As promised, here’s some more of Brighton Reader’s thoughts on whether former Mayor Ray Flynn was really some sort of seminal figure who first lit and then passed the torch of progressivism to Tom Menino, Marty Walsh and ultimately Michelle Wu, as Don Gillis asserts in this Globe op-ed. Brighton Reader doesn’t think so, as he mentioned earlier this week on Hub Blog. The term ‘progressive,’ as it’s understood today, simply doesn’t apply to mayors prior to Michelle Wu, he argues. But if there was such a past pioneering progressive mayor, Brighton Reader argues it wouldn’t be Flynn:  

“Who was the mayor who instituted strong rent control, hired the first Black commissioner of a city department, hired one of the first liaisons (maybe the first?)  to the gay community in the country, established a network of offices in neighborhoods to make city government more accessible, opposed a major federal highway project when such opposition was to put you in the path of ‘progress,’ fought Logan Airport’s expansion, and sponsored summer events (Summer Thing) in the neighborhoods? Kevin White. Ray Flynn’s predecessor. Oh, and by the way, he also hired Fred Salvucci, Barney Frank, Peter Meade, and many other ‘liberals,’ as those on the left were called back then. Not sure where any of them would fall on today’s ideological spectrum, then or now.”