“People didn't appreciate the results of the process, and it just felt like there was one goalpost after another,” Wu said, speaking publicly for the first time since the Senate's top leader said the chamber would not revisit the proposal this year.
“It's just sad to feel like this is the process that so much has to go through in every single meeting,” she added, noting that even after an agreement was reached, there was still the opportunity … to point out someone from outside factors , it didn't last in the end. So it’s hard for me to convey the feeling that I want to build trust in these processes.”
The City Council is expected to set next year's property tax rates for commercial and residential properties on Wednesday, without the changes sought by Wu.
The mayor announced in March that she would seek to increase taxes on commercial properties in the city after a slump following the COVID-19 pandemic caused commercial property values to decline along with the increase in remote work. Boston funds more than 70 percent of its $4.6 billion budget from property taxes, two-thirds of which comes from commercial real estate. Without a change to its tax plan, which requires approval from the state legislature, the city would either have to increase property taxes on homeowners and landlords or make drastic budget cuts.
Wu worked with business leaders and reached a compromise in October that would result in small tax rate increases for both residential property owners and commercial properties based on estimated property valuations. She told GBH on Wednesday that the parties “reached an agreement knowing that there are uncertainties in this process, precisely to ensure predictability and to give the city the proactive tools.”
The House approved the revised Wu proposal before Thanksgiving. But state Sen. Nick Collins, a South Boston Democrat, derailed the proposal in several rounds of votes, pointing to data released last week that showed lower-than-expected tax increases. After failing to advance for the third time on Monday, Senate President Karen E. Spilka issued a statement saying she would not put the bill up for a vote again.
“Now, eight months later – I just realized the other day that I wasn't pregnant when we started this process, and I'm about to emerge – we still haven't gotten a final vote on this from the Senate,” Wu told the Senate GBH.
Experts told the Globe that the difference between the preliminary estimates on which Wu based her compromise and the final numbers was not surprising. Arguing that the tax change is necessary regardless of the specific projections for this year, the mayor wrote to business leaders over the weekend that “this bill is necessary to ensure stability for the next three years during a time of continued uncertainty.”
She told GBH the new figures were within the range provided to business groups in the autumn of this year, when the city had more comprehensive data than before.
Asked whether Collins was referring to a “campaign of fear and manipulation” over the expected tax changes, Wu said that Collins had not previously expressed concerns about the plan and comments like his “may be misleading or misinformed.”
“When the senators from Boston sat at the table, the Senate president sat at the table, they invited the business groups to the table, and all the senators didn't say a word about individual changes they wanted to see,” Wu said Wednesday. “The instruction was to work it out with the business groups.”
But the revised forecasts were enough for business leaders to call for a pause on the new proposal and for key senators to withdraw their support. Groups like the Massachusetts GOP accused Wu of misleading the public. And on Tuesday night, Boston City Councilman Ed Flynn, the only city councilman to oppose the tax effort, called on the state's inspector general to investigate the discrepancy between the forecasts.
Wu, who has long fought the real estate industry while trying to make housing more affordable in Boston, said she attended meetings this year where “no one was invited to this table except me to speak specifically for the residents.” “.
“What's most heartbreaking is that the very people who will be most affected by this are used to this sort of thing happening, used to being ignored and cast aside and put off until a later date because of what big business interests say “It's not serious enough,” Wu said. “A lot of this is part of a larger process in which people who don’t have a direct interest in our neighborhood have a lot of say.”
Anjali Huynh can be reached at [email protected].
