Rent Control Foe Gave $1,000 To Mayoral Candidate Wu's Campaign

According to an April 2021 WBUR website article, over 70 percent of Boston's residents now want to see rent control and rent regulation protection for Boston's tenants restored in 2021. And Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu has promised to push for some kind of rent regulation system to be established for Boston's majority tenant population, if Councilor Wu wins the election for mayor of Boston in 2021.

Yet--although the Ward 5 Democratic Committe in Boston claimed, in a statement endorsing Councilor Wu for mayor, that the Boston councilor "has a long track record of being a problem solver"--since Councilor Wu has been sitting on the Boston City Council during the last 7 years, monthly market rents charged Boston tenants have generally continued to be increased in an exploitative way by the special real estate interests which pro-landlord lobbying groups, like the Rental Housing Association [RHA] and the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, represent. And, during an August 2021 interview on one of WBZ radio's evening talk shows, Mayoral Candidate Wu did not call for tenant rents to be rolled back in Boston to what they were in 1994--before the rent regulation system in Boston was eliminated, despite the majority of Boston's voters opposing its elimination in a 1994 state-wide referendum.

In addition, as Adam Reilly noted in an Aug. 11, 2021 GBH News website article: "To be clear, Wu doesn't want to freeze rents, but to cap rent increases."

Coincidentally, according to Wu Committee financial disclosre forms, on July 30, 2021--a month after Boston Mayor Janey's campaign committee accepted a $1,000 campaign contribution on June 30, 2021 from Chestnut Hill Realty CEO Ed Zuker--Boston City Councilor Wu's campaign committee also accepted a $1,000 campaign contribution from this former Rental Housing Association President and former Greater Boston Real Estate Board Vice-President who, historically, worked to eliminate rent regulation in Boston in the 1990's.

Of the 507 individual campaign contributions of $1,000 that Boston City Councilor Wu's mayoral campaign committee accepted from various individuals between Jan. 1, 2021 and July 31, 2021, more than a few were apparently accepted from individuals who (like Chestnut Hill Realty CEO Zuker of Chestnut Hill, MA) are involved in the real estate industry (which has, historically, worked to block rent regulation, rent control, rent rollbacks and rent freezes for the Boston tenants it has often exploited economically).

For example, besides accepting a campaign contribution of $1,000 from former RHA President, former Greater Boston Real Estate Board Vice-President and Chestnut Hill Realty CEO Zuker on July 30, 2021, Councilor Wu's campaign committee also accepted the following other individual campaign contributions of $1,000 between Jan. 1, 2021 and July 31, 2021:

1. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from Groma Property Manager Grant Fishman;

2. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from Groma Partner Angelo Drake;

3. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from Groma LLC General Counsel Paul Bell;

4. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from David Mugar of Mugar Enterprises;

5. A campaign contribution of 1,000 from Alice Ting of Mugar Enterprises;

6.. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from Peter Georgantas of PEG Properties and Management, Real Estate Developer;

7.. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from Elizabeth Georgantas;

8. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from Janet Frazier of Maloney Properties;

9. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from Maloney Properties Property Manager Diana Kelly;

10. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from Wingate Companies Chair Mark Schuster;

11. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from Emily Yu of BioMed Realty;

12. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from V10 Development Partner John Tocco of Stoneham, MA.

13. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from David Levenfeld of Storage Prior Management LLC;

14. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from Elizabeth Likovich of AIMCO Developers of Edgewood, CO;

15. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from Starnberg Realty Manager Tengjun Wang of Fremont, CA;

16. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from David Wong of R & W. Realty of Newton Centre; and

17. A campaign contribution of $1,000 from a landlord, Wendy Traynor, of Wellesley Hills, MA;

And, in addition, 2021 Boston Mayoral Candidate Wu's campaign committee also accepted an individual campaign contribution of $500 on July 28, 2021 from Cambridge Street Realty's Bruce Efron of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts and an individual campaign contribution of $500 from a director of The Copley Group, Arielle Friedler, on July 30, 2021.

"Non-profit" institutions in Boston (that still aren't required to pay a fair share of local and city taxes in Boston)--like GBH, Harvard University, Boston College, BU, The Boston Foundation and the Barr Foundation are (in exchange for their federal tax-exempted status) not supposed to be supporting political campaigns of candidates for political offices.

Yet on Jan. 11, 2021, the vice-president of The Boston Foundation (whose total assets currently exceed $1.6 billion and whose president and CEO, former Emerson College President Lee Pelton, gave a campaign contribution of $1,000 to Boston Mayor Janey's campaign committeee on June 10, 2021), Stephen Chan (who received a total annual compensation of $281,193 between July 1, 2019 June 30, 2020 from the "non-profit" foundation), also gave a campaign contribution of $1,000 to Boston City Councilor Wu's campaign committee.

In addition, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Kaiser Family Foundation and Eastern Bank Charitable Foundation trustee, Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative Advisory Board Member and Pilot House Associates LLC Executive Jim Canales--the president of the Barr Foundation (whose current assets exceed $2 billion)--also gave a $1,000 campaign contribution to Councilor Wu's campaign committee on Jan. 19, 2021.

And the co-founder, former president and current board of trustees chair of the Barr Foundation (which gave a $300,000 "charitable grant" to Multi-Billionaire Boston Red Sox Owner John Henry's Boston Globe media firm on July 19, 2019 and has owned over $12.7 million worth of Comcast Corp. stock in recent years, according to its most recent Form 990 financial filing), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Life Trustee and Museum of Fine Arts [MFA] and Boston Symphony Orchestra Board of Trustees Chair Barbara W. Hostetter, also, coincidentally, gave a $1,000 campaign contribution to Councilor Wu's mayoral campaign committee on Feb. 1, 2021.