City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay.

and I'm the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Public Safety and Criminal Justice. Today is July 2nd, 2026. The exact time is 10.01 a.m. In accordance with Chapter 2 of the Act 2025, modifying certain requirements of the open meeting law and relieving public bodies of certain requirements, including the requirement that public bodies conduct its meeting in a public place that is open and physically accessible to the public, the City Council will be conducting this hearing virtually via Zoom. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live stream at boston.gov slash city-council-tv and broadcasted on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Files Channel 964. Writing comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.ps at boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all councillors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. INDIVIDUALS WILL BE CALLED ON IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY SIGNED UP AND WILL HAVE TWO MINUTES TO TESTIFY. IF YOU WISH TO SIGN UP FOR PUBLIC TESTIMONY AND HAVE NOT DONE SO, PLEASE EMAIL OUR SECTOR STAFF LIAISON, SHANE.PACK AT BOSTON.GOV FOR THE ZOOM LINK AND YOUR NAME WILL BE ADDED TO THE LIST. TODAY'S HEARING IS ON DOCKET NUMBER message and order authorized in the city of Boston to accept and expand the amount of $1,073,239.34 in the form of a grant for the FY26 Senator Charles Shannon Junior Community Safety Initiative awarded by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security and to be administered by the Boston Police Department. The grant will fund regional and multidisciplinary approaches to combat gang violence through coordinated prevention and intervention, law enforcement, prosecution, and reintegration programs. This matter was sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and was referred to the committee on May 13, 2026. Today, I am joined by my colleagues in order of arrival. District 2 City Councillor, Councillor Ed Flynn. We've also received the letter of absence from At-Large City Councillor, Ruth C. Louis-Jean. I'm going to go into my opening remarks and allow my colleagues a brief opening remark, and we're going to go into our panel. The Shannon Grant is an investment initiative that supports the City of Boston's comprehensive public safety strategy through regional and multidisciplinary approaches and collaborations among state and city agencies, along with partnerships with faith-based philanthropic and business organizations within the community. In order for the City of Boston to offer this initiative, the City Council must vote to authorize the order to accept and expend the $1.07 million grant That would fund the for the 26. Today's hearing is part of that oversight process. The Shannon grant is intended to fund coordinated prevention and intervention, law enforcement, prosecution and reintegration programs aimed at reducing gun. Reducing gun gang and youth violence in the city. These initiatives provided programs and resources that serve positive youth development and recreation activities, and specifically target hotspots areas in Boston. I want to extend my appreciation to Damon Bills for his leadership through his process each year as a project coordinator for the Senior Charles Shannon Community Safety Initiative in the Boston Police Department. It's my understanding it's 15 years now, so I really appreciate your efforts. Last year, we held a productive and insightful public hearing in this committee to conduct oversight of the FY25 Shannon Grant. During this hearing, we heard from the nonprofits and community organizations about the benefits this grant has provided for their work. We also heard directly from youth and community members who are directly impacted by these programs about the impact the programs had on their lives. Today, I want to ensure that my council colleagues continue to hear from these organizations directly about the work they do, they are doing in our Boston communities and how this grant will support that work so that my colleagues are well-informed prior to this grant being brought up before the council for discussion and later vote. We're here up to 5 minutes of testimony today from each organization and I want to reiterate my intention from the. From the invitation sent to each organization that I hope that this is a beneficial opportunity to introduce your work and mission. To the Boston City Council, rather than a hurdle to jump. I recognize that this is added work for you and I'm deeply appreciative of your participation in today's hearing. We're honored and fortunate to have so many organizations with us today to focus on their work and be respectful of their time. I won't be pausing for councilor questions after each organization's presentation so we can keep a smooth flow. But for my colleagues, please let me know if you have any questions you'd like us to collect in coordination with central staff so we can send out these requests for the information on behalf of the committee. My office can also assist you in connecting directly with any of the organizations and participants in today's hearing. Please feel free to reach out to me directly or to my staff. So with that, before we go to Mr. Bills, Councillor Flynn, do you have any quick opening remarks?

Yes, thank you, Councillor Santana. I'm here at my office at the City Council. I was I was expecting a high ranking person from the Boston Police Department to be here to answer questions about public safety security challenges we have in the city of Boston. We are seeing a significant rise in crime in Boston. There was a Boston police officer that was recently assaulted in the community. I wanted to ask some questions directly to the police commissioner. You mentioned that this grant will fund gang You know, initiatives to reduce gang violence, support law enforcement and troubled spots. But those are those are important questions and for us to ask the police commissioner or a member of the command staff. So, with that. And it's and it's a lot of money we're going to vote on. I'm going to support it $1,000,000. For the book for the Boston Police Department, but the but the Boston Police Commissioner or. someone from the command staff is not here. And those are the questions I like to ask about public safety initiatives, community policing, staffing levels. What are our staffing levels and why are they so low and how do we work together to address recruitment and retention? So I'll stop there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. And as always, I'm always happy to put any questions on behalf of the committee. So please send those over. If your questions are not answered today, appreciate your attendance. We've also been joined by City Councilor at large, Councilor Murphy and District 6 City Councilor Ben Weber. I'm going to give both of them brief opening statements. So Councilor Murphy.

Thank you, Council Santana for holding this. Looking forward to hearing from the nonprofits who do benefit from this. I know they've come before us in the past, but happy to hear from them and looking forward to supporting it. But wanna reiterate what Council Flynn just said. I wasn't sure, I was trying to look on the Zoom attendees. The last hearing we held a couple months ago, Council Flynn and I sponsored nobody from the police showed up. So it is disappointing, especially going into this heat wave in the summer and not being included in the summer safety plan that I know the administration has been pushing out. So wish there was someone we could ask directly those questions. I know we can put things on the record, but we know that those questions more times than not don't get answered anyway. Maybe before this hearing's over, someone will be hopping on from the police department. I'm not sure, but thank you as the chair for hosting and just looking forward to listening and supporting when you bring this up for a vote.

Thank you, Councillor Murphy. And again, we do have Mr. Bills from the Boston Police Department. He is who we invited. As the chair, I felt that he, as someone who has been running the program for 15 years, that he has the possibility to answer questions specifically to this grant. And then obviously we'll be hearing from the organizations. But as always, happy to put any questions on behalf of the committee. Thank you for your attendance. Councillor Weber, do you have the floor?

Yeah, thanks. I think last year we heard from the High Tour Task Force about the importance of these grants. And I know that during the budget amendment process. We talked about credible messenger program, which I think has has had sort of bumps getting out of the gate. And I know you're Haley and interested to hear how that's working and what the plan is going forward. So I just want to thank the chair for holding this this hearing. I look forward to the discussion. Thanks.

Thank you, Councilor Weber. And thank you to my colleagues for being here. All right, I would now like to introduce these panelists with us today. We have Diamond Bills, who is a project coordinator for the Shannon Community Service Initiative, working with the Boston Police Department. I'm going to turn the floor over to you for your opening remarks, and we'll go from there. Thank you so much for being with us again.

Thank you, Council. So the Shannon grant funds support the city of Boston's comprehensive strategy aimed at reducing gun, gang and youth violence within the city of Boston by providing services and intervention programming to at risk and gang affiliated youth within the neighborhoods. The grant has been a successful collaboration balancing city, community, faith based and social service and law enforcement organizations. providing opportunity prevention, social intervention and prevention strategies, community mobilization and organizational change and development. This is a grant that we received from the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. Out of this year's funding, 1.73 million, we will fund 17 different nonprofits and city based organizations. Last year, we were able to fund 28 different organizations, but because of the cuts in funding from the state, from the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, we had to have kind of share that in half. Again, the Shannon Grant, this is the 20th year of its operation. In that timeline, we've been able, from the Boston Police Department, to fund at least 250 different nonprofits around the city. The Shannon Grant funding cycle has been a blueprint for other funding cycles within the city. So I'm very proud of that work that we do. on the same side it is a part of the city's public safety initiatives community policing based initiatives this one is led by myself a civilian but we are in constant partnership with all nonprofits that are in a lot of nonprofits in our city different police units but it's definitely something that i i agree with the counselors that we we do need to have a a more clear safety plan. But we are just kind of, I'm buckled down on this one. This is the thing that we do. This is our initiative. I really want to send support to all of my partners in this long-running program. Again, over 250 this year with the partnership that we have, 16 out of 17 are people of color-led, women-led, 10 out of our 17 partnerships. We're just very, very proud of the work that they've done and the work they have been doing, and they kind of, everyone that's receiving cuts in funding everyone is looking at where we can get more money for our programming more money for youth jobs i know the council is aware of this i just want you to all kind of take that into heed this is a program for public safety but this is mainly a program to support our young people that are affected by violence in the city of boston and all of the staff that are working diligently hard to make sure that their their programs are getting the young people services. So I just thank you for the council. Thank you for this hearing. But please be aware that this is an initiative that supports the city through nonprofit organizations, which are the backbone of what we do. So thank you for the council. Let me run through some of our all of our partnerships for this year. That would be BCYF, Girls Leadership Program, Boston Medical Center Violence Intervention Program, Boston Public Health Commission, the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, Project Right, Youth Connect, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, YOU Boston, the Record Company, the Veronica Robles Cultural Center, Beantown Slam, Teen Empowerment, Maverick Landing Cultural Center, Sportsman's Tennis and Enrichment Center, Zoomix, We Are Better Together, and Mothers for Justice and Equality. Those are our partners for this year, 2026. We're in mid-year of our programming. Half of the year is already past us, and this is our hearing. a bit late, but we're still our programs are still going through. So thank you for the council support for all of our partnership. And that's it.

Thank you, Mr. Bill. Appreciate your testimony there. I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues for concert cards. I am going to kick it off this with 1 question and then I'll go to council with Lynn. I remember last year you went over some numbers about. I don't think it's been a 20 year program. I think you have specific statistics about gun violence in the city of Boston and how over those 20 years in correlation with this grant funding and this program that we've seen reductions in those numbers. Right? You also just mentioned that I think there was 30 plus organizations that were awarded some of this grant funding last year compared to 17 this year. Do those numbers, are gun violence, are those numbers still coming down?

um what are happening to organizations who lost this funding are are are they still receiving support in any way um just want to make sure you know how do we fill that gap there um for support i don't know how organizations who lost our funding um are receiving support this year from the city i'm not aware of any other funding sources that are um like that that are like this but i I know there are some. I know there's youth development grants that are there. I know there's other grant funding sources. But unfortunately, we couldn't. We didn't have the funds that we had last year. So we're talking every organization receives a certain amount. We don't want to make them do all this work for less things, less money. It's just, it's difficult for us to try to do that. Statistics I have for you, I can send you, but I mean, certain things just for last year, simple assaults, arrests in Boston increased by 17%, arrests for robberies increased in Boston 62%, aggravated assaults increased 2%. It's, it's, We have been following less, there's been less youth arrest, but there's still, there's always going to, there's always an arrest and there's always violence that happens. And we're, we just try to get ahead of it by supporting those young people and supporting those young people who have been affected.

Awesome. Thank you. I'm going to go to my council colleagues if anyone has any questions for Mr. Bills. Councillor Flynn, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Bills, for being here for the important work you are doing. Can you just repeat the last couple of sentences you highlighted about what crime has gone up over the last year? Can you repeat that, please?

Those numbers are from 2021 to 2025. Simple assaults in Boston increased by 17%. Arrest for robberies increased by 62% in that time period, 2021 and 2025. And aggravated assaults increased by 2% in Boston, 2021 to 2025.

Okay. What about violent crime over the last six months?

I don't have that yet. I can get that to you though.

Okay. That would be great. And how is Boston Police responding to violent crime, knowing that we're understaffed? Police officers are working 16 hours a day. And then to reduce the overtime, we are not putting police officers on overtime. Many of these shifts are just not being meant at the necessary staffing levels. Is that something that's a concern to you?

That's really not in my purview to say, but I can get you that information if you send the questions to the staff.

Okay. No, I respect that. I understand that. I want to be respectful to you. I do understand it's not an issue that you focus on. That's more of the senior leadership of the Boston Police. And that's why I did feel it was important to ask those questions if the police commissioner was here. I know the police commissioner hasn't been here in a period of time or has not shown up even when he's requested to be here. But those are the types of questions I wanted to ask. But Mr. Chair, did we invite anyone from the command staff?

Thank you for the question. No, we, we invited Mr bills. Who the same process we ran last year, he was an overseer of this specific grant. I think. I think the questions that you're bringing up and. I think are very valid, especially with everything that's going on right now. And I think warrants are probably a different type of hearing to have that appropriate staff there to be able to answer those questions. I think this is related to that, but I think this specific is just specific to the Shannon grant and Mr. Bill has been overseeing the Shannon grant for over 15 years and we invited the organizations. So happy to work on a hearing with you and others to try to address the questions that you're trying to get answered.

OK, no, thank you. Thank you, Chair. And I go back to that violence I saw on the video about the police officer being assaulted. And I think I think it's important for every elected official to condemn the violence against. To condemn the violence we witnessed, but it's never acceptable to assault a police officer. and someone that assaults a police officer should be arrested, prosecuted, and if convicted, a state sentence. I just think we need to set the right example that it's not okay to assault a Boston police officer. We are dangerously low with staffing levels. We can't, we don't have enough police officers on the street. Crime is up in the city of Boston. We saw many violent crimes take place, including in my district. I'll acknowledge that, including in my district, in South Boston, in the South End. But we can't pretend that everything is going okay and that there's no violence and there's no crime. in boston we have to we have to address it but we only address it mr chair if the if the the commission or the senior leadership are available to speak with us they they they chose not to do that um but we have to we have to come up with a summer plan if there is a summer plan that was rolled out by the city it's not working we need to refocus our efforts on what our plan is this summer and prioritize more police on the streets, supporting police officers, community policing. I don't think we're doing community policing any longer in the city of Boston. And I think part of it is we have to treat police officers with respect as well. They're part of the solution. They're not part of the problem. But we need to include them in decision making. And I think there's a role for the city council to play if we want to play that role and challenge the leadership of the Boston Police Department. But I don't know if there's any appetite on the city council to do that. But the status quo is not working. Crime is on the rise. Violence is on the rise. Police offices are understaffed and residents know that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. And again, happy to work with you and your office on trying to set up another hearing on that topic. Thank you. Councillor Murphy, you have the floor.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. If you could just touch on the data we use to evaluate if these nonprofits, how do we, what metrics are we using? And I know we're gonna hear directly from them and I know they do great work, but when we're tying it directly to say gang violence or the things we're tying it to, how do we know that it's been effective?

Councilor, I can send you, we have a research partner in Northeastern, and every year there's an evaluation of the Shannon Grant. I could send you the web link that we use for all of our rubrics, challenges, statewide allocations. It's something that's done every year for us by our partners here at Northeastern. But what we're looking at when we're talking about Shannon specifically is those very basic things. We're looking at case management. How many case management cases have gone on for the year? We're looking at how many people attended community mobilization meetings. That means our community-based meetings about violence and violence intervention. How many young people participated in education programs? How many young people participated in positive youth development and recreation programs? How many hotspots were visited? Those kind of things are the things that we look at. So, for example, I could tell you in twenty fifteen. Sorry, twenty twenty five. There were two thousand four hundred and eighty seven youth that received case management programming. There was two thousand four hundred and four young people that in the case management achieve their goals. Again, this is where this is what we're looking at. We're not kind of looking at the police and what the police are doing, looking at what the nonprofits are doing with the funding. About 6000 community members attend events, meetings and presentations about community violence. That would be about 239 meetings specifically about that. Education and employment, about 3,275 young people participated in education programming specific for this, and about 1,218 young people participated in employment programs. Very, very pertinent to youth funding, youth jobs funding that we are all looking for, all of our partners. About 4,015 youth, participated in recreational programming, which is very much a part of violence prevention. You have to have something for young people to do that isn't very focused on something that's always strict. You have to have young people that are having a good time for the summer. We have programs that provide for that. You have to have a programming that's very important for young people and after school programming, we provide services for that as well. So those are the kind of things, Councilor Murphy, that we manage and that we kind of are measuring our success of this program.

So that's good to hear that focus. I know there's other organizations and I know we've been advocating to increase youth summer jobs and programming directed towards the school. And yes, the data, and I believe it has to be true that it's effective in preventing. What happens when there's a murder, when we know there's gang violence? How do we do these funds then get redirected? or move towards the needs there once something does like that happen, which has been unfortunately happening a lot, especially in my neighborhood here in Mattapan.

For Shannon specifically, when there are partners that we work with, there will be two different organizations that I can name specifically that work with families that are affected by murder. That would be the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, as well as Boston Medical Center VIAP program that works with young people who have been shot in our city. And so those programs, specifically the peace institute sorry is the peace institute funded through this grant yes louis d brown okay okay thank you um and so those would be the two programs and i'm i'm limiting to them because because i know their exact work but i can't say that all of our other programs are not also doing this work um because of boston is not a large place um we do have a lot of kind of that are kind of providing those services. I can name Uconnect that does the case management. They will probably work with somebody who has been affected. And so it's all of the programs are doing this work specifically to try to change the trajectory of violence in our city.

Thank you. I have no other questions right now. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilor Murphy. Councilor Weber, you have the floor. I also want to, I don't think High Square, I know High Square has received this in the past. I don't think they were mentioned in the organizations that were, so they might have been part of that 30 to 17 reduction, but just wanted to give you that heads up. But Councilor Weber, you have the floor.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I was gonna ask about high score task force, which, um, you know, in my district, wonderful organization there, and they're not being funded, I guess. Can you just. Well, you know what went into that decision and, um. You know, what's that programs programming won't they be able to offer.

Um, it's it's just we had a limited amount of funds this year. Um. The way that Shannon Cycles work, we try to fund organizations for a few years and then rotate. And so that's what we had to do this year. High Square Task Force is an absolute great organization. We support their work. We also supported last year BHA and the Mildred Haley Housing. for that programming that you specifically mentioned earlier, but we weren't able to do that this year. Last year, the Eops, the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security gave us specific funding for housing, and that didn't pass over to this year. So last year it was mandatory that we fund housing, and then this year we just could not do that with the cut in our funding.

Okay, and so yes, so Credible Messenger also that received funds I know it was to BHA last year. That's also not in this round.

It's not in this grant, but I'm not sure that they're not doing that program because I think it was Teen Empowerment that was doing the Credible Messenger programming there. I'm not sure if they're doing, or it wasn't Teen Empowerment, it might have been Mission Safe.

Yeah, Mission Safe. We funded it through our amendments. Okay, great. In part or whole, I'm not sure, but... Because, yeah, they had lost funding. I guess, so in terms of, I guess, for a credible messenger, do you have any metrics to report on, like, outcomes from that?

I can't, I don't have it specifically here on me, but I can look in the report for last year and try to pull that out. I don't have it on me right now, but can I take a bathroom break really quick? I need to take a break really fast.

That's fine with me, Chair.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Let's just recess, I guess, or whatever.

Well, Jen, can we do a four or five minute recess?

That's who so who's on the 2nd panel? I just, I don't have that.

So, um, there's nothing necessarily a panel. We have all the organizations. Um. The potential organizations for the grant fund recipients all of them.

Okay.

Great. We'll have all of them today and we, this is why we also did it virtually. It's like a holiday weekend, but we also wanted to make sure that we. Get this past or get this up for a vote at the next council hearing. So, the timing of everything is. Um, it's kind of a little office here, but we do have several organizations and who will be. Providing virtual testimony, and we have several who provided written testimony as well who. Weren't able to participate in today's hearing.

Okay, yeah, I'll be back in a minute. I just have like, 1 or 2 more questions. For Mr bills and then.

And we'll get back when Mr bills come back. Okay. You're all set. Mr bills.

Thank you. Thank you. Uh, counselor.

Yep, no worries. So we're going to go back into session. Um, I know counselor. Webber, um, had a few more questions. So, console, whatever you have the floor.

Sure, just in terms of how to decide how you decide. Where the where the grants go, I mean, do you have like a. Do you have data or do you look at geography? Can you just walk me through that?

Yes, we do. I mean, there's an application process for the grant. We do look at locations, what the program provides. There's a rubric that we use for our grants. because everybody who's applying it's their organization is great you know I mean everyone that's applying we know that they do they're doing good work sometimes it's the limit would be if there's like three different programs that offer some sort of a sports initiative or a basketball thing or if there's three different programs that are offering like high set high set courses. So sometimes it's like, well, we can't have we can't do all three because we don't have the funding to do that. I would love to have it like at the beginning of the Shannon 20 years ago when it started, we had $3 million to use. And this is more of a. Asking like seeking the counselors, the council's assistance in kind of figuring out how we could Use state funding better for us and how we can get those kind of things back to those levels that we had. In the in the beginning. But yeah, for us specifically that like this year we probably got about 65 different organizations that apply for our funding, which would have been great in the in the last year, because we could have been able to do almost 30 of them. But this year was. because of the limit in funding, we couldn't do that. It's just it's every year we have you know, we have a committee that reviews the applications. It's a it's just difficult to do every year because because we have seen like a drop in the funding some years, it's good. But this last two years, we've kind of seen a reduction in funding and it seems like it's forecast to also drop in in the consecutive years that's going to follow this one. So just would love assistance from the Council if you know of sources of funding for our organizations to kind of, so we can get it out to them. And it's instead of this, you know, and it's hard to do because a lot of our organizations have been with us for a while and i've been around the city for a while and i know the different places we're really trying to make sure everybody has adequate funds to run their organizations we don't want that to happen but sometimes it's it does we've seen tons of organizations lose funding and then lose their organization and that's it's heartbreaking um for us but We just, we can't, we don't have funds. This one specific grant I'm talking about, but there's other sources of funding that at our community meetings, we know that they lost this, they lost the loss of these funds. And so we're all kind of looking at those pools of water and trying to sit from all of them. And it's difficult for all of our partners. Also difficult when there's a loss of youth job funding, which a lot of our programs are using to sustain their young people. So it's a fight that we've been doing for 30 years now in the city. It's sometimes it's disheartening that we're still having these conversations here in 2026 that we were having in 1995. The same battle for youth job funding still exists. So that's, I don't know, Counselor Webb, it's difficult, but we're trying.

In terms of you know, history of gang violence, you know, Jackson Square, Heath Street, Mildred Haley. You know, so I'm a little concerned when I hear that, you know, you don't have funds for Credible Messenger, which the city council's helping out with, Heightsworth Task Force is losing funds. In this package, is there anything you can point to for that community in my district?

I would say in, well, Youth Connect is now based in, in your, closer to your district over by Edmundston. Health Commission does programming all around the city. BMC Viab all around the city. Same thing with BCYF.

Yeah, no, I, yeah, I'm aware. I mean, a lot of these programs do great work all over the city. I just, is there anything, obviously there'll be, I think, some services that touch upon that area because they're, JUST CITYWIDE, BUT IS THERE ANYTHING SPECIFIC? IN HIGH SQUARE, NOT THIS YEAR. YEAH, YEAH. OKAY. AND THEN I JUST, ONE LAST THING, I KNOW THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT'S RULING ON SORT OF JUVENILE LIFE SENTENCES, I THINK IT WAS WITHOUT PAROLE, YOU KNOW, CHANGED THAT RULE AND THERE'S NOW PEOPLE you know, who are being released. And I know I've heard concerns that, you know, the city needs to make sure we're providing services for people so that when they're, you know, maybe they were involved in a gang-related incident, you know, 15 years ago or 20 years ago, and now they're coming back to the community. Like, what we're doing around that.

You mean re-entry, you mean?

Yeah, yeah, correct.

We really don't do... Shannon doesn't really provide... Right now, any kind of reentry programming, I would probably lean on our other partners or SSYI or maybe the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office has a program. But we currently, for this grant specifically, we don't have any reentry program. But I know some of our programming programs some of our program partners do work with reentry um that back again that would be like the louis d brown peace institute i know they have an initiative um to to go behind the wall and talk to the young young people there um so but for us we don't have that currently okay okay thanks a lot uh thanks for your answers and uh thanks to the chair back to you

Thank you, Councillor Webber. I just want to before I do move on to the potential grant funding recipients. Do Councillor Flynn and Councillor Murphy, do you have any other questions for Mr. Bills?

Yeah, I just have maybe one quick question. Can you just briefly highlight the award recipients, the grant recipients that are receiving the funding and for how much?

I can tell you who. I'm not comfortable with the how much part, but I could give you the general. So on all of our program applicants, they're applying for about $40,000 in funding. There's some programs that receive a bit more than that, but those are ones that are doing clinical-based casework. But the awardees again are BCYF, Boston Medical Center FIAT program, Boston Public Health Commission, the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, Project Right, Youth Connect, Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, YOU Boston, The Record Company, Veronica Robles Cultural Center, Beantown Slam, Teen Empowerment, Maverick Landing Cultural Center, Sportsman's Tennis and Enrichment Center, Zoomix, We Are Voted Together, and Mothers for Justice and Equality.

Are there any recipients in the South End or Chinatown or South Boston?

No, sir.

Why is that?

I just didn't have any applicants from South End or Chinatown.

No one applied?

I would have to look through. I have to look through. I'm not sure about that.

Well, how would I? I mean, that's a... I can get back to you. Okay. Okay, I guess.

I have to look through the applicants. That's what I'm saying. I don't have a list right here.

I mean, I'm going to vote yes on a $1 million grant that we received from state, and none of it is going to impact District 2.

I don't know. I'm not sure, sir.

Well, who would know then? Who would know?

I would know, but I'd have to find my, that's what I'm saying. I can get back to you with the, if we did have an applicant from the South End or Chinatown. I have to look through the applicants.

I mean, I could rattle off a lot of nonprofits that do exceptional work that would be interested in this work in this field that are engaged in this field. But is it a case that they applied and weren't accepted or they just didn't apply at all?

Again, I have to get back with you with the applicants.

Mr. Chitt, are you familiar with what applications were received from District 2?

No, so thank you, Councilman. I think we can definitely follow up with Mr. Bills in terms of the list of all people who applied throughout the whole city and see, you know, I think we can probably pretty easy to identify different districts and we can see who applied from South and Chinatown and South Boston. You know, I think also, I think this also calls for that. I think we can do a better job at making sure that, you know, when the Shannon grant is out, that we're, connecting it to the organizations and nonprofits in the district. It is competitive right now. As Mr. Bills mentioned, this used to be a $3 million grant that now is at $1 million. And you're seeing, you know, there are some citywide programming happening with some of these organizations. So, you know, I think BCYF, the DAs, so there are, programming happening throughout the whole city that touches district two um but i don't you know there are there's no specific one directly from the south end um or chinatown who was awarded this um i will follow up as the committee chair to get the list of all the applicants um and we will make that available to all counselors thank you yeah i'm concerned about that

I don't think I've ever missed a hearing on this issue. I'm here and engaged advocating for the funding and we'll support it obviously. And then there are city councilors that are not here that don't show up. They're going to be voting on a million dollar contract next week and they don't have the ability to weigh in about about their thoughts or opinions about the grant. But I do think city councilors, Mr. Chair, need to start showing up to these important hearings. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. And let's see, Councillor Murphy. So, Councillor Weber, are you all set with questions for Mr. Bills?

Yes. Yeah, I'm good. Thanks, Chair.

Okay, great. Well, thank you, Mr. Bills, for being here. We're now going to go to, I really appreciate you answering our questions, and then I'll be following up with some more information, especially around who will apply. Yeah, so we can get that to all the consulates as well, hopefully ahead of the vote.

Just just like a follow through, like the grant is usually released in around around August. It's up on the city's website like it's it's public. So it's not that I'm not seeking people from all the districts. I'm just putting it up and whoever applies, that's that's what we get. So South End was was my old hanging my old stomping grounds. I used to work at the Harriet Tubman House, the United Southerns Settlements for many years I worked at Via Victoria. And so it's it's near and dear to my heart as well. Counselor, so.

Absolutely. Well, thank you again. All right. Thank you again. We will dismiss Mr. Bills. And now we're going to go over to At this time I would like to begin inviting our potential grant fund recipients to each present and testify. I will call each organization and ask your representative to testify up to five minutes. When your name is called, please unmute yourself. When you begin your testimony, please state your name and your organization affiliation for the record. With that, we are going to start with Mothers for Justice and Equality. or maybe we actually don't have them yet. Do we have the Center for Teen Empowerment, a representative from there? Abigail, oh, I see you, I see you. Abigail Forrester.

Yeah, sorry. Sorry. I was having some just a little bit of technical difficulty here. I apologize.

I really appreciate you being here. You have the floor.

Thank you. Council. I appreciate it. Good morning. Everyone. Good morning to the committee. I would like to thank city council Santana and the entire committee on public safety and criminal justice. My name is and I am the CEO for the center for teen empowerment. Our mission is to employ, train, and empower youth in collaboration with adults to create peace, equity, and justice. The Shannon funding has been instrumental in fulfilling our mission. In our mission, we mentioned the word collaboration. We have found in the over 34 years of doing violence prevention work, collaboration is critical. not only among service providers and intervention specialists, but more importantly, with law enforcement. For decades, the Shannon Grant has been a bold statement to communities impacted by violence regarding the state's commitment to ensuring law enforcement, community-based organizations, and community members, primarily youth and young people, find ways to implement violence prevention efforts together. This funding isn't just about agencies receiving money. It is a statement that our city slash state is committed to ensuring collaboration between law enforcement and community members stay at the center of violence prevention. As an organization, the Shannon Grant has allowed us to continue our work around creating space for youth and law enforcement agents to get to hear from each other and know each other. Community members and law enforcement agents knowing each other is the most critical aspect for why this funding needs to be expanded. Youth in dialogue with law enforcement agents to create and develop strategies to prevent violence is a best practice when it comes to reducing gun violence and creating safer environments. We've had several opportunities and incidents where young people who have been in dialogue with law enforcement agents and have been seen in their community by the same law enforcement agents had a positive interaction. That is violence intervention and prevention at its highest level. the funds from the shannon grant has supported teen empowerment's outreach to gang-involved youth and also has allowed us to expand the work we do to create specific initiatives that target street-involved youth who are not yet involved in gang violence but on the periphery of being influenced into being gang involved because of the social abnorms that are putting pressure on them I recommend, as the leader of Teen Empowerment, passing the expansion for the Shannon Grant, and if possible, expanding it even more. It is one of the only funding sources that hits three essential elements of public safety, prevention, intervention, and collaboration. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share why the Shannon Grant is a significant resource to our organization and the other organizations who are recipients. We look forward to continuing to receiving this funding as we continue to expand and focus on making our city safer. Thank you.

Thank you. Really appreciate your presence and the work that you do. Next up, we have, I think, from The Record Company, we have Pablo Velez. Good to see you in here. Yes, hello.

Good morning. Good morning. Chair Santana Pablo from the record company and good morning members of the committee. Um, as I said, my name is and I serve as the director of development at the record company. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak today and thank you to the city for its continued investment in the record company through the Shannon community safety initiative. Founded in 2010, the record company was created. Around a simple but powerful belief, creativity should be a pathway to economic mobility. Boston has no shortage of talented artists and musicians. What many young people lack is access to affordable space, professional equipment. Mentors industry networks and clear pathways. We exist to remove those barriers today. The record company serves more than 3000 artists every month across 2 facilities. Our South end campus at 960 mass is home to affordable recording studios, rehearsal rooms, production suites. And academy, our free workforce development program for young people ages 14 to 24. That is top by Berkeley instructors and industry professionals are 55 Morrissey Boulevard campus and Dorchester is 1 of the is 1 of Boston's largest. Creative small business hubs home to more than 400 artists and creative small businesses and together our 2 facilities serves artists from 21 of Massachusetts 40 Senate districts with many of the young people we serve coming from. Boston neighborhoods that have historically faced barriers to opportunity. We launched TRC Academy because we saw talented young people with tremendous creative potential, but no clear pathway into Boston's creative economy. Through the Shannon Grant, we've been able to provide free hands-on workforce development that teaches audio engineering music production and music business while also helping students develop the professional skills and employer values how to interview communicate professionally write effective emails collaborate with clients and build confidence in the workplace In just 1 year, more than 100 young people have graduated from academy. We've expanded access through partnership with cities office of youth engagement and advancement and organizations, including beat the odds Boston music project boys and girls club of Boston community music center. Um, a Boston common Academy and many others. while creating additional pathways through Bunker Hill Community College. But what makes TRC different is that our support doesn't end with students when students graduate. We've intentionally built what we call a continuum of opportunity. Academy graduates have been hired by the record company to provide live sound engineering for our events, referred to paid recording and production opportunities through clients using our recording studios, continued into higher education through our college partnerships, and even launched businesses inside our 55 Morrissey Creative Entrepreneurship Hub. And we're already seeing the results. Nine out of 10 graduates continue creating music and audio projects after completing the academy. More than one-third have already worked in professional recording studios, one in four have applied for paid creative opportunities, and one in four have already secured paid music or audio work. One graduate, Deja Fitzgerald, described TRC Academy by saying, there's nothing like being able to capture your heart through music, and the TRC Academy helps you get there. This feels like home. Another graduate, Christina Bartley, shared, I now have a much clearer understanding of how to approach music as both a creative and a business. And Leda Merenara told us, now I know how to represent myself professionally. I learned how to set up my sole proprietorship, track my business expenses and file taxes correctly. Perhaps the most telling is what our graduates asked for next. 94% want additional training, more than 80% want paid studio opportunities, 75% want internships, and nearly 70% want mentorships. They don't see TRC Academy as a finish line. They see it as the starting point of a career. Their journey continues at 55 Morrissey, where 70% of our creative entrepreneurs are already earning or building toward earning income through their creative work. 86% report increased collaboration since joining our community. 37% say they would significantly scale back their work. If the record company no longer existed and 26% say they would consider leaving Boston altogether. Those numbers demonstrate why creative infrastructure matters not only for artists, but for retaining talent, strengthening neighborhoods and creating economic opportunity through our city. Public safety doesn't doesn't begin when a young person is in crisis. It begins when they can see a future for themselves. The Shannon grant helps us give young people that future through education, employment and community on behalf of everyone at the record Co. Thank you for your continued investment in Boston's young people and for helping us build a safer, stronger and more creative city. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Pablo really appreciate your testimony and. Really appreciated the insight from some of those participants. Awesome. So next up, we have Youth Connect. I believe we have Kevin here. Yep, I see Kevin. Kevin, you have the floor whenever you're ready.

Hi. Unfortunately, I'm experiencing some tech. Let's see if this works, but I do have some tech issues, unfortunately, as we transitioned our systems. I'm hoping everyone can hear me, though.

You can hear me, yep.

OK, so my apologies on the video. I'm not quite sure what's going on with it. I tried testing it. But good morning, Chair Santana and other members of the Boston City Council. My name is Kevin Barton, and I serve as the Executive Director of Youth Connect. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today. But more importantly, thank you for your continued advocacy on behalf of the Shannon Initiative. In a year when so many organizations are navigating real fundraising challenges, your willingness to champion the funding and to give community-based providers like ours a platform to be heard is really a great deal. So for 30 years, Youth Connect has directly embedded licensed social workers inside Boston police stations. We're currently located in 10 stations and citywide units, including East Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, Jamaica Plain, Charlestown, and the South End, to provide free voluntary mental health services to our most promised and system-impacted youth between the ages of 10 to 24. Young people are referred by officers following arrest or for reasons including impact from or causing community violence, substance use, weapons carrying, and periodontal dilatation. But Shannon Grant funding remains essential to our mission. The truth is we know that about 65 to 70% of youth in the juvenile justice system struggle with mental health challenges. We also know community-based intervention and prevention is more effective than incarceration. And we know that relationships are what often drive change. So this year, we probably served over 560 groups and their family members across Boston. Our social workers are providing individual and family therapy, meeting with young people in DYS in correctional facilities, including Nashua, Treda, and South Bay. We're meeting young people in schools and also in their homes. We feed up safety planning around victimization, perpetration of violence, and also retaliation. We build networks of caring adults around each young person, and we really are trying to coordinate services among and across social service agencies and juvenile justice providers to ensure that young people and families are not falling through the cracks. We aim to reduce some of the root causes of risky behaviors that we know are associated with arrests, incarceration, and community violence. What makes our model distinct is that all of our services are completely free, they are voluntary, and they're not time-limited. We don't bill insurance, which means grants like the Shannon Grant are essential. recent cuts to the Shannon Grant has had real impact on so many organizations, so many of my peer organizations. And I know many of us have come together to really try to figure out ways that we can support one another and collaborate, which is cool. At Youth Connect, we do remain determined and fortunate to provide the same level of care despite these reductions, but it does come at a cost. Continued and sustained funding means we can continue to operate outside of the insurance system, which means we do not terminate services because one person misses appointments. For the young people that we serve, we stay for the long haul and critically, We don't just serve the young person, we serve the entire family. And we do this in partnership with over 200 other community-based organizations. So we really do believe that by wrapping support around the whole family system, we do build a village that strengthens stability at home, it deepens trust, and it quite frankly produces better outcomes for young people and for the city of Boston. So we know Boston is rich with resources. It's not about not having resources, but it is about mitigating the barriers to access that we tend to focus on, particularly for the young people that we, along with so many others on the screen, serve. We have to mitigate those barriers. and then i just wanted to honestly just say thank you to the city council for the championing of these funds and i really look forward to continuing uh collaboration and hopeful for the continued support uh definitely want to thank you uh demond uh bills for your stewardship of the funds and again thank you all for your time and your commitment to boston people this is how we get it done it was all together and it was a collaborative and my apologies for the uh the video it was working before i promise

No worries. Thank you, Kevin. Appreciate your presence and appreciate the work that you do every single day on behalf of our Boston's youth. Awesome. I think next up we have BCYF. I think we have the Erica Butler with us today. Yes, we do. How you doing?

Can you hear me?

Hear you? Yep.

I have the worst speaker today. My other speaker broke good morning. Everybody. I'm glad that we have this opportunity to see everybody. I know it's right before the holiday. But this has been a very important grant for for the girls initiative on behalf of Martha at the commissioner and myself. We wanted to say, thank you again. For giving us this opportunity to talk about the great work that we do. This has been a. ongoing process for us. Literally, we've had this grant for 15 years. I have been the sole provider for maintaining and making sure that we do have these services for girls at the community center. Also, the other thing, just to let you know, especially those of you that are asking questions in regards to other neighborhoods, I do plan this summer, and I have in the past, expanding our array. I do the girls initiative, but because of all the disparities with the different things happening with the youth, I have extended to do youth nights in collaboration with a few different agencies at BCYF sites as well, as well as Shavu has been a strong partner with us and we're hosting family nights this summer on Tuesdays for our families 17 and under and they need to attend with the family and trying to keep that going again, as well as girls nights at Shavu, Boston Bowl, a few other agencies have stepped up. I don't want to get crazy, but I'm just giving shout outs to a couple of folks that have been very strong, even though the funding hadn't come in as soon as we thought. Just so you know, we've been working without the funds for this time, and we've kept whatever programming and things that we had and materials from before and did a lot of things at community centers. We just had a completion of a girls' night, a paint night at the Hannigan Community Center, and we just reopened the pool. So we're looking forward to hosting a girls' night there and doing a pool party. So just keeping a lot of things in the community. Just to answer you, Councilor Flynn, we will be doing some things in South Boston, working with Barbara and Kathy about doing, we always like to do a girls' night bingo and just trying to keep the girls positive, keep them engaged, keep them safe. That's pretty much what our mission is. and making sure that they know that they can walk into a center and be heard um and i just really want to emphasize that the summer program um this year we will be doing we have a partnership new we've had it ongoing with simmons but they've given us graciously given up space this summer to do a two-week program in collaboration with girls leap about self-defense and making sure that they are aware of their surroundings and what's happening we are also hosting a wellness day for girls. And that will also be at a college this summer to allow girls. And I have also with me, I'm not, she doesn't want me to say it, but I have one of our partners in my office today from Oh Yeah, Karma Freeman, who she and I do a lot of stuff with the girls and mentorship and hosting a couple. I know they're doing after darks with us as well at our community centers, which I am so excited about with Pedro. I think it's going to be a great thing. And again, I just, I, any questions you guys have for me, I'm here. And if there's anything that you'd like to see or any ideas that you have going forward, I'm open to it. I just, like I said, want to keep the girls connected and safe. And that's my mission for this summer and fun. You know, we want them to be kids. And I know a lot of you know, I am the one, I don't even care. I'm still on the T trying to talk to them. I will go downtown. to Macy's down in the basement to give them flyers. So I'm just letting you know that these kids are everywhere and all they want is just a little bit of attention and just listen. And again, if anybody needs anything from me, please let me know. Collaborations. And I will give a shout out to my Boston Police ladies. They have been very strong and present with the girls. On nights when I'm there by myself doing certain things, they will show up be a strong force and help me and i don't mean like enforcement police enforcement they're there sometimes doing arts and crafts so i just want to say that um very strong partnership and there's a few others that i would like to name but you only get five minutes so thank you very much um counselor santana again i appreciate this opportunity thank you um

Definitely one of the most committed people in the city and really appreciate the work that you do on behalf of our Boston youth, specifically our young ladies. So thank you and thank you for being here. I think we have one more, maybe a few more, but Project Right, I think we have Mike Hozo with us. Yes, we do.

Yes, and if you could elevate El Jamal Peoples, I think he was on somewhere as well. He's our lead program person. If he's on, I would like to give him a couple minutes and I'll wrap up. I want to thank all the councillors.

Sorry, I don't mean to cut you off. What's the name?

El Jamal Peoples.

Okay.

I don't see him in the waiting room, Mr. Chair. Oh, I see Lola Taylor.

Yeah, Lola Taylor. That's his daughter.

Okay.

I'm moving him over right now. Thank you. We appreciate you all taking the time to do this. Shannon Grant is a critical funder for us. We're able to do a lot of different activities. Why don't you go ahead and give a little bit of update of the impact of the work that you guys do.

Hi, Counselor. My name is Aljamal Peoples. I'm a youth engagement worker with Project Right. Under the Shannon Grant for many years, I came from underneath the Shannon Grant as a participant for Project Right from their own way to outreach. And I built my own program in 2000 called the Mike and Al Basketball League. For many years, we have prevented intervention of youth violence in the Grohall area, especially from Magnolia, Intervale, Columbia Road, along that aspect, providing youth with free sports program, providing uniforms, engagement into the schools. from drug prevention, intervention, especially we have worked especially with Brown Institute with some of the deaths in our neighborhoods and stuff like that. So it allowed us to have better access to so many populations. with the GROW program that Erica Butler sent from sending girls over there. So it's just a big old circle of family what we're doing and connection with youth and violence and stuff like that. every since 2000 um now 26 years later that i'm running i'm the director of the mike canal back on basketball program along with my friend that we have provided so many endless countless view from all over the city and also in these boston neighborhoods as high school from New Mission, Burke, Charlestown, all over the city, just provide them more access to everything, any youth program. I am the only youth program for sports related in the Grohar area. So this grant allows us to have participants that have ownership to something positive other than the youth violence in our neighborhood. That kept the youth violence when I'm going around from Spring and summer, we're about to start in July, and this grant provides a lot of stuff, unstapeability for our youth in collaboration with the YFCA and everything else from team night, arts and crafts, you name it, anything to keep the kids Involved in anything positive in my neighborhood. That's what we focus on, but the engagement I can. Now, in collaboration with project, right?

Thank you. I want to thank the counselors and your representatives for coming to our. Community meeting that we had at the premium house that we engaged some of our young people are residents with the different police departments to talk about what's the store for the summer. We should note that a couple of our staff has had to deal with. Some of the recent homicides when the recent homicide was a member of our 84 chapter that does. prevention work around vaping and tobacco use and had gone to the statewide DPH conference and had told his father he was very excited about trying to talk to his other peers about the impact of vaping and tobacco smoking. And another one of my staff is providing support services for a recent homicide to the family experience as well. So we do get funding through the health commission, through the VIP program and the community healing response network to provide some of these other support networks What's important about the Shannon Grant is that it allows us to build consistent relations with a very difficult population to reach. We're working with teen empowerment to address the issues at McDonald's. Unfortunately, our community center is underway. It's going to take another two and a half years to be built. So we're trying to deal with that. And Reverend Culper, as I mentioned to you the other day, Roxbury YNCA suffered a significant water main break. damage and they're closed for over two weeks and i might i've heard it's going to be extend a period of time which impacts of so many different programs so many positive stuff so we're trying to be creative well continuing on with friday teen night we made a request for one of our local schools and we're waiting to hear from that as well but again the shannon grant's been helpful as um uh abigail talked about yes we've had different police youth activities where young people develop some relations with some of the police officers and later on they see each other in the street and when something comes up they're able to pull the young person out of the situation and because he wasn't involved and get him on his way so we look forward to continuing this work and thank you again for supporting this process

Thank you, Mike, and thank you, Abigail. I really appreciate your testimony and the work that you do in our community. I also want to mention we've been joined by District 7 City Councilor Mignard Culpepper, who actually oversees the work that you're doing right here in your district. So, Shane, I just want to make sure I know we do have more people, but I don't think they're with us right now. So I just want to do another call for Mothers for Justice and Equality, a call for Boston Medical Center.

I don't see them in attendance, Mr. Chair.

Okay, great. And I just want to make sure that my colleagues know that we will also receive from five different organizations. Well, from Zoomix, from . With that, do we have anyone?

Yeah, you got me.

I want to make sure I keep an opportunity. I don't have anyone signed up for public testimony.

All right.

All right, great. Thank you. So that brings us to the, you know, towards the end of this hearing. Obviously, there's amazing work being done. You know, the Shannon Grant provides critical funding to so many organizations. As was mentioned at the top, this used to be a $3 million grant. It is now being reduced to just above 1 million. And we're looking at probably further reductions in the upcoming years. So, you know, just want to make sure that my colleagues know about that. And maybe we can work with Councilor Weber with the chair of Chair Ways and Means to see how we can try to see if there's any gaps that we can help build as a council. With that, I do want to give Councilor Culpepper, do you want to say a few words? Yep, you have the floor.

Absolutely. Look, I rushed down to the office because I didn't have the link at home to get on. I tried to get on at home. Let me run down to the office because this is such a critical- I think we're having some difficulties hearing you. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

Coming in and out. I can hear you, Reverend.

You can hear me?

Am I the only one?

Let's put this up a little bit. Dylan, let's put that up a little bit. We put it down the other day. Can you hear me now?

I think we're having some difficulties. So maybe we'll give you a second. I'm going to go to Councillor Flynn. I want to get to my colleagues, just brief closing remarks, if you have any. And Councillor Culpepper will come back to you as you get. Can you hear me? Councillor Flynn, do you have anything?

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be brief. I listen closely to every award recipient and want to recognize the important work they are doing, trying to bring critical services, especially to young people, to provide them an opportunity of hope and success and not to be engaged in crime or violence, but I do believe it's important that we have to continue to work together, respect each other, support our young people, especially during these challenging times. As a former probation officer, I do want us to do some more work in helping people coming out of jail and helping people coming out of prison. Reentry services is critical, along with how we're able to work with people that have quarries. so that they're able to be successful, healthy, and live a productive life. So those are some of the issues I wanna continue to work on, but I wanna say thank you. Thank you to Mr. Bills for the work he has done. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Okay, thank you.

Councillor Santana, can you hear me now?

Yeah, you have the floor, Councilor Culpepper.

You can hear me now?

We can hear you.

Oh, good. Okay. I just want to make sure. Can I talk now?

You have the floor, Councilor.

Thank you.

The floor.

I do want to thank all of the folks that testified today. I didn't catch them all. I did catch the end of some of the discussion. But the Shannon grant for me is critical. That grant has saved many, many, many, many, many lives. And I remember when I was working, I was with Santana in the street with the young folks, Michael Colzo. We worked, I mean, I'm talking about in the middle of the gangs. Mike Colzo was in the middle of the gang, not on the peripheral or not in a building, out in the street. And that Shannon Grant, made such a difference for many of the organizations, smaller organizations that were actually doing the work with the young folks in the street. And I think grants like the Shannon Grant and the small grant that we used to get from the Boston Foundation when we started the Trotter Park Peace Program, we had that grant was focused on the most involved young folks in youth violence. And the Shannon Grant, when folks competed for it and they received it, it went right to the work that was being done in the street. I hate to see it cut. I hope the city council, I hope we can do something to bring more money to the really anti-violence work that young folks are doing in the street. And when you look at The difference today, and I know the mayor touts Boston as the safest city in the country. It's the safest city because of the work that went into the streets. And I know there are cuts all over the place, but this is one area of funding that I was hoping would never get cut because it made a big difference. and the peace in the streets. I'm telling you, we always said it takes a job to stop a bullet. I believe that. I've seen it happen. And it's true. You put those young folks to work, their whole life changes, their whole perspective changes. And so I just want to commend those folks that are still working with the young folks in the street. I'm working with them from a different perspective, but I still support all the anti-violence, organizations, youth organizations that depend on that funding to keep the work that they're doing going. So I thank you, Mr. Chair, for this hearing. And let's huddle and see what we can do to try and at least prepare for next year. We know it's cut this year, and we anticipate next year being even tougher. We should start thinking about ways that we can bring more funding, if not to the Shannon Grant, to start our own grant program so that we can work through the city to make sure that these organizations have the funds that they need to keep peace in the streets. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all I wanted to say. Just commend all those folks that are continuing to work. And I know Mike Colzo and I are getting a little older, but our commitment has not diminished at all. And, you know, I remember how dangerous Grove Hall was. People can walk through Grove Hall now and not think about any, not even think, but just walk through to see the young folks back out at Trotter Park. It's just amazing. But it didn't happen without a lot of work going into the streets. So hopefully we can work on some funding for next year. And I just want to thank you again for this hearing and giving the advocates an opportunity to talk about the work that they're doing and the work that they will be doing this summer. That McDonald's Mike, I'm looking at that McDonald's too. I'm keeping a close eye on there. I'm starting to go get. Those 8 McMuffins in the morning just to make sure it's. Quiet over there, so I'm keeping an eye on it too. And so if you hear something or see something, let me know. If I see something, I'll say something too. Okay. Thank you Mr. chair.

Thank you. Councilor Culpepper. And I agree with all that you said. I think we should huddle and see how we can support a lot of this work. Great. Councillor Weber, do you have any closing remarks?

Yeah, no, thanks. I just, is the plan, Chair, to bring this up for a vote next week?

Correct.

Okay. Great. Thank you. I support this. Look forward to working with my colleagues. Thanks for the informative hearing.

Great. Thank you, Councilor Weber. I don't see any other councilors. I want to make sure, but okay. I really do want to thank, again, all the community members who are here doing amazing work. You know, just very critical work. You know, youth jobs and, you know, changed my life for sure. And I know, you know, I know how important the work that you're all doing. You know, we heard from Erica, you know, reaching people at Macy's basement, you know, hearing from Kevin of, you know, not just working with the individual, but working with the entire family. You know, these are um critical critical um programming that we need here in the city of boston um and definitely want to be able to bring this up to a vote at the next council meeting um and hopefully get it hopefully get it passed and then hopefully also work on trying to see how we can work on funding for the following year um so with that i just want to thank the administration panel um Bill, and all the organizations, we don't. Both the patient work for our youth and communities as the chair of the committee on public safety and criminal justice. I intend to bring the order to accept and expand the 526. Shannon grant to the full council for discussion and it will our next council meeting next week at a time. I intend to recommend as chair that this matter all to pass. With that, I don't see any hands up. This hearing on docket number 0970 is adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.