BOSTON — The Boston city councilor leading this week's $4.9 billion budget amendment process is married to a senior fundraising executive at a city-funded nonprofit whose grant lines run through the same budget — and Wu-allied councilors are quietly worried about an ethics complaint hitting before Wednesday's vote, a City Hall insider told Mass Daily News.
Boston District 6 councilor Ben Weber, chair of the City Council Ways and Means committee, speaking in the Council chamber.
District 6 councilor Ben Weber, who chairs the Council's Ways and Means committee, is married to Alexandra "Xan" Weber, LICSW, Chief Advancement Officer and Senior Vice President at the International Institute of New England. She "oversees fundraising, institutional partnerships, advocacy initiatives, and strategic planning," per the organization's own leadership page. The couple has lived in Jamaica Plain since 2008, per Weber's official Boston.gov bio. A substantial part of IINE's work goes to legal defense of migrants — including illegal immigrants facing deportation — through the nonprofit's immigration legal services program, which represents clients in deportation, asylum, family-immigration and citizenship cases, alongside refugee resettlement and English-language instruction.
Alexandra "Xan" Weber, Chief Advancement Officer and Senior Vice President at the International Institute of New England. Photo: IINE leadership page.
The link has been flagged publicly by Dorchester community advocate John Smith-St Cyere, a college-readiness advisor with College Bound Dorchester who has testified at City Hall on city development issues this year. In a series of Facebook posts over the weekend, Smith-St Cyere argued that Weber should not be permitted to chair Wednesday's vote because his wife is a senior executive at an organization whose city funding turns on the amendment process Weber runs.
"Councilor Ben Weber chairs Ways and Means, which means he controls the City Council's budget process," Smith-St Cyere wrote. "His wife, Alexandra 'Xan' Weber, is a senior executive at the International Institute of New England. That organization is named in City-connected funding pools."
Smith-St Cyere's anger isn't abstract. In the same Facebook posts, he framed the Weber conflict as part of a broader pattern: a City Hall budget that, in his words, has "no money for school staff, youth jobs, Black Male Advancement, and community programs" but keeps the funding flowing to nonprofit pipelines and council-connected interests.
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Smith-St Cyere tallied IINE's city-connected funding streams at approximately $5.818 million across multiple lines, including immigrant-service grants and contracts, money through Mayor Wu's Office for Immigrant Advancement, a Digital Equity Fund allocation, and a separate Digital Literacy 2.0 expansion. Mass Daily News has not independently audited the full $5.818 million tally; IINE is publicly identified as a recipient or partner on multiple city-connected funding programs that flow through the council's budget process.
Mayor Michelle Wu, whose proposed $4.9 billion FY27 budget is now in front of the Council.
Wu's proposed FY27 budget cut the legal access grant for immigrants. Per Smith-St Cyere's posts, IINE has been listed as a recipient of that funding, meaning the line's fate in the amendment process Weber chairs would directly affect his wife's organization.
According to a City Hall insider, Wu-allied councilors fear that if Weber chairs the budget meeting this week and brings the bill forward for Wednesday's vote, an ethics complaint could land mid-process — because of his wife's senior role at the city-funded IINE.
The Massachusetts ethics standard
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Under Massachusetts conflict-of-interest law (G.L. c. 268A § 19), municipal officials may not participate in matters in which an immediate family member has a financial interest, absent a written disclosure filed with the appointing or elected body in advance. Without that disclosure, the standard remedy is recusal. The statute does not require proof of intent; the question is whether the conflict was disclosed and managed.
Weber has not publicly announced a recusal from any of the IINE-touching grant lines in the FY27 process. Smith-St Cyere has published a script urging supporters to call the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission, file an official complaint against Weber over the IINE link, and demand an immediate recusal from the amendment process.
The wider council squeeze
The Weber question is landing in a council already under pressure on the Wu budget. At-large councilor Erin Murphy told the Boston Herald that six to seven members have a "strong appetite" to reject the mayor's $4.9 billion proposal outright. The Wu-aligned councilors who have backed the budget — including Henry Santana, Ruthzee Louijeune and Enrique Pepén — have come in for criticism in Boston's Black community over the cuts, the City Hall insider said.
The conference timeline gives Weber little room. The Council needs to send Wu a budget she can sign before the July 1 start of the fiscal year, and the amendment process Weber is chairing is the last step before a final council vote.
This is a developing story.
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