Walsh works on transition numbers

State Rep. Marty Walsh last week added more members to his transition team and sat down for coffee with the man he is replacing, Mayor Thomas Menino. Walsh said he wants the city’s 64 departments covered under the transition team and he is still looking to see how many vacancies will have to be filled before he takes office in January.

“We still have five weeks left,” the mayor-elect told the Reporter this week.

Members of the transition team – all of whom, with the exception of two people, are outside of city government – are not getting paid and are not precluded from serving in the administration, according to Walsh. Transition team staff members, several of whom worked in the field during the campaign, are getting paid. The campaign had 19 people on the payroll in the primary, a number that reached 30 by in the final election.

Walsh met the mayor and his wife Angela at the Menino home in Hyde Park. Mrs. Menino also talked about ensuring that personal time is built into a hectic mayoral schedule, Walsh said.

“He said through his own admission that he didn’t do a good job of the personal time all the time, because he’s a workaholic. You’ve got make sure you take care of your family as well,” Walsh said. “Which is very important for me as well.”

Walsh’s added three co-chairs to the transition team on Friday: Dr. James Mandell, a pediatric urologic surgeon who stepped down as head of Children’s Hospital in 2012; Prof. Paul Watanabe, director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston; and Beth Williams, the CEO of the Roxbury Technical Corporation. The previously announced co-chairs include the UMass Building Authority’s Katherine Craven, local activist Joyce Linehan, the Boston Municipal Research Bureau’s Sam Tyler, and former mayoral rivals Charlotte Golar Richie, John Barros, and Felix Arroyo.

A full list of transition team members is available online at DotNews.com.


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