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‘Ords’ in Mumbles’ favor for big pension payout
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, April 2, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com

Whenever he finally retires, Mumbles Menino is going to get a pension of about $140,000 a year.

You read that right. This is not a belated April Fools’ Day joke. In all the city pension stories last week, we overlooked the fact that Mumbles will be getting a kiss in the mail every month for about $11,500.

That works out to just under $3,000 a week. Just for being Mumbles.

Here’s how it works. As the mayor-for-life (or so he thinks), Mumbles now makes $175,000 a year. The highest pension he could get would be 80 percent of his top three years. Given his age (he’s 65) and the fact that he’s had his snout in the public trough his entire adult life, he’s there, baby. It’ll get cut down a little, I’m sure, for the survivor’s benefits, but not by much.

Still, I say, the Mumblin’ Man is a bargain. He is not just our leader, he is our teacher. At a recent jobs-for-teens event, memorialized on local cable TV, he spoke of the value of a day’s pay for a day’s work.

“There is noth-ling,” he said, and that’s an exact quote from the tape. He didn’t say “nothing,” he said “noth-ling.” “There is noth-ling like honestly earning your own money for a job well done.”

These summer jobs “all provide these opportunities for young people who are facing some very long ords.”

Not odds, “ords.”

As CEO of a declining midsized city, he attended the swearing in of 50 new firefighters and told them of what was in store.

“Your job will give you a rare satis - satisfication.”

You know, like the old Rolling Stones song “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”

I mention these perorations only to show the vast breadth of the Mumblin’ Man’s contributions to the Athens of America. Here he is, Johnny on the spot at the scene of another sub-prime mortgage fiasco.

“Well there’s some uhh the corporation counsel is working with some agencies on these fact of maybe some of these uh mortgages shouldn’t of been uhhh uhhh lunt.”

You thought the past tense of lend was lent? What do you know - is your pension going to be $140,000 a year? As the old signs used to say, if you’re so smart, how come you ain’t rich? The past tense of lend is “lunt.”

Guns - a perennial problem plaguing certain sections of the city. And ultimately, Mumbles believes, it needs a federal solution.

Enough’s enough, he thunders. We as citizens have to take back our Con-gwiss.”

And after we take back Con-gwiss, let’s get our Congress back.

But Mumbles is trying to do his best to get rid of the guns. So are most municipalities, or as he calls them, “musa-palities.”

“You know we did our gun-back-by-guy-back program a year ago.”

As citizens, we can only pray that the “gun-back-by-guy-back program” was more successful than the gun-buyback program.

Ultimately, of course, it’s all about the children. So let’s crack down on billboards advertising booze and tobacco. Right, Mumbles?

“Why is certain neighborhoods immune to the advertising?” he asks. I give up, Your Honor, why is certain neighborhoods immune?

Any final thoughts, Mumbles, on the true meaning of public service?

“Use your creativity as we create the budgets as we go forward and how do we work smarter and work more effectively that’s really smarter and more effectively as we go forward.”

For this, Mumbles will someday get a pension of $140,000 a year. Does that give you satisfication? Me neither.

But guess what, there is noth-ling we can do about it. Noth-ling at all.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1084366