Tania Fernandes Anderson is a pariah in the city.
No matter what she says, the District 7 councilor has changed her cell phone number and refuses to admit she cheated taxpayers by allegedly stealing from them. (It’s still an alleged crime since she hasn’t fully admitted in court to a kickback scheme. That hearing is set for May 5.)
The city’s own payroll records show she earned $114,557.77 last year. That was all paid by the residents of Boston with the expectation she’d earn that pay honestly. Now, her staff members don’t have job security and constituents must find a replacement.
A federal indictment states that Fernandes Anderson doled out a $13,000 bonus to one of her City Council staff members, a relative but not immediate family member, on the condition that $7,000 be kicked back to her. The handoff was coordinated by text and took place in a City Hall bathroom in June 2023, the feds said.
On Thursday, as Boston politicians gathered to celebrate the groundbreaking for the FieldHouse+ being built by the Boys & Girls Club of Dorchester in memory of Boston Marathon bombing victim Martin Richard, 8, not a word was spoken about the District 7 councilor. Her name was not uttered. Not even once.
That would have cast a cloud over the solemn event and this was the place to be in the city. It seemed as if every Boston politician pitched in for this project and speaking her name would have ruined the day.
That fact alone shows just how deeply Tania Fernandes Anderson has betrayed Boston. Hopefully, for the last time.
Secretary of State William Galvin appointed the former director of the state office of Campaign and Political Finance to oversee the Boston Elections Department as part of the receivership that resulted from last fall’s widespread ballot shortages.
Galvin has appointed Michael Sullivan, who retired his roughly 25-year post as head of the OCPF in 2019 and previously worked as the city clerk in Newburyport, as the “designee” overseeing the city’s Elections Department, Mayor Michelle Wu said in a letter to councilors last week.
“We look forward to working with Mr. Sullivan, given his experience and expertise, along with other staff from the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Election Division,” Wu wrote.
Galvin in February ordered the Boston Elections Department to overhaul its practices and comply with state election laws.
Residents were left waiting in long lines, and in some cases, forced to leave without casting a vote, after the city failed to supply enough state-issued ballots at multiple polling stations, during last fall’s presidential and state election.
Wu’s letter touches on the directives the city is working to comply with, as a result of the investigation that led to state oversight and Sullivan’s appointment.
It also mentions that the Elections Department has been moved from reporting to the Law Department and “now sits under the city’s People Operations and Administration Cabinet, where it has direct organizational support and management from the Commissioner of City Records, Paul Chong.”
The city hired a process improvement manager dedicated to the Elections Department by repurposing an existing role, and The Elections Group, a nationally-recognized non-partisan consulting firm to provide the city with on-the-ground support and short-term recommendations that can be implemented over the next few months, the mayor wrote.
Wu’s letter doesn’t state how much it’s costing the city to overhaul its election practices, as ordered by the Secretary of State’s office. The mayor’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment seeking that information.
A prior letter the mayor submitted to the Council for her proposed $4.8 billion city budget for fiscal year 2026 states that it includes investments in the Elections Department “to help implement necessary operational reforms and improvements.”
No numbers are listed, but the mayor’s proposed spending plan shows a 14.32% increase in the Elections Department budget. The FY25 budget for that department was $6.4 million, and is proposed at $7.3 million for the next fiscal year.
