Alejandra St. Guillen, Kim Janey and Michelle Wu during the opening of their joint campaign office in Dudley Square.

Political activists pushing candidates to take stands on housing, education

When at-large City Councilor Michelle Wu teamed up with District 7 Councilor Kim Janey and at-large candidate Alejandra St. Guillen to open a joint campaign office in Dudley Square Saturday, it was the first time in 10 years a slate of candidates has worked together in a local Boston election.

“A campaign office should be about building a movement, about bringing people in, about collaborating, about staying true to the vision,” Wu said, “so that after Election Day, you’re going to have a team ready to go, ready to make it happen.”

Wu’s promise of a unified vision may be a heavy lift, though. In today’s council, the current crop of six councilors of color hold divergent views on a number of issues.

While at-large Councilor Althea Garrison enjoyed support from Janey and District 1 Councilor Lydia Edwards when she proposed that the Council take up rent control, Wu came out against rent control in the 2013 election in which she first won office and would not support it during a June at-large candidate forum hosted by the group JP Progressives. At-large Councilor Anissa Essaibi-George, too, told the group she would not support rent control. St. Guillen told JP Progressives she supports rent control.

During the 2016 state election, District 4 Councilor Andrea Campbell would not support a resolution opposing charter school expansion, while all but one other council member did support it. And while other councilors of color advocated for an increased 2019 Boston Public Schools budget, Campbell cast the sole vote against the school budget, arguing that additional resources weren’t needed.

At the JP Progressives forum, St. Guillen and Wu said they support Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins’ decision to not prosecute certain misdemeanor crimes. Essaibi-George said she did not.

Essaibi-George also said she is not in favor of shutting down the Boston Police Department’s gang database and supports the department’s ongoing collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. No other candidate of color shared those positions.

The divergent views of councilors of color comes at a time when many political activists increasingly laser-focused on progressive issues such as housing, criminal justice reform and education and are looking to local government for solutions.

“It’s 2019. We are living, unfortunately, in the era of Trump,” said NAACP Boston Branch President Tanisha Sullivan, who moderated the JP Progressives panel. “It is causing people to reflect on who we are as a nation and who we are as a city.”

Heightened concerns about

See AT-LARGE, page 9