以下為波士頓市長發表的首個市情咨文講稿:
https://www.boston.gov/news/mayor-wus-state-city-address
MAYOR WU'S STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS
Mayor Wu delivered her
first State of the City Address on Wednesday, January 25, 2023, at MGM Music
Hall.
You can read the text and watch the
video of the speech below:
Good evening, Boston! Tonight we’re
at the beautiful new MGM Music Hall, and I want to thank the Red Sox and Fenway
Music Company for hosting us, and for your commitment to our city.
I’m grateful to be joined by
partners in public service: Council President Flynn and Boston City Councilors,
Chair Robinson and the Boston School Committee, Mayor Janey, Ambassador Flynn
and Mrs. Flynn, Governor Healey, Senate President Spilka, Attorney General
Campbell, Treasurer Goldberg, State Representatives and Senators, US Attorney
Rollins, county officials. Thank you so much for being with us. And to our
interpreters, thank you for helping us reach all of our residents this evening,
in seven languages.
A year ago this week, I was bundled
up for my first snowstorm as mayor, riding shotgun
with our Superintendent of Streets, Mike Brohel, as he drove the
dark, icy roads before dawn, and worked with his team to salt, scrape, and win
back the pavement from the snow. By the time we got to City Hall, Al Vilar was
already hunkered down in the Traffic Management Center, lunch packed for a long
storm, monitoring eight gigantic screens for anyone who might need help on the
roads. As the rest of our city slept, Boston’s 311 and 911 call-takers answered
phones throughout the night, to send services where needed, while emergency
management crews, EMS, police, and fire stood ready.
Our city is carried by so many
people whose faces most of us never see. Who aren’t on the news, or on stage
accepting awards, but after a full day of serving our constituents, still find
time to coach softball at Charlestown High Field or pack meals for new
immigrant families in Mattapan Square.
That’s why, on your way in tonight,
you saw the beautiful portraits of just a few of these civic heroes. To all our
City Workers: Every accomplishment and constituent service delivered, every
detail of the agenda we’re sharing here tonight—is only possible because of
you. I’m so proud to work alongside you.
It’s been three years since we’ve
been able to celebrate—and reflect on—the State of our City in person. And
we’ve all felt the collective toll of these years and the continued impact on
our hearts and minds, on local businesses and household budgets.
Boston has always been resilient.
But when resilience goes from a
strength that we call on, to a constant state of being, it’s time to stop
hardening ourselves against the world, and start changing the world we live in.
Real change comes from community, so
I knew my first and most important job as mayor was to build the team Boston
deserves. That team is here tonight. Our Cabinet is two-thirds people of color!
We’re BPS parents, and graduates. We speak Spanish and Arabic, Vietnamese,
Haitian Creole, and more. We speak honestly about Boston’s past, present, and
future, because we’ve lived the challenges and shared the dreams of the
families we now get to serve.
The young man who started as a
lifeguard in our community centers, now oversees them as our Chief of Human
Services: José Massó.
The school lunch lady’s daughter,
who found her calling as a teacher, then launched a nationally recognized high
school in Dorchester, is now our Boston Public Schools Superintendent: Mary Skipper.
The boy from Roxbury who wanted to
serve and protect, who—against all odds, and over nearly three decades—rose
through every level of leadership at the Boston Police Department, is now
our Boston Police
Commissioner: Michael Cox.
The girl who watched her refugee
parents wash dishes at restaurants so their kids could lead a better life—now
leads our efforts to ensure that all workers, no matter where they were born or
what language they speak, have health, safety, and dignity on the job, as our
new Chief of Worker
Empowerment: Trinh Nguyen.
The toddler who took his very first
steps in City Hall daycare, grew up to hold city leaders accountable for vast
racial disparities in city contracting as President and CEO of the Black
Economic Council of MA, and is now our Chief of
Economic Opportunity & Inclusion: Segun Idowu.
Just like our communities, this team
refuses to accept that things must be how they’ve always been. We’re taking on
the hard, complicated issues our residents face, no matter how deeply
entrenched or politically fraught.
When we took office with winter
looming, and hundreds living in unsafe, unsanitary encampments—we didn’t look
away: We built a new
model for housing and services so tents could come down and people could heal.
And through the Newmarket BID’s Back to Work program, folks who were once
living at Mass & Cass are now part of the team working to keep the area
clean and safe for everyone. Some of those leaders are here tonight. Mike, and
Mike, Tim, Carlos, and Melissa: we are honored to be doing this important work
together.
When Omicron spiked and pushed our
hospitals to the brink, we didn’t turn away: taking decisive action for public
health, because, no matter the backlash, Boston will never compromise on
protecting our people. And I want to thank everyone at the Boston Public Health
Commission, Executive Director Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, and all of our public health
and healthcare workers.
When we learned the MBTA would
finally make major repairs to the Orange line—but with just two weeks'
notice—we didn’t back away: every City department stepped in to keep Boston
moving and proved that a more connected, coordinated system is possible.
Tonight, I’m renewing my call for the
people of Boston to have a seat on the MBTA Board.
Under extraordinary circumstances,
our team has refused to settle. Over the last year:
We made three
bus lines entirely fare-free. Now, we’re accelerating over two dozen
miles of new dedicated bus lanes, expanding our
bike network, and organizing even more neighborhood Open Streets
events.
We worked alongside residents in
Egleston Square and business partners to secure a Community Peace Garden on
Washington Street; and helped 40
artists in Uphams Corner go from facing eviction to owning their own building—the
Humphreys Street Studio is here to stay. And, this year we’ll make Boston’s
largest investment ever in artists and the arts.
We made the spaces and services of
our City more accessible: opening a new,
fully-accessible City Hall Plaza and senior center in
Orient Heights, partnering with the City Council and our Disability
Commission to require closed
captioning on public TVs, connecting 19,000 seniors to services;
and making our 311
app multilingual for the first time, in eleven languages. We
reopened a newly renovated Roslindale Branch library...this year we will reopen
the Faneuil Branch in Oak Square, and begin design in Fields Corner and the
South End.
Our Office of Early Childhood made
dozens of new Pre-K classrooms free for our littlest learners and launched
a professional
development program to help early educators teach in Boston,
debt-free. We fought off a state takeover of Boston Public Schools, onboarded a
new district leadership team, and just welcomed our first electric school buses
at the Readville bus yard.
Our police officers took nearly 900
guns off our streets and worked with community to achieve the lowest level of
Part One, violent and property crime in 15 years. I want to thank Commissioner
Michael Cox for coming home to Boston, Superintendent-in-Chief Greg Long for
your service over 18 months as Acting Commissioner, and all our officers for
your hard work.
We are looking to end community
violence with new strategies to address trauma and provide essential supports—from
our Youth Safety Task Force, to an alternative crisis response program with EMS
and behavioral health services. And, this April, we will launch a Fire Cadet
Program thanks to the leadership of our new Fire Commissioner, Paul Burke.
We also graduated our
first class of students from Boston’s PowerCorps program, training
young people from our neighborhoods for great jobs in the green economy. Many
of them are here tonight.
We’ve invested in longstanding Legacy
Businesses and are helping new
entrepreneurs fill vacant retail spaces to revitalize our
neighborhood commercial districts. And we’re excited that Lego is building
their North American headquarters in Boston this fall. We made progress on
closing the supplier diversity gap, awarding contracts worth more
than $100 million—from school lunches to snow removal—to
businesses owned by women and people of color. Thanks to legislation passed by
the City Council and approved by the state legislature last month, we’ll be
able to do even more. And we did all this on top of filling 5,000 potholes,
collecting more than 500 tons of curbside composting, and plowing through 53
inches of snow last year.
In so many other cities, none of
this would have been possible. But Boston has never let anyone else define our
possibilities.
It’s thanks to the people of Boston
that I can stand here tonight and say—the state of the City is strong.
And we have the resources, the
resolve, and the responsibility to make it even stronger. As we look to the
year ahead, our administration is focused on building a green and growing city
for everyone.
Doing so will require that we reckon
with—and rebuild—the systems that got us here. When the “Boston Redevelopment
Authority” was created nearly 70 years ago, its purpose was singular: to clear
the way for new development, even if that meant displacing tens of thousands of
working class, immigrant, and Black and brown residents.
Since 2016 it’s been called the
Boston Planning and Development Agency, or “BPDA,” but the focus on building
buildings rather than community has held back the talent of its staff and
deepened disparities in our city.
Over the last decade, Boston saw the
largest building boom in generations: cranes in the sky and jobs on the ground.
But that growth wasn’t harnessed for the benefit of all our communities. Not
planning for community stability meant that even as our population grew, many
were squeezed out. Not planning for affordability, and transit, meant that
housing prices soared, and traffic snarled. Not planning for sustainability
meant that as new development reshaped our skyline, public infrastructure
continued to age: subway tracks and school buildings, pools and community
centers.
Now, stronger storms and hotter
summers raise the stakes. The pandemic has thinned our usual Downtown crowd,
and inflation has forced many workers to balance two or three jobs just to keep
milk in the fridge or make rent. In this moment of need, we have an opportunity
and an obligation to change how we plan for Boston’s future.
Under the leadership of our Chief of
Planning, Arthur Jemison, we’re charting a new course for growth, with people
as our compass. Tomorrow I’ll sign an executive order establishing a Planning
Advisory Council to fully integrate long-range planning, and begin modernizing
our zoning code. It will be led by Chief Jemison and consist of Cabinet chiefs
in capital planning, transportation, climate, housing, and the arts.
Over this next year, we’ll shift
planning efforts from the BPDA to a new City Planning and Design Department—to
expand planning and urban design as a coordinated effort that guides our
growth. Our vision is for Boston to sustainably reach our peak population of
800,000 residents with the housing and schools, parks and public transit to
support that growth.
Next week we’ll file a home-rule
petition to formally end the decades-old urban renewal mission of eradicating
so-called “blight and urban decay,” and instead rededicate our resources toward
Boston’s urgent needs today—resiliency, affordability, and equity. Together,
these changes will, for the first time since the 1960s, restore planning as a
central function of City government.
I’ve also charged our team with
improving the uneven and unpredictable approval process that frustrates
community members and developers. Next month, we’ll form a steering group of
real estate and community leaders to recommend changes to our Article 80
development review process. We’ll simplify and accelerate timelines so that
good projects get shovels in the ground faster. We’ll also transfer compliance
and enforcement from the BPDA to the Office of Housing so our communities can
be confident that we’re always getting the full benefit of development
agreements.
Of course, we can’t grow sustainably
unless our residents are secure in their homes. Our housing crisis displaces
children and families, drives down enrollment in schools, hurts local
businesses, increases homelessness, and strains our public health and safety
systems.
So, our housing plan must be just as
comprehensive. We’ll deploy every tool, every strategy, and every resource to
create more housing that residents can actually afford. We will prioritize
keeping residents in their homes, and closing the racial wealth gap by boosting
home ownership.
Last year, our Office of Housing
permitted 3,800 housing units—the most since 2018, including 1,300 affordable
units—the most in a generation. And we’ll do even more by directing the bulk of
our federal recovery dollars to housing. In the coming weeks, we’ll be sending
the City Council a Home Rule Petition on rent stabilization to end rent
gouging, and protect our families from eviction and displacement.
And we’re putting City land to work.
We’ve analyzed every square foot of City-owned property and identified several
parcels that could generate thousands of affordable housing units. We also have
150 vacant lots in our neighborhoods ready for housing. Local builders: work with
us to design high-quality, affordable homes that enhance the surrounding
neighborhood, and we’ll give you the land for free. And we’ll provide increased
mortgage assistance so our residents can afford to buy these homes. We’ll
accelerate zoning changes for predictability and equity in our growth. Our team
will update zoning for squares and corridors across the City, and complete
neighborhood planning processes to bring thousands of new homes and support the
small businesses, retail, and jobs that make Boston a vibrant cultural hub.
Our neighborhoods must be climate
resilient and community focused. This year we will launch a civic and green
space master plan, and begin design for new community
centers in Grove Hall and the North End.
And, we’ll help residents invest in
retrofitting older homes, like triple deckers, to save money on utility bills
and protect against flooding and heat. And we’ll walk the walk with municipal
buildings, too.
Meeting our climate goals starts
with ending our use of fossil fuels, so I’m signing an Executive Order
requiring all new City construction and major renovations in our schools, municipal
buildings, and public housing, to be entirely fossil-fuel free.
And because “green” and “affordable”
go hand in hand, together with the Boston Housing Authority, by 2030, we will
end the use of fossil fuel in the City’s public housing developments. This will
mean unprecedented investments to modernize these buildings and meet Governor
Healey’s ambitious goals for heat pump deployment—ensuring that the families
with greatest need, benefit first—from healthier homes, and lower energy costs.
Together, we can build a Boston
that’s more green than concrete. Where housing is a given, not a godsend, and
mobility is the minimum, not a miracle. Where the things we build inspire—but
don’t define—us; and where each generation shines brighter than the last.
Which brings me to the next
generation. As mayor, and as a mom, fighting for the future that my two
boys—and all our kids—deserve is what drives the urgency behind all that we do.
Like our approach to planning,
Boston’s approach to education has been deeply shaped by our history. The story
is one that many of us know well—and it deserves telling—but that’s for next
year’s State of the City. Tonight, I want to share a few of the things we’re
doing right now to strengthen our schools, support our teachers, and do right
by our students.
I’ll start with the spaces where
learning happens: we know what world-class school facilities feel like. Just
around the corner from here, is the brand new Boston Arts Academy—it’s
beautiful, energy efficient, meeting the needs and the possibility of our young
people. But we haven’t been moving fast enough. The Josiah Quincy Upper School
in Chinatown will be our next brand new, state-of-the-art high school, but the
project was kicked off in 2012: three Mayors and six superintendents ago.
Students in 1st grade when this project started will have graduated from high
school by the time it’s finished.
We’re making changes to speed up not
just individual schools, but our whole district. Our school design study will
take a full year off the planning process for every new school in the City, and
we’ll get more projects going at once than ever before.
Of course, our vision for our
students goes beyond facilities: Superintendent Skipper and I won’t settle for
anything less than academic excellence across all our schools, accessible to
all our students. Under newly created leadership roles focused on academics and
getting resources down to the school level, we’re investing in staff,
professional development, and curriculum—for the equitable literacy foundation
that empowers rigor and engagement across all subjects.
We’ll follow through on our landmark
agreement with BPS teachers to co-design and transform how we serve students
with disabilities by investing $50 million in inclusion so every student gets
the education they deserve. And, because we know our students are people and
family members first, we are investing in social workers and counselors at
every school, with dedicated bilingual social workers trained to meet the needs
of our multilingual students and families.
Last spring, to prepare our students
for tomorrow’s opportunities, we announced new early college
and innovation pathways at five high schools across BPS where
young people get real work experience and take college level courses in fields
like finance, health care, and biotech. Tonight, I am announcing that—in
partnership with UMass Boston—we’ll build on that foundation by piloting a Year
13 program at Fenway High School. This will give our students an additional
full year of college-level courses debt-free as they transition to college and
accelerate toward a degree.
If we expect our young people to be
the leaders our world needs, then it’s on all of us to take every step to
ensure they have the skills and experience to meet this moment.
We recently celebrated the creation
of our new Office of
Youth Engagement and Advancement—that’s right, OYEA—with a group of
students from the Blackstone School and they didn’t hold back. They asked about
plans for after school programming and when the pool would reopen. And a third
grader in a pink puffy coat wanted to know: “Como se siente ser alcaldesa? How
does it feel to be mayor?” And I didn’t know what to say. “Ocupada,” I told
her. “Busy.” Which is true. But it’s also so much more than that.
It can feel surreal and stressful,
exhausting and empowering—it feels like the most important work in the world.
But more than anything, it feels like a gift: To be able to get up every day
and go to work for the city I love with people who love it, too. People
unafraid to do things differently—willing to meet crises with creativity, and
reach deep in the dirt to pull up the roots of the challenges that block our
view of the sky. Boston is a city that will never stop reaching—up toward the
progress we know to be possible, and out to the community whose work makes it
lasting.
Thank you, and God bless the
City—and people—of Boston.
