Editorial: For Mayor Wu, equal treatment is subjective

In Boston, you either get on board the Wu train, or get run over by it.

It’s a harsh lesson learned by those who push back on Mayor Michelle Wu’s policies.

For someone who touted equity as a cornerstone of her mayoral campaign, Wu has no problem with excluding children attending public charter schools and METCO students from her “BPS Sundays” pilot program. It allows some BPS students free access to cultural institutions on the first and second Sunday of each month up to August.

Tough luck for charter school kids and METCO students who want equal treatment.

“We’re not going to reopen those negotiations just in the middle of the agreed-upon pilot,” Wu said.

A pilot program is where you work out the details of a plan — how long it should last, for example. Inclusion should be a given. Wu previously told the Herald there is not funding to expand the program to more students during the pilot period. How about funding for all and a shorter time frame? Or enrolling students based on zip code and not which school they attend?

Wu said the exclusion is not politically motivated.

Of course not.

The kids and families left out of “BPS Sundays” can commiserate with North End restaurateurs. They, too are on the mayor’s D-list.

During the pandemic, outdoor dining was a lifesaver for restaurants as dining rooms had to limit patrons. For the past two years, however, the city served up bad news for North End eateries.

In 2022, officials forced restaurateurs to pay a $7,500 fee for outdoor dining operations. Last year, Boston banned on-street dining, limiting the al fresco option to “compliant sidewalk patios.” The North End was the only neighborhood that faced the restrictions, as the Herald reported. 

While other restaurants around the city can offer outdoor dining to locals and tourists who want to have dinner while enjoying the breeze on a warm day, the North End, except for a few spots, cannot. An increase in customers, tips for staff, and a chance for a thriving season are off the table.

Restaurants took a fiscal hit in 2022 and 2023, and a group of 21 neighborhood restaurateurs have added the losses they anticipate for  2024, the fees they paid in 2022 and the lost revenue from 2023 to lawsuit filed earlier this year in federal court.

One would think the city would want all of its restaurants to do well, especially as revenue is down thanks to all those empty office buildings. Curtailing outdoor dining in the neighborhood isn’t good for anyone’s bottom line.

Those opposed cite the neighborhood’s narrow sidewalks and streets, and increase in trash and rodents due to outdoor dining. They also call out traffic and congestion.

Fair enough. But that should prompt a dialogue on how to address those issues, not trigger a “no” from the city.

Boston gets crowded from June to early September. There will be sightseeing trolleys, Duck Tours, and throngs of pedestrians. There will be traffic and congestion, and restaurants who serve patrons outdoors will have to deal with trash and rodents.

Negotiations, whether it’s with restaurateurs over outdoor dining or schools left out of the BPS Sundays program, should be part and parcel of city leadership.