Boston Mayor Michelle Wu struck a defiant tone in opposition to the federal scrutiny that’s fallen on the Hub in latest weeks and months since President Donald Trump has taken workplace throughout her State of the Metropolis deal with.
Wu, in wide-ranging remarks delivered earlier than a packed crowd on the MGM Music Corridor, vowed that Boston would proceed to guard immigrants at a time when the town’s sanctuary polices are being probed by a congressional oversight committee and praised metropolis employees for his or her dedication as “public service workers” on the federal stage are “being dismissed and discredited.”
“Today, Boston is stronger, more determined and prouder than ever to be who we are in a moment where we need each other and our nation needs Boston,” Wu stated. “So, tonight, I can say that the State of our City is strong. And we have to be.
“Because all over the country, people are feeling the weight of a federal administration that’s attacking our source of strength — the same people and purpose that make Boston great: public servants and veterans, immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community, the institutions that conduct groundbreaking research and provide lifesaving care.”
Wu stated Boston is house to the nation’s greatest hospitals, schools and universities, labs and analysis amenities — establishments that she stated drive the town’s financial system, present jobs and make the Hub “America’s engine of innovation.”
“Today, they are all under attack,” Wu stated. “Boston is a target in this fight for our future because we are the cradle of democracy, pioneers of the public good, the stewards and keepers of the American Dream. We were built on the values this federal administration seeks to tear down.
“But for 395 years and counting, come hell or high water — no matter who threatens to bring it — Boston has stood up for the people we love and the country we built, and we’re not stopping now,” the mayor stated.
Wu was one in every of four-big metropolis mayors to be notified by the Division of Justice this month of an impending go to by its federal activity power to probe the town’s response to “incidents of antisemitism” on the Hub’s colleges and schools.
She co-led a coalition of mayors final month in submitting an amicus transient in federal district court docket in Boston to problem the Trump administration’s “drastic and illegal cuts to federal research funding.”
Extra notably, Wu was one in every of 4 big-city mayors compelled to testify earlier than a congressional oversight committee earlier this month as a part of its probe into so-called sanctuary cities that restrict native police cooperation with federal immigration authorities and their affect on public security.
The mayor, in her State of the Metropolis deal with, repeated her oft-mentioned declare that Boston is the “safest major city” within the nation, whereas pointing to the Hub’s record-low murder fee in 2024, and praising Police Commissioner Michael Cox — who, like Wu, has drawn the ire of Trump’s border czar Tom Homan.
Wu particularly talked about her time testifying in D.C. to kick off her speech, positioning herself because the winner in her battle with Home Republicans on the March 5 high-stakes listening to, the place she appeared, child in tow with ashes on her brow because it coincided with Ash Wednesday.
“Two weeks ago, I went down to D.C. because Congress had some questions about how we do things here in Boston,” Wu stated. “It might have been my voice speaking into the microphone that day, but it was 700,000 voices that gave Congress their answer: This is our city.
“No one tells Boston how to take care of our own,” the mayor stated. “Not kings, and not presidents who think they are kings. Boston was born facing down bullies.”
In a while, Wu, the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants who benefited from birthright citizenship and gave delivery her third little one this previous January, stated, “While this national moment isn’t the one that I — and so many families — had hoped for, I am grateful that my daughter gets to call this city home.”
“Boston is not a city that tolerates tyranny,” Wu stated.
Notably, amid a Suffolk Superior Courtroom trial that may decide the destiny of the town’s public-private plan to rehab Franklin Park’s White Stadium for a brand new professional ladies’s soccer group, Wu defended the $200 million challenge that’s divided the group in her speech, saying it is going to profit Boston Public Colleges college students.
She additionally touted her administration’s efforts to enhance housing affordability, which her opponent within the mayoral race Josh Kraft has sought to grab on as one her vulnerabilities, and introduced a sequence of initiatives, together with round housing.
Wu introduced plans to launch the town’s first-ever anti-displacement plan to assist stabilize households, a co-purchasing pilot program to assist residents buy multi-family properties with 0% deferred curiosity from the town, and develop its workplace to residential conversion program to universities and employers seeking to reactivate workplace buildings as dorms or workforce housing.
The mayor additionally introduced a plan to sort out excessive power payments by way of a “historic new partnership with Eversource and National Grid that will deliver more than $150 million in state funding for our residents to upgrade their homes and lower their bills.”
Following latest approval from the Zoning Fee, after it initially struck down the mayoral initiative to hurry up net-zero emission necessities, Wu stated, “because buildings are the biggest source of city emissions, starting this summer, all new big buildings in Boston will be net-zero from day one.”
Opposing Zoning Fee members had cited considerations with prices to builders, saying dashing up net-zero necessities might hinder the manufacturing of housing throughout an affordability disaster.
The mayor additionally introduced one other enlargement of the town’s free museum program, introduced as a pilot for BPS households in final yr’s state of the town deal with, to incorporate Boston’s revolutionary websites for all Boston college households.
Wu’s opponent in mayor’s race, Josh Kraft, stated the image wasn’t as rosy as she made it out to be.
“All of us want a stronger and more vibrant city, but the state of the city under Mayor Wu is headed in the wrong direction,” Kraft stated in an announcement to the Herald.
“New housing production has ground to a halt, the problems at Mass and Cass have been pushed out into many neighborhoods, the same schools continue to fail our kids, poorly planned bike lanes have clogged our streets, and our residents are paying higher taxes due to a bloated payroll and irresponsible fiscal management.”
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