Boston Mayor-elect Michelle Wu faces a short and potentially rough honeymoon as she looks to deliver on the ambitious promises she made during the campaign.
From the notoriously difficult police union to her plan to free the T, Wu will need to overcome all the obstacles a Boston mayor faces and will not likely be able to back up the talk that Boston voters bought.
She also will have only two weeks to put together her administration, because the new mayor will be sworn in on Nov. 16. Usually mayors have until January until they are inaugurated.
Wu got a convincing win over opponent Annissa Essaibi George but it wasn’t the 30-point blowout that the polls predicted. So she comes into office with a mandate but not the overwhelming one she was hoping to get.
In her first 100 days in office, Wu better deliver on some of her promises or she’ll be dismissed as all talk and no action.
Freeing the T? Ha. The state controls that and Boston doesn’t even have a representative on the T board.
Rent control? Again, Boston doesn’t decide that.
A Green New Deal for the city? Good luck.
Wu will face a newly energized city council who may try to block some of her proposals. The council doesn’t have a great deal of power but it does have a say on the city’s budget.
Wu will also be under pressure from demanding progressive activists who will be watching to see that she doesn’t water down or back off some of her ideas.
The new mayor will also need to reach out to the skeptical business community which didn’t necessarily support her campaign.
Businesses have been devastated during COVID and face a rough winter and will be looking for more city financial assistance.
The ongoing threat of the coronavirus will also test Wu’s crisis skills. If cases go up during the winter how will she handle that?
And then there’s the biggest landmine: the city’s long beleaguered school system.
A new mayor is always graded on whether they can fix the city’s schools, and some previous mayors totally failed. It won’t be easy. Wu’s leadership skills are unknown except for when she was president of the city council, and there’s much more responsibility running the entire city.
Wu will be hampered by the fact that she’s dealing with a school committee that was appointed by the previous mayor. And strong parents’ groups that want to abolish the appointed board altogether.
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November 03, 2021 at 09:40AM
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Battenfeld: Michelle Wu faces short and potentially difficult honeymoon as next Boston mayor - Boston Herald
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