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Councilor Flynn calls for top City Hall official to resign
Flynn said that Chief of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion Segun Idowu "failed to provide positive and ethical leadership."
A Boston City Council member is calling for the resignation of a top official in the Wu administration. The development comes on the heels of an incident last week, where two City Hall staffers were arrested during a domestic incident.
Marwa Khudaynazar, 27, and Chulan Huang, 26, were arrested last Thursday. Khudaynazar worked as the chief of staff at the Office of Police Accountability and Transparency, and Huang is a neighborhood liaison for Downtown, Chinatown, and the Leather District.
Both were charged with assault and battery on a household member, and Khudaynazar was also charged with assault and battery on a police officer, according to court documents. Both pleaded not guilty. They have been placed on unpaid leave while the city investigates.
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Councilor Ed Flynn called for both to be fired after the news broke last week. In a social media post Sunday, he called for Chief of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion Segun Idowu to either resign or be fired. Idowu “failed to provide positive and ethical leadership,” Flynn said.
Flynn did not mention Khudaynazar or Huang by name, but the link to the alleged domestic violence incident was clear. In an accompanying post, Flynn said that an outside investigation into the hiring practices and workplace culture of city departments like the Office of Police Accountability and Transparency, the Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, and the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services was warranted. He made the same call for an outside investigation into these departments last week in response to the news about Khudaynazar and Huang.
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“The City takes these allegations seriously. When we learned of the incident last Thursday, both employees were placed on unpaid leave immediately. We are following the appropriate protocols as an employer and completing an internal review,” a city spokesperson said Monday.
Idowu did not return a request for comment.
Police were called to Hudson Street in Chinatown around 2 a.m. last Thursday morning. Khudaynazar and Huang, who are dating, got into an altercation that led to officers being called. When police arrived, they observed Huang to have multiple bite marks on his chest and arms. Khudaynazar had visible marks on her wrists. She said that she bit Huang in self defense because he would not let go of her wrists, according to an unredacted police report obtained by The Boston Globe.
Khudaynazar told police that Huang stole her car and her phone, but when the officer went to arrest Huang, she immediately said she was lying about those allegations. She tried to close the door while telling police that they both work for the mayor’s office. Khudaynazar asked to speak to a police supervisor, but one was not available, the report said, according to the Globe.
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Khudaynazar allegedly refused to leave the apartment, began recording an officer with her phone, and called 911 to report that a police sergeant in her house was refusing to show their identification number. She tried to block an officer who was attempting to leave the apartment and said “so make me move” at one point, according to the Globe. When the officer tried moving Khudaynazar’s hand out of the way, she allegedly began shouting obscenities and hitting him in the chest.
Josh Kraft, the most high-profile opponent Wu has in this year’s mayoral election, echoed Flynn’s worries.
“I share the concerns raised by City Councilor Flynn about the Chief of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion. While it is disturbing to learn that a domestic dispute involving two City Hall aides turned into an assault on a police officer, the suggestion that a Cabinet chief, who is one of Mayor Wu’s most visible advisors, has played a role in this crisis needs to be addressed,” Kraft said in a statement Monday. “The public deserves more information.”
Whether any of Flynn’s City Council colleagues back his push to oust Idowu remains to be seen. Flynn, who at one point was weighing a run for mayor against Wu, has been an outspoken voice in calling for ethics reforms in City Hall. This rhetoric amped up after the arrest of Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson last year on public corruption charges. Fernandes Anderson has since pleaded guilty to two federal charges and intends to resign soon.
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In January, Flynn tried and failed to muster support for the creation of a new City Council ethics committee. Last month, he began advocating for the city to establish a new oversight committee to monitor ethics concerns and potential rules violations.
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