The latest episode of the Boston soap opera “As the City Council Turns” was a doozy. Disgraced District Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson was a no-show to Wednesday’s meeting, and At-Large Councilor Julia Mejia blocked an effort for the council to take a stance on Fernandes Anderson’s job status.

There’s a lot to unpack here.

After pleading guilty Monday to federal corruption charges tied to a $7,000 kickback scheme carried out at City Hall, Fernandes Anderson said she’s eying late June for her Council resignation to become effective.

One would think respect for the City Council would prompt an immediate exit given the gravity of these charges. But this is not the councilor’s first ethics-impaired rodeo.

Back in 2023, she was cited by the state Ethics Commission for hiring her sister and son to paid positions on her staff. She admitted her guilt, and had to pay a $5,000 civil penalty. She was re-elected that year.

This time was different: federal charges, indictment and arrest. Still, Fernandes Anderson is in no hurry to get off the stage.

“It really hasn’t been about me,” Fernandes Anderson said Monday. “I was trying to resign immediately and my advisory council advised that District 7 doesn’t deserve not to have a vote in the budget. … It looks like in June, once we get the budget out of the way.”

District 7 deserves a voice on everything put before a Council vote, which is why the councilor did her constituents a disservice when she racked up seven absences at regular weekly City Council meetings from January 2022 to April 2024.

As the Herald reported, three of four absences logged in 2023 by Fernandes Anderson occurred on days when the Council took big votes on public safety.

District 7 deserved a vote then, too.

And it deserved representation Wednesday, though Fernandes Anderson explained her absence in a letter as being due to a “family emergency.”

Of course a key item on the council agenda would be the status of her position, and it was introduced by Councilors Erin Murphy and Ed Flynn, calling for a late-file “emergency resolution in support of ethical leadership and a Council vote on the status of Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson.”

Mejia blocked the kick, saying, “Not all individuals are in this chamber, and we’re talking about something that’s in reference to a colleague.

“Out of respect for that process, I think that’s a conversation that either needs to go to a hearing or we need to have while all councilors are present,” she added.

Murphy said she saw the decision to block their resolution as resistance from other councilors to take a stance on Fernandes Anderson’s job status.

“The residents want to know where we stand on it. This would have been an opportunity to go on the record of where we stand on this behavior that is unacceptable,” she said.

But the Boston City Council wouldn’t be what it is without maneuvers, inside politics and dysfunction.

“It really hasn’t been about me” — that epic line from Fernandes Anderson should spur the councilor to attend every meeting from now until the June budget hearing.

And Flynn and Murphy should stay the course and insist on a resolution. Because this really isn’t about individual councilors and their careers — it’s about the constituents.

Editorial cartoon by Steve Kelley (Creators Syndicate)