Michelle Wu, who worked full-time on the Warren campaign, where she directed statewide outreach to communities of color, is running for Boston City Councilor-at-Large.
I met Michelle when she called me to tell me that I was a delegate to last spring’s Democratic Convention. (I had been elected as an alternate but no one from my caucus committee had let me know I could be a delegate.)
She later asked me to be the EW campaign coordinator for Allston-Brighton and even after her promotion to statewide responsibilities she helped out with anything I asked. At one point I emailed her a question and she replied immediately saying she was at her graduation and would get me the info in an hour. What graduation you may wonder? Harvard Law.
My admiration for Michelle’s ability to get things done and her abiding good nature grew exponentially when I learned about her profound family responsibility of legal guardianship for her sisters.
At some point during the campaign (a campaign during which she also got married and took and passed the bar exam) I asked what she was thinking about for her future. She said that she believes in city government as a place where you can really make a difference in people’s lives.
I later learned that she had been a Rappaport Fellow in Law and Public Policy working at Boston City Hall in Mayor Menino’s Office and had designed a one-stop guide to the city’s restaurant permitting process from start to finish. She has a background in community advocacy, providing legal advice to low-income small business owners at the WilmerHale Legal Services Center in Jamaica Plain,. And, she worked at the Medical-Legal Partnership at Boston Medical Center on immigration cases for survivors of domestic violence.
I hope you’ll all consider supporting Michelle’s candidacy starting with a donation this year at http://www.michelleforboston.com
In case you don’t know, the Boston City Council has only one woman, the terrific Ayanna Pressley, and we sorely need a council that represents the diverse population of the City.
Thanks for reading to this point and joining me in supporting Michelle.
Wishing us all a healthy, peaceful and productive 2013.
petr says
Given his recent health issues it’s entirely possible that this will be the final term for Hizzoner the Mayor. It’s likely, too, that the next mayor will come from amongst the city council (which is where Menino himself came from…) And I entirely agree with Wu when she says that city government is often the most deliberate and impactful difference in peoples everyday lives.
With John Kerry stepping down from the Senate, Menino in fact, might represent the waning incumbency of an older, patronage-style, politics. Consider the following: Massachusetts fairly recently elected only the second black governor in the country pretty solidly on grassroots efforts and then re-elected him handily; we have our first female Senator; there is not a Kennedy in sight; and the Mass Democratic machine is much more egalitarian (that is to say, less of a machine run on ethnic lines and more of meritocratic fundraising juggernaut) than it was when Menino first took office. Given the distance between now and the older style machine politics I think the next campaign for Mayor is going to be the most wide open campaign many of us will ever see. And the City Council is, for all intents and purposes, the farm team.
jim-gosger says
The City Council seems to have changed quite a bit. I can remember when it was a joke, just one Irishman screaming at another.
kate says
Bob, Michelle is too young to run for Senate. She is a very gifted young woman.