Wu opposes Walsh’s zoning appointments

City Councilor Michelle Wu is calling on her colleagues to reject three of Mayor Martin Walsh’s four zoning board nominees, saying the mayor needs to come back with new appointees that fit with new changes to board’s composition.

Wu, who chairs the Committee on Planning, Development, and Transportation, is making that recommendation in a committee report following a meeting last Thursday about the mayor’s four pending appointments to the Zoning Board of Appeal.

The council is expected to vote on the matter in its meeting on Wednesday. Wu wrote that the goal is to have new nominees ready for a vote by the next council meeting, which is Sept. 16.

Walsh has put forward Timothy Burke, Ann Beha, Konstantinos Ligris and Kerry Walsh for spots on the board. Wu seeks to reject all but Kerry Walsh — who’s of no relation to the mayor — whose nomination would also remain in committee until September.

There are normally seven slots for board members, plus six alternatives. Three of the board members and four alternative slots are empty, and the mayor has so far put forward four people — one last September and three in January, and the council hasn’t acted on any of them yet.

The board was shaken by a bribery scandal last year that resulted in one staffer being federally charged and one member resigning. The council passed a home-rule petition last week that would — with the approval of the Legislature — make transparency and regulatory reforms to the board, and would create specialized seats for experts in urban planning and climate change. Wu is urging her colleagues to reject the nominees because those changes aren’t reflected in the appointments recommended by Walsh, she said.

“The types of expertise introduced in the homerule petition are not immediately evident in the resumes of confirmed and nominated members and alternates,” Wu wrote in the committee report.

Walsh’s office has pointed to the backlog of “approximately 600 cases” before the board, which is struggling to get a quorum in its meetings due to a lack of members and interruptions by the pandemic.

Some councilors in the meeting last week said the council doesn’t have much time to wait.

“The lack of appointments is really starting to trickle into the neighborhoods,” City Councilor Michael Flaherty said in the meeting Thursday. “They’re kind of being held hostage to this issue. … We need to give the board at least the membership of a quorum.”

And City Councilor Frank Baker said, “We have to move some appointments along so we can get back to business.”

But City Councilor Kenzie Bok said it makes sense “to try to use this opportunity” of multiple vacancies to try to create the changes the council wants. She also pointed out that there’s only one full scheduled ZBA meeting between this week’s council meeting and Sept. 16, so the delay would only potentially cause issues with the operations of that one meeting.

The zoning board has become a new front in the battles between Walsh and Wu, who’s seen as a possible challenger for the mayor’s seat in 2021.