When Mayor Thomas Menino announced the formation of the “External Advisory Committee on School Choice” last February, he made its mission clear in the press release naming its members: To “help advise” the school department in engaging the community on a major overhaul of the city’s school assignment system.  Read more

Michelle WuMore than a month after her former boss won a US Senate seat, a 27-year-old ex-aide to consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren is launching a campaign of her own. Michelle Wu, a South End attorney who organized outreach to communities of color for the Warren campaign, said Tuesday she is launching a run for one of the City Council’s four at-large seats.

Wu, who also had Warren as a professor in her first semester at law school, has registered a campaign committee with the state’s Office of Campaign and Political Finance. “I believe in the city and I’m serious about wanting to serve the city,” said Wu, who moved to Boston from Chicago to attend Harvard. She will be up against four well-funded incumbents should all of them choose to run for reelection.  Read more

LaShawn Hill, a former aide at the Harbor Pilot Middle School pleaded guilty today to charges he had inappropriate sexual contact with a student there and with another boy at a school in Roxbury.  Read more

Herb Chambers: Auto magnate looks to enter hometown market. Savin Hill residents heard from one of the region’s leading auto dealers Thursday about his plan to bring a pre-owned BMW dealership to Columbia Point, an area expected to see high growth in residences and businesses. Herb Chambers Companies of Somerville plan to convert the former WLVI-TV station near the northern end of Morrissey Boulevard into a sales and service center for the high-end German automaker.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority, the city’s planning agency, hosted the meeting at the Cristo Rey Boston High School on Savin Hill Avenue.

Chambers himself attended the meeting and answered residents concerns about the project. “I think this is great for Dorchester because there’s a lot of positive energy going into the area,” Chambers said to the crowd of about 35 people gathered in the Cristo Rey library.  Read more

Codman's latest addition: Sandra Cotterell, CEO of the Codman Square Health Center, left and Meg Campbell, executive director of the Codman Academy Charter Public School, outside the newly-opened William J. Walczak Education and Health Center on Epping Street.

It’s a brand new four-story building with a strikingly familiar name.

The William J. Walczak Education and Health Center — named for the founder of the Codman Square Health Center— is open for business – and classes. An official grand opening is on hold pending the return to action of the only other living Bostonian who gets his name on big new buildings these days – Mayor Thomas Menino – but the building itself has been in partial use since September and is due to be fully up and running by year’s end.  Read more

Was the 2012 election just a grinding interlude?

Mayor Tom Menino at Spaulding Rehab Hospital: Image courtesy WCVB-TVGov. Deval Patrick, Mayor Thomas Menino and local politicians and policymakers turned their collective gaze this week to the so-called “fiscal cliff” negotiations in Washington as next year’s budget lurked in the background.

In D.C., familiar players dominated the headlines as President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner offered and counter-offered. Massive spending cuts and tax increases in the area of $500 billion are set to go into effect at the start of 2013 if lawmakers don’t reach an agreement this month.  Read more

From classical to Christmas to Kwanzaa, Dorchester and its neighbors are finishing up the year with a wealth of concerts.

Ashmont Hill Chamber Music  Read more

A City Council hearing on guidelines aimed at ensuring Boston residents are hired for publicly funded building projects drew protests this week from activists who claimed City Hall and unions aren’t doing enough to up the numbers.

City councillors met Monday night at the Kit Clark Senior Services in Fields Corner for a three-hour hearing that at times had a tense atmosphere, according to several attendees.  Read more

Fifty-two new security cameras will be installed around the JFK/UMass MBTA station next year, the transit agency said this week. The company started soliciting bids for a contractor for the installation of the cameras at JFK/UMass and other stations last week, days after a woman reported an indecent assault in the Sydney Street area.  Read more

As part of a plan to address an estimated $540 million mid-year budget gap, Gov. Deval Patrick on Tuesday slashed spending by $225 million and asked the Legislature to allow him to unilaterally reduce unrestricted local aid to cities and towns by 1 percent.

Unrestricted local aid pays for local services, such as public safety budgets, and is delivered separately from state aid to fund local education spending, which is not targeted for cuts under Patrick’s plan.

“I don’t think this is draconian. Obviously every city and town worries about an impact on their local aid, but as I say this is relatively modest. We are spreading the pain as broadly as possible and sensible and we have a solution for closing that gap in unrestricted local aid if the Lottery continues to help,” Patrick said.

The spending cuts ordered by the governor will hit nursing homes, special education funding, school transportation for the homeless and reimbursement rates for hospitals that treat low-income patients.  Read more

Mayor Thomas Menino on Thursday signed off on a schedule shift for the group he charged with radically revamping Boston’s student assignment system. The 27-member group, known as the External Advisory Committee, will now have until January to come up with a proposal to present to Superintendent Carol Johnson.

Boston University’s Dean Hardin Coleman, the committee co-chair, said the schedule delay will allow his group to make a “data-driven” decision. Originally, a proposal was expected to emerge before the end of the year, and before Thursday, the committee had been aiming for Dec. 14.  Read more

The Bowdoin-Geneva Main Streets organization is “in transition” following the abrupt departure of its executive director, Sandra Kennedy, who was terminated “for cause” by the group’s board of directors last month. Weeks after Kennedy’s dismissal, a representative of the Main Streets’ board filed a police report alleging that a former employee had misappropriated funds from the group.

Kennedy, who had led the organization for six years, was fired on Oct. 17, according to the Department of Neighborhood Development, which works with the Main Streets groups.  Read more