On January 24, 2024, the Boston City Council met for its first weekly meeting of the year. It was an important first step for the body, with Council President Ruthzee Louijeune formally submitting Committee assignments as well as the rules the Council is to abide by for the upcoming year.

While this meeting certainly doesn’t define the entire legislative agenda of the Council, it serves as a good indication of what their priorities and overall temperament is heading into this year.

BAN understands that not everyone can tune in on Wednesdays at noon to watch the meeting live, and it’s often difficult to find time to sit down and review the archived video online throughout the week.

As such, here are some highlights you may have missed from last week’s meeting:

Grants

The Mayor sent over eight separate grants to the Council for approval. The Council approved 3 during the meeting and sent 5 others to various committees to be debated before voting on whether to accept the funding. The somewhat controversial grant for the “Urban Security Initiative” was sent to committee, despite a letter from State Representative Jake Auchincloss urging them to approve it.

Another sent to committee was $146,089.77 for a STOP grant, specifically the “Violence Against Women Act.” This grant intends to fund a “Civilian Domestic Violence Advocate” to provide services for victims in Jamaica Plain, East Boston, and Charlestown. Why, exactly, the Council was unwilling to accept these funds intended for battered women is unclear at this time. However, they were quick to accept $45,000 for the “Accelerating Climate Resilience Grant Program.” The Council also accepted a donation of 10,000 coats from Project Warmth “in support of the migrant crisis.”

Appointments

The Mayor also forwarded the Council a list of new appointments and re-appointments of individuals to various commissions and trusts. One of these re-appointments was Brianna Millor, the Chief of Community Engagement for Mayor Wu, as a trustee of the “Make Boston Shine Trust Fund.” Millor has recently been the subject of scrutiny after it was revealed the city paid a $40,000 settlement to a former employee after they accused Millor of sending them sexually explicit messages and creating a “toxic work environment.”

Absences

District 2 representative Ed Flynn was the only Councilor absent from this week’s meeting. In a letter sent to Council President Louijeune, Flynn notified the body of his absence due to his attending a trip to Israel with leaders from across the United States.

Legislation

The Council reviewed a series of ordinances but were hesitant to pass much during this first meeting, opting to send the majority to committee. Of the ordinances, the focus was on formally creating an “Office of Food Justice,” amending the zoning code to allow for honeybees, and changing the Boston Municipal Code to allow for “non-motorized” food carts throughout the city.

There was one home rule petition filed by Councilor Brian Worrell that was also sent to committee. Worrell’s petition was filed “to ensure that future inauguration dates do not fall on a federal holiday.”

There was also one 17F filed by Councilor Liz Breadon. A 17F is a request for information from the Council to the Mayor. If approved by the Council, the Mayor then has one week to provide them with the information requested. Breadon’s 17F was related to response times for Emergency Medical Services.

The Council also assigned a host of hearing orders to various committees, which you can find in the summary below.

It may be a little-known provision of Boston’s municipal code, but Ordinance 2-14.3 sends city councilors and other top officials scrambling every Spring to submit their required Statements of Financial Interest (SFI) forms to the City Clerk by the June 1st deadline.

This ordinance makes financial disclosures mandatory and even threatens a $300 fine for every month past the deadline that an official fails to submit the detailed, multi-page form.

Councilors, the Mayor, and most top appointees in the City must disclose their income range, employment, investments, assets, and business ownership stakes in significant detail. Newly elected and appointed officials must also submit an SFI for the calendar year before they take office.

A review of recent filings shows that most, but not all of Boston’s elected officials submit their SFIs by the deadline. These documents are public records and serve to reassure the voters that powerful officials are not hiding financial interests that ethically conflict with the duties of their position.

By law, being a public servant is not meant to be a profitable enterprise that opens the door for personal financial gain.

For example, Mayor Wu has been submitting SFIs for years. As Wu’s most recent filing shows, she and her husband are joint owners of their two-family home. Her mayoral salary is her only source of income and her husband owns stock in Rockland Trust. The Mayor’s financial interests appear modest, mundane, and straightforward.

A recent BAN Report showed that Council President Louijeune has an incomplete disclosure history. Louijeune failed to submit her SFI for 2021, which was due in June 2022. However, compared to BHA Chief and former City Councilor Priscilla “Kenzie” Bok (D8 Beacon Hill), Louijeune is a model of transparency.

According to an official response from the city of Boston, Bok has never once filed a disclosure with the City Clerk’s office.

There are different penalties for violations of these laws at both the city and state levels. As previously mentioned, the city of Boston can impose a fine of $300 every month a disclosure is late. For Bok, who was appointed to head the Boston Housing Authority by Mayor Wu, she will likely continue to meet state filing requirements as a public employee.

This is how the state defines these different positions:

For Louijeune, whose 2021 disclosure is roughly 19 months past due, this tardiness equates to a $5,700 fine - $300 more than Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson had to pay when she violated the conflict of interest law by hiring her sister and son. Louijeune’s potential penalty is also higher than the fines levied by the Ethics Commission on new Councilor Enrique Pepen (D5) and disgraced former Councilor Ricardo Arroyo (also D5) for their ethical lapses.

Why have Anderson, Pepen, and Arroyo been held publicly and financially accountable while Louijeune and Bok seem to be getting a free pass?

Granted, Louijeune’s infraction pales in comparison to Kenzie Bok, who is the scion of a Boston fortune older than the Freedom Trail and a woman whose primary residence is a Beacon Hill townhouse worth an estimated $4.1 million on the open market. Bok has never once submitted any financial disclosure statements as required by law and owes for 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 (her 2023 disclosure is due June 1).

Since Bok has never bothered to inform the public just how silver her spoon is, we don’t know whether she can just write a check for the $32,000 in potential fines she could face for blowing off years of disclosures, or if she’d need to work out a payment plan with the City treasury. Bok, who has advanced degrees from Harvard and Cambridge, is intelligent enough to understand the importance of these mandatory forms, so it’s unlikely she just forgot to file them four years in a row.

Perhaps Bok doesn’t want voters to know just how wealthy her family is? This is unfortunate because most people don’t care how much money someone else has. What voters don’t like, however, is when holier-than-thou millionaires hide potential financial conflicts of interest because they’re too rich to care or too entitled to recognize that the same laws that apply to working-class immigrants like Tania Fernandes Anderson also apply to Ivy League elites like Louijeune and Bok.

Maybe Louijeune doesn’t want to disclose her salary and sources of income for 2021, the year she somehow qualified for a sweetheart $424,000 mortgage from Rockland Trust at 2.99% fixed interest - more than a point lower than the going rate at the time? Maybe Bok thinks it’s bad optics for an oh-so-humble public servant now responsible for housing Boston’s poorest to disclose a trust fund, securities, and real estate fortune that might tarnish her carefully honed “just folks” political persona?

Maybe. But until Councilor Louijeune and Director Bok stop defying the law and start disclosing their financial interests to the State Ethics Commission and the public, we simply won’t know.

Update: January 22, 2024 at 11:45am

The city of Boston previously closed our records request on former Councilor Bok’s disclosure forms, stating this:

Earlier today, a representative from the city of Boston contacted BAN with the following email:

It is troubling that the city of Boston is trying to deflect blame for its original withholding of records, whether intentional or not. The use of “financial statements of interest” is required by Massachusetts’ Financial Disclosure Law. As such, BAN interpreted this to mean that these were encompassed by our request for “any and all disclosures.”

However, both BAN’s interpretation and the state regulation are arguing semantics. For a clear explanation of whether these statements of financial interest(SFI) classify as a “disclosure,” one only needs to refer to the Boston Municipal Code. More specifically, the city of Boston directly and explicitly refers to SFIs as disclosures:

BAN is looking into why the city of Boston originally withheld this information as well as the questionable justification it has provided for withholding it. We have sent the following to determine the city of Boston’s official position on the matter:

We will provide an update on the city of Boston’s response when and if one becomes available. Those interested in reviewing former Councilor Bok’s filings can do so by clicking here.

First elected by the voters in November 2021, Louijeune was inaugurated by Mayor Michelle Wu on January 3, 2022. That next month, on February 28, 2022, Louijeune purchased a single family home in Mattapan from Jose Masso, now Chief of Human Services for Mayor Wu.

Louijuene, a staunch advocate of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance (MAHA), was integral in securing city-backed funds for the organization mere months into her first term. As MAHA’s tax records show, the organization received a substantial increase in funding and, in June of 2022, Louijeune even appeared alongside its Executive Director Symone Crawford in a television interview to lobby on behalf of MAHA.

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Furthermore, and according to Louijeune’s campaign website, the Councilor had previously offered her legal services as an attorney to MAHA:

While it is unclear whether or not Louijeune has a legal obligation to disclose her affiliation with MAHA, it can certainly be argued she has an ethical obligation to disclose, especially if she benefitted from any of the financial incentives and/or programs offered through the organization.

It would also seem Louijeune, at the very least, had an ethical obligation to disclose her buying the house from Jose Masso, a long-term fixture in Boston’s non-profit community and current cabinet head in Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration.

Masso originally bought the distressed Mattapan property for only $139,999 in 2009. In January 2022, Masso listed it for sale at a purchase price of $489,000 which Louijeune purchased just a few weeks later on February 28, 2022, for $530,000, or 8% ($41,000) over the asking price.

According to public records and financial disclosure reports, Louijeune obtained a $424,000 mortgage from Rockland Trust to purchase the home. She made a 20% down payment of $106,000 and secured a 30-year mortgage from Rockland at an exceptionally low fixed interest rate of 2.99%. At the time of her purchase, the average fixed rate on 30-year mortgages was around 4.4%, - a full 1.4% higher than the rate offered to Councilor Louijeune. Rockland Trust also happens to be the financial institution that Mayor Wu and her husband Conor Pewarski are still invested in.

In fact, Pewarski was himself a mortgage broker for East Boston Savings Bank, whose assets were bought by Rockland during the same period that Louijeune (a longtime friend of the Mayor and fellow mentee of Elizabeth Warren) was getting her apparent white-glove treatment from Rockland Trust.

According to her financial disclosure forms, Louijeune’s only income in 2022 was her city council salary of $103,000, which she began receiving about six weeks before she closed on her home.

Anyone who’s applied for a mortgage knows that banks do not look favorably on applicants who have less than two years of verified income - a scant six weeks of income would render the vast majority of mortgage applicants ineligible for even a high-interest loan. But for the well-connected new councilor, Rockland Trust, it seems, was willing to expedite a $424,000 loan and at a significantly advantageous interest rate to boot. 

While her disclosure forms do not detail the sources of income, if any, for the years 2020 and 2021, Louijeune’s well-publicized campaign for office during that time made it clear that being a candidate for the Boston City Council was her full-time job. Before that, Louijeune worked on Elizabeth Warren’s campaign; a high-profile but not necessarily high-paying gig. Warren’s FEC filings show payments to Louijeune ended in January 2021.

Rockland Trust itself is a well-connected lender that partners with various city and state programs to provide mortgages to lower-income and first-time home buyers through a variety of publicly funded programs. This relationship between the city of Boston and Rockland has certainly paid off for Rockland, as the bank has been awarded contracts to finance a plethora of lucrative Boston-specific development projects worth tens of millions of dollars.

One of these explosively controversial projects funded by Rockland involved the sale and demolition of the historic Harriet Tubman House in the South End. A landmark within the city, the Harriet Tubman House was deed-restricted until recent years until a large developer. in coordination with a South End non-profit that owned the property, successfully lobbied the BRA/BPDA to lift its restrictions and allow the sale.

At the time of the bitterly controversial sale that turned the historical landmark into luxury condos , the executive director of the non-profit that owned the site (United South End Settlements) was none other than Jose Masso.

Shortly after completing this deal to turn over the Tubman House and beloved community center to the luxury development team, Masso sold his home to Louijeune in an exceptionally quick transaction financed by the same bank and at abnormally favorable terms to the new councilor.

It’s also important to note that the owner of this luxury development team, New Boston Ventures, has made significant contributions to both Wu and Louijeune.

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Yet none of this has been disclosed by Louijeune according to records maintained by the city of Boston’s Clerk’s office. As such, BAN has contacted Council President Louijeune several times asking for clarification on this story. Louijeune has completely ignored our several attempts.

The following are the unanswered questions that BAN has previously submitted to Councilor Louijeune in writing and that we are now publicly asking. We welcome the Councilor’s response to our inquiries and look forward to updating our readers with her reply:

1. Did you take advantage of any programs to assist you in the purchase of the home? If so, which programs?

2. You received a 30-year mortgage at a fixed interest rate of 2.99% from Rockland Trust for this purchase. The 30-year fixed rate for borrowers at Rockland Trust at that time was approximately 4.4%. Can you explain the circumstances that made it possible for you to receive an interest rate 33% lower than the going rate at the time?

3. You purchased your home from José Massó, the City of Boston cabinet chief of Human Services. Was the property you purchased offered on the open market before you purchased it? If so, what was the asking price on the home when it was listed on the open market? If not, how did you become aware that the home was available for purchase? Did you receive any assistance from the seller or his associates in applying and qualifying for financing for the purchase of the property?

4. You received a mortgage for $424,000, or 80% of the purchase price of the home. Did you take advantage of any home-buying programs to assist you in the raising of the $106,000 down payment? If so, what were the program(s)? If not, what were the sources of the $106,000 down payment?

5. Did you take advantage of any programs to assist you in covering the closing costs of the purchase of your home? If so, what program(s)? If not, what were the source(s) of the funds to cover closing costs?

6. Did you take advantage of any programs to assist first-time home buyers? If so, which program(s)?

7. Did you take advantage of any programs that provide funds for down payments on home purchases? If so, which programs?

8. In 2021, what was the source of your income? Did the income you earned in 2021 qualify you for a $430,000 mortgage at 2.99% fixed interest? Conventional mortgages typically require 2+ years of verified annual income of more than $130,000 to qualify for the mortgage you received. Was your income in 2020 and 2021 verifiable and in the range of $130,000?

9. Was your income in 2021 reported on a W-2? If some or all of your income in 2021 was not reported on a W-2, how was that income reported to the IRS?

10. Did you provide income verification for the 2 years before the purchase of your home in 2022 to Rockland Trust, as is required for conventional mortgages? If not, please describe the income verification process that Rockland Trust required for your mortgage.

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During the Boston City Council’s weekly meeting held on December 6, 2023, Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson invited two Boston Public Schools students to be recognized but did not tell her Council colleagues what for - a fairly standard practice for the Council.

Unbeknownst to Anderson’s Council colleagues, the students were there to be recognized for organizing a pro-Palestine walkout and for pursuing a pro-Palestine education campaign directed at their Boston Public School peers.

The ceremony witnessed several controversial moments, including when one of the students utilized the phrase "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free," which the Anti-Defamation League has deemed anti-Semitic.

When asked about the incident, Council President Ed Flynn said he found the message to be “blatantly antisemitic” and offered his condemnation. As the Boston Herald reports, Flynn offered the following:

Following the meeting, as Anderson tried to rally other councilors to the stage for a group photo, several can be seen leaving the chambers through a side door.

Just weeks before, Anderson came under scrutiny after she opposed a resolution condemning the October 7, 2023, HAMAS attack on Israel as a "massive military operation" before proposing her own, separate resolution calling for a ceasefire.

Anderson has also recently been scrutinized after BAN published this now-viral video of Anderson failing to say her “Oath of Office.”

Those interested in watching the full segment from the December 6, 2023, meeting can do so by clicking here.

BAN Media Release: “Oathgate” Update

*This report is being provided as a supplement to our initial coverage available here.*

On January 3, 2024, BAN released a now-viral video showing what appears to be Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson failing to verbally take her oath of office during the Council’s inauguration ceremony.

Immediately following this release, BAN contacted Councilor Anderson with several clarifying questions, the most important being why she did not say her oath of office. We also contacted the Secretary of State as well as various individuals and agencies within the City of Boston.

To date, none have provided BAN with information conducive to maintaining accountability or fostering transparency. The only response received was from the Secretary of State’s office indicating they were deferring this matter back to the City of Boston.

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This tendency of all involved to skirt accountability has since been corroborated by The Boston Herald’s Gayla Cawley whose coverage exposes another layer of public agencies attempting to defer “Oathgate” to someone else.

For example, Cawley describes how the City Clerk deferred to the city’s Law Department. The Law Department then deferred to the Mayor’s Office. Declining to comment, Mayor Michelle Wu deferred to Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune. (The Herald’s article can be found here.)

Ultimately, uncorroborated reports state that Anderson was told to report to the City Clerk to take her oath of office by Councilor Louijeune. It is unclear at this time if Anderson has complied.

More important, however, is whether or not Anderson is legally allowed to “re-take” her oath.

According to The Boston City Charter, every Boston City Councilor “shall…take AND subscribe in a book to be kept by the city clerk for the purpose, the oath of allegiance and oath of office prescribed in the constitution of this commonwealth and an oath to support the constitution of the United States.”

Many interpret this statement to mean that Anderson must both say (i.e. - “take”) and sign her oath - not one or the other.

The fact Council President Louijeune, a Harvard-trained lawyer, has supposedly ordered Anderson to report to the City Clerk to “take” her oath suggests Louijeune shares this interpretation. But is Louijeune’s remedy a legally sound one?

According to Massachusetts General Law, councilors-elect are to be sworn in at 10:00 am on the first Monday in January following a regular municipal election. MGL then goes on to state: “At any regular council meeting thereafter, the oath may be administered…to any councilor absent from the meeting on the first Monday in January.”

It is indisputable that Anderson was not absent from the meeting, so the legality of “re-taking” her oath seems a dubious proposition. What does appear clear-cut, however, is the procedural guidelines for eligible absentees to take their oath at a later day. According to MGL, the eligible councilor must be administered their oath during a “regular meeting” before the City Council; nowhere in the law does it say Anderson can, at her leisure, show up at the City Clerk’s office to be sworn in.

Last evening Anderson took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to post this statement in response to “Oathgate”:

*This is a developing story - any updates will be provided when/if they become available. Be sure to subscribe to our mailing list and follow us on social media to stay up-to-date on breaking events

Update: 1/5/2024 at 2:32 PM

BAN has received confirmation from the Boston City Clerk that Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson did take her oath “yesterday late afternoon.” According to the City Clerk, he “administered the oath of office which she [Anderson] repeated” while the Assistant City Clerk stood witness.

On New Year’s Day, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu held the inauguration ceremony for the Boston City Council. This session, the Council has four new members joining their ranks and the Presidency is being held by at-Large representative Ruthzee Louijeune.

For the past two years, the Council has been riddled with internal strife and public controversy. Many view this 2023 swearing-in ceremony with optimism; a renewed sense of hope that the internal discord and animosity of prior would be replaced with solidarity and cohesion.

However, as video evidence obtained by BAN suggests, the new body may be posturing itself for a two-year session with the same disjointedness to which we’ve become accustomed.

As suggested by this video, it appears that Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who represents District 7, opted not to participate in her Oath of Office and simply stood on stage while her colleagues participated:

The above video was cropped to show Councilor Anderson during the ceremony. Those interested in watching the official video can do so below:

According to the Boston City Charter, the “Oath of Office” is a requirement for both the Mayor and all members of the Boston City Council.

BAN has reached out to both Councilor Anderson, as well as lawyer and Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune for comment and will provide an update when/if one becomes available.

At approximately 4:30pm on December 12, 2023, BAN released evidence via Twitter/X that Boston’s Mayor Michelle Wu was hosting a segregated holiday party using public resources. As many of you are aware, this has since made international headlines and the Boston Mayor is facing intense backlash for not only hosting the event, but also for remaining unapologetic.

Following our release, Gayla Cawley of the Boston Herald wrote an excellent article summarizing our findings. Both have since been picked up by the popular social media account “Libs of TikTok,” as well as several national and international media outlets. BAN would like to formally thank Chaya Raichik and all others at “Libs of TikTok” for helping to highlight this story; their support alone has reached an audience of over 4,000,000 people.

In the unlikely event that you may be unfamiliar with these developments, BAN’s original coverage is as follows:

For a Boston City Council that is often criticized for being divided along racial lines, perhaps it is time to address the elephant in the room:

Is Mayor Michelle Wu fanning the flames of racial division amongst the Council?

The following exchange would certainly appear so.

This is an invitation from “Director of Council Relations” Denise DosSantos, sent on behalf of Mayor Michelle Wu, for an “Electeds of Color” party to be held at the Parkman House.

For some reason, Mayor Wu decided to host this “Electeds of Color” event the same day and time as the Boston City Council’s own holiday party.

Unfortunately (or opportunistically) for Mayor Michelle Wu, her appointee Denise DosSantos “accidentally” sent this invitation to the wrong email list, thus informing all of the “electeds” and staffers not of color that they were excluded from this holiday party:

In response, BAN formally submits the following questions to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu:

• Was holding your “Electeds of Color” holiday party concurrently with the Boston City Council’s own party intentional or an oversight?

• Do you think it is appropriate to host work-related events that intentionally exclude based on race?

• How do you think your actions will help/hinder Council relations?

• How do you think that two segregated holiday parties will be viewed by the public?

Since this initial coverage, BAN has sent several emails to Mayor Michelle Wu and each member of the Boston City Council. We also reached out to State Representative Samantha Montano, who attended and subsequently defended the segregated holiday party on Twitter.

BAN also released the following video in an attempt to urge both the elected and appointed officials involved in Mayor Wu’s segregated holiday party to provide the public with the accountability and transparency it deserves.

Although none of the individuals involved have responded to BAN, we are fully committed to serving the public interest and will continue our pursuit for accountability and transparency from the administration.

If you would like to assist in our efforts, please send an email to Mayor Michelle Wu urging her cooperation in this matter at: michelle.wu@boston.gov or mayor@boston.gov.

by “A District 6 Resident”

The Boston Herald reported on Friday evening that members of the Jamaica Plain Progressives (JPP) leadership provided money to Lara's defense attorney to pay for an independent analysis of the event data recorder (“black box”) on the Honda Civic that Lara crashed into a Jamaica Plain home in late June.

The report, by Crash Lab, a New Hampshire-based accident reconstruction group hired by Lara’s defense team, purportedly shows that Lara was not driving at more than twice the speed limit at the time of the crash, as had been previously reported.

Notably, that report has not been provided to the media or otherwise vetted. Boston Police’s own investigation put Lara’s speed at between 53 and 59 miles per hour.

Two JPP Steering Committee Members, Krista Magnuson, a co-chair of that committee, and Ziba Cranmer, a co-chair of the group’s Elections Committee, confirmed to the Herald that they contributed financially to the Crash Lab report. 

When asked about the contributions, Lara displayed her usual lack of candor, telling the Herald that “[m]y attorney was the one that wrote the check and I am going to pay for it, and how that is paid for, how I’m paying my private legal fees is not the business of the Boston Herald.”

Then, in an interview with NBC 10’s Sue O’Connell taped on Monday morning that would’ve short-circuited a polygraph machine, Lara shifted from the cagey response she gave the Herald to outright lying, saying the Herald’s reporting was “definitely incorrect” and that “from what I understand there is some fundraising going on” but claiming that neither she nor her lawyer had received any funds. This is even though Magnuson and Cranmer explicitly confirmed their contributions to the Herald’s Gayla Cawley. 

One of Lara’s opponents in the current D6 City Council race, Jamacia Plain attorney Ben Weber, also initially downplayed the controversy, telling the Herald that “as long as individual contributions didn’t exceed [the state’s $1,000 individual contribution limit], there would not be an issue of whether they were illegal.”  (Her other opponent, William King of West Roxbury, was more pointed in his criticism, stating that the funding imbroglio was “ethically questionable at the very least.”)

But both Lara and Weber are missing the bigger picture: the monetary contributions by Magnuson and Cranmer sure seem to meet the definition of a campaign “contribution” under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 55, Section 1, which includes “a contribution of money or anything of value to an individual, candidate, political committee, or person acting on behalf of said individual, candidate or political committee, for the purpose of influencing the nomination or election of said individual or candidate." 

Under Massachusetts campaign finance rules, and as Lara herself stated, neither a candidate for office nor an elected official can use campaign contributions for personal expenditures. Lara acknowledged to O’Connell that her legal fees “are not considered by OCPF to be a campaign expense at all.”

JPP, which also endorsed Kendra in 2021, has supported her through thick and thin this election cycle. Earlier this month, the organization’s 10-member Steering Committee voted to recommend endorsing Lara again, and after a week of online voting, it was announced on Saturday morning that at least 60% of the group’s total membership voted to accept that recommendation. 

Members of the Steering Committee, including Cranmer herself, stood behind Lara at the press conference she held on Friday afternoon—days before the Preliminary Election—to announce the favorable finding in the Crash Lab report.

Another member of the JPP Steering Committing, Martha Karchere, appeared on Sunday’s episode of NBC10’s @Issue (which was pre-taped on Friday) to promote Lara’s re-election and spread the word of the Crash Lab report.

It would be hard to view the contributions of two very active JP political operatives toward the report’s funding as not being “for the purpose of influencing” Lara’s re-election. 

As Lara herself has admitted, the charges she faces related to the June crash are personal in nature and are not related to Lara’s role as a City Councilor or her campaign, and to date, her campaign account expenditure reports filed monthly with the Office of Campaign Finance (OCPF) indicate that she hasn’t used any campaign funds to pay her legal fees.

But what’s the difference if she is soliciting and/or accepting donations from JPP members, but directing them through her lawyer rather than her campaign account? Either way, OCPF requires that all monetary contributions be properly and publicly documented and deposited to the campaign account. 

It's not only Lara who may be in trouble for these violations—Magnuson, Cranmer, and any others who participated in this “fundraising” scheme may find themselves held liable.

Just this week, OCPF posted a public resolution letter making clear that it can sanction individuals who knowingly violate campaign finance laws, even if they are not candidates or public employees.

By the way – even leaving aside the various potential campaign finance violations, State Ethics Law prohibits public employees from accepting gifts of more than $50.  As we know, the State Ethics Commission is already paying an embarrassing amount of attention to the Boston City Council. 

JPP sent an email to its listserv on Sunday morning claiming that “the Steering Committee was not aware that individual members were involved in fundraising efforts to support obtaining the event data recorder…”

And, as others have pointed out, JPP’s own stated policies require Steering Committee members to disclose when they have contributed to a candidate who is being considered for endorsement. 

No matter what the legal implications, this looks like a real failure of internal governance. Whether the group’s rank-and-file members find the explanations plausible, or the outcome acceptable, is anybody’s guess.  

This reader submission is from a District 6 resident who asked to remain anonymous. Although the BAN team did not produce this article, we have verified the source links included and made minimal formatting changes to comply with our web design. The contents of this submission remain consistent with how it was originally received by BAN.

Interested in submitting your own letter to BAN for consideration? Reach out to us at ban.editorials@gmail.com or use the “Contact Form” on our website and we will respond once your submission has been reviewed.

Just days before the upcoming preliminary for Boston City Council, District 6 representative Kendra Lara is making headlines again regarding a June 2023 car accident that left a home damaged and a special needs child hospitalized.

Lara is accused of several criminal and misdemeanor charges stemming from this June incident, and has also faced scrutiny from the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) after a form 51A was filed for “neglect and failure to use a proper car seat for the child’s safety.”

The most recent and somewhat bizarre twist to this tale of personal, parental, and criminal negligence comes as a report provided by Councilor Lara’s defense claims to contradict the official investigation of the Boston Police.

To be clear, this report doesn't allege that Councilor Lara had a valid license when she drove into a home at 803 Centre Street, nor does it state that the vehicle she was operating was properly registered. The defense is merely disputing the fact that Councilor Lara was speeding at the time of the offense.

This defense-provided report is the product of an accident reconstructionist company, The Crash Lab, which was commissioned and paid for by Lara and her team.

As The Boston Herald’s Gayla Cawley has since reported, the fee paid to The Crash Lab – which typically ranges anywhere from $2500 to $5000 – was financed by Lara as well as several members of a local organization known as Jamaica Plain (JP) Progressives.

This Crash Lab report claims to base its findings on “black box” data recovered from the vehicle Lara was driving when she crashed into the home.

According to Councilor Lara, The Crash Lab report proves the District 6 representative was traveling 27mph at the moment of impact.

For some, these findings appear to contradict the official Boston Police report, which estimates that Lara was driving approximately 53mph prior to the moment of impact.

At this stage in Councilor Lara’s criminal proceedings, it is impossible to know exactly which of these reports, if either, are accurate.

What is clear, however, is that the privately funded report from the defense bases its findings upon her speed at the moment of impact, whereas the Boston Police report estimates her speed prior to the crash.

This hasn’t stopped local progressives, Kendra Lara Loyalists, and even some local media personas – such as Yawa Miller of The Bay State Banner – from reframing the discussion surrounding Lara into an opportunity to decry police misconduct while also fueling conspiracy theories that the Boston Police are engaged in a nefarious plot to undermine a female councilor-of-color.

But even as a reinvigoration of the anti-police rhetoric of 2020 and 2021 permeates the discussion surrounding these reports, few of Lara’s Loyalists have cared to view the evidence through a rational lens.

For starters, the difference between the moment of impact and prior to impact has been wholly lost on them.

Also lost on these Loyalists is the fact that, prior to plunging her vehicle into the home located at 803 Centre Street, Lara first had to drive over the curb and through a wrought iron fence as she barreled into the residential structure with such force that its foundation cracked.

Is it possible that these obstacles may have slowed her vehicle down by the time the car she was driving became wedged into the side of this home?

More interesting than these pro-Lara arguments, however, is that this latest line of defense highlights the Councilor's tendency to blame others for her own mistakes.

As this audio recording obtained by BAN shows, Councilor Lara blames the Boston Police for listing the incorrect address that appears on her criminal charges with the Trial Court:

During this recording, which was taken during a residency challenge brought against Councilor Lara, you can hear her explicitly state:

There was a claim made about me listing my address with the trial court as 161 South Huntington Avenue. That's categorically false. I did not list my address with the trial court. The officer who filed the complaint against me likely used the address that was on file, but when asked by the Boston Police Department what my address was, I offered 46 Saint Rose Street.

It is important to note that Lara attended a Clerk Magistrate’s hearing prior to being arraigned on criminal charges related to the crash. The address Lara says is inaccurate (161 South Huntington) is listed on the criminal complaint that was filed after Lara met with the Magistrate. Why didn't she correct her address during this meeting?

This Trial Court paperwork also lists the name given by the Councilor to police at the scene of the crime - Kendra Lara.

According to the following audio recording, the Councilor states in no uncertain terms that her "legal name is Kendra Hicks."

One key passage from this recording of Councilor Lara is when she says:

"All of my legal documents have my legal name [Kendra Hicks] and I use Kendra Lara only as an alias on the Boston City Council."

Apparently, Councilor Lara doesn't consider official criminal charges with the Massachusetts Trial Court to be a legal document:

Nor does Councilor Lara seem to view her voter registration to be a legal document:

Lara also doesn't appear to consider her filing status with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) to be a legal document:

In true Kendra Lara (or should we say Kendra Hicks) fashion, her use of an alias is being spun as the fault of someone else too. In this instance, it is her ex-husband that is to blame.

Luckily for Lara though, her ex-husband Reggie Hiicks only took issue with her using his name. Curiously, Mr. Hicks was perfectly fine with the Councilor living with him in their taxpayer-funded project apartment until February 2023, almost two years after Kendra started using the name Lara.

Councilor Lara has also made it clear that she is not at fault for having her license revoked nearly a decade ago, nor is she to blame for driving without one this past June.

Rather, the blame for these offenses falls squarely on the shoulders of the Registry of Motor Vehicles, her supposed "lack of resources," and even the requirements of having a special needs son.

The Councilor states:

I think that some people who are close to that issue will be able to understand how somebody would have difficulty navigating the RMV even when you’ve paid all of your fees and turned in all of your paperwork, how you can be in that situation, especially as a single parent and a parent of a child with special needs. Ideally, I would’ve had the resources to make different decisions but I didn’t and my hope is that my mistake does not overshadow the two years of work that I’ve done on this council.

The pattern is clear.

All the misconduct, misinformation, criminal behavior, and parental failures enveloping this woman's life are simply not Kendra Lara's fault.

There is always someone else to blame; something else that prevents her from doing the right (read: adult) thing.

The lack of personal accountability that results when you go through life portraying yourself as a perpetual victim certainly seems liberating.

This may help explain why, despite her desire to be held "fully accountable," Councilor Lara and her defense attorney, Carlton Williams, filed two motions to dismiss the charges against her on July 19, 2023.

Recent claims have also surfaced that Lara filed a separate motion to dismiss this past Wednesday, September 6, 2023. BAN has reached out to Councilor Lara to confirm the validity of these allegations but has not yet received a response.

Another attempt to dismiss her charges last week certainly seems plausible, however. As the following video from September 7, 2023, shows, Councilor Lara and Attorney Williams have begun viewing Lara as the real victim of this incident:

While this most recent strategy relies heavily on Lara's “perpetual victim" status, the original motions to dismiss were predicated on the argument that Lara did not receive her citations at the scene, nor at the address she gave to the police.

For Councilor Lara, the charges against her for driving without a license (in an unregistered and uninspected car while her son was improperly restrained) should have already been dropped because it was really the police who failed to do the right thing.

Put differently, Lara and her Loyalists now feel the Boston Police should never have allowed the Councilor to accompany her distraught, bloody, non-verbal, special needs son to the hospital after he obtained a severe head injury when she drove into a house.

Could you imagine the outrage that would have emanated from her progressive posse had the police arrested Lara at the scene (like they would have to anyone else) and sent her child to the hospital alone?

Damned if you do, damned if you don't when dealing with Boston's favorite socialist victim.

As a result of this investigation, BAN is formerly submitting the following questions to Kendra Lara for comment:

• Are you willing to release the privately funded report produced by The Crash Lab?

• How much did this report cost? How much did you personally pay, and how much was funded by JP Progressive membership?

• Do you think that whether you were speeding is really the most important charge you should be publicly addressing?

• Why are there two conflicting statements regarding your address? Did the police come up with your mailing address on their own, or did you give it to them?

• There are allegations that you were in court again this past Wednesday, September 6, 2023, trying to have your case dismissed. Is there any validity to this?

• You’ve previously stated that you want to be held "fully accountable" for your actions. What actions do you think you should be held accountable for? Do you think trying to have your case dismissed on a technicality is in line with being held accountable? If the legal system is not the appropriate way to "hold you accountable," what do you feel is?

• Why did you give the Boston Police Department an alias at the scene of the accident? Why do you have this alias listed on the Trial Court documents? On your OCPF paperwork? Your voter registration?

Those interested in reading more about Lara’s attorney, Carlton Williams, and his reasons for being listed as the "Antisemite of the Week" on April 14, 2023, can do so by clicking here.

As many may recall, Councilor Lara herself is no stranger to allegations of antisemitism. Lara faced harsh backlash last year when she posted the following to social media:

**This is an ongoing investigation and updates will be provided when/if they become available**

The death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, sparked a chaotically partisan debate regarding policing in America. While some hit the streets to the chant of “ACAB (all cops are bastards),” others hoisted thin blue line flags in front of their homes.

Despite being nearly 1,400 miles away from the spot where Floyd died, Boston was not spared from this ideological confrontation. For better or worse, it was a moment in our city’s history when a group of people were criticized, ostracized, and “othered” solely for their chosen profession.

Yet one seemingly positive development arose in this post-Floyd era: a call for increased accountability and transparency, especially in the way we conduct community policing.

In Boston specifically, Floyd prompted the creation of the Office of Police Accountability and Transparency (OPAT) - an agency many saw as a way to balance the power scale by increasing civilian oversight.

But did Boston need it?

Formally established by City Ordinance in December 2020, OPAT is almost three years into its work. Has policing in the city changed for the better as a result of its creation? What impact has OPAT had on the BPD? Has OPAT “solved” any problems?

According to American economist and social commentator Thomas Sowell, “There are no solutions, there are only trade-offs” as it applies to political and social change.

If you adhere to Sowell's teachings, the question then becomes: What has Boston traded off to satiate its anti-police outlook post-Floyd?

For starters, the Boston Police Department is now facing unprecedented staffing and manpower issues.

In a political culture that welcomes the repudiation of an entire profession over the actions of a few geographically dispersed offenders, this is arguably the most basic and devastating trade-off for city residents.

Put more simply: no one wants to be a cop anymore.

But rather than focus on the negative, this article seeks to analyze the objective. The fact remains that, through the dust of the anti-police rhetoric of 2020 and 2021, OPAT emerged.

To truly understand the work of OPAT, it is first important to understand how it functions as a multi-layered bureaucracy.

While there does exist an official OPAT department that is staffed by salaried City of Boston employees, OPAT is also comprised of three separate entities whose membership is determined by the Mayor:

1. The OPAT Commission - 3 members

2. The Civilian Review Board (CRB) - 9 members

3. The Internal Affairs Oversight Panel (IAOP) - 5 members

Whereas OPAT is the actual city department, the OPAT Commission differs in that it is a 3-member body comprised of the Executive Director of OPAT, the Chair of the Civilian Review Board (CRB), and the Chair of the Internal Affairs Oversight Panel (IAOP).

The following organizational chart may help to make sense of this multi-layered bureaucracy:

Both the CRB and IAOP are comprised of “civilians” that are selected by the Mayor.

For the 9-person CRB, each City Councilor recommends 3 individuals to serve and the Mayor must fill 3 of the 9 seats based on these recommendations.

The remaining 6 seats are selected by the Mayor based upon referrals from “civil rights advocacy groups, youth organizations, neighborhood associations, and those with past experience and knowledge of law enforcement.”

The IAOP has a similar selection process. Each Councilor gets to submit 3 names, and the Mayor fills 2 of the 5 seats from them.

The remaining 3 members are solely filled at the Mayor’s discretion. The Mayor is also responsible for selecting who will head these three bodies.

As such, the entirety of OPAT's structure places considerable power and, as an inherent result, responsibility upon the Mayor of Boston.

Perhaps more importantly, it also places considerable power and responsibility in the hands of the people filling its ranks.

To date, it would appear that many of the appointees to each layer of the OPAT hierarchy fail to take that responsibility seriously.

For example, of the four public meetings held by the Civilian Review Board, only one had all members present. Two-thirds of the CRB has been absent for at least one session.

Perhaps it is this lack of attendance that has made both meetings of 2023 so short. On March 14, 2023, the CRB meeting lasted for 24 minutes; on March 29, 2023, just 6 minutes.

Despite these brief and sparsely attended meetings, however, the CRB has managed to release five public reports detailing the results of different citizen complaints toward the Boston Police Department.

Of these, four have been found to be "not sustained" and one was determined to have "insufficient evidence."

In the case of "insufficient evidence," investigators state that they were hindered by the fact that the citizen involved was "incarcerated in multiple states" throughout the duration of their investigation.

In another particularly interesting case, a complaint arose from a citizen who tried to "conduct an audio audit" at the police station located at 40 New Sudbury Street.

The stated goal of the complainant was to determine how well Boston Police "adhere to their policy of staying respectful and professional at all times."

In this instance, the unnamed individual walked into the station and addressed the duty officer by saying: "What's going on motherf*****?" When the officer did not return the same response, this individual became confrontational and refused to give the officer his name.

This prompted the officer to simply refer to the unnamed citizen as "George." The latter part of this complaint is predicated upon the "audio auditor" alleging that the officer had profiled him because George was a "slave name."

The Internal Affairs Oversight Panel (IAOP) has somewhat better attendance, with only 40% of that panel's membership missing at least one meeting.

The two meetings in 2023 of the IAOP lasted 14 minutes and 18 minutes respectively.

According to the reports released by the OPAT Commission, the Internal Affairs Oversight Panel has reviewed four cases since 2021 regarding the Boston Police Internal Affairs Division.

In all four cases, the IAOP has voted (unanimously) to uphold the original determination made by Internal Affairs.

Furthermore, out of the 83 complaints OPAT has reviewed since 2021, only one has been "sustained."

You can view OPAT's more detailed list of complaints received by clicking here.

According to data that is publicly available on the Analyze Boston website, Boston Police were involved in:

• 2,809 Incidents in 2020 since OPAT was approved by the Council on Dec. 16

• 71,721 Incidents in 2021

• 73,852 Incidents in 2022

• 42,247 Incidents in 2023 to date

This data shows that the Boston Police Department has reported on a total of 190,629 separate incidents since OPAT's formal approval by the Boston City Council on December 16, 2020.

Of these 190,629 incidents, the OPAT Commission has opted to review 0.0435% of them.

Therefore, the one complaint the OPAT Commission has found to be "sustained" equates to 0.00052% of total incidents that the Boston Police Department has responded to.

To date, the OPAT Commission has cost the taxpaying residents of Boston a total of $2,206,286.42. For the current fiscal year (2024), the Office of Police Accountability and Transparency is budgeted for $1,452,985.83.

Assuming OPAT stays on track with its spending, this would bring the total cost to $3,659,272.25.

For a Boston City Council that is persistently plagued with scandal, strife, and division, oversight of wasteful spending should be prioritized in order to regain the trust and respect of Boston's residents.

Yet as our previous coverage identified, the Boston City Council was highly ineffective in exercising its budgetary discretion this go around, as a divided City Council prioritized cuts to funding for public safety (predominantly the police) and veterans services. To the benefit of Boston residents, the Council's budget amendments were promptly vetoed by Mayor Michelle Wu.

Was redirecting funding from OPAT ever seriously considered?

Unlikely, as two current Boston City Councilors - Ricardo Arroyo and Julia Mejia - tout themselves as being the main architects of OPAT, in addition to former councilor-turned-Attorney General Andrea Campbell.

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Despite having succeeded in pushing OPAT through the Council, however, both Arroyo and Mejia have remained persistently outspoken critics of the Boston Police Department.

Councilor Arroyo, who unsuccessfully campaigned and illegally colluded with disgraced and former U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins to be the next District Attorney for Suffolk County even goes as far as to cite OPAT as a pillar of accomplishment in his most recent campaign video.

Those interested in viewing Arroyo's full campaign video can do so by clicking here.

Both Arroyo and Mejia are seeking reelection this Fall, though they are not the only anti-police pollsters on the ballot. Other notable opponents of law enforcement vying to keep their seats on the Council and capitalize on the lucrative 20% pay raise that they awarded themselves are Councilors Tania Fernandes Anderson and Kendra Lara.

Councilor Anderson, who married a man while he actively serves a prison sentence for the murder of an immigrant, was recently fined $5,000 by the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission for violating their nepotism policy.

The State Ethics Commission determined that Anderson was guilty of not only hiring her sister and son to official government positions (whose salaries totaled nearly $150,000) but also for directly voting on matters that awarded her family members raises and bonuses.

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Councilor Lara is also no stranger to scandal. As we have previously covered, on June 30, 2023, Lara operated an unregistered, uninsured motor vehicle while driving on a revoked license when she crashed into a residential home at 803 Centre Street.

Police reports indicate that Lara's young autistic son was in the vehicle with her at the time and was unrestrained. As a result, Lara's son was rushed to the hospital to be treated for a "severe laceration."

Lara has since gone before a Magistrate's Hearing at West Roxbury Municipal Court where charges were recommended against her and a pre-trial criminal hearing was conducted. She is due back in court on August 16, 2023.

More recently, a group of citizens have formally challenged Councilor Lara's residency and are scheduled to appear at a hearing before the Chief Justice of the Boston Municipal Court on Tuesday, August 1, 2023.

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Given the questionable morals of the aforementioned public servants, it is perhaps no surprise that defunding OPAT was not seriously considered by the Boston City Council. However, should Bostonians continue to foot the bill for an agency that produces minimal results?

From a broader perspective, the fact that OPAT has only found cause to investigate 0.435% of incidents that the Boston Police Department has responded to may indicate that we, as a society, were too quick to vilify an entire profession based on the actions of a few.

In light of this, the question before Boston voters is:

For those interested in further researching the men and women employed by the departmental Office of Police Accountability and Transparency, the following charts should serve as an organizational guideline.

***Update as of 10:45 am on June 27, 2023***

Since the publication of our report, OPAT has already begun to update its website to include additional case reviews from its June Meeting. Our team is going through this documentation and will provide an addendum to our report once completed.

Many on the progressive left are viewing the withdrawal of Boston City Councilor Michael Flaherty from the city’s upcoming election as a welcomed relief. With Flaherty out, the field is narrowed down to 8 candidates each vying for 1 of 4 at-large seats on the Council.

For those on the progressive left, their preferred candidate is none other than Mayor Wu appointee and current City Hall insider Henry Santana. Though born in the Dominican Republic, Santana has lived in Boston since childhood and is well-connected to the Wu administration.

Currently, Santana serves as the head of Wu’s recently created “Office of Civic Organizing (OCO).”

The purpose of OCO, per the City of Boston website, is to “foster collaborative partnerships and programs that encourage Boston residents to participate in proactive community engagement, awareness, and service in Boston’s neighborhoods.”

For Wu, no one was better poised to “mobilize residents to get involved and shape how we support our communities than Santana.”

According to the Mayor, she “know[s] Henry Santana will use his passion for Boston and building community to grow activism across our neighborhoods.”

Prior to becoming the head of OCO, Santana worked on the campaign staff of former District 8 Councilor and now head of the Boston Housing Authority Priscilla “Kenzie” Bok.

His sister, Keisha Santana, also works for Mayor Wu as her “Roxbury Liason” in the Department of Neighborhood Services.

While politically connected, many other local politicians and organizations seem to share Wu’s sentiments pertaining to Santana. A host of well-recognized political figures and interest groups have already offered their endorsements, with more expected to follow in the coming weeks.

With this growing list of endorsements and direct connection with the Mayor of Boston, it seems that Santana would truly have a lengthy record of civic engagement. However, documents obtained by BAN indicate that this may not be the case.

For starters, 27-year-old Santana has never voted despite his nearly decade-long eligibility. Even during the previous election when voting requirements were eased and mail-in-voting was encouraged, Santana chose not to participate in the democratic process.

More curious is the fact that Santana did not even register to vote until March 9, 2023 - less than a month before he announced his at-Large candidacy.

Despite the apparent shortcomings in Santana’s non-existent voting record, we at BAN considered that these endorsements of the at-large candidate may have stemmed from the policies upon which he bases his campaign.

As of the writing of this article, Santana lists four main areas of policy upon which he builds his political platform:

1. Housing

2. Public Safety

3. Environmental Justice

4. Civic Engagement

Ultimately, there are very few substantive policy approaches listed in Santana’s own statements regarding these four positions, and they appear to primarily reinforce his candidacy based on his identity as a black immigrant living in Boston.

It is the conclusion of BAN, that simply reinforcing the same rhetoric that Boston residents have become accustomed to hearing from their elected officials falls short of building a “grassroots” campaign movement that is predicated upon sound policy.

To elaborate, the typical tropes of “increasing funding,” “adding protections,” calling for “more community policing,” or “prioritizing the environment” aren’t a legislative agenda but a list of buzzwords that have become a prerequisite to existing in the Boston political scene.

Most ironic, however, is the pillar of “Civic Engagement” that appears central to Santana’s campaign. Despite never participating “in our democracy fully” himself, Santana claims to “know how challenging it can be to navigate the complexities of our civic institutions.”

Yet despite having never voted and not producing a clearly defined legislative agenda in his bid for Councilor-at-Large, Santana has retained not just endorsements but over $13,000 “cash on hand” from campaign contributions as well. It is important to note that nearly $3,000 of these contributions came from the Bok Family alone.

To date, Santana has officially filed three campaign disclosures with the OCPF, which you can view by clicking the following links:

• April 2023

• May 2023

• June 2023

Given this information, BAN formally submits the following questions to at-Large Candidate Henry Santana for response:

• Why have you never voted in any elections?

• Why did you only just register to vote a month before declaring your candidacy?

• How do you rectify your own lack of participation in the democratic process with your public requests for constituents to vote for you?

• Since you only just registered to vote, does this mean that you failed to comply with federal law by registering with the Selective Service on time?

• If elected, what specific legislative ordinances do you plan to propose before the City Council? What are the actual details of your four campaign pillars?

• What made you focus on these four campaign pillars as opposed to other issues/concerns constituents have regarding the City of Boston? Was there something specific about these four that stood out to you?

BAN will publish an update to this article when/if we receive a response from Candidate Henry Santana. To help aid in this process of providing the residents of Boston with the accountability and transparency they deserve, feel free to reach out to Henry Santana by emailing henry@henrysantana.com.

*BAN can now be accessed at its own website by clicking here.

At approximately 4:30pm a vehicle operated by Boston City Councilor for District 6 Kendra Lara crashed through a rod iron fence and into a residential building at 803 Centre Street.

Lara was not alone in the vehicle and was accompanied by her young son. According to radio transmissions from the Boston Fire Department’s Engine 28, the incident required Emergency Medical Services to treat the child for unknown injuries.

As rumors circulated on social media that this incident may involve Councilor Lara, nothing could be substantiated until BAN obtained the draft copy of the initial incident report.

The report states:

According to insider information, the vehicle Councilor Lara was driving was not her own but is alleged to belong to another City of Boston employee, Owen Thomas.

For many, this name might sound familiar as Thomas is the man filming the distasteful video of Lara, pantless in front of her child, in which both Thomas and Lara crudely joke about a sex act they had just performed on one another in front of said child.

A more in-depth assessment of that video can be seen at TB Daily News by clicking here.

The sincerest hope of all of us at BAN is that any injuries sustained in this tragic incident are swiftly mended.

We also expect city leadership to act accordingly and lead by example by swiftly holding Councilor Lara accountable for her actions by calling for her resignation.

Lara’s dangerous and outright reckless behavior endangered the life of not just one child but everyone else living, working, or commuting in the vicinity of 803 Centre Street.

Please be sure to follow us on social media (Twitter and Facebook) and subscribe to our free Substack.

**This is an on-going investigation and updates will be published accordingly as they are released**

For many residents, the past several weeks can be viewed as blunder after blunder for Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and her administration. Unfortunately for residents, the most recent revelation, stemming from a public records request, is proving no different.

An internal City of Boston document, obtained via a public records request, is making the rounds with many referring to it as a “political hit list.”

The message dated June 10, 2022, was sent from then Director of Constituent Services Dave Vittorini to Boston Police Department Captain Robert Ciccolo.

On the surface, and in the absence of comment from the City of Boston, this list certainly appears to be comprised of the mayor’s political opponents.

Vittorini’s list to Captain Ciccolo contains the names of no less than fifteen individuals who have been outspoken critics of Wu and her policies.

One notable inclusion on Wu’s list is Councilor-at-Large candidate Catherine Vitale whose documents obtained by Judicial Watch show as having been arrested in the past for what appears to be opposition to the Mayor.

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Documents obtained by Judicial Watch regarding the arrest of now Councilor At-large candidate Catherine Vitale of Dorchester

Vitale is currently campaigning for one of four at-large seats, a position that Wu herself held prior to becoming Mayor.  You can visit Vitale’s campaign website by clicking here.

Also included in the email from Dave Vittorini, a Hyde Park native, are Wu appointees Tiffany Chu and Brianna Millor.

It is important to note that many individuals on this list served as the impetus for City Ordinance 16.63 – the so-called “Targeted Picketing Ordinance,” - which was proposed by Mayor Wu upon the recommendation of Corporation Counsel Adam Cederbaum.

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Mayor Michelle Wu’s “Targeted Picketing” Ordinance, as proposed to the Boston City Council

This legislation, ardently defended by a former candidate for District Attorney and current District 5 Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, was viewed at the time to be a highly controversial and legally questionable enactment that many saw as an attempt by the Wu Administration to hinder the first amendment rights of city residents.

Arroyo himself is no stranger to scandal as, just earlier today, news that the District 5 representative admitted to violating “Conflict of Interest Law” in regard to a separate incident involving his brother and former City Councilor Felix Arroyo emerged.

Additionally, an internal Boston Police Department email obtained by public records requests indicates that departmental “Policy Regarding the Mayor’s House,” requires police officers to “attempt to identify all suspects” in attendance and that the department has “a master list of protestors that will help with identification.”

One of the many lessons that history affords us is the fact that creating lists of political dissidents rarely, if ever, has helped to foster the principles of democracy and civic engagement that we as Americans hold so dearly.

Due to several troubling implications regarding the Wu Administration’s compiling a list of private citizens, we at BAN firmly believe that Mayor Wu and her team have an obligation to provide the public with clarification.

Although we have reached out to the Mayor, her administration, City Council, and Boston Police command staff for answers, to date we have not received any response.

Additionally, several individuals named on the “political hit list” have reported to BAN the stonewalling they are receiving not only from the City of Boston’s Public Records Office but also from officials at the MBTA.

As a result, we are publicly submitting the following questions to these individuals/agencies in order to provide the public with the accountability and transparency they rightly deserve:

• Why was this list created by an appointee of Mayor Wu that works within a department at City Hall that has absolutely nothing to do with public safety or community policing?

• Why are other Wu appointees (Tiffany Chu and Brianna Millor) included on this message thread? What do the Mayor’s Chief of Staff and Chief of Community Engagement have to do with peaceful protests or public safety? What about the Mayor’s Director of Constituent Services, now turned Senior Advisor?

• What was the intention behind creating such a list? Who is ultimately responsible for its creation?

• Do you, Mayor Michelle Wu, think the existence of such a list is appropriate? What does this say to others who want to exercise their constitutional freedoms within the City of Boston?

• Is the City of Boston willing to release the other messages involved in this email exchange? Why haven’t they already been released as part of the records request that was submitted?

• Mayor Wu, did the creation of this list have any impact on Dave Vittorini’s promotion to Senior Advisor?

• Mayor Wu, did the creation of this list have any impact on Robert Ciccolo’s promotion to Superintendent of the Bureau of Administration and Technology?

• Mayor Wu, is it city policy to refer to peaceful protestors as “suspects?” Is the practice of compiling “master lists” of protestors one that has been used by your predecessors?

As always, the work of BAN is only as effective as the community that drives it.

To help ensure that accountability and transparency are delivered to the people of Boston, we humbly request you contact the following individuals/agencies and urge their prompt response on this matter by clicking here.

In many ways, yesterday’s Boston City Council special meeting could be considered the “Tania Show.” As chair of the Ways and Means Committee, Tania Fernandes-Anderson was tasked with submitting the City Council’s budget amendments back to Mayor Wu for consideration.

The Council’s amendments, which have been reported on by both The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald, gutted Wu’s original proposal and reallocated funds in a manner that sparked outrage across the city.

The most controversial of these changes came in the form of cuts to funding for Boston’s veterans and public safety unions.

Ultimately, the Council did not approve these amendments unilaterally and, after some flip-flopping by Councilor Coletta (District 1) and Councilor Worrell (District 4), the amendments were approved by a vote of 6 in favor, 5 opposed, and 1 voting “present.”

Very shortly after receiving the Council’s proposed changes, Mayor Wu vetoed their amendments. It is this veto which prompted yesterday’s special council meeting so that Wu’s decision could be formally “received” by the city’s legislative body.

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During the meeting, which Anderson arrived late for, the District 7 representative delivered an impassioned speech on the floor of the Ianella Chamber which we have included below. Those interested in watching the full council meeting can view it here.

As can be seen in the above video, several times during her speech Anderson seemingly deflects blame for cuts to the city’s veterans on another member of the City Council whom she is unwilling to identify.

Anderson can be quoted as saying:

The Council’s proposed cuts to veterans, which totaled upwards of $900,000, would have slashed that department’s funding by nearly 14% in order to prioritize programs aimed at “Returning Citizens” (those recently released from prison) as well as “New Arrivals” (illegal immigrants that have moved into the city); a move which Anderson’s claims “will not hurt [the veteran’s department] fiscally.”

For Anderson, it appears that the optics and political ramifications of cutting veterans’ funding are far more important than the act itself. As she transitioned to the subject of cuts to public safety, which totaled nearly $31,000,000 to the Boston Police Department alone, Anderson defended her council colleagues saying:

This statement raises several issues for voters as members of the Boston City Council have a well-documented history of anti-police rhetoric.

Perhaps none stand out more than the Democratic Socialist Kendra Lara, the District 6 Councilor who has gone as far as calling for the abolition of the police.

Lara, a proponent of legitimizing prostitution is no stranger to controversy, the most noticeable of which was the release of a video in which she, naked from the waist down and accompanied by a Boston Public Schools teacher, bragged about having anal sex in front of a young special needs child.

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However, following Anderson’s overtly false statements the District 7 official ended her speech by advocating that her council colleagues apply pressure on the Mayor to settle the long overdue contract negotiations with the city’s public safety unions who have been without for several years.

These statements from Anderson raise several questions that we at the Boston Accountability Network (BAN) feel deserve clarification for constituents.

Given Anderson’s own comments, BAN is formally submitting the following questions for clarification:

• How and when, specifically, did you oppose the cuts to funding for the City of Boston’s Department of Veteran Services?

• Why did you vote in favor of these budget cuts if you were opposed to them? If there were amendments that outweighed your opposition, what were they and why did you prioritize them over veterans and public safety?

• Who, specifically, were you opposing during discussions of these cuts? Who were the most vocal advocates on the Council in favor of slashing funding for public safety and veterans?

• Why didn’t you join four of your colleagues by signing onto the below letter addressing these specific cuts if you were opposed to them?

• Why did you say none of your Council colleagues want to see police officers lose their jobs when Councilor Lara has clearly called for defunding and even abolishing their profession?

BAN will update this article when and if one becomes available. Given that Councilor Tania Fernandes-Anderson and her Chief of Staff Arshneel Kaur have ignored our repeated requests for clarification regarding a late-night Twitter exchange directed at Councilor-at-large Erin Murphy we are not very hopeful.

In this instance, our search for accountability and transparency has resulted in Councilor Anderson illegally and unethically blocking us on social media.

Therefore, and to assist in this process, BAN is asking you to reach out directly to Councilor Anderson and/or her office and urge her to provide constituents with the answers they rightly deserve:

Send an E-Mail to Councilor Anderson by clicking here.

You can reach out to Chief of Staff Kaur here. or by calling (617) 635-3510.

As most of the city knows, Boston’s Mayor Michelle Wu was involved in a motor vehicle accident on June 6, 2023, at approximately 9:50 am.

Traffic camera video shows Wu’s unmarked 2023 electric police car going through a red light at the intersection of Blakemore and Hyde Park Ave with flashing blue lights. Although the video below does not include audio, the use of sirens is corroborated by the police report which doesn’t mention Wu by name but simply refers to her as a “passenger who is known to the Commonwealth.”

In the video, it is clear that Wu’s vehicle traveled through a red light before being struck by a passenger vehicle. As a neighbor’s pictures show, Wu remained in the passenger seat as her detailed police driver, Officer Keyanna Smith, stood outside of the damaged vehicle on her cell phone, radio in hand. The other car is visible in the frame and appears to show a distressed mother, later identified as Yosmery Pena, holding her one-year-old child while speaking on the phone.

When asked about the incident, Ms. Pena, speaking through the use of a translator, stated that Wu’s vehicle pulled out in front of her and that she did not see or hear them. As Boston 25 News reports, Pena says the entire incident made her “very scared” as she kept “worrying about her baby in the backseat.” Pena further acknowledged that Mayor Michelle Wu stayed around the incident for several minutes afterward and kept checking on Pena as well as her baby.

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Initially, Mayor Michelle Wu was reluctant to speak about the incident herself, stating that she does not know all the “rules and procedures” and that Boston Police would follow protocol as they do whenever a department vehicle is involved in an accident.

After several days of media pressure, Wu elaborated that she was looking through documents on her phone while in the passenger seat, unaware of the situation until she heard the collision begin.

Wu eventually admitted that her vehicle was not responding to an emergency at the time of the incident but was actually bringing her to an event at Copley’s Boston Public Library. As The Boston Globe has revealed, however, Wu’s only public event scheduled that day was for 11:30 a.m. in Roxbury and not the Copley library.

This begs the question of whether driving around the city using emergency lights and sirens in non-emergency situations is an appropriate practice for an elected official. Both Boston Police Rules & Procedures #302: “Emergency Driving” as well as Massachusetts General Law (MGL) Chapter 89, Section 7B would seemingly answer this question.

To clarify, MGL cogently states that vehicles equipped with emergency indication devices (i.e., lights and sirens) are subject to the same rules and regulations of the road as all other vehicles unless they are “in an emergency and while in performance of a public duty or while transporting a sick or injured person to a hospital.”

Ethical considerations aside, to assume that Michelle Wu - a Harvard-trained lawyer who had served in the legislative branch of city government since 2014 prior to becoming Mayor - was unclear about the law governing the use of emergency lights to expedite her travel around the city is a dubious proposition at best.

Despite repeated inquiries by both local media outlets and countless Boston residents, Wu continues to skirt the question as to whether or not she thinks using lights and sirens for personal benefit is an appropriate use of Mayoral authority?

Wu’s unwillingness to answer this basic question is alarming for a host of reasons, none more so than the fact she campaigned on a platform of accountability, transparency, and accessibility.

Wu herself can be quoted as saying that “the most fundamental part of [her] job is empowering civic engagement through transparency and accessibility.”

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Being a newly established watchdog group that is intent on bridging the divide between elected officials and their constituents, BAN firmly believes that Mayor Michelle Wu has an obligation to answer the public’s questions; a duty to put her words into action while delivering the level of transparency, accessibility, and accountability Boston’s residents were promised and that they deserve.

As such, BAN is formally submitting the following to Mayor Michelle Wu for comment:

• Do you believe that utilizing lights and sirens to travel around the city is an appropriate use of your authority as Mayor? If yes, why? If not, why did you?

• Why were you traveling with lights and sirens on to an event at Copley Library that you were not scheduled to attend?

• Was the accident called in over the radio or by Officer Smith’s cell phone? If the latter, why?

• You have stated that you were unaware of the situation until the sound of the collision. How is this possible if you were traveling with lights and sirens on?

• Did you direct Officer Smith to drive with lights and sirens on through the red light? If yes, why? If not, why would she feel comfortable doing so in your presence?

• Did you direct your name be omitted from the police report? If so, why? Are you included on Form CRA-23 (MA Motor Vehicle Crash Operator Report) and Form 45 (City of Boston Vehicle Accident Report)? Are you willing to release those reports to the public?

• According to a statement made to The Boston Globe, you drove in the ambulance with 2 of the victims as they were transported to the hospital. One of these victims, however, states only that you stayed around for several minutes after the incident. Which is the truth? Did you drive with her to the hospital or did you stay around for several minutes afterwards?

• The city has a practice of suspending, without pay, supervisors who are riding in a city vehicle when a subordinate employee is found to be driving recklessly and is involved in a collision. Based on your own statements, it appears you have passed the responsibility for investigating this incident onto the Boston Police Department. Are they now responsible for investigating your actions as the supervisor of that vehicle? If their investigation finds that your vehicle was operated with reckless behavior and/or without due regard for public safety, will you be held accountable as others have been?

BAN will release an update to this article when and if Mayor Michelle Wu provides answers to these questions. To help expedite this process, please take a moment to reach out to the Mayor’s office at mayor@boston.gov and/or call (617) 635-4500 urging her to respond to these public concerns.