The Wu train had a signal failure this week as Boston’s mayor saw her controversial tax shift proposal derail in the Senate.
Michelle Wu’s bill would have given Boston the authority to tax businesses beyond the state limit for three years.
This came after final Department of Revenue-certified data released at the 11th hour by the city last week showed homeowners wouldn’t be facing the steep tax increase cited by city officials for the past seven months, and which served as the reasoning behind the bill. A quartet of business leaders who had brokered a compromise with the mayor backed out of the deal once the data was made known.
There was drama, there was blowback, there was blame. Wu’s credibility is among the casualties, as councilors are calling for increased transparency from the mayor, voluntarily or not.
City Councilor Ed Flynn is asking the state Inspector General to step in and potentially investigate why Wu provided “outdated and inaccurate” tax assessing data to the council and state Legislature to try and win over elected officials.
“It is now clear that the Boston City Council previously voted on the administration’s property tax classification legislation based on inaccurate data provided to the body,” Flynn wrote in an email to the IG late Tuesday.
It’s likely not how Wu saw this week ending, and it could be the tip of the iceberg. In October, Councilor Erin Murphy requested information from the mayor’s office on how many new positions have been created under the Wu administration.
Murphy said her request was informed, in part, by a point raised by a small business owner and member of the South End Business Alliance, Randi Lathrop, who cited a prior media report that stated 450 new positions had been added by Wu, during an October council hearing.
The mayor’s office did not confirm nor deny that number of new hires when asked by the Herald.
The tax shift proposal was huge for Wu, as she has resisted calls to cut the city budget, saying the commercial tax hike would have staved off having to trim the budget by $265 million from the budget.
Now what?
The tax hike dustup offers an opportunity for anyone who’d like to challenge the mayor for re-election next year, and does nothing to shore up relations with the council. But there is a way for the Wu train to get back on track.
Open the books, reveal the number of new positions in City Hall, and lean in to transparency.
Wu has done some great things for the city, from instituting a free bus program for low-income riders to launching and expanding the BPS Sundays program to include every student living in Boston enrolled in grades K-12 or Boston Pre-K in the free museum admission program two Sundays a month.
It would be a shame if the administration’s handling of the tax shift plan overshadowed the good Wu has done, and further hampered a working relationship with the City Council.
Wu promised transparency when she was running for mayor, returning to her platform could help restore the trust in her administration eroded by the tax plan debacle.
