BOSTON (WHDH) - Boston Mayor-elect Michelle Wu said she is ready to jump into her new job next week — and she has plenty of issues to deal with.
Wu was elected last Tuesday, but will be sworn in next week instead of being inaugurated in January. Wu said after a brief ceremony led by her colleagues on the City Council, she would walk down the hall to her new office and get to work.
“It’s been a very rapid transition and the good news is with so many pressing issues I’m excited to dive right in and get to work right away,” Wu said.
Wu said her first priority is to get her cabinet and team together, but the most pressing issues are what the coming winter means for COVID-19 recovery efforts and the people living in the Mass. Ave/Melnea Cass Boulevard area, where city officials have been taking down tents at homeless encampments.
“Our issues are all interconnected, but as I’m thinking about this winter what it means with temperatures dropping, our COVID recovery and the situation at Mass and Cass are right at the top of the list,” Wu said.
Wu will also oversee the search for a new Boston Police commissioner, and has been an advocate of demilitarizing the police. She said some calls should be handled by counselors, not cops.
“Boston is the city with the oldest police department in country, we’re the city that invented idea of community policing, that you don’t get to safety through arrests and criminalization but by building relationships and earning trust with community,” Wu said, when asked about Boston police responding to a domestic dispute shooting and killing a man who allegedly stabbed an officer in the neck over the weekend. “That is how we make everyone safe and that has been the history of policing and safety in this city for many years.”
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