Mayor Michelle Wu’s new contract with Boston police officers makes big strides on issues like pay, discipline and details but misses on one key aspect of reform: transparency.

Wu needs to make public responsiveness a bigger priority to hold police more accountable not just to the media but to ordinary citizens and community leaders who pay the tab for the $82 million, five-year contract.

Transparency should be a cornerstone of reform – which is what the Wu administration says the contract finally achieves. The idea is to pull the veil back and let the public in.

The City Council is slated to take up the new contract on Wednesday with a hearing scheduled a day before on Tuesday.

In an interview with the Herald, Wu said she was “happy with every part of the contract” that for the first time in the city’s history has reform as one of its main objectives – not just financial compensation.

“This is a contract that reflects progress on every area we identified,” she said. “If you just treat this as a negotiation around dollars you miss the chance to get to win, wins where our whole city can benefit.”

But the fact is that the Boston Police Department has been resisting true transparency for years – way before Wu came into office.

Now would be a good time for the first-term mayor to rededicate herself toward making good on her promise of real reform that includes making it easier for the public to access information.

There are delays on public records requests for up to one to two years and that’s just not acceptable. Some journalists have just given up on trying to file public records requests.

While acknowledging the city has “more work to do” on accessibility Wu also said, “I know the department has worked to make strides there.”

That includes hiring a new assistant corporation counsel starting at BPD on Jan. 1 to help specifically with public records requests.

“That’s something we definitely want to improve,” Wu said. “It’s a matter of making sure we have the right organizational resources there.”

But there needs to be an attitude change as well at BPD and the mayor’s office where even difficult issues are treated openly and fairly. No more just routinely rejecting public records requests.

Why did it take a year to release body cam footage of the arrest of a relative of a high profile political figure?

Or a year to release some footage and more information on the car accident involving Mayor Wu’s police vehicle?

On the plus side, it’s good that officers are being rewarded with cost of living increases after not getting any since the last contract expired in 2020.

Wu also said she learned through negotiations that there shouldn’t always be an “us versus them” mentality when it comes to police contracts.

“What we learned through this process is that there’s often this perception that police officers just don’t want to change or something is impossible because this group or that won’t let it happen,” she said.

But if the City Council approves the new contract, it will show that officers deserve to be treated fairly – or punished and removed when necessary.