05.24.2024

Mass. voters super grumpy | Biz groups blast Wu tax hike plan | Troubled pot commission in hot water on Beacon Hill | Wu a no-show at key biz events | The NYT’s shocking discovery about campus protestors | Quick hits |

News tips? Story ideas? Email us at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com

Scheduling conflict: Amid rising tensions with the business community, Wu blows off annual Hub chamber gala for a New York event

When you are in a hole politically, above all else, stop digging.

That is, unless you are Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. Then, you call up for an extra shovel, a headlamp, and a couple of sticks of dynamite for good measure.

As her relationship with key parts of the business community goes from bad to worse, Boston’s uber progressive mayor skipped out on one of the major annual social events for the city’s movers and shakers.

And for an event in New York, no less.

On the evening of May 2, when the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce was holding its annual meeting at the city’s main convention center, Wu was down in the Big Apple to help The Asian American Foundation celebrate its third anniversary.

Undoubtedly it was for a great cause, but the “scheduling conflict” cited by Wu’s press chief doesn’t hold up all that well.

The event in New York was held over two days and Wu flew back from it the same evening that 1,500 people had gathered for the chamber’s big annual schmooze festival at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.

Instead of making a live appearance, Wu taped a short video that was played at the chamber event, surely creating a “WTF?” moment for more than one of the execs on hand.

For good measure, Wu also bailed on the Pine Street Inn’s annual fundraiser that same morning, another event that draws many business people, including developers.

Another “scheduling conflict,” we’re told.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu

Wu’s decision to bail on two major gatherings of the business community comes as tensions mount over her controversial plan to head off a potential, $1 billion-plus shortfall in tax revenue.

Wu is not only refusing to trim the city’s budget, she’s also seeking a more than eight percent increase.

And to cover the combination of increased spending and falling revenues, she’s seeking a green light to hike tax rates on the city’s struggling office and commercial buildings, many of which are half empty amid the shift to remote work.

Wu is also battling with developers, who say plans for badly needed new housing are stuck on the drawing boards thanks, in part, to the mayor’s demand for greater numbers of affordable units and other mandates.

If those weren’t enough beefs for one mayor, Wu has waged a now more than two-year-old feud with North End restaurant owners, furious over her continued refusal to allow outdoor dining in their neighborhood, while allowing it in other parts of the city.

It is a dispute that looks increasingly petty, with Wu scrambling to cite reasons why outdoor dining is bad in the North End but not in Italy, where she dined at sidewalk cafes during her recent trip there.

For his part, Jim Rooney, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, noted that Wu gave him a heads up that she couldn’t make its annual meeting and agreed to do the short video tribute.

Jim Rooney, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce

But things have apparently changed since the days when Rooney was the late Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s chief of staff. Rooney couldn’t recall Boston’s longest-serving mayor ever missing the chamber’s annual meeting or the Boston Municipal Research Bureau’s yearly confab, either.

“These were sacrosanct events - they were always on Menino’s calendar,” Rooney recalled.

He said he hopes that not just the mayor, but other political leaders understand that the chamber’s annual meeting is an opportunity for “relationship building and direct communication with a core constituency, i.e., the business community.”

File under: Sage advice.

Intrepid reporting: Boldly striking out beyond the encampments at Ivy League schools, The New York Times makes a shocking discovery

Now what could that be? Well, that the student protesters aren't exactly the majority at Harvard and other elite universities.

Here’s a bit from the Times piece, which ran Tuesday:

“While the main image of elite campuses during this commencement season might be activists in kaffiyehs pitching tents on electric green lawns, most students on campus are focused not on protesting the war in Gaza, but on what will come after graduation.

Despite the popular image of this generation — that of Greta Thunberg and the Parkland activists — as one driven by idealism, GenZ students at these schools appear to be strikingly corporate-minded.”

And so forth.

The Globe, meanwhile, didn’t get the memo and went to town with a big story on a few hundred students who walked out of Thursday’s commencement ceremonies at Harvard.