BOSTON — Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson defied calls to resign from her six-figure job amid federal public corruption charges that allege she ripped off thousands of dollars from taxpayers, saying she remains committed to her work.

Fernandes Anderson, speaking publicly for the first time since the feds indicted her for an alleged bonus kickback scheme carried out last year in a City Hall bathroom, said she could still effectively serve her constituents, but declined to comment on any questions related to the investigation, even when asked if she was innocent.

“Everyone knows that this is not something you can comment on,” Fernandes Anderson told reporters Wednesday at City Hall. “Let’s allow due process. Let’s go through that process, and when it’s time to speak, we speak.”

“People have the right to their opinion,” the second-term councilor added. “I think they should allow for the privilege that everyone has to due process.”

Mayor Michelle Wu and five of Fernandes Anderson’s colleagues on the City Council, including the body’s President Ruthzee Louijeune, swiftly called for her resignation last Friday after the feds revealed that she allegedly pocketed $7,000 of a $13,000 bonus she doled out to a Council staffer. The handoff was coordinated by text, the feds allege, and took place in June 2023 at City Hall.

Shortly before walking into the last City Council meeting of the year, Fernandes Anderson was asked what she would like to say to the councilors who had called for her resignation just days prior, two of whom she sits right next to.

“I’m asking for a respectful relationship,” Fernandes Anderson said. “Moving forward, I am a professional and I’m going to be focused. I fortunately have had a whole lot of experience being resilient in terms of someone working multiple jobs to take care of my family, and I am going to do just that.”

Fernandes Anderson, a second-term councilor whose district includes Roxbury, Dorchester, Fenway and part of the South End, added that she has spoken with the mayor’s administration, and “made myself very clear that I would like collaboration. I do not want to be blocked in any way.”

“God has brought me to this point to deal with a very, very difficult situation, and … I have to stay focused, and that’s what I plan on doing,” she said.

Fernandes Anderson, the first African immigrant, Muslim-American and formerly undocumented immigrant elected to the City Council, said she’s demonstrated that she’s a “very hardworking, strong advocate,” and a “consolidator of community.”

“I’ve come a long way to put together the work that I have for my constituents, and they know that I deeply love them,” she said. “I’ve represented them with everything, with my heart.”

With the cloud of a federal investigation and six public corruption charges hanging over her head, Fernandes Anderson — also said to be facing financial difficulty that the feds believe motivated her to allegedly take a bribe — was all smiles for the most part during the day’s Council meeting, talking to and hugging roughly 50 of her supporters.

She even shared a hug with Sharon Durkan, one of the councilors who called for her resignation, after speaking on the Council floor about a racial equity initiative.

Councilor Ed Flynn, another councilor who called for Fernandes Anderson’s resignation, introduced a hearing order at the day’s meeting calling for creation of an ethics committee.

Flynn’s order describes the committee as one that would provide “more oversight and transparency on potential violations on the Boston City Council.” There is precedent with ethics committees at the Massachusetts State House and the U.S. Congress, along with the New York City Council on the municipal level, he said.

“Boston residents are looking for this body to provide honest and ethical leadership,” Flynn said. “Let’s begin today.”

Flynn said last week the federal allegations leveled against Fernandes Anderson, who was also hit with a state ethics violation and fined $5,000 for hiring two immediate family members to paid positions on her Council staff and giving them raises, follow a “series of legal and ethical lapses by members of the Boston City Council over the last several years.”

Ex-councilors Ricardo Arroyo and Kendra Lara became the first incumbents to lose their seats in a primary in roughly four decades last year, following their own lapses.

When asked whether she thought Flynn’s push for a committee was targeted at her, Fernandes Anderson said, “Maybe, maybe not,” and that she hadn’t decided whether or not she would support the effort.

“I have to probably give it a chance,” Fernandes Anderson said. “I haven’t had the chance to allow the councilor who filed it to explain his thought process on that. I do believe that, obviously, there should be opportunities for us to explore such a thing but I would really have to give it my intentional thought on it.”

Only Councilors John FitzGerald and Erin Murphy signed on to Flynn’s order when it was referred to a subcommittee for further discussion. Louijeune, the Council president, Durkan and Councilor Julia Mejia all spoke unfavorably about the effort.

Louijeune said she favored the continued independent oversight of the Council by the state Ethics Commission, adding that there’s “always an issue with the hens watching the hen house.”

Durkan said she interpreted Flynn’s push to create a committee as one that would “encroach” upon the Council president’s role, while Mejia said the Council should focus instead on her own proposal, to create a local office of the inspector general.

Flynn has also said he thinks the Council’s practice of pushing through large staff bonuses should end, in light of the bonus involved in the kickback scheme having been approved by the body last year, and delay the 5% raise councilors are set to receive next month.

All 13 councilors, including Fernandes Anderson, will see their pay hike from $115,000 to $120,000 in January. The Council also received a raise this past January, when their pay increased from $103,500.

The corruption charges also resurfaced briefly at the end of the day’s meeting, when Murphy introduced an emergency late file hearing order to address non-disclosure agreements on the Council, which, per the order, “prove deleterious to the purpose and pursuit of transparent government.”

The feds, in their indictment, said it stuck out to them as unusual that Fernandes Anderson had required her Council staff members to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Durkan objected to the late file, thereby blocking it from being added to the day’s agenda. Murphy would have to file the order for the next meeting, on Jan. 8.

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