It’s Inauguration Day for Boston Mayor Wu. Here’s what to look for | Bay State Briefing

John L. Micek

Mon, January 5, 2026 at 11:01 AM UTC

10 min read

Good Monday morning, everyone.

Inauguration ceremonies for Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and the Boston City Council kick off at 10 a.m. on this Monday morning (Jan. 5) at Boston Symphony Hall.

The ceremony comes amid a week of events as the Democratic mayor starts her second term in City Hall. And it also comes as Wu, who was reelected without opposition , continues to contend with a rising national profile.

Wu, who won her first term in 2021, will be sworn in for a four-year term . The council members will be sworn in for two-year terms .

“I’m grateful to all of our partners for their leadership to ensure the 2026 Inauguration Week includes events for all, and I encourage every resident to join in the celebrations and be a part of Boston’s next chapter,” Wu said in a statement.

The inauguration ceremony, which is invite-only, will be streamed live on the city’s website, Wu’s office said.

The week’s slate of events , which also includes a citywide gathering bringing together faith leaders, community safety partners in Roxbury on Tuesday, a “celebration” of neighborhood businesses in Eastie on Wednesday, and a “Teen Takeover” in Mattapan on Friday, are aimed at “[creating] pace for joy, belonging and celebration while elevating the community voices and partners who are shaping Boston’s present and future,” Wu said.

Still, Wu will face no shortage of challenges, which range from improving the Boston Public Schools to dealing with ongoing public safety challenges at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard.

There’s also the Republican Trump administration’s ongoing mass deportation effort.

Boston City Hall as pictured on Dec. 17, 2025.(Sebastian Restrepo/MassLive)

Wu will also head into her second term with a rejiggered senior staff . That includes tapping longtime aide Clare Kelly as her new chief of staff .

Here’s a quick look at the other changes:

Wu named Phyliss St-Hubert, who’d previously served as her chief scheduler, as her deputy chief of staff for executive operations. The move puts her in charge of office operations and planning major events across the city.
Beata Coloyan, the former chief of staff for the city’s Community Engagement Cabinet and Executive Director of Neighborhood Services, is now the deputy chief of staff for strategic planning.
Mohammed Missouri, who was the director of stakeholder engagement and Wu’s senior strategy adviser, slides into a new gig as executive director of the city’s Office of Neighborhood Services.
Mike Firestone, the onetime Chief of Policy and Strategic Planning, was named the city’s new corporation counsel, succeeding longtime top city lawyer Adam Cederbaum, who’s leaving to become general counsel for the Longwood Collective.
Kristin McSwain, previously a senior adviser and director of the Office of Early Childhood, will become the city’s new policy and research chief.
Ricardo Patrón, who formerly served as a deputy chief of staff and press secretary, is the new chief of intergovernmental relations, Wu’s office said.

“This incredible team pours their hearts into serving our city every day, and I’m deeply honored and grateful to work alongside them,” Wu said in a statement. “In these challenging times, we know how important it is for city services to be reliable, responsive, and connected to community. We are ready for the hard work ahead to keep Boston moving forward.”

Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin leaves his Brighton polling location after casting his vote on Election Day, Nov. 4, 2025.(Sam Drysdale/State House News Service)

From our Ballot Questions Desk

Four more ballot questions, ranging from reining in legislative stipends to returning surplus tax revenue to taxpayers, have cleared a critical procedural hurdle.

Backers for each of the four questions collected the required 74,574 signatures to head to the Legislature for further action, Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office said last week. Those join five more questions that won certification in December.

Here’s how that breaks down:

Initiative Petition for a Law to Improve Access to Public Records: 89,013 signatures.
Initiative Petition for an Act to Reform and Regulate Legislative Stipends: 96,797 signatures.
Initiative Petition for a Law Relative to Labor Relations Policies for Committee for Public Counsel Services Employees: 86,153 signatures.
Initiative Petition for a Law Relative to Limiting State Tax Collection Growth and Returning Surpluses to Taxpayers: 85,588 signatures.

According to Galvin’s office, two more petitions of “significant size” have to be processed by the Jan. 7 deadline so they can be sent to the Legislature, which has until May 5 to act on the petitions — or not.

If the Legislature chooses not to pass one of the proposals, the petitioners will be permitted to gather the additional (and weirdly specific) 12,429 signatures needed to place the question on the ballot in November, Galvin’s office said.

The Republican candidates for Massachusetts governor are weighing in on a pause on parole decisions. Mark Graves/The Oregonian

Parole gets political

The three Republicans vying for a chance to unseat Democratic Gov. Maura Healey are weighing in on the Massachusetts Parole Board’s decision to release 39 convicted murderers, who were teens when they committed the crimes and were made eligible for parole in the wake of a 2024 Supreme Judicial Court ruling .

In an email, GOP hopeful Brian Shortsleeve called on Healey to demand the board’s resignation, calling the panel “out of control.”

His rival, and fellow Baker administration alum, Mike Kennealy, who said that “parole decisions should be about public safety — not politics."

While the parole board has said its decisions are guided by “careful deliberation” that centers the voices of victims and the potential for rehabilitation, the pace of the releases has angered some prosecutors, Boston.com reported .

“The blanket granting of parole without any significant recognition or consideration of the suffering of the victims is at best ill-considered,” Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz told The Boston Herald.

The GOP hopefuls offered a similar sentiment. If elected, Shortsleeve vowed to “make public safety and victims’ rights the priority. I will ensure victims have at least as much representation at parole hearings as the criminals.”

Kennealy also vowed to put victims first in such decisions.

“What’s consistently ignored are the victims — the lives lost and the families left with permanent trauma. Justice demands that victims’ voices and community safety come first, not political agendas," he said in a post to X.

Medical device executive Michael Minogue, who also is seeking the GOP nomination in 2026, told MassLive that “the fundamental role of the governor is to uphold the law and keep communities safe.”

“Instead, Maura Healey’s parole board is releasing violent, convicted criminals back into our communities,” Minogue continued.

“Prosecutors and district attorneys across the state are raising serious concerns because they’re the ones who see the consequences firsthand for the victims, families and public safety,” he concluded. “When the parole board is making decisions that put communities at risk, the governor who appointed that board owns the outcome. Massachusetts families deserve a governor who upholds the law and puts their safety ahead of ideology.”

The 2025 Great Malden Outdoors.(Colgan Johnson of 1981 & Co Photography/Office of Gov. Maura Healey)

Monday numbers

Nineteen organizations and municipalities will share in $190,000 in state grant money to support equitable access to outdoor recreation events, the Healey administration has said.

The money administered by the state’s Office of Outdoor Recreation will “improve ease of access to outdoor recreational activities for low-income residents, communities of color and people living with disabilities,” the administration said in a statement.

“By investing in community events and programs, we’re removing barriers that keep people from enjoying the outdoors and discovering new experiences,” the agency’s director, Paul Jahnige, said. “These grants help us create opportunities for families and friends to share joyful moments in nature, fostering connections that boost our mental, physical and social well-being.”

The grants include $9,650 for a kayaking program in Boston’s Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods and $7,200 for Taunton’s Inclusive and Accessible Family Fun Day, among other efforts.

Outdoor recreation should be for everyone — regardless of age, ability or access. Nature is a wonderful place where people can come together, whether they’re seasoned adventurers or just starting out,” Jahnige said.

Tim Johnson, CEO of the Native Plant Trust, opens a freezer at the Garden in the Woods in Framingham that stores part of the organization's seed bank, which includes 10 million seeds.Hadley Barndollar

They said it

“The seed bank is part of a portfolio of tools that conservation practitioners can use to make sure that these species do not go extinct.”

Native Plant Trust CEO Tim Johnson on the millions of frozen seeds that could one day be used to bring hundreds of species back to New England’s topography.

A view of the Massachusetts State House in Boston, looking up Park Street toward Beacon Hill, on a busy evening on Nov. 24, 2025.(John L. Micek/MassLive)

Turned up to 11

Grammy-winning trio Los Lonely Boys are hitting the road in 2026. And an early stop brings them to Boston’s City Winery for a pair of shows on Jan. 8 and 9 ( tickets and more info here ).

If you know the band, the chances are pretty good that you know them from their 2004 hit “ Heaven ,” from their eponymously titled LP .

Go ahead and turn this one up to 11.

The Acropolis at night, as seen from the Apollo Palm rooftop in downtown Athens.Photo by Nicole Pensiero

Your Monday long read

So what can the ancient Greeks and Romans teach us about combating misinformation in the modern age? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Writing for The Conversation, Jemima McPhee , a Ph.D. candidate in the classics at the Australian National University, offers five lessons from the ancients that are as applicable now as they were two millennia ago:

Start with observations
Think critically
Acknowledge what you don’t know
Science is a part of culture
Science is for everyone.

Here’s the germane bit from the admonition to think critically:

" Ancient scientists insisted their readers think critically, encouraging us to analyse the claims made by other people.

“The Aetna is an anonymous text that explains how volcanoes work. Its unknown author warns readers about two potential sources of misinformation: other authors and other people.

“Whether these groups intend to mislead their audiences or are simply misinformed, the book urges us to scrutinise their claims carefully and think about whether they are consistent with the evidence of our own senses and ratio (the Latin term for the powers of reasoning).

“Ancient scientists encourage us to think critically about information we read or hear, because even well-meaning sources are not always accurate. Writers like the Aetna author want us to think before accepting other people’s claims.”

Which seems particularly appropriate in our share-first, think-later era.

That’s it for today. As always, you can send me questions, tips and comments at jmicek@masslive.com. Have a good week, friends.

Top Stories: