City Council - Regular Meeting

Colleagues and those in attendance to please silence their cell phones and electronic devices. Also pursuant to rule 42, I remind all in this chamber that no demonstration of approval or disapproval from members of the public will be permitted, including but not limited to signs, placards, banners, cheering, clapping, booing, etc. And if such demonstrations are made, the gallery or public seating area will be cleared. This rule will be strictly enforced. Mr. Clerk, could you please call the roll to ascertain the presence of a quorum?

Council of Braden. Here. Council of Caleta Zapata. Council of Culpeper. Council of Durkan. Here. Council of Fitzgerald.

Here.

Council of Flynn. Here. Council of Louisiane. Council of Mejia. Here. Council of Murphy. Here. Council of Pepin.

Here.

Council of Santana.

Here.

Council of Webber. Here. And Council of Orrell. Quorum is present.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. I've been informed by the Clerk that a quorum is present. Mr. Clerk, would you do us the honor of offering an invocation for us today? And following that, we will cite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you, Counselor. Good morning, everyone. Please stand. Let us pray. Somewhere at our innermost core, each of us wants to submerge self-interest so that we may do that which is right, to promulgate justice tempered by mercy. But this is not always an easy path for human, all too fallible men and women. Knowing this, we ask today for patience that we may diligently weigh conflicting evidence and find the right therein. We ask for tolerance that we may truly hear and consider opinions unlike our own. We ask for wisdom that we may recognize the face of truth when it appears before us. All this we ask in the name of that eternal creative spirit, that supreme power that guides us all, whatever our traditions, to act in ways that are loving, wise, and just. So be it forever and ever, days without end. Amen. Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

We have two presentations today, so first I will call up Councillor Santana. For your presentation, you've got five minutes, and then follow that we have Councillor Mejia.

Good afternoon. Happy Pride, everyone. I would like to be able to thank you madam president for this opportunity. I would like to call up Some of the speakers that I'll be having today Christian Tina and Ricardo if they can come up and We'll be hearing from them happy pride everyone as you all know Today alongside with 35 organizations 35 plus organizations. We're hosting a prize celebration and This is not about me. As I've mentioned it to you all, I really want to be able to hear directly from the speakers. So first, we're going to have Christian. We're going to hear from Tina, and then we'll close it out with Ricardo. And then we're going to invite all my council colleagues and everyone here celebrating Pride to come up for the picture. Without further ado, Christian.

Good morning, everyone. Greetings, earthlings. My name is Christian Gaudet, also known as stage name Freckles, which stands for freedom, recognition, compassion, knowledge, love, support, music. I'm grateful to be here today and have this opportunity to share with you some of my experiences. To start, I was born in the city of Boston. I was adopted at the age of five. I was moved to the Merrimack Valley region area and raised in that area. Upon my adolescence, I struggled very much with my identity. I struggled with connecting with my peers in many ways due to just a lot of things paired with the intersections of not having contact with biological family and things like that, which led me to a lot of stuff and wound me up at 17 incarcerated in MCI Framingham. I did about four years incarcerated there. And that's truly where I met my first transgender person, which shifted my, and shaped the way that I could start to see myself. And as I, integrated back into this community in Boston, family health was a huge resource to me. And I struggled immensely because I am a former addict. I was born addicted to substances. I am also a mental health specialist. I work with kids inpatient with McLean through Franciscan Children's. And every day that I'm seeing the things that I had experienced as a kid in my own youth and adolescence is trickling down into their lives as well through everything that's happening today. And as a queer person of color, I firsthand know how visibility and belonging are not always the same thing. That there have been times when I've been welcomed into spaces because of one part of my identity, while other parts of me remained unseen. For many BIPOC LGBT plus people, that is a reality we all know too well. We often exist in an intersection of multiple forms of marginalization, carrying experiences that are unique communities in our cultures. And my work as an artist here, a mental health specialist, a recovering addict, a formerly incarcerated individual, have been rooted in healing, storytelling, creating space for people who don't feel seen. Through my music and my art, it's not to entertain. It's to create space. It's to create a conversation. What I've learned is that being queer looks different depending on where you come from. It's not about the color of your skin. It's not just about the neighborhood you grew up in, in the culture or your faith, in your socioeconomic background. We can't talk about our experiences as LGBT individuals if we're not including all of that in a whole spectrum. Sorry, I'm neuro-spicy. Lost my space here. And this is why the representation matters, and that's why our community matters, and that's why collective consciousness matters. And every day I see young people carrying unimaginable burdens that I did not have to carry as LGBT youth. I didn't have to deal with an administration and the burdens of that in my youth. Some are struggling with anxiety, depression, trauma, family rejection, housing instability, bullying, and simply the exhaustion of feeling like they have to hide who they are to be accepted. I've sat with young people who have never heard someone tell them that their identity is not something that needs to be fixed. I watch what happens to these kids every single day in and out. And they are the reason that I drive to do what I do in this community, is the reason that I want to connect with more people. It is the reason that I need to talk to as many people as I need to, to hear where there's lack of, where there's misinformation, where people are missing missing certain very significant points when it comes to identity. These young people teach me how to refine and redefine belongingness, how to recreate that conversation, because we're all changing every single day. And the goal isn't just to be seen. It's to be supported. It's not just to make statements about support. It's to put action behind that. And the goal is to create communities where BIPOC, queer, disabled people, immigrants, all marginalized communities can have access to that safety, opportunity, mental health resources, leadership roles, spaces where they can thrive. Pride Became as a movement demanding dignity and humanity, and today that work needs to continue. It needs to continue to uplift. My hope is that young people can feel different, and every person who has questioned whether they belong can look at the people in the rooms and know that there's a place for them, not because they earned it, not because they had to prove themselves, not because they are not worthy, but because they do belong there. And I just want to say thank you for my time.

Hi, I'm Tina Jushi Caruso. I am a MassArt alum, and I am a queer BIPOC person who's an immigrant who was adopted at 11 months from China. And I just was out. I've been out and proud for two years. I went to MassArt. It was the first time I saw people like me, BIPOC and queer people. It was the first time I found community. MassArt was a pivotal moment for me. You might have seen me on Love on the Spectrum. I came out a little before that at MassArt. Through that, I realized there's a community here in Boston that I belong to. I have never felt belonging like the queer community in Boston. I grew up in Somerville, outplaced by Somerville school districts. I was placed into schools that my mom called were equivalent to Arkansas' southern Southern Arkansas is like southern schools where I was racial racially. I could not be myself. I was always targeted by teachers as well as fellow students. I got bullied for being a transracial adoptee. I could not be a BIPOC person, let alone I did not even know I was queer at the time. All I knew by high school, I was an ally to this community. I did not realize until two years ago, 2024, that I was part of this queer community, and I am so excited to be able to represent this community and I hope to uplift your voices and I want to say as a queer artist myself that funding and budgeting is very important to this community because a lot of us are also artists and we want to do the best work and when we don't have the resources we can't do what we need to do best.

Hi, everyone. Can you hear me back there? All right. Thank you, Boston City Council for making space for our community to be seen and celebrated in the city we call home. Let me just start by saying that I love queer people. I do. I love us. I love our tenacity and our creativity. I love the way that we find each other. I love chosen family. I love the way we build joy in spaces that were not built with us in mind. I love who we are and I love the license we give people to be a little bit more of themselves when we shine extra bright. I'm proud to stand here celebrating us and holding space for everything that we carry. Pride, it means different things to different people. For some, it means marching. For others, it means quiet reflection, a private accounting of how far we've come and how far we've yet to go. Pride is visibility. It is action. It is care. It is chosen family and courage that surprises you when it shows up. doesn't have to be all of those things at once and it should never come at the cost of who we are i want to be honest about what pride feels like in a moment like this we are living through a sustained and intentional attack on lgbtq plus lives on our health care on our bodies on our children's ability to learn and grow in safety our trans people's a very right to exist in public life, to be recognized, to be named, to move through the world as who they are. The cruelty is not incidental. It is the point. And what I want us to name something clearly is that is not something we brought upon ourselves. It is harm that has been forced upon us by others' obsession with our bodies, with who we love, or whether our families meet some unattainable standard. We did not choose to fight, but you better trust and believe that we know how to do it. I have always understood advocacy as personal. I think of the people that I've worked alongside in Arizona, in Texas, in Ohio, in Maine, in New York, and what I hear over and over is not a radical demand, it's a yearning. A yearning for a fair shot at a good life. the ability to marry if we choose, to build families if that's part of our path, to have identity documents that reflect who we are and let us move through daily life without unnecessary barriers, to live in cities and states with real non-discrimination protections, to have safe schools, places where young queer people have access to the same experiences as any other kid, to have childhoods that are not burdened by questions of safety, not spent calculating how much of themselves they need to hide to feel a sense of false belonging. I think about the families who left Texas, who left Florida, who found what felt like safety in cities like Boston, and who are now asking whether they need to leave this country entirely. I think about parents working deliberately, creatively to build pockets of joy for children, navigating a world that doesn't always feel that was made for them. Even here, even in Boston, what some consider a beacon of LGBTQ safety, there are queer people who do not feel seen, who do not feel heard, who are honestly not up to the task of performing resilience Many of us are tired, tired of fighting every day, tired of two step forwards and one or two steps back, tired of being asked to show up to city council pride celebrations after being cut from a budget. That exhaustion, that anger and frustration is real and it belongs in this room. It deserves to take up space so it doesn't live within us. I'll say something else that is true for me personally. I don't need everyone to accept me. I accept myself. My mother, who leads a prayer circle every week and prays for LGBTQ people, accepts me. And that is not nothing. That is everything. And I have stopped letting the people who refuse to see me determine how I see myself. That clarity, knowing who I am, knowing who you are, when others insist you are something else or something less, is not just survival. It's our superpower. It is the thing that no executive order can take away from you. And when I look around this room, that is what I see multiplied by hundredfold. I look around and I see community leaders and so many others. I see organizations across the city that have shown up for LGBTQ people, for immigrants, for people living with disabilities, for young people, for elders with consistency, love and care. Often on tiny budgets, always on behalf of people who deserve much more than they are given. The richness of what is in this room is extraordinary. You are the people who give me real confidence about the future that we are building together. And this moment is asking all of us to show up differently, with uncommon courage, with conviction, with pride in who we are and valor in what we do. It is asking our organizations to lead with authenticity, even when that is the harder path. But it is asking something of our allies and institutions too. It is asking you to meet us in the ring, to be clear-eyed about your values and the world you are helping us to create, to say the word trans, to not dodge questions about your support for our community, to be relentless in your pursuit of restoring funding to the Office of LGBTQIA2S Plus Advancement, to the Office of Immigrant Advancement, to Black Male Advancement, to housing, to youth jobs. To double down on what you say you believe when the pressure is highest, not walk away from it. To fuel this necessary work with your time, your treasure, and your voice. What I want and what I've always wanted is for LGBTQ plus people and everyone in this city, regardless of who you are, regardless of where you come from, to have a real shot at a good life. That is not a radical vision, that is the baseline. But in the here and now, over the next 20 days of Pride Month, I want us to dance. I want us to rejoice. I want our doors to open wide and to fully welcome the vibrancy and difference of our community. I crave connection and joyful abandon. I crave freedom and creativity. And yes, I crave being a nuisance to everyone who refuses to see us or pretend that we don't have a rightful place in this world. Because we do. We always have. This Pride Month, choose to be whole, even in your grief, for what we are experiencing right now. and then shine, not despite everything, but because of it. Because we will persist long after this administration. We will deliver on the promise of this country for all of us. For all who came after us. We always have. We always will. Happy Pride.

I want to thank our three speakers, Christian, Tina, and Ricardo, for your thoughtful message and for bringing your lived experience here. If I can ask all my colleagues for a picture. If I can also ask anyone who wants to be part of this picture. I know community has shown out today. And please come over to the podium here. We do it every single year. We'll pack the chamber. Thank you so much for being here. But we'll now take a picture. As folks are doing that, I'll just mention, and I've said it multiple times today, I know we have declared ourselves as a sanctuary city, and we need to make sure that our policies reflect that. So I'm looking forward to working with my colleagues to push in policies to ensure that we're a sanctuary city. Thank you, everyone.

Do I have to stand on something?

Should I go up front because I'm too short?

But we got ours today. Thank you. Thank you. Happy Pride! Happy Pride! We're out. We're here. We're here. She is who you are.

Guys, you all fit. This is amazing.

Good luck today. It's been a long day.

How are you? Good, very good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councillor Mejia to come forward with her presentation. Councillor Mejia, you have the floor.

All right, y'all, good afternoon. Okay, so I would like to invite Napoleon Jones's, Henderson's family here to the podium, please. So make your way here. Today, I am proud to recognize June the 19th, 2026 as Napoleon Jones Henderson Day in the city of Boston. That's right, occupy space, y'all, because this is what we do. That's right, let them all know that we are here. So June 19th is also Juneteenth, just in case y'all don't know. And this day is being declared as Napoleon Jones Henderson Day here in the city of Boston to honor a life that has left a lasting impact on generations of artists, students, and communities across our city. That's right. Remember, Council Braden said, no, I don't want no problems up in here, OK? Napoleon Jones Henderson was a mentor, a teacher, a builder of community who believed deeply in the power of art to uplift people and to tell our stories with dignity. We are especially proud to recognize him on June the 19th, Juneteenth, because of the role he played in helping bring the celebration of the holiday to Boston through advocacy and deep commitment to black cultural expression. Born in Chicago in 1943, he became an early member of the Afro Cobra, the groundbreaking collective rooted in black liberation and self-determination. Boston became his home for more than 50 years after he moved here in 1974. to teach at MassArt. Through his work and mentorship, he helped shape Boston's art community into a space rooted in culture and connection. He opened doors for young artists and invested in people long before institutions did. And that is why this recognition matters so much right now. At a time when we continue to see cuts and disvestments in the arts, we have to remember that art is not a luxury. They are an essential part to life and this city. When we cut arts funding, we cut spaces where young people can find their voices. Napoleon Jones Henderson's legacy lives on through the countless people he inspired and uplifted throughout his life. Today, alongside this resolution and legacy citation, we honor his extraordinary contributions to Boston. At this time, I'd like to invite Akua Holmes to speak briefly on Napoleon's legacy and his contributions to bringing Juneteenth to the city of Boston. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. Good morning. My name is Aqua Holmes, and I was one of those young people looking for spaces as an artist back in the 70s. I was fortunate, like the person who presented earlier, to find my way to mass art. And eventually, that led me to Napoleon Jones Henderson, who came from Chicago to teach weaving. He turned our world upside down. because we had only heard about maybe two African-American artists ever. They weren't teaching it at our school, even though it was a Massachusetts College of Art and Design to represent all of the people, they weren't telling the whole story. Napoleon came and started to fill in the pieces. He taught us about an organization called the National Conference of Artists. What does that mean? It's the National Conference of Black Artists that met across the country annually to celebrate African American art, African art, writing, literature, culture. We began to go to those conferences. We met Romare Bearden. We met Elizabeth Catlett. And those people became real to us. They weren't just little postage size pictures in a book. They were real life people who were living as artists. So when I stand here today, I know that I'm standing on the shoulders of people like Napoleon Jones Henderson. To get back to Juneteenth, I never heard of Juneteenth when I was in my teens and 20s. But Napoleon had a Juneteenth celebration at his home in Roxbury every year. And his friends would come to Chicago and transform the place with music, with incense, with food, with art. And they would tell us about our own history that we did not know. He was the first one to bring it here. And eventually, the rest of us caught up with him. And that's pretty much how it was with Napoleon. He was 10 steps ahead, and we caught up with him all the time, even to the fact that he bought that mansion and envisioned it as a cultural museum for African-Americans. That was years ago, and it's happening. I also wanted to say, after he left MassArt in a couple of years, he could have gone on and done other things, gone to other institutions, left Boston. But just as we had adopted him, he adopted us. And he put down deep roots here. And that same spirit of generosity that brought Juneteenth, that he brought Juneteenth here with, he continued to keep his doors open to artists of all ages and stages. Not just young ones, but old ones too. He would always be willing to teach you about weaving, about the ceramics that he did. And he always had something good on cooking in the kitchen. Some people talk about the banana bread. Some people talk about the beans and rice. But even if you only got one shrimp, because it was kind of like Jesus and the loaves. Maybe we start out with five people, but we end up with 15. But we all left feeling fulfilled and nurtured and cared for. When I drive up Cedar Street, even to this day, I look to my left, and I know that that's Napoleon's house. And I was saying to someone today, he's still in our midst. He's still influencing us. He's still caring about us. Whatever the next realm is, I know he hasn't left us. And we will celebrate Juneteenth in a much more bold way this year because he's left us physically. And we want to honor the fact that he was the first one to teach us about it. Thank you so much.

His daughter is the reason why we're all here. She don't want to say anything. And I just want to also acknowledge that then former Councilor Campbell and myself, alongside Councilor then Kim Janey, worked on having Juneteenth be a recognized holiday here in the city of Boston. So this even means more to me here today. So I'd like to ask my colleagues to come and take a photo. And I'll read the resolution while my colleagues make their way up here. This resolution is presented by me, Boston City Councilor at large, Julia Mejia. The resolution that we're going to be passing on the city council today is recognizing June the 19th, 2026, as Napoleon Jones Henderson Day here in the city of Boston. And every year, I hope y'all are showing up in this chamber to honor his legacy. Without further ado, come take a photo.

And can we clap it up one more time?

Everybody's in? All the little shorties come up here.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Councillor Mehear, Councillor Santana for your presentations. Mr. Clerk, could you please amend the attendance to recognise that Councillor Louisianne, Councillor Culpepper and Councillor Worrell have joined us? We are now on to the first order of business, which is the approval of the minutes from the meeting of June 3rd, 2026. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. The ayes have it and the minutes of the June 3rd meeting are approved. We are now on to communications from our Honourable Mayor. Mr. Clerk, could you please read docket 1181?

Docket number 1181, messaging on authorizing the City of Boston to accept and expend the amount of $1 million in a form of a grant, Cummings Community Safety Grant, awarded by Cummings Foundation Incorporated, to be administered by the Office of Human Services. The grant will fund and support the Community Safety Initiative, Public Health Initiative, Community Events Initiative, youth engagement initiative.

Thank you Mr. Clerk. Councillor Murphy, you have the floor.

Thank you Madam Chair. I just rise to share some of the information of this million dollar grant and I hope my colleagues will support in passing this today. The FY27 Cummings violence reduction gift talking points here. So the city will be receiving from the Cummings Foundation for the following violence reduction and public safety initiatives to bolster Boston's standing as the safest major city in the U.S. The Boston Public Health Commission will receive funds across three main initiatives, domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence, BPHC's data and evaluation systems, and Life Course Unit, which is a violence reduction framework that integrates age group-based initiatives. The BHA will receive some of these funds to scale Charlestown's successful adult education center and re-entry model at the Mildred C. Haley Complex in Jamaica Plain, reducing transportation barriers from neighborhoods like Mattapan and responsive to the program's oversubscribed wait list. and then a smaller portion of the funds will support a mobile intervention unit that has served as a highly visible low barrier entry for clinical navigation building on a model that has successfully placed hundreds from the mass and cast region into recovery pathways so the acceptance of these installments moves the city away from isolated reactionary programming to sustained investments in root cause violence prevention ensuring our neighborhoods and constituents remain safe

healthily and supported all year so i'm asking my colleagues to suspend and pass today thank you thank you uh councillor murphy the chair on the committee on human services seeks suspension the rules and passage of docket 1181 all those in favor say aye i doubt the vote mr clerk could you please take a roll call vote on docket 1181 council of breed

Yes. Councillor Braden. Yes. Councillor Kaleta-Zapata. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Durkan. Yes. Councillor Durkan. Yes. Councillor Fitzgerald.

Yes.

Councillor Fitzgerald. Yes. Councillor Flynn.

Yes.

Councillor Flynn. Yes. Councillor Lujan.

Yes.

Councillor Lujan. Yes. Councillor Mejia. Yes. Councillor Mejia. Yes. Councillor Murphy.

Yes.

Councillor Murphy. Yes. Councillor Pepin. Yes. Councillor Pepin. Yes. Councillor Santana. Yes. Councillor Santana. Yes. Councillor Webber. Yes. Councillor Webber. Yes. And Councillor Orrell. Yes. Councillor Orrell. Yes. Docket number 1181 has received 12 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Could you please read docket 1182?

Dr. Number 1182, message and order authorizing the City of Boston to accept and expend the amount of $3,220 in the form of a grant, the Mass Ability Rehabilitation Commission Grant, awarded by Mass High Department of Career Services. To be administered by the Office of Workforce Development, the grant will fund employment and training assistance, career counseling, and job search assistance for disabled individuals who are clients at Boston's Mass Hire Career Centers.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. The Chair recognizes Councillor Orrell, the Chair of the Committee on Labour and Economic Development. Councillor, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam President. This is a very small-dollar amount grant valued at $3,220 that would provide funding to operate the two mass-hire one-stop career centres we have in Boston. So just looking to pass the small-dollar amount so we get much-needed support over to the mass-hire one-stop career centre. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Worrell, the Chair of the Committee on Labour and Economic Development, seeks suspension of the rules and passage of Docket 1182. All in favour say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say nay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on Docket 1182?

Councillor Braden.

Yes.

Councillor Braden, yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. Councillor Culpepper. Councillor Culpepper, yes. Councillor Durkan. Councilor Durkan, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Papin, yes. Councilor Papin, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Orrell, yes. Councilor Orrell, yes. Docket number 1182 has received 12 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Docket 1182 has passed. We are now on to reports of public officers and others. Mr. Clerk, could you please read dockets 1183 through 1185?

Docket number 1183, notice received from the City Clerk. In accordance with Chapter 6 of the Ordinances of 1979, regarding action taken by the mayor and papers acted upon by the City Council at its meeting on May 20th, 2026. Docket number 1184, communication was received from Timothy Smith, Executive Officer of the Boston Retirement Board, regarding result of the election for for a vacant elected board seat. Dennis Callahan was elected to serve as trustee of the Boston Retirement Board for a term ending January 15, 2027. In document number 1185, communication was received from Council Flynn regarding protocol for the Boston Fire Department, Boston Police Department, and Boston Emergency Medical Services during the event of an elevator failure at Boston Housing Authority developments.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Dockets 1183 through 1185 will be placed on file. We're now on to reports of committees. Mr. Clerk, could you please read dockets 0796 through 1040 together, please?

Docket number 0796, the Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation. to which was referred on April 15, 2026, document number 0796. Message in order for the confirmation of the reappointment of David Sampson as an alternate member of the Back Bay Architectural District Commission for a term expiring on December 31, 2030. Submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Document number 0797. The Committee on Planning, Development, and Transportation, which was referred on April 15, 2026, document number 0797, message and order for the confirmation of the reappointment of Robert Weintraub as a member of the Back Bay Architectural District Commission for a term expiring on December 31, 2029, submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Document number 0798. The Committee on Planning, Development, and Transportation, to which was referred on April 15, 2026, messaged an order for the confirmation of the appointment of David Dixon as a member of the Boston Landmarks Commission for a term expiring June 30, 2028. Submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Docket number 0799, the Committee on Planning, Development, and Transportation, to which was referred on April 15, 2026. Message in order for the confirmation of the reappointment of Kristen Hoffman as an alternate member of the Boston Landmarks Commission for a term expiring June 30, 2026. Submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. DOCUMENT NUMBER 0800, THE COMMITTEE OF PLANNING, DEVELOPMENT, TRANSPORTATION, TO WHICH WAS REFERRED APRIL 15, 2026. MESSAGE AND ORDER FOR THE CONFIRMATION OF THE APPOINTMENT OF KRISTEN HOFFMAN AS A MEMBER OF THE FOUR POINT CHANNEL LANDMARK DISTRICT COMMISSION FOR A TERM EXPIRING ON JUNE 30TH, 2026. SUBMITS A REPORT RECOMMENDING THAT THE ORDER OUGHT TO PASS. DOCUMENT NUMBER 1037, THE COMMITTEE OF PLANNING, DEVELOPMENT, TRANSPORTATION, to which was referred on May 20th, 2026. Message in order for the confirmation of the appointment of Vinit Gupta as an alternate member of the Boston Landmarks Commission for a term expiring June 30th, 2026. Submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Document number 1038, the Committee on Planning, Development, and Transportation, to which was referred on May 20th, 2026. Message in order for the confirmation of the appointment of Susan Goganian as a member of the Boston Landmarks Commission for a term expiring June 30th, 2026, submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Docket number 1039, the Committee on Planning, Development, and Transportation, to which was referred on May 20th, 2026. MESSAGE IN ORDER FOR THE CONFIRMATION OF THE APPOINTMENT OF SUSAN GOGANIAN AS A MEMBER OF THE FOUR POINT CHANNEL LANDMARK DISTRICT COMMISSION FOR A TIME EXPIRED ON JUNE 30, 2026. SUBMITS A REPORT RECOMMENDING THAT THE ORDER ARE TO PASS. AND DOCUMENT NUMBER 1040, THE COMMITTEE ON PLANNING DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSPORTATION TO WHICH WAS REFERRED ON MAY 20, 2026. message in order for the confirmation of the reappointment of Kathleen Connor as a member of the Back Bay Architectural District Commission for a term expiring December 31st, 2026, submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. The chair recognizes Councillor Durkan, the chair of the Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation. Councillor Durkan, you have the floor.

Thank you, Council President. Last Friday, June 5th, the Committee on Planning, Development, and Transportation held a hearing on these eight dockets concerning appointments and reappointments to the Boston Landmarks Commission and several historic district commissions. We were joined by Joe Cornish, Director of Design Review for the Boston Landmarks Commission, and Elizabeth Sherva from the Office of Historic Preservation. Both endorsed the nominees and spoke to the expertise and thoughtful selection process behind these appointments. We then heard from testimony from nominees regarding their experience, professional backgrounds, and interest in serving on these commissions. For the appointment of the Back Bay Architectural Commission, we heard from Rob Weintraub and David Sampson. for the appointments of the boston landmarks commission we heard from david dixon and beneath gupta we also heard from kirsten hoffman for the appointment of the to the fort point channel district landmark commission and reappointment to the blc two nominees were unable to attend this hearing in their absence we received information from the administration regarding susan goganian who is being appointed the boston landmarks commission and formerly served on the commission and the reappointment to the Fort Point Commission. We also heard from Kathleen Connor, we heard from the administration on Kathleen Connor for the reappointment to the BBAC. It was inspiring to hear from such accomplished professionals whose career spans public service, historic preservation, architecture, and urban planning. The depth of knowledge and experience they bring to these roles will be invaluable, and it is clear that Boston is fortunate to have these high-caliber individuals helping steward our historic resources. One of my favorite responsibilities as chair of the Planning, Development, and Transportation Committee is bringing forward these nominations to commissions that support historic preservation. This work is essential to protecting and preserving our history and our culture that define Boston's neighborhoods. Accordingly, I recommend that these dockets be reported out of committee to the full council for consideration and for formal action. My recommendation to the council is that these matters ought to pass. Thank you.

I beg your pardon, I'm jumping ahead. We'll start with 0796. All in favour? I'll start over again. The Chair of the Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of docket 0796. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Councillor, Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0796?

Councillor Brayton.

Yes.

Councillor Brayton, yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. Councilor Culpepper? Yes. Councilor Culpepper, yes. Councilor Durkan? Yes. Councilor Durkan, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald?

Yes.

Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn? Yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan? Yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Mejia? Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy? Yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Pepin?

Yes.

Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Santana? Yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber? Yes. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Worrell? Yes. Councilor Worrell, yes. Docket number 0796. has received 12 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and docket 0796 has passed, and the appointment is confirmed. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0797?

Councillor Braden.

Yes.

Councillor Braden. Yes. Councillor Calazapata. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Durkan. Yes. Councillor Durkan. Yes. Councillor Fitzgerald. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Worrell, yes. Councilor Worrell, yes. Token number 0797 has received 12 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and docket 0797 has passed, and the appointment is confirmed. The Chair of the Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of docket 0798. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0798.

Councillor Breen. Yes. Councillor Breen, yes. Councillor Collette is a part of it. Councillor Culpeper. Councillor Culpepper, yes. Councillor Durkan. Councilor Durkin, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Worrell, yes. Councilor Worrell, yes. Docket number 0798 has received 12 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and docket 0798 is passed and the appointment is confirmed. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0799? Councillor Brayden. Yes.

Councillor Brayden. Yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Durkan. Yes. Councillor Durkan. Yes. Councillor Fitzgerald.

Yes.

Councillor Fitzgerald. Yes. Councillor Flynn.

Yes.

Councillor Flynn. Yes. Councillor Louisiane. Yes. Councillor Louisiane. Yes. Councillor Mejia. Yes. Councillor Mejia. Yes. Councillor Murphy. Councillor Murphy. Yes. Councillor Penn.

Yes.

Councillor Penn. Yes. Councillor Santana. Yes. Councillor Santana. Yes. Councillor Webber.

Yes.

Councillor Webber. Yes. Councillor Orrell. Yes. Councillor Orrell. Yes. Docket number 0799 has received 12 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and Docket 0799 is passed and the appointment is confirmed. The Chair of the Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of Docket 0800. All in favor say aye. All opposed say nay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0800?

Councillor Brayden.

Yes.

Councillor Brayden, yes. Councillor Calazza-Patta. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Culpepper, yes. Councillor Durkan. Yes. Councillor Durkan, yes. Councillor Fitzgerald.

Yes.

Councillor Fitzgerald, yes. Councillor Flynn.

Yes.

Councillor Flynn, yes. Councillor Louisianne.

Yes.

Councillor Louisianne, yes. Councillor Mejia. Yes. Councillor Mejia, yes. Councillor Murphy. Councillor Murphy, yes. Councillor Papin, yes. Councillor Papin, yes. Councillor Santana, yes. Councillor Santana, yes. Councillor Webber, yes. Councillor Webber, yes. And Councillor Orrell, yes. Councillor Orrell, yes. Docket number 0800 has received 12 votes in the chairman.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and docket 0800 has passed and the appointment is confirmed. The Chair of the Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of Docket 1037. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Mr. Dirk, could you please take a roll call vote on Docket 1037?

Councillor Braden.

Yes.

Councillor Braden. Yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Durkin. Yes. Councillor Durkin. Yes. Councillor Fitzgerald. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Mejia. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Orrell, yes. Councilor Orrell, yes. Dock and Enva, 1037 has received 11 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and docket 1037 is passed and the appointment is confirmed. The Chair of the Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of docket 1038. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 1038?

Councillor Brayton. Yes. Councillor Brayton, yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Culpepper, yes. Councillor Durkin. Yes. Councillor Durkin, yes. Councillor Fitzgerald.

Yes.

Councilor Hsiao, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Orrell, yes. Councilor Orrell, yes. Dock number 1038 has received 11 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and docket 1038 has passed, and the appointment is confirmed. The Chair of the Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation seeks acceptance of the committee report in passage of docket 1039. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 1039?

Councillor Braid. Yes. Councillor Braid, yes. Councillor Collar-Zapata. Councillor Culpepper. Councillor Culpepper, yes. Councillor Durkan. Councilor Durkan, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Papin, yes. Councilor Papin, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Orrell, yes. Councilor Orrell, yes. Docket number 1039 has received 11 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and Docket 1039 is passed, and the appointment is confirmed. The Chair of the Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation seeks acceptance of the committee report in passage of Docket 1040. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on Docket 1040?

Councillor Brayden. Yes. Councillor Brayden, yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. Councillor Culpepper. Councilor Culpepper, yes. Councilor Durkan, yes. Councilor Durkan, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Pippen, yes. Councilor Pippen, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Worrell, yes. Councilor Worrell, yes. Document number 1040 has received 11 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and docket 1040 has passed and the appointment is confirmed. Mr. Clerk, would you please read dockets 0741 through 0754 together? I'll give you a moment. A lot of reading today.

Dock number 0741, the Committee on Ways and Means, which was referred on April 8th, 2026, message not approving an order authorizing a limit for the Boston Public Schools Revolving Fund for fiscal year 2027 to support the maintenance and repair of Boston Public School facilities, including custodial and utility costs for extended building time, floor refinishing, landscaping, and building repairs. Receipts from lease, permit for use, and parking fees for Boston Public School facilities will be deposited in the fund. Boston Public School facilities will be the only unit authorized to expend from the fund, and such expenditures shall not exceed $2 million. Submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Document 0742, the Committee on Ways and Means, which was referred on April 8, 2026, message in order approving in order authorizing a limit for the Boston Public Schools Revolving Fund for fiscal year 2027 for Boston Public Schools transportation costs, including bus and public transportation costs. The Revolving Fund shall be credited with revenue received by the Boston Public Schools Department for the provision of transportation to groups and entities for field trips and activities other than transportation to and from school. receipts and resulting expenditures from this fund shall not exceed $150,000, submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Document number 0743, the Committee on Ways and Means, which was referred on April 8th, 2026, message and order approving an order authorizing a limit for the Boston Public Schools Revolving Fund for fiscal year 2027 to repair and purchase Boston Public Schools computer technology including computers, mobile devices, and instructional software. This revolving fund shall be credited with any and all receipts from equipment, sales, and repair fees for Boston Public Schools technology. Receipts and resulting expenditures from this fund shall not exceed $2 million. Submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Document number 0744. The Committee on Ways and Means, which was referred April 8, 2026, Message in order approving and authorizing a limit for the Environmental Conservation Commission involving fund for fiscal year 2027 for the purpose of securing outside consultants, including engineers, wetland scientists, wildlife biologists, and other experts in order to aid in the review of proposed projects to the Commission for the city ordinance protecting local wetland and promoting climate change adaptation. This revolving fund shall be funded by receipts from fees imposed by the Commission for the purpose of securing outside consultants. The Environment Department will be the only department authorized to expend from the fund. Such expenditures shall be capped at $50,000. Submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Docket number 0745, the Committee on Ways and Means, which was referred on April 8th, 2026. Message in order, approving in order, Authorizing a limit for the distributed energy resource revolving fund of fiscal year 2027 to facilitate the purchase of offsets of greenhouse gas Emissions which shall be associated with a per portion of the electricity Consumed by the city annually and to operate maintain monitor and expand the city's existing solar arrays and Boston Public Schools combined heat and power facilities This revolving fund shall be credited with ending all receipts from the sale of renewable and alternative energy certificates and demand response program revenues produced by combined heat and power unit located by Boston public school sites and solar renewable energy certificates produced by the city's photovoltaic arrays. Receipts and resulting expenditures from this fund shall not exceed $150,000. Submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Docket number 0746, the Committee on Ways and Means, which was referred April 8th, 2026, message not approving an order authorizing a limit for the equitable emissions investment revolving fund outlined in Section 1G of Berto for fiscal year 2027, pursuant to Mass General Laws Chapter 44, Section 53E and a half, to incur liabilities against and spend monies for such fund consistent with the ordinance. The revolving fund shall be funded by receipts from the alternative compliance payments. ACPs are an approved emissions mitigation pathway that consists of payments equal to the average per cost per metric ton of CO2e to decarbonize buildings. The Environment Department will be the only department authorized to expend from the fund, and such expenditures shall be capped at $1,500,000. Submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Docket number 0747. committee on ways and means which was referred on april 8 2026 message you know approving in order authorizing a limit for the boston center for youth and families revolving fund for fiscal year 2027 to pay salaries and benefits of employees and to purchase supplies and equipment necessary to operate the city hall daycare child care this revolving fund shall be credited with any and all receipts from tuition paid by parents or guardians of children enrolled at the center. Receipts and resulting expenditures from this fund shall not exceed $1,100,000. Submits a report recommending the order ought to pass. Docket number 0748, the Committee on Ways and Means to which was referred on April 8th, 2026. Message in order approving an order authorizing a limit for the law department revolving fund for fiscal year 2027. to purchase goods and services to pay for repairs to city property. This revolving fund shall be funded by receipts from recoveries for damages to city property caused by third parties. The law department will be the only department authorized to expend from the fund, and such expenditures shall be capped at $300,000, submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Talking number 0749. The Committee on Ways and Means, which was referred April 8th, 2026. Message not approving an order authorizing a limit for the Boston Police Department Revolving Fund for fiscal year 2027 to pay salaries and benefits of employees and to purchase supplies and equipment necessary to operate the Boston Police Department Fitness Center. Revenue for this fund is derived from monthly membership fees. Receipts and resulting expenditures from this fund shall not exceed $100,000. Submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Document number 0750, the Committee on Ways and Means, which was referred April 8th, 2026. Message not approving an order authorizing a limit for the Boston Police Department Revolving Fund for fiscal year 2027 to support the canine units training programs for officers and police dogs from none City of Boston Law Enforcement Agencies. The Special Operations Division will charge tuition and other fees to outside law enforcement agencies for training with the K-9 unit. The tuition and other fees paid by outside agencies will be used to purchase training equipment, certify instructors, update facilities, and provide funds for other training needs not otherwise budgeted. The Special Operations Division will be the only unit authorized to expend from the fund and such expenditures shall be capped at $100,000. Submits a report that the order ought to pass. Document 0751, the Committee on Ways and Means, which was referred April 8, 2026. Message in order, approving an order authorizing a limit for the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture revolving fund for fiscal year 2027 to purchase goods and services to support public art to enhance the public realm throughout the city of Boston. This revolving fund shall be funded by receipts from easements within the public way granted by the Public Improvement Commission. The Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture will be the only unit authorized to expend from the fund, and such expenditures shall be capped at $800,000, submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. Docking of zero seven five to the committee on ways and means to which was referred on April 8 2026 message not approving an authorizing limit for the mayor's office of arts and culture revolving fund for fiscal year 2027 to purchase goods and services to fund the operation of Strand theater the revolving fund shall be funded by receipts from rental fees for the use of the strand theater the mayor's office of arts and culture will be the only unit authorized to expend from the fund, and such expenditure shall be kept at $300,000, submits a report that the order ought to pass. Document number 0753, the Committee on Ways and Means, which was referred on April 8, 2026. Message in order, approving an order authorizing a limit for the Mayor's Office of Tourism, revolving fund for fiscal year 2027, to purchase goods and services to support events and programming on and around City Hall Plaza, to advance tourism and promote participation in public celebrations and civic and cultural events. This revolving fund shall be funded by receipts from payments for the use of City Hall Plaza pursuant to City of Boston Code Chapter 11, Section 7-14. The Mayor's Office of Tourism will be the only unit authorized to expend from the fund, and such expenditures shall be capped at $150,000. Submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass. and docket number 0754, the Committee on Ways and Means to which was referred April 8th, 2026. Message in on approving an order authorizing limit for the Transportation Department Revolving Fund for fiscal year 2027 to support the operation of the bike share program within the City of Boston. This revolving fund shall be funded by system generated user revenue, sponsorship revenues, and advertising revenues. the Transportation Department be the only department authorized to expend from the fund, and such expenditures shall be capped at $1,400,000, submits a report recommending that the order ought to pass.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. This is a marathon session for you today. The Chair recognizes the Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means, Councillor Weber. Councillor, you have the floor.

Thank you very much. I'm going to take dockets 0741 to 0745. First, these authorized annual spending limits for city revolving funds that allow departments to use revenue they generate themselves. These revolving funds include BPS revolving funds for facilities, custodial utility and transportation costs, computer repair and purchase costs for the sale of renewable and alternative energy certificates and funding for the Environment Conservation Commission. to secure outside consultants in order to aid in the review of proposed projects to the Commission per the City's ordinance protecting local wetland and promoting climate change adaptation. For these reasons, the Committee recommends passage of these five dockets, and I respectfully ask for my colleagues' support on docket numbers 0741 to 0745, and then I'll address the rest.

0741 through 0745. Can we vote on them all separately? Councillor, we've read them all into the records, so we'd probably like to go ahead and vote on them all. Pardon me. Hold on a second, Councillor. He's still in discussion of the dockets that were read into the record. Councillor Webber, you have the floor.

So that was docket number 0741 to 0745. 0746 creates a new revolving fund to support Boston's building emissions program, otherwise known as BIRDO. The fund would be paid through collection of fees from building owners who choose to make compliance payments instead of reducing admissions. The Environment Department would manage the fund with a cap of $1.5 million per year. Docket numbers 0747 to 0753 authorize annual spending limits for city revolving funds, which allow departments which allow departments to use revenue they generate themselves. These revolving funds support the Equitable Emission Investment Fund under Berto, City Hall Child Care Operations, the Police Canine Training Program, public art initiatives, operations at Strand Theatre and Tourism, and cultural and civic programs at City Hall Plaza. For these reasons, the committee recommends passage of these seven dockets, 0747 to 0753, in respect to the ask for my colleague's support. Docket number 0754 creates a new revolving fund to support Boston's bike share program. The fund would be paid by user fees, sponsorship, and advertising revenue generated by the program. The Transportation Department would manage the fund, spending capped at $1.4 million per year. I believe that's what we've read into the record. I'm recommending passage of those dockets.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. That was a lot to read through. We will now proceed to a vote on these dockets. We'll start with docket 0741. The Chair of the Committee of Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report in passage of docket 0741. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0741.

Councilor Braden?

Yes.

Councilor Kaleta-Zapata? Yes. Councilor Culpepper? Yes. Councilor Culpepper, yes. Councilor Durkan? Yes. Councilor Durkan, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald?

Yes.

Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn? Yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan?

Yes.

Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Mejia? Yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy? Yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Pippen?

Yes.

Councilor Pippen, yes. Councilor Santana? Yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber?

Yes.

Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Orrell?

Yes.

Councillor Kaleta-Zapata. Yes. Councillor Kaleta-Zapata, yes. Dock number 0741 has received a unanimous vote in the affirmative.

Thank you. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means—sorry, that's—thank you. The Committee report has been accepted, and Dock number 0741 has passed. And also, Mr. Clerk, could you please record that Councillor—I'm giving you a promotion—Doctor Kaleta-Zapata—Councillor Kaleta-Zapata has joined us. Thank you. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of Docket 0742. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Mr. Clerk, could you please read Docket 0742.

Councillor Breen. Yes. Councillor Breen. Yes. Councillor Kaleta-Zapata. Yes. Councillor Kaleta-Zapata. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Durkan. Councilor Durkin, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Worrell, yes. Councilor Worrell, yes. Docking number 0742 has received a unanimous vote in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and Docket 0742 has passed. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of Docket 0743. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and Docket 0742 has passed. Mr. Clerk. Could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0743?

Councillor Brayton?

Yes.

Councillor Brayton, yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata? Yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata, yes. Councillor Culpepper? Yes. Councillor Culpepper, yes. Councillor Durkan? Yes. Councillor Durkan, yes. Councillor Fitzgerald? Yes. Councillor Fitzgerald, yes. Councillor Flynn? Councillor Flynn, yes. Councillor Lujan, yes. Councillor Lujan, yes. Councillor Mejia, yes. Councillor Mejia, yes. Councillor Murphy, yes. Councillor Murphy, yes. Councillor Le Pen, yes. Councillor Le Pen, yes. Councillor Santana, yes. Councillor Santana, yes. Councillor Webber, yes. Councillor Webber, yes. And Councillor Worrell, yes. Councillor Worrell, yes. Docket number 0743 has received a unanimous vote in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and docket 0743 has passed. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of Docket 0744. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on 0744.

Councillor Braden.

Yes.

Councillor Braden. Yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Durkan. Yes. Councillor Durkan. Yes. Councillor Fitzgerald. Council Fitzgerald? Yes. Council Flynn?

Yes.

Council Flynn? Yes. Council Luzon? Yes. Council Luzon? Yes. Council Mejia? Yes. Council Mejia? Yes. Council Murphy? Yes. Council Murphy? Yes. Council Pepin?

Yes.

Council Pepin? Yes. Council Santana? Yes. Council Santana? Yes. Council Weber? Yes. Council Weber? Yes. And Council Worrell?

Yes.

Council Worrell? Yes. Dock number 0744 has received 12 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and Docket 0744 has passed. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of Docket 0745. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on Docket 0745.

Councilor Brayton.

Yes.

Councilor Brayton. Yes. Councilor Kaleta-Zapata. Councilor Kalpepper. Councilor Kalpepper. Yes. Councilor Durkan. Yes. Councilor Durkan. Yes. Councilor Fitzgerald.

Yes.

Councilor Fitzgerald. Yes. Councilor Flynn. Yes. Councilor Flynn. Yes. Councilor Lujan.

Yes.

Councilor Lujan. Yes. Councilor Mejia. Councilor Mejia. Yes. Councilor Murphy. Councilor Murphy. Yes. Councilor Pepin. Yes. Councilor Pepin. Yes. Councilor Santana. Yes. Councilor Santana. Yes. Councilor Webber. Councillor Webber, yes. And Councillor Orrell, yes. Councillor Orrell, yes. Docket number 0745 has received 12 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and Docket 0745 has passed. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of Docket 0746. All in favour say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Aye. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call? Vote on docket 0746.

Councillor Brayden. Yes. Councillor Brayden, yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. Yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata, yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Culpepper, yes. Councillor Durkan. Councillor Durkan, yes. Councillor Fitzgerald. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Mejia, Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Pepin, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Worrell, yes. Councilor Worrell, yes. Docket number 0746 has received a unanimous vote in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and docket 0746 has passed. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means takes acceptance of the committee report and passage of docket 0747. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0747?

Councillor Braden.

Yes.

Councillor Braden, yes. Councillor Collette is a pilot. Councilor Zapata, yes. Councilor Culpepper. Yes. Councilor Culpepper, yes. Councilor Durkan. Councilor Durkan, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald.

Yes.

Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn.

Yes.

Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Louisian.

Yes.

Councilor Louisian, yes. Councilor Mejia. Yes. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy. Yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Pippen. Yes. Councilor Pippen, yes. Councilor Santana. Yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Worrell. Councillor O'Rourke. Yes. Docket number 0747 has received a unanimous vote in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and Docket 0747 has passed. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of Docket 0748. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Thank you. The committee report... Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0748?

Councillor Brayden. Yes. Councillor Brayden, yes. Councillor Calata-Zapata. Yes. Councillor Calata-Zapata, yes. Councillor Culpepper. Councillor Culpepper, yes. Councillor Durkan. Councillor Durkan, yes. Councillor Fitzgerald. Yes. Councillor Fitzgerald, yes. Councillor Flynn. Yes. Councillor Ugin.

Yes.

Councillor Ugin, yes. Councillor Mejia. Councillor Mejia, yes. Councillor Murphy. Yes. Councillor Murphy, yes. Councillor Vipendi. Councillor Papin, yes. Councillor Santana, yes. Councillor Weber, yes. Councillor Weber, yes. And Councillor Orrell, yes. Docket number 0748 has received 12 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and Docket 0748 has passed. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of Docket 0749. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on Docket 0749?

Councillor Braden.

Yes.

Council Braden. Yes. Council Kalazipa. Yes. Council Kalazipa. Yes. Council Culpepper. Council Culpepper. Yes. Council Durkan. Yes. Council Durkan. Yes. Council Fitzgerald. Yes. Council Fitzgerald. Yes. Council Flynn. Yes. Council Louisian. Yes. Council Louisian. Yes. Council Mejia. Yes. Council Mejia. Yes. Council Murphy. Yes. Council Murphy. Yes. Council DePenn. Yes. Council DePenn. Yes. Council Santana. Yes. Council Santana. Yes. Council Weber. Yes. Council Weber. Yes. Council Rural. Yes. Councillor Orrell, yes. Councillor Flynn, yes. Councillor Flynn, yes. Docket number 0749 has received a unanimous vote in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and Docket 0749 has passed. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of Docket 0750. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0750?

Councillor Brayden. Yes. Councillor Brayden, yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. Yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata, yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Culpepper, yes. Councillor Durkan. Yes. Councillor Durkan, yes. Councillor Fitzgerald. Yes. Councillor Fitzgerald, yes. Councillor Flynn.

Yes.

Councillor Flynn, yes. Councillor Louisianne.

Yes.

Councillor Louisianne, yes. Councillor Mejia. Yes. Councillor Mejia, yes. Councillor Murphy. Yes. Councillor Murphy, yes. Councillor Bepin. Yes. Councillor McMahon, yes. Councillor Santana, yes. Councillor Weber, yes. Councillor Weber, yes. Councillor Worrell, yes. Docket number 0750 has received a unanimous vote in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and Docket 0750 has passed. Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of docket 0751. All in favor say aye. All opposed say nay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0751? Council of Braden. Yes.

Council of Braden, yes. Council of Coletta-Zapata, yes. Council of Coletta-Zapata, yes. Council of Culpeper, yes. Council of Culpeper, yes. Council of Durkan, yes. Council of Durkan, yes. Council of Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Michelle. Yes. Councilor Flynn.

Yes.

Councilor Flynn. Yes. Councilor Lujan. Councilor Mejia. Councilor Mejia. Yes. Councilor Murphy. Yes. Councilor Murphy. Yes. Councilor Penn. Yes. Councilor Penn. Yes. Councilor Santana. Yes. Councilor Santana. Yes. Councilor Weber. Yes. Councilor Weber. Yes. And Councilor Worrell. Yes. Councilor Worrell. Yes. Docket number 0751 has received 12 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and docket 0751 has passed. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of docket 0752. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0752?

Councillor Braden?

Yes.

Councillor Braden? Yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata? Yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata? Yes. Councillor Culpepper? Yes. Councillor Culpepper? Yes. Councillor Durkan? Yes. Councilor Durkin, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan. Councilor Mejia. Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Pippen. Yes. Councilor Pippen, yes. Councilor Santana. Yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber. Yes. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Worrell. Yes. Councilor Worrell, yes. Talking number 0752 has received 12 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and docket 0752 has passed. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of docket 0753. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on docket 0753.

Councillor Brayton.

Yes.

Councillor Brayton, yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata, yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata, yes. Councillor Calpepper, yes. Council Culpepper, yes. Council Durkan? Council Durkan, yes. Council Fitzgerald?

Yes.

Council Fitzgerald, yes. Council Flynn?

Yes.

Council Flynn, yes. Council Louisian? Council Mejia? Council Mejia, yes. Council Murphy? Yes. Council Murphy, yes. Council Pippen? Council Pepin, yes. Council Santana, yes. Council Santana, yes. Council Webber, yes. Council Webber, yes. And Council Worrell, yes. Council Worrell, yes. Docket number 0753 has received 12 votes in the affirmative.

Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and Docket 0752 has passed. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of Docket 0753. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call? I've done it. I need to check it off. Thank you. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means seeks acceptance of the committee report and passage of Docket 0754. All in favour say aye. All opposed say nay. Thank you. The committee report has been accepted and Docket 0754 has passed.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you you you Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. you you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

What's the point of order? What rule are you bringing up?

Madam Chair, during this recess, I do understand and want to bring it to the attention that negotiations were taking place behind the scenes outside of this Ionella Chamber, which I believe potentially could be an open meeting law violation. We can't negotiate outside of this area while the body's in session. That's the rule. Thank you, Councillor Flynn.

Madam Chair, I would like... Councillor Flynn, we're moving on. Pursuant to Rule 39, each councillor will have 10 minutes to discuss the main motion, which is the full docket as presented. The assistant clerk will keep track with a stopwatch. If councillors do not use all their time in the first round, they will be able to use any remaining time they have in a second round. Pursuant to Rule 30, councillors will have a separate two minutes for each subsidiary motion meaning and including amendments for councillor will be limited to two minutes. We will be reasonably enforcing time limits in accordance with the council rules and to ensure each councillor is allotted an equal and fair amount of time. Mr. Clerk, would you please read Docket 0733? I beg I'll give you the mic. Thank you.

Docket number 0733, the Committee on Ways and Means, which was referred on April 8th. 2026. Message in order for an annual appropriation and tax order for fiscal year 2027. Submits a report recommending the order ought to pass in an amended draft.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councillor Webber, the Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means. Councillor Webber, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam President. First procedural issue, I'd like to move to substitute the committee report with a new committee report. This reflects a few changes. One, in the package has been removed $200,000 that was being pulled from Boston Public Libraries. and after feedback from my colleagues and advocates, and an increase from a poll from the execution of courts by $100,000. In addition, so the full package would be $8.1 million, and it would fund $2 million for city housing vouchers, which is still, instead of 2.1 million, which is still over the 100% of what it was last year. In addition, the original committee report sought to ensure that funds for the Office of Black Male Advancement, the Office of LGBTQIA2S Plus Advancement, and the Office of Women's Advancement went directly to those offices instead of sending them to the Equity Office. While the funds for the Office of Black Male Advancement were sent directly to that office in the original tax order, there was some confusion about where the funds for the Office of Women's Advancement and the Office of LGBTQIA2S Plus would end up. The substituted committee report alters the tax order to prevent any possible confusion by expressly routing directly to the Mayor's Office of Women's Advancement $100,000 and to the Office of LGBTQIA2S Plus Advancement $200,000. That's in addition to the $555,000 being directly sent to the Office of Black Male Advancement. In the prior report, the funds were designated for these offices. but we're routed through the Equity Office. This change reflects what was screen-shared and discussed during the last working session, and now the tax order is updated to ensure the funding goes directly to those two offices. So I move to substitute the committee report for those reasons, and then we can discuss the merits of it.

Thank you. Absent objection, Councillor Webber's substitution is before the body. Councillor Councilor Mejia?

Sorry. I just walked in. Just so that I'm clear, are we on docket 7033? Yes. And the motion on the table is just a substitution, right? Correct. Not his...

request uh no we we will discuss the the full package after this is just to substitute the committee report uh make and and honestly most of it is just to make sure that funds that we've designated for the office of women's advancement and the office of lgbtq plus advancement will be sent directly to those offices instead of to the equity office which was in our presentation but not in the tax order

Thank you. No, and I appreciate that. I think that it's really important for those who are following us on this journey.

Councillor Mejia, are you objecting to this?

No, I just wanted to make sure that we all knew what was happening. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Councillor Coletta Zapata had her light on first.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. I'm going to move a motion to amend the Ways and Means Amendment Package to restore $1.2 million for the Office of Immigrant Advancement Grants.

We're not there yet.

I haven't brought the package to the floor, but I'll leave it to— Okay, after we've substituted, I believe I can make a motion to introduce that package.

Thank you. But have we substituted this motion? Okay, I'm thinking there was a second.

Hold on a second. Councillor— Councillor, are you, Councillor Mejia, are you objection? Okay, you have the floor.

No, just because I feel like right now there's a little bit of confusion creating here, and I just want to make sure. So I, if it would be helpful for me to understand, you know, because Councillor Coletta's already ready to go to amendments. I believe he's still talking about substitution. I need somebody to help me understand what is at play and at what point I can speak in regards to objecting this whole process.

Thank you, Councillor Mejia. Because Councillor Mehear is objecting to the committee report, we'll be polling the committee. A yes vote means you agree with the Chair's recommendation on reporting this out. A no means that this matter should return to committee. Mr. Clerk, could you please take the poll?

Wait one second. So, Councillor Braden, if you'll recognize me, put my mic on. Thank you, Councillor Braden, for recognizing me now officially. Madam President, I object to the Chair's committee report on docket 0733. To be clear, I am not objecting to the Chair's offering a substitution. I am objecting to the Chair's reporting out on this docket so that we can move this item to the green sheets and then pull it from the green sheets to take a full vote on rejecting the budget. Community members have been actively calling for this action and it would be disrespectful to not allow Councillors to vote on it and have those votes reflected for the public record. I ask respectfully that my colleagues who are members of the Ways and Means Committee to vote no on agreeing on the Chair's reporting out when they are polled so that we can let democracy play out.

Chair recognizes Councillor Webber.

Councillor Webber, you have the floor. We're just trying to substitute the committee report so we can then bring it to the floor and have a discussion about the amendments that we're doing. People will have a full opportunity to vote for or against the amendment package, make amendments, and we'll have that discussion again. The vote is just to make two minor changes to the committee report, primarily to make sure that funds in the amendment package for the Office of Women's Advancement and the Office of LGBTQ Plus Advancement will go directly to those offices instead of through the Equity Cabinet. In addition, we did remove a cut from the Boston Public Libraries and took $100,000 from execution courts in addition. to what we'd originally proposed. But, again, voting for this or allowing this to go forward allows for a full hearing about the amendment package, and you can still vote down the amendment package, you can make amendments to the amendment package. It just brings it to the floor.

Leanne Wood AMC We're going to poll the committee. Hang on. I need to just take a breath here. We would like to poll the committee. Mr. Clerk. I have a point of order.

I just want to ask the chair a question with regard to blackmail advancement. When he talked about taking out the L... So it's still in there.

Where is it? This will all be open for discussion. We just need to bring the amended report properly before the body right now.

I just want to...

Okay. One at a time please.

Yes.

In the remarks I think before you were in here, the committee report as originally filed directed $555,000 directly to the Office of Black Male Advancement. It's just that the $300,000 for the Office of Women's Advancement and the LGBTQ Plus Advancement Office were routed to them through the Equity Office. All this does is provide them with the same assurance, those two offices that we've already provided for the Office of Black Male Advancement. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Culpepper, for your question.

I have a procedural point of information, I guess, from the Clerk. My question is, was the report properly substituted on the floor? Because I made a motion first and it was seconded, isn't that motion in the sequential order should be taken first before any other motions?

It's still an outstanding motion.

It's still an outstanding motion that's on the floor. Yes. So moving forward, will that be taken first, that motion? That's my intention, yes. Okay, thank you.

If councillors want to speak, I will allow my colleagues to speak, but I want to clarify that we are only addressing the question of polling the committee for the chair's report right now. Comments and debate on the budget itself will be fully allowed later in the meeting at the appropriate time. Mr. Clerk, could you please poll the Ways and Means Committee?

Members of the Committee on Ways and Means. Councillor Webber.

Yes.

Councillor Fitzgerald. Yes. Councillor Colletta Zapata. Yes, to bring it on the floor.

Councillor Gilliam, you need to sit down. No, you need to sit down.

I know, but there's some weird stuff happening right now.

We're trying to actually follow an order here, so please sit down. We're polling the committee. A yes vote means that you agree with the Chair's recommendation on reporting this out. A no vote means that this matter should remain in committee. hold on i'm taking a brief recess here because all of this is you We are polling the Ways and Means Committee. A yes vote means that we agree with the Chair's recommendation of the substitution, and a no vote means that this matter should return to committee. Mr. Clerk, could you please poll the Ways and Means Committee?

Councillor Webber. Yes. Councillor Fitzgerald. Yes. Councillor Zafiropoulos? Yes. Councillor Zafiropoulos? No. Councillor Zafiropoulos? No. Councillor Zafiropoulos? No. Councillor Zafiropoulos?

No.

Councillor Zafiropoulos?

No.

Councillor Zafiropoulos? No. Councillor Zafiropoulos? No. Councillor Zafiropoulos? No. Councillor Zafiropoulos? No. Councillor Zafiropoulos? No. Councillor Zafiropoulos? No. Councillor Zafiropoulos? No. Councillor Zafiropoulos? No. Councillor Zafiropoulos? No. Councillor Weber.

Thank you very much, Madam President. This year's budget process was exceptionally challenging. City costs, particularly for healthcare, are rising much faster than revenues, with property taxes rising at the slowest rate since 1998. As a result, the overall budget from FY26 to FY27 grew by just 2.1%, marking the slowest growth since the Great Recession in fiscal year 2010. As a result of those pressures, the Mayor's proposed budget cut many of the grants and programs that support our most vulnerable communities. In a city that must do everything it can to address gaps in wealth, health, and academic achievement that fall along racial and socioeconomic lines, we need budgets that provide real, tangible support for housing, seniors, youth, small businesses, food access, and the arts. City Councillors have heard calls to restore the cuts over the last two months in over 150 hours of budget hearings, city hall listening sessions, neighborhood town halls, and working sessions. Accordingly, my office received submissions from my colleagues about what we should fund with the amendments to the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget, and that aligned with the advocacy of our constituents. As a result, as the chair of the Ways and Means Committee of the Boston City Council, I submitted an amendment package last Wednesday and again today that restores nearly all the cuts that advocates have been fighting for in response to the Mayor's proposed fiscal year 2027 budget. The amendment package before us today totals $8.1 million and will fund the following. For the Office of Housing, approximately $3 million. That's $2 million for housing vouchers, $450,000 for access to council. $300,000 for down payment assistance, $125,000 for BHA team mentoring, and $60,000 for rent stabilization, all at 100% or above of what they were last year. For the Age Strong Commission, the amendment package restores $1.2 million for senior programming and grants. For the Office of Black Male Advancement, $555,000. For the Office of LGBTQIA2S Plus Advancement, it's $200,000. And for the Office of Women's Advancement, another $100,000. For youth jobs, it adds $750,000. When added to the private funding secured by Mayor Wu for 2,000 school year youth jobs, this will supply approximately 2,225 youth jobs, more than the 1,800 jobs last year. For returning citizens and families, this package will provide $750,000. For arts and culture, $600,000. For small businesses, $600,000. And for food access and support, $400,000. This package moves more money than the Council has in recent years on a more challenging budget and with a forecast for more trouble ahead. We are under more pressure than ever to make smart decisions that are going to set up Boston for future success. Our goal was to supply a budget amendment package that would fund vital programming like housing vouchers and youth jobs without negatively impacting the services our residents rely on or create the risk of layoffs of city workers. Our process has helped us construct an amendment package that restores 100% of the cuts impacting housing vouchers, access to council, down payment assistance, rental stabilization, BHA team mentoring, the Office of LGBTQIA2S Plus Advancement, and the Mayor's Office of Women's Advancement. In addition, we have secured 89% of the grants for Age Strong, 67% of the funding for small businesses, 58% of the funding for returning citizens and their families, and 50% of the funding for arts and culture and grants to combat food security. And by adding $750,000 onto the youth jobs pool, we'll be ensuring there will be city-based jobs for our youth. And with the private funding secured by the mayor, there will be more than 500 more school year jobs than were provided last year. The council must take action today Wednesday June 10th where the mayor's budget will automatically move forward unamended Which I urge my colleagues to support this package and deliver the funds and grants our communities deserve I'd be remiss not to thank my staff and City Council central office Our central office budget staff for all the hard work They've put in over this process which has allowed us to arrive at a vote today on a package and also to thank my colleagues and who participated in this budget review process. As the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, I am seeking acceptance of this committee report and an amended draft and passage of this docket before you today. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Weber. Chair recognizes Councillor Colletta Zapata.

You have the floor. Thank you, Councillor President. So Madam Chair, I move to amend the amendment package to restore the $1.2 million for the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement Grants. This amendment would restore funding for immigrant legal services, ESOL programming, and community-based immigration support grants consistent with the funding levels previously discussed during the Council's working sessions and introduced by the Chair. I ask that that amendment be distributed and considered.

Madam President. Do you have a second? Madam President, point of information or whatever we're calling it. Just for the record, I'll be recusing myself from this discussion based on guidance I've received from the State Ethics Commission. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Colletta, your motion is seconded. You have the floor.

Thank you so much. I rise today in support of this amendment restoring funding to the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement. This amendment restores funding that many of us discussed extensively throughout the budget process and that was originally contemplated as part of the broader restoration conversations that occurred during the working session that we all agreed that we wanted to introduce. Specifically, this amendment restores funding for immigrant legal services, ESOL programming, which is a huge need in my district. Language access and community-based grants administered through the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement. So specifically, what this amendment to the amendment package introduces is ESOL grant support to the tune of 275,000. Legal access, which is a huge necessity. during this federal administration and their horrific attacks on our immigrant brothers and sisters and folks, even with legal protected status. Diverse neighborhoods grant, $164,000, and tuition equity for $172,000, and then as well as weaving well-being at $269,517. Across Boston, immigrant families continue to navigate increasingly complex legal challenges, language barriers, and uncertainty about access to services. The legal aid funded supported through Moya helps families access qualified legal representation and trusted community-based assistance. The ESOL funding helps residents learn English, access employment opportunities, support their children's education, and fully participate in civic life. In District 1, these investments are especially important. East Boston is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city of Boston and home to a generation of immigrant families from around the world. Every week, our office works with residents who rely on legal aid services, language access support, and ESOL programs to navigate everyday challenges. We have seen firsthand how these investments improve economic mobility, educational outcomes, and community stability. This amendment also reflects the work already done by this council. The funding levels contained in this amendment mirror the restoration concepts previously discussed during our working session and are consistent with the priorities many colleagues expressed throughout this process. To me, this is not a partisan amendment. It is an amendment that recognises that immigrant families are a part of Boston's story, part of Boston's economy and part of Boston's future. For those reasons, I ask my colleagues to support this amendment and restore funding to the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement. Thank you.

Mr. Clerk, could you please read Councillor Colletta Zapata's... I apologize, we're getting the cart before the horse here. Could you please read Councillor Colletta Zapata's amendment into the record?

Amendment of Councillor Colletta Zapata, document number 0733, message and order for annual appropriation and tax order for fiscal year 2027 as amended shall be amended as follows. Decrease execution of court special appropriation Increase Office for Immigrant Advancement Contractual Services $960,000 for the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement Funding. Decrease Department of Innovation Technology Contractual Services. Increase Office for Immigrant Advancement Contractual Services $40,000 for Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement Funding. Decrease Office of People Operations Contractual Services. Increase Office for Immigrant Advancement Contractual Services $50,000 for Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement Funding. Decrease Labor Relations Contractual Services, Increase Office of Immigrant Advancement Contractual Services $50,000 for Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement Funding. Decrease Office of Financial Contractual Services. Increase Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement Contractual Services. $100,000 for Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement Funding. Filed in the Council June 10.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Does anyone wish to speak on this amendment? Councillor Durkan, you have the floor.

Thank you so much. I want to begin by recognizing the work of our Ways and Means Chair, Chair Weber, the administration, all of my colleagues on this council, of course, central staff, specifically Karishma and Ryan. Over the past several months, we've been involved in many hours of hearings, working sessions, public testimony, and conversations with residents across the city. There have been significant disagreements about the best path forward, many of which remain, but I believe this amendment package before us with the included amendment reflects a thoughtful effort to address concerns while meeting the financial realities facing our city. For that, I rise today in support of both The chairs amendment package and this addition the budget as proposed by the mayor was not written using under easy circumstances It reflects the real financial constraint of the movement driven by rising cross from employee health care and public overtime safety overtime to unanticipated snow removal costs and the continued inflationary pressures affecting both municipal budgets across the country and specifically Boston In times like these, the Council is tasked with doing what responsible government must do, make decisions. Across the Commonwealth, I read in the Globe this week, cities Somerville, Malden, and New Bedford are confronting layoffs and service reductions amid significant financial challenges. Many are warning that without additional revenue measures, including against Prop 2 1⁄2 overrides, they will be forced to make additional cuts. Against that backdrop, I'm proud that this package preserves the core services that residents rely on every day while protecting filled city positions. It reflects a serious effort to live within our means while responding to priorities raised throughout the process. Across this body, there has been consensus that some of the additional reduction... California letter!

You failed us! Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Colleagues, we're going to take a brief recess.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. United, we'll never be defeated. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Tell us where the money goes. Tell us where the money goes.

Tell us where the money goes. Tell us where the money goes. Thank you.

Excuse me, can I have silence, please? Can I have silence, please? Quiet.

Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.

This meeting is on recess.

This meeting is recessed.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

you know

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It cannot be. It cannot be. Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. you you Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you

Good afternoon. We need you folks to leave because we need to continue with the business of this meeting. If we don't leave, we have a hard deadline to amend the budget.

If we reject it, then the Merit Budget stands.

Midnight tonight. Excuse me. Okay, I'm not going to debate this. That's my understanding. I'm asking you now for the last time to stand up and leave peacefully.

Otherwise, we're going to have to. This is your last warning. We're going to ask the police department to remove you. So, thank you.

And we need to get back to working business here. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you you Thank you. you Thank you.

Amen.

Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

We are back in session. As pursuant to Rule 2042, no demonstration of approval or disapproval from members of the public will be permitted, including but not limited to signs, placards, banners, cheering, clapping or booing, etc. If such demonstrations are made, the gallery or public seating area will be cleared. This rule will be strictly enforced. There will be no more warnings. If you make a disturbance or distraction, you will be escorted out. As a reminder, we are currently on docket number 0733. The motion before the body is Councillor Coletta Zapata's amendment to docket 0733 before the chair. We are currently addressing this amendment. Once we finish this amendment, we will finish addressing the other amendments. Does everybody have Councillor Colletta Zapata's amendment in front of them? It was given out earlier. If anyone hasn't got it. Given the disruption, I don't remember who is next up to speak. So in fairness to my colleagues, please refresh my memory and who is next and we will go from there. Councillor Coletta Zapata you have the floor.

Thank you, and this is actually good because After having conversations with colleagues in the spirit of collaboration Consensus and collegiality. I am going to formally withdraw the motion understanding that there's going to be a motion from one of my colleagues I think we're all here to do the work of the people and no one wants to No one wants this body to dissolve into chaos and Just for the sake of trying to figure out who's putting what up. I My motion was to fully fund immigrant advancement To be clear. I believe that that is something that is happening. That's my understanding. That's my hope That's my wish and so in the spirit again of consensus collaboration collegiality. I'm going to withdraw my motion and I do look forward to ultimately voting on this budget package presented by the chair and then look forward to hearing from my colleagues if they have other ideas of things that they want to fund and talking through those amendments in a very cordial and respectful way. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Madam President. I'd like to thank Council Senator Coletta Zapata for withdrawing that, knowing that in an amendment package that we were going to originally propose, we will now bifurcate that, and I would like to introduce an original amendment on the floor to be voted on. And then my intent is to, after this amendment package, that we will then have a vote on the Moya amendment package as well. So I have a non-Moya package and a Moya package for evident reasons.

Do you have a motion to offer another amendment? Do you have a seconder? Thank you. We have a seconder. Mr. Clerk, could you read this amendment into the record for us? I better give you some answers here.

Amendment of Council of Fitzgerald, document number 0733. Message in order for annual appropriation and tax order for fiscal year 2027 as amended shall be amended as follows. Coordinated response team. Decrease Boston Transportation Department personnel services. Increase Office of Human Services personnel services, 75,000, to be directed toward three permanent full-time employees for the citywide coordinated response team. Decrease Boston Public Health Commission special appropriation. Increase Office of Human Services personnel services, 125,000 to be directed towards three permanent full-time employees for the city-wide coordinated response team. Aid strong grants and programming. Decrease Boston Transportation Department personnel services. Increase age-strong commission contractual services. $150,000 to be directed toward community grants. Office of Food Justice grants. Decrease Boston Transportation Department personnel services. Increase Office of Food Justice contractual services. $50,000 to be directed toward community grants. EMS Health and Wellness grants. Decrease Boston Transportation Department personnel services, increased Boston Public Health Commission special appropriations, $125,000 to be directed towards emergency medical services, health and wellness. Legacy business awards, decreased Boston Transportation Department personnel services, increased Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion Contractual Services, $300,000 to be directed toward Legacy Business Awards. MWBE Procurement Readiness Pilot, Decrease Boston Transportation Department Personnel Services, Increase Public Facilities Department Contractual Services, $200,000 to be directed toward MWBE Procurement Readiness Pilot. At Risk and Transitional Youth Jobs and Assistance, decrease Boston Transportation Department personnel services, increase youth employment and opportunity contractual services $50,000 to be directed toward at-risk and transitional youth jobs and assistance. Arts and culture grants, decrease Boston Transportation Department personnel services, increase Office of Arts and Culture contractual services $225,000 to be directed toward arts and culture grants. Human Rights Commission, decrease Boston Transportation Department personnel services, increase Human Rights Commission personnel services $200,000 to be directed toward Human Rights Commission personnel services. Veteran Services, decrease Boston Transportation Department personnel services, increase Office of Veterans Personnel Services $25,000 to be directed toward additional supports for veteran services. Fair Housing Testing Programme. Decrease Boston Public Library personnel services. Increase Office of Fair Housing and Equity Contractual Services. $100,000 to be directed toward Fair Housing Testing Programme. Filed in the Council June 10th.

Chair recognises Councillor Fitzgerald. You may continue.

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Mr. Clerk, for reading all that. First, I'd like to focus on where these polls are coming from so people understand. They're coming from BTD. We have 1.4 million coming from BTD personnel services. The reason we chose to focus in on the BTD personnel services is that we looked at their five-year underspend, and the average was 3.5 million. By taking 1.4 million, we believe that the department can make the necessary changes within the department to decide what they want to do with this cut, just as when we cut from any other department They have to recalibrate internally, and we believe that they have the bandwidth to do that. There are a couple other ones at BPHC and library. Those are offset by other things that will be in the substituted budget from the chair. And as you can see, originally we had some more money in this, but as things you have to work out, not everyone, there's just sometimes not enough to go around this year, right, to feed everybody. But some of the stories that does come out of this I think should be good. The coordinated response team, getting folks to help with the open congregate drug use, and that is a citywide team. And again, all of the increases we have here are really for citywide services. No one is benefiting from their district specifically. This is in collegiality with everybody. And I got to say, I have to give a personal shout out. Council Santana has been fantastic in this process in working together and making sure we get to a good thing. And I know I've really worked with all the colleagues and this is a team effort to get here. There was a lot of things we had to do and to stay by the rules and everything. We really did it and it took a lot and this process is designed to be chaotic. And so I know at times it can seem that. But what I hope folks understand is that the folks on this body care about this city, and we actually do care about one another. And I think this budget, while it isn't as strong, this amendment package, while it isn't as strong as many of us would like, we do understand the constraints with which we are operating. But CRT, we have age-strong GANs to support our seniors, the Office of Food Justice gets an increase, EMS, Health and Wellness, which I think is so important because they're often overlooked in our public safety. Legacy Business Grants, we hope to even try and get more at some point in the future to make sure this year's Legacy Business Grants winner are also made whole. There's a Procurement Readiness Pilot, and I'd like to thank Mr. Culpepper for advocating for that. We have additional at-risk and transitional youth jobs, and I know Julia Councilmejia has been a huge advocate along with Council Santana around that. The vets, I'd like to thank Councilor Ed Flynn for advocating to get veterans money in there. We have arts and culture, which I know all of our districts love and make each individual district beautiful. And so we wanted to make sure we restored more of their grants so that they can continue to do what they do. And then we have the Human Rights Commission restoration, which I think will be a vital thing when we talk about, especially we're going in the future, and the fair housing testing program. So these are the things that are increased that we were all able to build consensus around and agree that they should go forward and we should increase each of these things. And I gave you the reason of where the decrease comes from. And so with that, Madam President, I would like to conclude the summary of my $1.4 million amendment package that hopefully will gain the support of everybody here because they all had a hand in making this work. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Fitzgerald. Let me see where we're at. I should keep my list of lights here. The Chair recognizes Councillor Santana. Councillor, you have the floor. Oh, hang on. Hold on a second. Let me just check my list. Councillor Murphy, you have the floor. You're the next one.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. And before I speak to this amendment... I do just want to speak to the public. They're probably wondering why we haven't been here for a couple hours. And I do want to thank Officer Z, Sergeant Mills, the Boston Police Office who were here, all our municipal offices, and property management who worked so professionally and diligently and got us to a place where we could come back into this chamber and continue this work. Because if we don't work together and get to a vote by midnight tonight, this budget will just go into effect without our amendment process. So I just wanted to make sure we thanked everyone who came in to support our work today. So thank you, Madam President. I have serious concerns about the ethics questions surrounding this process, and I hope- Contra Murphy, Contra Murphy. I'm talking about the amendments, and I hope these concerns do not come back to harm this council or undermine the work we do today. But I'm here today to vote. I have shown up, attended the hearings and working sessions, reviewed the amendments, and advocated for the priorities I believe Boston residents deserve. I am proud that this package fully restores important funding for age strong grants. Our seniors deserve behavioral health support and opportunities to remain connected and engaged in their communities. This package gives them the dignity that they earned and deserved and Thank the advocates, Megan and Chinatown and others who have been strongly reaching out, encouraging us to continue to support our seniors. I also support the additional funding for veterans that I have strongly advocated for. We're asking and we're getting $25,000 and some may ask why do we want to fight for $25,000? But to me, it's a true placeholder in the veterans budget. Anytime something completely goes away, you often never get it back. So I'm grateful to Brighton Marine for its generous support this year, but private donations cannot replace a dependable city commitment. We should preserve this line item in the budget. Once a line disappears, it becomes much harder to bring it back, and history shows it almost never comes back. So keeping even a modest placeholder protects our ability to continue to advocate for more support next year, especially when the nonprofit partners may not be able to provide the same level of support year after year. I also support the investments in youth jobs, including the Boston Student Advisory Council positions and all the others, as well as funding for arts and culture grants, housing vouchers, returning citizens, food justice, blackmail investment. These are services residents see and fail in their neighborhoods. They support young people, seniors, veterans, families, artists, tenants, community organizations across Boston. So I hope this body can come together around this modest amendment package. And I don't believe it's modest because we didn't have the ability to fight for more. I believe it's modest because we weren't willing to use the power we have. But I'm here to support it, and I'm here to listen to what my colleagues also want to advocate for. So thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Murphy. The chair recognizes Councillor Santana. Councillor, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam President. I rise today, I first want to thank Councillor Fitzgerald for putting this amendment package together. I think as Councillor Fitzgerald mentioned, I think we are all experiencing, this has been a very chaotic experience, but I think in listening to each other through working sessions here in the Chamber, I think that this package actually directly speaks to what many of our Councillor colleagues have been speaking about, right? So I think we really have an opportunity to be able to come together today and be able to, again, make this budget better. I don't think that anyone here is saying that this is a perfect budget or a great budget, but we have an amendment of ours to make it better. And I think that this package does that. And I think, as Councilor Fitzgerald mentioned, it's about building consensus. I support all of the amendments being put here. specifically because there are city-wide initiatives. There are city-wide initiatives that will impact all of our districts, and I think that's where we're going to be able to build consensus. So I appreciate your leadership, Councillor Fitzgerald, and I'm looking forward to supporting this package when that time comes. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you. The Chair recognises Councillor Flynn. Councillor, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, you've got it.

I also want to say thank you to Councillor Fitzgerald for his leadership during this challenging time. And coming up with a plan that recommendation that listened to everybody and respected everybody. A couple of the amendments, a couple of the departments that I specifically advocated for in this package included the EMS health and wellness. ensuring that EMTs, paramedics, that do an exceptional job for the residents of Boston and visitors, but they also have the health and wellness programs available for them. I think that is critical. They have a very difficult and stressful job, and we need to ensure that employee assistance programs, health and wellness programs are there for them. Oftentimes, EMS is overlooked. But I think this is a signal that we respect them and we respect the work they do and their families as well. I also highlighted and advocated for the Human Rights Commission with Reverend Culpepper. I want to say thank you to Reverend Culpepper for working with me on this recommendation. When the Human Rights Commission was first established, it really was supporting gay and lesbians at that time. that were victims of hate crime and racism. Certainly it's expanded, but we need to do the work, the important work ahead to make sure the Human Rights Commission is a place where residents feel heard and are respected. And that's what I'm committed to doing, working with my colleagues. The final point, veteran services. It's only $25,000. It's the lowest number on this recommendation. I'm supporting this proposal. I'm disappointed in that figure, but I realize this is a compromise. But I do want to point out that this figure of $25,000 is very low, and veterans need to be treated with respect and dignity. I don't necessarily think they are receiving it, but it's a step in the right direction. And I'm willing to support that because it is a step in the right direction. But next year, we have to take a strong look at that department and support it with the right resources and support that it needs and deserves. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. The Chair recognizes Councillor Mejia. Councillor, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam President. And I want to thank the public for their persistence in asking us to go forward little bit harder and to be a little bit bolder and to actually fight a little bit harder for some of these amendments. I know when it's my turn to speak on my amendments I'll be presenting my own for consideration but for now I am rising to thank the advocates for their steadfast persistence and I will just note that the amendment package that is in front of us I don't think meets the moment and it's not going as hard as we need to and I have heard that we have not been given much to work with and we can't find any more money and I believe that there is money out there we just are afraid to ask for it and so I want to know for the record that we did receive a legal memo stating that we have the power to reject and continue with amendments. And we're not choosing to do that. What we're choosing to do is water down a process even further. And while I believe compromise is important, this moment also is asking us to demonstrate that this body can actually push the administration to tap into the Park and Media Fund to find other dollars. But we are not there in this moment. And I am very disappointed in that process. And I do want to thank Councillor Fitzgerald for his leadership in really trying to bring the body together. I know it was not easy. Councillor Fitzgerald, you were able to reach across the aisle and get some folks here. So I do appreciate you doing that. and you know that I'm not happy with the youth jobs line item, and I can't in good conscience support something that does not go a little bit harder.

Thank you, Councillor Meheer. Chair recognizes Councillor Coletta Zapata. Councillor, you have the floor.

you so much madam chair i do appreciate the move to introduce this amendment package i want to thank council fitzgerald i also want to thank councillor henry santana who my understanding was integral into these conversations and trying to ensure that there was a package that helped to be representative of everybody's priorities so thank you as well to councillor santana in your work and getting that done and i want to thank councillor fitzgerald for Separating out moya from this package that we're talking about now So there's there's something said about these are necessary changes. There's an opportunity to recalibrate internally and that BTD in Particular has the bandwidth to do that one point four million dollars from the Boston Transportation Department in particular is a really tough cut for my district. We also just got a communication from the CFO that clearly states that this will result in layoffs of the transportation department. And I know for a fact that I have a lot of constituents that work in the streets cabinet, in particular in transportation. They're up in the control room. They're parking enforcement officers. And so that's that's one reason but then in addition to that The issues that BTD works on I had my team go back and check our constituent services logs They provide vital city services that are important to to my residents overwhelmingly besides public work issues so trash and or ISD issues things related to things that BTD works on or oversees are Is one of the top priorities of my constituents so parking enforcement officers We have we hear a lot from folks that we need more parking enforcement officers on the streets of East Boston because people park In Eastie and then they go to the airport. They just kind of leave their cars there. So that's just one example but for those reasons I Cannot support this particular section or this particular amendment that has been put up by Councillor Fitzgerald So I will be voting no but mainly for the personnel that are in my district that work in the Transportation Department, as well as the vital services that BTD provides my district in particular. Thank you.

Thank you. We all acknowledge how important these areas of investment are, and that's why I can see some of my advocacy in this package. But my issue with this package is that the polls from BTD will undoubtedly result in layoffs. As the Chair of Planning, Development, and Transportation, who oversaw hearings regarding the lack of movement on important transportation initiatives, I cannot fathom giving BTD less resources to make our streets safer. If this amendment is added to the package, as a point of unity, I will support the full package. But it always feels like some departments for basic city services are on the chopping block. I've heard from former employees of BTD that this will have an impact, so I plan to vote no. I acknowledge how important the areas of investment are. I just wish we were taking it from somewhere else.

Thank you. Councillor Mejia. You've already spoken, so Councillor Coletta Zapata, would you mind taking the chair for a few moments?

Councillor Braden, you now have the floor.

Thank you. I want to thank Councillor Fitzgerald and Councillor Santana in particular for leading this consensus-building effort. I think it's really important. I've been supportive of the effort to build consensus throughout the amendment process and of efforts to ensure this process reflects many community voices that we've heard. I also want to thank Councillor Webber for the work that he has done over the last two months, the extensive outreach in community and town hall meetings, et cetera, and always the challenging last lap of a budgeting process this last few weeks. I appreciate the intent behind this amendment to broaden consensus, expand the reach of our restorations, and respond to many community voices we have heard throughout this rigorous process. However, I cannot support this proposed cut to the Boston Transportation Department as Councillor for Alston Brighton. This amendment would cut £1.4 million from personnel services at BTD. It is the second largest cut the council would make to any city department. This is a targeted cut that has the potential to substantially impact our city's ability to improve the safety of our community members on city streets and conduct much-needed transportation planning. While I support restoring essential services for our communities, including housing programmes, Age Strong, youth jobs and other critical services, we have to look carefully at where the money is coming from. Transportation and street safety are one of the top issues that I hear from my constituents in District 9. In Alston Brighton, families with children, young adults, seniors, cyclists, transit riders and people with disabilities all want to move safely through our neighbourhoods. Parents should be able to walk their kids to school without worrying each time they cross the road. Last week, a neighbour of ours, an 82-year-old, was crossing on a crosswalk on Chesed Hill Ave and was struck by a truck. She is lucky to be alive. In April, the council held a hearing on delays of vital transportation projects throughout the city, and I remain deeply concerned about the city's current pattern of delay. I am focused on advancing a transportation agenda that makes Boston safer, more accessible and better connected. We cannot afford to cut the very department responsible for keeping our streets safe and our city moving. Boston needs near-term street safety improvements and a long-term vision for more equitable transportation planning. If this reduction is approved by the council, it will be up to the administration and BTD leadership to determine how to implement these cuts to this department. I urge the administration to protect BTD's transportation planning capacity, its transportation planning positions, and ensure that street safety work is not undermined. Thank you.

Yes, I have a quick point of clarification.

Yes, Councillor Mejia, you have the floor. Hang on a sec. Yeah, got it.

Yeah, thank you, Madam President. You know, there's a lot at stake here, and I want to make sure that we are all paying attention and we're getting this right. It would be helpful through the chair for me to hear from Councillor Fitzgerald the dollar. I may have missed the dollar amounts for some of his proposals, number one. And number two, this is my point of clarification, because I also have amendments and what I worry about, because for those folks, there's lots of negotiations already been happening and IGR and the administration has been very busy and really working hard at chipping away whatever votes we had. So I just want to make sure that whatever we are voting on right now, if this is going to be our last-ditch effort to at least get something for community before I make a vote on Fitzgerald's package.

And then I also want to propose my amendments for consideration, and I want to know— MS. We're taking one amendment at a time, so if you have a direct question for Councillor Fitzgerald, like a particular ask, then please ask him directly, and then he'll— MS.

So let me try this one more time in terms of what I'm trying to communicate. So that way I'm clear. What I want to make sure is that I don't kill Councilor Fitzgerald's last ditch effort to try to salvage whatever little crumbs we can get for people. Okay? I also have amendments that I want to present for consideration. And so I need you to tell me, right, procedurally, we're gonna first take a vote on Fitzgerald's amendments, and if those die, then it's a done deal for community. Because I'm sure that what I'm trying to propose, there's no appetite here to take any of these cuts?

We take one amendment at a time. We're dealing right now with Councillor Fitzgerald's amendment. We will take a vote on that, and then we'll move on to the next amendment.

Can we do a reconsideration for Councillor Fitzgerald's package, just in case, at some point in this session, so that If my amendments die, then the community does not get left without nothing. That's what I want to know.

I think the answer is if Councillor Fitzgerald's amendment stands, then we will move on and it will be included in the final package. Also, if you have amendments that you want to offer and they pass, we will have to work to get them included in the final package. But we have to take one amendment at a time. We can't muddy the water.

Could I then ask for consideration if it's possible—and maybe we might have to take a vote, and maybe the legal team here can help me with this—but is it possible for us to lay Fitzgerald's amendment on the table and then I can present my amendments.

No, that's not the way. We have to take a vote on this amendment.

But if I call to lay his amendment on the table, I could do that, right? Thank you. See, this is why I ask these questions, because knowledge is power. And there's some people in this chamber who have a lot more than others. And you are always utilizing procedural tactics to prevent things from happening. And so therefore, for the record, if I can put a motion on the table to lay Councillor Fitzgerald's amendments to—.

Jomana Musmar- So would you like to offer a supplemental amendment to his amendment? Is that how you'd like to proceed? Hold on a second. Can we take a recess? Jomana Musmar- Yeah, brief, very brief. Don't go anywhere. We're back. We're back. It didn't gavel in recess, so we're right back. Councillor Meheia has a motion to lay Councillor Fitzgerald's amendment on the table. Do you have a seconder, Councillor Meheia? Do you have a seconder, Councillor Mehear? Second. Thank you. Mr. Clerk, will you please take a roll call vote on Councillor Mehear's motion to lay Councillor Fitzgerald's amendment on the table? No. Oh, sorry. Beg your pardon.

Councilor Brayton. No. Councilor Brayton, no. Councilor Calera-Zapata. No. Councilor Calera-Zapata, no. Councilor Calvepo. No. Councilor Calvepo, no. Councilor Durkan. Yes. Councilor Durkan, yes. Councilor Fitzgerald. No. Councilor Fitzgerald, no. Councilor Flynn. Yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan.

No.

Councilor Lujan, no. Councilor Mejia.

Yes.

Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy.

No.

Councilor Murphy, no. Councilor Pepin.

No.

Councilor Pepin, no. Councilor Santana. No. Councillor Santana, no. Councillor Webber, no. Councillor Webber, no. And Councillor Worrell, yes. Motion to lay on the table eight in the negative and four in the affirmative.

Councillor Mehear's motion to lay on the table has not passed. Let's go. Where else were we here? Thank you, Councillor Mehear. I think the next person... who has not spoken yet is Councillor Culpepper. You have the floor. Councillor Culpepper Thank you, Madam President.

I hadn't planned to speak, but I heard Councillor here talk about this amendment. All week long we've been working on amendments. Councilor Worrell and Fitzgerald and others. And I went home pretty excited because I thought we had a pretty good amendment package. And I came back this morning and I looked and we still had a pretty good amendment package. We had some pretty good numbers in here for the Human Rights Commission, Fair Housing Testing Program, Office of Food Justice, the MWBE Procurement Readiness Program. That's a program that I started to get young folks ready for the procurement process. It felt pretty good until those young folks came in and took over. And something happened when they took over. Everybody left. And it was like smoke that came back in. Then we ended up with this. And I feel like I'm being told, take this or you don't get anything. Because this is not the package that I went to sleep with last night, excited about. But something happened when everyone went out and we came back, and this is what we have. Not only that, we got folks that said, no, they don't even want us to get this. I am amazed at what happened today. To Council Mojia's point, I'm going to vote for this. Not because I want to, but because we fought for black male advancement. That's in that other. We fought for LGBTQ advancement, that's in that other plan. We fought for women's, that's in the other plan. We fought for food justice, that's in the other plan. We fought for a lot of stuff in the other plan, but we thought we were beefing it up. And instead of beefing it up, it got beefed down. But I'm going to vote for it, because if I don't, to Constable Heal's point, we may not get anything. We do have some good stuff in the other budget that we'll talk about later, but for one who's only been here six months, I'm learning the process. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you. Chair recognizes Councillor Murphy, and then we'll go back to Councillor Fitzgerald.

Thank you.

Councillor Murphy, you have the floor.

Thank you. Through the chair to Council Fitzgerald, if I could ask a question about the pulls from transportation, please.

Council Fitzgerald, would you like to answer the question?

I think what I heard is that you said there was $3 million in underspends from transportation. Is that true? And we're only asking for how much? $1.2 million?

Council Fitzgerald, you have the floor.

Five-year historical average was $3.5 million in underspend, and we are using $1.4 of that to still allow flexibility for the department.

So a very small portion of the investment. Okay, so it seems very reasonable and there won't be actual people cut off, but just want to remind this body that eight of us voted and it passed. We just fired, laid off 400 employees in the school department last week. No one seems to be talking about that. But we're worried about a potential and I wish we could always keep jobs open and the money there to fund them and advocacy to get people hired but we know year after year that that's the whole point of the fighting about where to pull from is that all of my colleagues and they make good points that historical data has showed that department after department underspends so let's take it where it will hurt least but when it came to the bps budget we didn't care as a body we hit them where it matters most and just today in the globe another article came out about how bps is changing the way they teach their special ed students and it's not going to help and we already know we were doing a really bad job so i just want to remind everyone that we laid off four hundred City employees, so let's not confuse it. Just because the school committee has the final vote on the school budget, they are city employees. They are our colleagues and they are with our children, our students, our future every day. So I think we need to rethink whether or not we want to support this small package that we should be fighting for more. But if this is all we can get, I hope we have at least seven to support it. Thank you.

I think it does need to be addressed and said. I think it's a gross oversimplification to even compare BPS budget to the operating budget, as it's not, and I would like to respond to that directly.

In the city's operating budget, the city council has the opportunity to identify resources and make targeted investments that help preserve positions and services. Many of us have worked to restore these investments. And I think that we all want to reduce harm or do no harm where we can. I think the BPS budget presents a different challenge. The school committee, as mentioned, not the city council, has the final vote over staffing decisions. And the district is confronting long-term enrollment challenges. We lost 3,000 kids. There's rising fixed costs, transportation expenses, and state and federal funding pressures that districts across Massachusetts are facing. speech last week. While workforce reductions are deeply concerning and should be scrutinized, the question for the council was whether to fund the overall school budget that continues to educate more than 45,000 students and invest in critical services such as special education, multilingual learning, literacy, and student support. And so supporting the BPS budget is not endorsement, obviously, of every staffing decision. It is a recognition that withholding funding from the entire school system would not reverse those decisions and could create additional instability for students' families educators and so I felt like it needed to be addressed again I think it's an oversimplification to compare BPS budget to the operating budget and I'm grateful for the opportunity to directly address that thank you thank you the chair recognizes counselor friend counselor you have the floor Thank You madam chair I I voted against I voted against the BPS budget

And the reason I voted against the BPS budget, I felt that the budget really hurt our teachers and especially our paraprofessionals the hottest. Our paraprofessionals, mostly women of color, almost the lowest paid employees in the city. They're working with the teacher as a teacher's assistant, basically, trying to manage the classroom. The paraprofessionals, I tried to stress this the other day, paraprofessionals help students with disabilities. They take them to the bathroom. They help, they wash them. They help them clean up. They wash their hands. Then they come back to the classroom and they work with the other students. That is probably the most important job in the city of Boston, as far as I'm concerned. But the city council voted to cut several hundred of those positions. That was a moral vote. It wasn't a political vote, it was a moral vote. We have the ability to go to bat for people that don't have a voice in the city. and we chose not to go to bat for them. We can't deny that. We're going to have to eventually address that issue because it's not going away, and we heard a lot of low-income families in this city that supported special needs children, and that's a major stain on the city of Boston as far as I'm concerned. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. I think Councillor Culpepper, you're next. Then we'll go to Fitzgerald and then back to Councillor Mejia.

Madam Chair, I hadn't planned to say anything about that school committee budget. I thought I said what I needed to say last week. But when I heard my colleague mention that if we had not passed that budget, it would affect the stability of the Boston public school families, I thought about what about the Boston public school employees that will lose their jobs and their stability. And what bothers me the most about all of this is that many of the young folks that are now working, they don't have that three years, they're going to be laid off. It reminds me of the last hired, first fired. Because all these young folks that have been working the last couple of years trying to buy a house or take care of their families, they're now going to be out of a job. And when you think about how we encourage young folks to go to school, go to college, finish, and when you look at who gets fired, I get upset because I haven't seen any statistics, but I know my district, District 7, is going to be hit very hard with these layoffs. And what can we do about it? The vote has been taken. Folks are going to be looking for a job. September, they won't have a job. And those are the families that are going to be disabilized because they won't be able to put food on their tables. They won't be able to pay their rent. They won't be able to get gas with the way gas is going up. And we've already voted down the package. Today, the school department, BPS, still doesn't know how many folks they're going to lay off. Even today, I talked to them this morning. They still don't know. And we've already passed the budget. And we're not even thinking about looking at the folks that get laid off. how we're going to help them keep a roof over their head, food on the table and shoes on their feet.

Thank you, Councillor Culpepper. The Chair recognizes Councillor Fitzgerald and then we'll go back to Councillor Mejia.

I'd just like to make a motion to vote on the amendment package on the floor, if folks are done.

Second.

Thank you. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on Councillor Fitzgerald's amendment? Did you get a second to move the question? Councillor Durkan.

Councillor Brayden. No. Councillor Brayden, no. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. No. Councillor Colletta-Zapata, no. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Culpepper, yes. Councillor Durkan. No. Councillor Durkan, no. Councillor Fitzgerald? Yes. Councillor Fitzgerald, yes. Councillor Flynn? Yes. Councillor Flynn, yes. Councillor Huygen? Yes. Councillor Huygen, yes. Councillor Mejia? Yes. Councillor Mejia, yes. Councillor Murphy? Yes. Councillor Murphy, yes. Councillor Bippen?

Yes.

Councillor Bippen, yes. Councillor Santana? Yes. Councillor Santana, yes. Councillor Weber? Yes. Councillor Weber, yes. And Councillor Orrell?

Yes.

Councillor Orrell, yes. The motion to move the question passes 10-0. in the affirmative, three in the negative.

Thank you.

I'm to move the question.

Move to vote.

People got to know the rules. We vote to put it on the floor and then we vote.

Yes. Yes. Yes. OK. Yeah. Mr. I appreciate this.

Mr Chair, could you please take a roll call vote on Councillor Fitzgerald's amendment? No. No. No. No. No. No.

Councilor Durkan, no. Councilor Fitzgerald? Yes. Councilor Fitzgerald, yes. Councilor Flynn? Yes. Councilor Flynn, yes. Councilor Lujan?

Yes.

Councilor Lujan, yes. Councilor Mejia?

Yes.

Councilor Mejia, yes. Councilor Murphy? Yes. Councilor Murphy, yes. Councilor Pippen?

Yes.

Councilor Pippen, yes. Councilor Santana? Yes. Councilor Santana, yes. Councilor Weber? Yes. Councilor Weber, yes. And Councilor Worrell? Yes. Councilor Worrell, yes. Amendment of Councilor Fitzgerald passes. Ten votes in the affirmative, three in a negative.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Now, does anyone else wish to offer an amendment? Councillor Mejia? Councillor Fitzgerald, hold on. Councillor Fitzgerald?

Yes, I was just going to offer another amendment package, if you could, procedural. Go ahead. This would be the... Yeah, I'll take five seconds. Well, I'm going to introduce a package around...

Hang on, just everybody sit down. Everybody calm down. Councillor Fitzgerald, you have the floor.

I'd like to introduce a package around reinserting the MOYA that was taken out previously in the original budget.

Councillor Webber? based on the guidance I received from the State Ethics Commission, I'll recuse myself from this discussion. Thank you.

We'll call you back when this is decided. Continue, Councillor Fitzgerald. Oh, okay. Let's get it all in order. Mr. Clerk, could you please read the second amendment from Councillor Fitzgerald?

Second amendment from Council of Fitzgerald, docket number 0733, message in order for annual appropriation and tax order for fiscal year 2027. As amended, shall be amended as follows. Moya ESOL grant, decrease Office of Labor Relations contractual services, increase Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement contractual services $50,000 to be directed toward English for speakers, of other languages for parents and caregiver grants. Decrease Office of People Operations Contractual Services. Increase Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement Contractual Services. $50,000 be directed toward English for speakers of other languages for parents and caregiver grants. Decrease Department of Innovation and Technology Contractual Services. Increase Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement Contractual Services. $40,000 to be directed towards English for speakers of other languages for parents and caregiver grants. Decrease execution of court special appropriation. Increase mayor's officer immigrant advancement contractual services. $135,000 to be directed toward English for speakers of other languages. for parents and caregiver grants. More miscellaneous grants. Decrease the execution of court special appropriation. Increase mayor's officer immigrant advancement contractual services. $825,000 be directed toward mayor's officer immigrant advancement grants. Decrease Boston Public Library personnel services. Increase mayor's officer immigrant advancement contractual $100,000 to be directed toward Mayor's Officer Immigrant Advancement Grants.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. The Chair recognizes Councillor Fitzgerald. You have the floor. Thank you. Oh, and just to be clear, has everyone got a written copy of this amendment in front of them? Very good. Thank you. Continue.

Thank you, Madam President. As discussed yesterday, to remain far above the expectations of any advice some of our colleagues have received, the Mayor's Office of Immigration and Advancement was left out of the original budget. We had a working session yesterday where we all agreed I would put forth the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement money back into that budget through an amendment process. This is it, exactly as it was taken out from the same increases and decreases, and so I look forward to a vote. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Councillor, do you have a second? Councillor Durkan has a second. The Chair recognises Councillor Mejia. You have the floor.

Councillor Mejia No, that was when I thought I was going to get called for my amendment.

Okay, thank you. Would anyone else like to speak on this amendment? Okay. Would anyone like to— Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on Councillor Fitzgerald's second amendment?

Councillor Braden.

Yes.

Councillor Braden. Yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. Yes. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Culpepper. Yes. Councillor Durkan. Yes. Councillor Fitzgerald.

Yes.

Councillor Fitzgerald. Yes. Councillor Flynn.

Yes.

Councillor Flynn. Yes. Councillor Louisianne.

Yes.

Councillor Louisianne. Yes. Councillor Mejia. Yes. Councillor Mejia, yes. Councillor Murphy, yes. Councillor Murphy, yes. Councillor Pepin, yes. Councillor Pepin, yes. Councillor Santana, yes. Councillor Santana, yes. Councillor Webber, yes. Councillor O'Rourke, yes. Councillor O'Rourke, yes. The second amendment of Councillor Fitzgerald passes. Twelve votes in the affirmative.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Ron, could you—the messenger, could you ask Councillor Webber to rejoin us? So, Councillor Fitzgerald's second amendment has passed. Does anyone else wish to offer an amendment? Councillor Flynn, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Do you have written copies of your amendment?

Yes, I do. I believe Sydney's going to give them to Ron now, I believe. Excuse me, Karishma does have them.

Just bear with us for a few minutes, yeah.

Amen.

So Ryan is just giving, bringing around everyone a copy of Councillor Flynn's amendment. And then, Mr. Clerk, would you mind reading Councillor Flynn's amendment into the record?

Amendment of Councillor Flynn, document number 0733, message in order for annual appropriation and tax order for fiscal year 2027, as amended, shall be amended as follows. decreased neighbourhood services personnel services, increased police department equipment, $500,000 for equipment at the Boston Police Crime Lab.

Councillor Flynn, you have the floor.

Thank you.

Councillor Flynn, you need a second for your amendment. Councillor Murphy is the second. Councillor Flynn, please continue.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I've been working on crime lab-related issues for for six or seven years now. And I'm making this motion because it is my goal. It is my vision to have the best crime lab we possibly can in the country. Boston Police equipment to enable advanced DNA testing techniques, including Y screening. This is the most advanced testing on basically testing sexual assault kits for this Y screening program. These amendments for personnel and advanced testing were previously passed by the city council. However, it is still unclear if this funding was ever actually reallocated. In both 2024 and 2025, I held a hearing with my colleagues here to discuss the challenges that the Boston Police Crime Lab have and had including delays in testing of sexual assault kits that I mentioned. The city of Boston was not meeting the state requirement of testing within 30 days, and at that period had not upgraded their DNA testing techniques to Y screening, which is what the Massachusetts State Police and New York City Police have. I believe we owe it to the victims of sexual assault, their families, and the public at large to both ensure that we are testing sexual assault kits within the state-mandated 30-day requirement, which I believe we are, as well as utilizing the most advanced technology available. And with this $500,000, it could go a long way to ensuring that the Boston Police Department continues to improve their crime lab. And it's an issue I've focused on and will continue to focus on going forward. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. The Chair recognizes Councillor Papin. Councillor, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam President. I'm rising to say that I'm going to vote no on this amendment. I completely understand the reasoning for adding the money in the line item to equipment for the BPD, because I know they need it. But where we're pulling the money from is not a good place, because the neighborhood services personnel and the work that they do. They're the ones that go to all the community meetings. They're the ones that attend all the events to make sure that if there is a department that doesn't have a community engagement team, they're the ones stepping up and filling those roles. I just don't think that this is a good poll. I recommend that my colleagues also vote no on this amendment. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Pepin. Would anyone else like to speak on this issue? Chair recognizes Councillor Durkan. Councillor, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. I think because this wasn't talked about during the working sessions, I have no idea the impact on current jobs. I imagine this would result in layoffs in the mayor's office. And not knowing who those people would be, I will be voting no.

Thank you. Chair recognizes Contra Mejia. You have the floor.

Yes. Thank you, Madam President. And, you know, I want to note that the reason why we may not have all of the information that is required for us to make educated decisions is because we had one real working session on Monday, and it was five hours long, but not everyone stayed. to go back and forth with the hard job of doing the amendments. So it's going to be a really interesting journey here this evening because in reality, the real work was supposed to happen during our working sessions where we were supposed to build consensus and also build consensus around what decreases we were willing to pull from which departments. But we never got to do that in a real serious way so that's why we are here today so for those who are paying attention understand that had we done our jobs the last few sessions that we've had we probably would be having a different conversation today thank you customer here the chair recognizes the chair of western means counselor weber you have the floor and then we'll go back to the uh sponsor the amendment yeah i just want to correct the record a little bit on that i believe that the working session

We asked for amendment packages, and Councillor Flynn said he did not want to disclose what he wanted to amend and where the money would come from in the working session. So we definitely had an opportunity to discuss this, and we didn't. So just to fill in people, I know it was lightly attended at the end there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Webber. The Chair recognizes Councillor Murphy. Councillor Murphy, you have the floor.

I wasn't going to rise, but it kind of feels like it's turning into a tit for tat. But I was definitely at one of the working sessions where we weren't talking about specifically where the money would go, but Councillor Flynn gave a I thought very thorough reason why he was willing, and he even said, I know I will get flack for this. I know people will not be happy, but here are the departments I am willing to pull for. And if I remember correctly, which I think I am, it was minutes before the chair adjourned the meeting because then another amendment package was brought up. So Council of Flynn did list, and ONS was definitely one of them, and he gave his reasons why, one of them being that it has grown significantly in these past years under this new administration. So just to set the record straight, thank you.

the amendment process at the budget hearings. Where I was going to pull this from, I listed several city departments, including Office of Neighborhood Services. I didn't miss one budget meeting the entire time. I was very clear, I've said it several times, I was going to take it from Office of Neighborhood Services. I understand people may not like that, but you can't say I didn't say it on the record. I understand there's a lot of political support for the Office of Neighborhood Services. That's fine. But there also has to be support for the crime lab as well. We have to prioritize what is more important, Office of Neighborhood Services, community engagement, or crime lab. That's a fair question. That's a fair question. If you think the Office of Neighborhood Services, then that's fine. But I think the crime lab deserves equal attention than politics. And that's why I'm advocating for that. Because I believe we need to have a state of the art crime lab in Boston. We don't have it. We're currently hiring a executive director at the crime lab because the previous executive director was on leave for an extended period of time, we don't have the right management in the crime lab as well. But while we're not focused on the crime lab and it's operating itself, I'm going to do my due diligence to provide the best leadership I can for the crime lab. But this is an important vote. Do we put politics ahead of public safety? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Would anyone else wish to speak on this matter? We'll move to a vote then. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on Councillor Flynn's First Amendment?

Councillor Brayden. No. Councillor Brayden, no. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. No. Councillor Colletta-Zapata, no. Councillor Culpeper. No. Councillor Culpeper, no. Councillor Durkan. No. Councillor Durkan, no. Councillor Fitzgerald. No. Councillor Fitzgerald, no. Councillor Flynn.

Yes.

Councillor Flynn, yes. Councillor Louisianne.

No.

Councillor Louisianne, no. Councillor Mejia. No. Councillor Mehia, no. Councillor Murphy, yes. Councillor Pepin, no. Councillor Santana, no. Councillor Weber, no. And Councillor Worrell, no. Amendment of Councillor Flynn, 11 votes in the negative and 2 in the affirmative.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Councillor Flynn's first amendment has not passed. Councillor Flynn, I understand you may have a second amendment.

Yeah, I have two more.

Chair recognizes Council. Have you got copies? We need copies. Here they come. Got somebody who's got a runner. We'll just take them. Mr. Clerk, do you have a copy?

Yes.

Would you like to read Councillor Flynn's second amendment into the record, please?

Amendment of Councillor Flynn, document number 0733, message and order for annual appropriation and tax order for fiscal year 2027 as amended, shall be amended as follows. Decreased neighbourhood services, personnel services, increased Boston Police Department contractual services, $500,000 for health and wellness services for Boston Police Department.

Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Flynn, do you have a second?

Yes.

Councillor Murphy is your second. Councillor Flynn, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Health and wellness for city employees is critical. Boston police officers, in my opinion, have a very stressful job, many of them or most of them. working 16 hours a day i want to make sure that we have the necessary resources and support for officer wellness and health for police officers and their families when we send a police officer on a 16-hour a day shift for five days a week. We have a responsibility, in my opinion, we have a responsibility to ensure the mental health of the officer as well and the family. We just can't expect that a police officer is going to work 16 straight hours and then we're not going to have the necessary resources and support to support that police officer and his or her family. I do think it's an important issue. I do acknowledge that people may not support it because it's the Boston police. But let's also remember that Boston police officers are our neighbors. They're part of our community. They're engaged in after school programs. They're community activists. And they deserve a fair shake. And a fair shake to me means ensuring that when we give an assignment for someone to work 16 hours a day consistently for years, eventually they need the mental health and wellness programs. We don't have it right now. This is our opportunity, I believe, to stand with our city employees, our neighbors, to ensure that we respect the job that they're doing, but we're also providing the critical support and mental health services that they need and deserve. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Mejia, you have the floor. Do you wish to speak to this issue?

I'm waiting my turn.

Okay. I'll switch this off then. Would anyone else like to speak on this amendment? Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on Councillor Flynn's second amendment?

Councillor Braden?

No.

Councillor Braden? No. Councillor Caleta-Zapata? No. Councillor Caleta-Zapata? No. Councillor Culpepper? No. Councillor Culpepper? No. Councillor Durkan? No. Councillor Durkan? No. Councillor Fitzgerald?

No.

Councillor Fitzgerald? No. Councillor Flynn?

Yes.

Councillor Flynn? Yes. Councillor Lujan?

No.

Councillor Lujan? No. Councillor Mejia? No. Councillor Mejia, no. Councillor Murphy, no. Councillor Murphy, yes. Councillor Pepin, no. Councillor Pepin, no. Councillor Santana, no. Councillor Santana, no. Councillor Webber, no. Councillor Webber, no. And Councillor Worrell. Second Amendment of Councillor Flynn. Two votes in the affirmative and nine votes in the negative.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Councillor Flynn's second amendment has not passed. Councillor Flynn, you have a third amendment.

I have a third one. I don't expect my colleagues will support it, but I do have a third one. It's certainly your privilege. I support their amendments, but they won't support my amendments.

Mr. Clerk, could you please read Councillor Flynn's third amendment into the record?

Amendment of Councillor Flynn, document number 0733, message and order for annual appropriation and tax order for fiscal year 2027. as amended shall be amended as follows. Decreased neighborhood services, permanent employees, increased fire department contractual services, $500,000 for mental health services, safety, health and wellness programs, and cancer screening for Boston Fire Department.

Councillor Flynn, you need a second. Have you got a second?

Yes, I have.

Thank you, Councillor Murphy. Councillor Flynn, you have the floor.

Madam Chair, many of us went to the wake in West Rocks where the firefighter killed off. Many of us went to the funeral at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross Church in the south end. We went there to pay our respects to this firefighter for the incredible service the supreme sacrifice he made to our city. At the same time, Madam Chair, is it fair for this body to ask, can we ensure that firefighters and their families have access to cancer screening, health and wellness programs, Do you know that the average, when a firefighter retires at the mandatory age, the number of years on average they live is about five years? I go to their banquet. I think Council Murphy attends and Council Fitzgerald attends. We go to the banquet and we talk and say thank you to the retirees. And at the same time, we know that they're going to collect their pension and it's likely that they're gonna live five years. with that pension. But as city councilors, can't we do something more than that, than show up to a retirement banquet? Can we put money in the budget so that they can get cancer screening? Is that a lot to ask for? That they can get health and wellness, employee assistance? They're not asking for a lot. I think they're asking for a little support here from our colleagues on the Boston City Council. This shouldn't be a political issue. This is about supporting our neighbors that are firefighters and their families. Health and wellness of firefighters is critical. Cancer screening is critical. If we help and identify cancer in one firefighter, then we've done our job. We know young men and young women are diagnosed, and firefighters have a high cancer rate. Are we willing to maybe tell the mayor's administration that we might have to cut some services at Office of Neighborhood Services? Why? Because we think, as a body, we think health and wellness of firefighters and their families is important. We know by voting yes, you might get into a little bit of trouble with the administration, but you're going to be doing the right thing. You can hold your head up high and say, I went to bat for a family that needed employee assistance. I went to bat for a firefighter's family that needed various health and wellness programs. I know because I served 24 years in the Navy. Health and wellness programs are critical. You don't just send someone into a dangerous job and then when they come home and say, oh, by the way, you're on your own. That's our job as city councilors, is to make sure that we support their families. We support firefighters. We support our first responders. That's what they ask for. That's what they ask us for. That's all I have to say on this. I do want to respectfully ask my colleagues to put politics aside and do the right thing. Do the right thing on this one. You'll be proud of your vote. I'll guarantee you that. You'll be proud of your vote.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. The chair recognizes Councillor Murphy. You have the floor, and then we'll go to Councillor Pepin and then Councillor Santana.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. So I know we spoke about this before Thank You counsel Flynn for putting this through as an amendment I think it was in our original package that dwindled down between those hours when we needed to recess but just to be clear when the fire department came before us to talk about their budget they were concerned that this year they did not receive the 1.2 million dollar grant that they have been receiving in past years that supports a 150,000 of that did support cancer screening, but it also supports mental health, health and wellness, the employee assistance program where they support recovery services. So it was more than just cancer screenings. I know that the mayor had a press conference and Dana Fava stepped up and they gave $150,000 to make sure that the cancer screening piece will be covered this year, which is great, but we still have $1,050,000 of support that is no longer going. to our firefighters. And Council of Flynn made it clear, and I know I've said this many times on the floor, that our firefighters are at risk for so many things, like all of our first responders are. So I think it's important that we find it, and the mayor can always find a way to spend other money if needed. But if we send a message that all of us want to make sure that the firefighters get this money back into the budget, and if she does not want to take it from ONS, she can find Five hundred thousand dollars somewhere else.

So if we send the message that we don't want it vetoed we can do that So I'm hoping our colleagues join us Thank You cancer Murphy chair recognizes country pep and country pep and you have the floor Thank You madam president I rise again to say that this is not about what the amendment actually stands for but more of a concern about where we're pulling from I think we all in agreement with what council flint is saying right now their firefighters do need support and We were all at that funeral that day. We all talked to the fire union. We all talked to the commissioners and to the firefighters from our district. And I know that the firefighters and the firefighter union were also at a press conference with Dana Farber to make sure that they were getting the support that they needed in order to serve their firefighters. What I don't feel comfortable is taking away money from a department, that residents in my district, day after day, I have a vacancy right now in one of my neighborhoods, and they keep saying, when is this going to be filled? Because it is a very important decision where residents reach out for day-to-day services. And what I don't want to see is the day that Mattapan, Rossino High Park, or Southeast, South End, or Chinatown don't have a liaison that they can go to. Because at the end of the day, the services that they provide This is why it's so difficult to compare departments, because we could talk about the importance of one, not the other. But they do provide crucial services that our residents depend on, and they call on us to make sure that they also have the support. So again, I just want to make sure that I emphasize that it's not about not standing with the fire departments. It's about having a legitimate concern of where we are pulling this money from. That's why we voting no, and I recommend my colleagues do the same.

Thank you, Councillor Pepin. Anyone else wish to speak on this amendment? Councillor Flynn, since no one else wishes to speak, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just one minute at this stage. We're on the second round.

Madam Chair, this process is difficult. When you advocate for something, you have to pull it from another department. If someone wants to tell me where they want me to pull it from, I'll do that. But that's the process we have. I'm making a recommendation based on my experience. I think District City Councillors can also do the job of ONS as well. Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Madam Chair, I do want to continue. I do want to continue. But I... I do feel like this body is more concerned with politics than they are with helping people, helping our first responders. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Chair recognizes Councillor Durkan. Councillor, you have the floor.

Thank you so much. Our firefighters are deeply important to our city, and the idea that voting on this is political here, I mean, if it's being made political, it's being made political by the folks that are bringing it. because today we have a real opportunity here to talk about the great partnership that Dana-Farber is stepping forward. I was proud to call Dana-Farber a great partner incredible group of an incredible institution in my district who just permitted the first world-class cancer hospital in the city I was proud to be a part of that our article 97 amendment that we passed through this council with my leadership just passed the Senate so fighting occupational cancer is is a all of us have been part of that work. And so I want to thank my colleagues for their continued support to end occupational cancer. I think what's missing from this conversation as well is EMS. And so while I'll be voting no today, my work and my charge to end occupational cancer for city employees will not stop.

Thank you, Councillor Durkan. Would anyone else wish to speak who hasn't spoken? Thank you. Councillor Flynn.

Just to correct the record, we are discussing EMS. I was the one that put the money into EMS for health and wellness. So I'm not sure why that comment came out that we're not focused on EMS and health and wellness. I advocated strongly to ensure that that got into the amendment process led by Councillor Fitzgerald. But that's not the point. The point is there's a significant amount of money that was cut from the health and wellness of the Boston Fire Department. Yes, Dana-Farber contributed $200,000 to $300,000, but there's still a significant amount that was cut. And can I finish my comments, please? No, but I was being heckled.

Councillor Flynn, I've given you many times to come round, and I'd ask my colleagues not to. No comments on other people's statement right now. And, Councillor Flynn, please continue.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do believe we can make a statement here that the life of firefighters and their families are significant. They are important. We should not overlook that. Let's do the right thing. Let's do the right moral thing today. Let's support our firefighters. They deserve it. They need it. Their families need it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Seeing no other requests to speak on this issue, Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on Councillor Flynn's third amendment?

Councillor Braden?

No.

Councillor Braden? No. Councillor Colletta-Zapata? No. Councillor Culpepper? No. Councillor Culpepper? No. Councillor Durkan? No. Councillor Durkan? No. Councillor Fitzgerald? No. Councillor Fitzgerald? No. Councillor Flynn?

Yes.

Councillor Flynn? Yes. Councillor Lujan? No. Councillor Lujan? No. Councillor Mejia? No. Councillor Mehia? No. Councillor Murphy? Yes. Councillor Pen? No. Councillor Santana? No. Councillor Weber? No. Councillor Worrell? No. Ten votes in the negative and two votes in the affirmative.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Councillor Flynn's third amendment has not passed. Councillor Flynn, I understand you have another amendment? No. The Chair recognizes Councillor Julia Mejia. You have the floor. Thank you, Madam President. Before we start, do we have copies of your amendment on the— I was told that central staff has them, allegedly. Yeah, they're coming. I don't know. The clerk didn't get one. We need to— All right, you guys, I'm making it. Here they come. Can we have one for Mr. Clark first? Did we not? Yes, it's this.

Yep, it's this one. Did we not? This one.

Good job.

I have a few. I have a few. That's fine, we'll start number. So I'm gonna let everybody know I got one, two, three. Little packages. Three little packages. So that means that three times the essential staff will come out with a piece of paper.

Mr. Clerk, would you mind reading Councilor Mejia's first amendment into the record?

Amendment of Councilor Mejia, document number 0733, message and order for annual appropriation and tax order for fiscal year 2027 as amended, shall be amended as follows. Decrease Boston Police Department personnel services increase office of food justice contractual services $50,000 for food justice grants decrease Boston Police Department personnel services increase mayor's office of housing contractual services $130,000 for grow Boston decrease Boston Police Department personnel services increase arts and cultural arts and culture contractual services $475,000 for arts and culture grants decreased Boston Police Department personnel services increased Boston veterans engagement transition and services contractual services $200,000 for veterans grants Decrease Boston Police Department personnel services. Increase youth employment and opportunity contractual services. $2,225,000 for success links grants.

Council Member Meagher, do you have a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Council Member Meagher, you have the floor. Thank you, Madam President, and I rise to make a motion to amend docket 0733 by adding additional amendments to make the funding for the Office of Food Justice, Grow Boston, Arts and Culture Whole, as well as adding $200,000 for veterans and $2.25 million for youth jobs in contractual services for a success link program. I have three amendment packages that I will be putting on the floor today, one at a time. And this is my amendment package, version two. You should have copies of this amendment in front of you, which I believe you do. So thank you, Madam President. I'm proposing this package today because the proposed amendment package in front of us is claimed to be a restoration budget, but still leaves room for half of the nearly $20 million in cuts still unresolved. And I want to note again, for the record, we had over $20 million in cuts. and lots of it is still unresolved. This package will make the funding for the Office of Food Justice, Grow Boston and Arts and Culture whole, as well as adding 200,000 for veteran services and 2.2 for youth jobs in contractual services for SuccessLink. We need to be bold and propose more than 9.4 million in amendments, and this package seeks to do just that by closing more of the gap that's still left. I tried to bring this version of this amendment forward in our working session on Monday to engage in a consensus building exercise, but my colleagues, you know, but some of them just they did not want to be fully engaged. Therefore, I'm bringing it here, this package to the floor to have a transparent debate on this proposal. This package is a win for community and this council. It takes very little from police salary savings and overtime to fully or partially restore six main priorities for this body and community. This moment is calling us to invest in community. And so, therefore, I am going to ask my colleagues for consideration.

Thank you, Councillor Mejia. Would anyone like to speak on this amendment? Okay.

Okay.

Mr. Clerk, could you... You say the word. Did you—okay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on Councillor Mehear's First Amendment?

Councillor Brayden?

No.

Councillor Brayden, no. Councillor Colletta-Zapata? No. Councillor Culpepper? Yes. Councillor Culpepper, yes. Councillor Durkan? No. Councillor Durkan, no. Councillor Fitzgerald?

No.

Councillor Fitzgerald, no. Councillor Flynn?

No.

Councillor Flynn, no. Councillor Lujan?

No.

Councillor Lujan, no. Councillor Mehear? No. Councillor Mehia, yes. Councillor Murphy, no. Councillor Pepin, no. Councillor Santana, no. Councillor Weber, no. And Councillor Orrell, yes. Nine votes in the negative and three votes in the affirmative.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Councillor Mehia's First Amendment has not passed. Councillor Mehia, you have your Second Amendment.

Would you... So I want to know for the record here is that we only have a little over $3 million that we're trying to tap into for the police over time and underspending in personnel. of vacancies, and we're not asking for a lot.

I would like to start by asking Mr. Clerk to please read Councillor Mejia's second amendment into the record, please.

Second Amendment of Councillor Mehear, docket number 0733, message and order for annual appropriation and tax order for fiscal year 2027, as amended, shall be amended as follows. Decrease youth employment and opportunity personnel services, increase youth employment opportunity contractual services, $250,000 for success-linked grants.

Thank you. Mr. Councillor Mehear, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam President. Can I have a second? Do you have a second? Second.

Councillor Murphy, thank you. Please continue, Councillor Mejia.

Yes. Thank you, Madam President. I rise to make a motion to amend Docket 0733 by moving $250,000 for youth jobs funding not specified for BSAC or red shirts from personnel services, specifically emergency employees, from there to contractual services within the Chair's proposed amendments. This is so that the funding goes towards SuccessLink and so that the nonprofits receive these funded youth jobs instead of the city. As typically, SuccessLink supports approximately 70% of school year youth jobs, and this is my amendment package too. You should have copies, right? And you do. Great. As the proposed amendment from the chair for the youth job stands, all 750,000 is going towards personnel services, which they are for city jobs. Within the 750,000, it is separated out into three lines, which are general personnel services, BSAC, and red shirts. I'm proposing to move the $250,000 for generic personnel services from their two contractual services. This amendment puts this $250,000 into funding the Success Link program, which typically, like I said earlier, hosts approximately 70% of school year youth jobs. Seeing that none of the youth job funding in the Chair's proposal was allocated for Success Link, This program, I'm hosting the majority of the school year youth jobs. I want to move the proposed youth funding that was not specified. At least put some in the city funding to the program success link. Also support our nonprofits by providing them youth workers without having to fund those positions themselves. Also, we cannot rely. on promises of private corporations for the supposed 2,000 jobs. We are still waiting for an MOU regarding the mayor's youth private funding announcement. The least that we can do is shift at least 250,000 into success link from the city jobs youth so that we can please give them a few pennies. to our youth and our non-profit organisations. I just want to note for the record that as we continue to say that we deeply care about young people and that they are our future, this is our opportunity to demonstrate that we want to invest in them accordingly. I would like to see where we land with this one.

Okay. Mr. Clerk, could you please take a roll call vote on Councillor Mejia's second amendment?

Councillor Brayden.

No.

Councillor Brayden, no. Councillor Colletta-Zapata. No. Councillor Colletta-Zapata, no. Councillor Culpepper.

Yes.

Councillor Culpepper, yes. Councillor Durkan. No. Councillor Durkan, no. Councillor Fitzgerald. No. Councillor Fitzgerald, no. Councillor Flynn.

No.

Councillor Flynn, no. Councillor Lujan.

No.