“I congratulated Mark [Tuesday] night, and told him I hoped to continue working with his office to make our neighborhood better,” Selvig said. “We both marveled at the high turnout in Allston-Brighton. We had a lot of voters come out yesterday. It was a good sign. Clearly, our residents care about the future of our neighborhood.”

13% turnout is a high turnout, a good sign? That’s a stretch (and 10 points less than the city-wide average). Is this just a bit of throw-away pandering, or somehow an attempt at ironic humor? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the 13% who voted do care about the future of the neighborhood, regardless of who they voted for. It’s just that the other 87% more often than not might have different thoughts of what they expect from Allston.

There just under an hour to go before the polls close. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to tell anyone how to vote but I think (as I’m pretty sure I said before during the preliminaries) the choice of after-party bar is really all the information you need to make an informed decision on District 9 City Councilor. This rule might not always work but for now it’s holding true.

The four candidates for District 9 City Council (Mark Ciommo, Abigail Furey, Ben Narodick and Alex Selvig) are debating tomorrow at 6pm at WGBH. Note that’s an at WGBH not on WGBH – Jim Lehrer will not be denied. Even though I’m only halfway paying attention to this race, here’s what I’ve gisted as of late. Alex Selvig is against rats and says he’ll be posting his campaign finance report on his website sometime today. Mark Ciommo was endorsed by the Sierra Club and doesn’t return emails. Ben Narodick is pro-dog runs (& pit bulls?) so got himself endorsed by Humane USA. He’s also got some of his own ideas about the now and future rat menace. Abigail Furey is for police details at construction sites, if and when civilian flaggers would be too stupid to do the job. If you’re not satisfied by tomorrow’s debate you can ask them what’s up their own selves this Thursday at the Brighton Elks Club.

The Election Department is testing their Accu-Votes and AutoMarks today, the preliminary election itself is a week from tomorrow (9/22). Vote early/often.

Some bonus campaign hyperbole, just for fun…

But Alex Selvig, my boss, has something greater than that certain energy. He’s tireless. He’s a machine. He doesn’t need food, water, or rest – he just keeps going. Tell him to canvass a hundred houses, he’ll do two hundred and come back asking to do more.

(via Michael Pahre)

PS. As for his specific suggestions (more inspectors, rat-free building permit certification requirements, etc), none really hold up to my mega-master plan (See a Rat, Dump a Cat). Catchy, no? Feral FTW.

Nan Davis leaves an interesting comment over on Brighton Centered clarifying why the Ward 21 Committee failed to re-endorse Mark Ciommo (or endorse any of the other District 9 City Councilor candidates) prior to the upcoming municipal primary.

I do not attribute a great deal of significance to the lack of an endorsement. It simply means that no one candidate received two-thirds of the votes, which are by-laws require for us to make an endoresement [sic]. There have been times in the past when the committee has not made an endorsement because no candidate received 2/3 of the votes. We always try to make endorse candidates – it’s one of our most important functions. But when there are several strong candidates, committee members may disagree, as we did in this situation.

As I don’t know enough at this point to make any sort of adult informed decision on this you’ll understand my disappointment to find out that this tremendously horrible Tug-a-Lug Thug video of Chris Crocker vamping around was not made by Ben Narodick, the youngest & only potentially amusing option. That right there is the kind of quality craftsmanship that would have earned him an admiring nod, at the very least.

Regardless, if you’d rather vote based on “issues” or “horribly lit photographs” feel free to peruse the possible options. Alex Selvig, Mark Ciommo, Abigail Furey and Benjamin Narodick.