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Mayoral election in Boston, Massachusetts (September 14, 2021 primary election)
- Primary date: 9/14/2021
- Primary type: Nonpartisan
- Registration deadline(s): 8/25/2021[1]
- Online registration: Yes
- Same-day registration: No
- Early voting: Sept. 4-10[2]
- Absentee/mail voting deadline(s): Received by Election Day[3]
- Voter ID: No (Most cases)
- Poll times: 7 a.m. - 8 p.m.
2025 →
← 2017
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| 2021 Boston elections |
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| Election dates |
| Filing deadline: May 18, 2021 |
| Primary election: September 14, 2021 General election: November 2, 2021 |
| Election stats |
| Offices up: Mayor |
| Total seats up: 1 (click here for other city elections) |
| Election type: Nonpartisan |
| Other municipal elections |
| U.S. municipal elections, 2021 |
Michelle Wu and Annissa Essaibi George advanced from the nonpartisan mayoral primary election in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 14, 2021. Seven candidates ran in the race. The general election was on November 2. This page covers the primary election. For coverage of the general election, click here.
Former incumbent Marty Walsh left office in March 2021 to become secretary of labor in President Joe Biden's (D) Cabinet. Kim Janey (District 7)—the city council president at the time—succeeded Walsh. According to the Boston City Charter, the council president serves as acting mayor when there is a vacancy.[4]
Janey ran in the election. She and three other candidates who were also Boston City Council members—Andrea Campbell (District 4), Essaibi George (at-large), and Wu (at-large)—led in campaign finances, endorsements, and polling.[5][6]
Three independent polls conducted in the weeks leading up to the primary showed Wu leading beyond margins of error and Campbell, Essaibi George, and Janey all within a few percentage points of one another for second place.
The Boston Globe's Laura Crimaldi wrote, "Although census figures show about 65 percent of city residents identify as people of color, the upcoming election will be the first in Boston history that won’t result in a white man becoming mayor."[7] The four candidates mentioned above are women. Janey and Campbell are Black. Essaibi George is Arab American. Wu is Asian American.
At a debate on September 8, Janey said that in her time as acting mayor, she led the city's reopening, kept crime down, and kept people in their homes. Campbell said she had the most specific housing and public safety plans of any candidate. Essaibi George said she was the only candidate who would invest in public safety and that she opposed efforts to defund the police. Wu said she was endorsed by climate groups because of her actionable climate plan and that she was the only candidate to support rent stabilization (also known as rent control).[8]
Politico Massachusetts Playbook's Lisa Kashinsky wrote in July that "vote-splitting among progressives could clear a path for more moderate City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George to clinch one of the top two spots to advance from the preliminary. And Essaibi George, a pro-public-safety candidate who’s largely occupying the lane vacated by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, could pose a serious challenge to a progressive in the November election." Kashinsky said the Jamaica Plain Progressives' division over whether to endorse Campbell, Janey, or Wu was "indicative of the consequential choice facing progressive voters at the ballot box in just a few weeks."[5] The group, which according to its website aims to engage residents of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood in electoral campaigns and advocate for progressive policy, chose not to endorse a candidate.[9][10]
Wu completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey. Click here to read Wu's responses and to learn more about other candidates' backgrounds and key messages. And click here for a compilation of interviews and questionnaires from local media outlets.
Also running were Walsh's former economic development chief John Barros, 2017 mayoral candidate Robert Cappucci, and North End resident Richard Spagnuolo.[11]
The mayoral office is nonpartisan. Walsh served in the state House of Representatives as a Democrat. As of 2021, a Republican hadn't held the mayor's office in Boston since 1930.[12]
Boston also held elections for its 13 city council seats—nine elected by district and four elected citywide—in 2021. Five seats were open, with the four incumbents above running for mayor and a fifth not seeking re-election. The Boston Globe's Jasper Goodman wrote that the council was "in line for the most turnover it has seen in a single election since 1993."[13] Click here to learn more about those elections.
Candidates and election results
General election
General election for Mayor of Boston
Michelle Wu defeated Annissa Essaibi George in the general election for Mayor of Boston on November 2, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Michelle Wu (Nonpartisan)  | 64.0 | 91,794 |
 | Annissa Essaibi George (Nonpartisan) | 35.6 | 51,125 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.4 | 595 | ||
| Total votes: 143,514 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Mayor of Boston
The following candidates ran in the primary for Mayor of Boston on September 14, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Michelle Wu (Nonpartisan) | 33.4 | 36,060 |
| ✔ | | Annissa Essaibi George (Nonpartisan) | 22.5 | 24,268 |
 | Andrea Campbell (Nonpartisan) | 19.7 | 21,299 | |
 | Kim Janey (Nonpartisan) | 19.5 | 21,047 | |
 | John Barros (Nonpartisan) | 3.2 | 3,459 | |
 | Robert Cappucci (Nonpartisan) | 1.1 | 1,185 | |
 | Jon Santiago (Nonpartisan) (Unofficially withdrew) | 0.3 | 368 | |
| Richard Spagnuolo (Nonpartisan) | 0.3 | 286 | ||
| Total votes: 107,972 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Candidate profiles
This section includes candidate profiles created in one of two ways: either the candidate completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey, or Ballotpedia staff compiled a profile based on campaign websites, advertisements, and public statements after identifying the candidate as noteworthy.[14]
Incumbent: No
Political Office:
Boston City Council, District 4 (Assumed office: 2016)
Biography: Campbell graduated from Princeton University and the University of California, Los Angeles Law School. She worked at a nonprofit organization representing students and parents in legal matters involving education. She also served as deputy legal counsel to Governor Deval Patrick (D). In 2015, Campbell was elected to represent District 4, which includes Dorchester, Mattapan, Roslindale, and Jamaica Plain. Fellow city council members elected her city council president from 2018 to 2020.
Show sources
This information was current as of the candidate's run for Mayor of Boston in 2021.
Incumbent: No
Political Office:
Boston City Council At-Large member (Assumed office: 2016)
Biography: Essaibi George received a bachelor's degree from Boston University and a master's degree in education from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She was a teacher at East Boston High School for 13 years. Essaibi George also opened a store called Stitch House in 2007. In 2015, she was elected as an at-large member of the city council. As of 2021, she was chair of the city council's Committee on Education.
Show sources
Sources: YouTube, "Every Bostonian, Every Experience," February 17, 2021; Annissa Essaibi George's 2021 campaign website, "Why I'm Running," accessed August 11, 2021; NBC Boston, "NBC10 Boston, NECN and Telemundo Boston Host Preliminary Mayoral Debate," September 8, 2021; CBS Boston, "Watch The Full WBZ-TV/CBSN Boston Mayoral Debate," October 13, 2021; YouTube, "Doing the Work," October 12, 2021; Annissa Essaibi George's 2021 campaign website, "About Annissa," accessed August 11, 2021
This information was current as of the candidate's run for Mayor of Boston in 2021.
Incumbent: Yes
Political Office:
- Acting Mayor of Boston (Assumed office: 2021)
- Boston City Council, District 7 (Assumed office: 2018)
Biography: Janey received a bachelor's degree from Smith College. She spent five years as a community organizer with Parents United for Child Care before working as a project coordinator, deputy project director, and senior project director with Massachusetts Advocates for Children between 2001 and 2017. In 2017, she was elected to represent District 7, which includes Roxbury, South End, Dorchester, and Fenway. In 2020, fellow Boston City Council members elected Janey council president.
Show sources
This information was current as of the candidate's run for Mayor of Boston in 2021.
Incumbent: No
Political Office:
Boston City Council At-Large member (Assumed office: 2014)
Submitted Biography: "Growing up, I never thought I would run for office one day. As the daughter of immigrants, I understood from my youngest days how my family and so many others feel unseen and unheard in our society. When my mom began struggling with mental illness as I was finishing college, I became her caregiver and raised my sisters. In those days as we were trying to figure out how to go on in the depths of family crisis, it felt like we were alone, invisible, and powerless. I am living the stakes of the challenges that our city currently faces. I’m a Boston Public Schools mom, a caregiver, daughter of immigrants, and regular MBTA rider. But I also know what’s possible through city government in Boston. In my eight years as an At-Large Councilor representing the entire city, I’ve delivered on progressive change through building coalitions for fearless leadership. In partnership with community, we’ve passed groundbreaking legislation and stood up for Bostonians to tackle seemingly impossible challenges. I have a track record of building coalitions to empower organizing and activism. From municipal legislative pushes, to statewide conversations on public transportation, to empowering grassroots organizing through Democratic ward committees, I’ve had an impact on building activism through shifting the political ecosystem. "
This information was current as of the candidate's run for Mayor of Boston in 2021.
Noteworthy primary endorsements
This section includes noteworthy endorsements issued in the primary, added as we learn about them. Click here to read how we define noteworthy primary endorsements. If you are aware of endorsements that should be included, please email us.
Click the links below for endorsements listed on candidates' websites.
| Boston mayoral primary endorsements | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Endorsement | Campbell | Essaibi George | Janey | Wu | ||
| Newspapers and editorials | ||||||
| The Boston Globe editorial board[15] | ✔ | |||||
| Elected officials | ||||||
| U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) | ✔ | |||||
| Governors Councilor Eileen Duff (D) | ✔ | |||||
| State Rep. Chynah Tyler (D)[16] | ✔ | |||||
| State Rep. Elizabeth Malia (D) | ✔ | |||||
| State Rep. Kevin Honan (D) | ✔ | |||||
| State Rep./former Boston mayoral primary candidate Jon Santiago (D)[17] |
✔ | |||||
| State Rep. Nika Elugardo (D) | ✔ | |||||
| State Sen. Julian Andre Cyr (D) | ✔ | |||||
| State Sen. Sal DiDomenico (D) | ✔ | |||||
| State Rep. Tram Nguyen (D) | ✔ | |||||
| State Rep. Tommy Vitolo (D) | ✔ | |||||
| State Rep. Michael Moran (D) | ✔ | |||||
| State Rep. Andy Vargas (D) | ✔ | |||||
| State Rep. Maria Robinson (D) | ✔ | |||||
| State Rep. Vanna Howard (D) | ✔ | |||||
| State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz (D)[17] | ✔ | |||||
| Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo | ✔ | |||||
| Boston City Councilor Lydia Edwards | ✔ | |||||
| Boston City Councilor Liz Breadon | ✔ | |||||
| Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins[18] | ✔ | |||||
| Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui | ✔ | |||||
| Individuals | ||||||
| Former Boston Police Commissioner William Gross | ✔ | |||||
| 2017 mayoral candidate/former City Councilor Tito Jackson[19] | ✔ | |||||
| Former Boston City Council President Charles Yancey[20] | ✔ | |||||
| Organizations | ||||||
| Our Black Party | ✔ | |||||
| Elect Black Women PAC | ✔ | |||||
| Massachusetts Nurses Association | ✔ | |||||
| IAFF Local 718 | ✔ | |||||
| IBEW Local 2222 | ✔ | |||||
| EMS Union | ✔ | |||||
| AFSCME Boston | ✔ | |||||
| Pipefitters Local 537[21] | ✔ | |||||
| SEIU Local 888 | ✔ | |||||
| SEIU 32BJ | ✔ | |||||
| UFCW Local 1445 | ✔ | |||||
| Unite Here! Local 26 | ✔ | |||||
| Chinese Progressive Political Action (CPPA) | ✔ | |||||
| Right to the City Vote | ✔ | |||||
| WAKANDA II[7] | ✔ | |||||
| Mijente | ✔ | |||||
| Teamsters Local 25 | ✔ | |||||
| MBTA Inspectors Local Union 600 | ✔ | |||||
| Alliance of Unions of the MBTA | ✔ | |||||
| OPEIU Local 453 | ✔ | |||||
| International Brotherhood of Teamsters Boston | ✔ | |||||
| Progressive West Roxbury/Rosindale | ✔ | |||||
| Sunrise Movement Boston | ✔ | |||||
| Sierra Club | ✔ | |||||
| Environmental League of MA Action Fund | ✔ | |||||
| 350 Mass Action | ✔ | |||||
| NEJB Unite Here! | ✔ | |||||
| Boston Ward 4 Democratic Committee | ✔ | |||||
| Boston Ward 5 Democratic Committee | ✔ | |||||
| AAPI Victory Fund | ✔ | |||||
Campaign themes
- See also: Campaign themes
Andrea Campbell
Campbell's campaign website stated the following.
| “ |
COVID Recovery 2020 changed us. We have all been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic: many have lost loved ones, lost their jobs, and worried like never before about how they will make ends meet. The toll on our healthcare workers has been unimaginable. Teachers, parents, and students alike have struggled with remote learning. Hotels, restaurants, and stores have closed, and small businesses and large employers alike have furloughed and fired employees. The pandemic has laid bare long-standing health inequities as we have all experienced unprecedented illness and death, prolonged shutdown, and a decimated economy. To fully recover and rebuild a healthier, more resilient Boston, we must control COVID-19 across all 23 neighborhoods, from East Boston to Hyde Park. Andrea envisions a roadmap for recovery that addresses the immediate health impacts of the pandemic, the widespread economic decline in its wake, and the deep racial inequities it exposed. Recovery begins with equitable, widespread vaccination to ensure Bostonians can get back to work and school. To make this a reality, we must track progress and use data, communicate and build trust between communities, and make smart, intentional investments to support working families. We must also reflect and learn from this experience and invest in our public health infrastructure to lay the foundation for a future of health equity and resilience. Building on her experiences, driven by her vision for Boston, and grounded in her belief in healing communities, Andrea is uniquely positioned to lead this work. To recover in 2021, the City of Boston should: All Bostonians must be able to access and trust in the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine. Andrea deeply and personally understands the complicated history of medical mistreatment within communities of color in our city and our country. Our City’s leaders must recognize this complexity, build trust and confidence in communities across Boston, and deploy evidence-based policy grounded in science and best practice to ensure we all recover and maintain our health.
Improve Transparency, Testing, and Surveillance City Hall must consistently communicate data and a clear strategy around COVID-19. To recover and rebuild, we must use data within the Boston Public Health Commission and partner with our City’s unique healthcare community, including community health centers, to deploy a robust testing and surveillance program.
Get Kids Back To School Safely Andrea would prioritize safely re-opening schools through vaccinating and testing — which are essential tools to control community transmission. We now know more about how to keep students and staff safe once they arrive in school, and can deploy these approaches to ensure less disruption to learning going forward. Prioritizing teachers in vaccination efforts is paramount to creating a safe environment for a swift return to in-person learning.
Get Boston Back To Work As long as our residents are sick or fear getting sick, our economy will struggle. The first step in the path to economic recovery is health recovery. With that foundation, Andrea believes the City can drive strong, inclusive and innovative economic growth across Boston. That will require us to:
As Mayor, Andrea will: Andrea will prioritize disease surveillance efforts to mitigate future pandemic risk and preventive services to build more resilient public health. We must invest in our network of service provision to ensure that the entire city has a robust infrastructure, and tackle the fundamental social, environmental, and economic drivers of health in every “02” zip code.
Learn From This Crisis COVID-19 has forced our country to reckon with deep racial inequities, including those in health, which have existed for generations. While it is not the first or the last pandemic we will face, it has served as a call to action to address the systemic racism it laid bare. As we move forward, we can learn specific lessons about our public health infrastructure, collect meaningful data on disparities, and prepare for a more equitable future based on a stronger foundation of communication and trust.
As we move beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, we must learn from both our collective failures and successes so that Boston can build a strong and equitable foundation of public health resilience for all its residents in the future. Addressing the Public Health Crisis at Mass Ave & Melnea Cass Long before the COVID-19 pandemic upended life across the City, many Bostonians were already dealing with a public health tragedy: the convergence of mental and behavioral health, homelessness, and substance use disorder crises at the intersection of Mass Ave and Melnea Cass Blvd (Mass & Cass). Tackling this head-on is one of Boston’s greatest challenges — it is untenable for the people who spend time there, the residents living and working there, and the businesses in the area. Andrea knows this area well, growing up just blocks away in Roxbury and the South End. She understands that the challenges at Mass & Cass are complex and have developed over many years — which means solutions must be multifaceted and results can not be achieved overnight. Andrea deeply respects the Mass & Cass Task Force and Boston’s leaders from the community, non-profit, public and private sectors who continue to work on this tirelessly. Many have advocated for decentralization of services throughout the City, increased investment from the Greater Boston region, and improved health and safety protocols. However, violence and tragedy continue. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health reports over 8,150 opioid-related EMS incidents in Boston from 2018 through the first half of 2020 and over 900 people dying of opioid-related overdoses from 2015 through 2019. Andrea has partnered with the community and public health and public safety experts to develop a comprehensive response: she met with civic resident leaders in September 2020 and subsequently offered recommendations to Mayor Walsh and Governor Charlie Baker, participated in a dedicated City Council hearing in November 2020, and has continued to engage community leaders since. Building on this ground-up process, Andrea will nimbly deploy the City’s assets toward both short and long term solutions, decentralize services, help struggling Bostonians get on a sustainable path to shelter and recovery, and restore health and safety to residents living in the area. How did we get here? Boston has faced chronic homelessness and behavioral and mental health challenges for years, the national opioid crisis that intensified beginning in 2013, and the loss of a critical local center of social services in 2014 when the Long Island Bridge was destroyed. Long Island is Boston’s largest harbor island and a site for social service delivery for decades; hundreds of residents accessed it daily via bus from Boston through Quincy and over the Long Island Bridge. Originally built in 1951, the bridge was deemed unfit in 2014, transportation to the Island was abruptly terminated, and residents were displaced. Boston announced plans to rebuild the bridge in 2018 and was quickly ensnared in legal battles with Quincy, where many fervently oppose the reconstruction. These legal battles continue — ensuring the bridge will not be rebuilt for years. Meanwhile, the needs in Boston were growing and displaced residents sought services they had previously received on the Island, which became concentrated at Mass & Cass. Many individuals seeking treatment come to the area from surrounding municipalities, adding yet another layer of complication as Boston is a regional hub and bears a disproportionate burden of the state’s opioid crisis. Mass & Cass has devolved into an encampment, open-air drug market, and center of violence, right in the middle of asset-rich Boston. These dynamics do not serve residents engaged in substance use or seeking treatment with dignity, and also understandably frustrate residents from surrounding Roxbury, South End, South Boston, Dorchester, and Newmarket Square neighborhoods. In the last several years, they have experienced everything from human waste and needles on sidewalks to overdoses to violence, and can no longer use the community’s parks and playgrounds, or feel safe walking children to school. Small businesses in the area have also been impacted, and there are numerous vacant storefronts along Mass. Ave. All of this was only exacerbated by COVID-19. Yet at the same time, Long Island sits vacant — it has gone unutilized since 2014, while conditions in Boston have continued to worsen. The lack of regional coordination and sustainable, cohesive funding for programming, lack of supportive housing, and additional complexities brought on by the pandemic combined to create an unacceptable situation at Mass & Cass — one that demands courageous and inclusive leadership, urgency, and ingenuity in response. As Mayor, Andrea Will: This is a public health crisis that demands singular focus. Andrea will appoint a Mass & Cass Chief to drive a coordinated team and decentralize services by providing access to shelter, treatment, and permanent supportive housing. With the mandate to purposefully develop and drive an urgent, innovative, and sustainable decentralizing process, the Chief will report directly to the Mayor and coordinate with all relevant city and state secretariats, including Public Health, Public Safety, Housing and Economic Development, and others, to ensure the necessary data utilization, information sharing, and cohesive oversight. The Chief will also partner with civic resident leaders, clinicians and community health workers, and private sector leaders to increase capacity and implement a fulsome response that is well-integrated throughout the community and service provision network. Importantly, a “one size fits all” approach will not be successful in serving impacted residents — an empowered leader can instead work to coordinate resources and provide a range of targeted solutions to the various specific problems underlying this public health emergency, with a focus on both immediate actions and longer-term systemic change.
Establish A Dedicated Mass & Cass First Responder Unit Mass & Cass is located at the intersection of numerous legal jurisdictions/police districts, further complicating the environment and how public safety matters are handled. Andrea will align all the relevant stakeholders and execute a plan to reduce violence, deploy first responders equipped to address specific resident needs, and improve public safety.
Reactivate Long Island Long Island offers a unique place for recovery and healing, but it has been unavailable to residents for seven years since the bridge was demolished. While the Walsh Administration committed over $100 million to a Recovery Campus there, entrenched legal battles and construction timelines mean a new bridge will not be operational for several years. Yet, ferries could run to Long Island much more quickly. While it would require investment, a ferry service could connect those in recovery to treatment, reactivate the unutilized buildings on the island, and alleviate pressure from Mass & Cass. Opponents dismiss ferries due to concerns about weather and emergencies, but comparable New England cities run ferries year-round, operate on-site infirmaries and use helicopters for medical emergencies in remote locations — Boston can deploy similar best practices. Andrea believes we must be both realistic and thoughtful and courageous and creative in putting new solutions to work. She will develop a plan, leverage our resources, and execute with urgency.
In developing new, innovative solutions to one of our City’s greatest challenges, we must be clear-eyed about costs, feasibility, and implementation. We must also center our response in courage, compassion, and community and decisively move forward. Andrea will deploy the tremendous assets Boston has at its disposal to responsibly and effectively serve all Bostonians with dignity and respect. Public health The health of every Bostonian is shaped by where we live: the daily conditions in our zip code deeply influence our social, behavioral, and physical health. Our neighborhood environment shapes how we feel and whether we have access to fresh, healthy food. Affordable and accessible public transportation, a clean climate, and available safe and affordable housing directly influence our health. Boston is made up of 23 neighborhoods, and the health of residents living in them can differ dramatically — life expectancy for a Bostonian in the Back Bay has been estimated at 92 years, over 30 years higher than in Roxbury at 59 years. The Boston Public Health Commission reported that in 2015, the rate of premature death (before age 65) for Black residents was 31% higher than for white residents of Boston. Between 2015 and 2019, over 900 Bostonians died of opioid-related overdose. The daily tragedy at the intersection of Mass. Ave and Melnea Cass Blvd — which has become Boston’s epicenter of the converging homelessness, substance use disorder, and behavioral health crises — is unfathomable right in the middle of such a wealthy, asset-rich city. Boston’s deep inequities in wealth and health are rooted in systemic racism. Racist policies and systems have and continue to determine where we live, reinforcing racial health disparities. In turn, these inequities hold us all back from reaching our collective potential across this city. Yet Boston is a world-class medical center as the home to leading hospitals, research institutions, and community health centers. Having lived these inequities in her own life and worked to address them for her district as a Councilor, Andrea has the vision required to dismantle this long-standing disconnect across the entire City. Andrea will drive health in every zip code, prioritize racial equity across all public health domains, and create innovative partnerships, programs, and initiatives that harness our unique assets. She will ensure that in Boston, health includes complete physical, mental, and social well-being. As Mayor, Andrea Will: COVID-19 exposed deep racial inequities and painfully demonstrated how central our health is to every aspect of our lives — both as individuals, and as a community. Andrea will build a culture at City Hall centered on delivering cohesive health solutions in its core capacity as a local service provider. This approach will be more in sync with how residents live our lives — not in silos of individual service areas, but comprehensively throughout each neighborhood.
Expand Our Definition of Health Because health is undeniably shaped by where we live and how we identify, eradicating health inequities in Boston demands that we prioritize critical social, economic, and environmental factors beyond the health care system itself. Andrea will lead a cross-agency team to implement strategy that includes health in all policies and invests in structural aspects of communities to drive lasting improvements in health across neighborhoods.
Activate City Health Leaders To Reduce Health Inequities In a city with the best healthcare in the country, communities of color in Boston are disproportionately dying — not only from COVID-19, but also from preventable chronic illnesses, tragic gun violence, and treatable behavioral health conditions. Because we lack quality data, not enough residents — or even healthcare professionals — can understand these stark inequities. And we can only solve problems that we measure, discuss clearly, and prioritize.
Support Youth, Working Parents, and Families There is abundant evidence that we can disrupt cycles of poverty and inequity by supporting our children — in school, at home, and in our communities. Andrea will focus on our youth, including expanded healthcare screening and services for mental health and wellbeing, physical health, and contraceptive and sexual health for adolescents, especially our LGBTQ+ youth, which are too often overlooked. She knows that to support our kids, their parents and caregivers must be set up for success too.
Address Violence and Trauma The impacts of trauma – from poverty, violence, homophobia and transphobia, and racism – influence both our behavior and our health. Transgender people of color face violence at alarming rates, with over 40 individuals murdered nationwide in 2020. We must address racism and gun violence as the public health crises that they are, particularly for economically disadvantaged communities of color, and respond with programs and services that are built to eradicate the racial and systemic inequities that perpetuate cycles of violence, trauma, and poverty.
Invest In Mental and Behavioral Health In addition to trauma-informed care, mental and behavioral health care and recovery services are foundational to Boston’s overall health. In response to the public health crises facing our city, including COVID-19, mental and behavioral health, substance use disorder, and chronic homelessness, Andrea will establish dedicated leadership over a coordinated public health response, fund innovative initiatives, and decentralize recovery services from the area around Mass & Cass so that they are accessible Citywide. Under her leadership, Bostonians will shift the mental health narrative away from stigma and toward understanding, acceptance and compassion.
Andrea’s public health agenda is grounded in her personal experience, fundamental to her vision for Boston, and driven by her belief in healing communities through thoughtful action. By being transparent about the deep inequities that drive health outcomes, connecting residents with comprehensive health solutions, and taking a holistic, neighborhood approach, Andrea will close these gaps and build a healthier, more equitable and resilient city for all Bostonians. Economy Boston is a world leader across many innovative fields — medicine, education, technology, professional services, to name a few. And yet the swift and shocking financial impact of COVID-19 has devastated many sectors of Boston’s economy and laid bare the economic inequities in our city. Too many of our families have lost jobs and are now being forced to put their health at risk to pay their bills, particularly in communities of color and among the lower-wage workers who have been hardest hit. As Mayor, Andrea will harness the leadership and innovation that is unique to Boston to drive economic recovery, while tackling our City’s divides and capitalizing on our city’s vibrant diversity. She knows that a thriving, inclusive economy that works for everyone is built on the foundation of good schools, affordable housing, and jobs that pay a living wage with opportunities for growth. As Mayor, Andrea will champion industry leaders, non-profit organizations, and policies that place racial equity at the center of economic development and recovery, starting with how the City does business. She will create stronger mechanisms for families to access affordable rents, generate savings, and have paths to home ownership and economic security, particularly for households headed by women and people of color. And Andrea will bring together the best of the public and private sectors to make sure Boston remains an international leader, home to innovation and progress, while ensuring that as our economy grows, all Bostonians reap the benefits of our city’s success. As Mayor, Andrea will: Boston’s businesses create the majority of Boston’s jobs, so in order to get Boston back to work, Andrea will engage and support businesses to rebuild and rehire in each and every neighborhood.
Maximize The Impact Of The City’s Own Budget Boston is a wealthy and resource-rich city, with the most recent City budget at $3.6 billion. Our wealth is an opportunity across many dimensions: to build a stable foundation on which innovation can flourish, to invest in the infrastructure Boston will need in the future, and to be more strategic about what we buy and from whom.
Close The Racial Wealth Gap The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston reported that the median net worth of a Black family in greater Boston was just $8, and as low as $0 for families in some of our Latino and Latinx communities, compared with a median net worth of $247,500 for white families — gaps that have likely widened due to the pandemic. This stunning inequity is the result of multi-generational cycles of poverty created by systemic structural imbalances. Because of racist policies and practices, entire communities in Boston have been denied critical opportunities to earn income, build financial stability and wealth, and access capital to pursue their educational and economic goals. This is a profound waste of Boston’s human capital, limits our economic growth potential, and — as 2020 has so painfully exposed — reinforces inequities that destabilize both our economy and the social fabric of our city.
Lift Up Our Workers By many measures, Boston has one of the most educated and skilled workforces in the country, and until the pandemic, enjoyed low unemployment. And yet, deep inequity persists. Employment and wages are lower for Black and Hispanic workers, even at similar levels of education. And far too many families are not able to afford basic necessities for themselves and their children despite their hard work and best efforts. The pandemic has only widened these disparities.
Build Today For The Economy Of The Future Boston has long been hailed as an international leader across many fields of research and innovation. Andrea believes in investing today to support our continued leadership and economic growth in the future. As COVID raises questions about the long-term appeal of cities across the world, the pandemic intensifies the need for intentional investment to grow and expand existing businesses, attract new businesses, and support institutions, thought leaders and innovators who create Boston’s dynamism and foster experimentation.
Since her first run for office, Andrea has been a vocal leader for equity, fighting to transform our systems to better serve all residents of Boston. That voice comes from her personal lived experience of multi-generational cycles of poverty and incarceration, and from seeing first-hand the tragic outcomes when families and children are denied the opportunities and supports needed to reach their potential. As Mayor, Andrea will fight to ensure not only that the economy of Boston recovers and thrives, but that we also make meaningful progress in breaking down the systemic inequities that have plagued our city for far too long. This will unleash the full potential of Boston’s economy, making the most of the talents and brainpower of all of our residents. Under Andrea’s leadership, Boston’s economy will be more dynamic, vibrant, and inclusive than ever before. Education Growing up in Boston, Andrea saw how our education system sets some children up for a lifetime of success and leaves far too many behind. Our Boston Public Schools are filled with dedicated teachers and staff and passionate families. Despite their efforts, access to quality schools and a quality education is still too inconsistent and often limited based on race, class, and geography. Even before the pandemic, we saw these inequities play out on a massive, heartbreaking scale. Children who live in downtown Boston have an 80% chance of getting into a high-quality BPS school, while children who live in Mattapan have only a 5% chance. Outside of our exam schools, 1 out of 3 children don’t graduate from high school and 4 out of 5 don’t get a college degree. For English Learners and special education students, these gaps are even more stark. The effects of COVID, as we near a full year of remote learning for most of our students, have turned this into a full-fledged crisis for our children and our city. Our students, teachers, and schools need our support and conviction today to fight back against these tremendous challenges. Education is the gatekeeper to our city’s prosperity and the path to opportunity for all our children. In order for Boston to continue to be a world leading city, all of our residents deserve access to an excellent education. On the City Council, Andrea has been a tireless champion for change in Boston’s schools. In 2019, working closely with students, families, teachers, students and community activists, she developed her Action for Boston Children plan, a comprehensive strategy to bring equity to our public schools. As Mayor, Andrea will build upon this plan and work closely with the School Committee and Superintendent to effectuate change in our education system all while holding herself and these stakeholders accountable to the residents of Boston. As Mayor, Andrea will: Despite its rich history and many pockets of success, unfortunately our school system has become a source of frustration for too many of our residents. The district lacks transparency into how and why decisions are made, and too often, families, teachers and school leaders aren’t included in decision-making and don’t know what’s happening. These problems have come to a head during the pandemic. For months, Andrea pushed the Boston Public Schools to report simple data on Chromebook distribution and other crucial metrics around remote learning, only to be stonewalled. When it was finally released, the data showed that many students of color still lacked access to the devices for remote learning they were promised. This can’t be allowed to happen going forward.
Empower And Trust Educators And Families Andrea believes schools are accountable for supporting students and families, and the central office must be accountable to schools – not the other way around. A great school is built by caring adults who are close to our children, paired with the resources and flexibilities they need to get things done. We need to reimagine the role of the central office and district leadership to make that possible.
Nurture High Quality Learning And Enriching Environments Across Every School, For All Learners BPS families deserve to know that regardless of what school their child attends, and regardless of how they learn, their child will receive a high quality education with clear and high expectations, in a healthy and enriching environment.
Ensure Equitable Access To Quality Schools Andrea envisions a future where every school can provide the opportunities every child and family deserve. And yet she knows that today, results across schools are uneven, and while that is the case, it is essential that access to the most in-demand schools be equitable. Andrea believes that must include fixing issues in the student assignment system, leveling the playing field for exam school admissions, and placing special education and English Learner programs more evenly across the City.
Get Operations Right, So Schools Can Focus On What Really Matters Andrea believes deeply in the critical role of the teachers and leaders in schools, but she also knows they can only do their job when the City and district office do theirs — namely, putting in place the infrastructure and operations that enable rich teaching and learning to happen every day.
Build A Diverse And Robust Talent Pipeline We need teachers and principals that reflect the children we serve in Boston Public Schools. And once we identify them, we need to support them and keep them at BPS — turnover continues to be too high for teachers, principals, and central office staff.
There are no shortcuts or silver bullets to building excellent schools. Boston needs steady, consistent and courageous political leadership so we can ensure every student, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, income, language, or neighborhood has a world-class public school education. Andrea knows first-hand that the support and opportunities given a child can make the critical difference in allowing them to pursue their dreams and a life of their choosing. Andrea will provide that leadership for Boston. Public Safety Andrea’s entire life has been impacted by the trauma, loss, and injustices of incarceration and the criminal legal system. When she was just eight months old, her mother was killed in a car accident while she was on her way to visit Andrea’s father, who was incarcerated at the time. As a result, she spent the first eight years of her life living with relatives and in foster care. Growing up, she watched her brothers cycle in and out of the criminal legal system. Her twin brother, Andre, died at 29-years-old in the custody of the Department of Corrections. The painful truth that twins born and raised in Boston could have such different life outcomes is what first propelled Andrea to run for office. She saw first-hand how many of the systems that supported her simultaneously failed Andre and deprived him of the same opportunities. Andrea grew up in and represents neighborhoods that see the highest rates of violence and homicide in Boston. She knows we cannot police our way out of these issues but must address their root causes, which are often poverty and trauma. To ensure communities are safe and healthy and to rebuild public trust with our public safety agencies, we need to reimagine our approach to public safety. We must invest more in evidence-based programs and services that address the root causes of violence and crime. We must remedy long-standing racial wealth gaps, eliminate poverty, and heal generations of trauma. We must invest in the communities and the youth that have been historically under-resourced, implement systems of true accountability and transparency in policing, and use data to eliminate racial disparities in our policing and criminal legal systems. We know that a majority of police officers are dedicated public servants who put their lives on the line to protect their communities. However, we also know from the data and the lived experiences of many Black and Latinx Bostonians that systemic racism and biases in policing and the criminal legal system persist, causing disproportionate rates of police stops, arrests, and incarceration of people of color. We also know that all of our communities want to be safe and feel protected, and police can play an important role in that. As Chair of the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety and Criminal Justice, Andrea has led efforts to increase accountability, transparency, and justice in policing and taken action to address root causes and treat gun violence as a public health pandemic that inflicts trauma on our communities – working with community leaders, public safety agencies, state and federal leaders, and organizations on collective solutions, including establishing the Youth Development Fund, the first dedicated budget line item for youth programming. She filed legislation to establish a civilian review board with real authority to hold Boston’s police accountable, led the effort to change Boston’s use of force policies, filed legislation to demilitarize our police, subpoenaed the Boston Police Department for its missing stop-and-frisk data, pushed to reimagine the role of Boston’s police and reallocate funding to social service programs, and convened residents in her district and citywide to hear their ideas for how to transform public safety in their communities. Despite pressure from the political powers that be, Andrea was one of the first elected officials to call for full implementation of body cameras in Boston. Andrea knows that to ensure the health and safety of all our communities, we must break cycles of poverty, trauma, criminalization and generational inequity in Boston, and as mayor she will transform our approach to policing and public safety and reimagine our criminal legal system to deliver equitable access to justice. As Mayor, Andrea will: Reimagine Public Safety And Criminal Justice To Address Root Causes Of Violence And Crime Andrea has been a leader in pushing the City to reimagine the role of police in Boston and reallocating funding to mental health, youth development, re-entry programs, and other community-led violence prevention and intervention efforts that will break cycles of poverty, trauma, and abuse. As Mayor, she will shift our approach to school safety to a restorative justice model instead of a law enforcement one, and establish a new crisis response system to respond to non-violent 911 calls and track 311 requests and correspondence between school personnel and police to identify opportunities for early-intervention.
Make The Boston Police Department The Most Transparent And Accountable In The Nation The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others by police are examples of the most devastating reasons we need accountability in policing, but many residents in our own city, who for generations have had dangerous or uncomfortable encounters with police, did not need to see these painful and public examples to know the system needs reform. As Mayor, Andrea will fight to make sure that the Boston Police Department is a national leader on transparency, accountability and diversity so that public trust is earned which will better allow our police to keep our communities safe.
Focus On Prevention By Investing In Our Neighborhoods And Youth Andrea knows that we cannot police our way out of violence and trauma. We need to invest in economic development and opportunity especially in our lower-income communities, invest in our youth, especially those with high risk factors, and strengthen the fabric and social connectivity of our communities to address the factors that rob young people of opportunities to succeed. Andrea will regularly convene the Sheriff, District Attorney, Police, Public Defenders, Trial Courts and Probation Officers, the Department of Youth Services, public health and education community partners to talk about what is working and how we can continue to reduce racial and ethnic disparities. Andrea will be a champion for neighborhoods that have been bearing the brunt of inequities for generations and will make youth investment a top priority.
Advance Criminal Justice Reforms At All Levels Of Government While some of the necessary reforms of our criminal legal system must lie with the state or federal government, Andrea will use her platform as Mayor to be a national voice for systemic criminal justice reform and work in partnership with surrounding local communities, stakeholders, and our county, state, and federal leaders including the Suffolk County Sheriff, Department of Youth Services, the District Attorney, the judicial branch and other relevant departments to end systemic and racial inequities.
As a long-time leader on these issues, Andrea knows past reform efforts were too often met with resistance, dismissed as controversial or impractical, or completely ignored. It should not have taken the public, painful murders of Black men and women by police for our leaders to not only acknowledge the systemic racism in our policing and criminal legal systems, but also to take real action to implement evidence-based reforms to transform these systems so they serve us all equally. Drawing on a lifetime of painful proximity to these issues, Andrea has been a bold and proactive leader for police and criminal justice reform for years, and will continue that leadership as mayor. Andrea also knows that many of the people serving in our public agencies want to be a part of this reform and want to see systemic failures addressed. Andrea is ready to be a mayor that brings people together and takes real action on systems reform to ensure that all residents feel safe in their communities and that we address the disparities that have existed for far too long. Climate Justice Communities of color are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. As a resident of Mattapan and the District 4 Councilor, Andrea has seen first-hand the disproportionate impact of fossil fuel pollution and the effects the toxic agents released in our communities has on the health of children and families in the neighborhoods in her district, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. Her leadership has always centered that experience. From the flooding on Morrissey Boulevard, higher pollution rates that have contributed to higher risks of COVID-19 and higher rates of asthma in children of color to disparities in tree canopy cover and access to greenspaces and parks, it is clear that we need a response to the climate crisis that is both urgent and equitable. Andrea knows that pollution and the climate crisis is a public health crisis and that the investments we need to make in resiliency and sustainability are opportunities to improve the health and economic well-being of our residents. Climate change presents a fundamental opportunity to reshape our City equitably. Environmental justice is also economic justice. Our investments in efforts to make our City more resilient can create union jobs with livable wages and career pathways for historically underserved communities. We must prudently prepare for the inevitability of rising seas, stronger storms, and crippling heat waves. This will require a substantial investment in infrastructure and is an opportunity to make Boston a global leader in clean energy and resiliency, while also ensuring that we dismantle the structural racial and economic inequalities of our current fossil fuel economy. We need to expand our climate movement to ensure it feels accessible to residents who are most vulnerable, especially Black and Latino and Latinx communities. Boston can be a national and global leader in reducing emissions, investing in green technology, and modeling how cities can center resiliency. Today, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities and those cities are responsible for over 70% of the world’s energy-related carbon emissions. Because our national leaders have largely ignored this crisis, Boston must rise up and show how cities can indeed address the climate crisis by engaging all communities including communities of color, and in a way that makes cities and local economies more resilient, equitable, and sustainable. As Mayor, Andrea will: Low-income residents, BIPOC, immigrants, people with disabilities, and those with pre-existing medical conditions are the most at-risk populations from the devastating health and economic impacts of climate change. Solar panels, Teslas, and Silicon Valley technology are not the only solutions to combat climate change. We must do a better job meeting people where they are, and ensuring that the tangible benefits of change are felt by those who have historically been marginalized and disenfranchised. Addressing the impact of climate change will require the commitment of all residents. Therefore, decisions about climate change and its impact will include all residents in a culturally competent and multilingual manner.
Build Pathways To High-Quality Green Economy Jobs And Invest In Our Green Infrastructure It is no secret that not everyone enjoys the same access to Boston’s strong medical, academic, and business sectors. Our future green economy cannot reflect those same disparities, and that will take a leader in City Hall who works every day to proactively combat those trends. The jobs generated, benefits created, and investments made in green infrastructure must be distributed with empowerment and equity in mind.
Make Climate Action, Sustainability, And Resiliency A Top Priority For Boston As one of the largest property owners in Boston, the City itself has a moral obligation to utilize its unique footprint to set an example for emissions reductions. For every 1% reduction in annual municipal carbon emissions, City residents will see $600,000 in savings a year. As Mayor, Andrea will integrate climate resiliency metrics into all City departments and functions. Andrea is the kind of leader who will prioritize equitable environmental policy over ‘greenwashing,’ even when it is difficult to do so.
Improve Air Quality By Reducing Traffic And Transportation Emissions We know from the 2019 Carbon Free Boston report that about 2 million metric tons of greenhouse gases are emitted on an annual basis from travel in and out of our City, with three-quarters of the City’s GHG emissions coming from passenger vehicles. In order to address the climate crisis meaningfully, we need to cut down emissions while ensuring our residents can be connected across neighborhood lines. This requires more proactive planning from the City to ensure that every neighborhood has access to quality and affordable public transit, and multi-modal transit corridors that are safe for cyclists and pedestrians.
Move Quickly Towards More Sustainable Housing And Development Buildings account for nearly two-thirds of emissions in Boston. The technology exists now to increase appliance efficiency, reduce fossil fuel reliance, and ensure that new development is helping us combat climate change, not increasing our vulnerability.
Andrea has been a proactive leader for equity her entire professional life, pushing to make Boston a more just and fair place for all residents. She has experienced firsthand the painful inequities in health, housing, and opportunity created in part by government, and understands the realities of intergenerational poverty many Boston families have experienced. As Mayor, Andrea will ensure that our City is a global leader in addressing the climate crisis and that the communities that are most impacted will be centered. Andrea knows that though the challenge is immense, this is also an opportunity to build a brighter future for all of our children, create equitable access to jobs in our neighborhoods, make transformative investments in resiliency, and create a more healthy, sustainable City for all. Through Andrea’s vision and leadership, Boston can meet this moment and ensure a better quality of life and healthier future for all our residents. Transportation For some residents, Boston is dense and walkable, making it easy to participate in our diverse economy and green spaces. For other Bostonians, economic and social mobility is stymied by an unreliable bus network, aging transit infrastructure, and poorly designed streets and sidewalks. Growing up, Andrea lived this every day on her commute to Boston Public Schools, and she and her family continue to face a lack of reliable transit options living in Mattapan, the neighborhood with the longest commutes in the city. Andrea also sees first-hand the disproportionate impact of fossil-fuel pollution on neighborhoods like her own and knows that Boston’s transportation system drives and reinforces the deep inequities in the city. The twin crises of COVID-19 and climate change have made painfully clear that our transportation system just doesn’t meet the needs of Bostonians, whether it’s a grueling bus commute, gridlocked roadways, poor sidewalks, or ancient trains. Transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions comprise 29% of Boston’s total emissions — an urgent priority for our future and a fundamental opportunity to reshape our city equitably. Andrea has a comprehensive vision to reconstruct a sustainable transportation network so we can build a more equitable Boston. She envisions a city of 15-minute neighborhoods, so that all Bostonians can share in the benefits of a safe, walkable, and prosperous city. As we invest in our neighborhoods and build a green transportation economy for all Bostonians, Andrea will ensure that Bostonians living in “environmental justice” communities — neighborhoods most impacted by the impacts of climate change, bad transportation policies, and environmental racism — are able to access the jobs of tomorrow. With equitable transportation, we can address unequal access and health impacts, provide efficient, reliable, and affordable options to all Bostonians, and improve health and safety on every street in every neighborhood. As Mayor, Andrea will: A 15-minute neighborhood is a community where residents live within a 15-minute walk from their basic, day-to-day needs, such as grocery stores, libraries, and parks. Some Bostonians live in these neighborhoods, enabling them to participate in the economy and live, work and play in safe, clean, green spaces. Others do not, and instead face limited amenities, access, and opportunity — a divide that has only been exacerbated by the travel limitations imposed due to the pandemic. Andrea will integrate inclusive design into city projects and create walkable and livable communities with safe, active, accessible streets for residents, including people of all ages and abilities.
Make the Bus Work Better For Bostonians Buses provide a vital transportation link for Bostonians: more than a third of all MBTA ridership, 410,000 bus riders, traveled around the Greater Boston region daily before the pandemic. Nearly half of those bus riders are people of color and 41% are low-income, as compared to 31% and 27% of subway ridership. City Hall can play an outsized role in making buses work better for Bostonians — this is achievable, and a key driver of racial and socioeconomic justice. As displacement pressures grow, bus riders are being forced to travel even farther and longer. Making the bus work better will make Boston work better — Andrea will be laser focused on making buses free for Bostonians and making them run faster, more frequently, and more reliably.
Embrace Technology and Innovation to Lead a Just Transition The transportation sector is advancing new technologies such as micromobility (e-bikes and scooters) and autonomous vehicles. Boston must start planning for them now — and ensure that the transition from fossil fuels is a “just transition.” Andrea will will ensure that all Bostonians can benefit from a green technological revolution by creating pathways to jobs and prioritizing small and women and minority owned businesses, and embrace e-mobility devices that provide new affordable transportation options at a time when the average price for a new car has passed $40,000, while also ensuring that adequate regulations are in place.
Build Connected, Low-Stress Opportunities For Biking Boston needs a city-wide connected bike network that is safe, includes protected lanes, and is attractive to all riders, including children, families, and older adults. LivableStreets’ 2020 report on Boston’s GoBoston 2030 plan stated that Boston is not on track to meet its Better Bike Corridors goal, a city target to build 60 miles of bike lanes and dedicated, curb-protected pathways by 2030.
Become the Commonwealth’s Leading Advocate for MBTA Improvements Andrea will set a clear vision for the future of Boston’s transit system, fight for riders, and push the MBTA to ensure that the public transportation system serving Boston, particularly communities of color, receives the investment it needs. The state abdicated this responsibility by cutting MBTA service in 2020-2021, despite the infusion of federal funding assistance. As mayor of Boston, Andrea will be the region’s leading voice for public transportation improvements that will make the city more healthy and more equitable.
Lead Comprehensive and Equitable Regional Planning and Investment Boston lacks a cohesive, regional environmental and transportation vision, but Andrea will build one, and leverage a stronger partnership with the State to implement it. In addition to MBTA, Andrea will partner closely with the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) and Massport in crafting and executing her vision of more equitable planning and development processes. For example, a recent redesign proposal for Melnea Cass Boulevard would have decimated tree cover in Roxbury, even as communities of color have experienced a long-term decline in their tree canopy. Andrea will center communities of color in planning and development, and expand our capacity to proactively plan and implement street improvements that result in tangible benefits to quality of life for all Bostonians.
Boston has an historic opportunity to rebuild and reimagine our city’s transportation system. Andrea will create 15-minute neighborhoods throughout Boston, while building a public transit system that expands access to economic opportunity and addresses the disproportionate impact of fossil-fuel pollution on our low-income communities. Andrea will close the gaps in our unequal transit system to help every community thrive with safe and well-connected streets. With Andrea as Mayor, Boston will become the most livable city in the country as our residents build the green transportation economy of the future. Housing Housing is a fundamental human right. For Bostonians to fully thrive, they need a safe and reliable place to call home. No Boston Public School student can reach their full potential, no young professional can start their career or raise a family, and no senior can age in place if they are stressed about next month’s rent, sleeping on a loved one’s couch, or living out of their car. Yet, too many of our residents lack safe, stable, and affordable housing — even while Boston has experienced an unprecedented boom in development. Metro Boston is the 4th most expensive metro area in the country. Nearly 50% of renters in Suffolk County spend more than a third of their income on housing, classifying them as “rent-burdened.” The recent growth and prosperity in our City has not been shared equally between our neighborhoods: There is no mistaking that Boston is a segregated city. COVID-19 is shining a bright light on the systemic inequities that drove Boston’s affordable housing crisis even before the pandemic. Andrea has seen this first-hand throughout her life in the City, from experiencing and seeing the effects of gentrification and displacement in the South End as a child to serving her constituents in Dorchester and Mattapan who cannot access or afford decent housing as costs go up and wages remain stagnant. Andrea believes that it is past time for the City to address the inequities in housing and development, so that all Bostonians can benefit from the City’s growth. As substantial new federal assistance is available to provide rental relief and other supports for residents, we must seize this moment. Andrea will lead an equity-driven approach to solving the housing crisis and lead in such a way that ALL stakeholders are engaged and included — she will optimize the City’s housing assistance programs to provide immediate relief, and take a holistic and innovative approach to planning and zoning reform, tackling homelessness, and creating more safe, affordable, and stable housing for all Bostonians. As Mayor, Andrea Will: Too many Boston residents are overly burdened by housing costs — whether it is renting or owning a home. Many who would like to buy a home and build a life in Boston simply cannot afford it — and either end up endlessly renting, limiting their ability to acquire wealth, or leaving Boston, limiting our city’s competitiveness. The first ordinance Andrea co-sponsored as a City Councilor was the Community Preservation Act which continues to generate hundreds of millions of dollars to successfully fund projects for affordable housing, green space, and historic preservation. Building on this track record, as Mayor, Andrea will develop long-term policies and programs that can make Boston affordable for all.
Maximize Pandemic Relief Despite the COVID-19 pandemic cooling the market slightly, many residents still fear eviction after moratoriums run out. These moratoriums must be extended and people should not be held accountable for COVID-19 related debts caused by this public health crisis. As Mayor, Andrea will strengthen programs to provide immediate rental relief while simultaneously establishing long-term programs to mitigate gentrification and displacement.
Drive Equitable Planning Boston has experienced an unprecedented building boom in recent years, but only some neighborhoods have benefitted. Andrea envisions a comprehensive, collaborative planning process to inform how and where we develop and ensure adequate affordable housing throughout the City. Planning power should be strengthened within the City so that we can root out corruption and develop intelligently. It’s time we bring the powers of master planning, compliance, monitoring, design approval, and other key development powers back to the City. Andrea knows we must also be creative and intentional in partnering and involving community in the development process. In a Campbell Administration, planning and development review will actively involve both renters and homeowners, as well as communities of color.
Execute on Zoning Overhaul Boston’s zoning code – the rule book that says what can be built where – has not seen a comprehensive city-wide update in 50 years. Through a transparent, community-engaged process, Andrea will create a city-wide plan that allows our City to grow in a way that also benefits and protects current and long-time Boston residents. Overhauling our zoning code will result in less variances, ease Zoning Board agendas, and enable residents to better anticipate and define what their neighborhood will look like in the years to come.
Develop Boston Creatively As District 4 City Councilor, Andrea worked diligently in the community to activate vacant lots as a public health, economic development, and public safety imperative. Recognizing the potential for arts projects, active green spaces, and housing solutions in the community, Andrea brought together community stakeholders, higher-ed partners, nonprofits and developers to create innovative action plans for these disinvested areas. For her, creative development is about driving equity, resiliency, and vibrancy across Boston. Building on this work, Andrea will:
Tackle Homelessness Boston residents may experience homelessness for any number of reasons, whether due to an illness, job loss, domestic violence, substance use disorder, or other trauma. As Mayor, Andrea will make use of the City’s strong asset base to create a more robust set of options for individuals and families experiencing homelessness.
Every Bostonian deserves a place they can call home that is also safe and affordable. Now more than ever, housing is essential for individuals to stay healthy and for Boston to be a climate-resilient city. Boston has so many resources – private, public, and non-profit – at our disposal; we must use them creatively to both protect our historic city and grow equitably. As Mayor, Andrea will activate these resources and lead collaborative, innovative, and equity-driven solutions to end our housing crisis. Immigrant Communities As a lifelong Boston resident, Andrea knows our city, and our nation, have always been strengthened by our immigrant communities. As the Councilor for one of Boston’s most diverse districts, she’s stood up for the rights of our immigrant communities and will continue to do so as Mayor. Andrea believes the City must be led inclusively, in a manner that brings all residents to the table and that not only embraces and celebrates the diversity of Boston but also builds on it. Every resident in our City, regardless of immigration status, should feel like Boston belongs to them. As Mayor, Andrea will: Protect the civil rights of immigrants. We saw firsthand how the Trump Administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was led by people who targeted our immigrant communities and tear families apart. Under a Mayor Campbell, Boston will strengthen the Trust Act and not assist or share data with ICE. Empower our immigrant communities to be civically engaged and involved. Andrea believes city government should be a place of belonging, where everyone feels seen and welcomed. As Mayor, she will work to improve language access in City Hall, in our schools, and in our institutions, and make it easier for immigrants to participate and make their voices heard. Restaurant Recovery Across the country, restaurants have been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Boston is no exception. In June 2020, the Massachusetts Restaurant Association projected that up to 1 in 4 restaurants may not make it through the pandemic. In every neighborhood of Boston, beloved local restaurants and bars have been forced to close their doors. Restaurant workers have lost their jobs en masse, forcing them to get by on unemployment checks that have been turned into a political football in Washington. Boston’s restaurants ground us in the city’s rich cultural diversity and international identity, and are a key part of why people choose to live in the City. They are the site of our first date with our future partner, the places we gather with friends and family to celebrate milestones, and where co-workers become lifelong friends. The restaurant industry is also the nation’s second largest private employer, creating low-barrier employment opportunities and driving economic activity in our neighborhoods. Boston must do more to support restaurants through the remainder of the pandemic, and to accelerate a rapid recovery of our restaurant industry as soon as the pandemic is over. Rebuilding our restaurant industry also provides Boston with an opportunity to break down barriers that have made it far too difficult for independent operators, people of color, women, and immigrants to open their own restaurants in the past. Andrea envisions a Boston where equity is a core value and our hospitality industry reflects the rich diversity of our communities. To recover in 2021, Andrea will push for the City of Boston to immediately take the following actions:
Boston can be a national model for supporting locally owned, diverse restaurant operators. During the pandemic, the City has proven that it can be nimble by establishing outdoor dining spaces, closing streets to cars and opening them to people, centralizing applications for outdoor dining permits, and supporting operators with technical assistance and expedited service. Under Andrea’s leadership, that’s how the City will do business all the time – especially since it has proven it can. As Mayor, Andrea will:
Use City Planning To Build More Connected Communities
Make Boston’s Restaurant Industry More Equitable and Inclusive
City Government City Government at its best can promote prosperity for all, safeguard our fundamental rights, and ensure that every Bostonian has access to their elected officials and can make their voices heard. Yet all too often, the business of the government is conducted behind closed doors or in public meetings that many are not aware of, are unable to attend or do not understand. That needs to change. We need to create a government that is transparent, accessible, representative, and works for every Bostonian. Andrea has years of experience seeing government at its best, including while serving as deputy legal counsel for Governor Deval Patrick. She’s also seen what can happen when government is not transparent or accountable to the people. As a city councilor, Andrea made sure that her constituents had access to the city services they needed and knew what Boston was doing for them and empowered civic leaders to be partners in the work. As Mayor, she’ll do the same for all of Boston. Andrea’s City government will be inclusive of all Bostonians. Continuing the important work of the Civic Leaders Summit, which she convened for the first time in more than a decade as Council President, Andrea will make sure that civic and community leaders have the opportunity to engage with senior city leaders on all major decisions. To make sure that our City is working best for everyone, Bostonians need to have access to our government. That is why she is proposing a plan that will make government work better for everyone in our city. Boston is facing big problems and our government needs to be more efficient and innovative if we’re going to solve them. That includes ensuring transparency so that people know what is happening in their city government, promoting and supporting civic engagement so that city hall is accessible to all Bostonians, empowering our City Council to work in partnership in a more meaningful way, and offering practical solutions to everyday problems. As Mayor, Andrea will: Bostonians deserve a city government that works for them. But all too often, our government doesn’t make it easy to hold them accountable. Andrea has spent her entire life in public service working to make sure government works for the people. That’s why she’ll make sure that all Bostonians know what is happening in their city government.
Take Andrea’s Commitment To Civic Engagement City-wide Our City is at its best when everyone can be involved and engaged in our government’s work. That is why Andrea has spent her entire career making government more accessible to Bostonians and will make this a top priority as Mayor.
Make Sure Our City Government Reflects the Communities It Serves Our City representatives, employees and even vendors should look like the community they serve. But all too often that is not the case, and many Bostonians – particularly those from communities of color – face barriers to access. That is why as Mayor, Andrea will implement several reforms to make sure that our government works for everyone, and that everyone can see themselves in our government.
Use Data and Technology To Enhance City Services and Engagement Our government needs to be innovative and effective to meet the many needs that Bostonians are facing. Andrea will ensure that city leaders leverage data for decision-making and promote innovation across agencies to ensure that the city has the latest policies and technology to best achieve their mission.
Civic Engagement Andrea knows that real, generational change starts by listening, continually engaging, and empowering residents, civic groups, and organizers working to better their communities. This has the added benefit of bringing residents together across neighborhoods to work together, know each other, and build relationships that facilitate collective power and action. As a City Councilor, Andrea has consistently included residents as collaborators in projects like Reclaiming Space – a design initiative to transform vacant lots – and hosted a Civic Empowerment Series for civic association leaders in her district to share best practices and build leadership skills to better advocate on behalf of their neighborhoods. As City Council President, she hosted the first city-wide Civic Leaders Summit in more than a decade to facilitate connections and collaboration with community organizers and civic leaders across Boston. As Mayor, Andrea will lead inclusively. She believes that when our neighborhood leaders have the tools to effectively organize their neighbors, advocate for specific resources, and inform policies, she will be able to lead at her best. Some neighborhoods already have resident leaders or civic associations that do this well, but many do not. Our City government cannot serve only those who are well-connected, well-funded, or well-organized, but must serve all our residents. By investing in community partnership and supporting a citywide civic leaders network that taps into every neighborhood, Andrea will empower residents to be co-creators in the future of our City. A More Inclusive Boston ANDREA'S VISION Invest in our Youth ANDREA'S VISION Ensure Bostonians are able to Age with Dignity ANDREA'S VISION Make Boston a more inclusive City for our LGBTQ+ Community ANDREA'S VISION Create a Welcoming and Inclusive City for Immigrants and Refugees ANDREA'S VISION Cultivate Racial Equity in City Hall ANDREA'S VISION Fight Tirelessly for Gender Equity ANDREA'S VISION Foster a Welcoming City for Veterans and Servicemembers. ANDREA'S VISION Create a More Livable City for the Disability Community[22] |
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| —Andrea Campbell's 2021 campaign website[23] | ||
Annissa Essaibi George
Essaibi George's campaign website stated the following.
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Policy & Platforms All of our policy plans have been informed and developed by local advocates, stakeholders, and most importantly, Boston residents who were gracious enough to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences at my town halls, through emails and phone calls, and even in line at the grocery store. These public policy plans are living, breathing documents that are never fully finished—and that’s how it should be. We welcome additional thoughts and feedback, and as your Mayor, Annissa will continue to ensure that you and every other resident in this city has a seat at the table. There’s a lot to do. Let’s do the hard work, together. Climate “From rising sea levels to flooding, air pollution to extreme temperatures, the evidence is clear: climate change is a threat to Boston’s people and neighborhoods.” As Mayor of Boston, Annissa will lead on climate action with a community-based approach to ensure each and every resident in every neighborhood has the opportunity to shape the policy and initiatives to tackle climate change and environmental injustice. Annissa knows that too many conversations surrounding climate policy neglected to address the real, everyday environmental injustices that disproportionately impact our communities of color and low-income communities. To do the work effectively, Annissa’s approach will begin with the frontline communities whose health and safety are most at risk. Annissa believes that the first step in Boston becoming a national leader on climate action is to start here at home. That means taking proactive steps in our communities, including: mitigating how air pollution affects residents living under flight paths, protecting our coastal neighborhoods from sea-level rise and flooding, improving public transit to encourage ridership and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and growing our tree canopy. As Mayor, Annissa will:
Economic Justice & Workers' Rights “Boston has the opportunity and responsibility to learn from our past, and not just rebuild our economy, but build a better economy that works for everyone.” As we look to recover from the pandemic, we have an opportunity to not only bounce back from the past year, but prioritize building an economy that works for everyone. Annissa firmly believes that the prosperity of our City’s economy goes hand in hand with achieving economic justice for every single resident. As Mayor she will fight back against economic inequality, close the racial wealth gap, and build an economy centering shared success and all of Boston’s hard working residents. For too long, our economy has neglected our residents of color. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, white households in Boston have a median net worth of $247,500, while Boston’s Black households have a median net worth of $8. Further, white households are more likely than nonwhite households to hold liquid assets, and are better equipped to handle unexpected financial setbacks. This must change. Boston has to be intentional in providing more pathways to homeownership and capital, increased access to education and workforce training, and build neighborhoods with reliable transportation options and core job centers. As Mayor, Annissa will: Establish a City of Boston Department of Economic Justice & Workers’ Rights
As Mayor, Annissa will: Tackle the Racial Wealth Gap The racial wealth gap in Boston is a product of a long history of systemic racism and inequities that have led to the inability of people of color to grow intergenerational wealth. As Mayor, Annissa will seek to minimize the racial wealth gap through the following multifaceted initiatives:
Invest in Workforce Development
Leverage City Services to Advance Economic Equity in Boston
Fight for Social Justice
Improve Access to Financial Services
WORKERS’ RIGHTS Annissa knows that when our workers succeed, Boston succeeds. As a former longtime Boston Teachers Union (BTU) member, she has lived the struggles of organized labor— members fighting day in and day out for simply a voice in the workplace. Boston’s thriving middle class is a direct result of the dedication and hard work of our strong unions that continue to fight for that voice. As Mayor, Annissa will be an advocate for workers’ rights by strengthening our City’s unions and collective bargaining rights to raise wages, increase benefits, maintain safe working conditions, and give labor a seat at the policymaking table. She is committed to advocating for and amplifying the voices of our unions in Boston and across the region. As Mayor, Annissa will: Support our Labor Unions and Expand Collective Bargaining Rights
Fight for Increased Wages, Fair Benefits and Safe Working Conditions
Education & Child Care “I am a former Boston Public Schools teacher at East Boston High School. It has made me a fierce advocate for access to a great education for all. But it also gave me a front row seat to the challenges that our families face day in and day out.” As Mayor, Annissa will use her experience as a Boston Public Schools teacher, a Boston Public Schools parent, a Boston Public Schools graduate, and current Chair of Boston City Council’s Committee on Education to ensure that every child has equal access to high quality schools and the necessary resources for lifelong success. She will rebuild trust with school communities by creating a transparent and responsive school system for Boston Public School (BPS) students, educators, and families. Under her leadership, every school will be a high quality school. Annissa believes that every kid deserves access to a great school, and with her lifelong dedication to the Boston Public Schools, she will provide the stable leadership our City needs to implement immediate operational reforms and to dismantle systemic barriers to equity. Today, the greatest challenge facing Boston Public Schools (BPS) is the lack of access to high quality schools for every student in each of our neighborhoods. The inconsistency in the quality of our schools is directly linked to declining enrollment, a widening opportunity and achievement gap, and a lack of trust in BPS to provide our kids with the education they deserve. Annissa will prioritize establishing equitable baseline standards and resources in every school, including ensuring that every school has appropriate staffing ratios for nurses and school psychologists, fighting for a budget for BPS that provides equitable funding across our schools, and creating a clear academic path for students by organizing the grade configuration system to become primarily a K-6/7-12 and K-8/9-12 system. As demonstrated by the rise of chronic absenteeism during the pandemic, the impact of COVID-19 on academic performance and on mental health must be a top priority in our schools. Annissa will address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our City’s students, with a particular focus on mitigating existing inequities that have been further exacerbated by the pandemic. In promoting safe, in-person instruction, academic supports, and social emotional programming, her administration will usher in a brighter future for our City’s students. Her commitment to transparency, reliance on data, and focus on stakeholder ownership and voice will ensure that all students get what they need to be successful. In order for students to succeed, they need a strong foundation of literacy in their early education. The failure to invest in early detection and intervention places children at a greater risk of dropping out, poor health, unemployment, and incarceration. With the disproportionate impact of this crisis on students of color and ELL students, strengthening literacy is essential to closing the opportunity and achievement gap. As Mayor, Annissa will be an advocate for every child, making sure that they have access to the educational opportunities and resources that they need to read. Investing in vocational and technical education will ensure our students are prepared to take advantage of the opportunities in our labor market. Annissa will prioritize improvements to Madison Park Technical Vocational High School and vocational programs in BPS to provide our students with a strong foundation for lifelong success and career readiness after graduation. As a graduate of Boston Tech, Annissa has firsthand experience with the benefits of technical training and believes that vocational education is an essential foundation to a well-rounded and rigorous academic experience. Annissa believes the City of Boston must invest in early education and care infrastructure, just as it does our roadways, health care, and parks because it is foundational to the developmental health and wellbeing of children and is ultimately the largest driver of lifetime outcomes. Annissa is committed to ensuring that Boston families have access to quality, universal early education and child care. To do this, she will not only be a fierce advocate for the proposed Common Start state legislation, but also leverage partnerships with workplaces, our schools, organizations, advocates, families, and current providers. Oftentimes, achievement gaps begin before our students enter the classroom. When our community-based providers, home providers and private providers receive the resources and support they need, our families and our City’s youngest thrive and succeed. While early education and child care in and of itself is great for the development of children, Annissa knows that it is also critical infrastructure for a thriving economy. Having adequate education centers and community providers gives an opportunity for women, who are often the primary caregivers, to enter or re-enter the workforce, while also benefiting family members that work non-traditional work hours. Annissa will also work to make it easier for small business owners to get licensed and start a provider service to support the City’s educators and reduce the seat gap in Boston. COVID-19: Lessons Learned and Building Something Better COVID-19 has exacerbated existing inequities in BPS while also creating unforeseen challenges in the BPS system. As demonstrated by the rise of chronic absenteeism during the pandemic, the impact of COVID-19 on academic performance and on mental health must be a top priority in our schools. As Mayor, Annissa will address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our City’s students, with a particular focus on mitigating existing inequities that have been further exacerbated by the pandemic. In promoting safe, in-person instruction, academic supports, and social emotional programming, her administration will usher in a brighter future for our City’s students. Her commitment to transparency, reliance on data, and focus on stakeholder ownership and voice will ensure that all students get what they need to be successful. She will:
Establishing Equitable Baseline Standards and Resources in Every School Closing the opportunity and achievement gap must begin with establishing equitable baseline standards and resources in every school. Today, BPS exists as a system of inequitable schools where families are forced to compete for a seat at a high quality school. Due to the extreme variations in the quality of learning opportunities, resources, and facilities, the school assignment process continues to exacerbate racial and socioeconomic disparities. These inequities have created a limited number of high quality schools, forcing families to leave the district entirely to provide their child with the education that they deserve. The major disparities within the quality of schools has created a system of stand-alone schools, instead of an equitable school district. Annissa believes that every school should be high quality. In order to achieve educational equity, she will ensure that every school is equipped with the baseline services and resources kids need to succeed. As Mayor, Annissa will:
High Quality Academics In BPS, the lack of district wide curriculum standards and equitable classroom resources continues to increase disparities between schools. Eliminating disparities in curriculum standards and classroom resources is a critical component of educational equity and making sure every school is high quality. Ensuring our students have access to a robust early education and elementary education curriculum is a critical foundation of a high quality education. In addition to rigorous academics, we must ensure access to enrichment opportunities for lifelong success including financial literacy, arts and music, athletics, CPR training, health and wellness, nutrition and cooking, and life skills classes. In order to achieve lasting and meaningful equity in all of our public schools, we must guarantee high quality academics programming in every school. As Mayor, Annissa will establish equity in BPS by reforming the district’s system of academics to:
Literacy Persistent declines in fourth grade MCAS reading scores and City divestment in school reading specialists speak to a growing literacy crisis within BPS. In order for students to succeed, they need a strong foundation of literacy. The failure to invest in early detection and intervention places children at a greater risk of dropping out, poor health, unemployment, and incarceration. With the disproportionate impact of this crisis on students of color and ELL students, strengthening literacy is essential to closing the opportunity and achievement gap. We must improve elementary grade literacy support in order to avoid cascading issues later in elementary, middle and high school. Strong literacy skills build a solid foundation for learning, growth and opportunities for future success. As Mayor, Annissa will be an advocate for every child, making sure that they have access to the educational opportunities and resources that they need to read. She will:
Vocational Education & Madison Park Technical Vocational High School While most communities across the Commonwealth have access to a first class vocational technical education, students in Boston do not get this opportunity. Vocational education is critical to providing a high quality education. The City of Boston has only one vocational technical high school: Madison Park Technical Vocational High School (Madison Park). Madison Park should be the gem of our public schools system, yet decades of underfunding has caused significant vacancies and declining conditions. In order to provide our students with a strong foundation for lifelong success and career readiness after graduation, we must prioritize improvements to Madison Park and vocational programs in BPS. Investing in vocational and technical education will ensure our students are prepared to take advantage of the opportunities in our labor market. As a graduate of Boston Technical High School (now the O’Bryant), Annissa has firsthand experience with the benefits of technical training and believes that vocational education is an essential foundation to a well-rounded and rigorous academic experience. As Boston moves forward with the economic recovery after the COVID19 pandemic, our greatest challenge will be to ensure our workforce is prepared for the changing demands of the labor market. As Mayor, Annissa will establish a direct pipeline from Madison Park Technical Vocational High School to the workforce opportunities in the City of Boston:
Health Equity, Behavioral Health and Social Emotional Wellness Given the considerable time children spend in the classroom, our schools play a critical role to respond to the health needs of our students. Addressing the impact of health disparities is a critical component to closing the opportunity and achievement gap. Combined with the impact of COVID-19, the demand for health services, behavioral health support and social emotional wellness programs in our schools has become a necessity. Without a strong system of school based health services and social emotional support, BPS will continue to experience low levels of academic achievement, especially among our high needs students. By making sure our kids are healthy, we provide them the freedom to learn and create a strong foundation for life-long success. As Mayor, Annissa will make health equity, behavioral health and social-emotional wellness a priority in our schools by implementing the following initiatives:
Supporting High Needs Students BPS is home to the largest population of high needs students in the Commonwealth, with approximately 76% of students classified as low-income, economically disadvantaged, ELL, or students with disabilities. We need to do more for our children, especially our most vulnerable, to ensure we are giving them the full range of resources and support they need to have an equal opportunity for success. As Mayor, Annissa will prioritize investments for our high needs students to ensure that every kid has access to the services and supports they need. She will:
Rebuilding Trust with School Communities In recent years, the absence of stable governance within BPS has fostered deep mistrust for BPS families and educators. The lack of consistent leadership, along with announcements of grade reconfigurations, school closures, and budget uncertainties, has caused many BPS families to sense a real management vacuum. Many families have felt that nobody was actually listening to their concerns. In addition, insufficient translation and communications services for ELL families continues to present a major barrier for BPS families. As Mayor, Annissa will lead in partnership with school communities to improve engagement with BPS families and rebuild trust with school communities. She will also build and strengthen relationships within our school community that start long before our children enter the classroom. She will:
BPS Facilities Reform Studies on the opportunity and achievement gap prove that the conditions of school facilities have a direct impact on student learning. In Boston, decades of disinvestment from the local, state, and federal government has created major deficiencies in the quality of our school buildings. With an aging infrastructure and 27 grade configurations, the conditions of BPS facilities have exacerbated inequities. Consequently, the BuildBPS facilities plan has focused on long overdue improvements instead of on the major renovations promised to families and school communities. In addition to access to modern facilities, creating a high quality learning environment requires a strong foundation of school safety. Studies have shown a direct correlation between school safety and lower attendance rates and higher rates of chronic absences. When it comes to safe school environments, it’s more than locks and training. In order to create a school community that is safe and welcoming, it is critical to expand mental health support, implement sensible gun laws, and address trauma caused by violence outside of school. Under Annissa’s administration, BPS will experience significantly improved enrollment as our schools will become much more student-centric, high quality, and reliable places to learn and grow. As Mayor, Annissa will ensure all students have access to high-quality sustainable buildings, safe learning environments, clean grounds, and healthy air and water quality. She will:
BPS Central Office As Mayor, Annissa will foster a culture of collaboration and transparency across the BPS community through open lines of communication with all BPS staff and the School Committee. Annissa believes that with every dollar the City spends, there needs to be a clear benefit to our students, so, as Mayor, she will:
School Committee Reform As a BPS parent and former teacher, Annissa understands the need for greater transparency in the decision making process in the governance structure of the Boston School Committee. The Boston School Committee must be designed to prioritize the stability for our children’s futures while also providing accountability for the decisions. In order for our kids to receive the best education, we must reject any opportunity for special interest and political agendas from influencing the direction of our schools. Changes to the School Committee governance structure are essential to promoting a productive and straightforward dynamic between BPS families and the School Committee. As Mayor, Annissa will commit to establishing an appointed governance structure with appointments from the Mayor and the Boston City Council. She will:
Exam and Admissions Schools Annissa supports continuing to have an entrance exam for our City’s three exams schools, but believes the test must change to more accurately reflect our students’ current curriculum. All our students must have an equal opportunity to succeed, especially in our City’s exam schools. Many of our Black and brown students have already been let down by our education system by the time they take the exam. We need to better set all of our students up for success from the moment they first step foot in a classroom—earlier even—long before they are thinking about taking an exam, and intentionally focus on providing opportunities for each and every student. These considerations will also be applied to discussions around any BPS school that has an admissions policy. Our City’s schools should reflect our City’s diversity. As Mayor, Annissa will:
Transportation Reform In Boston, the district’s transportation system continues to present a major barrier for children to access a high quality education. While the BPS transportation system represents 10% of the overall budget for BPS, our students continue to experience unreliable and inefficient services. The rising transportation costs reflect the ongoing failures of the school assignment process which forces BPS students to travel long distances to attend school. As Mayor, Annissa will:
College and Career Readiness Our responsibility to educate our students extends beyond ensuring they complete their coursework and graduate from BPS. It continues as they choose to enter college, choose a career, and grow into their communities. We need to ensure our curriculum teaches them the necessary skills through meaningful college and career readiness efforts. In the same way that math, science, arts and language courses are necessary for preparing our students for a successful college education and career, we need to invest the life skills that will allow our children to succeed in every facet of their lives. As Mayor, Annissa will:
BPS Athletics As an East Boston High School softball coach and a mother of four boys participating in BPS athletic programs, Annissa understands the true educational value of sports for our students. The skills needed to succeed are developed when our students participate in sports. Attributes like teamwork, dealing with adversity, a strong work ethic and dedication will help our students achieve their goals in the classroom and beyond. As Mayor, Annissa will work to ensure strong participation, equity, and safety in BPS athletic programs. She will:
Universal Child Care Boston has been a leader in offering quality education for years, but many families are suffering when they can’t afford high quality early education and child care for their children. This is an important developmental period of a child’s life because they are forming academic and social skills that prepare them for kindergarten and beyond. Every child in Boston should have the opportunity to enroll in and attend a quality early education and care program, so as Mayor, Annissa will work to increase public investment to provide universal child care to Boston, and in the process, she will prioritize Boston’s lower-income and high-need families’ access to early education. As Mayor, Annissa will:
Support our Early Educators In Boston, and across the Commonwealth, there is now a shortage of qualified educators to serve in the field, making it challenging for programs to return to full capacity post pandemic. The teacher shortage is largely driven by the salaries paid to early educators which average $30,000 a year, 37% below their peers in the public school system. There are limited opportunities for continuing education in the early education space and the City has witnessed a decline in university programs specifically designed for this field. Further, teachers with an advanced degree are encouraged to take a teaching job in a higher grade level, because the benefits and salary are significantly improved. Highly-skilled teachers are leaving the sector because the jobs are not paying enough, and as a result, our children are left without opportunities. There are also many administrative and financial barriers that prevent qualified and enthusiastic teachers from opening their own child care centers. With this in mind, Annissa will implement thoughtful reforms that our early education teachers need to build a long, successful career educating the children of Boston and earn a living, while continuing to offer high quality care to the families in our community. She will: Create an Early Education Advisory Board
Improve Educator Compensation and Benefits
Attract Enthusiastic and Qualified Educators
Build Capacity in High Quality Early Education
Address the Seat Gap and Improve Support for Families Long before our students enter the classroom, they are learning about the world and developing skills that will accompany them throughout childhood. This is why a quality early education and care is so important to our children, our families, and our City. Unfortunately, many families struggle finding a program for their children because there are not enough seats in the city for every child. There are 900 center, family, and school-based providers in Boston that offer 29,000 seats and, as of 2017, Boston had almost 41,000 children that were ages 0 to 5. This leaves us with 12,000 children that do not have an early education option. It is even more difficult to find care for families that are living in poverty, experiencing homelessness, and incarceration—which is the case for about 27% of children in the city. Further, families are struggling to pay for early education. Massachusetts is the most expensive childcare state in the country. The seat gap in Boston is currently experiencing an all-time high because of the pandemic and we are seeing a further decline in accessible seats for children. (Source: 2019 Annual Report – State of Early Education and Care in Boston) Boston’s child care supply crisis is further exacerbated due to COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic hit our City, there were 679 early education programs, and by mid-February 2021 that number dropped to 573 programs. In Massachusetts alone, 755 childcare centers had to close their doors in 2020, according to the Department of Early Education and Care. (Source: BOA 2020 Early Education & Care Brief- Boston’s Child-Care Supply Crisis: What a Pandemic Reveals) Annissa believes the City of Boston must invest in early education infrastructure as a public good, just as it does our roadways, health care, and parks. As Mayor, she will address this issue to ensure that every child in Boston has entry to an early education program that is high quality and accessible to all. Annissa will: Expand Funding Opportunities for Families
Improve Quality of Early Education
Increase Access to Early Education
Encourage Families to Enroll in Licensed Programs and Engage in Early Education Practices
Improve City Services and Funding The effects of quality early education touch every part of a community. By investing in these early stages of child development, Boston residents will reap the benefits for years to come. Children are more likely to graduate from high school, go on to earn degrees, and achieve their goals. High-quality early education is critical for family members because they are able to go to work, make a living and contribute to the City’s economy. It is a benefit that will incentivize families to move to Boston and build their homes, business, and livelihoods. It should be a top priority for the City of Boston to make the investment in the future of our children and Annissa will take the following steps to fulfill that promise: Address Issues of Funding
A Quick Note from Annissa This plan has been informed and developed by local advocates and stakeholders on my policy committees, and most importantly, Boston residents who were gracious enough to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences at my town halls, through emails and phone calls, and even in line at the grocery store. Thank you to all. My public policy plans are living, breathing documents that are never fully finished—and that’s how it should be. I welcome additional thoughts and feedback, and as your Mayor, will continue to ensure that you and every other resident in this city has a seat at the table. There’s a lot to do. Let’s do the hard work, together. To provide feedback, thoughts and ideas on this plan, initiatives or other public policy issues, please do not hesitate to reach out to policy@annissaforboston.com. Equity & Inclusion “I’m running for Mayor because I believe in a Boston that lifts up every neighborhood and embraces all who call it home.” As Mayor of Boston, Annissa will ensure that Boston is intentional in rooting out inequity and dismantling racism in our city–from education and housing, to climate and health care, and even how and when potholes are filled and sidewalks are fixed. Generations of discrimination and disenfranchisement have led to structural barriers for Black and brown residents across this city. Annissa believes in a Boston that sees the inequities and everyday injustices and tackles them head on. She will not shy away from tough conversations and hard work that need to happen in order to build a better city for all who call Boston home. Along with naming and calling out racism and discrimination in city business, policies and initiatives, we must deliberately ensure that BIPOC, women, low-income, and LGBTQIA+ communities, as well as the voices of those aging and with disabilities, are heard and elevated. Annissa will continue to build a diverse group of advisors and supporters to help educate, inform, and guide decisions. She will listen to and learn from these residents across the city in order to prioritize equity and fight for the structural changes needed to combat discrimination and priortize inclusion in Boston. As Mayor, Annissa will:
Inclusive & Thoughtful Growth “Inclusive, thoughtful growth and master planning is what will build better, stronger, more resilient neighborhoods across our entire city.” As Mayor of Boston, Annissa will ensure that equity, transparency, and accountability are at the forefront of the conversation around planning and development. Development should not benefit a chosen few and push people out, instead Annissa believes we must leverage development to create better connected, mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods. By constructing more affordable housing, community space, green space, and job centers throughout our city, we use development to lift up all of Boston. Annissa will leverage the tools created by Boston’s building boom for public good—harnessing new development so that our communities reap the benefits. Annissa recognizes that the current development process has left many residents and communities behind. Creating more predictable processes and timelines better enables Bostonians to contribute to the stabilization, strengthening, and growth of their city. Annissa will listen and respond to residents’ voices during every step of the development process, understanding that development – and the development process – is not a one-size-fits all neighborhood system. Our residents should help drive the process of shaping their streets, their neighborhoods and their city.
As Mayor, Annissa will:
Housing & Homelessness “Boston’s residents are struggling to pay rent, our families can’t find or afford stable housing, and too many individuals are experiencing chronic homelessness. COVID-19 has only emphasized these realities, and their effects will last long after the pandemic.” HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS As Mayor, Annissa will make it possible for everyone to call Boston home. She will create better pathways to homeownership, relieve pressure in the market leading to higher rents, and build more affordable housing. Along with focusing on closing the wealth gap for Boston’s Black and brown residents, Annissa will prioritize establishing more connected neighborhoods by building affordable housing close to job centers, public transit, and green space. The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the fragility of our housing market. As eviction moratoriums, mortgage forbearance programs, and stimulus funds end, we need to protect and to support at-risk populations and the housing stock they live in. To ensure a more equitable and stable future for all Bostonians, Annissa will take proactive measures to ensure housing stability through investments in foreclosure prevention programs to protect vulnerable tenants during this uncertain time. Annissa realizes the urgent need for housing that is affordable for all families in every neighborhood. Though recent years have seen important changes in terms of housing supply in the city, Annissa is committed to doing the necessary work to expand our housing supply to meet the constant needs and realities of Boston’s families. In the last seven years, we have successfully increased the housing supply in the City after decades of little growth. As of October 2019, over 30,000 residential units had been permitted, with approiximately 10,000 more units approved by Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA) in 2020; however, Annissa realizes this is not enough. Recognizing that our city is growing, and that more and more people want to live here every day, Annissa will fight to remove the serious obstacles in achieving this dream not only for our future residents, but for our current residents too. She will leverage new development to create better connected, mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods to build better, stronger, more resilient neighborhoods across our entire city. Throughout her time on the City Council, and as the founder of the Boston City Council’s Committee on Homelessness, Mental Health and Recovery, Annissa has been a fierce champion for families experiencing homelessness. She has pledged to end family homelessness in Boston and will continue to fight for our children, families, veterans, older adults, and others experiencing housing instability as Mayor. She will prioritize prevention efforts, address and repair gaps in the service delivery system, coordinate and align resources across the continuum of care and make the housing search less burdensome for families in Boston. CREATING AN AFFORDABLE CITY FOR ALL WHO CALL BOSTON HOME Affordability and accessibility of both rental units and homes for sale is key for a thriving city. We need to ensure that everyone who wants to call Boston home has the opportunity, option and a pathway to ownership to do so. We must start by building more housing and ensuring what we build is actually affordable for Boston’s residents. Our housing stock must also be a reflection of the needs of our residents. While Annissa is committed to increasing affordability across the board, her main focus is to create housing for the many residents and families that don’t qualify for subsidized housing, but still cannot afford to pay market rate. This large gap is giving low to middle income families no choice but to leave the city. We need affordable, multi-bedroom housing for our families and we need to push developers to build it. Alongside building with our families in mind, Boston also needs congregate housing, artists’ live and work space, workforce housing, and senior housing, including housing for those who identify as LGBTQIA+ or older residents with disabilities. As Mayor, Annissa is committed to increasing homeownership in the City, with a particular focus on improving access for historically underserved communities. Annissa will break cycles of systemic racism and to aid in building generational wealth and pathways to homeownership for marginalized populations in Boston. Since the housing crash of 2008, Boston has lost ground in creating homeownership opportunities; this reality is exacerbated by race, as the City has one of the largest racial homeownership gaps in the country. In order to increase long term stability in our housing market, it is important to create more permanent pathways to homeownership and to the generational wealth that comes from owning a home. In order to address the affordable housing crisis and the racial wealth gap, we need to make sure our investments in affordable rental units and homeownership units are aligned. Many of the residents in our City-funded rental units are paying about 70 percent of Area Median Income (AMI), which equates to $1,400 a month for a one bedroom unit. In many instances, that would equate to a monthly mortgage payment, so we must ensure that homeownership is accessible and residents are aware of the City tools and resources that are at their disposal when exploring housing options. As Mayor, Annissa will: Increase our housing supply to ensure it reflects the realities of Boston’s residents; and develop and expand tools and resources to keep and make existing housing affordable
Create better pathways to homeownership, especially for Boston’s historically underserved populations and communities She will:
Leverage development to benefit residents and our neighborhoods Annissa will:
MAKING THE PLANNING, DEVELOPMENT AND BUILDING PROCESSES OF HOUSING MORE ACCESSIBLE AND TRANSPARENT For our city to grow and thrive, we need to leverage new development to create better connected, mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods. Inclusive, thoughtful growth and master planning is what will build better, stronger, more resilient neighborhoods across our entire city. Annissa recognizes that the current development process has left many residents and communities behind. She will listen and respond to residents’ voices during every step of the development process, understanding that development – and the process behind it – is not a one-size-fits all system. Our residents should help drive the process of shaping their streets, their neighborhoods and their city. The City of Boston’s planning, development and building processes must be more accessible and transparent to ensure that any growth or change lifts up our neighborhoods and its people. Annissa will prioritize planning that addresses the needs and wants of Boston’s specific neighborhoods and communities, while also carrying out an overall, cohesive city-wide vision for growth. From conducting more thorough outreach to neighborhoods ahead of community meetings, to making our development and zoning processes more consistent and predictable, to creating a planning office separate from the BPDA, Annissa is determined to make the City’s processes more streamlined, understandable, and inclusive. As Mayor, Annissa will:
ENSURE HOUSING STABILITY THROUGH EXPANDING INFRASTRUCTURE, AND FIGHTING AGAINST DISPLACEMENT AND DISCRIMINATION Annissa is committed to crafting intentional and mindful approaches to managing the impact of COVID-19 on housing access in Boston. The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the fragility of our housing market. As eviction moratoriums, mortgage forbearance programs, and stimulus funds end, we need to protect and to support at-risk populations and the housing stock they live in. To ensure a more equitable and stable future for all Bostonians, Annissa will take proactive measures to ensure housing stability through investments in foreclosure prevention programs to protect vulnerable tenants during this uncertain time. She will also evaluate existing affordable housing developments, including the Boston Housing Authority, to make sure their eviction prevention programs are adequate and reflective of the challenging reality of today. Annissa will approach policy solutions with a mind towards equity and stability for all Bostonians. To better assist and support our city’s tenants, we need to expand and strengthen the City of Boston’s Office of Housing Stability and its programming and take proactive measures to ensure housing stability for all in Boston. As Mayor, Annissa will
Reorganize and enhance the City of Boston’s Fair Housing Commission
Support our Aging Residents and their ability to age in their communities Annissa realizes the importance of giving our aging residents the option to age in community. More must be done to encourage the creation of more senior-specific housing and ensure that those who have made Boston their home can stay here. Boston’s older residents are often forced to give up their longstanding social ties to communities as a result of a lack of financial access. Our neighborhoods are made better by their presence, and we must support residents to age in the community they call home by creating more secure and accessible affordable housing options, including housing for older residents who identify as LGBTQIA+ or older residents with disabilities. As Mayor, Annissa will:
HOMELESSNESS END HOMELESSNESS IN BOSTON As Mayor, Annissa will continue to build upon her work on the City Council to end homelessness for Boston’s veterans, youth and young adults, older adults, and families. As the founder of the Boston City Council’s Committee on Homelessness, Mental Health, and Recovery, Annissa has a deep understanding of the reality of homelessness in our city, and she is dedicated to finding substantive and meaningful long-term solutions for Boston’s residents and families. Given her deep commitment and her experience-based understanding of the importance of access to stable and safe housing in shaping the futures of families, Annissa is uniquely well-suited to address the ongoing family housing crisis in Boston. In particular, she understands the impact of housing instability on children’s well-being and is determined to ensure that children have consistent housing so that they can thrive, educationally, emotionally, and socially. She will: Prioritize prevention to catch residents at risk of homelessness before they become homeless
Aggressively address systemic breakdowns in our service delivery system for children and families experiencing homelessness
Resource realignment
Make the housing search easier and more accessible
A Quick Note from Annissa This plan has been informed and developed by local advocates and stakeholders on my policy committees, and most importantly, Boston residents who were gracious enough to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences at my town halls, through emails and phone calls, and even in line at the grocery store. Thank you to all. My public policy plans are living, breathing documents that are never fully finished—and that’s how it should be. I welcome additional thoughts and feedback, and as your Mayor, will continue to ensure that you and every other resident in this city has a seat at the table. There’s a lot to do. Let’s do the hard work, together. To provide feedback, thoughts and ideas on this plan, initiatives or other public policy issues, please do not hesitate to reach out to policy@annissaforboston.com. Public Health “And while Boston is an incredible place to call home, COVID has shone a bright light on our shortcomings and disparities.” Annissa’s plan for a healthier Boston is one that increases access to care, but also tackles the inequities that determine our health outcomes. From air quality to access to healthy foods, gun violence to maternal health, open green space to reliable transportation options, these all—and much more—contribute to the health of our city and its residents. By utilizing our leading Community Health Center infrastructure and hospitals, advocating for mental health access, getting every Boston resident a primary care provider and improving the quality of life in our neighborhoods, Annissa will fight day after day to ensure every resident in Boston is safe, happy and healthy. Annissa’s public health plan is centered around the community health care model. Throughout her time on the Boston City Council and as the longest serving Board member of her neighborhood health center, the Dorchester House Health Center, Annissa knows the critical role Community Health Centers (CHCs) play in the health of Boston. In addition to providing primary care, CHCs provide comprehensive community services to address food insecurity, housing instability, behavioral health, immigration support, and other social determinants of health. Because along with a lack of coverage and care for too many, there are persistent racial inequities that plague our systems and everyday lives in this city–all leading to disparate health outcomes dependent on race, ethnicity, gender, and the neighborhood in which you live. As community led institutions, CHCs are uniquely positioned to combat these, provide culturally competent care, and improve the health of all Bostonians. As our city copes with the devastation and loss of the COVID-19 pandemic, Annissa believes a true mental and behavioral health crisis is imminent and that we must be prepared to combat it. Having always recognized that mental health and recovery services are an integral part of keeping Boston’s families healthy, she has long been a leader in the fight for greater access to mental and behavioral health services. Annissa will prioritize access to mental and behavioral health services for all, improve school-based services, combat stigma, increase availability of treatment options across the recovery spectrum, decentralize recovery services, continue to expand on the regional response to the opioid crisis, as well as reopen and reimagine the Long Island Recovery Campus. The Boston Public Health Commission is the oldest health department in the United States and Annissa believes that it should be a proud asset of the City of Boston. The Commission’s goal is to make recommendations that inform health care access and delivery to every resident in the city. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, too many Bostonians are unable to get appropriate health care based on their neighborhood and many struggle to make their voices heard. Annissa believes that the Commission should be responsive to the unique needs of Boston’s health care system by improving access to primary and specialty care services, and promoting an equitable geographic distribution of care. Given the urgency of the pandemic and subsequent recovery, the BPHC desperately needs bold reform, complete transparency and accountability to the residents of Boston. COVID-19 Recovery: Lessons Learned and Building Something Better COVID-19 has affected nearly every aspect of our lives, our economy, and our public health systems. The next Mayor will need the leadership to not only see our city through an immediate recovery, but a long-term vision to help Boston through this next chapter and build a stronger and more accessible health care system. This pandemic has made it perfectly clear: our health care system, even in the world-class city of Boston, is broken. Too many of our most vulnerable residents are left out and left behind. As Mayor, Annissa will center these communities in the fight to rebuild a better system for all. Annissa will not only work to restore the health of all Bostonians and decrease disparities, but rebuild trust in our public health infrastructure, develop a systematic approach to public health emergencies, and ensure state and federal funding directly benefits the institutions, organizations and residents who need it most. As Mayor, Annissa will:
A Community-Driven Approach Annissa believes that access to high quality, affordable health care should not be a privilege enjoyed by the few, but must be a fundamental right enjoyed by all. Improving care requires facilities and providers to work together with the City of Boston and other relevant agencies to expand access, increase quality and reduce disparities. Annissa’s vision for public health will be centered around the community health care model. As community led institutions, our community health centers are uniquely positioned to combat systemic barriers to health equity and reduce racial socioeconomic health disparities. In addition to providing primary care, they provide comprehensive community services to address food insecurity, housing instability, behavioral health, immigration support, and other social determinants of health. Support Our Community Health Centers and Invest in Boston’s Health Care Workforce Annissa will establish community health care centers as the foundation of Boston’s health care system to achieve equity for all Boston residents. Not only do they provide primary care and preventative services, but they also play a critical role in the holistic health of individuals in our city. From meeting language needs to hosting tax workshops, sponsoring senior yoga classes to helping to house homeless individuals and families, community based care centers deliver for Boston’s neighborhoods and Annissa will leverage their strength to build a stronger, more equitable health care system. As Mayor, Annissa will give them the necessary support in order to continue providing the best possible care to our most vulnerable residents. These institutions have worked hard to build trust within the communities they serve and they will be critical partners in our work to increase access to care across all of Boston. As the longest serving board member and lifelong patient of her local community health center, Annissa knows first hand the important role our community health centers have in delivering high quality care to underserved communities. With Annissa in City Hall, community health centers will form the foundation of all public health initiatives, priorities, and the overall agenda for the City. By establishing community health centers as the City’s public health infrastructure, Annissa will ensure every resident has access to low-cost, high quality healthcare with racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity. To deliver the best care, build trust and relationships in our neighborhoods, and reduce disparities and inequitable outcomes across the city, we must better invest and grow Boston’s health care workforce. From providing better educational opportunities to increasing partnerships between institutions and our community health organizations, we have the ability to build a stronger and more diverse workforce that reflects the communities it serves. Integrating culturally competent care across the entire spectrum of care, will lead to increased engagement and better outcomes. As Mayor, Annissa will:
Focusing on the Social Determinants of Health Annissa’s vision for a healthier Boston is one that increases access to care, but also tackles the inequities that determine our health outcomes. From air quality to access to healthy foods, gun violence to housing, open green space to reliable transportation options, these all—and so very more—contribute to the health of our city and its residents. As Mayor, Annissa will:
Mental and Behavioral Health Despite the growing demand for mental health services, Boston lacks sufficient and adequate resources to ensure access to treatment. The shortage of service providers and high cost of treatment have created systemic barriers in our healthcare system. Within the population of individuals not receiving behavioral health services, 40% cite cost as the primary obstacle. In fact, insurance and Medicaid reimbursement for mental health services are so low that more than half of behavioral health providers do not accept insurance. These barriers disproportionately impact low income and underserved communities who face greater conditions of trauma, depression, violence, poverty and substance use disorders. With the added pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis of homelessness, mental health, and recovery presents one of the greatest challenges for our city. As the number of individuals suffering from addiction continues to skyrocket, Boston-based providers have expressed the need for a minimum of 2,500 additional long-term recovery beds statewide to adequately meet the demand for recovery services. These providers estimate that for every single long-term recovery bed, there is a waiting list of 30 individuals seeking access to the services that one bed can provide. The severity of this shortage is best demonstrated by the fact that the City has replaced every recovery bed from Long Island and we still lack sufficient capacity to meet the demand for services. Annissa will improve access to mental and behavioral health services for all, improve school-based services, combat stigma, increase availability of treatment options across the recovery spectrum, decentralize recovery services, continue to expand on the regional response to the opioid crisis, as well as reopen and reimagine the Long Island Recovery Campus. As Mayor, Annissa will strengthen and increase mental health services and programs for Boston residents. She will:
Mental Health Services for Children and School Based Mental Health With children spending more than half of their waking hours in schools, our school system must facilitate access to the necessary mental and behavioral health supports for our kids. The impact of the pandemic and school closures has created a sharp increase in the demand for mental health services for adolescents and young people. While hopeful the pandemic is coming to an end, Annissa believes that we must prioritize outreach and investments to address the mental health of our kids. As Mayor, Annissa will prioritize prevention and intervention services to ensure widely available mental health services for children in schools and community health centers. She will:
Improving Recovery Services Across the Commonwealth and the region, the City of Boston serves as the primary destination for support services for individuals in recovery. Due to the concentration of recovery services in Boston, our resources have reached their breaking point. The volume of services, compounded with the growth of the epidemic and the ever-changing substance combinations, exceed the capacity of our resources to combat the opioid crisis. Boston has demonstrated that a regional response is critical for a long-term and effective response to this crisis. Harm reduction is a proven and successful way that many individuals are able to access and engage with long-term treatment. The City has committed year-over-year since 2015 to increases in the Bureau of Recovery Services budget to expand these and other life-saving services; however, as with recovery and treatment services, many of these initiatives have remained housed at the Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Blvd area (Mass and Cass) and created barriers for patients, providers, local business owners, and local residents alike. Annissa has been committed to harm reduction services and ongoing conversations about the Mass and Cass area since becoming an At-Large City Councilor in 2016. As Mayor, she will renew this commitment and take the necessary steps to decentralize services from Mass and Cass while creating safe and supportive additional services that share responsibility across Boston. Annissa will:
Transitioning, Reimagining and Reopening Long Island The Long Island Shelter closed in October 2014 as a result of the structural deterioration of a bridge connecting Squantum, a neighborhood in the City of Quincy, with Moon Island and Long Island. The closure of the Long Island Shelter created a ripple effect that is still impacting the City of Boston almost 7 years later. The impacts of this closure coupled with the opioid crisis has resulted in a sporadic and often disconnected web of recovery services throughout the City—with the epicenter of services at the Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard area (Mass and Cass). The tremendous demand for services from across the Commonwealth has increased the number of individuals seeking recovery and treatment services in that area year after year, straining the overall recovery system and the surrounding neighborhoods. Annissa believes we can reimagine and rebuild Long Island into a recovery services campus, addressing the needs of Commonwealth residents across the entire spectrum of care and successfully preparing them to live full, healthy lives after leaving the island. While this will take several years to complete, Annissa believes this long-term, capital investment will pay off dividends for Boston and the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As a longtime champion of access to life-saving recovery services and a strong proponent of increased mental health awareness across our City, Annissa is uniquely placed to lead the City forward on this issue through the following initiatives:
Violence and Trauma The connection between violence, trauma and public health is a strong one, and the neighborhoods in Boston that struggle with high crime rates, gun violence, domestic abuse, sexual assault, and drug use are deeply and disproportionately inflicted with extreme health issues. The mental health crisis is also exacerbated by too many Bostonians living in unsafe and traumatizing environments. As Mayor, Annissa will improve public health outcomes by prioritizing the safety of our city through the following steps:
Youth and Families Maternal and Infant Health Annissa understands the importance of prioritizing maternal and infant health access and support, because the steps taken during, before, and after pregnancy improve health outcomes for families across the city. Infant and maternal mortality rates, the most significant indicators of a community’s health, have steadily decreased in recent years but some racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities persist.
Healthy Children In addition to high quality health care, the conditions of a child’s immediate environment and community directly impacts their growth and development. Access to safe and healthy environments for children to live, learn, eat, and play is critical to ensure Boston’s children have a strong foundation for lifelong success and healthy outcomes as adults. As a mother of four teenage boys, Annissa understands the health patterns established during youth will help determine young people’s health status and their risk for developing chronic diseases during adulthood. In Boston, the persistent health inequities in our communities disproportionately impacts communities of color and low-income residents. These disparities have led to higher rates of obesity, asthma, food insecurity, substance use disorders, depression and chronic stress among our marginalized children. As Mayor, Annissa will invest in the preventative measures and community resources to ensure every child in Boston has a strong start for lifelong success. As Mayor, Annissa will:
Aging Residents As Mayor, Annissa will support and strengthen the lives of older individuals in Boston. She will make bold improvements to programs that will optimize the health, safety and inclusion of Bostonians ages 55+. She will continue to invest in the generational diversity of our residents by cultivating a safe and healthy community with resources to make Boston an enjoyable place to grow older. In City Hall, Annissa will:
Bostonians with Disabilities Most Bostonians will experience a disability at some point during their lives, either personally or through someone they love. To improve health outcomes for all of our residents, it is crucial that we continue Boston’s work to create a more accessible and inclusive City for people with disabilities by addressing the challenges in accessibility of housing, employment, healthcare, transportation and City services. As Mayor, Annissa will be a strong advocate for Bostonians with disabilities and partner of the Boston’s Disabilities Commission by promoting equity so that residents with disabilities have the freedom and support to fully participate in all aspects of life in Boston. As Mayor, Annissa will:
Reforming the Structure of Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) The Boston Public Health Commission is the oldest health department in the United States and Annissa believes that it should be a proud asset of the City of Boston. The Commission’s goal is to make recommendations that inform health care access and delivery to every resident in the city. Unfortunately, too many Bostonians are unable to get appropriate health care based on their neighborhood and many struggle to make their voices heard. Annissa believes that the Commission should be responsive to the unique needs of Boston’s health care system by improving access to primary and specialty care services and promoting an equitable geographic distribution of care. Given the urgency of the pandemic and subsequent recovery, the BPHC desperately needs bold reform, complete transparency and accountability to the residents of Boston. As Mayor, Annissa will take the following steps to ensure that all Boston residents get the care they need:
A Quick Note from Annissa This plan has been informed and developed by local advocates and stakeholders on my policy committees, the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), and most importantly, Boston residents who were gracious enough to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences at my town halls, through emails and phone calls, and even in line at the grocery store. Thank you to all. My public policy plans are living, breathing documents that are never fully finished—and that’s how it should be. I welcome additional thoughts and feedback, and as your Mayor, will continue to ensure that you and every other resident in this city has a seat at the table. There’s a lot to do. Let’s do the hard work, together. To provide feedback, thoughts and ideas on this plan, initiatives or other public policy issues, please do not hesitate to reach out to policy@annissaforboston.com. Public Safety “I will lead with transparency and accountability to create a system that works for everyone. Boston can and must be both just and safe” As Mayor, Annissa will fight to ensure that Boston can be both safe and just, and the city will lead on reforms and demonstrate the benefit of community policing, transparency and accountability. A racial justice issue, a public health issue and a public safety issue, gun violence is an epidemic that strikes our streets every day. Boston requires a multifaceted and coordinated response and investments in community policing, relationship building with neighborhood leaders and organizations, appropriate police staffing and enforcement, and community programming and initiatives across our city. Annissa will work with our Boston Police Department to both implement necessary reforms and keep our residents safe. Justice and safety are not mutually exclusive, we just need to have the tough, honest conversations about the hard work that needs to be done to achieve both in this city. Because our neighborhoods — particularly those disproportionately impacted by this racism, violence and trauma — deserve better. Annissa will increase investments to community empowerment programs to improve relationships between officers and our neighborhoods, expand youth programming, attack the root causes of incarceration and involvement in the criminal justice system, and decriminalize mental illness, homelessness, and poverty. Annissa knows that a strong system of public safety requires trust between our communities and first responders. Our world-class EMS team and firefighters protecting our residents every day must have access to updated equipment and safe and healthy firehouses and bays. With the help of the city’s B.E.S.T. team—a group of mental health clinicians able to respond to crises—our EMTs and firefighters will be able to appropriately and quickly respond to calls for help. Amongst the City of Boston’s public safety agencies is a growing need for more diversity in the ranks. Annissa will fight for a more diverse police department, fire department, and EMS team that represent the populations they serve and build trust in all of Boston’s communities. POLICE
EMS
FIRE
Transportation As Mayor, better and bolder mobility solutions will be at the center of Annissa’s vision for Boston. Annissa will make getting around Boston more streamlined, safe, equitable, and predictable for all residents. As our climate changes our transportation infrastructure must change as well. Annissa will partner with stakeholders at the local and state level to ensure our transportation policies address our environmental and public health crises. Our existing public transit does not work the same for everyone. Boston’s low-income communities and communities of color are deeply impacted by the underfunded system that inhibits universal mobility, access and economic opportunity. Annissa recognizes the inequality embedded in our public transit and will work with those most affected to tackle these disparities head on. As Mayor, Annissa will:
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| —Annissa Essaibi George's 2021 campaign website[24] | ||
Kim Janey
The following themes were on Janey's campaign website.
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PUBLIC EDUCATION I was born into a family of educators and know, first-hand, the importance of a quality education in lifting children out of poverty and preparing them to achieve all they can in life. Like many Boston parents today, my parents fought for me; sending me first to an independent school created by the Jewish and Black communities when their children were not being well served by the Boston Public Schools. And later, enrolling me in the Reading Metco program when the tumultuous years of forced busing proved inadequate in providing the quality education they sought. These solutions were available to my parents but no parent should have to work around the system. Instead, Boston Public Schools can and must provide a quality education for all students, at every age. I spent most of my career, first as an education advocate and then as a City Councilor, fighting to ensure that this promise of public education was kept. As your Mayor, I’ve hit the ground running, tackling issues affecting our children, teachers and schools. As Mayor, I have already:
PUBLIC HEALTH AND COVID-19 The COVID-19 crisis has revealed and exacerbated long-standing racial inequities in the availability and affordability of healthcare in our community. By focusing on recovery, reopening and renewal, we can build a more equitable, more just and more vibrant Boston. I couldn’t be more proud of our city and our successes in my tenure as mayor, which include:
54.1% of eligible residents are fully vaccinatedBuilding on the work of the COVID-19 Health Inequities Task Force to address the health inequities exacerbated by the pandemic.
As Mayor, it is my job to protect the lives and livelihoods of Boston residents and businesses. I respect and appreciate the guidance and information from national and state health entities. But I will always be looking at Boston-specific data, studying trends and numbers carefully, and working with my staff to ensure that we are making the right decisions for our city. After we have successfully tackled COVID-19, we must continue to address persistent disparities. In a city known for the excellence of its hospitals and medical professionals, it is unacceptable that the life expectancy in parts of Roxbury can be as low as 59 years (among the lowest in the world) while in Beacon Hill it stands at 92 (among the highest). MassHealth’s Accountable Care Organization program, in which 17 health care organizations partner with 27 community partners who understand specific community-based health challenges and support health-related social needs, is a start. We have to keep working to make Boston a city that works for everyone. As your mayor, I will continue to invest in:
But we must always remember that health cannot be separated from other socio-economic factors. We have to make sure we are addressing the growing income inequality in our city – that families have an opportunity to earn a real living wage, be in safe housing they can afford, and that their children have opportunities to attend great schools. AFFORDABLE HOUSING Boston remains one of the most expensive cities in the United States to live in, and too many of our neighborhoods are segregated by race and income. It is getting harder and harder for working families – especially those who earn too much to qualify for a subsidy, but don’t make enough to pay market rent – to stay in our city. They are being squeezed out. We need to ensure that our housing mix includes additional workforce housing for working families of moderate income and increased homeownership opportunities. As someone who has experienced housing insecurity firsthand, I know how crucial this is. As a child, I lived in a shelter for a week, then bounced around to friends and family. My family was pushed out of their home from a gentrified South End in the 1980s, robbing them of the opportunity to create generational wealth. As a single mom, my first apartment was a Section 8 apartment. Those life experiences have guided my tenure as mayor to date, where I:
I’m committed to ensuring affordable housing for every Boston resident, that allows them to stay in the city they grew up in, and invites young families to put down roots. This is not just another campaign policy issue for me — it is something that has deeply impacted my life and the lives of my family members for six generations in Boston. Whether it is public housing, Section 8 vouchers, homelessness, or the loss of generational wealth due to gentrification – we have lived the housing challenges that so many residents are struggling with today. That is why I am supportive of efforts to implement community stabilization strategies that will increase cost certainty for our city’s tenants. And I do believe local control is important on all issues, so I support state legislation that would allow cities and towns to decide for themselves how to control rising housing costs. My administration is working with housing advocates to improve the Inclusionary Development Policy, address displacement and capture the silver lining of development. We are looking into lowering the 10-unit threshold to increase the stock of affordable housing and opportunities for family-sized housing. While we can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach in looking at what the right percentage for IDP is, we must ensure the IDP requirement is one of our many tools to address displacement, inequity, and affordability. I will commit to ensuring the affordability levels of IDP units better reflect the area median incomes of our neighborhoods. I also see IDP as a tool to increase homeownership for working families and to close the racial wealth gap. My administration will also work to revise and reform development processes in the City, leaning on and prioritizing the needs of the community, to ensure neighborhood planning proactively leads and informs development, building on affirmatively furthering fair housing assessments, to ensure community planning and needs determine outcomes before developers’ financial interests. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT We stand together, at this moment in Boston’s history, in a position of strength. We are a global hub of innovation for the life science, medical and research sectors. We have wonderful neighborhoods to call home. We have institutions in higher education and health care, in finance and consulting, in the arts and technology, that are setting the standards in their fields. We have a municipal government that has guided us through a global pandemic and sustained a AAA bond rating throughout. And, our most important asset: the people of Boston. We are a diverse, dynamic and resilient community, driving Boston forward. And yet, the pandemic revealed what many of us already knew — that for all our greatness, we are also a city of great inequity. The income inequality gap is widening, with many people of color and immigrants left out of opportunity and pushed out of their communities. We have an enormous wealth gap. The median net worth for Black families is just $8. And $8 is not an accident. It’s the product of discriminatory policies that we have all inherited. We need to call it out. And we need to implement new policies to address it. As we move forward, we must ensure an equitable recovery for every resident of Boston. As we look to our successes, we have to recognize that there is much more work to be done. As Mayor, I have already:
To keep moving our city forward, and create real equity and fairness, I will continue to:
Boston has always been a city of possibilities. COVID-19 has reminded us that our entire community is connected. When we do what is right for those who are left out, when we create shared goals and shared solutions, everyone is better off. Now is the time to move Boston forward, together. PUBLIC SAFETY Every resident of Boston should feel safe in their home. Every child should feel safe walking to their school. No grandmother should ever be or feel unsafe simply sitting on her porch. Effective community policing is essential to making this a reality, and so are programs that address the root causes of violence.. As mayor, I will always emphasize crime prevention alongside responsible intervention strategies, and I will hold police accountable for improperly exercising their authority. I will push to reform our local criminal justice policies to ensure that poor communities of color do not bear the brunt of harsh penalties for minor offenses. I will also continue to protect civil liberties and privacy, ensuring that our residents are not subject to intrusive camera surveillance. I strongly believe:
But we must also invest in comprehensive violence prevention and intervention strategies, particularly those focused on our young people and families affected by trauma. That is why as Mayor of Boston, I have already:
OUR IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES I grew up in Roxbury, a neighborhood rich with immigrants from all over the world — like my nana, who was a first-generation Guyanese American woman. Early on, I recognized the importance of welcoming folks who are just arriving here — whether from another town or another country. And as Mayor, I think it is critical thatyou feel welcomed, seen, and served in Boston, whether your family has been here six generations or six months. I have committed myself to this work throughout my entire professional career. As an education advocate, long before I ever ran for office, I worked with Spanish-speaking mothers in East Boston who had immigrated from Central and South America to successfully obtain a dual language school for their children in their community. I then led similar efforts in the Haitian community — which is the second largest language group in Boston Public Schools — to fight for their children’s ability to learn. First on the City Council and now as Mayor, I have worked to ensure that our immigrant communities are fully served in the City’s recovery, reopening and renewal. That includes:
Increasing support for immigrant fellowships during the summer Youth Engagement and Employment program. ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND CLIMATE ACTION This is personal to me. I grew up — and my grandkids are growing up — in communities that been the industrial and environmental dumping grounds of our city. When we’re talking about climate justice, this is what we need to talk about: racial justice. And for too long, we have seen the ways in which poor people and communities of color get the short end of the stick. It’s no wonder we see higher rates of asthma and other health issues in those communities. We need to accelerate our efforts around environmental justice, expand our green jobs pipeline and achieve our shared goal of carbon neutrality. As mayor, I am actively fighting the environmental racism that leads to food deserts, heat islands, air pollution and their life-threatening health impacts. I am supporting the burgeoning clean energy economy that bolsters our public transportation system and protects communities of color from pollution. I am also increasing access to green space and community gardens. As mayor:
TRANSIT EQUITY This is an issue near and dear to my heart. I do not own a car. In my case, I have relied on buses — 14, 19, 23 and 28 — because the Orange Line train was stolen from my community. As a single mother, I took those buses, struggling getting the stroller up and down the stairs, day after day. This is a racial justice issue, a climate justice issue and an economic justice issue. I stand with environmental and transportation equity advocates to make our public transit system better for all workers and families. While we need to keep the pressure on our State partners to fund and manage a public transit system that works for its riders, as Mayor I’m not standing pat. That is why as I have:
Called on the MBTA to set a transparent schedule and communicate about the return to service.
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| —Kim Janey's 2021 campaign website[25] | ||
Michelle Wu
Wu's campaign website stated the following themes. See Wu's website for hyperlinks within her themes.
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Our policy platform is more than a vision. This moment is a call to action. To me, that means thinking big about how to build a more resilient, healthy, and fair Boston, and then having the courage and political will to fight for all of our families. We can make real investments in education, food access, and good jobs. We can build wealth in our communities by closing the racial wealth gap and supporting small businesses and local entrepreneurship. Our policy platform is more than a vision. It’s a promise to Boston residents—a commitment to take on our hardest challenges, and to center our efforts on the pursuit of racial, economic, and climate justice. Whether it’s as basic as fixing administrative processes or as broad as writing new legislation, using policy to change systems has been at the core of my time in public service. In partnership with community, we’ve shaped some of the most impactful policy discussions in our city. Over my seven years on the City Council, I’ve authored and passed legislation to deliver for families across the city, from guaranteeing paid parental leave, language access, and healthcare equity, to ramping up renewable energy and reforming city contracting. Each day I am reminded that the only way to act with the scale and urgency that this moment demands is to make government as accessible and transparent as possible, so that democracy, community, and advocacy drives everything that we do together. Housing Affordability Safe, healthy, accessible, affordable housing is a human right. Yet in Boston, a stable home has become a luxury not everyone can afford. Only about one-third of Boston residents own their own home, and half of Boston’s renters are rent-burdened. As COVID-19 devastated communities already struggling with displacement and rising rents, tens of thousands of Boston families are living in fear of the impending evictions crisis. Michelle will fight for resources to create truly affordable housing and end chronic homelessness, zoning reforms to prioritize fair housing and affordable homes for families, protections to stabilize tenants, and ways to expand permanent affordability, such as community land trusts. Michelle will prioritize housing stability for Boston families. POLICY PRIORITIES How We Will Lead Take bold action to deliver housing justice in Boston Housing is a human right. Yet in Boston, a stable home has become a luxury not everyone can afford. Only about one-third of Boston residents own their own home, and half of Boston’s renters are rent-burdened. At the city level, Boston has the power to meet this moment and dismantle the legacy of systemic racism in our racial wealth gap and displacement crisis. We also must stabilize families in the near term by working with advocates across the state and neighboring municipalities to lift the ban on rent control. Read Michelle's full plan to deliver housing justice for Bostonians. Building Boston’s future around affordable housing Housing is the cornerstone of health, racial justice, economic and educational opportunity, and long-term stability. We can increase access to affordable housing by investing in and expanding social and cooperative housing, prioritize housing for low-income individuals and residents experiencing homelessness, and grow the supply of housing while focusing on housing stability. The City should work to expand permanent affordability through community land trusts and help more families purchase homes. Combating the housing crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic Due to the stresses of the pandemic, renters are struggling to afford to stay housed. We must commit to providing immediate support to families through rental relief and a moratorium on evictions. A crisis of this magnitude will have dramatic ripple effects: a reduction in educational attainment, employment and lifetime savings, and a higher incidence of a lifetime of health issues. Planning for community resiliency, not displacement As Boston’s residents face the effects of an impending housing crisis and the threat of displacement, we must consider pathways to resiliency. We need to create a true city planning department that does right by the people of Boston, including by preserving opportunities for seniors and people with disabilities to live at home. Read more about Michelle’s ideas for city planning and check out her plan to fix our broken development system. Stabilizing the rental market and protecting tenants As the pandemic continues to shake the rental market, tenants are contending with continued uncertainty. We must take action to stabilize the short-term rental market and ensure tenants’ right to counsel. We need to protect tenants against displacement, rising housing prices, and public safety issues by closing commercial loopholes. Addressing homelessness We need to create long-term, stable, accessible, supportive housing for people currently experiencing homelessness, going beyond providing short-term shelter to address the root cause of housing instability: affordability. We must also recognize that housing is a public health issue, and coordinate community partnerships to provide people experiencing homelessness with mental health care, treatment for substance abuse disorders, and other wrap-around services. City services must recognize the particular needs of working families, LGBTQ youth, people with disabilities, and other communities living in unstable housing. Confronting Boston’s legacy of racism and housing discrimination Discriminatory practices like redlining and exclusionary zoning have resulted in disproportionately high rates of housing instability in communities of color and Black communities all over the country. We know this very well in Boston; the difference in life expectancy in Back Bay is 30 years higher than it is in Roxbury, where COVID-19 infection rates are among the highest in the city. This is a direct manifestation of the legacy of structural racism in policy and practice. We must amend Boston’s zoning code to affirmatively further fair housing. Implementing Boston’s Green New Deal (GND) Michelle has proposed a groundbreaking plan to implement the GND at the municipal level, which includes a housing agenda built around environmental sustainability, racial and socioeconomic integration, and safeguards against displacement. MICHELLE'S RECORD What We've Done Together So Far Closed corporate loopholes for short-term rentals Visited nearly every emergency shelter in the city and held a hearing to examine resources needed to serve unhoused LGBTQ youth Advocated for rental relief and a moratorium evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent individuals from being pushed into homelessness Education Equity As a Boston Public Schools parent, Michelle knows personally how our schools are at the very heart of our community and our future in the City of Boston. In this moment, school communities are facing unprecedented upheaval and uncertainty. Boston students, teachers, and families deserve a system that is responsive to their needs and provides the type of support that enables everyone to succeed. Our system should be structured and led by anti-racist policies that undermine structural inequities rather than perpetuate them. POLICY PRIORITIES How We Will Lead Implementing a comprehensive Community Vision for Boston's Students and Families Michelle’s eight-part plan lays out how she’ll bring bold change to Boston Public Schools (BPS) to ensure it serves every school community — with the urgency of a BPS mom. Her approach to Boston schools dramatically expands the services available in schools to address the whole child’s needs, makes the system easier for families to navigate, and commits to a Green New Deal for BPS so every child can learn in a healthy, safe environment. Planning for a safe reopening and equitable recovery from COVID-19 in every school In the midst of a global pandemic, our students, educators, and families have had to navigate massive shifts in education. As we move forward, we can’t afford to focus exclusively on reopening schools. We must take a long-term approach to an equitable recovery by listening to our experts - educators, students, and families. We need to combat the effects of the pandemic that occurred during school closures - learning loss, increased incidence of trauma, and adverse mental health effects, among others - and work to create long-term solutions in our schools. Read Michelle’s community-driven report on planning reopening and equitable recovery from COVID. Closing the early education and child care gap High-quality early education and care prepares children for a lifetime of opportunities, eases the burden on working families, and properly values the providers who help set the foundation for our children’s lives. But despite years of promises, a massive early education and care gap has persisted in Boston—and the pandemic has only underscored this reality. Read Michelle's bold plan to close the early education and child care gap so children, families, and care providers can thrive. Valuing and trusting our educators Teachers are experts and professionals. To provide the best possible education to our children, we must listen to and empower our educators to use their expertise in planning and in practice. We need to ensure meaningful opportunities for ongoing professional development, and offer appropriate support to teachers navigating during and after the pandemic. Creating safe, inclusive, and anti-racist schools At the same time our communities are grappling with COVID-19, we’re also in the midst of a reckoning with a long history of racial injustice. In line with this movement, we must eliminate school segregation and practices that maintain inequities in our communities. This means making our schools safe for all students by embedding anti-racism in the fabric of our schools, demilitarizing our schools, addressing the school-to-prison pipeline, and eliminating surveillance of undocumented students. Investing equitably in schools and students for mental and behavioral health If we want to serve our students equitably, we need to take a whole child approach to meeting student needs. This means addressing mental health as well as physical well-being. All students in BPS should be able to access guidance and care from a well-staffed support team of nurses, mental health counselors, and guidance counselors. Supporting ALL learners and their families Prior to the pandemic, we knew that Boston had a long way to go in serving students equitably. In particular, the state’s review of BPS found that services for English language learners and students with disabilities were in complete disarray. We must tackle the barriers facing these populations of learners head on, ensuring equitable access to high quality curriculum and instruction while differentiating student supports. Investing in healthy and sustainable school facilities As community hubs, our schools are crucial sites of learning and development. Teachers and students alike deserve access to environments conducive to teaching and learning. Particularly during a global pandemic, we need to invest in schools’ longevity and health by updating ventilation systems, prioritizing cleanliness, and modernizing infrastructure. Adopting and funding a community schools model Our schools need to support students within their home and neighborhood context, creating partnerships to combat underlying needs like food and housing insecurity. To enable every child in the city to receive a well-rounded education, the City should partner with local nonprofits and cultural institutions to implement robust arts and culture programming in the Boston Public Schools. Expanding vocational education opportunities In a city as diverse as Boston, we must recognize the necessity of providing high quality vocational education opportunities to students. In order to make good-paying jobs more accessible, we need to create more direct pipelines to opportunities in trades and other industries that do not require a four-year degree. Guaranteeing universal early education and childcare All children should have the chance to get a head start through universal affordable, high-quality early education. This includes increasing access to community-based and on-site workplace child care. Ensuring safe, reliable transportation for our students Michelle is fighting for transportation policies built on economic, racial, and climate justice, from dedicated bus lanes, to pedestrian safety, fare-free transit, safe cycling infrastructure, and easing traffic congestion. In order to promote healthy, connected communities and ensure that every student can safety access educational opportunities, we need to make our streets safer and invest in transportation as a public good. MICHELLE'S RECORD What We've Done Together So Far Improved access to local, fresh food in Boston’s public schools Held a hearing on improving access to vocational education, which would increase access to good jobs that do not require a four-year degree. Held a community panel and townhall to facilitate a collaborative planning process around a safe K-12 reopening and equitable recovery from COVID, centering the voices of students, teachers, parents, and other community members. Submitted a letter to the BPS School Committee regarding school reopening during the pandemic, sharing community-generated solutions and sharing our recommendations for a safe reopening and equitable recovery. Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Black and brown communities, through institutional racism and discriminatory policies such as redlining and segregation, have been systematically denied the rights and access to build generational wealth. In Boston, the median net worth of a white family is $247,500, while the median net worth of a Black family is just $8. The COVID-19 pandemic has widened the racial wealth gap even more. Michelle has been fighting for shared prosperity through aligning city contracting to close the racial wealth gap and policies for racial and economic justice. POLICY PRIORITIES How We Will Lead Fighting the root causes of wealth inequality Addressing the root causes of the racial wealth gap means rewriting the rules that shape our political and economic systems and rethinking who gets to write the rules in the first place. From home ownership to business creation, quality education, and transportation access, communities of color in Boston continue to face barriers to economic security reinforced through policy over generations. While we work to implement concrete policies that build wealth and power among Black and Latinx residents, immigrants, and other underserved communities, we must also shift the rules, practices, and norms that have enabled racial inequities to persist since our City’s founding. Require equitable City contracting We need to make full-scale investments in building healthy, resilient communities by aligning public spending with the City’s goals to reduce income inequality and build wealth in our neighborhoods. By harnessing government spending as a force for community economic development, the City can reverse longstanding disparities by zip code and race through investing in businesses owned by people of color, women, and Boston residents. Promoting home ownership and housing justice Safe, healthy, affordable housing is a human right and the cornerstone of health, racial justice, and economic and educational opportunity, but Black families have long been locked out of this key opportunity to build wealth by State-sanctioned disinvestment and predatory lending. Read more about Michelle’s commitment to housing justice. Attract and invest in Black businesses Black-owned businesses empower Black communities in Boston to build wealth, but their success is stymied by historic disinvestment. Black-owned businesses face systemic exclusion from access to capital, technical assistance, government contracts, and other resources that allow businesses to thrive, and during the pandemic, the structure and administration of small business relief programs have made Black-owned businesses particularly vulnerable to closure. The City must take steps to correct these historic inequities by connecting Black business-owners with capital, technical assistance, and professional support, while ensuring Black entrepreneurs have the resources they need to start new successful businesses. Read more about how Michelle will champion an economy built for the success of small businesses. Supporting young professionals of color Boston’s business ecosystem, with business ownership that is far less diverse than the city’s population, does not provide Black professionals and other entrepreneurs of color with the business and social networks they need to thrive. These networks are critical for business owners to obtain information, clients, mentors, financing, and other resources, while withstanding discrimination from lenders, networks, and potential clients. Boston must improve business networks targeted specifically for young professionals of color to improve small business resource access for all residents across all neighborhoods. Planning for a safe and equitable COVID-19 recovery The burden of the pandemic has not been borne equally. We can only build a stronger Boston if we center communities of color in our recovery from COVID-19, from ensuring transparency in how emergency funding is being directed to the fighting for safe workplaces and fair wages for our essential workers. Expanding participatory budgeting Closing the racial wealth gap requires us to reimagine power in Boston. Participatory budgeting can help us rewrite the rules around who has a say in how money is spent by the City, leading to more equitable investments aligned with community needs and ensuring that the city works for everyone, not just the wealthy and well-connected. Implementing Boston’s Green New Deal (GND) Michelle has proposed a groundbreaking plan to implement the GND at the municipal level, which would mitigate the threat of climate change by eliminating the violence of poverty and economic inequality, closing the racial wealth gap, and dismantling structural racism in Boston. Climate justice is racial and economic justice. Read Michelle’s plan. MICHELLE'S RECORD What We’ve Done Together So Far Authored and passed legislation to increase equity in city contracting Advocated for transparency and accountability for emergency city spending during the COVID-19 pandemic Exercised oversight authority to obtain data and reports on city contracting Transportation Safe, reliable, affordable, and sustainable transportation is the foundation for shared prosperity and health. We need proactive city leadership to fix our broken transportation system: Boston currently has the worst traffic in the country, and Black bus riders spend 64 more hours on average each year on stalled buses than white riders. Michelle is fighting for transportation policies built on economic, racial, and climate justice, from dedicated bus lanes, to pedestrian safety, fare-free transit, safe cycling infrastructure, and easing traffic congestion. POLICY PRIORITIES How We Will Lead Ensuring pedestrian safety Boston’s streets should be safe for all road users, but too often residents who have been sounding the alarm on dangerous speeding hotspots don’t see safety improvements until after a tragedy occurs. We must ensure access to traffic calming infrastructure improvements citywide, maintain crosswalks and pedestrian-friendly signal timing, and expand sidewalks during the pandemic to allow for safe distancing. Taking on traffic Boston has been ranked as having the worst rush-hour traffic in the country, and our transportation infrastructure has not kept pace with the growing population and number of commuters. We must take action to empower commuters with reliable, safe multimodal options and public transit, evaluate congestion pricing, and manage curbside space for pick up and drop off from ride-hailing vehicles and delivery trucks that slow traffic and block bike lanes and sidewalks when parked. Building a safe, connected, low-stress cycling network Boston is committed to increasing our share of commuting trips by bike to move more people on our streets and reach our climate and public health goals, but to do this, cycling must be safe and connected. We must accelerate progress in building protected cycling infrastructure with a focus on equity, so every neighborhood has access to safe cycling options. Improving bus service Although the MBTA is a state agency, buses run on municipal roads, so city government can play a big role in making bus service more reliable and equitable. We must speed up the design and implementation of dedicated bus lanes in our most congested corridors, expand transit signal priority, and evaluate the location and condition of bus stops. Championing fare-free transit Transportation affects every aspect of our lives and how people connect with healthcare, education, and economic opportunity. If we are serious as a city and a Commonwealth about closing the racial wealth divide, advancing climate justice, and empowering communities, we need to remove barriers to public transportation as a public good. Fighting for equity and transportation justice Our transportation agenda should be built around access for all of our neighbors, including residents with disabilities, youth, and seniors, and prioritize safety and service to all of our neighborhoods, especially environmental justice communities. MICHELLE'S RECORD What We've Done Together So Far Advocated for safe streets infrastructure improvements during the pandemic Brought together thousands of MBTA riders to oppose fare hikes, securing protections to shield bus riders, seniors, and youth from fare increases Shortened rush hour travel times with dedicated bus lanes Expanded free MBTA passes for Boston students Released a Boston Youth Transportation report Advocated for fixing issues facing multimodal commuters Changed the conversation on fare-free transit, inspiring regional progress Elevated the need for safe, protected cycling infrastructure Hosted the first-ever Boston City Council policy briefing series, focused on transportation Planning and Development Shaping development across the city for equity and resiliency is one of the most powerful roles of city government. But without comprehensive planning and responsive zoning, Boston’s development decisions are based on special approvals and exceptions after a complex and opaque public process. Not only do we fall short in transparency and accountability, but we are missing out on the potential to harness development to address our growing crises of unaffordability, climate vulnerability, inequality, and traffic. Michelle is committed to overhauling our development processes to empower planning that prioritizes the stability and resiliency of our communities. POLICY PRIORITIES How We Will Lead Creating a true city planning department The current development process in Boston is only making existing challenges worse. We need to create a city planning department that articulates a long-term vision for community resiliency and empowers all voices, rather than a select few. We must return assets to City oversight, end urban renewal areas, and empower a planning department to create a master plan for updated zoning with clear, consistent rules. Reforming the Boston zoning process to meet community needs Our City’s zoning code hasn’t been comprehensively updated since 1965, and the complicated process disproportionately benefits the wealthy and well-connected with the resources to pursue zoning exceptions and waivers. The zoning process must be made more transparent, accountable, and equitable in order to bring private development into alignment with community needs for stable housing, safe streets, open space, reliable transportation, food access, and a healthy environment. Designating green affordable overlay districts The status quo of development in Boston continues to exacerbate racial and economic disparities across our neighborhoods. Designating green overlay districts for affordability and resiliency with anti-displacement protections can support the sustainable development of healthy and accessible housing for all, meeting our climate goals while prioritizing the stability of neighborhood residents. Ending urban renewal Urban renewal powers enable the Boston Planning and Development Agency to bypass community oversight, based on outdated maps drawn more than fifty years ago that do not reflect our communities’ needs. The City should wind down the BPDA’s urban renewal powers by its current expiration date in 2022 as part of a broader effort to move past the department’s legacy of displacement and neighborhood destruction and build transparency and accountability to community members. Requiring corporate tax break accountability Boston’s approach to economic development should benefit all residents, but our current Tax Increment Financing program received a score of zero in transparency from Good Jobs First. Instead of giving tax breaks to bad actors, we should support companies that hire locally and provide full-time jobs with livable wages and good benefits. Companies should publicly report the number and type of jobs created so that Boston residents and city government can hold accountable these private corporations and larger institutions that receive public benefits and services. Auditing development commitments to ensure public benefit Private developers must be held to their commitments under community benefits agreements to ensure a transparent and predictable process. These commitments should be negotiated in close consultation with community members and strictly upheld through regular audits to ensure that our City is not leaving money on the table for affordable housing, climate mitigation measures, and other public benefits. Implementing Boston’s Green New Deal (GND) Michelle has proposed a groundbreaking plan to implement the GND at the municipal level, which includes a focus on just and resilient development by creating affordable green overlay districts and standard community benefits agreements. MICHELLE’S RECORD What We’ve Done Together So Far Released a report on Fixing Boston’s Broken Development Process: How & Why to Abolish the BPDA, laying out the city-level steps that would unwind this agency and create the pathway to community-centered, accountable planning Filed corporate tax break accountability ordinance Authored and passed legislation to protect natural resource areas and empower the Boston Conservation Commission to require resiliency and green infrastructure in development. Advocated for oversight to restore trust in ZBA and development approvals process Negotiated limiting urban renewal to a six-year extension, expiring in 2022 Small Business Small businesses are the backbone of Boston’s economy, serving as cultural hubs in our neighborhoods, economic engines for families across the city, and one of the most important ways to build wealth in our communities. As a former small business owner, Michelle has been standing up for entrepreneurs and breaking down barriers so locally-owned businesses can thrive, starting with streamlining processes for small business permitting and licensing, and reforming city contracting and procurement to align with our goals to close the racial wealth gap and support worker cooperatives. Michelle will help build Boston’s economic recovery to center local small businesses, their workforce, and the communities they serve. POLICY PRIORITIES How We Will Lead Fighting for our locally-owned businesses during and after the pandemic Businesses are facing unprecedented challenges as they struggle to pay rent, serve their customers, keep their workers safe, and navigate reopening and recovery. We must work with entrepreneurs and advocates to ensure that those with the most need have access to relief and services. Aligning City contracting to help close the racial wealth gap and support community wealth-building We need to get the most value out of taxpayer dollars by directing them back into the community and ensuring that businesses owned by people of color, women, and Boston residents have a fair shot at winning City of Boston contracts. Streamlining small business permitting and licensing Boston should have a welcoming, convenient, and smooth process to open small businesses and wrap-around services to grow and expand a business in our city. We must create a customer service-focused environment for City processes, with clear timelines and accessible, efficient communications. Strengthening Boston’s Main Streets and legacy businesses Our neighborhood businesses anchor our communities, but small businesses are facing commercial gentrification with increasing rents across the city. In recent years, too many of Boston’s legacy businesses, critical to the economy and character of our neighborhoods, have been shuttered. As the stresses of COVID present an unprecedented threat, we need to fight for a pandemic recovery plan that builds on the strength of these mainstay businesses. Supporting entrepreneurs of color In combating historical economic exclusion, we need to better equip entrepreneurs of color with programming and resources to promote their success. Creating specialized supports for restaurants Restaurants have been hit especially hard during the pandemic with government-mandated shutdowns and restricted capacity adding to the stresses on an industry with already tight profit margins. Boston should work closely to connect federal, state, and local resources to neighborhood restaurants and work to rebuild the local restaurant scene with technical assistance, place-making, programming, and publicity. MICHELLE'S RECORD What We've Done Together So Far Advocated for an equitable recovery from COVID-19, including a focus on small businesses, especially those owned by immigrants and people of color Ensured oversight on how small business relief funds were allocated and on emergency City spending during the pandemic Authored and passed legislation to align city spending with closing the racial wealth gap and building wealth in Boston communities Authored and passed legislation to create jobs and opportunity for local food producers and food businesses by prioritizing local purchasing for City food procurement Authored and passed legislation removing barriers for businesses to host live music Authored and passed legislation ending the ban on BYOB in Boston Issued recommendations for streamlining small business permitting and licensing Filed legislation to protect small business districts from the expansion of chain stores Public Health Boston boasts world-class hospitals and serves as a hub of medical innovation and industry, but the thriving health care economy has not always translated to adequate care for all of our residents. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed and widened Boston’s deep health disparities by race and neighborhood, further afflicting communities already burdened with exposure to gun violence and environmental hazards, and further destabilizing residents struggling with homelessness and the opioid epidemic. Michelle is fighting for the access and resources to ensure the health of every family and the resilience of our public health infrastructure. POLICY PRIORITIES How We Will Lead Managing the COVID-19 pandemic and creating resiliency to future threats The next mayor will be responsible for ushering the city through the ongoing crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has reshaped every aspect of our lives. Leadership during this crisis means creating a robust system of testing, contract tracing, and public health outreach built on science and grounded in public trust and transparency. Ending health disparities in health care access and outcomes Michelle is committed to rooting out discrimination in all of its forms. Racism is a public health crisis in Boston, from tragic disparities in Black maternal health to the epidemic of gun violence that disproportionately harms Black and brown communities. The fight for equality includes ensuring linguistically and culturally competent care, access to gender affirming services, and health policy that centers people with disabilities and chronic illnesses. Implementing a citywide plan to address homelessness, substance use, and mental health The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated Boston's homelessness, substance use, and mental health crises, with opioid-related overdose deaths increasing by 20% in 2020 alone as social isolation, mental health challenges, financial precarity and housing instability have deepened. Across Massachusetts, the highest increase in opioid-related deaths has been among Black men, and the crisis has been worsened by the prevalence of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that’s up to 100 times stronger than morphine. Boston residents deserve compassionate care, urgent action, and accountability. These intersectional barriers and complexity of broken systems must be transformed. Overhauling Boston’s public health infrastructure Boston can be the healthiest city in the country for all of our residents by investing in our community health providers and partnerships, tackling chronic and underlying health issues in the population, and expanding access to outreach and preventative care. Prioritizing mental health and trauma supports As the world continues to grapple with the physical health and economic effects of COVID-19, mental health is becoming another pressing health crisis just beneath the surface of the pandemic, with additional barriers to care for communities of color. Michelle believes in ending the stigma of mental illness by sharing the complexities of our stories and fighting to make care accessible to every family. Investing in substance use prevention, treatment, & recovery services We need to take a compassionate, evidence-based approach to substance use disorder that is grounded in principles of harm reduction and not criminalization. Our families deserve a renewed commitment to ending the opioid epidemic and the underlying corporate greed, economic stressors, and mental health crisis that feed its devastation. Creating a local, healthy, and sustainable food system and fighting food insecurity Access to nutritious food can help power healthy families, and investments in local, community-oriented food production and distribution are the building blocks for fighting food insecurity and creating a sustainable food system. We should be rethinking food access from beginning to end, starting with corporatized food production processes that compromise workers’ rights and leave our food supply chain vulnerable to disruption. Through robust community partnerships, equitable food procurement practices, and support for small businesses like bodegas and family-owned restaurants, we can better serve our communities. Grounding public safety in a commitment to public health In all of our public safety priorities, from ending gun violence and domestic violence to reforming our crisis response infrastructure, Boston must lead with trust as the foundation for public health. Building wellness in our city requires setting a new standard for accountability and community oversight in policing, which means we must also reject surveillance technology and practices that threaten civil rights and disproportionately harm Black and brown neighborhoods and families. Fighting for environmental justice and ensuring all Bostonians live with clean air and water, and healthy homes Leaders must use this moment to confront the interlocking threats of ecological degradation and environmental racism and call for solutions that will generate green jobs, fight wealth inequality, and build more livable cities. Our families deserve clean air, unpolluted water, and toxic-free buildings. From fighting the urban heat island effect and restoring our tree canopy, to combating pollution, we should build an inclusive, green public health agenda. MICHELLE’S RECORD What We've Done Together So Far Authored and passed legislation securing inclusive health care access for all City employees, prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity Authored and passed legislation guaranteeing paid parental leave for all City employees, inclusive of all family types Authored and passed a Good Food Purchasing Policy for the city to require an emphasis on local production, healthy and nutritious foods, environmental sustainability, fair labor, and humane animal welfare practices Authored and passed legislation prohibiting the use of discriminatory face surveillance technology by Boston law enforcement or any other city agencies Advocated for measures to address the disproportionate exposure to air pollution for communities of color, including highlighting that Chinatown is the most polluted community in the state Filed legislation to reform Boston’s crisis response to expand the infrastructure of trained public health professionals Public Safety Whether in our schools or on our streets, public safety should be built around restorative justice and community trust. From ending gun violence and domestic violence, to reforming our crisis response infrastructure, building wellness in our city means dismantling racism in our institutions and setting a new standard for accountability and community oversight. POLICY PRIORITIES How We Will Lead Reimagining and grounding public safety in public health A national and citywide reckoning with racial injustice has created fertile ground for the reimagining of public safety as public health. It’s time to re-evaluate our City’s responses to trauma and allocation of resources. We must improve agency coordination and simplify access to resources, divert 911 calls regarding homelessness and mental health issues to public health professionals, improve street teams’ infrastructure, and expand partnerships with hospitals to spread public health information. Read more about Michelle’s plans for public health here. Dismantling racism in policing It is all too clear that our city’s public safety structures have not kept all of us safe, particularly our Black residents. We must take concrete steps to dismantle racism in law enforcement by demilitarizing the police, banning weapons like tear gas and rubber bullets and practices like no-knock warrants that endanger our residents of color. We must also establish an independent civilian review board with subpoena power to investigate police misconduct and close the loopholes in the body camera program in order to build trust between BPD and our communities. We must also dismantle ableism in policing and ensure that Bostonian’s have access to emergency services that can provide the appropriate mental health support, particularly for those with disabilities. Rebuilding the culture and structure of the Boston Police Department Delivering public safety through a lens of public health and community trust requires urgent action to rebuild the culture and structure of the Boston Police Department. We must deliver structural changes that go beyond announcements or goals, and instead are embedded in the collective bargaining agreements with the City. We need a contract that gets to the root of the cultural and systemic reforms we need — full transparency and true accountability for misconduct, reducing wasteful overtime spending to reinvest those funds in neighborhood-level services, and removing the functions of traffic enforcement and social services from the department’s purview. Supporting our youth The surest way to combat community violence is by creating opportunity. We need to invest in our youth by ensuring access to paid summer jobs and opportunities during the school year. We also need to elevate youth voices and let young people lead the way in reimagining public safety in their own communities. That starts with meeting youth demands to remove police from Boston Public Schools and ensuring all students have access to trauma services, counselors, and other wrap-around services. Combating violence in our communities Our public safety structures must address the realities of domestic violence, gun violence, and violence against LGBTQ people, especially nonbinary residents, including by coordinating the medical, counseling, and social support services that survivors need to recover and thrive. Cracking down on hate crimes Hate crimes against immigrants, people of color, LBGTQ+ residents, and Jewish and Muslim residents have been increasing in recent years, and they are too often compounded by cultural and linguistic barriers that can keep survivors from seeking and receiving help. We must eradicate the discrimination, intolerance and bullying that seed these despicable hate crimes, fighting the ideologies that sanction and encourage hate and working for every community space to be safe and welcoming. Ending racial disparities in our criminal legal system We must rethink our criminal legal system with a data-driven, progressive approach that moves away from the carceral approach to minor non-violent offenses that disproportionately impacts immigrants and residents of color. Our public safety system must work in collaboration with community partners to implement evidence-based diversionary alternatives to arrest, detention, prosecution and incarceration that promote safer and healthier communities. Reforming our criminal legal system also requires ending the failed, racially discriminatory war on drugs; dismantling the discriminatory gang database; and investing in re-entry services for formerly incarcerated people. Aligning public safety with an agenda for safe streets and transit justice Rethinking our streets and transportation systems is urgent for public health and safety – particularly during the pandemic. By investing in public transportation and reallocating street space to pedestrians, cyclists, and people who use mobility aids, we can work toward a pandemic recovery that is more equitable and safer for all residents. Addressing underlying causes of crime and criminalization Too many of our neighbors, especially in communities of color, are living with untreated trauma. We need to prevent violence by making equitable investments in our neighborhoods and interrupt the cycles of violence by providing survivors with supportive services. At the same time, we must dismantle other systems of violence inflicting trauma upon Black residents and communities of color, including housing instability, food insecurity, transit injustice, mass incarceration, and the climate crisis. By thinking holistically about public safety through a public health lens and redirecting funding into education, housing, health care, and other basic needs, we can alleviate the trauma caused by over-policing while investing in a safer and more equitable future. MICHELLE'S RECORD What We’ve Done Together So Far Authored and passed legislation banning the use of racially discriminatory facial recognition technology Filed legislation for alternative crisis response from trained public health professionals Passed a resolution calling for increased state funding for youth jobs Conducted oversight on the militarization of BPD Convened a youth-led community forum to reimagine public safety in Boston Economic Justice & Workers' Rights Economic justice starts with a commitment to worker power, workplace safety, and livable wages. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, standing up for labor rights has life and death consequences. Boston’s economy and our economic recovery should be built on good, green jobs, made truly accessible when we tackle the struggles facing working families, from lack of affordable child care options to housing insecurity. Michelle is focused on confronting wealth inequality and building economic prosperity through a commitment to labor rights. POLICY PRIORITIES How We Will Lead Building worker power Workers must have real negotiating power as we rebuild our city’s economy and shape our collective future. Boston must proactively affirm the right of all workers to organize and bargain collectively for their rights, including by aggressively enforcing existing procurement standards that give preference to union vendors. At the same time, we must also support the creation of worker-owned cooperatives that build wealth and power in underserved communities. Establishing a Cabinet-Level Chief of Worker Empowerment To ensure a just and equitable recovery from COVID-19, our commitment to working Bostonians must go beyond paying lip service to essential workers, to include structural changes at the City level to close gaps, elevate the dignity of work, and advance the well-being of all Boston workers and their communities. As Mayor, Michelle will create a Cabinet-level Chief of Worker Empowerment with oversight and resources to advance working Bostonians in both the private and public sectors. Protecting essential workers during COVID-19 The pandemic has provided us with the opportunity to recognize the dignity of all workers, including essential workers who risk their lives on a daily basis to keep our city running. Boston must protect the physical health of workers during COVID-19 by modernizing our buildings’ ventilation systems and guaranteeing access to personal protective equipment (PPE) for all workers. We must also prevent retaliation against workers who report unsafe working conditions that heighten the risk of contracting COVID-19. Fighting for livable wages and benefits Boston must ensure that all workers earn a living wage and adequate paid family and medical leave to provide for themselves and their families. That includes undocumented workers, who are an essential part of our city’s economy, but are too often denied these same tenets of worker justice and confronted with employer retaliation. The pandemic has revealed the inadequacy of paltry sick leave policies that force workers to choose between their health and their paycheck. Whether dealing with COVID-19, a broken bone, or elder care responsibilities, we must ensure that all workers have the freedom to take care of their loved ones without losing a paycheck. Tackling wage theft Wage theft undermines the security and well-being of Boston workers, especially from low-income and immigrant communities, the service sector, and other workers, taking advantage of those who haven’t been informed of their rights or lack the legal or financial resources to defend them. By prohibiting vendors with past workplace safety or wage theft violations from doing business with the City, Boston can send a clear signal to all businesses that they must uphold and enforce labor laws and workplace protections. Guaranteeing a Fair Work Week Boston’s service sector workers—including the essential workers that we have depended on throughout the pandemic—experience routine schedule instability and unpredictability. These unpredictable schedules create hardship and stress for workers and their families, who are more likely to experience hunger, poor sleep quality, and higher levels of stress. All employers doing business in the City of Boston must provide their workers with schedules that are predictable and flexible, with enough hours for families to make ends meet, and enough leisure time to participate in family and community life. Combating wealth inequality and creating corporate and institutional accountability Boston’s approach to economic development must benefit all residents. Instead of giving tax breaks to bad actors, we should support companies that hire locally and provide full-time jobs with livable wages and good benefits. Companies should publicly report the number and type of jobs created so that Boston residents and city government can hold accountable these private corporations and larger institutions that receive public benefits and services. Ensuring equitable access to public goods like transportation and education Our city’s transit system is powered by and for essential workers, and the pandemic has underscored the need for workers to be able to move safely and affordably around the city – now, and in the future. Meanwhile, inequities in the Boston Public School system continue to perpetuate racial and socioeconomic disparities across the city, while teachers, administrators, and other school staff are facing the challenges of a safe reopening and equitable recovery for K-12 schools. We must invest in the transportation and education systems that workers depend on to build resilience during and after the pandemic. Championing economic empowerment for all Bostonians Fighting for worker dignity means confronting and dismantling the ways that people of color, women, immigrants, undocumented people, disabled people, and LGBTQ individuals often face additional barriers to employment and unequal payment and treatment at work. A commitment to economic empowerment means safeguarding wages and rights in the workplace, but our local government should also align spending and priorities to uproot the causes of wealth inequality and close the racial wealth gap. To build a strong and just city, we must also invest in youth employment opportunities, affordable child care, and support for small businesses, building on a robust network of community organizations and partnerships. Implementing Boston’s Green New Deal (GND) Michelle has proposed a groundbreaking plan to implement the GND at the municipal level, which includes creating green jobs with livable wages, good benefits, and strong worker protections to build a clean, just economy. By partnering with organized labor, workers centers, and technical schools and educators, Boston can ensure that these workforce development pathways are accessible for residents of all backgrounds. MICHELLE'S RECORD What We've Done Together So Far Filed legislation to require a Fair Work Week for workers at city-contracted companies Authored and passed legislation guaranteeing parental leave for city workers Authored and passed legislation guaranteeing equity in health care coverage for city workers, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity Advocated for a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights Climate Justice With bold leadership and vision, Boston has the potential to be a worldwide beacon for climate action and environmental justice. In partnership with community activists and organizations, Michelle has proposed the first comprehensive of its kind, laying out an ambitious policy roadmap for delivering the kinds of structural changes we need in order to provide our kids a future built on sustainable energy, good jobs, and healthy, connected communities. POLICY PRIORITIES How We Will Lead Implementing a Boston Green New Deal and Just Recovery Climate justice is racial and economic justice. Cities can lead the charge to mitigate the threat of climate change, eliminate the violence of poverty and economic inequality, close the racial wealth gap, and dismantle structural racism. Read Michelle’s plan. Protecting public health with clean air and water City residents face serious health risks of living near sources of pollution—from East Boston residents dealing with jet fuel pollution near the airport, to Chinatown residents living by highways filled with polluting cars and trucks. Boston should take measures to mitigate and eliminate pollution. And as a coastal city, we can play a major role in safeguarding our ocean resources to protect marine biodiversity and improve water quality. Combating climate change is a key part of creating safe communities and promoting public health. Fighting for environmental justice communities Communities of color, low-income and working-class families, and immigrant communities are more likely to see environmental hazards and face exposure to pollution, urban heat island effect, flooding, and other impacts of climate change. Policies to combat environmental racism and ensure resiliency must focus on community stabilization to ensure people benefit from green investments in their neighborhoods without fear of displacement. As we take action on climate change, Boston’s decision-makers must adopt a procedural justice framework that lifts up the voices, ideas and power of historically marginalized communities into processes for setting agendas and implementing policies. Improving quality of life through better buildings and sustainable transit Buildings and transportation together account for a large portion of our carbon footprint. Retrofitting our buildings with solar panels, high-efficiency heaters, and stormwater infrastructure will make buildings safer and more comfortable for residents, students and workers, while also cutting down on utility costs for renters and homeowners. And creating multimodal transportation systems that enable residents to leave traffic- and pollution-inducing fossil fuel-powered vehicles behind will not only reduce our emissions, but also improve air quality, ease traffic congestion, and allow all Boston residents to benefit from active transportation. Accelerating decarbonization The window to reverse the destructive momentum of climate change is closing quickly, and Boston is vulnerable to intense heat waves and destructive coastal flooding. We must commit to citywide carbon neutrality by 2040, with 100% of our energy coming from renewable sources by 2030, and a net-zero municipal footprint by 2024. These firm commitments demonstrate leadership to the nation while modeling a science-driven climate action plan that centers the safety and well-being of historically marginalized and impacted environmental justice communities. Creating green jobs and workforce development Michelle’s plan to implement the GND at the municipal level includes the creation of green jobs that pay livable wages, offer good benefits, and maintain strong worker protections to build a clean, just economy. By partnering with organized labor, workers centers, and technical schools, Boston can ensure that these workforce development pathways are accessible for residents of all backgrounds. Building a sustainable economy is key to championing economic justice and workers' rights. Expanding Boston’s green spaces We must ensure all residents have access to the natural spaces that build ecosystem resilience while improving public health. Urban forests provide shade and protect against heat waves, mitigate exposure to air pollutants, and improve our mental health, while also sequestering carbon in the soil. And beyond its environmental benefits, urban agriculture also promotes community engagement in public space, allowing residents to grow food that is nutritious and culturally relevant. Boston must work to expand its urban tree canopy and its network of urban farms to ensure all residents can enjoy the benefits of these green spaces. MICHELLE'S RECORD What We’ve Done Together So Far Released a comprehensive local plan for a Boston Green New Deal and Just Recovery Authored and passed legislation expanding protections for natural resource areas and requiring resilient development Authored and passed legislation for Community Choice Energy to increase renewable energy for Boston residents and small businesses, empowering the largest green municipal aggregation in the state Removed barriers for condo owners to install electric vehicle charging stations Banned single-use plastic bags in Boston Passed a resolution calling for Massachusetts to divest from fossil fuels Authored and passed legislation shifting our public food procurement to agricultural producers that employ regenerative production systems that reduce emissions and protect our water, soil, and biodiversity Arts & Culture Growing up, the arts were central to Michelle’s immigrant family, grounding her in culture, heritage, and community. In her time as City Councilor, Michelle has served as Chair of the Arts, Culture & Special Events committee and helped oversee the formation of several of Boston’s cultural districts, as well as the Boston Creates plan. As Mayor, Michelle will be a champion for Boston’s diverse, vibrant arts and cultural sector that stretches across each of our city’s neighborhoods. POLICY PRIORITIES How We Will Lead Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, many of our local artists and arts institutions—from Boston’s world renowned museums to grassroots nonprofit organizations—have struggled to survive, often cobbling together resources from the city, state, and private partners to sustain local jobs and create meaningful cultural experiences for Boston residents and tourists alike. The challenges cut across the entire city: a lack of affordable rehearsal, studio and performance space; unstable labor conditions for artists in the gig economy or employed in contract work; racial segregation that perpetuates inequities; and a siloed approach to public policy that fails to build on artists’ contributions to civic life. As Boston emerges from the pandemic, Michelle will invest in our arts and culture sector, recognizing that arts are central not only to our economic recovery, but also our psychological and emotional healing. Empowering artists to help communities heal Boston should ensure that every neighborhood sees new, innovative art that engages community members in placemaking, healing, activism, storytelling, and relationship building—starting immediately this summer.
Implementing a sustainable, equitable revenue source for the arts The health and vibrancy of our arts and culture sector underpins our community, economy, and growth. Yet Boston consistently underperforms compared to its peer cities in terms of public investment in the arts.
Reforming PILOT to stabilize arts and cultural institutions Boston is the only major city to request payment from cultural organizations through its payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) program for nonprofit, tax-exempt institutions. This unusual PILOT structure means that together, seven of Boston’s arts and cultural organizations actually pay more money to the City of Boston than the entire arts sector receives from the City in the form of arts and culture grants
Expanding access to cultural institutions through a Boston Municipal ID Many of Boston’s larger arts institutions have launched programs to expand access to lower-income Boston residents, for whom full admission fees serve as an obstacle to enjoying arts and culture. The City should invite its museums and larger arts organizations to commit to further democratizing admission by launching a new municipal ID program, expanding access for residents who are undocumented, experiencing homelessness, lack government ID that matches their gender identity, or otherwise unable to apply for state and federally issued IDs.
Creating space for arts and culture Across Boston, studio, rehearsal and performance space is increasingly scarce—either unavailable or unaffordable to most local artists and smaller organizations.
Infusing arts leadership across City government All City services and programs would benefit from the creative thinking, storytelling skills, and holistic worldview that artists have to offer. Artists have deep ties to their local communities, and Boston should employ artists as key strategists and connectors in pursuing our shared goals of racial justice, climate resilience, and civic engagement across all public policy.
Guaranteeing arts funding as foundational school funding Arts programming is linked to higher student attendance and family engagement, and the benefits are even higher for students with individualized education plans or students who had been chronically absent. Boston Public Schools has made progress in expanding arts education to all K-8 students—but at the high school level, more than one-third of students receive no art programming, and in the 2020-21 school year, at least ten high schools had no full-time arts educator.
MICHELLE'S RECORD What We’ve Done Together So Far Authored and passed legislation to make it easier for businesses to host live acoustic performances and support Boston musicians Successfully pushed the City to commission a study exploring municipal ID as a tool to help those with difficulty obtaining a government-issued ID access museums, libraries, and other municipal institutions Led the effort on Boston City Council to designate Little Saigon in Fields Corner as a cultural district by the Massachusetts Cultural Council as a center of Vietnamese cultural, artistic and economic activity Advocated for resources for creatives and artists during COVID-19[22] |
” |
| —Michelle Wu's 2021 campaign website[26] | ||
Campaign advertisements
This section shows advertisements released in this race. Ads released by campaigns and, if applicable, satellite groups are embedded or linked below. If you are aware of advertisements that should be included, please email us.
Andrea Campbell
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Annissa Essaibi George
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Kim Janey
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Michelle Wu
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Satellite ads
Supporting Campbell
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Supporting Wu
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Positions on pandemic responses
A COVID-19 vaccine policy for city workers and the question of whether to require proof of vaccination from people entering certain indoor spaces like restaurants and gyms in Boston were major issues in this race.
As of August 18, Janey and Essaibi George opposed requiring proof of vaccination from people entering certain public spaces, and Campbell and Wu supported doing so.
Janey implemented a vaccine policy for city workers requiring either proof of vaccination or weekly testing. Essaibi George opposed the policy. Campbell and Wu supported it while saying it should have come sooner.
Candidates' statements are below.
Janey
On August 3, Janey said she opposed proof-of-vaccination requirements: "We know that those types of things are difficult to enforce when it comes to vaccine ... [T]here’s a long history in this country of people needing to show their papers ... during slavery, post-slavery, as recent as, you know, what the immigrant population has to go through."[27]
Janey said on August 5, "I wish I had not used those analogies because they took away from the important issue of ensuring that our vaccination and public health policies are implemented with fairness and equity." She said, "If vaccine passports were imposed today, with a government mandate to ban unvaccinated residents from venues like restaurants or gyms, that would shut out nearly 40 percent of East Boston, and 60 percent of Mattapan. ... Instead of shutting people out, shutting out our neighbors who are disproportionately poor people of color, we are knocking on their doors to build trust and to expand access to the life-saving vaccines."[28]
On August 18, Janey said she had led the city with mask mandates in city buildings and a requirement for either proof of vaccination or weekly COVID-19 testing for city employees. She said she would consider a proof-of-vaccination requirement in certain indoor places if the situation worsened.[29]
Campbell
Campbell supported requiring proof of vaccination for entering indoor places like gyms and restaurants. She said, "This is about making sure that folks are safe, and that those in the community and the larger community are also safe. ... We’re in a public health crisis, and it requires us to respond with the appropriate measures to keep our residents safe."[27]
Campbell also said Janey's vaccine policy for city employees took too long to implement.[30]
Essaibi George
Essaibi George said she worried that a proof-of-vaccination requirement would put another burden on businesses and that there may be another way to increase vaccination rates.
"I’m willing to explore any option that increases vaccination rates, but do not believe a mandate for businesses is the first or only step in reaching that goal. ... The past year and a half has been incredibly challenging for our businesses. I worry about placing yet another burden on them when, instead, we could focus efforts on building trust in the vaccine and distributing it to our residents in a way that’s equitable."[27]
Essaibi George opposed the vaccine policy for city employees. She said, "I agree with pushing vaccination, and making sure that our city’s residents and our city’s employees have access to that vaccination. ... I don’t agree with a mandated vaccination, I think it’s important to encourage it and to make sure that testing is available."[27]
Wu
Wu supported requiring proof of vaccination for entering indoor places like gyms and restaurants. She said, "I’m glad the Administration has finally answered the call to mandate vaccines for city workers—but with the Delta variant surging, we need more than half-measures. ... City Hall must set out regulations on vaccination for high-risk indoor spaces like gyms, salons, and restaurants to ensure protections for all our communities."[27]
Polls
- See also: Ballotpedia's approach to covering polls
| Boston mayoral primary election, 2021 | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poll | Date | Barros | Campbell | Cappucci | Essaibi George | Janey | Santiago | Spagnuolo | Wu | Undecided/ Other |
Margin of error | Sample size | Sponsor |
| Emerson College/7News | Sept. 6-8, 2021 | 2% | 17% | 1% | 18% | 16% | 1% | 1% | 30% | 14%[31] | ± 3.9[32] | 600 LV | -- |
| Boston Globe/Suffolk University | Sept. 2-4, 2021 | 3% | 18% | <1% | 19% | 20% | <1% | <1% | 31% | 9%[33] | ± 4.4 | 500 LV | -- |
| Emerson College/7News | Aug. 23-24, 2021 | 2% | 14% | <1% | 18% | 16% | 1% | <1% | 24% | 25%[34] | ± 3.9[35] | 600 LV | -- |
| Boston Globe/Suffolk University | June 23-26, 2021 | 2% | 11% | 1% | 14% | 22% | 5% | <1% | 23% | 22%[36] | ± 4.4 | 500 LV | -- |
Campaign finance
Satellite spending
- See also: Satellite spending
Satellite spending, commonly referred to as outside spending, describes political spending not controlled by candidates or their campaigns; that is, any political expenditures made by groups or individuals that are not directly affiliated with a candidate. This includes spending by political party committees, super PACs, trade associations, and 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups.[37][38][39]
This section lists satellite spending in this race reported by news outlets in alphabetical order. If you are aware of spending that should be included, please email us.
- Better Boston Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee spent $1,441,712 on TV, digital, and radio ads supporting Campbell as of September 7.[40]
- Bostonians for Real Progress Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee spent $80,546 for digital ads and website development supporting Essaibi George as of September 8.[41]
- Boston Turnout Project Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee spent $333,856 on digital and cable ads supporting Wu as of September 7, 2021.[42]
- Environmental League of Massachusetts Action Fund Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee spent $71,466 on direct mail and digital ads supporting Wu as of September 2.[43]
- Hospitality Workers Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee spent $380,380 on flyers and radio ads supporting Janey and opposing Campbell as of September 2.[44]
- Real Progress Boston Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee spent $442,277 on TV, digital, newspaper, and radio ads supporting Essaibi George as of September 9.[45]
Interviews and questionnaires
Boston.com interviews
Click candidates' names below to read their Boston.com interviews.
Boston.com also asked candidates a series of questions submitted by readers. Read candidates' responses here.
NBC10 Boston interviews
NBC10 Boston conducted one-on-one video interviews and published candidates' responses to questions. Click here to view them.
WBUR interviews
WBZ TV/CBSN Boston interviews
Debates and forums
The following are debates and forums Ballotpedia found coverage or videos of.
September 9, 2021
Barros, Campbell, Essaibi George, Janey, and Wu participated in a debate hosted by WBUR, The Boston Globe, UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, and WCVB.
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Roxbury Community College also hosted a forum featuring Barros, Campbell, Essaibi George, and Wu on September 9.
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September 8, 2021
NBC10 Boston, NECN, and Telemundo Boston hosted a debate featuring Barros, Campbell, Essaibi George, Janey, and Wu.
Click here to view the debate.
September 1, 2021
The Massachusetts Women of Color Coalition hosted a forum. Barros, Campbell, and Essaibi George participated.
July 28, 2021
Pine Street Inn and the Boston Coalition for Homeless Individuals hosted a forum.
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June 23, 2021
NAACP Boston, Mijente Boston Asamblea, JP Progressives, and Right to the City Vote hosted a mayoral forum.
Click here to watch the Facebook Live video.
June 19, 2021
The Fenway Community Center hosted a forum.
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June 14, 2021
Boston Pride hosted a forum.
Click here to watch a video of the forum.
June 10, 2021
Right to the City VOTE Boston hosted a forum.
Click here to watch the Facebook Live video.
June 10, 2021
The Boston Police Patrolmen's Association hosted a forum.
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May 27, 2021
The Boston Education Justice Alliance and Boston Teachers Union hosted a forum.
Click here to watch the Facebook Live video.
May 26, 2021
The Suffolk County Sheriff's Department hosted a forum.
May 24, 2021
The Boston Globe and the Environmental League of Massachusetts hosted a forum.
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May 13, 2021
The Brazilian Worker Center and SEIU 32BJ hosted a forum.
Click here to watch the Facebook Live video.
May 6, 2021
NAACP Boston hosted a forum.
Click here to watch the Facebook Live video.
Mayoral partisanship
Mayoral elections were held in 28 of the 100 largest U.S. cities in 2021. Once mayors elected in 2021 assumed office, the mayors of 64 of the country's 100 largest cities were affiliated with the Democratic Party.
The following top-100 mayoral offices changed partisan control in 2021:
- Mayor John J. Lee of North Las Vegas, Nevada, announced that he was changing his party affiliation from Democratic to Republican on April 6, 2021.[46]
- David Bronson (R) was elected as mayor of Anchorage, Alaska, on May 11, 2021. He assumed office on July 1, 2021, replacing nonpartisan Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson.
Election history
2019
City voters also voted on a local measure to rename Dudley Square to Nubian Square.
2017
The city of Boston, Massachusetts, held elections for mayor and city council on November 7, 2017. A primary election occurred on September 26, 2017. All 13 seats on the city council were up for election. The filing deadline for candidates wishing to run in this election was May 23, 2017.
2015
The city of Boston, Massachusetts, held elections for city council on November 3, 2015. A primary election took place on September 8, 2015. The filing deadline for candidates who wished to run in this election was May 19, 2015. All 13 city council seats were up for election.
About the city
- See also: Boston, Massachusetts
Boston is the capital of Massachusetts. As of 2020, its population was 675,647.
City government
- See also: Mayor-council government
The city of Boston uses a strong mayor and city council system. In this form of municipal government, the city council serves as the city's primary legislative body and the mayor serves as the city's chief executive.
Demographics
The following table displays demographic data provided by the United States Census Bureau.
| Demographic Data for Boston, Massachusetts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Boston | Massachusetts | |
| Population | 675,647 | 7,029,917 |
| Land area (sq mi) | 48 | 7,800 |
| Race and ethnicity** | ||
| White | 52.1% | 76.6% |
| Black/African American | 24.2% | 7.5% |
| Asian | 9.8% | 6.8% |
| Native American | 0.3% | 0.2% |
| Pacific Islander | 0.1% | 0% |
| Other (single race) | N/A | 4.2% |
| Multiple | 7.2% | 4.8% |
| Hispanic/Latino | 19.5% | 12% |
| Education | ||
| High school graduation rate | 87.9% | 91.1% |
| College graduation rate | 51.3% | 44.5% |
| Income | ||
| Median household income | $76,298 | $84,385 |
| Persons below poverty level | 18% | 9.8% |
| Source: population provided by U.S. Census Bureau, "Decennial Census" (2020). Other figures provided by U.S. Census Bureau, "American Community Survey" (5-year estimates 2015-2020). | ||
| **Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here. | ||
See also
| Boston, Massachusetts | Massachusetts | Municipal government | Other local coverage |
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External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Boston.gov, "City of Boston, 2021 Election Calendar," accessed July 19, 2021
- ↑ Boston.gov, "Vote Early Boston," accessed August 30, 2021
- ↑ Massachusetts Secretary of State, "2021 Vote by Mail Application," accessed August 5, 2021
- ↑ City of Boston, "Boston City Charter, Section 11B," accessed September 13, 2021
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Politico Massachusetts Playbook, "Progressives SPLIT in Boston mayor's race — MASK UP and VAX UP — LELLING talks ROLLINS," July 28, 2021
- ↑ Axios, "The tea leaves of Boston's historic mayoral race," August 2, 2021
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 The Boston Globe, "WAKANDA II endorses Janey for mayor," August 7, 2021
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs nameddebate - ↑ JP Progressives, "Governance, Structure and Endorsement Processes," accessed August 16, 2021
- ↑ Jamaica Plain Progressives, "Our Mayoral Endorsement Results," accessed August 5, 2021
- ↑ Suffolk University, "Boston Poll: Wu, Janey Lead Field of Eight in Mayoral Race," June 29, 2021
- ↑ Boston.com, "A look back at the mayors of Boston," April 14, 2013
- ↑ The Boston Globe, "The Boston mayoral race’s unintended consequence: a City Council shakeup," June 20, 2021
- ↑ In battleground primaries, Ballotpedia based its selection of noteworthy candidates on polling, fundraising, and noteworthy endorsements. In battleground general elections, all major party candidates and any other candidates with the potential to impact the outcome of the race were included.
- ↑ The Boston Globe, "Andrea Campbell should be Boston’s next mayor," September 2, 2021
- ↑ GBH, "Black And Latino Caucus Chair Endorses Campbell For Boston Mayor," August 11, 2021
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Politico Massachusetts Playbook, "An election of historic firsts," September 8, 2021
- ↑ The Boston Globe, "Sheriff Steve Tompkins endorses Boston mayoral candidate Michelle Wu," August 31, 2021
- ↑ The Boston Globe, "Tito Jackson endorses Kim Janey for mayor," August 10, 2021
- ↑ Politico, "MOULTON FALLOUT — Who HASN'T ENDORSED in the Boston mayor's race — Masks MANDATED in SCHOOLS," August 26, 2021
- ↑ Beacon Hill Times, "Pipefitters Local 537 Endorses Essaibi George," September 8, 2021
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Andrea Campbell's 2021 campaign website, "Andrea's Vision," accessed August 13, 2021
- ↑ Annissa Essaibi George's 2021 campaign website, "On the Issues," accessed August 16, 2021
- ↑ Kim Janey's 2021 campaign website, "On The Issues," accessed August 16, 2021
- ↑ Michelle Wu's 2021 campaign website, "On The Issues," accessed August 16, 2021
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 27.3 27.4 Boston.com, "Here’s where Boston’s mayoral candidates stand on COVID-19 vaccine passports," August 13, 2021
- ↑ Boston.com, "Kim Janey expresses regret over vaccine passport comments, but remains opposed to the idea," August 5, 2021
- ↑ WGBH, "Kim Janey Holds Ground On No Vaccine Mandate For Indoor Activities — For Now," August 18, 2021
- ↑ WGBH, "Andrea Campbell Ramps Up Criticism Of Janey, Citing 'Missteps Or Inaction On Major Crises,'" August 16, 2021
- ↑ Undecided
- ↑ This poll used a credibility interval, similar to a margin of error.
- ↑ Undecided: 8%
Refused: 1% - ↑ Don't know/Undecided
- ↑ This poll used a credibility interval, similar to a margin of error.
- ↑ Undecided
- ↑ OpenSecrets.org, "Outside Spending," accessed September 22, 2015
- ↑ OpenSecrets.org, "Total Outside Spending by Election Cycle, All Groups," accessed September 22, 2015
- ↑ National Review.com, "Why the Media Hate Super PACs," November 6, 2015
- ↑ Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance, "1053 Better Boston Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee," accessed September 10, 2021
- ↑ Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance, "81060 Bostonians for Real Progress Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee," accessed September 10, 2021
- ↑ Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance, "81057 Boston Turnout Project Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee," accessed September 9, 2021
- ↑ Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance, "80951 Environmental League of Massachusetts Action Fund Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee," accessed September 7, 2021
- ↑ Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance, "81059 Hospitality Workers Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee," accessed September 7, 2021
- ↑ Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance, "81065 Real Progress Boston Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee," accessed September 13, 2021
- ↑ Las Vegas Review-Journal, "North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee says he’s becoming a Republican," April 6, 2021
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