Flynn Banks On Minorities, Neighborhoods

This is the first in a periodic series profiling Boston's seven mayoral candidates.

Boston City Councilor Raymond L. Flynn--one of six candidates trying to unseat Boston Mayor Kevin H. White in November says he is the candidate of the city's minorities and neighborhoods.

He is a soft-spoken man, but insists he has the visibility and stature in a large working-class constituency to be the Hub's next mayor.

Born in downtrodden South Boston in 1939. Flynn's career has been a prototype for political success. Son of a longshoreman and a house cleaner, he went on to Providence College, where he was an All-American basketball player.

He served in the army after his graduation and later worked for then-presidential candidate Hubert H. Humphrey before the 1968 election. In 1970, he began four terms of service as a state representative from South Boston and Dorchester, moved to the Boston City Council in 1977.

Boston's troubles--crime, schooling, housing, fire protection, racial violence, government corruption--are all direct consequences of the failure of White's administration to "effectively deal with the problems of the city," Flynn says.

Flynn will try to reach out to minorities and neighborhood residents who, he says, have been largely ignored by white and downtown commercial development. Flynn wants more money for the neighborhoods and a reduction in funds for downtown development.

"I do not socialize with the so-called developer types," he says. "A viable downtown area is important, but I will not let the downtown interests control me. They do not have the favorability of the people of Boston."

Flynn relishes his outsider status and is determined to parlay it into the support of labor unions and city minority leaders.

Flynn concedes that he will not defeat White with a bigger war chest. He is repeatedly frustrated at not being able to outmaneuver White, especially on television.

One example is the mayor's recent highly publicized announcement of a commission for the homeless, which Flynn says was his idea. "I have to work a whole week to develop an issue and he steals it from under my hands."

He is confident that White will fall in November and make him the man to reform Boston's machine politics and corruption. "People always thought White was arrogant but effective. Now they still think he's arrogant but now he's ineffective."