Boston City Councilor Kendra Lara shared her rationale for repeatedly driving without a license, including in a car crash in Jamaica Plain in June for which she's facing charges, in an exclusive interview with NBC10 Boston.
Lara is accused of driving with a revoked license in an unregistered, uninsured car with an expired inspection sticker that belonged to someone else when she crashed into a Jamaica Plain house, injuring left son and damaging the home. A not guilty plea was entered on Lara's behalf when she was arraigned; she's since pushed back on how fast she was going.
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In the interview on Monday, Lara said that, while she was apologetic about what happened, she couldn't see a way she could completely eliminate driving without a license to properly take care of her son while pushing the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles to restore her license over a 2014 speeding ticket in Connecticut.
"I have gone over [in] my head how many different ways I could have handled this, and there were times where we could have maybe minimized the amount of times where I had to get behind the wheel, but I don't see any other opportunities where I could have said, 'OK, yeah, I can afford to take an Uber and Lyft back and forth to school for six weeks while the school bus figures out whether or not my son is going to have a bus monitor,'" Lara said.
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She also discussed how long she drove without a license, why she waited until last week to release a report that she and her lawyer say shows she was going far slower than the 53 mph that Boston police have said she was traveling at the time of the June 30 crash, as well as who paid for the report how the family whose home was damaged in the crash will be repaid.
Asked how many times she's driven since her license was suspended, Lara said that it wasn't "until maybe a year and a half ago where i have found myself in a position, now, being a newly single parent, being an elected official and having really unreliable public school transporation, where i've had to really make a decision between getting my son to school, getting myself to work."
She also said that she had been working to resolve the situation since before she was elected — Lara was elected in 2021 — and that the Massachusetts RMV didn't accept a letter from Connecticut's licensing authority noting that the ticket was paid.
"At the time of the accident, I was in a fight with the RMV for 10 months," she said.
The judge overseeing her case has ordered her not to drive on a suspended license, and Lara said people in the community have been helping her get around by car.
Asked what she'd say to constituents who think that, while her situation may be relatable, it's disqualifying, Lara pointed to her record, both in office and as a community organizer: "I have shown myself to be a person of integrity and a member of this community that can be trusted. One mistake does not make one unworthy of holding elected office, not jsut for me, but for anybody else."
Lara is up for re-election — she's one of three people on the ballot in District 6 for Tuesday's preliminary election, which will narrow the field to two for the general election in November.
Watch the NBC10 Boston news at 4, 5 and 6 for more from the interview. An extended version of the interview will be uploaded on this page, and we'll have more from Sue O'Connell's sit-down with Lara on Sunday's episode of "@Issue."
