In this edition: The people Mayor Wu actually listens to, Marathon money-raisers, and Anthropic staffs up on Beacon Hill
To sign up for Power Play, our twice-weekly newsletter about power and business in Boston, click here.
Shirley here, welcome to issue No. 3 of Power Play. No marathons this year for either of us. Just keeping up with Market Basket news and Michelle Wu’s inner circle has kept Jon and me plenty busy.
Featuring: Kenzie Bok, Lou Mandarini, Conor Pewarski, Shannon O’Brien, Andrea Campbell, Rich Davey, Neil Patrick Harris, Arthur T. Demoulas, and more.
If you want to know who’s on the outs with Michelle Wu, make sure you have plenty of time for the answer, which will range from the obvious people like state Senator Nick Collins to the less than obvious, like the Emerald Necklace Conservancy – and so many, many more. I could probably do a whole column on the subject. Wait, I did that last month.
But who has the mayor’s ear? Now that’s something that business leaders, especially real estate developers, would love to know.
Well, I’ve got answers.
A few names are well known: House-speaker-in-waiting Aaron Michlewitz, the North End Democrat who chairs the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. He and Wu have long been allies, dating back to her city councilor days. Sure, she’s progressive, he’s a moderate, but no matter what, they have each other’s back. Another consigliere on Beacon Hill is Majority Leader Mike Moran, the longtime rep from Brighton; the two worked closely together extracting concessions from Harvard on its Allston expansion.
It almost goes without saying that Wu seeks advice from Senator Elizabeth Warren on big policy matters like rent control. They go way back. Warren taught Wu at Harvard Law School, and Wu served in the trenches on Warren’s first Senate campaign. When the 76-year-old senator is ready to retire, the thinking goes, she would be happy if Wu were to succeed her. There are others, of course, who don’t think Wu, the mother of three young children, would be interested in a job that requires her to shuttle back and forth to D.C.
Wu has also been increasingly leaning on Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. The two served together on the Boston City Council, and while they might seem like political rivals, Pressley and her office were instrumental in prepping Wu for her testimony before a hostile Congressional hearing last year.
Julia Leja continues to loom large in Wu’s inner circle, her former campaign manager and now CEO of the Boston Public Market. State senator Lydia Edwards, another old City Council colleague, is also a sounding board on a variety of matters from navigating the Senate to electoral strategy.
Then there’s Harvard economics professor Ed Glaeser, who helps the policy-minded Wu shape her wonkier ideas. Two years ago, Wu was this close to signing off on a tax incentive to spur multifamily housing development until a Glaeser analysis indicated it didn’t make financial sense for the city.
Glaeser, in an email, downplayed his influence on his former student. “Inner circle,” he wrote, “makes me sound much more powerful than I am.”
He’s being modest. Glaeser seems to be everywhere these days with Wu. With a shaky economy, the economist will likely be dispensing more advice to the mayor in the second term.
So who are the folks within City Hall who are close advisers? After facing criticisms for having a weak staff, Wu has shuffled people around.
There’s chief of staff Clare Kelly, who spent Wu’s first term as director of intergovernmental relations, and former policy chief Mike Firestone, who has been running point on White Stadium. In his new role as corporation counsel, he remains influential.
On issues of housing and development, Wu has taken a distinctly different tack than her predecessors and listens to a troika of advisors, including housing chief Sheila Dillon, former City Council colleague Kenzie Bok, who now leads the Boston Housing Authority, and Boston’s once-and-current chief planner, Kairos Shen.
Other cabinet members who are in her trusted circle include Mariangely Solis Cervera, chief of equity and inclusion, and Brianna Millor, chief of community engagement who interned for Wu when she was on the council.
Then there’s a constellation of senior aides who work behind the scenes in Wu’s inner sanctum. Let’s start with Lou Mandarini, a labor lawyer with Warren ties who negotiates union contracts, and David Vittorini, who was her City Council chief of staff and now sits right outside Wu’s personal office at City Hall.
Then there are the deputy chiefs of staff – Beata Coloyan and Phyliss St-Hubert, who together control everything from Wu’s schedule to coordinating key initiatives. Also playing a bigger role in the second term are Mohammed Missouri, executive director of the Office of Neighborhood Services, and Ricardo Patrón, a former Wu spokesperson who’s now chief of intergovernmental relations.
Last but not least is the First Gentleman, Conor Pewarski. He’s not just a stay-at-home dad to their three children, but remains one of her closest strategists.
The mayor does listen to people. Maybe you’re just not one of them.
JON’S TAKE
HEARD AROUND TOWN
RUNNING FOR GOOD
We know who won the Boston Marathon on Monday. But who finished on top for fundraising? The historic race broke another record for charitable giving, surpassing last year’s $50.4 million haul, according to Bank of America, which helps market the marathon’s official charity program. Final numbers won’t come until May, but about 3,000 runners ran to raise money for 193 nonprofits. Ahead of the pack are Boston’s big hospitals, with $9 million going to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, $3.9 million to Boston Children’s, and $2.5 million to Massachusetts General. One charity marathoner, Julie Delfs of Tucson, Ariz., was miles ahead of everyone else by bringing in more than $466,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
UP IN SMOKE
The clock is ticking at the Cannabis Control Commission. On Sunday, Governor Maura Healey signed legislation that reduces the size of the board that regulates the state’s cannabis industry from five members to three, and changes how they are appointed. Now Healey has 30 days to pick the new commissioners, and her administration has already started vetting candidates. Who among the four sitting commissioners might survive? Bruce Stebbins has Healey’s prior endorsement, as his seat was just re-upped last year by Healey, Treasurer Deb Goldberg and Attorney General Andrea Campbell. It was Goldberg who initially named Shannon O’Brien to chair the CCC, but they’ve been at war for more than two years. Carrie Benedon was appointed by Campbell last November along with O’Brien and Healey, while Kim Roy, whose term had been set to expire this summer, is a holdover from the Baker administration.
A HEAVYWEIGHT STAFFS UP
Anthropic has landed on Beacon Hill. The San Francisco AI giant behind Claude has hired Tremont Strategies Group to start its lobbying work in Massachusetts, part of a bigger push to expand the company’s nationwide state and local policy team. Massachusetts, the company says, is considering many AI bills and “we are eager to be part of the conversation.” One example: Senator Barry Finegold’s measure to establish new safeguards around the development and deployment of AI in the state. Anthropic, which has a local office at a WeWork in Cambridge, is also expecting to add to its 50-plus employees in Massachusetts.
CANADA CONNECTION
In a speech earlier this month to the New England Council, Governor Maura Healey once again touted the long-awaited NECEC power line to Canada, bragging how it’s providing 20 percent of the state’s electricity. Maybe no one told her this $1.6 billion transmission line through Maine would stop delivering power the next day. NECEC went offline on April 7. At least this outage was planned. Hydro-Quebec executive Serge Abergel says the new line was down for scheduled maintenance, through last Friday (April 17). Spring is the season for this sort of work in the energy sector, as we’re between peak demand times of winter and summer.
YOUR TURN
Take our survey here, and we’ll share the results on Friday.
QUIZ ANSWERS
Texas is the state that attracted more venture capital dollars in the first quarter than Massachusetts. The majority of respondents picked the correct answer, but about 30 percent chose North Carolina.
The first reader to get the bonus quiz right was Michael of West Springfield. He was able to figure out Massport CEO Rich Davey’s high school nickname: Doogie. Davey and acting ICE director Todd Lyons were in the same Boston College High School, and Michael picked up a clue from the Globe’s Lyons profile. The nickname is a nod to actor Neil Patrick Harris who starred in the ‘90s-era TV show “Doogie Howser, M.D.”
THANKS FOR READING POWER PLAY
Unfortunately, there was no Boston Marathon for Jon this year. The BAA’s registration in September hit at a crazy time, when Jon was covering the firing of Arthur T. Demoulas from Market Basket. So perhaps it was appropriate that he broke the news of a judge’s ruling upholding that firing on Marathon Monday, just as the runners were heading to Copley Square.
Today’s edition was edited by Greg Huang and Tim Logan, and produced by Diamond Naga Siu.
Have a question for the team? Email us at powerplay@globe.com.
Delivered Tuesday and Friday.
Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com. Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.