One of our favorite scenes from one of our favorites movies — “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” — is when the stallions of the Channel 4 News Team are cooling down after their extremely violent street fight with the other San Diego TV news staffs.
“Boy, that escalated quickly,” says Ron. “I mean, that really got out of hand fast!”
“Yeah,” agrees imbecilic weatherman Brick Tamland. “I stabbed a man in the heart!” With a trident, no less.
This came to mind last week when Boston Mayor Michelle Wu took a simmering dispute over the findings of a recent study of the sharp downturn in Boston commercial property values — prepared for the Boston Policy Institute by the Tufts Center for State Policy Analysis — and threw gas on it.
After acknowledging the study’s basic point — that the potential impact on city finances of the collapse, brought on by the persistence of the pandemic-spawned work-from-home phenomenon, could blow a nasty hole in the city budget over the next few years as property owners seek tax abatements — Wu last week went on the attack. At an April 10 breakfast unveiling her new budget plan, Wu complained that “to point to some false information that the city might be experiencing a billion-dollar shortfall — that is just simply not true.”
Wow! The fake news card! Where have we heard that before?
Absent any serious dispute of the facts underlying the study’s warnings, the mayor’s claim was seconded by no one and bluntly disputed by no less than Jim Rooney, former chief of staff to Wu’s mentor, the late Tom Menino, and now CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. “I don’t think they’re fake information,” he told us. The study’s projections “are based on some sets of assumptions that any economic forecast goes into…. And if you look at the mayor’s budget this year, there’s a 41% reduction [in] new commercial real estate property from last year, a big drop in that number. So the projections are beginning to come to fruition.”
There’s no obvious need for City Hall to jump ugly over this. No sane person blames Wu for the problem, which is hitting cities with large downtowns across the country. Boston may be in a tougher spot than most because of the city’s excessive reliance on commercial tax revenues to float the boat while residential property owners — no matter how wealthy — pay some of the lowest tax rates in the state. But Wu didn’t create that dynamic either.
Nonetheless, after warming up at the budget breakfast, Wu had a trident to share with stunned onlookers at Friday’s annual speech to the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, where she touted her push for state permission to jack up commercial property taxes. The idea of offering new tax incentives to goose stalled housing projects? No longer on the table, Wu said.
Is it good politics for the mayor to cast herself as the defender of residential taxpayers against wealthy developers? Sure, but who knew that Tom Brady was coming out of retirement to challenge her? Meanwhile, as Wu herself often says, it will take everyone pulling together to get the city past this difficult period. This isn’t exactly Kumbaya politics.
In “Anchorman,” when Brick admits to murdering a guy with that trident, Ron Burgundy suggests: “Lay low for awhile, because you’re probably wanted for murder.”
Good advice for City Hall as well.