BOSTON — Mayor Michelle Wu's allies on the Boston City Council fled the chamber Wednesday afternoon and slipped into a small side office to meet privately with the mayor's staff — specifically, City Council liaison Ricardo Patron — a City Hall insider tells Mass Daily News — as furious Bostonians took to the chamber floor and turned the FY27 budget vote into a die-in. Former Massachusetts state senator Dianne Wilkerson, who was in the chamber and posted live to Facebook, described the same chain of events in her account of the recess.
The protest unfolded as activists laid out across the carpeted floor in front of the dais with a banner that read "SAVE OUR YOUTH JOBS — CITY FUNDS NOW, NO EMPTY PROMISES OF MYTHICAL PRIVATE JOBS." Youth jobs was the rallying cry on the banner; the broader demand from the chamber floor was a vote to reject the whole budget. Eight protesters were arrested before the Council reconvened after 5 p.m., per WCVB.
Boston Police officers on the dais as activists lay across the Boston City Council chamber floor Wednesday in a die-in protest of Mayor Wu's youth-jobs cuts. Image: Submitted to MDN.
According to former Massachusetts state senator Dianne Wilkerson, who was in the chamber and posted live to Facebook as the protest unfolded, the young people who staged the die-in "wanted the Council to take up the vote to reject the budget." Wilkerson, a longtime Boston political figure, called the protesters "articulate and specific" and said they had agreed to leave only after the Council halted business.
"Initially the police asked us to leave but we made clear we weren't leaving the chamber with the young folks in it," Wilkerson wrote. "They understood."
"Tell us where the money goes," protesters shouted during the disruption, per WCVB, which reported the meeting was forced to recess for more than two hours before the Council reconvened just after 5 p.m.
The protesters' anger was not limited to the youth-jobs line. Wu's proposed FY27 budget would eliminate or cut funding across a long list of city-funded programs — arts grants, food access for the food-insecure, affordable-housing support, immigrant-services lines, and a range of community-program contracts. The youth-jobs banner was the visible rallying cry; the demand to reject the whole budget was the bigger ask.
Boston City Councilors and a Boston Police officer near the chamber floor as the die-in unfolded Wednesday. Image: Submitted to MDN.
The banner referenced Wu's recent announcement that the city had reached deals with private employers to provide hundreds of teen jobs during the school year — a pivot the administration framed as a workaround for the city-funded youth-jobs program that Wu's proposed FY27 budget cuts. Protesters' framing: those private deals are "mythical" and the cuts to publicly funded youth jobs are real. The fear they brought to the chamber floor was a simple one — that with publicly funded summer jobs gone, Boston teens would end up on the streets.
Protesters hold up the SAVE OUR YOUTH JOBS banner — accusing Mayor Wu of "empty promises of mythical private jobs" — inside the Boston City Council chamber Wednesday. Image: Submitted to MDN.
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Where the Wu allies went after the recess
After the chamber was cleared and the FY27 budget vote was postponed by one week, Wilkerson posted a follow-up under her own name. According to the City Hall insider, the meeting Wilkerson described was held in a small office outside the council chamber — not in the mayor's office itself — between mayor's staff — specifically council liaison Ricardo Patron — and a group of Wu-aligned councilors who had stepped out during the recess.
"Council just recessed and several went off to meet, some went to the Mayor's Office (guess who)," Wilkerson wrote. "Direct violation of Open Meeting Law. But what do we know."
Two Facebook posts by former Massachusetts state senator Dianne Wilkerson, posted live from Boston City Hall as the FY27 budget protest and Council recess unfolded. Image: Dianne Wilkerson via Facebook.
Under Massachusetts Open Meeting Law (G.L. c. 30A § 18–25), public bodies must deliberate in public. A single councilor meeting bilaterally with administration staff is not an Open Meeting Law violation. But multiple councilors meeting jointly with administration to deliberate on pending legislation can constitute an unposted "meeting" of the body — and so can serial communications that reach a quorum. Enforcement runs through the state Attorney General's office.
The scene inside the Boston City Council chamber Wednesday afternoon. Image: Submitted to MDN.
Mass Daily News has not seen any visitor or attendance logs from the side office where the meeting was held. The City Hall insider and Wilkerson's account are the basis for the closed-door allegation; the Council has not commented publicly.
Weber's letter — and what Wilkerson says he left out
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Wilkerson, who has watched Boston City Hall through two decades of state-level political work, also weighed in on the conflict-of-interest fight that has dominated the FY27 budget debate around Boston City Councilor Ben Weber.
Boston City Councilor Ben Weber speaking in the Council chamber. Image: Boston City Council video.
"It turns out the State Ethics Commission did send Weber a letter saying he can't participate in any way re: immigration amendment," Wilkerson wrote. The existence of that letter matches the written guidance Weber publicly cited in his Tuesday statement, in which he said he had received written advice from the Commission and was abiding by it.
"Obvious problem is he didn't mention the other line items his wife's company dips into," Wilkerson added. "I'll say it again. He didn't handle this right. He could have. He has a problem."
Weber's wife, Alexandra "Xan" Weber, is the Chief Advancement Officer and Senior Vice President at the International Institute of New England. IINE receives funding through the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement — the line item Weber says he will recuse from — but is also identified, per public-records research compiled by Dorchester community advocate John Smith-St Cyere, as a recipient or partner on city-connected funding streams that flow through Digital Equity, Digital Literacy, and immigrant-services contracts. Wilkerson's "other line items" claim, if accurate, would expand the conflict beyond the single MOIA grant Weber pulled from his amendment package.
What's next
The Boston City Council is now scheduled to take its FY27 budget vote on Wednesday, June 17, after voting today to postpone the decision by one week. The youth-jobs line is one of several disputed amendment items in the Council's negotiation with the Wu administration over the final budget.
This is a developing story.
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