Mayor Marty Walsh attempted to distance himself from John Lynch, a former official at the Boston Development and Planning Agency who plead guilty Thursday to accepting a $50,000 bribe. Lynch’s guilty plea came on the heels of the convictions of two officials in the Walsh administration who were charged with conspiring to extort the organizers of the Boston Calling music festival.
“I’m shocked. I’m disappointed. I’m angry,” Walsh said Friday in an interview with Boston Public Radio. “This is not who I am, and this is not who my administration is.”
Walsh has not been implicated in either of the scandals that have rocked City Hall, but some have raised questions about City Hall's culture under his administration.
“His predecessor, Thomas M. Menino, never had a subordinate indicted on corruption charges in 20 years, and Walsh is now looking at the third conviction of one of his aides for misconduct,” Boston Globe Columnist Adrian Walker wrote in a Sept. 3 column. “That isn’t a flattering comparison for Walsh.”
Walsh said that comparisons to his predecessors are unfair, particularly because Lynch worked at City Hall through four different administrations. Though the mayor acknowledged that the responsibility to remedy the problems raised by the two cases falls on his office, he does not think his administration should be painted as one that has a problem with corruption.
“I’m angry that a public official does this,” Walsh said. “Most public servants work every single day to do the job they love ... and it’s unfair that public servants get painted with a broad brush like this.”
Walsh, however, is not discouraged. On Friday, the mayor said he has been proud of his time in office, and he does not think the two scandals will change public perception about him or his administration.
“If you ask people in the street about me, people will tell you that I’m an honest, hard-working person that's working to continue to move Boston forward,” Walsh said.
To further investigate the scandal, Walsh has hired the law firm Sullivan & Worcester LLP, but some, like Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu, don’t think it is enough. To Wu, the revelations of the scandal, in which Lynch — in exchange for $50,000 from a real estate developer — allegedly convinced a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals to vote for a permit extension, raise serious questions about the integrity of the board as a whole.
“This misses the point—business can’t go on as usual while the integrity of the ZBA is in question,” Wu said in a tweet on Sept. 5. “Someone pleaded guilty to bribery, claiming he influenced a ZBA member. We need to know who & how, and we need to know it before their next mtg [sic] on Tues.”
Walsh has rejected Wu’s criticism and said his administration is taking all of the necessary steps to remedy the matter.
“This is out of your control to some degree, and you can’t monitor every single person’s actions, and sometimes human beings can be disappointing,” Walsh said. “I’m going to continue to do my job as mayor."
