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Push for ethics committee comes to City Council in wake of Fernandes Anderson arrest
After Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson was arrested on corruption charges, councilors are expected to explore the formation of a new ethics committee.
In the wake of Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson’s arrest last week, her colleagues could soon consider the formation of an official ethics committee for the body.
Tania Fernandes Anderson:
Fernandes Anderson was arrested Friday morning on public corruption charges. Councilor Ed Flynn introduced a hearing order that evening to start the process of establishing an ethics committee. Such a committee would lead extra ethics training for council members and staff, review conflict of interest matters, and investigate any alleged violations, according to the hearing order.
City Council is set to meet for a full meeting on Wednesday, during which the order will be discussed and potentially referred to a committee that would hold the actual hearing at a later date.
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Councilors and staff are currently required to attend annual training provided by the State Ethics Commission, but a dedicated ethics committee does not exist. In his hearing order, Flynn referenced similar precedents overseeing ethics in the Massachusetts Legislature and in the U.S. Congress. He also referred to the fact that New York City Council does have a Committee on Standards and Ethics that, among other things, oversees the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board.
“The residents of Boston deserve the highest standards of leadership from the Boston City Council,” the order reads.
After Fernandes Anderson’s arrest, Flynn was one of several elected officials to call for her resignation. But he also went beyond this specific incident, referencing other recent scandals.
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“The allegations against Councilor Fernandes Anderson are troubling and unfortunately follows a series of legal and ethical lapses by members of the Boston City Council over the last several years, which have undermined public trust in our work,” Flynn said in a statement to Boston.com. “The residents of Boston deserve the highest standards of leadership from the Boston City Council. I believe establishing an Ethics Committee will provide more oversight and transparency on potential violations on the Boston City Council.”
Mayor Michelle Wu, a former City Council member herself, led the calls for Fernandes Anderson’s resignation, saying that “the serious nature of these charges undermine the public trust and will prevent her from effectively serving the city.” Wu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Fernandes Anderson was charged with five counts of aiding and abetting wire fraud and one count of aiding and abetting theft concerning programs receiving federal funds, according to an unsealed indictment. The councilor allegedly lied about hiring a family member as a staffer and concocted a kickback scheme where she would hand out a large bonus to the family member with an agreement that $7,000 would be returned to her.
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On Fernandes Anderson’s instructions, that $13,000 bonus was deposited into a bank account and then withdrawn in three portions on separate dates. Fernandes Anderson agreed to meet with the family member in a City Hall bathroom in June of 2023, where $7,000 in cash was handed back to her, prosecutors say.
She pleaded “not guilty” and was released on certain conditions after making a brief appearance Friday afternoon in federal court.
Fernandes Anderson, according to the indictment, was struggling financially in early to mid-2023. She was missing rent and car payments, incurring overdraft fees, and already had to pay a $5,000 civil penalty for hiring her sister and her son to paid positions on her staff in 2022.
The kickback scheme was allegedly communicated to Fernandes Anderson’s family member in May 2023. Just a month before, Fernandes Anderson was making headlines for proposing that councilors get more money to allocate for staff salaries. Each councilor is allotted several hundred thousand dollars to pay bonuses and salaries to staff.
She sought to raise the allotment from $315,000 to $390,000 per year, citing Boston’s high cost of living and the long hours many staffers put in. Personnel salary orders are often approved during council meetings without debate, but the information is publicly available.
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Fernandes Anderson therefore handed out bonuses to all of her staffers in May 2023, but said that the person later revealed to be a family member would be getting a larger bonus to pay them for their prior volunteer work. That bonus ended up being twice as large as the total amount of all bonus payments to her other staffers combined, according to the indictment.
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