learn more about the benefits of joining the leadership circle visit WGBH dot org.

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Get. The part of the year how to make the switch to sustain and help reduce on air fundraising online. GBH dot org. I'm Kalee Crosley up next on the Calla Crossley Show politics from the Bay State to the Beltway and Chris Kimball on taking America's Test Kitchen to the airwaves today had one after the Emily show one eighty nine point seven. WGBH. You're listening to the Emily Rooney show after deciding to return to work full time Melissa sure started looking into daycare options for her two young daughters. What she found was something most working parents already know the cost of daycare is staggering. In fact Massachusetts has the highest average daycare costs in the country. An average of $19000 a year per child. Melissa sure recently wrote about her search for affordable daycare in the Boston Globe Magazine. Welcome Melissa. Hi Emily.

I'm so glad I'm past this. I always say well you know I'm not going to tell you how I got around this but you know it it's tough. I mean I have got a nephew with twins 18 months both of them it's like I don't have the. Do it it's tough. Everyone It's tough all around writing those checks every week. And that's after you've paid taxes on half of your salary and it comes at a time when we're young working families we're not we haven't earned as much as we're going to earn hopefully in the future so we're still sort of building up the career ladder. I'm curious how this works for you Melissa because in my teenage frankly we a lot of us had nannies you know people who live with us and they came from Germany where you know in England and places like that in a room and board. What were they called we don't know players they still have those. They still do that well. But a lot of people don't do that anymore it seems more people put their children in some kind of a formal B care center. How did you go about doing your research. Well I think when I started going I I had I was tempted or lured back to work by a job I couldn't turn down I was staying at home and freelancing up until that time.

And I started looking at all the options out there and I think my biggest mistake was that I took my 5 year old daughter to go see a Broadway show and we saw Mary Poppins and so that set the bar pretty high right off the bat. We can find this wonderful nanny that does all these amazing things for an affordable cost. And what I found is that nest has actually has the highest cost in the country. There's a lot. It's sort of a good news bad news issue. So the bad news is our costs are really high like you said cost $19000 a year to put an infant in daycare and that's just an average as a formal the daycare is a five day some say it's dropped. Yeah but a nanny is no better the average nanny around Boston earns about 12 to 14 dollars an hour so that's going to come out to about 25000 a year. I have friends that have paid as much as $50000 a year for a top notch full time nanny. And that's after taxes again so the cost nanny or daycare doesn't matter it's really high. The reason that daycare in our state is so high is actually the good news the good news is that our quality is great our state has really tough

regulation remembering out some of us going into effect. I mean the big brouhaha was the toothbrushing thing that everyone made fun of. But the more important one was maybe that again refresh me that if you are if a child in a daycare center that's there for more than four hours a day so presumably they're having a meal has to have their teeth brushed after snack or lunch. But you know more importantly they put in rules that say you can't have a swing set over a concrete surface so your kid doesn't fall from bashed his head. Great rule. You know you don't want your kid in a school that doesn't and that was where money to put it in. No you couldn't just hang out a shingle and say I'm a daycare center they you know because you know I mean in my day and it had like houses and people would just drive over to these houses and you know said May there be 14 kids there and one mom with her own kids and well that's all changed that probably is probably still some degree of off the books but there are licensed in-home daycare centers which is actually a great alternative to full in you know out of home daycare because they can.

It's a little cheaper for those women obviously they're not paying rent and upkeep. But going back to the rules of the you know MASTERS This also has great really low ratio which means that you can only have ONE day care worker can only watch say three infants at a time. So other states may let them watch for five infants at a time and really do you want your infant being watched you know in a in a place with only one teacher so you know the regulations are pretty strict but that's all we protect our kids. The the other thing that's really great about Massachusetts twenty nine percent of our centers are accredited nationwide it's only 9 percent. So accredited means those centers have gone through some really strict standards they've they've paid a little money but they've had a second look to really verify their quality. So again it bumps up the cost for parents but it makes it it's a nice feature that our state has so many. Sure who just written a piece for Boston Globe Magazine about the high cost of day care in Massachusetts Massachusetts being on average the highest daycare costs in the country. How does it work for you now in terms of hours I mean. I always wonder about this and I've had people look at them in the studio here Jeff works for us it's

like if you work in a news department for instance your hours may not be that regular yet. A lot of these daycare centers are 95. I mean how do you know when a lot of the daycare centers I think have slightly extended hours but it is usually like say from 8:00 to 6:00 so the truth is and I'm not the only one in my department at 5:00 on the dot working moms and dads we bolt we're out of there because we have to get to the daycare center before it closes at 6:00 unless you have another system set up and you work for the globe. Yeah. So they know they're flexible about that. They've been great. I just sometimes it's I mean I was you know breaking news business in television you know and you know you don't get out of there until 7:00 o'clock at night and that's when some people may find from 7:00 for them a nanny works better right. So it's all individual. For some people that work long hours they're going to need a nanny because in the end it can provide that kind of long. And also you don't have as much sick time if you have a nanny. Right. You can leave. Now my question is if the nanny gets sick that is the question of the drugs a sick or their home.

You know that is totally the trait of every every day care option has costs and benefits right. So a day care center will always be open right. So that's a great benefit. But they can provide long hours a nanny can provide long hours but she might get sick and then what do you do that day. How do you feel about daycare in general. I listen to and I've read a lot of pieces about it listen to Jay Severin who says you know anybody who drops their kid off is going to be a moron and you know do you feel guilty about it. Do you feel it's a good thing for the children. I do think that I think quality care can be good for them. I definitely believe that I still do have that squishy feeling inside about doing it but I also you know I someone made a really nice point which I thought had some validity to it they said ideally would be great if everyone just had a grandma that still lives next door that could watch the kids but you know sometimes a quality daycare center that has educated workers that know how to teach children at this early age can be better than a grandma that's elderly that can't get down the floor play with them kind of let them watch too much TV. You know isn't out there. Take them to the playground. So you know sometimes I think a quality daycare can be

can be good for children. How much time did you stay at home and did you work it out with your husband did he do some of the stay home or was it really the one who did it. You know I was it was all on me. And you know that's the other thing that I think the the larger thing about this high costs in our state that's that's really tough. You know I think a lot of smart talented women are out there and would go back to work but they look at this cost and it's just too high a burden. It's like I will break even if I go back to work so why bother and they get me to $50000 to pay somebody to 25000 You know wait a second. And so for those attacks it's going to take 25000 and then I give the other 25000 to the nanny and I don't have any. Right. So a lot of people make I think it's a very smart decision to say you know what I would rather stay home and be with my kids and then leave all day and break even. What's the value of that. I would say there is sort of a societal pull there though because then you're let you know some talented people are staying out of the workforce for X number of years and they get back yeah that is something that has changed you know since I had children that it was it was more affordable

to pay daycare in nannies back then than it is now it's just gone up exponentially in a way it just wasn't that much back then it just were I can remember exactly what I paid. It's going to roll back in your head you know. And we didn't really worry about overtime. And you know when I get home I'll be there and all of that it's it's just different. And then my point being that more women went back to work. Yeah and I think you know the statistics were shocking if they were actually saying about one fifth of families salaries were going or paychecks combined were going to daycare but I think the reality is people can't afford that so they jury rig something. They get grandma to come in one afternoon they get a relative they do a little bit of in-home care a little bit of a babysitter and they kind of put it all together but it's still it's not an ideal system. And it puts a lot of stress and strain on was it ever an option for your husband to do some of it some of the stay home or no. Not for him. Thank you some men have done it and you know yeah. No and in fact when I wrote the story I sort of made a joke that was saying you know even in 2011 I felt like it was

on me to like line up the day care and do all the interviewing and I got some got some dad's editor wrote in and said hey I'm you know just as involved and I interviewed our nannies and I'm out there I'm the you know the stay at home dad I'm the working dad involved in choosing daycare so it's you know it's not just a female issue. Yeah but the reality of life is that the burden is always going to be on the mom you know from making the dentist appointments the doctor's appointments and buying the clothes and look you know I'll probably get some e-mail on that too but I defy you to say that it's not like an 80 20 deal. It is it's the women. I'm 20 maybe 19. I thought I want to get in trouble. It's ok I mean you know we have you know we cooked you know it's like you know. Yeah I enjoyed it for the most part the other thing we really you know need to sort of adjust is just it's the same time as parents are being squeezed you know in a sense I'm in a fortunate situation I mean day care workers are really being squeezed I mean the daycare workers are about $12 an hour. Their turnover rate is about second only to fast food workers you know 30 percent because it's not good money they're making no money. Well there's you know overhead for some of these institutions where they you know a lot of our houses are private homes where there

is a building drop the you know it's got cost daycare centers tell me they're not turning a huge profit they're not you know let's find a villain here and say oh if only they could do this if you know they're charging too much. But they say they're not charging you. They're not making money but they're paying their workers you know so little. And those workers are tapped out. Yeah you know and you know this is once again a lot of the advantages with these nanny types is you know the parents will give them a car you know they end up in a much better situation is because they got freedom that you know places the nanny is a great job. Yeah it can be you know. Yeah. Thank you. All right Melissa Sure thanks so much for coming here today to talk about the high cost of daycare that's going to do it for us this afternoon. Tomorrow a venture capitalist Kristoff Westfall joins us to discuss what he's hearing about the economy and we hope it's good. In the meantime tune into Greater Boston tonight at 7:00. A woman whose husband died in a car crash just before receiving notice of the ethical recall the Emily Rooney shows a production of eighty nine point seven

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