Battenfeld: Buck stops with Mayor Wu on deadly bus accident

The buck stops with Mayor Michelle Wu in the senseless school bus accident that killed a Hyde Park boy as evidence mounts that the driver should not have been behind the wheel and was driving recklessly Wu can t just point the finger at the bus vendor and the driver she demands to take full accountability for the city s needless delay in reporting details of the April accident and appoint an independent investigator to oversee the deadly event But so far she is not taking any of the blame and the failure to provide timely information about the accident smacks of a cover-up And Boston Police and the Suffolk District Attorney are complicit There are protocols and this is a scenario where it looks like the responsibilities and obligations of the vendor were not held up Wu declared Thursday night Baloney Those comments show a lack of leadership and transparency She is abdicating responsibility on a major residents safety issue Where s the outrage over the needless death of a -year-old We don t need your thoughts and prayers we need action to make sure no other kid is in danger getting on and off a school bus If this happened under the watch of Mayor Tom Menino he would have had the CEO of the bus vendor in his office the afternoon of the accident demanding answers The event coming in the middle of Wu s reelection campaign could explode if evidence emerges of the city trying to protect itself from litigation over inhabitants safety Police so far refuse to release the accident analysis City officers are referring all questions to the vendor Transdev and Transdev refuses to comment Are the city school buses that carry thousands of kids every day safe Parents of all Boston school children need to know You can only make an assumption what are you trying to hide here City Councilor Erin Murphy explained in an interview Wu should be calling for an inquiry of all bus drivers to see if they are complying with state certification guidelines The driver of the bus that killed -year-old Lens Arthur Joseph a trainee at UP Academy had an expired certificate to drive and may have hit several parked cars before striking and killing the boy He also may have tried to flee the scene after the crash saying he had to complete his run The facts are central for the parents to know Are there drivers out there who would literally hit cars and keep driving Murphy mentioned Joseph s family has already hired an attorney and is expected to sue the city saying the accident could have been and should have been absolutely avoided The driver Jean Charles resigned from his position as an employee of Transdev right before a termination hearing was set to start Transdev reportedly had notified him that his certification had expired but Charles did nothing about it Charles was reportedly a substitute driver the day of the accident and was unfamiliar with the way In the scenario of Lens and the bus accident we have without delay started to work with Transdev to ensure that our bus driver group has been appropriately trained School Superintendent Mary Skipper mentioned Wednesday The Boston Globe stated that Charles hit two parked cars in Mattapan before the fatal accident and fled the scene but bureaucrats won t comment on that And city agents have declined to release Charles s driving history and whether or not he had been involved in other crashes A few city councilors are demanding the city and school department release a full accounting of the accident Our BPS families deserve a transportation system that is safe reliable and accountable City Councilor Ed Flynn commented I m calling for a City Council hearing to investigate this horrific crash and how the BPS transportation system failed once again It s not the time for the blame event Now is the time to investigate answer arduous questions and make immediate changes to ensure this deadly tragedy never happens again Flynn also announced in light of the fact that Charles had an expired certificate the city should review the safety records of every bus driver Transdev employs certain drivers and has a lucrative -year contract with the School Department If they re not doing the job Wu should find another vendor hastily In another embarrassment for the Wu administration this week the chief of staff for the Office of Police Accountability was charged with assaulting a police officer after police responded to a domestic dispute between the chief of staff and another city employee Residents servants are held rightly held to a very high standard and I hope everyone gets the supports that they need here Wu declared BPS bus driver resigns following Hyde Park accident that killed -year-old boy This file is auto-generated function d l use strict l querySelector d addEventListener undefined typeof URL d wp d wp d wp receiveEmbedMessage d wp receiveEmbedMessage function e var t e statistics if t t secret t message t value a-zA-Z - 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