This is a very very important development. Many who agree may hesitate to go public.

Fabulous development- they hit the nail on the head. Menino wants everyone to get his blessing, but it is stifling, petty, and undemocratic. Failure to abide can be VERY costly to individuals and businesses, which go nowhere fast, and is a huge problem to the city's success. Play ball well enough and you can a) skirt zoning rules, b) get tax breaks c) get approvals fast tracked or d) all of the above.

Menino is a buffoon but he's basically harmless and hasn't actually been a terrible mayor. He's by and large avoided the kind of scandals that dogged Kevin White during his years in office, especially in his disastrous third term. We could do worse. In fact, we have done worse, and when Mumbles is gone, we'll probably miss him. Mr. Selkoe seems like a sincere young man who makes some interesting arguments, but most of his arguments don't hold a lot of water. Supposedly Boston is not welcoming to young people, yet everywhere I look in Boston I see young people. The local colleges and universities don't seem to lack for applicants, and many choose to stick around after graduation in spite of the high cost of living here. The idea that our best and brightest will leave Boston because the clubs here close at 2AM is laughable. All the clubs in California including Silicon Valley, San Francisco and LA close at 2AM yet Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Hollywood seem to be magnets for young people as they always have been. Sure, clubs in NYC close much later. If that's your priority, move to NYC. Nothing good happens at 3AM, though. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg didn't move to NYC to go clubbing.

Thanks for shining light on the underbelly of the city politics. The domain squatting piece is pretty putrid. But war has never been pretty, and it's clear that Menino and his lackey's believe they are in a war. While Menino has largely been harmless, it would appear that the old saw that Power Corrupts strikes again.

Funny. Putin is also far more ruthless.

Menino is the #1 obstacle to Boston becoming a world-class city. I wish he'd retire.

That is not our (Future Boston's) argument at all we actually have not taken a position on club closing times...some how that keeps being brought up again and again it is popular with press because it is controversial it has been ascribed to us but we did not say this, having clubs close at 2am or not is not important to us... http://www.futureboston.com our issue are not about how young we can get the average age in Boston in fact having a city of college kids and empty nesters is not a good thing..it is quality not quantity...we loose lots of people 27 to 35 that are vital to a health of our City....our issue around bars, clubs restaurants, cultural spaces etc. have to do with unfair and rigged licensing regulations and beurcratic red tape and it extends to development, food trucks, street fairs etc. etc, Boston today = Autocratic, top down, cronyistic, monopoly of ideas and access, archaic rules and regulations and inconsistent application of them. Future Boston = Flat, decentralized power, meritocratic,sharing of ideas and credit, collaborative, crowd sourced, streamlined and modern rules and fair and consistent application of them. Thanks for your interest!

And all this time I thought Bostonians were the #1 obstacle.

How insecure can you be if you've been mayor for 20 years and you still can't take criticism? He can stay one more term though if he promises to tear down that eye sore that is city hall. really. That thing is hideous.

No different on a federal level Greg, companies are afraid to speak up for fear on the government attacking them, it's already happened to some businesses, the ending result will be moving out of the country. Get on you tube, some are speaking out, but fearful.