Mayor Michelle Wu is testing the boundaries of Boston’s robust mayor mannequin – overruling the City Council, quashing an outdoor rebel and utilizing her clout to endorse candidates.
Wu is making it clear she’s in cost for now – and any dissent gained’t be tolerated, even final 12 months placing her critics on a controversial checklist she offered to police.
She waded into the at-large council race final week, supporting candidate Henry Santana in a dangerous transfer that would backfire or enhance her powers. Santana is a former Wu aide who might be a key ally for the mayor on the bickering council, however Santana’s admission to the Herald that he has by no means voted might harm his candidacy and embarrass Wu.
The mayor needed to pull her endorsement of Councilor Ricardo Arroyo within the race for Suffolk County District Attorney amid experiences that Arroyo had confronted investigations of sexual assault as a teen. Arroyo ended up dropping the race.
Wu has additionally endorsed a candidate, Sharon Durkan, on this week’s particular election for District 8 councilor. Durkan is Wu’s former political fundraiser and her election would additionally pack the council with mayoral supporters.
And simply days in the past an try by disgruntled enterprise leaders to type a brand new opposition group shortly fell aside after Wu received wind of it. The group, dubbed “Save Our City,” included builders and others who really feel they’ve been shut out of the Wu administration.
The preliminary objective was to type a brilliant PAC and assist extra conservative candidates to the City Council, but it surely was additionally a direct problem to Wu’s administration.
That angered the mayor and when it turned public, quite a few outstanding Boston politicians like City Council President Ed Flynn shortly distanced themselves from it.
Flynn, who needs to shed the label of a white conservative from Southie, made it clear in an announcement that he needs to work with the progressive Wu administration, not problem it.
Wu can also be protecting a good rein on the headstrong council, ruling just lately that it violated state legislation and the City Charter by making a change in her finances proposal to direct more cash to municipal officers who present safety for metropolis buildings.
She wrote that the council “cannot use the budget-making process to dictate collective bargaining.” This was a direct shot on the council, which just a few years in the past received the power to make finances choices.
Wu’s management can even be showcased this week when 8,000 delegates to the NAACP conference come to Boston, dredging up reminiscences of town’s racist popularity.
The conference supplies a possibility for Wu to show her public relations expertise and in addition present that the previous, white male-dominated Boston now not exists.
But it additionally might be a hazard in case a severe disaster erupts in the course of the conference, or attendees begin to grumble concerning the MBTA and visitors.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”