Councilors, activists clash over budget cuts

Council Ways and Means chair Ben Webber appeared to be losing control of the Council’s working session Monday when District 3 Councilor John FitzGerald asked him to focus in on an agenda.

“We have Council ADD,” Fitzgerald said, referring to attention deficit disorder. “We didn’t accomplish anything in the last 20 minutes. Chair, we need to tighten this up.”

Seconds later, his grip on the meeting was completely severed when several dozen activists loudly interrupted the councilors and demanded they reject Mayor Michelle Wu’s $4.9 billion budget during the Wednesday, June 3 meeting. (Councilors on Wednesday deferred a vote on the operating budget until their June 10 meeting.)

The activists, part of a coalition that led more than 200 activists on a demonstration through the streets of Boston May 26, are calling on the councilors to restore $16 million in cuts the mayor made to youth jobs, housing assistance, immigrant services and other areas. While that $16 million represents just a third of a percent of the mayor’s proposed budget, the council under Wu has had a dismal record at amending her budgets.

“Do we need to remind you of the power you have?” asked Vikiana Petit Homme, a member of the Better Budget Alliance. “We gave you the power to amend the budget.”

Petit Homme’s coalition helped spearhead a campaign that put a referendum giving the council the power to make line item amendments to the mayor’s budget on the 2021 ballot. The measure passed with the support of 67% of the electorate and of then-Councilor Michelle Wu.

On the current council, Wu has relied on her allies, who make up the majority of the body, to defeat the council’s amendments.

A flashpoint between the mayor and activists this year was in her proposed cut of funding for the 1,800 year-round youth jobs the city has funded in recent years. Councilors including Wu loyalist Henry Santana said the youth jobs were a priority for them and pledged to restore the city funding.

But Monday afternoon, as councilors sat down at City Hall in the Piemonte Room to discuss budget amendments, Wu held a press conference nearby in the Eagle Room announcing her plan to use local corporations and business groups to fund 2,000 youth jobs. So far, the YMCA of Greater Boston, the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Boston and Artists for humanity have a committed to providing 500 jobs, all together.

The activists told the councilors they want funding for youth jobs in the city budget.

“Young people’s futures should not depend on whether a corporation decides they should sponsor us,” Petit Homme said.

As councilors Santana, Pepen, Durkan and Louijeune exited Wu’s press conference and entered the Council’s working session with news of the commitment, Weber asked his colleagues whether they should advocate more funding to other areas.

“I don’t think we can take assurance from a press conference,” District 7 Councilor Miniard Culpepper said. “I would like to see a document.”

“I just don’t know if we have enough information,” Flynn said. “You can’t balance a budget on a press release.”

Council President Liz Breadon and Durkan, however, called on their colleagues to take the prospective donors to the youth jobs program at their word.

“I think an official press conference with the mayor is an official announcement,” Durkan countered.

The lack of agreement on whether the Council could count on the business leaders’ commitment in their budgeting considerations underscored the deeper divisions on the body. Weber, Durkan, Pepen, Santana, Breadon, Enrique Pepen and Gabriella Colleta Zapata — who is currently on maternity leave — have reliably voted with the mayor on divisive issues ranging from the budget to the Council presidency.

The council on May 20 deadlocked on a vote to reject the mayor’s budget, a tactic the body relied on before it gained the power to make amendments. In past years, councilors used the maneuver to negotiate amendments to the budget with past mayoral administrations. With Coletta Zapata, the body split 6-6 on the vote.

On the other side of the split, councilors Culpepper, Flynn, FitzGerald, Brian Worrell, Erin Murphy and Julia Mejia have consistently pushed back against Wu, clashing with their colleagues on the Council.

Monday, Flynn and Murphy noted that Weber hadn’t included most of their proposed budget amendments in the meeting’s agenda. Weber indicated that he had discussed amendments with the Wu administration and that the meeting would focus on amendments most likely to pass.

“We all gave you our amendments but you’re working on your own list that you’ve talked to the administration about,” Murphy noted.

Flynn spoke several times in the meeting on behalf of the city’s Human Rights Commission, which holds hearings on civil rights violations and hate crimes. Weber said the commission hadn’t met in several years. Flynn, who has been on the Council for eight years said the commission was up and running until recently. Culpepper said the commission would function with funding and support from the mayor. Cutting its funding would erase it.

“We can’t just with a stroke of the pen erase the Human Rights Commission,” he said. “It was created by an ordinance.”

Culpepper said he’d like to see funding restored for the Office of Black Male Advancement, the Office of Immigrant Advancement and the Fair Housing Commission, among other areas.

Once the activists took over the meeting, Weber gaveled it to a close, while the teens made statements and called on the councilors to pledge to reject the Mayor’s budget. Flynn, Murphy, Worrell, Culpepper and FitzGerald had all previously voted to reject Wu’s budget. Pressed by the teens and adult activists, Weber, Ruthzee Louijeune, Santana, Durkan, Breadon and Pepen demurred.

Petit Homme urged the councilors to stand against the mayor’s budget.

“Tell the mayor you don’t stand with her, you stand with the people,” she said, before leading the activists in a chant of “fund us or fail us.”