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Embracing a new reality in City Hall

Janey claims votes for council president, progressive legislation advances

Yawu Miller
Yawu Miller is the former senior editor of the Bay State Banner. He has written for the Banner since 1988.... VIEW BIO
Embracing a new reality in City Hall
Kim Janey speaks during last week’s City Council meeting. The Roxbury councilor announced she has enough votes to be elected council president. BANNER PHOTO

In the last week the consequences of the progressive push voters made at the polls in November were already apparent.

Tuesday, District 7 City Councilor Kim Janey announced she had the seven votes necessary to secure the presidency of the body, edging out Matt O’Malley who mustered six from a mostly-white coalition of supporters.

On Monday, Janey and councilors Andrea Campbell, Michelle Wu, Althea Garrison, Lydia Edwards and Annissa Essaibi George fired off a letter calling on the Boston Police Department to drop its use of a controversial drug test civil rights groups say causes a disproportionate number of false positives among African American officers. A day later, Mayor Martin Walsh, whose administration has spent $2.1 million appealing judgements against the city’s use of the test, echoed the councilors’ call for the department to drop the test.

On Wednesday, after Walsh recognized outgoing councilors Mark Ciomo, Josh Zakim, Garrison and Timothy McCarthy, the council got down to business, voting in favor of Zakim’s measure shoring up the Safe Communities Act, passing Lydia Edwards’ 2 percent real estate transfer tax on sales in excess of $2 million and a measure to protect wetlands.

The more stridently progressive bent of the council appears part of a larger leftward tilt in the city’s political sphere that made itself felt last year with a sweep of progressive candidates that included Ayanna Pressley’s victory in the 8th Congressional District and Rachael Rollins’ election to the Suffolk County district attorney’s office.

This November brought in a largely left-leaning crop of candidates whose election transformed the council which has long been dominated by conservative leaning white males into a majority woman, majority people of color body.

“I think the residents of the city made it clear that they’re looking for representation that better reflects the diversity of the city,” Janey told the Banner. “We’ve been sent to office with a clear mandate to legislate in a way that makes Boston more welcoming and that ensures more opportunity for all residents to live and thrive in our city.”

While the 2000 U.S. Census confirmed Boston’s status at a majority-minority city, up to that time the 13-member body was limited to just two black councilors representing the Roxbury-based District 7 and District 4, which includes the predominantly black sections of Dorchester and Mattapan.

Progress was slow to come in the first decade of the millennium, with Felix D. Arroyo becoming the first Latino to serve on the council in ’03 and Sam Yoon becoming the first Asian American elected to the council in ’05. While the four councilors of color voted as a block, they far outnumbered by their more conservative colleagues and failed to advance measures such as rent control.

Now, with just four white males on the body and seven-member majority of councilors identifying as people of color, the council has effectively reversed its makeup and become a mirror-image of its ’00s iterations.

Janey said her status as a Roxbury resident will inform her agenda as president of the council.

“Roxbury is a very diverse community,” she said. “It’s a neighborhood where we see a lot of the disparities and inequalities that exist in our city. That’s very powerful.”

Among the issues the council may confront in the coming year are rent control and a return to allowing voters to elect School Committee members — issues where councilors of color have often clashed with the Walsh administration.

“I hope to see the council really look at tenant protections in a real way, education issues and issues with public safety,” said Roxbury resident Darnell Johnson, a member of the Right To The City Vote Coalition.

Right To The City Vote was one of several organizations that held candidate forums and subjected candidates to comprehensive polling to establish their positions on a range of issues including housing, education and criminal justice reform.

“We knew where people stood,” said Ziba Cranmer, a co-chair of the group Jamaica Plain Progressives. “There was no hiding. It shifted groups from relationship-based endorsements to issues-based endorsements.”

Cranmer says the activist groups’ interest in this year’s city council election underscores widespread anxiety about the growing inequality in Boston.

“I think the vote reflected the urgency around housing and affordability and the absolute crisis we’re in,” she said. “We need councilors to feel the urgency. There’s a lot of discussion and not enough action.”

Janey echoed Cranmer’s analysis.

“You’re seeing huge disparities in Boston,” she said. “The residents of the city are looking for leadership that is not afraid to tackle these issues.”

Working with Walsh

One of the next council’s first major votes will be on the $1.3 billion school budget. While Walsh has enjoyed the support of the council on both school and general city budgets in his first six years, he may face more pressure from councilors to increase spending after years during which many of the district’s schools have received cuts.

Walsh told the Banner he is meeting with the new councilors and looks forward to working with them.

“We line up on a lot of the issues for the most part,” he said.

Walsh stressed his record of collaboration with the council, citing the real estate transfer tax and the Trust Act, which bars police from collaborating with federal immigration officials in cases that don’t involve criminal violations.

“I’m a collaborator,” he said. “When people file legislation, we look at it.:

One area Walsh will likely clash with incumbent and new councilors is on the idea of electing school committee members, a move he said would re-introduce politics into education policy.

“I’m not supportive of that,” he said. “We have the most diverse school committee in the history of Boston right now. They’re working closely with the superintendent creating new policies, creating advancements to close achievement gaps and to make sure that our kids get the best education in the world.”