Boston Mayor Wu is on vacation, leaving the City Council president in charge
City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune is acting mayor of Boston this week while Michelle Wu is out of town for a family vacation.
Louijeune was elevated to the position of acting mayor this past Monday, and will hold the role until Wu returns to the city on Saturday morning, the city clerk and mayor’s office confirmed.
“The council president is the acting mayor when the mayor is out of town,” the mayor’s office said in a Wednesday email to the Herald, adding that Wu is “in Maine with family.”
The mayor is pregnant with her third child and has two young children who attend the Boston Public Schools, which kicks off the new school year next Thursday, Sept. 5.
Wu also relinquished her mayoral duties for most of last week, when she was in Chicago serving as a delegate at the Democratic National Convention. She was absent from the night of Sunday, Aug. 18 to the afternoon of Friday, Aug. 23.
In that instance, City Clerk Alex Geourntas was acting mayor because Louijeune was also a delegate at the convention. The role has historically been delegated to the clerk in Boston, in instances where the mayor and council president are both out of town, Geourntas told the Herald last week.
While it was unclear when Louijeune first took on the role of acting mayor, this week is not the first time she’s had the responsibility, the mayor’s office said.
The role of acting mayor falls to the council president during the mayor’s absence from the city, as dictated by the charter.
An acting mayor, per the charter, “shall possess the powers of mayor only in matters not admitting of delay.”
Requests for comment from Louijeune and her office were not returned, making it unclear as to whether she’s taken, or plans to take, any action during her time in the temporary mayoral role. Louijeune led a weekly Council meeting on Wednesday.
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Last year, then-City Council President Ed Flynn served as acting mayor on two separate occasions near the tail end of summer, due to Wu’s absence from the city for what her office said was vacation.
Flynn, who has expressed interest in running for mayor, was particularly active during his time in the temporary role, focusing on Mass and Cass at a time when Wu said the area had reached a “new level of public safety alarm” and was planning to release a new plan to address the spike in violence and drug activity.
Wu’s absence last week coincided with another public safety incident that occurred on Sunday, Aug. 18, when five people were shot at Franklin Park, where many people had gathered for the Dominican Festival.
Amid concerns that violence may mar a subsequent festival, particularly the Caribbean Carnival where a mass shooting occurred nearby last year, Wu was back in Boston by the end of last week, and attended the St. Anthony’s Feast and Carnival Parade this past Friday and Saturday.
The mayor left for vacation on Monday, an absence that has coincided with what has, so far, been a relatively quiet week by comparison.
Boston City Council president Ruthzee Louijeune (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)