‘Frustrating’: Boston City Council forced to cancel hearings due to holiday absences from Wu administration
The Wu administration’s lack of availability around the holiday canceled most of this week’s Boston City Council hearings, frustrating some councilors and raising questions about whether substantial work will take place this summer at City Hall.
Three of four City Council hearings were quickly canceled on Monday, wiping out a Council schedule that already lacked a regular weekly meeting due to the Independence Day holiday, and providing short notice to councilors including the committee chair who were already preparing to take part in the morning session.
The timing of the cancellations raised some eyebrows, given that a reason was not immediately shared with all council members and the last-minute changes took place soon after the city’s budget season wrapped up last week, marking a typically understood end to heavy legislative activity in city government until the fall.
The Council’s regular meeting schedule for this year lists only three meetings in July and August, with five off-weeks in those months listed as “summer break.” Councilors are now paid $115,000 annually, after benefiting from an $11,500 raise at the start of this year, a pay hike approved by the body in the fall of 2022.
“It’s disappointing that City Council meetings are postponed,” City Councilor Ed Flynn told the Herald Tuesday. “Boston residents deserve a government that is responsive, hardworking and transparent. We must refocus our efforts to provide residents with the best city and neighborhood services and ensure we communicate effectively in a professional manner.”
Councilor Enrique Pepén, who chairs the committee where the hearings were set to take place on Monday and Tuesday, said the cancellations were not made by him but by the sponsor of the initiatives that were up for discussion, Tania Fernandes Anderson, who cited a lack of availability from Wu administration officials.
“My team was actually at City Hall yesterday and today ready for the hearings, and we got the request from the director of policy for the sponsor asking us to please postpone,” Pepén told the Herald Tuesday.
Pepén proceeded to recite the written request from Fernandes Anderson’s office, which referenced the unavailability of Wu administration representatives who had been invited to testify and the sponsor’s intention to reschedule at a future date.
He wouldn’t comment on whether he was disappointed by the hearing cancellations, saying that different councilors have different reasons for wanting to postpone, and as a committee chair, he tries to “accommodate as much as possible, especially when it’s the sponsor wanting to reschedule.”
Fernandes Anderson did not respond to a request for comment, but the mayor’s office confirmed that the hearings were canceled because the relevant staff members from the Wu administration couldn’t attend, due to “scheduling conflicts around the holiday.”
The canceled hearings would have required testimony from finance, development and transportation representatives, among others, a Wu spokesperson said, adding that the administration could not make those departments available this week.
“Unfortunately, there were scheduling conflicts around the upcoming holiday,” a Wu spokesperson said in a statement. “The administration looks forward to engaging with the City Council and being present at these hearings when they are rescheduled in the near future.”
A final City Council hearing reviewing arts and cultural grants sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu was not canceled and is still scheduled for Wednesday.
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City Councilor-at-Large Erin Murphy called this week’s “last-minute” hearing cancellations “frustrating” and while acknowledging the reason, pointed out that scheduling is done and panelists from the mayoral administration are invited far in advance of the actual meetings — which she said requires “a lot of effort.”
“Now that the Council has the budget hearings behind us, I was looking forward to having hearings in other committees to address important issues that are before the Council,” Murphy said on Tuesday. “Unfortunately this week’s meetings are canceled, but I will be at City Hall doing other important work.
“The City Council is elected to show up and work,” she added. “The mayor’s administration is also expected to be at City Hall and working and also available for Council hearings.”
Pepén pushed back on the notion that an empty meeting schedule indicates that a lack of work is taking place at City Hall during the holiday week, saying that while he couldn’t speak for his colleagues without knowing their individual schedules, his office “is staffed right now” and “we’re working.”
Of the other councilors, he said, “I think everyone’s still working.”
Councilor Ed Flynn.