Janey, soon to be acting Boston mayor, names her chief of staff
By Danny McDonald Globe Staff,Updated February 19, 2021, 3:39 p.m.
Chris Osgood, Boston's chief of streets, will be soon-to-be acting Mayor Kim Janey's chief of staff.Pat Greenhouse
Kim Janey, the soon-to-be acting mayor of Boston, on Friday named several members of her senior leadership team, including her chief of staff: Chris Osgood, the city's chief of streets.
Janey, as Boston City Council president, is slated to take the reins from Mayor Martin J. Walsh after he is confirmed as the nation's next labor secretary by the US Senate, something that is expected to happen in coming days.
Osgood is Walsh's chief of streets, transportation, and sanitation, and his new gig is the latest City Hall shake-up as Walsh prepares to leave for the Biden Cabinet. Osgood succeeds Kathryn Burton as mayoral chief of staff. Burton, who served in that role for about a year and is the first indigenous person to hold a cabinet-level position at City Hall, said in a recent statement that she "always made it clear to the mayor I would depart when he did."
In his current role, Osgood has overseen new streetscapes, installation of bicycle lanes, and the implementation of new parking meters. He has worked on a comprehensive strategy regarding how the city thinks about its 9 square miles of streets and sidewalks. Basic city services like snow plowing and fixing cracked pavement also fall under his purview.
Osgood started working for the city in 2006, when he served as a mayoral policy advisor and was on the team that implemented a performance management program and rebuilt the city's 24-hour hotline, according to his bio on the city's website. He holds degrees from Haverford College and Harvard Business School. He will now serve in a crucial job for Janey as the city continues to wrestle with a multitude of complex problems, chief among them the still-raging COVID-19 pandemic.
Walsh's chief of policy, Joyce Linehan, is also leaving City Hall, as is Eugene O'Flaherty, the city's corporation counsel, who is going into private practice, State House News reported earlier this week. Linehan's replacement will be Mary Churchill, who is the associate dean of strategic initiatives and community engagement at Wheelock College of Education and Human Development at Boston University.
Other members of Janey's senior leadership team include Stephanie Garrett-Stearns, who will be senior advisor to the mayor. She previously worked in communications and fund development for a nonprofit real estate developer. Samuel Hurtado, who previously served as Janey's chief of staff during her time on the council, will also be a senior advisor to the mayor.
Omar Boukili will serve as a senior advisor to the mayor on pandemic response and strategic initiatives. He most recently served as incident commander for Somerville's COVID-19 emergency response team. Lindsey Butler, an environmental epidemiologist, will be Janey's deputy chief of policy.
When Walsh will leave exactly and Janey become acting mayor is still an open question. Janey, who will be the city's first Black mayor and first female mayor, has not said whether she will run for a full term in this fall's election.
Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Danny__McDonald.