It can’t be comfortable in City Hall watching the scandal grow in slow motion. Worse, it’s a distraction for officials and bad for the city itself. Mayor Walsh would be better off just removing the Band-Aid now: Tell the public everything surrounding city officials’ interactions with the Boston Calling music festival in 2014.

DRIP, DRIP, DRIP. Revelations linked to the federal investigation into Boston City Hall keep percolating, with the latest coming Friday when the city released a batch of e-mails just before the long weekend. The e-mails, acquired by the Globe through a public records request, show two more aides to Mayor Walsh were in close proximity to an alleged extortion effort aimed at a local music festival that has already resulted in the indictment of a third city official. One of the messages vaguely implies that Walsh himself may have had some unspecified involvement.


According to federal prosecutors, a Walsh administration official, Kenneth Brissette, demanded that the festival hire union labor if it wanted the permit necessary to use City Hall Plaza for its event. Brissette has been charged with extortion but denies the allegations. Left unclear in the federal indictment was just how much other city officials may have known about his demands. The indictment said another city official told the festival to hire union stagehands without naming him or her. The e-mails released Friday suggest that two others in City Hall, Joyce Linehan and Timothy Sullivan, were at least involved in discussions between the city, the union, and the festival.

One message released Friday, from a union official, also mentions the mayor: “I’m confident we can get a deal for a dozen or so stagehands especially with Mayor Walsh’s backing,” wrote Colleen A. Glynn, business manager for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 11.


Mayor Walsh maintains he has done nothing wrong, and there’s nothing in the e-mails or federal indictment that proves otherwise. Still, his response has been lacking. He continues to duck questions about whether he has appeared before the federal grand jury, who at City Hall has received subpoenas, and whom the unidentified official in Brissette’s indictment was. He also said he wasn’t trying to find out. “That’s not my job,” he told the Globe on Friday.

But the conduct of officials who work for him is the mayor’s responsibility. So is safeguarding the reputation of the City of Boston, which could be hurt by a protracted federal investigation. Brissette’s indictment called into question the integrity of Boston’s permitting under Walsh. The best way for the mayor to repair that impression would be to hold his staff accountable and level with the voters about who at City Hall knew what, and when.