Boston Mayor, City Council won't bow to political pressure

By Hacky Carp
City Editor

Vowing not to bow to political pressure, Mayor Marty Walsh and the Boston City Council today announced that they would consider carefully whether to approve a 29% retroactive pay increase for detectives that would cost the city $23 million on day one and an additional $9 million a year thereafter or instead to use that money to fund universal pre-kindergarten for poor Boston children.

The arbitrators' award also threatens a cascade of expensive labor contracts for other unionized city workers that could cost tens of millions more a year.

"We're not going to cave to political pressure from highly organized pressure groups like poor three-year-olds and their parents.  Instead, we're going to do what's best for the City, regardless of the political cost," Walsh said.

The Mayor's comments were intended to deflect concern that the detectives' undoubtedly well-deserved pay increase might be sacrificed to satisfy the demands of small children who need pre-kindergarten, both to prepare them for school and to allow their parents to seek gainful employment.

Boston pols promise they won't be swayed by armies of poverty-
stricken children trying to hijack the detectives' pay increase
for their own purposes

"I don't care how often little children and their mommies threaten to picket City Hall or my other events.  You can't buy or pressure me.  That's not how I roll," the Mayor added.

Newly-elected City Council President Michelle Wu said that she agreed this was a time for city political leaders to show courage.  She said that her professors at the prestigious Harvard Law School had prepared her to make these kinds of difficult choices based on their own extensive real-world experience.

Detectives' Union President James T. Burke told his members that their modest pay increase could be jeopardized by the pressure generated by politically-connected toddlers and poor single parents.  He said that he was confident that city leaders would ignore the unjustified demands of deprived children for a head start in life and that justice would prevail.  He remarked, "It always has."