Boston Mayor Wu says city councilor failed to take oath of office at inauguration
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson failed to recite the oath of office at Monday’s inaugural ceremony, and was not legally allowed to start her duties for this term until she properly took the oath on Thursday.
Wu also stated that the votes taken by Fernandes Anderson at Monday’s City Council meeting did not count, meaning that the unanimous vote to elect Ruthzee Louijeune as the body’s new president will be changed from 13-0 to 12-0.
“The city charter is clear that anyone elected to serve at the city level — the mayor, the city council — must take an oath verbally and sign the oath book in order to begin their service to the city and their official actions in that office,” Wu told reporters Friday afternoon.
“I’m informed that the councilor took that oath verbally yesterday afternoon with the clerk, and so that issue is resolved now,” the mayor said, adding that she was “eager to get to work with the full City Council.”
As the Herald first reported, Fernandes Anderson was told to retake the oath of office after a video showing her not saying the words or raising her right hand during Monday’s inaugural ceremony went viral on social media — by way of the Boston Accountability Network and Libs of TikTok.
According to a City Hall source, Fernandes Anderson was instructed by City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune and the city’s law department to retake the oath, both verbally and in writing.
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City Clerk Alex Geourntas said Fernandes Anderson signed the city’s oath book, along with the 12 other city councilors sworn in by Mayor Wu on Monday, and could not attest to whether she spoke the words during the inaugural ceremony.
Based on comments made by Wu on Friday, the city has apparently deemed that Fernandes Anderson did not recite the oath verbally at the inaugural ceremony, as required by the city charter, and thus, did not officially take her oath of office until late Thursday afternoon at City Hall.
This creates a roughly four-day gap between the time Fernandes Anderson’s term ended last year, and started this year, effectively leaving District 7 without a city councilor for more than half of this current week.
Fernandes Anderson — now paid $115,000 — participated in the entire City Council meeting on Monday, taking votes on not only the city council president, but a number of other matters, including appointing employees for the four new city councilors, a new school committee member and former City Councilor Kenzie Bok to the Commemoration Commission.
Based on Wu’s remarks, the individual votes taken by Fernandes Anderson are invalidated, but the votes taken by the body as a whole stand, and no other action will be taken. There had been questions about whether the entire meeting, which occurred immediately after the inaugural ceremony, would have to be redone.
“It’s indisputable that 12 city councilors took the oath on Monday, and then immediately held their meeting and unanimously voted for their city council president,” the mayor said. “That was the substance of that meeting, and that vote stands.”
Per the city charter, city councilors are required, “before entering upon the duties of his office,” to “take, and subscribe in a book to be kept by the city clerk for the purpose, the oath of allegiance and oath of office prescribed in the constitution of this commonwealth and an oath to support the constitution of the United States.”
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The Herald arrived at City Hall at 9 a.m. Thursday, where the city clerk, Geourntas, was on hand to swear Fernandes Anderson in for a second time. The District 7 councilor told the clerk at roughly 3:15 p.m., however, that she was not coming into the office, and would let him know if she would be there on Friday.
Geourntas told the Herald in a Friday morning email that Fernandes Anderson had called him back “about an hour or so later and decided to come in to be sworn in.”
“The councilor signed the elected officials oath book and I administered the oath of office, which she repeated after me,” Geourntas said. “The assistant city clerk was present as well, serving as a witness to the administration of the oath.”
Fernandes Anderson spoke with the Herald on Wednesday night, on the condition that the conversation be kept entirely off the record.
She released a statement and appeared on a radio show Thursday night, however, to say that while she considered the oath she took Monday to be sufficient — where she was “internalizing my oath” and “committing a prayer between myself and God” — she did make it to City Hall eventually on Thursday to retake the oath.
City Council members are sworn in during a ceremony at Faneuil Hall on Jan.1. Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, back row third in from right, did not raise her hand or recite the oath of office. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)