BRA official asked help from mosque backer

Dear Editor,

According to Donovan Slack's article entitled "Pushed for mayoral visit to Mideast during talks" (Boston Globe, May 1, 2007, http://tinyurl.com/2yex6l), Boston city official Muhammad Ali-Salaam suggested that Boston Mayor Thomas Menino travel to Saudi Arabia to reciprocate a visit by a Saudi businessman to Boston. Obviously, Ali-Salaam hoped the gesture would help clinch a deal that would bring millions of investment dollars into Roxbury to create a mosque that would both serve the local Muslim community and also attract sightseers from all over the world to a neighborhood that would benefit tremendously from a major influx of tourist dollars.

Slack's font page article points out, "The state conflict of interest law prohibits public officials from seeking or personally receiving anything valued at $50 or more if it is being given to influence a present act, induce a future act, or reward a past act, according to State Ethics Commission guidelines."

The Globe's new interest in the ethics of foreign trips by local politicians is commendable. In April 2005 the American Jewish Congress Council for World Jewish and the Israeli government subsidized a trip by Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone to Israel. Even though the excursion looked like a reward for his opposition to a citizens' initiative to divest the Somerville pension fund from the State of Israel, the Globe buried Patrick Gerard Healey's story ("Back from Israel, mayor firm against divestment," Boston Globe, April 24, 2005, http://tinyurl.com/2p72mz) in the local politics section, and the article itself made no mention whatsoever of the state conflict of interest law.

Joachim Martillo

Boston, MA 02126-2813

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