Janey takes Hub’s reins
In a time of firsts, her first priority is ‘going better’ than before
“We are not going back to normal — we are going better … normal was hurting too many residents.”
KIM JANEY acting mayor of Boston
Acting Mayor Kim Janey declared “we are not going back to normal — we are going better” as she spoke during a political event she threw on her first day in the new position as a precursor to the purely ceremonial swearing-in she’s planning at City Hall.
“We can do better,” Janey said, speaking in a virtual event at the end of her first day as the city’s first Black and first female chief executive. “We are not going back to normal — we are going better … normal was hurting too many residents.”
She said the city must have a “more equitable, just and vibrant” recovery. She talked about focusing on getting workers back to their jobs and students back to school — and keeping a focus on a racially “equitable reopening.”
“I am excited to lead our great city,” Janey said, saying she had a “wonderful first day” as acting mayor — though she never used the word “acting.”
In the morning, she swung by the Charlestown middle school where she’d been bused from the South End as a kid, and then she remained in internal meetings for the bulk of the day.
City Hall was in a state of quiet flux on Tuesday afternoon, the day after now-former Mayor Martin Walsh left to become U.S. Labor secretary. The digital screens in the the stark concrete building still read “Mayor Martin J. Walsh,” and the one outside the mayor’s office on the fifth floor still had the now-Labor-secretary’s grinning face showing as of Tuesday afternoon.
Officials from what’s now the Janey administration — a mixture of senior staff Janey brought in herself and holdovers from Walsh — milled around the third-floor promenade, getting the seating, backdrop and other accoutrements ready for the swearing-in ceremony, which is scheduled for 11:45 a.m. Wednesday. Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice Kimberly Budd, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley and the Rev. Willie Bodrick II, three important Black leaders from Boston, all will be on hand for Janey’s barrier-breaking introduction.
Janey’s swearing-in on Wednesday is not called for by the city’s charter. As the city council president, she officially became “acting mayor” — the title conferred by the city charter — when Walsh left at 9 p.m. Monday, according to the city clerk’s office.
The acting mayorship is a powerful position, with broad ability to execute the ins and outs of city governance as Boston tries to move through the end of the coronavirus pandemic and beyond. But it’s a more limited one than the full elected mayorship, with limited powers for appointments and any matters “admitting of delay” — a phrase in the charter that’s not further defined.
Janey will serve as acting mayor through the November election, which will choose a new mayor for a four-year term. She’s mulling a run for that — and has been raising money for her campaign account from her mayoral transition’s website. The event Tuesday night that Janey spoke at was not an official city event; her political staff put it on, and she used it as a fundraiser “if she does decide to run,” as one of the hosts said while asking for cash.
Janey’s elevation means City Councilor Matt O’Malley, the council’s vice president — officially the president pro tempore, or, the particularly dense parlance of the institution, the vice chair of the committee of the whole — will begin to preside over the council starting at Wednesday’s normal scheduled city council meeting. Janey, who remains a city councilor, will continue to sit on the body and represent her Roxbury-centric district.