ONE ROUND DOWN
Mayoral hopefuls largely tout their own records in first of two debates
The Boston mayoral candidates, meeting in their first debate just five days out from the election, clashed over topics including crime and the Methadone Mile as they tried to break out of the pack.
The testiest exchange of the night came between Acting Mayor Kim Janey and former city economic development director John Barros, when Janey attempted to claim credit for the declines in crime this year.
“My plan is working,” Janey said, citing the drops in homicides and shootings plus the increase in gun arrests this year. She said the city needs to focus on an “alternative response” of more social workers responding alongside cops.
But Barros said Janey’s simply coasting off of the work of former Mayor Martin Walsh’s administration, which Barros was part of.
“I’m not sure what the plan is. I’d love her to point to a plan — she doesn’t have a plan,” Barros said. “That’s why the mayor is able to talk about those numbers — not because the plan that she doesn’t have.”
The debate, put on in partnership between NBC10 Boston, Telemundo Boston, NECN, The Bay State Banner and The Dorchester Reporter ran an hour on Wednesday night between the five major candidates in the race: Barros, Janey and City Councilors Andrea Campbell, Annissa Essaibi-George and City Councilor Michelle Wu.
Continuing on the topic of crime and policing, Campbell reiterated her plan to “restructure” the police department and take a big chunk of its money and “redirect those resources to root causes of violence.”
Wu said that “We need a wholesale new approach to the structures of our police department.”
Essaibi-George pushed back on that idea.
“We could talk about reallocation, we can talk about reinvestment — that’s just another word for defunding public safety in this city,” she said.
The debate was largely low-key, with candidates sticking to their own messages and trying to make their pitches in response to the questions about schools, climate change, crime and more.
One offbeat question at the end asked all the candidates to raise their hands if they’ve patronized one of the city’s pot shops. After a pause and some uncertain smiles, Campbell and Janey both raised their hands.
The topic also moved to Mass and Cass, the city’s Methadone Mile, which has been worsening in recent months.
Essaibi-George hit at Janey for getting rid of the Homelessness, Mental Health and Recovery Committee she used to chair, adding, “Since then, things have fallen apart.”
Janey countered by saying that she’d essentially shifted things around to create a public health committee — just a few weeks before the pandemic began to hit the headlines.
This debate comes five days before Tuesday’s preliminary election, which will narrow the field down to the top two overall vote-getters. Polls have suggested Wu is in a strong position to capture the first of the two slots — but there appears to be a tight three-way fight on for the second one between Janey, Essaibi-George and Campbell, who all have been within the margin of error of each other in the latest surveys. Barros continues to show a ways back.