Remarks by Ben Wheeler
63 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 3
Aye. Thank you, Mr. President. In the interests of clarity about any item that we are not going to send to committee for more deliberation, I'd love to just hear a tiny bit more about the timeliness of this item. Why is it important to do this tonight?
Thank you, Mr. President. I am satisfied to approve this item.
Thank you, Mr. President. There is so much that I agree with in this resolution. This is indeed a regional issue for the reasons this resolution's text eloquently explains. It is vital that we take into account the predictions of climate change models. What I can't currently agree with, with the understandings that I have today, is this resolution's call for higher levels of control than the current plan provides to a level of virtual elimination of combined sewer overflows. I want to acknowledge how much larger this system is and how much larger these systemic questions are than the little…
I would be happy with either of those. Sorry? I would be happy with either of those suggestions.
I would defer to the resolution sponsors on their preference of those two.
Councilor Wheeler. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm so excited to hear about that building of internal capacity for sidewalk and street work. And I'm hoping that means that we're going to be able to especially to address more miles per year of sidewalk. I know there's everyone knows there's far too many parts of sidewalk that are impassable for anyone with mobility issues or disabilities. I also just want to echo my colleague from Word3's appreciation of this risk and consequence framing. I really appreciate how this kind of shows your work. And this is something where, you know, instead of just…
Mr. President, I'm sorry. I did have some brief comments. Show me your hand when I look around. Try to be brief. Thank you. I want to acknowledge my co-sponsors. Councilor Link has shepherded this with a lot of feedback from a lot of folks, including city staff. Council link commented this week that this is at a point where we acknowledge it's not perfect but it is in good enough shape to open it to the close reads that we are eager to hear from members of the administration and members of the public the rest of the council and advocacy groups briefly the lines we're trying to draw here are…
Just briefly mister president... This is a document there's no specific timely reason I'm sharing it now... It's one that I got earlier this year from... This Boston office... In response to a public records request the reason I had requested it was because there were grants that were coming before the finance committee that referred to... Requirements in this document but we didn't have the document We were having to agree to terms that we didn't actually have in front of us. I was able to get this very easily and I'm sharing it with the public now so everyone can see what these agreements…
that doesn't strike me as necessary. Not necessary.
If this is an idea that makes sense to you, Mr. President, let's do it.
The Finance Committee met on Tuesday, October 20th, 2026 via remote participation with the help of Clerk Delaney Fisher-Cassiol and four of our five members present due to a known scheduled conflict. We took up an eight-item agenda. We recommended appropriating $100,000 from the city's Racial and Social Justice Fund for the 2026 community grant cycle. This money is being used for 23 different small grants that represent a wide spectrum of ideas related to racial and social justice, many of them projects primarily driven by volunteer work, where our community receives real benefit from…
Mayor, thank you for the questions from my colleague.
Thank you, Mr. President. I believe this was an item that the administration had expressed an interest in having approved tonight, and I'm seeing IG-8. No? Not 7.6? Okay. Sorry, that was a point of confusion. In that case, I move to waive the readings of items 7.6, 7.9 through 7.12, and 7.14, and refer these to the Finance Committee.
Yes, and Mr. President, oh sorry, I suppose this has to be read. Yeah, let's read that one in, please. Pardon my interruption.
Mr. President, I move to approve this item now because of its relatively small size, its usefulness for our senior population, and its evocative patriotic number.
All right, Council Hart moves to weigh the readings of those items and approve, seeing no... Mr. President, I just wanted to comment on the 10.3 MAMAS free store event on November 14th. That's an amazing event. We should all spread the word.
Sorry, didn't go on. I want to recognize first that the climate that we're in is infuriating, deeply painful, and deeply unjust. No one should have to live in fear. And in all the complexities of our normal criminal justice system, people should not bear the added burden of being found not guilty and released, or released after serving their assigned time, just to additionally face arrest and possible deportation by the government. This year, there was work at the State House on passing the Protect Act, and I'm deeply grateful for the Protect Act and its protections, however partial, and…
Thank you, Mr. President. Just very briefly, I just wanted to appreciate this work, to appreciate the coming together in all the legal negotiations of all the different parties involved in order to enable arts, because that's ultimately what we're trying to do here. And I hope that both in this work this year and in our work going forward, we really are holding on tightly to this idea that arts are not made to fit in legal contracts. And we have a system that requires them. We need to do everything by the book. But as much as possible, if we can build approaches that welcome and support the…
Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to say I think everyone can hear loud and clear the passion for this work that came through from our legislative analyst. And I just want to say I very much appreciate this precise, pedantic passion.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. A rule of thumb I have heard from people who know a lot more about trees than I do is that tree roots are at least two times as wide as the tree branch canopy. And so that means that excavation 20, 30 more feet away from a tree can cut into roots and risk killing it. And so, you know, along with the real needs that we have for housing to be built we really need sensible tree policies like this to work with development to protect our trees especially the grand old trees which as my colleague mentioned can be much older than anyone in this room thank you all…
Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to co-sponsor this item. We apply for this grant every year, as my colleagues have mentioned, and as they have also mentioned, there's been real confusion and inconsistency in the past about what it is asking our city to do and what we want our city to do in response to a grant like this. there in 2024 I've seen some back and forth between the police department and the pedestrian transit Advisory Committee trying to get clarification and there have been at least some understandings in the course of this grant over the years that in the hours that are…
Thank you, Mr. President. So it's no secret that lots of small-scale internal carpentry and repairs in homes in the city are done under the table. So I'm talking about replacing baseboard molding, hanging a new door that requires sanding and cutting the doorway, installing a new bathroom cabinet. But officially, you are supposed to have a building permit for all these things. I know someone who hired a carpenter for a few hours for a small project where the city came by and shut down the work because he did not have a permit. So it's a real requirement. But if you go and try to do this the…
Mr. President, would it make sense to refer it to licenses and permits to follow up?
I just wanted to point out it would not necessarily need to be an appearance soon. I understand that there's going to be work on this for some months. It would be nice to get an update at some point that makes sense for the administration along the way.
Thank you, Mr. President. The Finance Committee met on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, via remote participation, with four members present at the start and all five by the end, and with the help of Assistant City Clerk Madeline Letellier. We took up a nine-item agenda. We approved a prior year invoice of approximately $10,000 for DeNovo, which provides housing related legal services, primarily to immigrant residents through the Office of Housing Stability. We also approved two transfers of leftover community Preservation Act debt service money back into reserves, approximately $150,000 for…