Flaherty Bails Just in Time

Can you really blame City Councilor Michael “Flats” Flaherty for throwing in the towel?

Seriously, who in his or her right mind would want to be on the Boston City Council these days?

Consider where Flats sits on the Council floor during those appalling Wednesday meetings.

To his right is Tania Fernandes Anderson, who a few months back began screaming at the top of her lungs:

“What the bleep does a black woman have to do on this bleeping Council to get some respect as a black woman?”

To his left (in more ways than one) is Kendra Lara. Exactly one week ago she was charged with smashing into a house while driving an unregistered, uninsured, uninspected vehicle with a revoked driver’s license while not having her child in a booster seat as required by law.

This is your modern Boston City Council. If you were riding on a bus with the 12 current members of the body, once you glanced around at your fellow passengers, you would immediately get off at the next stop – as three of the 13 councilors elected in 2021 have now decided to do.

Perhaps Flats should have made his decision a few weeks earlier, thus allowing some other sane candidates to file papers for one of the four at-large seats.

On the other hand, perhaps he delayed his announcement as a way of clearing the field for Bridget Nee-Walsh, another Southie stalwart making her second run for the Council. (She finished seventh last time).

If she were to win, maybe then Nee-Walsh could assist Flats if he runs for one of the no-heavy-lifting countywide offices that will or may be open in 2024.

But whatever happens next, Flats made the right call to flee. Who could stand being on the Council? These people just recently tried to cut the police budget. When the Fire Department called out the “House of Horrors” in a public-housing project in Southie and filed for a 51A order for the DCF to take the four kids found in the back bedroom, Lara accused the jakes of “transphobic rhetoric.”

Now, ironically, a 51A has been filed to take Lara’s son into custody.

Back in the 1980s when more women started getting elected to the Council, Dapper O’Neil took to calling them “the Andrews Sisters.”

They included Maura Hennigan and later Rosaria “Sister Sunshine” Salerno and Diane Modica. None of them will ever be inducted into any political halls of fame. But compared to the group now on the Council, the Andrews Sisters look like Maggie Thatcher, Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir.

Let’s start with the current belle of the ball – Kendra Lara.

According to her bio on the City of Boston website, she is “a proud first-generation Black Dominican woman,” and the “first person of color” to represent the JP-West Roxbury-Roslindale district.

Her c.v. includes a stint as “Director of Radical Philanthropy” at Resist which is “a leading force for racial and economic justice.”

In case you had any doubts, Kendra is “anchored by a socialist vision.”

On the other side of Flats sits Tania Fernandes Anderson, the Roxbury district councilor. She describes herself on the website as “the first African immigrant and Muslim-American elected” to the Council.

On Instagram, she expands on her qualifications, bragging that she is also “the first formally (sic) undocumented African-born immigrant and first Muslim elected.”

Formally? Surely she meant to say “formerly.”

She formally, er formerly employed both her sister and her son on her Council payroll – for $65,000 and $55,000 a year, respectively. They worked in “constituent services,” because where else would they be, uh, working?

When Tania was busted and had to get rid of them, the illegal alien emeritus claimed her open and gross violation of the state’s anti-nepotism laws was “an honest mistake.”

Of course it was!

Flats was the top vote-getter in the 2021 at-large Council race. Finishing second was one Julia Mejia, another Council “first” – just ask her.

Julia is “the first Afro-Latina to sit on the Boston City Council.”

She doesn’t get to boast about once being an illegal alien, but she claims a runner-up status of sorts – “raised by a single mother who was undocumented for most of her childhood.”

Needless to say, this has inspired her “lifelong pursuit of justice and equity.”

Sometimes, though, she has had to interrupt her lifelong pursuit of justice and equity to post a statement on YouTube, as she did last December:

“For those who are wondering if I am using drugs, answer is absolutely not.”

Now, in such a hotbed of woke-ism, those councilors who don’t quite measure up, shall we say, in the Victimhood Sweepstakes try to do the best they can.

Like Gigi Coletta, from East Boston. No Muslims or illegal aliens in her lineage, apparently, but she persists. Her minor at UMass-Boston was “Human Rights.” But wait, there’s more:

“She loves to cook dishes that honor her Italian and Mexican heritage.”

Dapper’s Andrews Sisters had a male colleague by the name of Dave Scondras, another “first” – the first openly gay Boston city councilor. He was later convicted of enticement of a child after attempting to lure a young lad into the woods with promises of drugs, alcohol and lubricant.

The new Andrews Sisters on the Council likewise have a male comrade – Ricky Ricardo Arroyo. He’s a second-generation hack – the son of Felix “No Show” Arroyo.

Ricky Ricardo was recently caught conniving with the then-US attorney, Rachael Rollins, to frame the district attorney of Suffolk County.

Now, in a new scandal, Arroyo has been fined $3,000 by the State Ethics Commission — conflict of interest. On the Council, it’s a resume enhancer.

Barney Frank used to say that if you ran for the Boston City Council, only two things could happen, and both of them were bad.

Number one, you could lose.

Number two, you could win.

Flats Flaherty, though, has finally figured out a way to really win. He’s quitting.