City Council - Regular Meeting

you So,

Good morning. My name is Ed Flynn, District 2 City Council. I am chair of the City Council Committee on City Services. Today is September 21st. The exact time is 10.03. The hearing is being recorded. It is also being livestreamed at boston.gov slash citycouncil. dash tv broadcast on xfinity channel 8 rcn channel 82 files channel 964. written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc at c-s-i-t at boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all city councils public testimony will be taken at the end of the hearing or in the middle of the hearing, uh, depending on how many people we have testifying, um, individuals, individuals will be called in order in which they are signed up and we'll have two minutes to testify, but I won't cut you off if you go over two minutes. I want to hear what's important to you. If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance of the chamber when you walk in, you know, the chamber. If you are looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison, Ryan Pratt, at ryan.pratt, P-R-A-T-T, at boston.gov, for the link, and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on Docket 1085, which is a message in order authorizing the city of Boston to accept, expend the amount of $20,930 in the form of a grant, the El Centro Fellowship Grant, ordered to Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Boston to be administered by the Department of Innovation and Technology. Do it. The grant would fund the fellowship program for El Centro IT program, Graduates, this matter was sponsored by Mayor Wu. It was referred to the committee on June 3rd, 2026. Docket 1395 message in order authorizing the city of Boston to accept and expend the amount of $225,125.11 in the form of a grant, the MBI Digital Equity Partnership Program awarded by the U.S. Department of Treasury passed through the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative to be administered by the Department of Innovation and Technology. The grant would fund services and support for residents of the Commonwealth who cannot afford broadband service and or internet connected devices or lack the digital skills needed to utilize the internet. The last target, which is docket 1397, message and order authorizing the City of Boston to accept and expand a gift of 43 heating, ventilation, air-conditioned units, HVAC, of various types valued at $84,210 from FWC 2026 U.S. Inc. This gift is awarded to the City of Boston at the Mayor's Office for the use in the public facilities of various departments across the city, including police stations, schools, and municipal offices. These matters were sponsored by Mayor Wu. They were referred to the committee on July 22nd, 2026. I want to say thank you to the administration team for being here this morning. And we have present with us Brian Donahue, the Chief Digital Equity Officer, Director of Broadband and Cable, Department of Innovation and Technology, DOIT. Sheila Lee, the Senior Director of Operations, Department of Innovation Technology. Trish Kaferski. Kaferski? Okay, Kaferski. I'm so sorry about the pronunciation. The Deputy Chief of Operations, Real Estate and Capital Strategies, the Mayor's Office. and Peter Favarito. Okay, I got that one right, Peter. Broadband and Digital Equity Advocacy, Department of Innovation and Technology. Would the panel like to speak on all dockets at the same time, or do you want to break them down, or what is best for you?

I would say we probably need to separate the air conditioning docket from the other two, but happy to speak to whichever of them in whichever order you'd prefer.

Okay. Why don't we do one docket at a time? Okay. Okay. Let's start with the first one that's on the agenda, which is 1085, which is the $20,000 grant for El Centro?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Yep, and thank you, Chair in general, for asking us to come here and speak to some of these programs. We're really excited for this opportunity to have additional resources for these types of programs funded. For the El Centro grant, we had been working with this organization in the past. They are a subsidiary of the Catholic Charities. The funding from El Centro is for an additional fellow. These folks are coming to us from nontraditional backgrounds, learning technology skills, doing on-site job training, and we've been thrilled to be able to have five fellows work with us previously and hire two of them into full-time roles. So it's really exciting. The fellows are getting hands-on experience in cybersecurity and technology programs. And the most recent projects that have been worked on are asset inventory for computer replacement, vulnerability notifications from a cybersecurity standpoint, and cybersecurity training and content creation for those types of offers that you probably get in your email every once in a while to get your cybersecurity skills upgraded. So we're thrilled to have this opportunity to add another fellow to the program, and we'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Excellent, thank you. Well, as you can see, I wanted to have the hearing to give my council colleagues the opportunity to learn more about the important work you're doing. Yes, sir. I apologize that no one is here. Let me start. I'm gonna kind of not give an opening statement, but let me just try to go on the first docket, okay? So my question, what are the specific outcomes or employment opportunities will result in this grant? Is there an opportunity for young people that want to get this training, to get into a career field? Will they have the skills that are needed or at least develop some skills so that they can get advanced skills?

That is the core idea of this program, is that they go through a certain amount of training leading up to the program itself, and then what we're providing is the space and the support for that on-the-job training. We've been really successful with this in the past from the standpoint of bringing folks in. They get familiar with the city systems, and they get familiar with the type of technology that they'd be working on, you know, really in any kind of a job like this across the city. But we are really impressed with the number of those folks who've been in the program, and we're able to hire two of them into those entry-level positions in the city's IT team.

Okay. Is the training itself, where is that provided?

Sheila, I don't know if we... El Centro has a program, an IT program, for them to learn the skill sets, and then they apply it while they're at, while they do their fellowship at the city.

Okay. Okay. On that specific docket, I don't have any other questions. Is it okay if we go to the next docket? That's fine by us, yes. Okay. So the next docket, which is docket 1395, do you want me to go into questions now?

If you'd like, I think that if you wanted just a quick, maybe a quick overview, that would be... Yeah, that would be excellent.

Yeah, why don't you do the overview?

Yeah, so the Massachusetts Broadband Institute Partnerships Program is a program that we've been receiving funding for for over three years now. It is funded... I believe the majority of it is out of the state ARPA funding. We've been very successful in a number of previous rounds of this funding, and they identified us as a candidate in the most recent round with the specific focus of trying to help from a standpoint of AI literacy, and then also folks who are returning citizens who need support, devices, and connectivity in order to properly reenter society. So we're thrilled to be able to have been identified for this partnership. And it's also going to help us benefit to expand some of our literacy programing, which is focused on the folks staying safe online in the age when all of these new types of scams have been really detrimental to a lot of a lot of folks who have basic tech literacy but don't maybe have that next level. And I'd be happy if we had a couple minutes for Peter to maybe walk through the previous success that we've had with these programs, including our digital equity fund and kind of what we're looking at for this funding that's been identified at this point.

Yeah, that would be excellent. Peter, you're up. Good morning, Councillor. Oh, Peter, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just want to acknowledge we are joined by City Councillor Culpepper. City Councillor Culpepper, thank you for being with us. Peter, I'm sorry to interrupt. Go ahead.

Good morning, Councilor. Good morning, Councilor as well. So, yeah, so to kind of piggyback off of what Brian was talking about, so our digital equity fund has been one of our more successful programs over the past almost 10 years now. Most recently, we funded 36 community-based organizations with a total of $1.4 million coming from this digital equity partnerships program grant. Thirty-one focused on digital navigation work, specifically, you know, basic tech help, getting folks hooked up to internet devices, as well as we funded two organizations with efforts to improve telehealth programming, and then three organizations to do device refurbishment work. And that has resulted into a great number of partnerships across the city. This work impacts every resident. These projects have been taking place across every Boston neighborhood, which is something we are very proud of. And additionally we work with these projects focus on a wide range of target populations including older adults veterans folks who Who don't speak English as their main language? youth public housing residents so on and so on and that's been one of our We are trying to make sure that everyone who you know needs devices needs tech help has the opportunity to get that and so You know just some some high-level data from this most recent digital equity fund Across all programs just just over 11,000 residents were served by this work we had about Almost 2,700 devices distributed to households across the city. Roughly 2,600 residents received basic skill development work. Similarly, about 2,400 received intermediate skill training and about 1,300 residents worked on advanced technology skills. That's just at a very high level, some information. Happy to follow up more with the rest of the data. But this is a nice segue into our next round of the Digital Equity Fund, which we're currently in the process of getting out the door. Basically shifting the focus a little bit from, you know, just to digital navigation and community technology training work, including from what we heard from a lot of community organizations, you know, opportunities to teach their residents about artificial intelligence, whether it's basic misinformation, how to avoid scams, cybersecurity, especially with youth and older adults. And then the other focus area is device distribution and refurbishment work. So once again, just getting devices to the hands of folks who need it the most, no cost to them. And lastly, the one other highlight, one other thing that we want to highlight lift up from that results from this partnership grant is our collaboration with the Office of Returning Citizens. So since January of 2025, we've been working with ORC to provide biweekly tech help sessions or tech office hours to folks who are formerly incarcerated. And we've it's been one of our longest standing partnerships with so far. And this, you know, these Office hours cover a wide range of topics, such as getting affordable internet access, helping folks put resumes together to apply for jobs, learning how to use Gmail, et cetera, et cetera. And to kind of touch upon what Brian was talking about, we've been also providing folks with hotspots that will provide one year of internet service for folks who are being released from the Suffolk County House of Corrections. And so we're excited to be able to continue this partnership, continue this work across not just interdepartmental partnerships, but also across the city with our community-based organizations.

Thank you. I'm going to let Councillor Culpepper go first in terms of asking questions on this particular grant, and then I'll go after Councillor Culpepper. Councillor Culpepper, I'm going to set a time. I'm going to set a time maybe for six minutes and then if we need to have, if you want to continue asking questions you can, but we also can do a second round as well if need be. But Councillor Culpepper, you have the floor.

Thank you Mr. Chair, Chairman Flynn for holding this hearing. And I thank the representatives from the administration and the members of the public for being here for this hearing today. I think this is significant in that we get an opportunity to look at different grants coming into the city. And here's what's interesting. We just had a hearing last week with the I guess he's Deputy Superintendent De Leon and Brian about the heating and air conditioning systems in the schools. And we were talking about the three schools that don't have air conditioning yet, that may not have it until next year sometimes. And so when I looked at this, order, even though it's only for $84,000, I think these air conditioners, the ones that are going to the Boston Public Schools, will be a great addition to at least helping to keep the schools cool. Some of the children, believe it or not, were using wet paper towels over their head slash this past summer to keep cool. And how in the world can you learn with a wet paper towel over your head? And so when I look at these 43 heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, I don't know how many air conditioners there are. But even if it's a few, it's going to make a difference in terms of helping to keep the schools a little cooler. Do you want me to go into questions now? I have a couple of questions around IT. Councilor, on the- About the IT training and the- On the other- You said I had six minutes, right? Yeah, you have six minutes. And I can use it any way I want, right?

Yeah, you can use it on this docket, but we could go- Okay, okay. We could have another six minutes on the other dockets. Okay, well.

I've just got some basic questions, like on the IT training from Catholic Charities. For the graduates who participate in this fellowship, what happens after the fellowship ends?

Well, the participants end the program with both some in-classroom training and then also when they're working with us, they're as fellows, that they're getting the on-the-job training that they need. So both preparing them to work outside of the city, but also in addition to that, we've been able to bring on two of them at this point into full-time roles in the city.

With the city?

Yes, sir.

And what about the outside work they're doing, the external work? But external employers, are there opportunities for the young folks after they graduate?

Absolutely. These are the types of training programs that we're talking about right now are exactly what employers are asking for. They're asking for folks that have, you know, been through both a formalized classroom setting and then also on the job training. So they're getting that second component, which is often a little bit more difficult to come by. out in the wild world that we live in, that they're able to come in and say, I've got six months, nine months experience working with the city of Boston, and I'm able to say confidently that they can work on these range of six or seven systems that they were able to be exposed to during their time here with the city.

Can you talk about the number of young folks that have been placed, or is that data that you keep?

So that would be probably held at the Catholic Charities at El Centro from that data standpoint. For us, at least, we've pulled in two out of the five folks that we've had come with us. So from my perspective, at least, and I've done this kind of work in a couple of different places, that's a pretty awesome being able to retain two folks into that system is pretty incredible. But I know that they're out there, in the addition to that, the Catholic Charities El Centro are giving them the types of support in order to, if they don't end up landing with the city, to find that employment pathway for themselves.

Outside, outside. Yes, sir. Yeah. So what kind of partnerships are there or other pathways to help the young folks transition into permanent IT employments? Or are you at that point yet?

So from the DO-ITS role in this part of the process, it's more to be that employment support given them in the experience. We don't necessarily specialize in finding them the role after. That's a different part of our organization and also in a different part of the Catholic charities that are going to be able to support them.

And so the part of your organization that does this, do they keep any kind of data on success rate or young folks in place?

On what do you mean? More placements.

Placements. I'm really looking at. What's the end result of the experience that this young person has after the IT training and after some maybe part-time employment or school employment?

Yeah, I'm sure that we could request that from El Centro I think would be an easy thing to get back to you. I'm not sure how often they're sharing data, but I know that they're definitely collecting it because they have programmatic requirements, so.

And that would be helpful to see. Mr. Chair, can I continue?

Yes, you can continue, Council.

Okay, thank you. And on the equity partnership, the digital equity partnership program. Yes, sir. The city identifies and reaches the residents how?

Um, well, we, we have a decent amount of inbound, uh, folks who reach out to us because we've been doing this work since, um, I believe the Biden administration program was called the affordable connectivity program. So we were able to kind of get ourselves out there in addition to kind of being a central home where, where folks know that they can call if they're having trouble with their cable provider, we, we kind of layered that internet aspect into it during the ACP program. Peter led a lot of that work to get folks. I believe that we had about 50,000 residents that were signed up for that program. So all of those folks see us as a resource for this type of thing. But from the standpoint of where we're doing a lot of the other work, including the AI literacy and cybersecurity workshops, that's through nonprofit partners. So we have a group of individual organizations who have worked with us in the past on this type of stuff. And we've been successful in asking them to you know survey their their constituents to gather you know what are what are folks most interested in learning about and at this point we would have been able to already deliver six workshops uh all the way south boston hyde park roxbury mattapan chinatown and alston and we're able to do it at this point with um both haitian creole and mandarin support in addition to spanish as well So that's mostly going through the community organization that are doing great work in the community and adding this digital literacy aspect to how they're serving their constituents.

How do you measure success rate? Right now? Or how do you measure whether this funding is actually improving their digital access?

So we have, we've done, And we're about to launch another round of this, and would love both you and the chair's support with doing outreach to the constituents. But we've done a digital equity survey. The last one was done in 2024 to measure outcomes for folks. It's very similar to how you think about it, Folks who are who are low-income who are formerly incarcerated who are non-english? Speaking as their primary language are the same folks that are having a lot of these problems So that's kind of how we think about reaching out to the service organizations that are already helping those type of folks and to make sure that they're able to Have a direct line and back into the city if that's their preference and so the ones that Don't have a direct line How do they get connected? through the non-profits that are already delivering services to them. Do you measure that at all?

Do we measure the success of the non-profits that they're connecting with?

Yeah, actually, Peter, we have a nice set of data that we'd be happy to share with you that kind of focuses on that. It kind of breaks it out by the types of folks that people serve, and then also their geographic location within the city where the organization is. So we have a decent amount of data. I think you might have literally missed that by a couple of seconds.

Peter, can you just talk about that a little bit?

Definitely, yeah. So from the last round of the Digital Equity Fund, our partner organizations served about just over 1,100,000 residents in total. We were able to distribute just under 3,000 devices to residents free of charge. Folks, you know, about just under 10,000 residents in total received a wide range of digital literacy training, so basic, intermediate, advanced level technology skills. Each organization's held workshops. We kind of gave them the creative freedom carry out their trainings and their work, how they saw fit, and really met the residents where they were, both literally and figuratively. And so happy to provide this more in-depth overview of this data afterwards, but yeah.

Just one final question. On those 43 HVAC systems, how did you decide who they went to Can you tell us where they went to?

I believe that's coming up as a docket later that, Councillor, did you want that question to be answered at this point?

Yeah, I know what we can do. Why don't you continue with just read the highlights of the remaining dockets into the record and then we'll continue, then we'll ask questions again. So instead of doing one docket at a time, why don't you just read them

OK.

The remaining rest. Mr. Chair, that was my last question. OK. OK. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, council. Thank you.

Yep. So, hi everyone. My name is Trish Cafferty. I'm the deputy chief of operations for the city of Boston but I sit within the mayor's office. So, I'm here today to talk about the third docket which is the 43 HVAC units that we've requested approval by an accept and expend order. So, these units are coming from the FWC 2026 USA Incorporated. We actually had a deadline to pick them up. So we already have them in our possession. We have not yet determined where they will go because we need the accept and expend approved first. So we have only inventoried them at this point. But there are three different sizes. They are one ton, one and a half ton, and two ton. And so each one has a different size space that they're suitable for. They are gently used. So they come to us in the condition that they are. And they must be used for a municipal purpose. But to your point, Councillor Culpepper, there are a range of municipal purposes that we can put them to, such as schools, police stations, BCYF centers. And so that is what we intend to do with them.

And so you haven't made the decision about where they go yet?

We have not made the determination. We have reached out to all of the facility directors in the city that represent all of the departments that manage property. BPS was one of the first groups that we reached out to. And so as soon as we have approval to use them, we will begin asking departments, beginning with BPS, what do you have need for? And then we will begin distributing them.

Great. I'd like to make a pitch for BPS and those schools that are not air-conditioned. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And was there one final? That was the final docket. Okay, we're also joined by City Council President Braden. Thank you, Councillor, for joining us. Councillor Braden, I was going to give each City Councillor six minutes to ask questions, but then we can do another round as well. But you could ask your questions for all of the dockets, and then, again, We'll have further time to ask at another round. Councillor Brayden, you have the floor.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Good morning, everyone. We're always delighted to get donations in kind and in cash to help us with these, especially HVAC is a big, big need for our city. One question I had, we noticed when we had the city, the BPS budget this past year that there was an increase in our energy costs. I think given the, are we, I suppose if you get a gift, you don't look the gift horse in the mouth, as they say. How energy efficient are these HVAC units?

That's a great question. They are on the newer side. So we expect that they would be better in better condition and more energy efficient than a lot of existing systems that we have that are at the end of their useful life that we could replace. But that being said, we didn't select them and they didn't go through our public facilities department for their specifications. So they are the model is, or the make is Friedrich, and so we would definitely look at making sure that we're not replacing something that's more energy efficient with something that is less. So we're always looking to improve with the equipment.

Okay, that's good. And to, I know you mentioned that we don't, we haven't had an accept and expend yet, so you haven't, you're just inventorying these units, we're not, we don't necessarily know where they're going to land at this point.

yes so we submitted the expect the accept and expend to city council in july it was referred to this hearing or this committee and so we just needed approved by city council in order to actually be able to use the units very good and um when we put in hedge fund units do they stay in

Like the window units? Are we talking about window units?

These are actually mini splits. Oh, mini splits? Yes. So it's 43 mini splits of three different sizes. So they are installed usually very high on a wall. And there is both an interior unit, and then there is also a corresponding exterior component to it. And so the donation includes both for each of the 43. OK. That's a different scenario then.

That's good. Do we have any sense of what the energy demand on the mini-splits are? Like I haven't got mini-splits at my home, so I don't know. How energy efficient are they? I know they're being greatly lauded for their energy efficiency.

They are significantly more energy efficient than often, say, a window unit. I don't know the exact specifications for these units. I can find out if that is helpful. But again, they are considered much more energy efficient than many other systems that we could deploy.

MS. Is there a mini-split that cool us in the summer? Are you going to use them for heating in the winter? MS.

They can be, yes.

MS. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all I had.

MR. Thank you, Council President. I'll also take six minutes as well. Again, thank you to the administration panel for being here, for the important work that you're doing. I think it was Brian that mentioned at the beginning, or maybe Peter, but you mentioned one of the grants is benefiting older adults, residents in public housing, veterans, returning citizens. demographics I strongly support. I have my whole life. Did you mention English language learners?

They are included, yes.

Okay, okay. What other group might be part of that? Did I miss any?

Youth, I guess new immigrants in general. Okay. List of lower income populations.

Okay.

We'd be happy to share. We have some pretty good data from 2024, like we mentioned. A lot of this problem does end up concentrated in the housing authority, and that's why we're also focused on and looking forward to an opportunity to build additional connectivity out to those locations as well, so a longer-term fix for that problem.

Okay, just two follow-up questions. Do you find that you have less digital access in public housing because of any infrastructure related issues.

Absolutely, that is Again, it's a it's a longer-term Problem, but it is something that we're facing right now actually with it something that I believe is just entering the docket right now it's a project to expand connectivity to two of the BHA campuses and they do have some remediation older building issues that need to be completed in order to move those in so you you see a lot of the Traditional service providers not being willing to go that extra mile to do those types of you know deal with these older buildings and Make that work.

And so that's why the city's kind of stepping up and saying we can help with this piece of the puzzle So there was a group I work with it's a Castle Square tenants organization And they do some outstanding work there in the south end. It's almost predominantly a residence of color but they provide training and access on digital equity. My question is what type of support would you provide organizations like that? Is it physical like computers or do you make improvements to the infrastructure or do you provide laptops or computers?

So we kind of give the creative freedom to the actual organizations based on what their exact needs are. We've had organizations who have just wanted devices that are iPads or specific Chromebooks, laptops that are for whatever they're going to be using. We have organizations who have requested hotspots so that they can go to those residents who might not have in-home internet access and rely on mobile data, if that. But it's really kind of up to them. We set up some parameters. We look for organizations that are When it comes to digital navigation work, so one-on-one tech help, we have certain digital literacy standards that we provide to these organizations. We also provide flyers that contain all of the low-cost internet options that are $30 or less that are available to residents in Boston, as well as flyers with devices that are refurbished or low-cost that residents can access as well. And these are available in 12 total languages. We send this out to not only our Digital Equity Fund community-based partners, but we partner with other community-facing city departments. We're a small but mighty team, but our family is very big, and so we try to get information out to anyone that is in our network, however we possibly can, whether it be newsletters, emails, flyers, in-person meetings, presentations, the whole nine yards. But yeah, just to kind of wrap up as it pertains to the original question, when we review the proposals that are submitted to us within the application period, You know, we have an idea of what we're looking for based on, you know, previous digital equity fund rounds and also what we're hoping to, you know, achieve in the future. And based on, you know, including like what Brian mentioned, our 2024 digital equity survey that we conducted. And, you know, there's a high need for, folks to adopt internet. We'll put an emphasis there, but it's really kind of the balls in the court of the organizations that we partner with.

And in addition to that, we're more recently starting to complete AI literacy workshops with the different community organizations. And we'd be happy if you wanted to connect us with the folks in Castle Square, we'd be happy to schedule at least an intro meeting to see if it's a good fit for what they're trying to do with their residents.

Yeah, that's a great recommendation. Thank you. I'd like to take you up on that. My final question, I only have 12 seconds, and we'll do another round. One of the issues that I've worked on for years, I was a probation officer at Superior Court, is... I know you mentioned returning citizens coming out of the Suffolk County Jail.

what are you providing returning citizens as it relates to digital equity now with training education or how are you assisting them yep i think that peter touched on it a little bit uh during his remarks we we've been running since january 2025 uh office hours every monday or every other monday uh over at the orc location so we're kind of there just as a general tech support tech help that's ranged all the way from like getting Gmail set up for the individual to actually helping them to manage Google Maps because it's again if you can imagine if you've been in for a while and you and you came out into this new world and everyone's navigating by smartphone and we've totally have MapQuest anymore so that's been one of the more interesting ones that came up during these discussions we kind of took over as tech goes home what was rolling their operations down they had a made commitments to individuals who were in Suffolk County for that if they completed the training, they would get a device and a hotspot. So that's something that we're currently exploring how to make sure that those promises are maintained and that the constituents that we have are receiving the devices when they are returning home.

Okay. I have other questions, but I'm going to do another round. I'm going to start with Councillor Culpepper. I'm going to give another six minutes again. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You have the floor, Councillor Culpepper.

I just had a couple of questions about the AI literacy and how widespread is the training you're doing? Are you doing it in the Boston public schools or you're connecting with residents on AI literacy?

Yeah, absolutely. So there's a whole set. I won't speak to the BPSAI program. That's something I'm familiar with, but I'm not an expert and don't know the data.

But you're not working with it?

I'm not. No, I'm not. Yeah, on a day-to-day basis. That's being spun up separately. From our standpoint, like I believe I mentioned to Councillor Flynn's question, we determined that one of the best ways that we could help was taking some of the expertise that we had in-house and working with community organizations to organize the trainings. where we basically will go out and we'll say, we'll bring the trainer, we'll bring the curriculum, we'll bring devices if needed for the delivery of the curriculum. And then it's for the organization to recruit the constituents for their organization. and to find space for the training. So at this point, we've been able to do six workshops in this format with over 70 people attending. And we're getting pretty good positive response scores where between 85% and 95% of folks are saying that they've learned something new and they would be interested to share this with one of their friends or relatives to participate in this type of training. Happy to answer any other questions, but that's kind of the early stage. We're trying to increase our numbers for those courses. So as I just offered to Councilor Flynn, if there is a community organization that you work closely with that would be interested in this type of thing, we're about to reopen and start asking folks for another round of training. We can do it English and Spanish, Haitian Creole and Mandarin support, sometimes Folks prefer to either have somebody from the city helping on that side, but it's also been pretty successful. We've done one where the translator was from the organization. So they're someone that the folks feel very comfortable with, and maybe they're like caseworker or manager, and they're doing the translation. So it makes it a little bit more conversational for them and more effective. I don't know if you had any other thoughts there.

Yep, and when we reach out to advertise these programs, it's right on boston.gov, but we send it to our digital equity coalition of organizations who are located all across the city or who work with folks in Boston. So it goes out to at least 50 to 100 organizations and folks who work at those organizations as well. trying to cover all of the bases that we possibly can. And also, like I said, utilize other community-facing city departments as well, whether it be city councilors or mayor's office of immigrant advancement, veteran services, et cetera, et cetera.

Do you deal with all those offices? Yep. The AI training? And how in-depth do you go? Is it like an AI 101?

Yes. It's AI 101, and then we can have a focus attached to the tail end of it that is either for specifically a focus on scams and scam prevention. Some folks really want to learn about the impact it's going to have on the workforce in ways that they can, you know, specific skills that they can learn. Or again, we're mostly just putting them in the right direction at that point. That's a 60 to 90 minute workshop, but we're able to do a strong 101 that we're well-versed in, and then a little bit of whatever flavor the community organization is asking for specifically. And a lot of it has been around the scam prevention stuff specifically.

I did want to ask about how widespread that is for the residents. How do you mean? The AI training. How widespread across the city is it?

Right now, we've trained 70 folks, a little bit over 70 folks, and are expected, the ones that we currently have scheduled would be about 450 or so. Again, like we mentioned, we're going to try to expand this a little bit. We have funding for these programs until the end of December, so we think that we can maybe get above 500 at this point, but I'm not sure how much further we can take it and if I can commit it into that.

One thing I did want to also add is this past summer we did something a little different. We've been able to host a handful of Digital Equity Summer Fellows and interns and This summer we had them located at different BCYF sites around the city some some of the fellows were going to two sites each week and And so at a certain point once they felt comfortable with you know All the youth that were coming in or if there were adult programs that were there they offered our fellows offered their own courses and and led trainings on and not just things about AI or AI basics, but also graphic design, coding for youth who are interested in coding, and things of that nature. So we try to be in more places than just City Hall and stuff like that. So we try to cast a wide net whenever we go out and deliver these trainings or offer any services that we provide.

And how much of the BHA residents are you training? Do you go directly to the BHA and offer training to all of the residents or do you give training mostly to the volunteers that really want it?

I would say it's definitely opt-in. We don't force this type of training on anybody. With the BHA, we have a great partnership with Sahar Lawrence over there, who is the digital equity, who has a similar role to the one that Peter holds here in City Hall, who is organizing those types of trainings. But we can get you some more data back if that's a helpful aspect of the conversation.

And what's great is an example like the West Broadway Task Force is has been leading the charge for their respective community. And so we have a lot of buy-in from the task force at the actual housing authority communities. And so they're doing a good job at spreading the word to residents there and stuff like that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Culpepper. Council President, you have six minutes.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I know that during COVID, it seems like years ago now, it is years ago, six years, we identified huge gaps in digital access. Are we on top of all of that? Are there still places and spaces where we still find that folks do not have good digital access?

I think it's an ongoing effort, to be perfectly honest with you. I think that a lot of the solutions that came about during the pandemic were solutions that were great temporary and then kind of fall by the wayside. And again, I would say that it's become even more substantial with the boom in AI and the idea that some of the things that we were trying to do even at that point, which is making sure that folks are online safely. That's one of the core aspects of digital equity is that we're not just handing you a device and the internet. We're trying to make sure that those two things end up with positive outcomes instead of some of the negative externalities that you can often see develop. From our standpoint, we are still seeing need in the community. It's something where it's also that there are new folks coming into Boston every day. So that's definitely a group that we see as a group that we want to make sure that we're focusing on from a standpoint of the bigger, larger pushes that we're hoping to move. Actually, I think it just got put into the docket today is a program that the state had funded for providing connectivity to the BHA, free, fast connectivity to folks. So that'll kind of shift from, not to say Band-Aid, where we are giving folks one-year subscriptions to hotspots in a lot of the programs that we're doing right now, but that's something that can be long and sustainable and actually make a really big impact on folks' lives when it's tied with the training as well, so.

And are we working with, I know we're working with BHA, you mentioned BCYF, are we working with our libraries as well? Like, of course.

Absolutely. Yeah, that was, so this, not this past summer, the previous summer, we had our interns and fellows at different libraries across the city as well doing digital navigation work, so, Anyone who came in who had any tech questions, our interns were able to help them right there on the spot. If they needed a laptop, we were able to apply for a free refurbished laptop from one of our community partners. If they needed help with beefing up their resume, same type of thing. We're covering everything we possibly can.

And we were able to, in the last round of the Digital Equity Fund, to provide some funding to BPL to expand their long-term lending programs. That's the device plus hotspot for a longer period of time for each individual. And so we were thankful that they reached out and just kind of had a small funding gap for how they were funding that program. They had a donation from Comcast, but it wasn't quite going to cover the full freight of those. So we were able to step in and use some of the funding we were allocated by the state to get that program increased and reduce the wait times are one of the big things with that long-term lending program.

And the technology is changing really fast. Yes. It's very hard to keep up with all the AI stuff. In terms of just our vulnerability of our communities across, are there particular concerns that you're sort of setting yourselves up to try and address in the longer term?

Yeah, the biggest, I would say the biggest two are affordability and then safety are the two pieces of the puzzle. So from a safety standpoint, we are trying to focus our AI literacy work specifically on the scam prevention helping make sure that folks are going to know what's coming up. I know that folks have heard a lot about, you know, robo calls that have fake voices on them. And so kind of that discernment aspect of it is something that we're really working hard on. And then affordable connectivity is the other piece of the puzzle. So that's where we're really trying to focus and partner with the BHA to provide that free internet to those folks.

Okay, very good. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Council President. I'll also take six minutes. My request is, and I'm glad you're doing some training and outreach in Mandarin. Many of my constituents in Chinatown speak Cantonese. Are we able to do anything in Cantonese? Especially the elderly people in Chinatown, they specifically speak Cantonese many of the young people that are arriving into into Boston from China speak Mandarin, but my primary focus is on on this on our seniors in Chinatown The leather district we have a large Chinese community Bay Village as well But what do you think about the like the Cantonese language?

Yep, so I can actually I'll take that one. So I Maybe about a year ago, one of our Digital Equity Fund partners is the Asian American Civic Association, a great partner of ours. When we went out and they asked us to lead just a basic training on what is AI, how is this going to affect daily life, stuff like that. And while we gave the presentation in English, they had real-time translators with headsets that were delivering it, speaking Mandarin, Cantonese. So if we can't provide the direct translations, we'll ask the community organization if they can do that or we'll connect with our language and community, language and communication access office here at the city to get someone who can.

Okay. Can we ensure that we do some more training in Chinatown? I do think it's important to say obviously it's a community primarily of immigrants and people of color, but is that something we could prioritize? 100%. Okay. Then my other question is, so for an elderly person that may not speak English and is new to learning about access to the computer or digital equity, are they easily or more susceptible to be a victim of a scam because people might take their vulnerabilities and use it for various reasons, financial. But when you're brand new to, when you have limited computer skills and then someone comes at you with some type of scam, how do you ensure if you're an elderly person that you're fully aware of what's going on?

One thing that we like, our approach to this work is always, I like to describe it as the human side of technology. And so what I mean by that, when we go out, we try to really meet folks where they are, whether conversing in English or Spanish, before we even sit down and get to work on whatever they want to work on. we just get to know them, get to know the residents, you know, let them know that, hey, we're also a fellow Bostonian, you know, how's your day going and stuff like that and build a nice rapport with them and go from there and kind of explain any tricky concepts in ways that are easy to understand for them and really meet them where they are and try to gauge what they know, what they don't know, what they might be fearing, and then provide resources that they can then use and hold on to, you know, in the event that they do come across a scam or something that looks fishy, how to navigate that situation.

Is there any situation where a government agency or a bank would ask someone for their social security number or routing number, banking information, over the telephone? Is there any circumstance where that could happen?

Not that I'm aware of.

Not that you're aware of? OK. no one would ever ask, a government agency would never ask someone for their social security or banking information over the telephone. So my next question is, can we try to do a little bit more public awareness, especially in languages other than English, that kind of reinforces that? Is that something you guys are working at?

Absolutely. And I would say that's core to, like, And again, it doesn't a specific AI topic, but that is the exact kind of thing that we're bringing up in the AI literacy scam prevention aspect of some of this work is that those basic original cybersecurity tenants are exactly what you're describing there. So that is something that we're making sure that we reiterate it. And again, the new development is that someone could be asking you for that with a very convincing sounding voice or try to make it sound like you know, one of your grandkids or something along those lines. So really just trying to make sure that folks know that this technology is out there and that it is being used by folks who are taking advantage of other folks and that they're, not to say inoculated by it, but at least they're well aware and they see the scale at which it's possible and they're able to then have that thought in their head, you know, in addition to those kind of basic tenets that you're describing of, we wouldn't ask you for personal information like that over the phone, so.

If you take it a step forward, even a loved one or a family member, you should never give your private information to a family member or a loved one. Is that right?

I would say that's one of the— Over the phone. Yeah, it's one of the safety—again, because you don't really know if that's the person who you're talking to, basically.

Okay. So that was my point was, you know, when— if someone has access, digital access, and they're fairly new to it, you know, is making sure that they know that those types of scams from a loved one are out there. Do they know that those scams exist, or are we still in the process of trying to educate them about it?

So one thing that has been great, so every December when AT&T comes in, to City Hall to partner with Age Strong for the holiday calls event that goes on around here. Yeah, right out front there. Right out front, yeah. Over the past couple years, some folks from AT&T have led trainings in both, I think, English and Spanish and maybe another language as well. But on those very topics, you know, just how to, you know, whether it comes to setting up passwords or, you know, what does the difference between an open Wi-Fi network and a private network and the importance of, know keeping your password safe and you know not to give personal information over the phone to folks that you're you don't know uh things like that so um if we're not doing it directly we have partners in the field who who can definitely do it as well okay my my final question is um if you could follow up with me i know you mentioned every other monday you do some support to returning citizens could you

Email me the next couple schedules that you're going to have. I'd love to come by and see it if that's OK. Definitely.

Yeah. So I think today, this afternoon, but happy to is one. So they're every other Monday, 2 to 5 PM at 30 Dimmock Street. OK. So I'm happy to follow up with an email with the info.

It's tied in with a lot of the other social service providers are there at that same time so we're just kind of one of the tools in the toolkit for folks and we're making sure that they have that that opportunity to have a discussion with somebody again if it's trying to fix their Gmail or Trying to get logged into something or learn about that.

So I Know this might not necessarily be digital access or digital equity But when I was a probation officer one of the biggest challenges someone had coming out of jail or prison is a simple thing like getting your birth certificate. Maybe you had to go down to City Hall, but maybe not from here, and you had to go to another city or state even. But how would that impact digital access, digital equity? Is there a way that returning citizens are able to access forms, basic forms such as that, through this program?

Definitely. And I know we could partner with other city departments that do that specific work. I believe there have been events where representatives from maybe the registry have gone out to different parts of the city to print out birth certificates and stuff like that. I'd be looking to see how we could implement this into our program.

And I think that you're right that it's not necessarily a digital thing. I know that there have been improvements made to the digital side of that that have made it more accessible. But I'm certain that the ORC programs that are already in existence are one of those aspects is the exact thing you're mentioning, that people struggle with records and recovering the records that they need to move on with their lives. And that's something that I know that ORC is helping with.

Excellent. Well, I'm about to conclude the meeting, but did you want to offer any closing statement before we do that? And just want to let you know that I hope to bring this to the floor on Wednesday for a formal vote. That is my plan. I'll have to do a little bit of research and making sure I write it up the proper way. But do you want to provide any closing statement before I adjourn? I'll go for sure.

Yeah.

In terms of the accept and expend for the HVAC units, I would just thank you for asking great questions today, but also the shoulder seasons like this fall is a great time to do HVAC work. So if we just miss, if we aren't able to use them this fall, we will have to wait till the spring to likely install. So yeah, the timeliness of a Wednesday vote would be perfect.

Excellent. I just want to thank you for the, incredible questions that we received in this hearing. I know that everyone that joined, I think, has gotten a lot out of it at this point. It was bugging me when you asked the question of the Cantonese, because I was like, oh, we did something specific. So I found the article from 2025 last year that was in the Housing Authority. So they did a Cantonese-specific training in the Housing Authority. So We're excited to do more of that and excited to move and get this funding programmed. And then in addition to that, very excited if you'd be interested to talk more about the upcoming, the additional accept and expend that is going to be for the Housing Authority's internet program that we're excited to. move forward on as well. That's a little bit time-sensitive, similar to the ones that we're talking about today, but we weren't able to get it filed in today's docket, so would be happy to take that up with you at your convenience.

Oh, was there, were you saying that there was another docket that's going to be on the agenda Wednesday that's similar to this? Yeah, exactly. Okay. Can you tell me about it, and maybe I can suspend and pass that one. I don't think we necessarily have to have a separate hearing on it, but it wouldn't be formally in the record in terms of having a specific docket, that specific docket spoken to today, but at least I'm aware of what it does, and I can relay to my colleagues that You know, we had preliminary conversations about it. But do you want to take a few minutes to explain it?

Yeah, I could be short with it, and then if you had any follow-up questions. But the state has had a program running for a while that we've been jumping through a lot of bureaucratic hoops to get authorized to use in the effective way that we're hoping to use it this year. upcoming short time period here. The program will fund free service for housing residents in West Broadway and Archdale. And we're very thankful for the support of some of our Providers as well for for this ability to make this happen It'll be a great benefit to the community and it's from our standpoint something that we think of as a long-term solution to the least the affordable connectivity aspect of it and If you're familiar with a lot of the folks in BHA are making like 20 grand a year, somewhere in that range. And if you can think about, I don't know what you pay for Comcast or Verizon, but it's a good chunk of what your monthly income would end up being if you think about it that way. So we've been excited to work on a number of programs with the BHA, but we really think that this is the one that is going to be a long-term solution and be able to provide folks with the connectivity they need And then we can focus on the training aspects and making sure that they have the devices they need to Operate in daily life. So we're really excited about it We'll be happy to talk further or you know, take it offline discuss your convenience in how much is that award for 1.3 million So our part of that is that's most of the equipment and the Professional services that would go toward creating the network on the BHA side is the installation. So we're very happy to Be partnering with a couple different organizations to get this up and running and it's really exciting project so it's it's uh west broadway bha ox steel was there another one you mentioned just just those two right now we're really hoping that we can get another one one more property in um but that is something that the state has to kind of give us a final sign off on so that's not in the in the docket only the 1.3 that covers the first two properties and we're really excited to start with west broadway because it's an area that i've become really familiar with over the last couple years you know the schools right now it's uh It's almost a perfect project for something like this. And we're excited to move forward and just a little bit struggling with the tight timelines on these kind of things.

They have a strong, as you probably know, Latino community that's very engaged there. They're called the South Boston and Accion. But also, you're right, the West Broadway Task Force does provide critical leadership on so many issues, including food access. certainly digital equity access, social services. Just tell me a little bit about OCHDEAL.

So that was one that was identified through this larger process. It had to hit half a dozen criteria from the state to be provided. It is going to be for double-checking, 285 units over six buildings. So we're really thrilled to get that one rolling. And it's a very exciting project. I think that the task force there or the community organization there is also engaged. And I describe West Broadway maybe as the best partner for this, but Archetail not too far behind, so.

Okay. And then going Going further, you're probably able to support other developments as well. Is that accurate?

That's the hope is to be able to get with this exact funding source at least one more through. But once we've proven out the model that we'd like to, again, come in the regular course of business and talk about this with city council and our leadership, our budget office, and see where we could do more of this once we've fully deployed it and got this one up and running.

And then my final question, you may have mentioned it. Tell me where this $1.3 million came from?

This is for, where it came from is the state, MBI. Okay. The same source, and that's why we were trying to get them all together, because this is the same source that the funding that Peter was talking you through on the partnerships grant. They're all from the same entity at the state that rolls up into Mass Tech. Okay. They're all quasi-organizations, but they're the ones that have the funding for this kind of work.

Okay. Would residents in Ocsteel and in West Brawley, but would they receive a laptop, would they receive a computer, or would it just be more of the infrastructure that would provide them with digital equity?

My impression is that the West Broadway part of this has been, like devices for folks in West Broadway has for the most part already been funded by BHA. I'd have to check about the Archdale ones, but we do have a little bit of funding that we could allocate toward that, and we'll make sure that folks who need a device are able to come on.

When you upgrade systems in public housing, do you work with contractors that, have to do the physical infrastructure improvements, the wiring into homes, into buildings? Do you have to work? Do you work with electricians? Do you work with You do, okay. How is that, how does, generally how does that process work?

So in this version of the process because of the way the program was set up by the state, that work is, was bid recently and it's with MAPC who do a lot of the regional planning work for the community, was bid with their support by the BHA and we received bids back and that'll be working its way through the, system in the next couple of weeks here.

Okay.

Publicly bid was, sorry, the answer to your question was a publicly bid process.

Okay. So it is my plan to bring the dockets that were on today's agenda forward on Wednesday. I also want to bring the $1.3 million that's coming onto the agenda on Wednesday to do a suspend and pass on that. Although it's up to my colleagues, they might ask for a hearing. I'm not sure, but that is their right to ask for a hearing. But I'm going to relay to them that I had an important discussion with your team, and I am confident that I can go forward on the 1.3 so we can get this out the door. Thank you. So, oh. Is there anyone here that would like to provide public testimony before we end? I don't believe we have any public testimony as well from Zoom. So this hearing on Dockett's, so this hearing on Dockett's, 1085 and 1395, 1397 a hearing regarding various city service related grants and gifts is adjourned I want to say thank you before I bang the gavel I do want to say thank you to Ryan for helping me at City Council central staff and Ethan who's in the back they are helping us with the digital cameras so I want to say thank you to both of them this meeting is adjourned

Thank you.