Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s cave-in to the governor on putting migrants in the Melnea Cass Recreational Complex is another blow to the long-mistreated community of Roxbury.
It’s a convenient move for Democrat Maura Healey to ram it down Roxbury’s throat, sparing the rich suburbs where elections are won.
While Wu made clear on Monday that she didn’t really support the decision, she didn’t give any indication that she put up a fight to stop it.
The rec center is the lifeblood of the community, serving seniors as well as children. It has an indoor track, classroom space, a connected outdoor pool, athletic courts, and locker rooms.
But starting on Wednesday, Healey – due to her own failure to address the migrant crisis – will be steering dozens of families who were sleeping on concrete floors at the airport to the center on the corner of MLK Jr Boulevard as an “overflow” site for migrants.
For Wu it’s a minor inconvenience to have a few hundred parents lose a place to get their kids exercise. She probably won’t take much flak because her enabling support network is afraid to do it.
“There are no good options,” Wu said when asked about the migrants’ move to Roxbury in her regular appearance on WBUR Radio Boston. “The governor has been doing her very best to manage this. This is a state run building, it is under the jurisdiction of the administration.”
Wu said because the state has control of the rec center there was little she could do.
And she again blamed the federal government for inaction on immigration, at one point throwing Donald Trump in for good measure.
That’s a cop-out. Wu wants to have it both ways. She wants to please the progressives who want to house the migrants, and she wants to be seen as defending her city.
This raises the question, is Wu doing everything she can to stand up and fight for the city? And posing the question of why it’s not in Wellesley or Weston?
No, because Wu is towing the progressive line, even if it means putting them in a community unfortunately that has borne its share of burdens.
Wu could have used her considerable power to argue against the move, and vow to protest it. That likely would have been enough for Healey to back off.
But Wu would rather talk about how the giant clown heads are revitalizing downtown, or her feel-good measures to give Boston school families free passes to the museums, or give allegedly “free” MBTA fares for low-income residents.
She doesn’t appear to want to start a confrontation with her texting buddy the governor over migrants.
So she smiles and does nothing while an already struggling neighborhood is suddenly forced to confront the reality of taking care of dozens of migrant families.
