BOSTON — Mayoral candidate Josh Kraft took aim at his opponent, incumbent Michelle Wu, over the weekend, blasting her for spending over half a million dollars to prepare for her grilling by the House Oversight Committee in Washington last week.

“I understand preparation, but in a time when the city is becoming more and more fiscally vulnerable, I think $650,000 preparation is a lot of money. There should have — if it was me — I would have looked at other, more cost effective measures, to prepare for testimony in D.C.,” Kraft told WCVB in an interview aired Sunday.

Kraft said Wu did a “perfectly fine job” during the hearing on the city’s sanctuary city policies, but that the tab for a lawyer to come in and coach her was too high.

Kraft also said Wu could have made last Wednesday’s trip with a significantly smaller entourage. Wu’s rival said he would have left behind most of the dozen or so staffers who went along with the mayor on her trip.

“I know twelve folks from city hall accompanied the mayor there. I would probably — I would leave at least probably two-thirds, or more, back to be in city hall to be responsive to the citizens of Boston,” he said.

Despite his criticism over the cost of her preparation or the size of her support team, Wu did well in standing up for the city, Kraft said.

“I think the mayor did exactly what any mayor should do, she defended the values of Boston, and I think she did a perfectly fine job,” he said.

Kraft said he’s in agreement with Wu on Boston’s position as a so-called sanctuary city — even going so far as to note that “it’s a political term, it’s not a legal term.”

Kraft said that he supports that legal part of the city’s policies, the Boston Trust Act, which prevents the city from holding a person in custody over a civil detainer request from ICE that arrives without a warrant.

Wu spent her time before Congress defending the city’s record on public safety, pointing to the Trust Act as partially responsible for, not in the way of, successful efforts to reduce the rate of crime in Boston.

Wu told a half-hostile congressional committee that she is currently overseeing “the safest major city in America” and that Boston has simultaneously seen a significant decrease in reported violent crimes. While police in Boston may not respond to a civil detainer filed by federal agencies, the Boston Police Department does not ever, the mayor said, ignore a criminal warrant due to suspect’s immigration status.

While Wu has sparred with the Trump administration, Kraft, the former CEO of Boston’s Boys & Girls Club chapter and current president of the New England Patriots Foundation, said if he were mayor he’d be willing to work with “whoever is in Washington D.C.,” as long as the end result is in the best interests of his constituents.

“My number one concern is what’s best for Boston and the 650,000 citizens of Boston, and that will always be my priority,” he said. “I would do what’s best for the people of Boston.”

Kraft also renewed his criticism of Wu’s project to install a new soccer stadium in Franklin Park at the site of the now-mostly-demolished White Stadium. Kraft called on the demolition to stop while questions about the bidding process for the new stadium remain unanswered and the price for the project continues to grow.

“It started at $50 million, now it’s $100 million,” he said. “You know it’s just going to go up — it’s going to go higher and higher. And, again, a city that is teetering on being somewhat fiscally vulnerable, does it make sense to spend probably more than $100 million for something that is primarily going to benefit a private entity first?”

If the city really “wanted to change the stadium” for the benefit of local high school students, Kraft said, then they wouldn’t have conducted a “pre-process” with the bidding soccer team ahead of a formal request for proposal going out to the public.

“It proves to me that this wasn’t about the kids, it was about the soccer team,” Kraft said.

Wu and Boston Unity, the lone bidder for the stadium project, have pushed back on that assertion, and say that any discussions that occurred before the bid are normal business practices. The proposal process for the stadium, Wu said in late February, “followed all the standard timelines as established by state and city law.”

Kraft also defended his decision to seek the mayor’s office after spending most of his life living outside of the city.

Kraft moved to Boston from Chestnut Hill only recently — he purchased a North End condo in October 2023 for $2.5 million, according to the Suffolk Registry of Deeds — but he said his decades of philanthropic work across the many neighborhoods Boston have provided more than enough insight into its needs to seek its highest office.

“I don’t think it matters to people where a mayoral candidate has put their head at night to sleep. I was in the city for 35 years,” he said. “I’ve spent 35 years in the neighborhoods of Boston. In fact, in 2007 when Mayor Wu moved to Boston, I had been working in the neighborhoods for 17 years.”

The 2025 Boston mayoral election is scheduled for November 4. If more than two candidates qualify for the ballot a non-partisan preliminary election is conducted first to narrow the field to a pair. That election, if necessary, would be held on September 9.

-----------

©2025 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at bostonherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.