December 19, 2019
Council President Andrea Campbell’s proposal to establish an inspector general position within the city of Boston was rejected by a 9-4 vote during last Wednesday’s council meeting.
Councillors Frank Baker, Mark Ciommo, Annissa Essaibi-George, Michael Flaherty, Althea Garrison, Michelle Wu, Josh Zakim, Tim McCarthy, and Ed Flynn voted against the ordinance, while Councillors Campbell, Lydia Edwards, Kim Janey, and Matt O’Malley supported it.
“One critical responsibility we have is to ensure that government is functioning in the most efficient, effective, and transparent manner possible. This ordinance calling for the creation of an independent, and local inspector general would more effectively allow for that,” said Campbell.
The proposed ordinance, which Campbell unveiled after the bribery conviction of BPDA worker John Lynch in September, was first referred to the Committee on Government Operations. District 3’s Baker said that the ordinance “doesn’t send a good message to city workers. I don’t see any savings. If we think that the city process moves slowly now, start putting people to stand over people’s shoulders and watch them do their work. I think it’s a bad play and it doesn’t send a good message to John Q. city worker.”
Wu, on the other hand, said that the ordinance didn’t go far enough. “I agree wholeheartedly with all of the goals that you’ve laid out,” she said. “I won’t be supporting this today, though, not because I think it’s duplicative. I think it doesn’t go far enough.”