There are 350-something days until Boston voters head to the polls for the municipal election next November, but Boston’s City Council races are unofficially kicking into gear this week.
The first target: One of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s loudest council critics.
Rachel Pearson, a South Boston substitute teacher and community organizer, plans to challenge Boston City Councilor Ed Flynn, taking on the body’s longest-serving and most well-funded member in one of the most moderate corners of the city.
Pearson, a Democrat and first-time candidate, is casting her candidacy as a chance for “new leadership” in the district that covers South Boston, Chinatown, and parts of the South End.
She said she has talked with Wu about running against Flynn, and has made frequent, small-dollars donations to the mayor totaling roughly $1,000 since 2024. She’s also given to Wu’s allies on the council, including Sharon Durkan and Ruthzee Louijeune, though Pearson declined to say whether she would seek Wu’s endorsement in her run.
“I want everyone in District 2 to feel included and welcomed,” she said. “We have a lot of work to do with how we’re supporting our families.”
It wasn’t long ago that Flynn served as council president, presiding over a tenure that included a bitter redistricting fight and saw other council members rocked by scandal. Flynn more recently has become the main opponent to Wu’s agenda in City Hall, offering a reliable “no” vote on nearly all of the proposals that the second-term mayor or her allies on the council pitch.
His critiques of the Wu’s administration are many. Flynn has urged the city in the past to hire hundreds more police officers, and this year he called for a hiring freeze. Flynn was rumored to have considered, but ultimately decided against, challenging Wu in 2025 before she easily captured a second four-year term.
While Pearson didn’t criticize Flynn by name in an interview, she nodded to the role he’s assumed as Wu’s antagonist-in-chief on the 13-member member body.
“When you look at leadership at City Hall ... where we’re maybe not meeting the mark is our ability to collaborate and work with all different organizations and people, even those individuals that we don’t always see eye to eye with,” she said.
Flynn did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
There’s a chance Pearson could end up with a hand from the mayor, who’s regularly helped usher council candidates to success — or defeat — during her tenure. Last year, she frequently rallied support for City Councilor Henry Santana, including mobilizing her network when he struggled to get the 1,500 signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot. Santana and Wu’s other council allies secured another term, in turn helping hold off a comeback bid from Frank Baker, a former city councilor and vocal Wu critic.
Still, taking on Flynn will likely be a tough fight. A South Boston Democrat and scion of a powerful political family in the city, Flynn is sitting on a massive pile of cash for a city council race. He had almost $1 million in his campaign coffers as of the end of October, more than any other sitting city councilor.
And it’s unclear if an assist from Wu — a public one, at least — would be more helpful or hurtful in South Boston, Flynn’s home base and one of the neighborhoods that’s historically been less friendly to the mayor and her allies.
South Boston is one of the few areas of the city where Wu’s challenger last year, Josh Kraft, performed well while otherwise getting steamrolled in the preliminary election. Wu this year publicly backed challenger Latoya Gayle against South Boston state Senator Nick Collins during this year’s legislative primaries. Collins, one of the mayor’s top adversaries on Beacon Hill, ultimately won by double digits.
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PARDON THE TIMING: A week after cruising to reelection, Governor Maura Healey on Tuesday rolled out her first pardon recommendations in more than a year and a half.
The first-term Democrat recommended pardons for Jayaar Gonzalez, who was accused of selling “a small amount of cocaine” when he was 17 in 1997, according to Healey’s office, and Brittany Reichmann, who was convicted of two counts of possession with intent to distribute a Class A substance in 2014. Gonzalez hopes to start his own HVAC business with his son, and Reichmann lives in Maine, where she previously worked as director of the Recovery Friendly Workplace program, Healey’s office said.
Healey regularly used her clemency power midway through her term, issuing more than two dozen pardons by the spring of 2025 and a blanket pardon for marijuana possession convictions.
Still, the pair of pardons announced Tuesday are the first she’s recommended since April 2025 to forgive a crime. And despite her office saying that same month that she planned “in the near future” to issue her first commutation — which reduces a criminal sentence — she’s yet to do so, leaving several recommendations on her desk.
Both of her new pardon recommendations have to be approved by the Governor’s Council.
CLIMATE CHANGE: Healey administration appoints Aladdine Joroff as climate chief by Kate Selig, The Boston Globe: Healey on Tuesday announced the appointment of Aladdine Joroff as the state’s new climate chief to replace Melissa Hoffer, a former Biden administration official who served as the state’s first-ever climate chief but left the administration to be the next president of Vermont Law and Graduate School beginning next month. Joroff had served as Healey’s deputy climate chief.
LOADED QUESTIONS: Campbell distinguishes public records question from legislative audit fight by Katie Castellani, State House News Service: Asked how she views the constitutionality of a voter-approved law subjecting the governor’s office and Legislature to the state’s public records rules, Attorney General Andrea Campbell put daylight between that measure and another controversial one that gave state Auditor Diana DiZoglio the authority to probe the Legislature.
“There are certain instances where a court would deem an audit of the Legislature by the auditor to be unconstitutional,” Campbell told the State House News Service. “Public records requests, also I would see as a very different context in many ways.”
GRAVE CONCERNS: Kennedy family joins legal battle against Trump arch, saying it will mar JFK and RFK gravesites by Jackie Kucinich, The Boston Globe: The family of President John F. Kennedy has joined the legal fight to block President Trump from erecting a 250-foot arch in front of Arlington National Cemetery, according to a filing Tuesday in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
The complaint, made on behalf of nine members of the Kennedy family, says the arch will not only obstruct the “line of sight” from the gravesite, but also “permanently cast a shadow over the Kennedy Gravesites and the graves of servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country.”
I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUAL: ‘Meaningless false dichotomy’: Democrats say they can investigate Trump and also help lower costs for Americans. by Jim Puzzanghera, The Boston Globe: “Walk and chew gum at the same time” — that’s the mantra from Democrats who assert they can both legislate and investigate Trump effectively. But they also are trying to link accountability and affordability, arguing that oversight of the executive branch will help reverse the price increases on gas, groceries, and other essentials that angered so many voters.
TO-DO LIZ: Democrats Will Be in Charge of Congress. Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan for That. by Shane Goldmacher, The New York Times: Senator Elizabeth Warren has one big fear about her party’s newfound congressional majorities. It is that Democrats, after campaigning on affordability, will shy away from pursuing a “full-throated” agenda of “economic populism” that delivers for frustrated voters.
PREEMPTION REDEMPTION: Trahan crafting AI safety bill with narrower state preemption by Owen Dahlkamp, POLITICO: Representative Lori Trahan is revamping her artificial intelligence safety bill to narrow language preempting state laws regulating the industry, according to a person with knowledge of her efforts granted anonymity to discuss private legislative work.
DATA POINT: The Kraft Group wants to build a $16 billion data center campus in a small Central Mass. town by Aaron Pressman and Travis Andersen, The Boston Globe: New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s company is stepping into a political minefield, proposing to build one of the largest data centers in the country in the Central Massachusetts town of Sutton, just as opposition to the facilities is intensifying.
‘ABHORRENT AND UNACCEPTABLE’: Amid schools uproar, Sharon grapples with racist remarks at Town Meeting by James Vaznis, The Boston Globe: As a woman spoke at a microphone in what sounded like a Chinese accent, a man sitting behind the family in the balcony of the auditorium said, “Why don’t you go back to China?” Disgusted, family members confronted the man during the meeting and afterward. He denied making the comment. The allegations have raised questions about racial tolerance in this suburb of 19,000 people south of Boston, long known for the quality of its schools.
Health insurance premiums in Mass. climb 38% since 2019, outpacing the national average, report finds by Jonathan Saltzman, The Boston Globe.
‘I had to decide to save my life.’ Refugees lawfully admitted to the US now fear deportation under Trump policies by Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, The Boston Globe.
‘We’re not asking for the moon’: Harvard strike grows as academic workers walk out by Michaela Towfighi, The Boston Globe.
Citing ‘equity,’ this Western Mass. school said it would close its child care center. Parents are in an uproar. by Brooke Hauser, The Boston Globe.
Quincy council OKs surveillance rules. Koch questions authority by Peter Blandino, The Patriot Ledger.
The Mass. cannabis industry was meant to help those hurt by the war on drugs. Many say it failed. by Meghan Smith, GBH News.
Shifting counts leave Second Plymouth race unresolved as recounts loom by Sam Drysdale, State House News Service.
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This newsletter was edited and produced by Matt Stout.
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Kelly Garrity can be reached at kelly.garrity@globe.com.