Gove Gone, Osgood In: Mayor Wu Shakes Up Streets Cabinet Leadership
Mayor Wu is shaking up the leadership in her Streets Cabinet in the aftermath of last month’s homicide of Louisa Gag, who was killed by a truck driver while riding her bike in Mission Hill.
Interim Chief of Streets Nick Gove, who had publicly struggled to manage the city’s street infrastructure projects during his brief tenure as the city’s Chief of Streets this year, is being demoted back into his former role.
To replace him, Mayor Wu has tapped a considerably more experienced manager, Chris Osgood.
Osgood has already served in the role: he’d been Mayor Marty Walsh’s first and only Chief of Streets after Walsh initially created the cabinet-level position to oversee the city’s Public Works and Transportation Departments in 2015.
During his tenure, Osgood oversaw a considerable expansion in the Streets Cabinet’s staff to support implementation of the Go Boston 2030 plan, the Walsh administration’s comprehensive transportation plan for reducing the city’s traffic, air pollution, and crashes.
When Mayor Walsh departed City Hall to join the Biden administration, Osgood subsequently served as the Chief of Staff to Mayor Kim Janey.
And under Mayor Wu, he continued to occupy senior leadership positions in City Hall, most recently as Mayor Wu’s Director of Climate Resilience and the mayor’s Senior Advisor for Infrastructure.
Mayor Wu had hinted at the leadership changes at a vigil for Louisa Gag on July 16, when she said that she would assign “two senior members of my team to the Streets Cabinet, full-time, to accelerate the policies, planning, and capital delivery work that will make our streets safer.”
In addition to Osgood’s new role, the mayor is also assigning Tali Robbins, the mayor’s Deputy Chief of Policy, as the Streets Cabinet’s new chief of staff.
The mayor also announced a new panel of safety advocates and former city officials that will meet on a weekly basis to advise on the Streets Cabinet’s management structure and improve the office’s productivity.
The advisory group includes several street safety advocates, including Jarred Johnston, former executive director of TransitMatters, and Stacy Thompson, former executive director of the LivableStreets Alliance, as well as several former public officials, including former City Councilor Matt O’Malley and former Boston Transportation Dept. commissioner and former MassDOT highway administrator Tom Tinlin.
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