Weekly Transcript Round-Up for 5/30/25
Council & Wu aide spar over "toxic workplace" allegation & lack of input on bike lane pullback; Council President Louijeune changes course, allows hearings on hot-button issues
This week marked the end of the Boston City Council’s scheduled FY26 budget hearings. While there were a few highlights this week, the most interesting thing is what is on the upcoming calendar: hearings on hot-button political issues. Those upcoming hearings are notable because holding them represents a major break in the policy pursued by Council President Ruthzee Louijeune and her leadership team, who up to this point have kept votes and hearings on contentious issues to a minimum. Between June 5 and June 12 Louijene is allowing 7 hearings on major election-year issues, incidents that have recently been in the news, and important priorities for District Councilors facing challengers this fall.
Here are the notable moments from this week’s hearings - click the buttons to watch the exchange on Instagram:
District 2 City Councilor Ed Flynn and Community Engagement Cabinet Chief Brianna Millor had a heated exchanged over the Wu administration’s use of NDAs and accusations that Millor created a “toxic workplace,” which were reported in the Boston Globe in October 2023 - his questions start at the 52:15 mark, and the exchange thru the link starts at the 55:12 mark.
District 8 City Councilor Sharon Durkan continued her criticism of Mayor Wu’s bike plan pullback, asking pointed questions about the recently completed 30 day bike lane review - her questions start at the 38:41 mark, and the exchange thru the link starts at the 39:58 mark.
Durkan criticism is noteworthy because while she has been the Mayor’s most outspoken ally and defender on the Council, Durkan appears to be on the opposite side of the issue from the public after a number of public polls have shown public disapproval of how City Hall is managing bike lanes, and traffic more generally.
At the hearing for the Treasury Department’s Collecting Division, which included a number of City finance officials, there were no updates on office vacancies or on-going challenges to City assessment or questions from Councilors about those issues.
The Council’s next budget deadline for the Council is June 11: that is the deadline for the Council to vote on Mayor Wu’s budget. To get ready for that vote the Council is now meeting in a series of working sessions - 2 this week, and 2 more next week - to determine what changes the body will propose to the budget.
The Council is also working on something else in the next 2 weeks: holding hearings on hot-button political issues.
These hearings represent a break from Louijeune’s typical lack of response to headlines. For example, under Louijeune’s leadership the Council has not held hearings on:
Detailed charges of mayoral staff interfering at the Landmarks Commission made in April 2024;
MA’s top K-12 education official saying Boston Public Schools was not fully complying with a systemic improvement plan it signed with the state in May 2024 and again in March 2025;
The unusual role that long-time Wu advisor & senior City Hall staffer Lou Mandarini played in on-going scandals at the quasi-independent Boston Water & Sewer Commission.
This is a distinct break from the Council’s previous practice, when the body held hearings and took action on these kind of major public policy issues.
Here is next week’s schedule:
Docket #0145 is an anti-corruption measure first proposed by now-MA Attorney General Andrea Campbell when she was serving on the Council back in 2019, in response to two different cases where City Hall staffers were indicted on federal corruption charges.
The hearing on dockets #0424 & #0425 is the first time that the Council is holding a hearing on White Stadium with hearing orders on that specific issue. The January 2025 hearing hearing on White Stadium held by Councilor At Large Julia Mejia was effectively a rogue hearing. Councilor Mejia has been using a docket on City “decision making protocols” to hold hearings on other issues, including the Squares & Streets rezoning program, Madison Park High School, a Homeownership Voucher Program, and next week, on the redesign of Blue Hill Ave.
Here is the schedule for the week of 6/9 to 6/13:
All these hearings, plus the budget action that will also take place, guarantees a busy June at the Boston City Council. Make sure to sign up for BPI’s newsletter, and follow us on social media for more!
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