On a recent afternoon, Frank Baker stopped by a local nonprofit, YouthBuild, to do what he loves — talk about the building trades and how to get more local students involved.
“I wanted to see your shop because to me it’s like something with hands and a head,” Baker said. “Well I want to see what you’re up to.”
It’s the end of a chapter for Baker as he steps down from the Boston City Council and caps a 12-year run in politics. In recent years in particular, the Dorchester native has developed what some supporters call the voice of moderation, pushing the council’s progressive majority on issues such as rent control, tackling the troubled Us and Kas district and redrawing the electoral map.
However, in a council dominated by left-wing politicians and people of color, he is often seen as a holdover from Old Boston. Baker is a pugilist more in the mold of James Michael Curley than his role model and childhood friend Walsh — a mayor Baker could disagree with but still get along with.
But many Dorchester residents say they will miss a city councilor they’ve come to rely on to navigate city government. Baker told WBUR that his bread-and-butter has long had strong relationships with city hall people.
“All my life I’ve been good to people, so when I call, city workers are happy to help me help people in Boston,” he said.
Baker ran for council after Mayor Tom Menino closed the City Hall printing office, where Baker had worked for 25 years, many of them as a union worker. Entering politics was a natural next step.
“In Dorchester, unfortunately, everything tends to be a struggle,” he said. “It’s in our blood. You grow up playing street hockey and working on political campaigns.”
Those campaigns pitted him against Menino, Boston’s longest-serving mayor. But when Marty Walsh took over in 2014, Baker had an inside line to City Hall. The two were longtime allies before Baker entered politics, and they shared a story: them went to Agia Margarita high school together.
But the election of Mayor Michelle Wu has helped cast Baker as an outsider, he said, and his relationships with city employees and fellow councilors have suffered.
“They see me as a conservative or whatever — I’m right in the middle, I think,” Baker said. He laments the council’s shift to the left and the feeling that those in the minority should back down.
“I refuse to be silenced,” he said.
When the council was struggling last year to redraw the city’s voting districts, Baker went old school. He said Catholic priests in Dorchester were grumbling about the plan and accused councilor Liz Breadon, who is from Northern Ireland, of being anti-Catholic.
Baker would later apologize for the comments, which many found shocking at the time. Many people will remember them as part of his legacy.
Bill Forry, who covered Baker throughout his career for the Dorchester Reporter, said Baker’s statements are out of step with today’s Boston.
A federal judge ultimately threw out that redistricting plan, saying opponents like Baker had “demonstrated a likelihood of success” in arguing that the map improperly used race as a factor in drawing new districts.
“Baker’s objections to the redistricting issue have been upheld,” Forry said. “Well, I mean, he did something right there.”
Despite Baker’s controversial credentials, his supporters say what really matters is his hand in improving the city.
Kim Thai, a leader of Dorchester’s Vietnamese community, said Baker was an early proponent of forming the neighborhood’s Little Saigon Cultural District.
“The first time I ever met him, he was supporting a Vietnamese business” to take part in city programs that not everyone in the community knows about, Thai said.
Thai chairs the board of the non-profit organization VietAid and previously worked for the city. He said Baker is always there for the Vietnamese – and is an independent voice on the council. Now she is sad to see him go.
“I’d rather have someone who is willing to go out on a limb and stand on a political island for what they believe in,” he said. “It’s a rare breed to be willing to do it politically.”
State Sen. Nick Collins is another Bostonian who has been close with Baker over the years. Collins said Baker identifies with members of the city’s Vietnamese community, in part because many are veterans who fought alongside American forces during the Vietnam War. Baker’s uncle, Donald Baker, returned paralyzed after serving in Vietnam and had a square dedicated to him after he died.
Collins listed a litany of parks, playgrounds, libraries and other city amenities that were improved during Baker’s tenure.
“He leaves the area in better shape than he found it,” Collins said.
But not everyone in the neighborhood is a fan. Stephen McBride, 33, ran against Baker in 2021, hoping, he said, to better represent voters who felt alienated from politics. McBride acknowledged Baker’s role in driving growth in Dorchester, but said many on the lower end of the income scale have not enjoyed the benefits of a kind city.
In the race to fill the District 3 seat, McBride is supporting Joel Richards, a public school teacher and pastor who is the son of Jamaican immigrants. Richards supports rent control and an elected school board. The Boston Union of Teachers donated to his campaign, which is also supported by the Boston chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Baker, meanwhile, has supported John FitzGerald, who, like him, comes from a politically connected Boston family. Marty Walsh also supports FitzGerald, as do the city’s police and fire unions.
Campaign finance Records show FitzGerald has outspent Richards by more than three to one since December when FitzGerald launched his campaign.
It remains to be seen whether the next City Council will have a member who will emerge as Baker’s spiritual successor. Forry, of the Dorchester Reporter, said it was hard to imagine anyone filling Baker’s shoes, at least not immediately.
Baker said he doesn’t regret his reputation as a straight talker. But even he admits the district is ready for someone who, in his words, “people don’t want to fight all the time.”
This story has been updated to correct that Fitzgerald’s family is from Boston, but not Dorchester.