BOSTON (WHDH) - Boston City Councilor At-Large Michelle Wu says the city needs more time to come up with a budget that truly addresses the community’s call for change, and therefore she plans to vote against Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s proposed budget for the 2021 fiscal year on Wednesday.
After declaring racism a public health crisis in the city, Walsh proposed to cut $12 million from the Boston Police Department’s overtime budget.
Wu argues that the cut is simply a change to a line item on the budget and is not a true defunding of the police.
“Because police overtime hours are legally obligated to be paid whenever they are incurred, that is in effect a gesture or empty promise,” she said.
Wu added that the city is in a moment of change and the mayor’s proposed budget does not reflect that.
“The changes that have been proposed to the council so far don’t reflect that transformative change, that investment in public safety, in public health, that people want to see,” she continued.
Hundreds of demonstrators marched and blocked the road in the financial district on Tuesday, calling for the city council to reallocate more money to social programs that would help minorities in the city.
This comes following calls across the country to defund police departments in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis and Rayshard Brooks’ death in Atlanta.
“We wanted to put extra pressure on the city councilors because this is not just a trend,” said Arlyn Dionisio of the Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project. “A lot of people think this a trend that happened two weeks ago. No, this is something that’s going on for years and will continue happening until we see real change.”
If the budget for the 2021 fiscal year is voted down on Wednesday, Boston will continue on the 2020 budge month-by-month until a new budget is approved.
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