Quotes from Michelle Wu

Mobilize your friends and neighbors to understand that your day-to-day involvement with local government matters far more than a referendum on the White House every four years.

When it comes to fighting for progress in Boston, there's a long history of people in power trying to label advocacy and hard work as being political in order to avoid accountability and distract from community demands for better leadership.

Block by block, street by street, our city has the resources, the activism, and the ideas to meet these challenges if we act boldly and reshape what's possible. After all, Boston was founded on a revolutionary promise: that things don't have to be as they always have been.

I'm tired but grateful: choosing to blend parenting and public service has made me a more confident mother and a better legislator.

So many of our large anchor institutions also have tremendous purchasing power. If we were coordinating that and incentivizing good food procurement across the board, that's a tremendous impact that the city can drive.

I put my name out there and ran for public service because I want more inclusion, diversity, and opportunity... I will fight for those values.

We need to see more resources in the combination of public safety and public health but we have to use our dollars wisely.

There's a lot that the city can do, and it depends on having a partnership with community members who are living the realities.

My boys, Blaise and Cass, run Halloween at our house with the help of my sister who always makes their costumes.

I like to be out and about in the woods, in the quiet absorbing our amazing open spaces.

We must build a thriving and inclusive arts, restaurant, and nightlife scene to reflect Boston's culture and diversity.

On the fourth Thursday in August, my neighbors and I cordon off the ends of our block and take over the street for an evening. The annual Augustus Ave. block party is an exercise in teamwork and deep democracy.

When I first ran for City Council in 2013, I was told over and over again that I would likely lose, and for reasons beyond my control: I was too young, not born in Boston, Asian American, female.

When people know and care about their neighbors, they show up for each other in tough times and work together more effectively to boost quality of life in all the times in between.

The City of Boston and the T need each other. From designating bus-only lanes to implementing transit signal priority, the MBTA and Boston Transportation Department must work together like never before to unclog roads and keep riders on buses and the Green Line moving - for the health of the entire region.

We need a T governance structure capable of responding to the depth of our regional transportation crisis while tearing down silos that keep municipal leaders and state officials from working together with urgency on shared goals.

The antidote to the malaise and distrust that led to the rise of Trump is total civic engagement: working together from the grass roots, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, to implement progressive policies that build a fairer city for all.

Certainly, workers in many industries do not have the privilege of being able to balance parenting at the workplace, and we must fight especially hard to support working parents in low-wage jobs.

I reject the notion that Boston is a city hopelessly divided by neighborhood, income level or political outlook.

Often when we talk about food and food policy, it is thinking about hunger and food access through food pantries and food banks, all of which are extremely important.

In the drive to prove our status as a world-class city, let's stay true to our democratic legacy and what Boston has already given to the world: informed independence and true debate.

The coronavirus pandemic has been emotionally taxing for all families, and this time is especially disruptive for those relying on carefully built routines and support systems.

To be clear, building a seamless and convenient network of protected cycling infrastructure will require trade-offs. On many streets, adding a cycle track means narrowing or removing car lanes, or eliminating on-street parking - scenarios that bring panic to car and business owners.

We, through city government, can add protections and regulations and have policy conversations about so many aspects of what affects our residents' daily lives.