This past week saw an anniversary, and it is one that the city should celebrate. It has now been 10 years since Tom Menino became the Mayor of Boston, and it has been a full decade of progress in the city.

To be sure, there were skeptics in town about Tom Menino's ability to lead our city. His career had included several years as an aide in the state Senate, and he served for 10 years as a district city councillor from his home neighborhood in Hyde Park. The critics speculated that Menino might be too parochial, too local to concern himself with citywide issues.

But happily, Mayor Menino has proved the skeptics wrong.

In his first decade as chief executive, the Mayor has shown he has a vision for the entire city. Whether it be affordable housing, summer jobs for young people, health care, or issues around urban crime, he has been a mayor who is fully engaged with the issues that effect neighborhood people. He also has overseen the most widespread downtown building boom in the city's history, and his appointees to head city agencies have been widely received as caring and highly competent.

Moreover, the Menino work ethic has been one of substance over style. He has never sought to show himself a fancy talker and he is not given to flash. He has busied himself with making sure the city works, for all its people, and he has been largely successful.

Mayor Menino had the advantage of managing this city at a time when the economy was growing. Now, as the national recession results in job losses and some tough times for many families, the Mayor's job has become even more complex. Thankfully, Menino is a Democrat who believes that government's main job is to help people, not brush them aside, and with him in office the city is well-positioned to ride through the current economic woes. And looking ahead, in another year he will bring the Democratic National Convention to our city, and the national focus will be placed on the great successes of his administration.

One only has to spend a little time walking the streets downtown to realize what a fabulous city our Boston truly is. Take a stroll down Tremont Street, look at the wonders of the Public Gardens and the magnificent new skating rink on the Common, or walk through Post Office Square, or along the city's reclaimed waterfront. There cannot be a better city anywhere!

And for those of us who live in the city's neighborhoods, the enjoyment is just a few minutes away. Boston is a city that works, and Tom Menino can take a large amount of the credit for that.

- Ed Forry