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Boston Mayor Michelle Wu takes oath of office for second term
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu took the oath of office at a packed Symphony Hall on Monday morning, calling this a city that doesn't "settle or fold," and pledging to tackle basic local services while continuing to stand up to the Trump administration.
Flanked by her family as she was sworn in for her second term, Wu was cheered on by hundreds of supporters and political leaders, including Gov. Maura Healey and members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation. In a speech that highlighted the city's revolutionary history, Wu also emphasized its future as a hub of innovation.
"For nearly four centuries, Boston has been the center of American innovation and progress: The place where revolutionary ideas get their start, where the impossible is overcome with creativity and courage, imagination and will," she said.
Sporting a blue dress and a white corsage, Wu hit the classic notes of a big-city mayor, promising to keep streets paved, sidewalks fixed and bike lanes safe, while also ticking off plans to improve Boston Public Schools, to hold mayor's office hours around the city, ease permitting — and support the city's institutions from federal attacks.
"We will fiercely defend our universities, our hospitals, our life sciences and innovation sector, so they can keep generating the breakthroughs that drive the progress our city is known for and our country needs," Wu said. She added that Boston would remain the place where people come to solve problems from cancer to climate crises.
The mayor said housing will remain a focus for her administration, including keeping the city affordable for the young and the old. Wu also said residents should expect schools to be excellent and close to home, with less time for students on buses. She did not mention in her speech the large residential property tax hike that's showing up now in bills arriving in Bostonians' mailboxes.
Speaking with reporters after the event, Wu was pressed on the tax issue. She said she's received numerous messages from residents about the new bills.
"We're in a moment in our economy that residents, the lifeblood of our city, cannot be the ones bearing all of the burden" alone," she said. She added she would continue to press the state Legislature to act to shift the tax burden more to the commercial sector.
While not mentioning President Trump by name in her speech, Wu did not hold back in her assessment of the administration: "This federal administration has plundered our economy, ravaged our reputation, torched our institutions and destroyed the lives of our people." However, she said, Boston would be a "beacon" of American ingenuity and civic success, to a standing ovation.
The mayor read the oath of office to swear in the members of the City Council, most of whom are incumbents. In the opening of her speech, she welcomed newly elected Councilor Miniard Culpepper, a church pastor. And Wu thanked city workers for "making everything we do possible," a comment met with long applause.
The ceremony included blessings from several religious leaders, led by Father John Unni of St. Cecilia Parish, who wished the mayor guidance "during these very volatile times in our world."
Wu counted as wins two areas that remain controversial in the city — her handling of the public drug problem at "Mass. and Cass," citing her administration's end of the tent encampments near that intersection and connecting "thousands of people to recovery"; and next year's planned opening of White Stadium. It's a project that local residents have decried as a precursor to gentrification and a taking of public property; but Wu said it will be "the best student athletics facility of any public school district in the country."
In sum, the mayor made clear she does not see the end of bad news coming from Washington, including a reference to the weekend attack on Venezuela: "They have slashed funding for emergency management, research, housing, education, and life-saving care; abducted our neighbors off sidewalks and outside our schools; crushed small businesses with trade wars and tariffs; trashed clean energy projects to profit billionaire donors; carried out unconstitutional military campaigns; and illegally deployed our troops against their own families and neighbors in peaceful American cities."
