Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune is returning to the rank-and-file.
The at-Large councilor is adhering to council rules requiring a different president for each two-year term. But before stepping away, Louijeune is looking back.
“Focusing on the issues that the residents care about — affordable housing, clean streets, cost of living,” Louijeune said Wednesday.
A home rule petition on ranked-choice voting and efforts around housing are among the issues she spotlights, but she admits the term had its fair share of difficulties.
“Some of the frustrations, generally, that exist are that we are not the ones who can just sign off and say, ‘Yes, we are going to ensure that your taxes don’t increase as drastically as they may,'” she said.
Louijeune expressed aggravation with the recurring battle between Boston City Hall and the Massachusetts Legislature over rising residential property taxes.
“We’ve had a plan that we’ve put before the state house now twice, that has passed the House now twice, and hasn’t had a hearing, or hasn’t even been sent to committee, in the Senate,” Louijeune said.
The problem itself is tied to falling commercial property values downtown as office buildings continue to see high vacancies amid a post-pandemic shift to remote work. Louijeune says the council and Wu administration have been working to bolster the area.
“We have our commercial-to-residential conversions, storefront activations, to bring more of our small businesses downtown,” she added.
But when pressed on whether those actions are creating meaningful progress, Louijeune said an issue this large takes time.
“The same thing for housing, they’re going to take multiple things to try to move the needle,” she said.
A review of her time as council president wouldn’t be complete without addressing the scandal surrounding Tania Fernandes Anderson. The former District 7 city councilor was recently released from prison after serving a brief sentence tied to federal corruption charges.
She has already been back in the public eye, blasting public officials and the city’s current political climate.
“I stand by how this body moved and how we acted,” Louijeune said. “And I do believe that no one is the worst thing that they’ve done, and that there’s always a possibility for people to redeem themselves.”
As for the Boston City Council, the body finished its 2025 slate of meetings on Wednesday.
The new council is set to be sworn in on Jan. 5. The only new member will be Miniard Culpepper, who fills the seat vacated by Fernandes Anderson.
A new city council president will be elected by the body internally. District 1 City Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata has claimed she has the votes to secure the position, but others on council have suggested that still could be contested.
