Around a million people lined the streets from Copley Square to the Common on Saturday to watch 10,000-plus parade participants — many wearing colorful colors, some scantily clothed and wearing interesting costumes — celebrate LGBTQ pride.

“Given the state of national politics, the discourse around being queer, I felt like it was helpful for me to show up,” said Skylar Singer, a gay 24-year-old Cambridge resident.

“Here, I feel like I can be as queer as I want, and nobody is going to give me (expletive) for it,” he added.

Saturday’s parade marked the first organized by the group Boston Pride For The People.

The group formed last year after Boston Pride, an LGBTQ+ group that led the festivities for 50 years, dissolved in 2021 amid a boycott over issues relating to race, transgender inclusion and fundraising efforts. Many LBTQ residents across the city and region called this year’s festivities as the ‘most inclusive pride yet.’

Singer’s friend, Hannah Varden, 29, of Cambridge, also attended her first Boston pride parade, which she said proved to be a “much different experience” than a pride event she attended as a student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

“It seems like the city is more inclusive in regards to giving people the space to express themselves and offering not just more space,” Varden said, “but a variety of events that ultimately feel like there’s space for everyone, regardless of identity.”

Boston Pride For The People President Adrianna Boulin said her organization is based on four principles: commemoration of those who risked their lives for the freedoms of the community; education; empowerment; and celebration.

In working with the Boston Police Department, Boulin, speaking to reporters before the parade, said she didn’t expect any threats to the festivities. A vandal on Thursday spray painted a church in Jamaica Plain with “homophobic, violence and hateful graffiti,” while a transgender pride flag was recently burned in Brookline.

“Those events that have happened are extremely unfortunate,” Boulin said. “We feel really good about ensuring that everyone can celebrate and feel positive in this space together.”

Saturday also featured an all-ages festival with a main stage and vendors at the Boston Common, and a 21+ party at the City Hall Plaza with a second stage, beer garden and more vendors.

The sight of some parade participants made more than a handful of children look uncomfortable.

The attire of parade participants ranged greatly from some wearing just underwear and others mesh tops that made their breasts visible, with stickers covering their nipples. A few of the 250 organizations that had groups march dressed in leather outfits, wearing masks that resembled dogs.

A strong showing of politicians — U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Boston city councilors, Gov. Maura Healey, Mayor Michelle Wu — also walked the streets.

South End resident Brian Swett has been attending pride parades since 2009. On Saturday, he came with his wife and their 3- and 7-year-old sons.

“It’s not only to be supportive of the people walking in the parade,” Swett said, “but to establish for our kids who are both under 10 that this is normal, this is reality. They’ve grown up not knowing any different.”

An 8-4 Council vote to send Boston’s $4.2 billion operating budget back to the mayor, with roughly $74 million in amendments, was later overturned Wednesday when two city councilors reversed course at the last minute — preventing the required majority needed to pass the spending plan.

The flip-flop puts the City Council on a tight deadline. The body has until next Wednesday to submit a new operating budget to Mayor Michelle Wu, who will then choose which amendments to approve or veto.

“This budget, if passed and went over there, no mayor in their right mind is going to cut the police department $42 million,” said City Councilor Michael Flaherty. “We know that right now. So let’s make these changes in the working sessions. Let’s be realistic. Let’s be fair. Let’s pull it together.”

Prior to the initial vote, Flaherty spoke vehemently against the proposed police cuts, which included a $10 million reduction in overtime pay, saying that they amounted to “taking a meat cleaver” to public safety.

“Here’s the headlines tomorrow: Boston City Council amends mayor’s budget, cuts Boston Police Department by $42 million,” Flaherty said. “I don’t want to be a part of that.”

The body will have an opportunity to override the mayor’s vetoes, which requires a two-thirds majority, but it must pass a final operating budget by June 28, the last regular Council meeting before the new fiscal year begins on July 1.

If it fails to do so, the city would operate under a one-twelfth budget, a less-than-ideal situation, where department spending would be “level-funded” using last year’s numbers on a monthly basis until a new budget is passed, according to Flaherty.

The initial budget approval was overturned when Councilor Gabriela Coletta changed her “yes” vote to a “no” and Councilor Brian Worrell swapped his “yes” vote for a “present” near the end of Wednesday’s meeting, making the final tally, 6-5 — one fewer vote than the seven affirmative ones needed to pass the budget.

Coletta said in a Wednesday statement, that “upon deep review of today’s operating budget report from the Council, I decided to vote ‘no’ on the proposal.”

“The decision to make cuts to the city’s workforce in crucial basic service areas was a non-starter,” Coletta said. “In other instances, even the amendments filed were downsized when we look at the net loss from cuts applied disproportionately.

“It is my responsibility to advocate for resources and support quality-of-life improvements for my district, and I could not support this proposal.”

The city clerk said the operating budget will remain in the Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who plans to hold a number of working sessions before next Wednesday’s vote, to tweak amendments.

Fernandes Anderson said she wasn’t surprised by how the day’s budget vote went, mentioning that some councilors who opposed the final amendments weren’t present at many of the budget hearings. Twenty-eight of these public hearings have been held, she said.

City Councilor Julia Mejia said the overturned vote seemed to be a product of “behind the scenes” political maneuvers that included input from the mayor, who wasn’t present in the Council chambers.

She said that in 2020, the city had a mandate from the community to start allocating funds to issues like public health and mental wellness.

Mejia said the initial budget amendments, including the police department cuts, were the product of a participatory budgeting process, and that the Council needs to “listen to the community that put us in office.”

“I always say that this is not the mayor’s budget,” Mejia said. “This is the people’s budget. These are their tax dollars that pay our salaries. Our job is to listen to the people and do right by them.”

“There’s a review that happens,” she said when peppered on why the car’s lights were on crossing the intersection against a red light. She did say they were heading to “an engagement at the Copley Library. I didn’t end up making it there.

“It happened pretty fast,” she added. “I was on my phone and not really seeing what was happening as the blue lights were on at that intersection.”

Wu said she was unfamiliar with what the policy was regarding when police lights and sirens should be deployed, and did not answer questions, when asked directly if their use in this particular situation was appropriate.

The mayor did say, however, that the situation wasn’t an emergency.

The two-car crash occurred on Hyde Park Avenue, a spokesperson for the Boston Police Department said.

Wu praised police, including one working a detail nearby, and EMTs who rushed to help all involved — including passengers in the other vehicle in the crash.

A city spokesperson had confirmed the “mayor was a passenger in a vehicular crash” in a Tuesday night statement.

“Thankfully no one sustained any major injuries,” the Wu spokesperson said. “The Boston Police Department will conduct an investigation of the incident as they do with all crashes involving departmental motor vehicles.”

An incident report released on Wednesday morning didn’t identify the mayor by name, listing her only as a “passenger who is known to the Commonwealth.”

In the police report, the officer driving the mayor, Keyanna Smith, wrote that their unmarked cruiser was heading down Blakemore Street, and approaching Hyde Park Avenue, with its “lights and sirens activated.”

The officer stopped their car at a red light, and then “slowly approached the intersection to ensure that the oncoming traffic traveling outbound on Hyde Park Avenue” was able to “see and hear” the cruiser entering the intersection, the report stated.

The first lane of traffic “observed the cruiser’s lights and sirens and came to a complete stop,” but a car traveling down the second lane did not as the officer’s car was crossing through the intersection,” the report stated.

The black SUV, driven by a woman with her young son in the backseat, “collided into the driver’s side of the cruiser,” according to the report.

The report further states that the officer could not avoid the crash due to the “fast approach of the other vehicle,” which “did not stop or slow down for the cruiser’s lights and sirens.”

Wu stated that she felt a “minor pain to the right side of her body,” but declined medical attention at the scene. She was planning to potentially seek treatment at a later time, the report stated.

The woman driving the other car and her young son were taken by ambulance to a hospital. The woman had initially declined treatment, stating that they were both “alright,” the report stated.

The officer driving the mayor “felt pains to the left side of the body,” and was also taken to the hospital for treatment, according to the report.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, a BPD spokesperson said.

Flynn filed a hearing order for the Wednesday City Council meeting, that aims to foster discussion around reverting back to a pre-pandemic, in-person-only format for public officials taking part in municipal meetings.

Virtual accessibility would continue to be offered for the public and persons with disabilities, the order states.

An in-person format would support the local economy, Flynn’s office said Tuesday, by bringing back city board members and staffers, attorneys, project proponents and residents to meetings, some of whom are bound to visit restaurants, coffee shops and other businesses.

“Downtown Boston plays a key role in driving our economy,” Flynn said in a statement. “I am hoping for a productive conversation as we work to continue to bring foot traffic, business and vibrancy back onto our streets.”

The changes would impact the Zoning Board of Appeals, Licensing Board, Cannabis Board and Boston Planning and Development Agency, along with all other city boards and Council committees, the order states.

His office framed the proposal as a way to return to a “sense of normalcy,” citing reports that show foot traffic in the financial district downtown is a third of what it was in pre-pandemic years, and office vacancies are high there, at roughly 20%.

“Once again, local businesses are asking the government to do all that we can to support them, and I think it’s critical that the city continue to examine any and all ways to bring foot traffic back downtown,” Flynn said.

The order is the latest effort from Flynn to get public officials away from their computers and into City Hall for meetings.

In April, Flynn told city councilors to stop holding virtual meetings, in a memo that was sent out after a week’s worth of remote budget hearings were scheduled.

The suggestion did not go over well with some councilors, particularly those who have a longer commute into the downtown area.

City Councilors Ricardo Arroyo and Kendra Lara said at the time that more councilors participate in committee meetings when they’re held virtually.

Councilor-at-Large Erin Murphy said she would prefer that all hearings be held in person, however, stating in April that it provides for a more positive interaction.

“We’re seeing each other as humans, not just boxes in a screen,” Murphy said.

The John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science would move from the Roxbury campus it has shared for nearly four decades with Madison Park Technical Vocational High School to the West Roxbury site, allowing for an expansion of both schools, Mayor Michelle Wu said.

The plan, which requires approval from the Boston School Committee, would create a “state-of-the-art” STEM facility for grades 7-12 at the new O’Bryant campus. It would expand vocational offerings at Madison Park and allow seventh- and eighth-grade students to study there as well.

“The proposals that we’re putting out, they’re very big,” Wu said. “We’re talking about generational change at a scale that we haven’t seen in quite some time in our district. That can feel daunting.”

These changes, Wu said, are driven, in part, from the feedback of students and staff at O’Bryant and Madison Park, who said the space constraints have, “in many ways, held the schools back.”

“We have an opportunity here to make a transformative investment in our students and families, the future of our city,” Wu said.

Superintendent of Schools Mary Skipper said there has often been a tendency to “settle for incremental change in education,” which does not make much of a difference for students.

“I think our school system is indicative of that over the long haul,” Skipper said. “I think of the generations of students that settled. They settled and we don’t want our students to settle. We want them to thrive.”

The move would allow O’Bryant, one of the city’s three exam schools, to increase its enrollment by roughly 400 students, from 1,600 to 2,000, and it would give the school its own sports facilities and lab space, Wu said.

Today, O’Bryant admits half as many seventh-graders as ninth-graders due to space constraints, which prevents older students from acclimating to their new school environment, the mayor said.

The plan also calls for increasing the rigor of STEM education at O’Bryant.

City Councilor-at-Large Erin Murphy, however, criticized the plan, saying that the O’Bryant — which was already displaced once before, by Boston Latin Academy — was being used as “pawn” in a “larger master scheme.”

“Boston and BPS have plenty of buildings and sites to choose from that would not radically disrupt the O’Bryant’s long-standing connections to the neighborhoods, families and businesses that make it thrive,” Murphy said in a Tuesday statement.

Madison Park, the city’s only vocational school, could, in turn, take over the entire campus it now shares with O’Bryant. It would expand to include the seventh and eighth grade, more than doubling today’s enrollment of roughly 1,000, to accommodate 2,200 students, Wu said.

This would allow for more “public-facing interaction” and hands-on experience for students, like what’s seen at other technical schools across the state, the mayor said. Expanded vocational offerings would include a new aviation technology pathway through a partnership with JetBlue.

“This campus would become a full-service, around-the-clock resource for Roxbury and for the larger city, for young people and adult learners alike to have a space that they need right here on campus,” Wu said. “That means adult education and workforce training on-site.”

While the West Roxbury Education Complex was closed in 2019 due to its poor condition, per a School Committee vote, Wu and Skipper said the facility won’t need to be torn down and rebuilt prior to the move.

It will, however, need a complete gut renovation, “down to the studs,” to accommodate the influx of new students, officials said. This approach was deemed most feasible through a study completed on the building, Wu said.

The mayor said $18 million has been proposed in the city’s capital budget for project design, which will help to determine how much it will cost to renovate the West Roxbury facility. Another $45 million has been allocated for design on Madison Park, she said.

The city is aiming for construction to start on both projects in early 2025, but there’s no timeline for completion or when O’Bryant would be moved to the West Roxbury campus.

Jim Rooney, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, said his organization has long advocated for strategic investments in Madison Park that would help students and businesses.

“I’m here to tell you that this investment has the potential to be both life-changing and game-changing,” Rooney said.

Skipper also announced that Charlestown High School will become the city’s first “open enrollment high school,” which will offer early college and dual enrollment to every student, through a partnership with Bunker Hill Community College.

The vision, Skipper said, is that when students graduate, they will have stacked enough college credits to qualify for an associate’s degree.

This is similar to the Year 13 pilot program that was announced earlier this year for Fenway High School and the University of Massachusetts Boston, she said, “only this is on a magnitude much larger because this will impact all Charlestown High School students.”

Margarita Muñiz Academy, the city’s first dual-language high school, will also expand to include seventh- and eighth-grade students.

The city, with the help of a $4 million grant, is looking to bridge that gap by establishing a new workforce initiative designed to train and get 1,000 Boston residents hired into the life sciences industry by 2025, Wu announced Monday at the outset of the BIO International Convention in Boston.

“We are a city committed to innovation for community, for the good of our people and the good of the public,” Wu said. “We know that in the years ahead the regional life sciences industry will need thousands of new workers, and they continue to grow right here in Boston.

“And as the world’s leading life sciences hub, Boston must be prepared to meet that demand by drawing on the talent that lives right here in our city today. “

Standing alongside life science leaders in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Wu said the initial grant application round will seek proposals from organizations that are prepared to provide “industry-aligned training and education programs” to connect city residents to “good-paying life sciences jobs and career pathways.”

The city is particularly interested in applicants with programs that include internships and hiring commitments at life sciences companies, Wu said.

Further, these organizations should offer training opportunities for “in-demand positions” within this sector — which ranges from research and development to manufacturing products and services that rely on fundamental knowledge in biology, biochemistry and related science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, subjects.

They should seek to empower residents without four-year degrees, particularly workers of color, women and immigrants, “all of whom are underrepresented in the industry today and ready and eager from our communities to contribute,” Wu said.

The grant, which includes a combination of funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act and the city’s Neighborhood Jobs Trust, will also establish an “intermediary organization” that will provide additional support to workers, training providers and employers.

This support will be aimed at helping the relevant parties combat daily challenges like childcare and transportation, “to ensure that this inclusive pathway becomes a permanent fixture in the industry,” Wu said.

To combat the phenomenon of residents feeling “deeply disconnected” from the rapidly growing life sciences sector in their own backyard, Wu said the new initiative will also involve a public awareness campaign, to alert the community of potential career opportunities.

The American City Coalition, LabCentral Ignite and the Massachusetts Biotechnology Education Foundation are the funded partners for this campaign.

Massachusetts Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Lauren Jones spoke of how the new initiative, part of a city-state partnership that aims to ensure job opportunities in the life sciences sector, will expand opportunities “to prepare our untapped diverse talent.”

“This significant growth happening right here for the life sciences industry is in the city of Boston, and needs to connect to the city of Boston,” Jones said. “We cannot afford to leave anyone behind as the city grows and workforce needs remain in high demand.”

The new initiative has the support of the Healey-Driscoll administration, she added, describing it as a “win-win” for all those involved.

“We’re investing in the success of Boston residents, and also our workforce, and certainly supporting the needs of local employers,” Jones said. “We are unlocking assets that are right here in our backyard.”

Gaelle Akaliza, a coordinator in quality assurance at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, one of the state’s largest biotech employers, said her career was made possible through a similar workforce development program, called Year Up.

The first six months of training through this program, which describes itself as providing equitable access to economic opportunity and education for all young adults, regardless of their background or zip code, was “intensive,” Akaliza said.

The technology certifications, along with the business and communications skills she acquired through this initial training period led to an internship at Vertex, Akaliza said.

She later landed a position at the company and is now pursuing a degree in healthcare management and communication,“ she said.

“I joined Vertex because I wanted to help people,” Akaliza said. “I think that all these programs are here to help young people like me, and I think if we’re providing opportunities, and providing tools and resources to equip young adults like me, we’re creating a better future for all of us.”

Akaliza’s case is not unique at Vertex, although it would not have been possible at the company a few years ago, according to CEO Reshma Kewalramani.

In past years, “100%” of jobs at Vertex required at least a four-year college degree, a blanket requirement that Kewalramani said she was challenged to change by Year Up founder and CEO Gerald Chertavian.

Today, 400 “well-paying, very necessary roles” at Vertex don’t require a four-year degree, Kewalramani said, but they do require “skill, dedication, passion” and “attention to detail.”

“And our students have more than enough,” Kewalramani said. “We’re on our third class of Year Up students, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the partnership.”

The owners, who collectively represent five restaurants, requested that the May 2022 lawsuit be dismissed “without prejudice,” according to their attorney, Richard Chambers, who filed the motion to dismiss in U.S. District Court Wednesday.

“We have a hearing coming up and at this point, my client instructed me to dismiss the complaint,” Chambers said Friday, referring to Jorge Mendoza-Iturralde of Vinoteca di Monica. “I got him to the second level and for whatever reasons he doesn’t want to go forward.”

Chambers added that his client did not provide specifics on why he chose not to pursue the case, but said it was likely because “he was the only one fighting.”

“Nobody else is rallying around him,” Chambers said. “It’s just him. You know that old saying, taking on City Hall.”

Mendoza-Iturralde declined comment when reached by phone.

The decision to drop the case is something of an about-face for the restaurateurs, who opted to amend their initial complaint with the discrimination claim this past March, and chose to oppose the mayor’s motion to dismiss the case.

A city attorney had filed Wu’s motion to dismiss in January, which stated that the plaintiffs, as individuals, “do not have constitutional standing,” and failed to state any claim upon which relief can be granted.”

The restaurant owners had filed an opposition to the city’s motion, pointing to the “personal loss” each plaintiff had incurred as individuals “due to the fees Mayor Wu forced them to pay for outdoor dining.” A hearing on the matter was due to take place in two weeks, court documents show.

Wu and other city officials said the decision to impose a fee on North End owners was aimed at reducing quality of life burdens to residents, such as the increased noise, trash, traffic and loss of parking that came with outdoor dining there.

A further decision to ban on-street outdoor dining in the North End this year led to the group’s amended lawsuit in March. But the mayor’s choice was well-received by residents, with one person saying at a neighborhood meeting in February that it showed the city was “listening to us for once.”

A Wu spokesperson said in a statement Friday that the mayor’s administration “prides itself on implementing policies that make Boston’s neighborhoods great places to live and work, which is what drove our outdoor dining program across the city.”

“The charges in this lawsuit were completely without legal merit, and the plaintiffs are right to abandon their legal path to nowhere,” the spokesperson said. “We will continue dialogue with residents and restaurants across the city to improve outdoor dining, including in the North End.”

Chambers said Mendoza-Iturralde initially hired him because he was upset that restaurant owners had to pay a $7,500 fee to provide outdoor dining in the North End “and no one else in Boston did.”

Mendoza-Iturralde tried to rally big restaurants in the North End to oppose the city’s decision to charge an outdoor dining fee, along with $480 for parking, but those businesses “didn’t want to get on board for whatever reasons,” Chambers said.

His client was able to join with three other owners, his brother, Patrick Mendoza of Monica’s Trattorias; Carla Gomes of Terramia Ristorante and Antico Forno; and Jason Silvestri of Rabia’s Dulce Fumo, to collectively file suit.

These three owners did not respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit had argued that singling out the neighborhood for fees was based on Wu’s bias against “white, Italian men” and created “unfair” competition with the city’s other neighborhoods.

The group felt the mayor attacked them during her remarks at last year’s annual St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, which features politicians roasting one another with jokes.

Amid tension surrounding her decision to impose the outdoor dining fee, Wu had said, “I’m getting used to dealing with problems that are expensive, disruptive and white,” the Herald has reported.

The lawsuit pointed to what it described as common knowledge that the traditional owner of a restaurant in the North End “is a white male of Italian descent,” and to this area being “generally regarded as the last true ethnic Boston Italian neighborhood.”

In February, Wu opted to ban on-street outdoor dining in the North End this year, citing the increased traffic congestion expected to be brought on by the two-month Sumner Tunnel closure this summer and construction on the Washington Street Bridge.

North End restaurants with adequate sidewalk and private patio space can apply for an outdoor dining permit from the city, according to a prior statement from Wu’s office.

Originally submitted by Mayor Michelle Wu, the home rule petition allows candidates additional time to pick up and file nomination papers, June 13 and 23, respectively, and clarifies signature-counting procedures, in light of this month’s federal court ruling that threw out the city’s prior redistricting map.

Prior deadlines had already passed for district council candidates, who previously had until May 16 and 23 to obtain and file nomination papers. The Boston Elections Department now has until July 7 to certify signatures, compared to June 27 under the prior timeline, the legislation states.

The bill was approved by the House and Senate, and signed by Gov. Maura Healey on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the governor confirmed.

“We are grateful to the Legislature and governor for their swift action to ensure the Boston Elections Department can work to administer a full elections process within the revised timelines,” a Wu spokesperson said.

On the local level, the City Council approved the mayor’s home rule petition on May 17. A week later, the Council passed a new redistricting map, but the court may still need to weigh in on the revised voting lines before they go into effect.

While the legislation extends candidate filing deadlines for district council seats, it does not change the dates of the preliminary and municipal elections, which are scheduled for Sept. 12 and Nov. 7, respectively.

The new deadlines only apply to district councilor candidates. At-large candidates, who represent the entire city and were thus not impacted by redistricting changes, are still operating under the regular municipal election filing dates.

The bill also provides clarity for signature certification under the new voting lines.

Signatures submitted to the city’s Election Department prior to last week’s redistricting changes “shall be deemed valid,” as long as the signee was a registered voter “within either the new district or the district in which the candidate was initially running,” per last year’s now-enjoined map, the bill states.

Those who gathered at Puerto Rican Veterans Memorial Plaza in the South End addressed that complicated history this Memorial Day, while also paying tribute to the fallen Puerto Rican soldiers who served in the U.S. Armed Forces.

“It is no secret to anyone that these soldiers from the 65th Infantry Regiment made significant contributions to the history of the United States,” said Roberto Santiago, Boston’s commissioner of veterans services, standing alongside the nation’s first-ever memorial to Puerto Rican veterans on Monday.

Also known as the Borinqueneers, the all-Puerto Rican military regiment fought for the United States in both world wars, but made its most pivotal contributions in the Korean War, where the 65th was deployed for the first time as front-line troops.

In Korea, the 65th regiment was tasked with exterminating enemy detachments and waging guerilla warfare. These troops withstood the advance of the Chinese army long enough for allied forces to take up positions, said Santiago, the city’s first-ever Puerto Rican veterans services commissioner.

“We know that Puerto Ricans not only fought against foreign enemies in war, but they also faced discrimination, often from those that they served with,” Santiago said.

This complex history is due in part to Puerto Rico’s continued designation as a U.S. territory, and the past segregation of the U.S. military. Puerto Rican troops served in segregated military units until 1948, when this practice was officially outlawed in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Perhaps, as a result, it’s been an uphill battle for those seeking widespread recognition for Puerto Ricans who fought and died in battle for the United States.

“We are part of this country, regardless of what other people may think,” said Boston Police Deputy Superintendent Luis Cruz, who is Puerto Rican. “We are U.S. citizens and we shed blood. We’ve lost soldiers for this country.”

In Boston, it took 14 years of advocacy by the Puerto Rican community, particularly from Vietnam War veterans Antonio Molina and Jaime Rodriguez, to create the memorial that now stands in the South End.

“This iconic landmark began in 1999 with a plaque for the first 65th Infantry Regiment, the ones that made so many sacrifices during the Korean War,” said Molina, board president for the Puerto Rican Veterans Monument Square Association, which hosted the Memorial Day event.

And it was just two years ago, in 2021, that Congress proclaimed April 13 as a national holiday for Borinqueneers Day. It’s one of the most important holidays for Puerto Ricans, Santiago said.

Vanessa Calderón-Rosado, CEO of the South End nonprofit Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción, said her father served in the 65th U.S. Army Infantry Regiment during the Korean War, a unit that she said has become “an icon for Puerto Ricans.”

She spoke of how her father, who died two months ago at age 92, loved war movies and would often urge her to watch them, despite her distaste for the films.

This was important, Calderón-Rosado recalls her father as saying, “because we needed to learn from history so we wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes,” and “because we needed to honor those who fought for freedom and lost their lives.”

Calderón-Rosado also spoke of how her father would write two sets of letters during his time in Korea, a sanitized version to his mother that would assure her everything was going well, and a more honest version to his sister.

The latter talked about the difficulties of war, “the danger and the fear,” and included the names of those who died, she said.

“That story always made me think of the difficulties and hardship that our servicemen and women have endured during these conflicts,” Calderón-Rosado said. “And today, not only do we honor our veterans, but we honor those who never came home and whose names were sadly mentioned in letters like the ones my dad sent to his sister.”

Surely there must be some mistake here!

How dare the cops assume that a distinguished scholar like George Washington Williams IV “appeared to be under the influence of some narcotic” just because he got into a scuffle with the local constabulary late at night in an abandoned upper-floor office.

The world-renowned “social demographer,” who has beaten numerous minor raps over the years, has since been fired by The Man, in this case Mayor Michelle Wu.

That’s the bad news. The good news is, there are plenty of good candidates of color ready, willing and desperate to pick up the burden of this vitally important mission.

Two names immediately come to mind: Rachael Rollins and Monica Cannon-Grant.

Those two are certainly experts on reparations. Until recently, both had been grabbing the no-heavy-lifting big bucks from Mister Charlie practically forever, while simultaneously getting one slobbering wet kiss after another in print from all the rich suburban white ladies who dither for the Boston Globe and Boston Magazine.

But you know, didn’t you feel just a bit nostalgic the other day when you read the headline about Mr. Reparations getting lugged:

“HANDCUFFED IN CITY HALL”

Ah, the good old days. Once upon a time, “reparations” at City Hall was considered a private endeavor, one shakedown, one shady flim-flam at a time. You could aim for the stars and steal a disability pension, or settle for lifting a mere three-digit license plate.

Anything was considered fair game for sticky fingers, as long as it wasn’t nailed down.

The only unwritten rule was that you had to try to be inconspicuous about it. That’s what George Washington Williams IV couldn’t seem to figure out. His most significant faux pas was hanging out in the building after 5 p.m. — do you know how suspicious that looks?

More than 40 years ago, then-Mayor Kevin White once mused on the greatest physical danger faced by anyone inside Boston City Hall.

“It’s standing in front of one of the elevators on the first floor at 4:58,” he’d say, putting his hands up in front of his face as if to protect himself. “You could be trampled to death by all my people stampeding out of the building!”

In the aftermath of the COVID scam, just coming to work, period, is a red flag, anywhere. And yet this bum thought he could get away with basically living in the Hall, not to mention burning what the cops diplomatically called “sage” in the deserted offices where he was flopping.

For future reference for all aspiring hacks out there, the rule is that it’s okay to set up your scores in public places. (But be careful about “memorializing” your plans in texts or on phones, am I right Rachael?). But to commit the actual crime, you leave the building. It’s just common sense.

Mayor White had a budget director from Brighton named Billy McNeill — Squawker was his nickname. Squawker decided to “take a fall” and go out on disability. He claimed he slipped on a patch of ice.

The only problem was, he said the patch of ice was inside City Hall. Squawker went to prison.

Remember John M. Lynch, a career City Hall payroll patriot. Vacationed briefly at Club Fed in 2020 after taking bribes from a real-estate developer.

The G-men showed the traditional candid-camera photos in court. But Lynch was grabbing the cash as he leaned into a car, outside, not at City Hall. The photos were perfect — natural lighting is always the best.

For another example, Sen. Dianne Wilkerson did not stuff the Benjamins into her bra at the State House. No, she walked down to No. 9 Park where she also enjoyed a free meal on the undercover fed.

Likewise, City Councilor Chuck “Superfly” Turner took his “preacher’s handshake” at what he termed his “district office” in Roxbury.

The point is, you don’t transact business in your own office. Not monkey business, anyway. I mean, if you really want to do it right, you have a bagman. That’s what Hunter Biden is, or was, for the Big Guy. It’s all spelled out right there on his laptop.

Way back, there was a city councilor from East Boston named Jim Coffey. His moniker was, “I’ll Take a Buck.” But not at City Hall.

When Rep. Julius Ansell, whose heart belonged to Ward 14, was elected to the state Senate in a special election in 1965, he publicly announced in his victory speech: “The price is going up!”

So you can be public about what you are. When Whitey Bulger owned the South Boston Liquor Mart, during election season the local statesmen vied to have their signs up in his front window. It was the imprimatur of… something.

If Whitey liked ya, pal, that meant ya could get the job done.

I know a guy from Ward 18 who lives in Florida now. He told me once about how he got the hack job he’d always dreamed of after the 1979 mayor’s fight. Kevin had put him on at the Boston Retirement Board. He was “working” for Louise Day Hicks in her dotage.

“I never could believe I’d finally gotten to City Hall,” he told me once. “But then, one day a bunch of FBI agents barged in. They had a search warrant and they took all of our files, dragged everything out of the office.” He paused to smile, as he recalled the magic moment. “That was when I knew, I’d made it.”

He had arrived. And now George Washington Williams IV has departed.

Sic transit Gloria mundi….

Given the pending lawsuit, the city plans to inform the U.S. District Court that a new map has been passed on Tuesday, a Wu spokesperson said Friday.

No further action is needed on the municipal level, but the plaintiffs who filed suit against the City Council and the federal judge who tossed the map the Council passed last fall for constitutional violations may also need to sign off on the new redistricting ordinance.

“I think the plaintiffs do have to weigh in,” said Glen Hannington, an attorney for the group of residents who filed the lawsuit. “I think we agree in principle that no map is perfect. But the plaintiffs’ concerns were heard loud and clear.

“It seems that the Council has rallied and built consensus based on the redistricting principles and protecting communities of interest. That being said, where we had several plaintiffs, we have to make sure that everybody’s satisfied and we’re heading in the right direction.”

A contentious redistricting process concluded this past Wednesday, when the City Council voted to approve a new map put forward by Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune, via a 10-2 vote.

The map incorporated input from councilors who took part in three lengthy working sessions leading up the final vote, where the body aimed to redraw lines to satisfy the terms of this month’s federal court order.

A U.S. District Court judge found that the City Council had likely violated the Constitution by factoring race into the re-drawing of city lines, particularly along the borders of Districts 3 and 4, where four majority-white South Dorchester precincts were moved from D3 to D4 in the prior map.

The ruling barred that map’s use in the November election, forcing the Council to scramble to pass a new map by May 30, to avoid a delay to the Sept. 12 primary. The new map undoes that prior change, keeping those four precincts in District 3, while also achieving population balance in all nine city districts.

Hannington said the new map satisfies “95%” of the concerns raised in the lawsuit, which is still pending in federal court. The plaintiffs may want to tweak some parts of the redistricting ordinance, he said, but “we’ve come a long way.”

He added, however, that although the parties in the lawsuit may agree on the new voting lines, the “court still has to be somewhat satisfied.” The judge’s opinion, he said, “did make note of several issues that the City Council shouldn’t have done.”

Complicating matters is the potential for further legal action from several community groups collectively calling themselves the “Coalition,” which filed an “intervention motion” to enter into the pending lawsuit.

A court date has not been set for the motion, which is opposed by the original plaintiffs who filed suit against the City Council and Mayor Wu, Hannington said.

“It does not appear that any of the proposed intervenors can make a showing that they have the type of interest in this litigation that is necessary to intervene as of right,” Hannington wrote in a Wednesday court filing opposing the motion.

The Coalition voiced its displeasure with the city’s new redistricting map in a Wednesday statement, but did not indicate that it would take further legal action.

“We will continue to look for bright spots in the map adopted,” the Coalition stated.

“They’re still ongoing investigations,” Police Commissioner Michael Cox said from the media room at headquarters Thursday afternoon when questioned by a reporter about the spate of gun violence in broad daylight so far this week, adding that even “one act of violence is too many.”

“This is not the city for that,” Cox said about the gun violence. “We are capturing people that are committing crimes in our city. … Come here to live, not to commit violence or to bring guns or have firearm-related incidents here. And if you do it, we’re going to do all we can to make sure we separate you from the rest of the folks that are trying to live a good life here.”

Just earlier in the day, the BPD had identified Daniel Mayers, 33, of Haverhill, as the man shot to death while sitting in his vehicle near Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School on Monday.

Mayor Wu took a moment to reflect on what she had learned about Mayers from a statement his family had sent out: He was, she said, “a beloved uncle and son and someone who was active in his church as a pastor and a longtime Boston Public School employee and public servant.”

Cox then reiterated a point he made throughout the press conference, that if a community member sees or knows something, the police encourage the public to reach out and to become a community “partner” to the police to make the streets safer.

Year-to-date, or as of the most recent statistics from May 4, Cox said, the city is down three shooting victims from the same period last year.

“Unfortunately, our homicides are up through that same period, and we have a lot to do to make sure these numbers don’t rise,” he said, and he said that what makes this upcoming summer season different are several factors.

“We’re coming out of COVID, all the restrictions have gone away,” he said, adding that air travel has largely returned to pre-pandemic levels and a lot more indoor and outdoor activities are taking place, making for “a lot more opportunities for people to come together in good ways and also, necessarily, bad ways if they don’t always get along.”

Two newer BPD deputy superintendents also shared steps they were taking to make for safer boating and water activities and cracking down on people Deputy Superintendent Pam Harris, who was promoted to run the Bureau of Field Services last month, described as “revelers” who terrorize the streets on dirtbikes and other equipment.

“The goal is to make the 2023 summer to be the most fun and active, joyful and healthy summer,” Wu said after thanking the police for keeping Boston among the safest major cities. “Our goal is to make spaces for people to gather safely and in community in as many places as possible with as few barriers as possible.”

Boston Police officers were called to City Hall at around 9:40 p.m. Thursday and met with members of the City Hall Municipal Protective Services who reported that an employee was trespassing in an office upstairs.

That employee was George Williams, 35, who the MPS officers said they had been having trouble with for the past three weeks, “with him trespassing in the building after hours, and at times becoming aggressive and threatening to other staff members inside of City Hall,” according to the police report of the incident.

The Task Force was established by unanimous vote in December 2022 by City Council and is made up of 10 members, “including two youth voices,” according to its City website page. The group is “working with a research partner to release a study on the legacy of slavery in Boston and its impact on descendants today” and to provide recommendations to the mayor “for reparative justice solutions for Black residents.”

Williams is one of two administrative staff, with the title “Project Coordinator.” His resume, which was shared on his LinkedIn page, states he worked on the Ayanna Pressley for Congress campaign in 2018 and also worked in 2010 as the assistant to the policy director in Pressley’s office when she was a city councilor. He was awarded a master’s in sociology from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2016.

The city has disclosed that he was fired following the arrest.

“He was a part-time contractor. His contract has been terminated,” Ricardo Patron, press secretary for Mayor Michelle Wu, told the Herald in a statement. “We remain committed to the work of the Reparations Task Force and that work will continue.”

That Thursday night, the MPS staff told BPD officers that they often found Williams entering the building after hours — which he was not allowed to do, they said — and bypass metal detectors and security to then sleep in offices on the upper floors. They also said that he was known to burn sage in the building, which they feared was a fire hazard.

Police allegedly located Williams in an upstairs office — which office is redacted in the police report — burning sage and incense. When they told him he needed to leave, the report adds, “he sat up without responding and appeared to be under the influence of some sort of narcotic.”

The next part of the report describes a series of alleged “unusual and uncooperative behavior” on the part of Williams:

That behavior includes: Williams, ignoring officers’ continued directions for him to leave, “stood up and started moving things around the office.” When a 5-foot, 3-inch officer picked up his backpack, Williams, described as 6 feet, 4 inches, allegedly “lunged” at her in an attempt to “snatch it back.”

Later, he allegedly picked up a broom and dustpan and began to clean before officers took the broom away, and then Williams allegedly “took the dustpan and shoved” it into an officer’s chest “and then swept, with his hands, dust and debris from the floor onto (the officer’s) shoes and uniform pants.” Finally, he allegedly took a wrapped and rolled-up rug and began to unwrap it to arrange it in the office.

The report indicates that throughout the encounter, “Williams attempted to make deliberate physical contact upon Officers” and that when they eventually moved to arrest him, “it took several Officers to hold and control Williams while he was being placed in handcuffs.”

When taken to the District A-1 police station for booking, the police report notes that he was cooperative.

A last-minute compromise over District 4 and 5 changes, the subject of a bitter exchange that saw councilors arguing for more than six hours on Tuesday, appeared to be a contributing factor to the final, lopsided vote.

Three councilors who voiced dissent Tuesday over a Mattapan precinct that would have been moved from District 5 to District 4 voted in favor of the amended map that Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune brought before the body Wednesday — which undid the change she had initially proposed for that precinct, 14-14.

Voting in opposition were Councilors Kendra Lara and Julia Mejia.

“This was obviously a very contentious process,” Louijeune said. “Whenever legislators are drawing lines there’s a lot at stake for people individually. And you always have to remember to center what’s most important to the voters.”

The City Council was able to reach consensus on a new redistricting map just in time to avoid a delay to the Sept. 12 preliminary election. Mayor Michelle Wu had informed the body that it had until May 30 to take action on a new map, and had even offered her own redistricting proposal to try to move the process forward.

Wu’s map, along with two other proposals put forward by Councilors Lara and Michael Flaherty, were dismissed by Louijeune, who chaired the civil rights committee meetings where the new district lines were drawn.

The final map was built from one that Louijeune had proposed and incorporated input from her colleagues. If approved by Wu, the new voting lines will be in effect for the next 10 years.

“We plan on reviewing this new map shortly and are thankful for the Council’s intensive work to reach consensus on a tight timeline, especially the leadership of committee chair Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune,” a Wu spokesperson said in a Wednesday statement.

Part of what made this particular redistricting process so difficult, according to Councilor Liz Breadon, is the city’s “desperate need” to re-precinct.

When upwards of 7,000 people are living in one precinct, she said, it creates ripple effects throughout the rest of the map when any precinct is moved. The new map achieves population balance in each of the city’s nine districts, based on data that indicates the ideal population should be roughly 75,000.

“Re-precincting once every 100 years is not going to cut it right now,” Breadon said. “We need to do it much more frequently.”

A notable change made to Louijeune’s map, brought forward as an amendment on Wednesday, shifted precinct 17-13 from District 4 to District 3, thus keeping “the boot,” or the South Dorchester precincts of 16-8, 16-11, 16-12 and 17-13 in District 3. This was advocated by District 3 Councilor Frank Baker.

The Council’s decision to move these four majority-white precincts from D3 to D4 last fall factored into the federal judge’s ruling earlier this month. The court threw out the map the Council approved last year, via a 9-4 vote, saying that the body had likely violated the Constitution by factoring race into how city lines were redrawn.

Plaintiffs had argued the changes to these four precincts would dilute the Black vote in D4, while advocates said the changes were made with the aim of  not “packing” Black voters in D4.

Two other South Dorchester precincts, 16-1 and 16-3, were also moved from District 4 to 3, as proposed by Louijeune, a move that councilors said was aimed at keeping the Vietnamese community of Little Saigon together. Another South Dorchester precinct, 15-1, was moved from D3 to D4.

The new map keeps the South End precincts of 8-1 and 9-1 in District 2, as proposed by Council President Ed Flynn, thus keeping these “affordable housing” precincts together with the Chinatown neighborhood.

The Chinese Progressive Association had consistently advocated for this change, appearing at nearly every meeting where redistricting was on the agenda.

The final map moved the Mattapan precinct of 14-14 from District 4 to 5, a change that District 5 Councilor Ricardo Arroyo advocated for during Tuesday’s marathon redistricting session.

Arroyo had indicated that he would not support the map if that precinct remained in District 4. Such a change, he said, would have eliminated D5 as an “opportunity district,” which allows communities of color to elect candidates of their choice.

He did not get his way, however, on keeping the Roslindale precincts of 18-7 and 19-12, which got shifted to District 4.

Two other majority-Roslindale precincts, 20-1 and 20-8, stayed in District 5, as proposed by Louijeune, despite opposition from Arroyo and Lara, who said both should be in Lara’s district, 6, to unite the Roxbury neighborhood.

Flaherty suggested Tuesday, citing community feedback and recent news regarding the investigation into former U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins, that Arroyo and Lara’s desire to move precinct 20-8 from District 5 was “political payback.”

DA Kevin Hayden lives in the precinct, and defeated Arroyo there by nearly a 2-1 margin in last year’s primary for Suffolk District Attorney.

Arroyo and Lara both dismissed the assertion as a “conspiracy theory.”

Lara, who voted against the final map, remarked that Breadon, who chaired last year’s redistricting process, did not “capitulate to the status quo,” and was “willing to make changes that were going to empower some of our most marginalized communities.”

This part of the process did not reflect that work, Lara said.

It’s not a perfect map, Flaherty said, and not everyone’s happy. But that’s not necessarily a poor outcome, he said.

“That tends to show that it’s a good map because not everybody got what they wanted,” Flaherty said. “Let’s put this in the rear-view mirror and move forward.”

Five councilors voiced their dissent Tuesday with a handful of precinct changes the map tentatively agreed upon a day earlier would make in District 5, saying that they would undo decades of advocacy to make D5 an “opportunity district,” which allows communities of color to elect a candidate of their choice.

The most vocal opposition came from City Councilors Ricardo Arroyo and Kendra Lara, who stated that the new proposal could land the City Council, which saw the map it approved last fall thrown out for constitutional violations, back in court.

“The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits any redistricting plans that result in the dilution of minority voting strength,” said Arroyo, who represents District 5.

Arroyo and Lara spoke at length about their dissatisfaction with the removal of Mattapan precincts, 14-5 and 14-14 from District 5. Both were moved into District 4, which, notably, was supported by that district’s councilor, Brian Worrell.

The pair was also unhappy with plans to put the majority-Roslindale precincts of 20-1 and 20-8 in D5, which they felt should be placed in Lara’s district, 6, to unite the West Roxbury neighborhood.

“I cannot support this map,” Arroyo said. “I don’t know how it would survive a lawsuit.”

Similar dissent was voiced by three other councilors, Liz Breadon, Julia Mejia and Tania Fernandes Anderson.

Councilor Ruthzee Louijuene, who chaired the day’s civil rights committee, said, however, that she didn’t think the changes would eliminate District 5’s status as an opportunity district. The map that was tentatively agreed upon Tuesday was built from a proposal she had put forward and incorporated input from her colleagues.

In addition to Louijeune and Worrell, the proposed map appeared to have the support of City Council President Ed Flynn and Councilors Frank Baker, Erin Murphy, and Michael Flaherty. Gabriela Coletta indicated on Monday that she was in favor of the map, stating that it was a “truly a compromise.”

Although there was vast disagreement during Tuesday’s six-plus-hour working session, no changes were made to the map put forward the prior day, leaving councilors on both sides noticeably frustrated.

“I’ve compromised and people saying that I’m not compromising is kind of disingenuous,” said District 3 Councilor Frank Baker. “I have what, seven moves here now, more than everybody, and I’ve accepted precincts.

“It took a federal court suit, court action for you guys to pay attention to District 3, which I was part of, which I proudly helped to fund and will continue to fund. Don’t forget. We won. You guys were wrong. Didn’t pay any attention to me.”

The new map would keep “the boot,” the South Dorchester precincts of 16-8, 16-11, 16-12 and 17-13, in District 3, by moving 17-13 from D4, as proposed by Louijeune, to D3. The move was advocated by Baker and drew some opposition on Tuesday.

The Council’s decision to move these four majority-white precincts from D3 to D4 last fall factored into the federal judge’s ruling. Plaintiffs had argued the changes would dilute the Black vote in D4, while advocates said the changes were made with the aim of not “packing” Black voters in D4.

“Let’s be honest here — we’re talking about two precincts,” Baker said. “It’s only a matter of time before we are going to need to say OK, let’s not do this. Let’s push the election back.

“Is that what we want to do? We want to push the election back, because that’s what it seems like if we can’t agree on two precincts on the other side of the room, when there’s people that have to take on seven precincts or more.”

The City Council must pass a new map by May 30 to avoid a delay to the Sept. 12 preliminary election. Louijeune said she would incorporate the day’s testimony into a new map that she would bring before the body for a Wednesday vote.

A marathon session marked by disagreement and lengthy recesses concluded Monday with a map built from a proposal put forward by Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune that incorporated input and changes suggested by her colleagues.

It redraws lines in a way that achieves population balance for each of the city’s nine districts, based on data that shows the ideal population is 75,071 but allows for a range of roughly 71,500 to 78,500 people in each district.

“No one’s going to be happy 100% of the time, but at least we can say that this was truly a compromise,” said City Councilor Gabriela Coletta.

While the tentative agreement was reached, the map wasn’t finalized. Louijeune, who chaired the day’s civil rights committee meeting, said there is still work that needs to be done to resolve the conflict that took place Monday over changes made in districts 4 and 5.

A new map has to be approved by the City Council by May 30 to avoid a delay to the Sept. 12 preliminary election.

Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, in particular, took issue with changes made to his district, 5, and wasn’t in the room when consensus was reached. At one point, he said the changes made to District 5 were “pretty bad,” and that he wasn’t seeing any of his input reflected in the new map.

He spoke specifically about “massive changes” that would remove “half of the Mattapan precincts out of District 5,” which he said would dilute that neighborhood’s ability to choose their candidates.

He also pointed to the federal judge liking prior changes made by the City Council in a map that was thrown out earlier this month for constitutional violations, which kept the Roslindale precincts of 18-7 and 19-12 in District 5.

The final changes unveiled at the end of Monday’s session, however, aligned with Louijeune’s initial map proposal, which put those precincts in District 4. The district’s councilor, Brian Worrell, said he supported the map as presented.

The new map would also place the South End precincts of 8-1 and 9-1 back in District 2, thus keeping those precincts together with the Chinatown neighborhood, as representatives from the Chinese Progressive Association advocated for.

Council President Ed Flynn appeared to oppose the changes, which differed from Louijeune’s initial map proposal, at last Friday’s meeting, but said Monday that he is proposing those two precincts stay in District 2.

The new map would also keep “the boot,” the South Dorchester precincts of 16-8, 16-11, 16-12 and 17-13, in District 3, by moving 17-13 from D4, as proposed by Louijeune, to D3.

“I’m as happy as I guess I could be,” said District 3 Councilor Frank Baker. “I like the fact that the boot is back in.”

The Council’s decision to move these four majority-white precincts from D3 to D4 last fall factored into the federal judge’s ruling. Plaintiffs had argued the changes would dilute the Black vote in D4, while advocates said the changes were made with the aim of not “packing” Black voters in D4.

The new Council map would keep all of Ward 16 in District 3, which according to Coletta is what the federal judge ordered the body to do, and helps District 2 shed population to achieve balance.

At the outset, District 2 had been overpopulated, and was still 10,000 people over at the end of Friday’s session, while Districts 3 and 4 were underpopulated.

“As we’re going through the conversation of what it means to be able to hit population balance in a way that is compact, contiguous, and considers communities of interest,” Coletta said, this map “is getting there.”

Earlier disagreement on Monday, and in prior sessions, threatened to derail the process to approve a new map by month’s end.

The contention prompted City Councilor Julia Mejia to suggest that political interests and alliances among her colleagues were undermining the redistricting process.

“It is a reason why people don’t trust government,” Mejia said. “And I’m really hopeful that we’re going to get to where we need to be by putting the work ahead of politics and above personalities and above political favors and all that sort of stuff.

“Because this is something that’s going to impact our people for the next 10 years, and I am hopeful that my colleagues are moving with the best interest of what this exercise is about, and that’s the people.”

Four different redistricting maps were brought forward for discussion Friday, but Ruthzee Louijeune, chair of the Council’s civil rights committee, opted to dismiss proposals from Mayor Michelle Wu and two other councilors, in favor of using her own map as a “starting point.”

“My map makes the fewest number of changes when compared to the baseline map and the enacted, now enjoined, map,” Louijeune said.

Louijeune said her map was created with this month’s federal court ruling in mind. It addresses the constitutional violation that occurred on the border of districts 3 and 4, thus also resolving the “domino effect” that took place throughout the rest of the defunct map the City Council approved last fall, via a 9-4 vote, she said.

“You look at that domino effect and you see where the changes were made,” Louijeune said. “This is what guided this map, and why there are so few changes when compared to other maps.”

The decision, however, was met by some grumbling by her colleagues, particularly from Councilor Kendra Lara, who said the map she put forward was less disruptive than Louijeune’s proposal.

Lara said that while fewer residents would be moving to a new district in Louijeune’s map, “you’re making changes to a lot more districts than I am.” Further, Lara said her proposal would unite more neighborhoods than the one put forward by the committee chair.

“The sacred cow is the Constitution,” Lara said. “We have to follow the one person, one vote clause. I think there are significantly more issues with being in alignment with the principles of redistricting with your map than mine. I don’t think this is an appropriate starting off point for this body.”

Louijeune also dismissed maps put forward by the mayor and Councilor Michael Flaherty, saying that there were too many changes that needed to be made in both.

Mayor Wu’s map would move 109,003 people into a different district, Councilor Liz Breadon noted, comparing the changes to the higher “core retention” of 92.7% in the map thrown out by a U.S. District Court judge.

Councilor Frank Baker, however, stated that the enjoined map from last fall would have made significant changes to his district, 3, and resulted in 45% new voters.

“I like the fact that it shares the pain,” Baker said of the mayor’s map changes. “This puts District 3 all in Dorchester.”

Lara disagreed, stating, “The assertion that we all need to feel a little pain is not correct. We need to work toward a balanced population.”

She advocated for essentially no changes to her district, 6, which she said was “basically balanced,” according to data provided at Friday’s Council hearing, which showed that the ideal population for each district was roughly 75,000.

District 2 is overpopulated, while districts 3 and 4 are underpopulated, the data show.

The changes made in Flaherty’s map, she said, would have moved her out of district 6. Flaherty said he was not aware that Lara had moved, and would amend the relevant changes in his proposal.

“It’s not required that everyone have changes in their district,” Lara said. “I think it’s in our best interest to protect ourselves legally, and focus on changes where the judge said we should.”

Notably, the mayor’s map altered many of the contentious changes made by the Council in districts 2, 3, 4 and 5, which the federal judge wrote were “significant to the current dispute,” in her ruling earlier this month.

The court had found the Council likely violated the Constitution by factoring race into the establishment of the prior map, which led to a lawsuit from a group of residents.

Flaherty and Baker both advocated for “the boot,” or the South Dorchester precincts of 16-8, 16-11, 16-12 and 17-13, to stay in District 3. Maps put forward by both Lara and Louijeune kept all of Ward 16 in District 3, but placed 17-13 in District 4.

The Council’s decision to move these four majority white precincts from D3 to D4 last fall factored into the federal judge’s ruling. Plaintiffs had argued the changes would dilute the Black vote in D4, while advocates said the changes were made with the aim of not “packing” Black voters in D4.

After input, councilors agreed, for now, to keep 17-13 in District 3.

Louijeune also suggested keeping the Roslindale precincts of 18-7 and 19-12 in District 4, but Councilor Ricardo Arroyo said the federal judge liked the prior changes made in the defunct map, which would have moved them to his district, 5, thus unifying that neighborhood.

Another spat took place over District 2 changes, with Council President Ed Flynn asserting that Breadon’s input led to the South End precincts of 8-1 and 9-1 being placed back into D2. Louijeune’s working map had put them in D3.

“I was not asked for my input,” Flynn said. “I’m disappointed by what took place here, with another district councilor making decisions for what’s happening in my district.”

Breadon, however, said the changes were based on community input from prior redistricting sessions, particularly from Chinatown residents who stressed the importance of keeping their neighborhood together in District 2 with “South End affordable housing precincts” of 6-1, 8-1 and 9-1.

After three hours of debate, Baker said the Council should have opted to use the current 2012 map as a baseline instead, which “has us much closer than this one does.” District 2, he said, would still be overpopulated by roughly 10,000 people.

“I hate to complicate this further,” Baker said. “I just don’t want this getting worse. We’re kind of going down a rabbit hole here.”

The Council must pass a new map by May 30, to avoid a delay to the Sept. 12 preliminary election.

Arroyo told reporters Friday that he had no knowledge that Rollins was leaking sensitive information on his behalf, and denied pressuring the state’s top prosecutor to investigate his primary opponent.

“I never asked her to do this,” Arroyo said. “And this report makes clear that there’s no evidence of that fact.”

Arroyo sought to distance himself from Rollins in his latest interview, marking a change in tone from the statement he released two days earlier, when he described her as a longtime friend he often sought out for advice and counsel.

He described Rollins’ actions as “unethical,” and said her decision to step down as U.S. Attorney was “appropriate,” given the violations highlighted in two bombshell reports released by the feds this past Wednesday. Rollins submitted her letter of resignation to President Biden on Friday.

Arroyo said the blame lies solely with Rollins, and that he has no intention of resigning from the Boston City Council.

“I’ve read both of these federal investigation reports,” Arroyo said. “They totaled nearly 300 pages. And none of them allege any wrongdoing on my part, or misconduct on my part.

“To be clear, neither one of those reports allege that I ever asked her to do the things that she did, nor did I know that she was doing the things that she did.”

Further, despite documented texts that suggest otherwise, Arroyo denied that he discussed ways to advance his campaign for Suffolk District Attorney with Rollins, or that he asked her to investigate his primary opponent, then-interim Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden.

One such text Arroyo sent to Rollins last Aug. 22 ahead of the Sept. 6 primary read, “Are y’all conducting an investigation into (the police misconduct case) situation with Hayden. Would be the best thing I can have happen at this moment.”

Rollins quickly responded to Arroyo, “Understood. Keep fighting and campaigning. I’m working on something.”

This, according to Arroyo, was simply an inquiry about whether an investigation would be conducted, given that there was a “major story in the Globe about a police misconduct case.”

“At the time, there was a lot of calls for an investigation,” Arroyo said. “My request was whether or not there was any actually being done or if there’s any announcements coming. I never once pressured her to conduct an investigation.

“I never asked her to leak anything about an investigation. I didn’t even have that information.”

Arroyo said he was not aware Rollins was leaking non-public information to the media in an attempt to tip the scales in his favor.

The leaks, the report states, led to the Boston Globe running pre-primary stories that were damaging to Hayden. The Herald chose not to publish the leaked information until after the primary.

After Hayden prevailed in the primary, Rollins texted Arroyo, stating, “He will regret the day he did this to you. Watch,” according to the report.

Rollins then “sought to damage Hayden’s reputation” by leaking sensitive DOJ information to reporters at both the Globe and Herald “that suggested the possibility of a federal criminal investigation into Hayden, a matter from which Rollins was recused,” the report states.

Arroyo said that he communicated with Rollins via WhatsApp messenger and regular text messaging. The report states that the two also started communicating through an encrypted messaging service, which prevents anyone from reading or listening to the correspondence, last Aug. 19.

“There’s a lot of insinuation and a lot of allegations being thrown around, I think, that’s very political in folks who are doing that,” Arroyo said. “But in terms of what this report actually says, it never actually insinuates or says that I asked her or even knew that she was conducting this, these kinds of things.”

City Council President Ed Flynn told reporters Friday that he was not calling for “any type of sanction against” Arroyo, such as stripping him of committee leadership positions, and is not calling upon him to resign.

“But I do think that it is important for Councilor Arroyo to acknowledge these serious accusations,” Flynn added, “and have a discussion with his constituents and the residents and his colleagues.”

Councilor-at-Large Erin Murphy said the alleged ethical violations revealed in Wednesday’s Department of Justice report were “disturbing.”

She called for “swift and appropriate consequences” for Councilor Arroyo, and joined Council President Ed Flynn in saying that city constituents “have a right to more ethical representation.”

Arroyo, in his own statement, said that the bombshell report, while “sad and unfortunate” did not point to any wrongdoing on his part. He told 7News that he was “absolutely not resigning” from the City Council.

“Attempts to influence the outcome of an election by a federal official with as much power as U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins are outrageous,” Murphy said in a Thursday statement. “According to the federal report, residents of Suffolk County had their election tampered with in ways extremely unethical, as well as potentially in violation of state and federal laws. Enough is enough.”

Murphy added that she was “beyond disappointed to read” that her colleague, Councilor Arroyo, “apparently eagerly welcomed Rollins’ election tampering in order to advance his campaign for DA.”

“As an attorney and current representative of Suffolk County residents in District 5, Ricardo Arroyo, quite simply, should have known better,” Murphy said. “This was evidenced and demonstrated by the initiation of an encrypted messaging system, and willful engagement in diversion of our democratic process. He must face swift and appropriate consequences.”

Flynn added in his own statement, “As elected officials, the people of Boston deserve strong and ethical leadership when placing us in positions of trust.”

“Recent reports and troubling information has once again cast a shadow over the Boston City Council, causing a major distraction during both the budget and redistricting process,” Flynn said. “This is hurting our city at a critical time, and the residents of Boston deserve better.”

The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance was more blunt in calling for Arroyo’s immediate resignation from the City Council on Thursday.

In a letter to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, MassFiscal requested an investigation into the report’s findings, to determine if Arroyo “broke state campaign finance regulations by coordinating his attacks against his political opponent leading up to an election” with Rollins.

“Former U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins’ attempts to bolster Arroyo’s campaign by investigating his rival was clearly a contribution of value designed to boost his candidacy,” MassFiscal spokesman Paul Craney said. “While Rollins resigned, Arroyo is still serving on the Boston City Council and subject to OCPF’s regulations and investigations.”

“Massachusetts has not seen this level of public corruption in a long time,” Craney added. “Two federal agencies had to get involved.”

City Councilor Kendra Lara, however, defended Arroyo on Thursday, stating that the person who was found guilty of wrongdoing by the federal government in this situation is “receiving proper punishment,” seemingly referring to Rollins.

“Any other action beyond that is politically motivated and meant to derail the City Council from doing the work of the City of Boston,” Lara said. “We are in the middle of our budget process. We have a week to finish a redistricting map. And it seems like my Council colleagues continue to create discord and dysfunction, where there is not any.”

The DOJ report outlines a number of instances where Rollins attempted to tip the scales in favor of Arroyo, her preferred candidate for Suffolk DA, by leaking sensitive information to Globe and Herald reporters.

This, the report states, led to the Boston Globe running pre-primary stories that were damaging to Arroyo’s opponent, then-Interim Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden. The Herald chose not to publish leaked information until after the primary.

Rollins allegedly wrote in one text to Arroyo, “No mercy. Finish him,” and sent another text after Hayden won the election, telling Arroyo, “He will regret the day he did this to you. Watch,” according to the report.

At this time, “Rollins sought to damage Hayden’s reputation” by leaking information to reporters at both the Herald and the Globe “non-public and sensitive DOJ information that suggested the possibility of a federal criminal investigation into Hayden, a matter from which Rollins was recused,” the report stated.

In a Wednesday statement, Arroyo said Rollins has been a friend of his “since before either of us were elected officials,” and that he often sought her advice and counsel for “various aspects of my life and career.”

“I find this matter to be incredibly sad and unfortunate,” Arroyo said. “I was never contacted or notified about the Rollins investigation by the Inspector General or Special Counsel. I have reviewed the reports released by their respective offices and neither of these reports allege any wrongdoing on my part.

“My focus remains on working for the residents of District 5.”

His office directed the Herald to the same statement on Thursday, but Arroyo spoke to 7News in an interview that was aired by the station.

“I’m absolutely not resigning,” Arroyo told the station. “The report was very clear that I never asked her to do these things and I never knew these things were happening.”

City Councilors Frank Baker, Liz Breadon and Michael Flaherty declined comment. Five others, Gabriela Coletta, Tania Fernandes Anderson, Julia Mejia, Ruthzee Louijeune and Brian Worrell, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rollins announced Tuesday that she would be submitting her resignation to President Biden by the end of the week, upon notification of the report’s impending release the next day.

The scathing report was prompted by Rollins’ ill-advised appearance at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser attended by First Lady Jill Biden last summer. This was first reported and photographed by the Herald as a potential violation of the Hatch Act.

Months of heated discussions between councilors on opposite sides of a fraught redistricting process, along with reports that council staffers were mistreated, led to the proposal, several councilors suggested on Wednesday.

“It’s critical that we treat, as councilors, our staff with respect, and central staff as well with respect,” Flynn said at a City Council meeting. “We should have had this policy in place 30 years ago, but I’m going to get this implemented before I leave as president.”

The “policy on workplace bullying” would apply to all employees of the City Council, including councilors, their individual staff, and central office employees. Violators would be disciplined, “up to and including termination,” the document states.

“Boston City Council defines bullying as intentional, persistent, malicious, unwelcome, severe or pervasive conduct that harms, intimidates, offends, degrades, or humiliates an employee, whether verbal or physical, at the place of work or in the course of employment,” the document states.

“Workplace bullying is behavior that a reasonable person would find to be hostile or offensive.”

The policy would encourage those who have experienced this behavior to report it to a supervisor, and explicitly states that the Council “will not tolerate any form of retaliation against a person making a complaint.”

City Councilor Erin Murphy said there were a few things “with this term of councilors and behavior with the president” that led to the anti-bullying proposal.

Some of this has been legislative, in terms of councilors rejecting Flynn’s committee assignments, she said, which are typically non-controversial and made at the discretion of the council president.

“So, it’s kind of been mounting,” Murphy said.

The proposed policy was also sparked by “bullying” directed at staffers, according to councilors.

For example, there was a hostile interaction at a Council meeting about a month ago, during a particularly tense redistricting discussion.

An attorney for the body wrote a letter of complaint for the way she was spoken to by three city councilors during that meeting, a source who received the letter told the Herald.

In March, Eva Scapicchio wrote on Twitter that she reported instances of bullying committed against her by the District 1 councilor she worked for, a role held now by Gabriela Coletta, and the councilor’s chief of staff.

She claimed that the councilor “tried to control my personal life,” and that the District 1 chief of staff “harassed her.” Scapicchio also said she reported this behavior to human resources, but “nothing was done.”

In response to Wednesday’s policy proposal,” Scapicchio tweeted, “Thanks Council President Flynn. I wish this was in place when I worked there.”

Coletta told reporters Wednesday that no “current staff” of hers had expressed concerns of feeling aggression, either from councilors or other staff.

“My office and I have handled this personnel matter appropriately and in compliance with human resources guidelines,” Coletta said of the prior complaint, in a Thursday statement. “I wish this individual all the best.”

She spoke favorably of Flynn’s proposal, saying that it was a good idea.

“It’s a good framework for us to look at and point to when there is questionable behavior,” Coletta said. “So I do support the idea of working through it and just making sure everybody’s at the table to better understand how we can all be friendly and kind to one another.”

Councilor Liz Breadon said that the policy was “long overdue,” and raised concerns about how council staff was treated.

“I think as elected officials and political animals, there’s a certain level of rough and tumble in the dialogue and interaction between colleagues,” Breadon said.

“It’s just unconscionable that our staff — many are everyday people who serve Boston — should have to experience abuse, bullying from any member of this body or other members of staff.”

Breadon wrote a letter in April, regarding a public records request, filed by Murphy, that named one of Breadon’s staffers, Wayne Yeh, as taking part in the inter-council redistricting correspondence that may have violated the open meeting law.

At the time, Breadon wrote that Murphy’s decision to name a member of her staff as “totally inappropriate and irresponsible,” adding that “our staff should not be drawn into political disputes by councilors.”

The divided body’s inability to agree on how city lines should be redrawn, or even which of its subcommittees should be tasked with the assignment, prompted further concern from Mayor Michelle Wu’s office, which had filed its own map proposal Monday to try to expedite the process.

“Today’s hearing shows there is still much work ahead to pass a redistricting map that reflects the consensus of the City Council,” a Wu spokesperson said on Monday.

Given the “tight deadlines,” the spokesperson said, the mayor has been in contact with Council President Ed Flynn to encourage the body to set dates for special meetings prior to May 30, the cutoff date for when a new redistricting map can be passed to avoid a delay to the Sept. 12 preliminary election.

It became apparent early on into Monday’s civil rights subcommittee hearing, where a federal judge’s decision to toss the redistricting map passed by the City Council last fall for potential violations to the Constitution was placed, that not much work would get done.

At the outset, city councilors argued about whether they were allowed to discuss any of the map proposals — two had also been put forward by Councilors Ruthzee Louijeune and Kendra Lara — for fear of violating the open meeting law.

City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo said that the day’s proceedings were confined to the federal court order, and that discussing maps was “beyond this hearing order and beyond this committee at this time.”

He said Flynn, as council president, will decide what subcommittee should be tasked with drawing the map at Wednesday’s regular meeting.

The disagreement led to an hour-long recess, which concluded with Louijeune, who chairs the civil rights committee, saying that “out of an abundance of caution,” the day’s discussion would be confined to what councilors generally wanted to see included in a new redistricting map.

The map proposals would not specifically be addressed until Wednesday, to ensure there was sufficient public notice after their filing, the councilors concluded.

Louijeune said the potential violation to the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, as ruled by a U.S. District Court judge, was confined to how race was factored into how city lines were redrawn for Districts 3 and 4, which led to a “domino effect” for the rest of the map.

She said the Council will have to determine how to resolve that domino effect, but is not operating in a vacuum, as there’s data and community discussions from the prior redistricting process to draw from.

However, District 3 Councilor Frank Baker took exception to what his colleagues suggested should be “simple changes” made in the new map.

He pointed out that other councilors were not as impacted as he was in the prior map that was tossed, saying that the past changes he opposed, which moved four majority white precincts from D3 to D4, would have led to “45%” of new voters in his district.

Baker suggested going back to the “baseline map” from 2012 as a jumping-off point, saying that he was “horrified” at the notion of using the rejected map as a basis for new changes.

The crux of Monday’s discussion centered around the need to resolve the overpopulation in District 2 and the lack of population in District 3, to meet redistricting requirements for balanced population within all districts.

However, it quickly devolved to confusion over whether the civil rights committee, which the federal court docket was assigned to after a disagreement last week and an appeal to Flynn’s attempt to place it in the committee of the whole, should handle writing a new map.

Although eight councilors voted in favor of placing the court order in the civil rights committee last week, several of those members said they didn’t think their vote was for placing the redistricting matter there as well.

Rather, Councilor Julia Mejia said, “it seems to me I was voting on the legal memo and that should be in your committee, not redistricting.” She said the conversation “should be had all over again,” to resolve the matter of committee assignment.

Louijeune, an attorney with redistricting experience, said it was her understanding that the map writing should be in the purview of the civil rights committee following last week’s vote, and preferred that it stayed there.

“You can’t make this up,” said Councilor Michael Flaherty. “This is exactly why this body is becoming an embarrassment. We have to pull it together, folks. We have a court order. We have an injunction.”

Flynn said he intended to recommend at Wednesday’s Council meeting that the new map’s writing be placed in the civil rights committee, “to give the chair and vice chair a chance to do their jobs.”

The body’s continued divisiveness “is hurting the city,” Flynn said.

The divisions also drew concern from the attorneys for the group of residents that filed the lawsuit against the City Council, leading to the eventual injunction barring the map’s use in the November election.

“It has come to our attention that the City Council appears to be more divisive and combative in this process since the injunction was allowed,” the attorneys wrote in a Monday letter shared with the Herald.

“This is not rocket science following the court order to get this done. Politics needs to be kept out of this process.”

Not only was this a breach of policy, the Boston Finance Commission contends, it left the school district with a substantially larger bill, as the second vendor tacked on a 15% fee, totaling $24,673, in the invoice it sent to BPS — which “falsely” labeled the charges as subcontractor work performed at Campbell Resource Center.

What should have been a $164,448 payment to the initial vendor swelled to $189,162.

The difference in cost benefited the contractor that BPS roped in for the favor, ENE Systems, Inc., a national HVAC company that has roughly $20 million worth of contracts with the Boston Public Schools, the report said.

“This breach of policy, procedures and public trust by City of Boston employees unnecessarily wasted $24,673.33 of the taxpayers’ money,” the commission’s report states. “BPS would have found a solution to this problem had they simply contacted Auditing, which would have walked them through the necessary steps to complete the payment.”

Superintendent of Schools Mary Skipper responded to the incident by calling for an external auditor “to investigate all of our payment processes with vendors and identify needed changes to our payment processes to prevent these errors from happening in the future,” a BPS spokesperson said on Sunday.

“BPS is reviewing its internal payment processes to ensure our vendors receive timely payments in accordance with their contract terms and procurement laws, said Max Baker, a spokesman for BPS. “This matter will be thoroughly investigated, as we understand holding BPS employees to the highest standards is critical to ensuring public trust in the stewardship of public funds.”

The Finance Commission was told during its investigation of the matter that “this has occurred previously but the amounts were smaller.” It directed the school district to take immediate corrective actions to prevent this from occurring again.

“As the awarding contract authority, Boston Public Schools should know that approaching a contractor to hide a payment problem puts pressure on vendors to ‘do BPS a favor’ or potentially suffer some consequence,” the report states.

According to the report, the Finance Commission was first contacted by the impacted BPS vendor in late October 2021. The vendor, whose name was not disclosed, was awarded a multi-year contract through a bidding process, but had not been fully paid since 2018.

The Commission proceeded to contact the chief operating officer and assistant director of finance for the Boston Public Schools, which led to a group call a year later, in November 2022. The call concluded with BPS officials stating that they would review the vendor’s invoices and pay him, the report stated.

In February of 2023, the vendor told the Commission he was fully paid for his services. It was later found that BPS had not made the payment, but rather that it “had arranged for another of their contracted vendors” to pay the bill.

ENE Systems submitted a February 2023 invoice for subcontractor work completed at Campbell Resource Center. It also tacked on a 15% fee, as a surcharge for subcontractor services.

A BPS employee, whose job involves approving vendor invoices, told the Commission that this particular bill, despite its stated purpose, was actually seeking reimbursement for what ENE had paid the other vendor on the district’s behalf.

This BPS employee also stated that the idea to delegate BPS payment to a separate vendor “was his own” and was told by a supervisor to go forward with the plan, the report stated.

The Commission noted that BPS did not secure the services of ENE to solve its billing issues. For that particular vendor to “invoice for work that was not within the scope of their contract that was falsely invoiced as subcontractor work,” and to “charge a surcharge for that cost is unethical.”

Further, since BPS did not make the payment, the past due amounts remain unreconciled in its system, which makes it appear as if the district still owes the vendor $164,488, the report states.

“This transaction unnecessarily cost the taxpayers money that could have gone toward services for Boston Public School students, undermines the faith citizens have in their public officials, and will potentially cause vendors to question whether they should enter a working relationship with the City of Boston,” the report states.

ENE Systems did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Officials said the memorandum of understanding would not put police officers back in schools, but it would clear up some of the confusion that followed the Massachusetts Police Reform Act of 2020, and ensure clarity as to each department’s obligations under that law.

The agreement has been in the works for the past two years, according to Superintendent of Schools Mary Skipper, and comes amid a recent spate of violence in the district and poll results released last month that indicated two-thirds of BPS parents had concerns about their children’s safety.

“We’re living in a time where incidents of violence in schools are becoming more and more common, and we see it in cities across the country,” Skipper said at a Friday City Council subcommittee meeting on school safety.

“So I do hear parents’ concerns when they express the frightening reality of having to send their children off to school, both in the journey to and from school, and to entrust us with their care when they’re in school. We take that responsibility extremely seriously.”

City Councilor Michael Flaherty said the lack of a formalized agreement has created a “stress point” over the past several years. Parents have called his office to relay instances where school leaders did not call police in emergency situations that occurred in the district.

Instead, Flaherty said these school officials were making a judgment call as to what constituted a police response, and were also making medical decisions without roping in the parents of the impacted students.

“Parents, particularly of the victims, were finding relief by having to go down to the police station themselves, or to go to the hospital themselves, or worse, leaving the school district,” Flaherty said.

Skipper said there has been a lack of clarity on both the police and school department side, as to when police would be able to go to the schools, and what would happen once officers got there.

“It’s just important to have that guideline, that rulebook, and to have it codified so that both for Commissioner Cox and his police force, that they’re able to understand what’s expected,” Skipper said. “And then for us with 119 schools, for leaders, so that you know what to be able to expect.”

Flaherty and Erin Murphy, who co-chaired Friday’s hearing, were among the four city councilors who called for police officers and metal detectors in school this past January, citing an incident at the Young Achievers Science and Math School that left a teacher and student hospitalized from a beating by other students.

A report from the Council on Great City Schools quickly followed, with recommendations for a school department contract with BPD, and an “internal, sworn police department” within the district.

Most recently, MassINC released poll results that showed unease among more than 800 surveyed parents, three-quarters of whom supported the use of metal detectors and a return of a police presence within the schools.

Police were taken out of the Boston schools in the summer of 2021 and replaced with “safety specialists” who lack the authority to arrest or handcuff students. The MOU would not seek to place police officers back in schools, BPS officials said.

While safety specialists do not have the authority to make arrests, they are able to break up fights, school officials said. There is, however, a shortage of these safety officers, with only 67 of the targeted 78 in place to monitor incidents across 119 schools. Their focus, for the main part, is on middle and high schools.

City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson said she was supportive of the memorandum of understanding, as long as it doesn’t put police back in schools. She said that she would prefer to keep her comments to city budget talks at the ongoing ways and means meetings she chairs.

At a Council meeting last week, Fernandes Anderson provided an update about potential plans to cut the police budget, to instead “divert funds from officers who feel they are ill-served to respond to mental-health calls.”

City Councilor Julia Mejia cited research that suggested the presence of police officers in schools increases school-based arrests, and particularly targets Black and brown people.

Police Commissioner Michael Cox said he was not familiar with the study, and cited the department’s aim to practice community policing. The MOU is not aimed at trying to criminalize students, he said.

“It’s just the opposite,” Cox said. “We’re trying to go into schools and mentor.”

Wu urged the City Council to take action on either her proposed map, or one that the body may create on its own, by its Wednesday meeting to allow for sufficient review and passage by May 30, the deadline for keeping the city’s preliminary election date, Sept. 12, in place.

The mayor told the Council in a Friday letter that she put forward her own redistricting map “to help ensure a swift and smooth resolution to redistricting.” She said her administration redrew districts with this past Monday’s court ruling, and the city’s legal obligations under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in mind.

“As mayor, I believe that putting whole neighborhoods in single council districts encourages neighborhood organizing and civic engagement,” Wu wrote. “With that goal in mind, our proposed map unifies neighborhoods across the city.

“The result is a City Council district map that unifies communities of interest within districts and attempts, as best as possible, to reflect how residents experience the city in their daily lives.”

A U.S. District Court judge ruled that the Council had likely violated the Constitution, specifically the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, by factoring race into the establishment of the map approved by the body last fall, via a 9–4 vote.

The City Council had been sued by a group of residents, led by Rasheed Walters, that sought a preliminary injunction barring the map’s implementation. The lawsuit, which two councilors who opposed the changes helped to fund, was aired out in a weeklong court battle that continued to divide the body long after its April 5 conclusion.

The mayor’s proposed map undoes some of the precinct changes to districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 that were made in the defunct council map, which the federal judge wrote were “significant to the current dispute” in her ruling this week.

For example, all of Ward 16 is in District 3 in the map put forward by Wu. Part of this ward, located in South Dorchester, was put in District 4 by the Council. The changes were opposed by the District 3 Councilor Frank Baker, who contributed financially to the lawsuit.

The Council had approved changes that would move four majority white precincts — 16-8, 16-11, 16-12 and 17-13 — from D3 to D4. Plaintiffs argued this would dilute the Black vote in D4, while advocates said the changes were made with the aim of avoiding a situation of “packing” Black voters into D4.

Wu’s map matches council changes in two other precincts, however, by moving 16-1 and 16-2 from District 4 to District 3, which were historically located together in D3 prior to being moved to D4 in 2012, according to the judge’s ruling.

The mayor also deviates somewhat from the Council’s prior changes to two Roslindale neighborhoods. Wu proposed keeping 19-12 in District 4 as opposed to moving it to District 5, as included in the defunct map, but aligned with a Council change that moved 18-7 from D4 to D5.

In South Boston, 7-5 and 7-6 would remain in District 2 under Wu’s proposal. This deviates from changes approved by the council, which moved these precincts to District 3. Council President Ed Flynn, who represents District 2 and also contributed to the lawsuit, opposed the prior changes.

“As we wrote to the honorable body earlier in the week, time is of the essence,” Wu said in her letter. “This proposed map unifies neighborhoods within council districts and is one that I’m prepared to sign.”

Submitted to the council ahead of its Wednesday meeting in light of a Monday ruling that barred implementation of the city’s current redistricting map, the mayor’s petition would push the nomination paper filing deadline from May 23 to June 20, and stretch the signature certification process to July 7 for city registrars.

These new timelines would be dependent on councilors passing a new redistricting map by May 30, the cutoff date for keeping the city’s preliminary election date, Sept. 12, in place, Wu wrote in a Wednesday letter to the City Council.

“This home rule petition gives the Elections Department the tools they may need to facilitate the orderly administration of an election that provides potential candidates a full opportunity to run for office after district boundaries are changed,” Wu wrote.

If passed by the Council, the home rule petition would also need approval from the state Legislature and would have to be signed into law by the governor.

Wu said she plans to submit a new redistricting map to councilors in the coming days, “that provides a robust opportunity for all voters to see themselves represented and reflected on the City Council, and prioritizes placing whole neighborhoods together with individual districts.”

This proposal was not met with much enthusiasm by councilors on Wednesday, with Erin Murphy stating, “I think we, as a council, want to make sure that we have a say and that a map isn’t just drawn across the hall that we accept.”

A particular point of contention during council spats that led up to last fall’s 9-4 approval of the city’s redistricting map, and the lawsuit filed by a group of residents that quickly followed, was the process by which districts three and four were redrawn.

The changes moved a chunk of southern Dorchester from district three to four, which advocates said were necessary to add more white voters, to avoid a situation of “packing” Black voters in D4.

Outgoing District 3 Councilor Frank Baker, who, along with Council President Ed Flynn reportedly contributed $10,000 apiece to help fund the lawsuit, opposed the changes. The map was co-sponsored by City Councilors Liz Breadon, chair of the redistricting committee, and Ricardo Arroyo, who preceded Breadon in that role.

U.S. District Court Judge Patti Saris wrote in a Monday ruling that the City Council, while acting in “good faith,” had likely violated the Constitution — specifically the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment — by factoring race in the new map’s creation, and issued a preliminary injunction barring its use in the November election.

Wu said the City Council must act with urgency to approve a new redistricting map over the next three weeks, “to permit the Elections Department to conduct a signature petition process, certify signatures and print and mail ballots in time to conduct the Sept. 12 preliminary election.”

Debra O’Malley, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office told the Herald Tuesday that changing the dates for the preliminary or Nov. 7 general election would require a home rule petition, passed on the local and state level, or a court order.

This last occurred 40 years ago in Boston, when the 1983 preliminary was delayed by two weeks and the general election was postponed by a week, after a federal judge threw out a city redistricting map that was deemed unconstitutional.

In that case, which featured a mayoral race where Raymond Flynn defeated civil rights activist Mel King, one of the plaintiffs in that year’s lawsuit that also centered around race, the City Council sent a home rule petition to the Legislature for approval.

“There’s one significant difference between what’s happening now and what happened in 1983,” Breadon said at the day’s council meeting. “The last time we had a challenge to redistricting, it was from an outside body. In this time, there’s four members of this council who funded the challenge to this map.”

Breadon said this distinction was important enough to break from council precedent set in 1983, and oppose Council President Flynn’s decision to send a letter from the Law Department — regarding its review of how the court decision will impact this year’s municipal election — to the Committee of the Whole.

Instead, Breadon said it would be more appropriate to send the matter to the Committee on Civil Rights and Immigrant Advancement, as suggested by Councilor Gabriela Coletta in an appeal of Flynn’s decision that passed, 8-4. Flynn, Baker, Murphy and Michael Flaherty voted in opposition.

The crux of the argument from Coletta and other councilors who spoke in support of the appeal, was that Flynn, who chairs the Committee of the Whole, lacked the impartiality to conduct a fair redistricting process while the council works to create a new map, given his contribution to the lawsuit.

“There’s a level of mistrust here,” said Councilor Julia Mejia. “You are the president of this Council. And so I feel a little weird about having this in the body of a whole knowing where you were, where some of the political interest lies, and I just feel like we need to be really careful about that.”

Coletta said the committee on civil rights is chaired by Ruthzee Louijeune, an at-large councilor and attorney with experience in redistricting law. She also spoke about the act of voting being a “civil right” when making her appeal for reassignment.

Flynn, however, said his recommendation was based on City Council rules, which “clearly state that the Committee of the Whole should concern itself with any litigation involving the Council.”

“I believe the Council president, the chair, has the right to place it into any committee the chair thinks is in the best interest of the body,” Flynn said after the vote. “I do accept this, but I just wanted my opinion to be stated for the record.”

Flynn’s motion to assign Wu’s home rule petition letter to the Committee on Government Operations, however, was accepted without incident.

Wu wrote that the city will “continue to determine whether the legal changes needed to conduct the election after a new map is approved can be accomplished purely through local action.”

“Should further guidance determine this to be appropriate, the Administration will promptly notify the Council committee to which this matter is assigned of the opportunity to modify this legislation into a city ordinance,” she said.

A day after a U.S. District Court ruling sent councilors back to the drawing board, a city spokesperson said Boston was “reviewing options for filing deadlines and determining how it will address any resulting changes to district boundaries and treat nomination papers that have already been submitted.”

That means the city will look to “extend timelines for filing nomination papers and otherwise modify processes to ensure that potential candidates for the office of district City Council have an opportunity to run as district lines are redrawn,” the spokesperson said. “Potential candidates should continue to file nomination papers at the Boston Elections Department.”

The city spokesperson added, “The city is committed to a speedy and smooth resolution to redistricting and to a clear and transparent election process.”

What remains unclear, however, is whether restarting the redistricting process could force a delay to the city’s preliminary election, set for Sept. 12, and general election, set for Nov. 7. Such a change would require either a court order or state legislation, said Debra O’Malley, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s office.

There is past precedent, O’Malley said. In 1983, Boston’s preliminary election was delayed for two weeks, and its general election was delayed for a week, to allow city officials time to redraw districting lines after its prior map was thrown out, when a federal judge ruled that prior lines drawn by the council were unconstitutional, the New York Times reported at the time.

“That is obviously not something anyone would want to see happen now, given the confusions that would be involved,” O’Malley said.

In this instance, U.S. District Court Judge Patti Saris ruled Monday the City Council had likely violated the Constitution when factoring race into the establishment of Boston’s new redistricting map, which was approved last fall via a 9-4 vote, and issued a preliminary injunction barring its implementation.

Saris said the council likely violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment, which bars laws requiring segregation of the races, one of three alleged violations cited by the plaintiffs, a group of residents led by Rasheed Walters in their lawsuit against the City Council. Walters is a former Boston Herald columnist who was not on staff.

Regarding next steps, Saris wrote that it was unclear whether the Boston Election Commission could extend the May 23 deadline for candidate nomination papers. She also said her decision to enjoin the new map could lead to concerns about potential council candidates meeting the one-year residency requirement, in terms of whether last year’s changes had impacted what district they reside in.

O’Malley said the Secretary of State’s office reached out to offer assistance as the city figures out how to proceed with this matter, but noted that ultimately, “this is their map and their election.”

“Our Elections Department has already had a call with city officials today,” O’Malley said. “There will be additional consultations, I’m sure. But it will be up to the city to decide how they will proceed with respect to drawing their maps.”

City Council President Ed Flynn said in a Tuesday statement that he had spoken with the secretary of state, Mayor Michelle Wu’s office and the Boston Law Department, “regarding the recent ruling on redistricting and about possible next steps.”

“It is important for all of us to work together and do what is right for all of our communities, and show positive leadership that puts the residents of Boston first.”

Council candidates, including those vying for the open seat in District 3, which along with District 4 was most heavily impacted by last year’s redistricting changes, said they weren’t too concerned about a new map impacting their ability to stay in the race. Several spoke, however, about the chaos that Monday’s court ruling had created.

“It’s just a complete mess,” said one council candidate, who asked to remain anonymous.

The candidate relayed that the city Elections Department said they would take nomination papers, but wouldn’t be able to certify them because “the districts essentially do not exist right now.”

“I mean, they exist for this council, but not for the purposes of the election for the next council,” the candidate said.

U.S. District Court Judge Patti Saris said in a Monday ruling that the council likely violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which bars laws requiring segregation of the races, when compiling the redistricting map that was approved last fall, by a 9-4 council vote.

“The court allows the motion for preliminary injunction,” Saris wrote. “Plaintiffs have demonstrated a likelihood of success in showing that race played a predominant role in the City Council’s redrawing of Districts 3 and 4 in the enacted map, and defendants have not demonstrated that the enacted redistricting map is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling interest.”

“The ball is back in the City Council’s court,” Saris continued, later adding, “In my view, the City Council is best positioned to redraw the lines in light of traditional redistricting principles and the Constitution.”

The Equal Protection Clause was one of three alleged violations cited by the plaintiffs, a group of residents led by Rasheed Walters, in their lawsuit against the City Council, which led to a week-long federal court proceeding that continued to divide the panel long after its April 5 conclusion. Walters is a former Boston Herald columnist who was not on staff.

The plaintiffs had also claimed alleged violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Open Meeting Law, arguing that “the enacted redistricting map was motivated by a desire to achieve ‘racial balancing’ among districts in the City of Boston,” Saris wrote.

The city contended that the City Council “appropriately considered race in District 4 and elsewhere to ensure VRA compliance and that other, racially neutral and competing considerations were the council’s primary motivators.”

Saris noted that the plaintiffs “have not demonstrated a likelihood of success” on their claims that the VRA and the Open Meeting Law were violated, adding that although it likely violated the Constitution,“the City Council acted in good faith in trying to comply with complex voting rights laws.”

Several councilors, although they were being sued, testified in support of the lawsuit, and spoke in favor of the judge’s ruling on Monday.

“I am pleased with the ruling because it supports my long-held belief that this map unfairly robbed District 3 and the citizens of Boston of its voice and was designed to weaken its position in Boston politics,” said City Councilor Frank Baker, who represents the district.

Baker opposed changes to his district and neighboring district four, which moved a chunk of southern Dorchester from D3 to D4. Advocates said the changes were necessary to add more white voters to avoid a situation of “packing” Black voters in D4, the Herald has reported.

“Gerrymandering is gerrymandering, whether in pursuit of progressive or conservative goals,” Baker said. “The court saw that an unfair map would deprive the residents of District 3 and the citizens of Boston of their time-honored role and stature.”

Councilor-at-Large Erin Murphy, who last month requested a copy of public records for 5,816 pages of inter-council redistricting correspondence that she said may have pointed to open meeting law violations that occurred during the fraught redistricting process, said Monday’s ruling was a “victory for transparency, accountability and the people of the City of Boston.”

“The United States District Court identified a deeply flawed process, and I welcome the opportunity to join my colleagues in rewriting more equitable voting districts that protect our constituents’ constitutional rights,” Murphy said. “The map that the council approved, over my objections and those of three other councilors, unfairly divided neighborhoods.”

The two co-sponsors of the map, Ricardo Arroyo and Liz Breadon, however, declined to comment. Arroyo deferred comment to Breadon, chair of the redistricting committee, who said, “I have not had the opportunity to read the ruling at this time.”

Council President Ed Flynn, who, along with Baker reportedly helped to fund the lawsuit, called for unity among a divided council, rather than speak in favor or against Monday’s court ruling.

“At this time, it is critical that we put our differences aside, come together, and do what’s best for the people of Boston by delivering positive leadership and focusing on long-standing redistricting principles,” Flynn said in a statement.

Glen Hannington, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said his clients were “very pleased with the court’s decision.

“We felt all along we had a strong case based upon the evidence and the witnesses that we presented,” Hannington said. “And as the judge says, now it’s back in the City Council’s court.”

He added, “The City Council has to figure this out among themselves — if they want to try to resolve it or keep the litigation going. I think the judge’s 43-page decision is telling.”

Lusk will make $150,000 at the helm of a committee of city department heads, brought together to help advise the mayor, as she works to carry out the sweeping planning and development changes announced this past January, in her State of the City address.

“I am delighted to be working with Katharine as we change the way we plan our city together, ensuring alignment among each division of our city to best plan for our future,” Chief of Planning Arthur Jemison said in a statement.

Wu, who announced the hire on Friday, said in a statement that Lusk’s “decades of experience across the public and private sectors and track record of creating new models for engagement and planning will be an important part of our work to ensure that Boston is a city for everyone.”

Prior to starting her new role on May 1, Lusk worked as co-director and founding executive director of the Boston University Initiative on Cities, an interdisciplinary urban research and policy center co-founded by the late Mayor Tom Menino. She was previously Menino’s policy advisor, Wu’s office said.

Lusk also created the Boston Women’s Workforce Council, a collaborative governance partnership focused on closing the gender wage gap, and later served on this council as a mayoral appointee.

“(Boston) is already at the forefront of climate action, equitable planning, and transformative policy shifts on issues like housing affordability and mobility,” Lusk said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to helping the team best serve the people of Boston and turn even more plans into reality.”

Her hire, made by Jemison in his capacity as council chair, kicks off the work of the Planning Advisory Council, which Wu’s executive order tasked with “increasing coordination among departments that engage in planning and advising the mayor on planning across the city.”

Per the late January order, the city’s various departments are directed to consult with the advisory council on any planning purpose, but this committee has no formal approval or permitting authority.

The council, chaired by the chief of planning, includes an assortment of other city officials, whose cabinets conduct the majority of “built environment planning initiatives” across the city: the chiefs of arts and culture; energy, environment and open space; housing; streets; equity and inclusion; operations; and finance.

The creation of the Planning Advisory Council is part of Wu’s “ambitious growth agenda” for Boston, which is “focused on advancing the city’s resilience, affordability and equity goals,” her office said.

This agenda also includes the establishment of a city Planning and Design Department, which would replace the Boston Planning & Development Agency, a quasi-independent authority the mayor has long sought to abolish, the Herald has reported.

The mayor also committed to updating Boston’s zoning code “to create thousands of additional housing units,” and reform the Article 80 process “to increase speed and predictability for development,” her office said.

The funds, part of a $16.5 million homelessness grant the city received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, will go toward housing 105 people from the area of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard. Partnering with the city in this effort will be Eliot Community Services.

“A lot of the individuals at Mass Cass are not homeless; they’re there for services and other reasons,” Sheila Dillon, the city’s chief of housing, said after a Thursday press conference in downtown Boston. “But we do know who has no place to go at Mass Cass, and we will be targeting these resources to those individuals.”

This targeted population represents roughly 28% of the 372 unhoused individuals that will benefit from the federal grant in Boston — a significant investment that is part of the city’s “housing-centered approach to the intersecting crises of unsheltered homelessness, substance-use disorder and mental health” taking place at Mass and Cass, the mayor’s office said in a press statement.

According to this statement, the Mass and Cass funds will not only give these people respite from the streets, they will also provide medical stabilization and a housing pathway.

Boston’s plans to provide housing opportunities for people who live and congregate around the Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass area come three days after the city told homeless individuals that they could no longer set up tents there, a past policy that was not enforced during the cold winter months.

Prior to Monday’s clear-out, the homeless typically packed up their tents and left the area while streets were cleaned five days a week, but returned to set up camp again after 12:30 p.m. The new policy, described by the city as voluntary, allows these individuals to return, but bans their tents, officials said.

However, the tents have returned since that time, according to Mayor Michelle Wu. Although numbers are down, she said there were still roughly 16 tents set up on Wednesday. Some were also there on Thursday, but the latest figures were not immediately provided by her office.

Wu said the city is working with the Boston Police Department on enforcing the tent ban. While this effort strives to respect and show dignity toward the affected homeless in the area, the mayor said it’s also aimed at preventing another encampment from occurring at Mass and Cass.

For “many years,” between 2014 and January 2022, there was essentially a “fortified encampment” there. People were living in tent structures with wood pallets and propane tanks, every day for 24 hours, Wu said.

There was no running water and no heat besides propane tanks, which was causing “a lot of dangerous situations around diseases that were spreading from rodents being in the area” and fires that were occurring inside the tents, Wu said.

Since January 2022, there has not been an encampment, but people have still been putting up tents multiple times a week, she said.

At this point, Wu said the city is moving to enforce the tent ban, because these structures had been linked to too many instances of illegal activity happening within them, or medical emergencies that could not be addressed due to lack of visibility.

“The congregation of folks in one area, the potential for drug trafficking, human trafficking, and other illegal violence and other illegal behavior, that is something that we really need to address,” Wu said.

She added, “We will not be having a large congregation site for illegal activity and we’re going to continue working with everyone to identify shelter housing.”

Designating an employee to oversee Boston’s pest-control operation, as proposed by City Council President Ed Flynn, is an “important” idea, Wu said, and one that is being discussed in the context of having a more coordinated approach to tackling rats and other issues that most frustrate residents.

“I don’t know that we are necessarily going to immediately create a czar position because we’ve been having lots of conversations about rodents and pest control in general,” Wu said Thursday after an unrelated press conference. “And we’ll continue working on that.”

These discussions have involved getting departments to work more closely together to target the root cause of the city’s rodent problem. Some efforts that are already underway include removing the rats’ food source, by more properly securing dumpsters, and encouraging developers to submit a rat mitigation plan for construction that involves digging into the ground, the mayor said.

These strategies differ from the ineffective approach the city has taken in the past, Wu said, which has been to set traps in areas where residents had complained rats were present.

“It’s barely putting a Band-Aid on the situation,” Wu said of this past solution.

Although not particularly forceful, Wu’s remarks on Thursday represented the first time she’s spoken publicly about her stance on the creation of a rat czar position in Boston, which Flynn first mentioned in an early April council meeting.

The mayor’s support could get the ball rolling on Flynn’s proposal, which would create an office of pest control headed by a rat czar. The idea, which Flynn said would be modeled after New York City’s pest-control operation, drew widespread support from his council colleagues at last week’s meeting.

New York hired its first rat czar last month, a position that pays $155,000.

Today, pest control is handled by a number of city departments in Boston, including inspectional services, water and sewer and public works.