BOSTON—Mayor Michelle Wu ran on transparency. Turns out the only thing transparent in her administration is the cover-up, you can see right through it.

Wu’s City Hall is drowning in scandal after a public hearing into the hiring of a convicted child sex offender was mysteriously canceled. Critics call it an election-year dodge to keep voters in the dark.

Councilor Ed Flynn, who called the hearing, says the plug was pulled to shield Wu from uncomfortable questions about how a Level 3 predator with multiple convictions for sexually assaulting children ended up on the city payroll.

Robert M. Claud, 37, of Dorchester, a registered Level 3 sex offender considered “high risk to reoffend,” was hired last year as a heavy motor equipment operator in Boston’s Parks Department. That meant a convicted child molester was on the city’s books, working around playgrounds and ballfields. His job only ended this week after reporters started asking questions. Apparently “high risk to reoffend” wasn’t considered a red flag on the HR paperwork.

Flynn blows the whistle

Speaking to the Boston Herald, Flynn didn’t mince words.

“It’s definitely not appropriate to hire a Level 3 sex offender that is working with the public and children in a position like the parks department,” he said.

And on the hearing cancellation? Flynn called it exactly what it looked like: “It’s politics before public safety. Just because it’s an election year doesn’t mean we can’t have these conversations.”

City Hall keeps calling it a “misstep.” Parents call it “a nightmare.”

Conveniently after the election

The hearing had been scheduled for Monday. On Friday afternoon it was suddenly yanked, with Councilor Benjamin Weber citing a “family commitment.” The new date is September 22, safely after the September 9 mayoral and council elections.

Translation: voters don’t get answers until it’s too late. Protect ballots now, kids later.

Wu’s non-answer

When pressed, Wu’s office refused to say whether Claud was fired or resigned. Instead they handed over a boilerplate copy of the city’s CORI policy, the political equivalent of a waiter dropping the check and sprinting out the back door.

Level 3 is the most serious category on the registry, reserved for offenders who pose the highest risk to the public. Claud’s record is no mystery: two convictions for indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, plus another for lewd behavior.

Yet somehow, this man was clearing brush and driving trucks in Boston’s parks, right under City Hall’s nose. Only in Wu’s Boston does “equity” mean handing playground keys to a convicted child predator.

City Hall’s hiring rap sheet

The Claud fiasco is just the latest entry in Wu’s growing list of disastrous hires.

This spring, City Hall was rocked by the arrest of Daunasia Yancey, a deputy director in the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Advancement, who was slapped with a felony assault charge after allegedly slamming a woman against a wall. She pleaded not guilty and still clings to a City Hall job, stashed on “unpaid leave.”

And Yancey was not some one-off. Since May, Wu’s administration has lurched from one staffing scandal to the next. Employees arrested, facing charges, or quietly pushed out once the headlines got too ugly. To ordinary Bostonians it looks less like a hiring process and more like Craigslist with benefits.

Critics argue the message is clear: Michelle Wu talks endlessly about “equity” and “transparency,” but when it comes to basic competence, her City Hall cannot even keep predators out of the parks.