Three Boston city councilors say they’ve had it after watching a slew of hearings on hot-button topics like Mass and Cass and a Level 3 sex offender hire be put on the backburner, due to what the Wu administration insists is a lack of availability.

That “excuse” just isn’t cutting it anymore, the councilors said Wednesday, particularly since they see the tactic as a way to delay debate on important issues until after the Sept. 9 mayoral and city council preliminary elections.

Their remarks came as yet another hearing, this one on bus driver hiring and training protocols — called in response to a fatal Boston school bus crash that killed a 5-year-old boy — was canceled Wednesday by Henry Santana, an ally and former employee of Mayor Michelle Wu, at the request of the Wu administration.

“The City Council cannot keep being sidelined,” Councilor Erin Murphy, who co-sponsored the BPS driver hearing order, said in a statement to the Herald. “This is the third hearing this week alone that has been canceled or where the administration has failed to ensure the appropriate department heads are present to answer these critical questions.

“Families, advocates and community members rearrange their schedules to be heard, and it is unacceptable that the administration and some colleagues allow this pattern of delay and avoidance to continue. The public deserves accountability, transparency, and respect, not repeated excuses.”

Santana, chair of the committee that will hold the hearing, said he chose to cancel and reschedule it to a time where “all decision-makers” are present.

“Boston families deserve nothing less than a complete and transparent process where all decision-makers are present and can be held accountable, and it’s my responsibility as chair of the Education Committee to ensure we get everyone in the room to do that,” Santana said in a statement to the Herald.

“I am prepared to ensure accountability happens in full by holding a hearing next Thursday when the independent investigation report will be available, and I’ve been able to confirm the participation of Attorney Natashia Tidwell, Transdev, and (Boston Public Schools) transportation officials.”

Santana said he was awaiting confirmation from the lead sponsors, Murphy and Ed Flynn, as to whether that new date would work for the hearing, so it can be publicly noticed by Council staff.

An internal email obtained by the Herald shows that the hearing cancellation was requested by Clare Kelly, director of the mayor’s intergovernmental relations team, with the Aug. 28 date suggested by the Wu administration, and agreed to by Santana.

Kelly’s email states that the delay was due to the administration’s desire to have the independent investigation report of the Transdev contract completed for the Council hearing. Transdev is the school district’s transportation provider.

While that hearing, should Flynn and Murphy agree to next week’s suggested date, will be held before the preliminary election, Councilor John FitzGerald doubts that will be the case for a hearing he’s been trying to schedule off-site in the South End, a hotspot for spillover from the Mass and Cass open-air drug market.

FitzGerald said he has been running into difficulty with the Wu administration’s lack of availability for the off-site hearing he’d like to hold on the Mass and Cass crisis that’s spilling over into surrounding neighborhoods, which is based on Flynn’s resolution calling for a public health and safety emergency declaration.

“We had a time for Sept. 4 set up and we were asked by the administration to rework that time and try and have it post-primary,” FitzGerald told the Herald. “There’s a lot of other factors that go into putting on a hearing, so to just have them all either be canceled or asked to move, it just feels like it’s a slight towards the body of the City Council.”

FitzGerald sees the Wu administration’s lack of availability that’s repeatedly been cited as the reason for other councilors to cancel and reschedule hearings “for what is coincidentally after the primary election date” as an “egregious overreach of a manufactured excuse not to hear the issues before our city.”

“At some point, you’ve just got to say, I think this excuse has run its course,” he said.

The matter was automatically sent to FitzGerald’s committee, Public Health, Homelessness, and Recovery, after Flynn’s call for a vote on the resolution was blocked by Sharon Durkan, another Wu ally and former employee.

Durkan said at the Council meeting that an emergency declaration, which Wu’s office has said the mayor opposes, is not needed, as it won’t lead to any funding to address the crisis at Mass and Cass.

“I don’t think we’re being fair to people being affected by certain issues,” FitzGerald said. “Mass and Cass people have been dealing with this for 10 years. They deserve answers.

“We are an elected body, elected by the people,” he added. “When you take a job with the City of Boston, the constituents of the city are who you report to, and if we’re not reporting to them, then we’re not doing ourselves or our constituents any justice.”

Flynn, who saw his emergency declaration push for Mass and Cass blocked, was left steaming after another hearing he called to review the city’s policy for hiring ex-convicts was abruptly canceled last Friday, a decision he says was made to avoid questions about the mayor’s hire of a Level 3 sex offender.

The hearing was set to be held this past Monday, but was rescheduled to Sept. 22 by Councilor Benjamin Weber, who received the mayor’s endorsement last election cycle and said the Wu administration would be more available on that later date.

“The chairs of the committees are talking with the mayor’s office, and the mayor’s office is asking them to postpone or cancel these hearings until after the election,” Flynn told the Herald. “Residents are asking questions, and want results, and city councilors are not being respectful by canceling them or postponing them.”

Flynn also laid out his concerns with the three hearing delays and the “normalized blocking” of any discussion that “may provide transparency,” by Durkan and other councilors, among other issues in a Wednesday letter to City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune.

“Leadership demands more than social media, sound bites and highlighting national issues,” Flynn wrote. “Our neighbors did not send us to this body to only talk about these issues with it’s politically convenient.”

Louijeune shot back with an email of her own.

“We are colleagues,” Louijeune said. “I sincerely ask you for what feels like the 20th time to pick up the phone or call my office if you would like to discuss an issue — that’s what working together requires and that’s what positive leadership requires.

“My doors remain open,” she added. “As you know, as past president of the Council, the body can only work together if we speak to each other rather than seek headlines. I really do hope you take this to heart.”

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As for the availability reason that’s been questioned by councilors, the mayor’s office said Wu administration officials have taken part in 122 hearings this year, including eight in this past week, and that the administration does its best to make staff available while juggling with other demands city departments have to meet.

It’s “rare” for the administration to ask for a rescheduled date, Wu’s office said.

“As its own separate branch of government, the Boston City Council has the authority to host hearings on any topics at any time they wish to schedule them, without needing any approval or coordination with the administration,” a city spokesperson said in a statement. “In addition to joining Council hearings, Mayor Wu and city staff are in the community every day, engaging with residents directly about the issues that most impact their lives.”