Meet the Democratic mayor of Boston standing up to ‘woke’ policies
Misty Severi
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Michelle Wu, the liberal mayor of Boston, is engaged in a fight with her purely Democratic city council over its proposed 2024 operating budget, which included substantial cuts to the city’s police and veteran services departments.
Wu, who is in her first term as the city’s mayor, vetoed the budget on Friday, standing up to “woke” policies that include limiting funds for law enforcement agencies and U.S. veterans. Wu also called for a “fiscally responsible” budget for the next fiscal year.
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“The scale and scope of amendments passed by the Council would result in reductions to the core City services that our residents depend on and deserve,” Wu told the council members in a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.
“Our budget must be responsive to the needs of our constituents, fiscally responsible, and built on a foundation of effective delivery of City services that are central to our residents’ quality of life,” she added.
The council’s proposal would have cut $31 million from the city’s police force and $900,000 from the city’s veteran services. It would also have given an $8 million increase in funding for participatory budgeting, which allows more input from city residents on how tax dollars are spent.
Wu released her own budget proposal in April, focusing on making Boston more appealing to families. The proposal included funds for schools, housing, libraries, senior centers, and public safety. However, the council’s version included $52 million in amendments to Wu’s proposal.
Wu, who was elected as the mayor in 2021, first entered the city’s political scene as the first Asian American woman to sit on the council in 2013. Three years later, she was unanimously elected the president of the council in 2016, making her the first woman of color to lead it.
As a councilor, Wu’s primary focuses were on equity in healthcare and accessibility to city services through translators, interpretation, and assistive technology. Wu is fluent in Mandarin and Spanish, and she was the lead sponsor of Boston’s Paid Parental Leave ordinance and the Healthcare Equity ordinance that banned discrimination based on gender identity, which were both passed and signed into law.
In her candidacy for mayor, Wu was considered the more liberal candidate. She ran on a platform of “dismantling racism in policing” by creating a new system of public safety. One such initiative included moving away from incarceration for small nonviolent offenses. She also called for ending the war on drugs and investing in reentry services for those who are no longer in prison.
Budget fight
The new budget debacle is pitting Democrats in the liberal city against each other.
Wu claimed the $31 million cut was “illusory” because the city was obligated to pay for the salaries and overtime incurred by the department. Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, chairwoman of the city’s Ways and Means Committee, claimed the cut would not have cost any jobs to the police force because the department would have an extra $25 million in funds next year, based on her own analysis.
Councilor Michael Flaherty also slammed the substantial decrease in law enforcement funding, stating the cut would be “decimating.”
“We’ve got the best police department in the country,” Flaherty said. “We’ve got the best community policing model in the country. We are the envy of cities our size and bigger across this country, and we’re all seeing it daily as to what’s happening to cities that are defunding the police. This cut of $30 million would be decimating to our Boston Police Department.”
The overall crime rate in Boston was down by 1.5% in 2022 compared to 2021. But there was a rise in homicides, with 15 reported as of May, compared to 10 by May 2022.
The other hot-button issue was funding for veteran services, a move some councilors and city members perceived as a slight to the city’s veteran population.
Council President Ed Flynn, who did not vote in favor of the budget on Wednesday, said he has received hundreds of calls from veterans nationwide who felt the city was turning its back on its military community.
“Cutting veterans programs shows the public and our military families that we don’t keep our promises to veterans and military families,” Flynn told the Boston Herald. “That’s a solemn oath that government has made to support veterans when we put them in harm’s way, and we broke that promise.”
Fernandes Anderson, who did vote to pass the budget, admitted that she regretted the proposed cut to veteran services.
Cuts to the public works and transportation departments, which Wu claimed would delay critical infrastructure in the city, were also included in the budget, and there were cuts to the Boston Public Library.
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The $4.2 billion operating budget will now be returned to the city council, where the veto is not expected to be overturned. The city passed the budget on Wednesday in a 7-5 vote. To override the veto, eight council members would need to support the override.
In response to the mayor’s veto, the city council has scheduled a special meeting for June 21 to accept the rejection. However, a vote on a final budget will not take place until June 28.