Weekly Transcript Round-Up: May 17, 2024
Shotspotter Dispute in Council & DC; Public Health talks new offices, previews Long Island & Racial Equity updates; Councilor Durkan sends another resolution to committee at busy Council meeting
This week’s budget hearings and regular Council meeting featured a lot of action, with MA’s federal elected officials getting involved in the action.
The Boston Police Department’s budget hearings took up both slots on Monday, and while Councilors asked about a range of issues, the press coverage focused on one issue: Shotspotter. The technology has come under scrutiny by the ACLU, and after the Council hearing MA’s two U.S. Senators joined in the criticism.
The Boston Public Health Commission’s budget hearings took up both slots on Tuesday, and featured discussion of a new office focused on violence, previewed forthcoming updates on Long Island and a Racial Equity plan, and saw a pitch from one Council for more resources for participatory budgeting .
At Wednesday’s regular Council meeting there was discussion of a new vandalism fund, the short comings of the City’s short-term rental ordinance, and Councilor Durkan forced another resolution to committee - the second time she has done so this term.
This week also saw part of a major lawsuit that started under the Walsh administration get settled. Here is what Gayla Cawley at the Boston Herald wrote:
A six-year-old sexual harassment lawsuit against the city’s former health chief Felix G. Arroyo was dismissed after the City of Boston reached a last-minute settlement with the woman who filed the complaint, to avoid a trial.
Read more about the settlement in coverage from WBUR and in a column from the Globe’s Adrian Walker.
This settlement does not end the legal wrangling. Arroyo is not dropping his defamation counterclaim against Hilani Morales and the court date for that matter was set for June 10, 2025. If that date holds, this trail would be taking place in the middle of Boston’s campaign season.
SIGN UP FOR NEXT WEEK’S BUDGET PREVIEW
With $1.3B in capital spending planned over the next 5 years, Boston Public School leadership is presenting a more detailed long-term facilities plan to the School Committee on Wednesday night and to the Council on Thursday morning. During the first week of budget hearings Council President Ruthzee Louijeune set the stage for those hearings, saying: “I will attribute a good portion of those inefficiencies to rightsizing Boston Public Schools and those are conversations that we're having now in terms of the mergers that need to happen.”
Sign up to see whether BPS meets the Council President’s demand for right-sizing, mergers, and addressing inefficiencies.
READ THE SHOTSPOTTER TESTIMONY - CONTRACT, EFFICACY DISCUSSED IN COUNCIL MEETING AND BY U.S. SENATORS & MC
Monday’s budget hearing for the Boston Police Department started on a different note than the previous hearings, with public testimony being heard before the administration officials began their presentation. The testimony of Kade Crockford from American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts attracted the most attention and set the agenda for this week’s press coverage of the hearing with her focus on ShotSpotter. Here is part of her testimony - Crockford is Speaker 3 and starts her testimony at the 12:53 mark of the transcript:
And I just wanna highlight one example using one technology that has been in the news lately, which is ShotSpotter. As some of you may know, the ACLU put out a report a few weeks ago based on documents that we obtained through the public records law from the Boston Police Department describing how ShotSpotter was used by the BPD between the years 2020 and 2022. And what that report found was that in almost 70% of cases where Boston police officers were deployed to a neighborhood in response to a shot spotter alert, officers did not find any evidence of actual gunfire.
Shotspotter was then the subject of several questions during the hearing, but this question from District 6 City Councilor Ben Weber to BPD Commissioner Michael Cox has gotten the most attention:
Here is the exchange - Councilor Weber is Speaker 17 and the question starts at the 1:27:29 mark of the transcript:
Just a yes or no question, Chair. Would you agree to delay the the RFI process until we can have a hearing on what ShotSpotter is doing?
Here is the first part of Commissioner Cox’s response - he is Speaker 1 in the transcript:
I would not be willing to delay a tool that will save lives in the city that we currently use if that's the case. If it's not the case, in other words, it's something I could put off.
Outside the budget process, there are two other ShotSpotter related actions taking place, one in the Council, and one in DC:
At-Large City Councilor Henry Santana, the chair of the Public Safety Committee, filed a hearing order Docket #0590 “to discuss the City of Boston's current investments in and policies for using Gunshot Detection Technology” back on March 27, 2024, but the hearing has not yet been scheduled.
The debate over ShotSpotter extends all the way to DC with three members of MA’s federal delegation - U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, and one of Boston’s Members of Congress Ayanna Pressley - signing a letter this week “urging a national probe into how ShotSpotter is being funded” according to press coverage.
This issue will likely be discussed further during the budget amendment process, which will start in earnest after budget hearings end next week.
BOSTON PUBLIC HEALTH COMMISSION LAUNCHING NEW OFFICE, EXPECTS LONG ISLAND AND RACIAL EQUITY UPDATES SOON
The Boston Public Health Commission was in front of the Boston City Council all day on Tuesday, where there were three important updates:
A new Office of Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention, which would be inside the Child, Adolescent, and Family Health Bureau, is “very close to finding a director of that office,” and once launched would aim to coordinate the other efforts to address going on across the City - Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, the Executive Director of BPHC is Speaker 1 and discusses this topic in her statement that starts at the 23:10 mark of the transcript.
There were multiple questions about Long Island in both hearings, and this answer from Dr. Ojikutu - at the 1:39:24 mark in the transcript - captures all of them: “There will likely be a report and a meeting with, um, the mayor and certainly a meeting with city councilors, uh, soon. I don't have a date yet for that, but that's an been an ongoing process.”
The last report that Dr. Ojikutu spoke about was the Roadmap for Healthy Longevity, which will look “at the disease entities that we know are causing the premature mortality,” including cancer, diabetes, and substance use disorder, will be released in the next month and a half - this answer was from Dr. Ojikutu at the 2 PM, she is Speaker 1 and gives the answer at the 1:52:35 mark in the transcript.
There was also a mention of participatory budget from District 7 City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who unsuccessfully tried to add tens of millions of dollars to that process in last year’s budget. Here is what she said - Councilor Fernandes Anderson is Speaker 13 and this comment starts at the 1:58:38 mark in the transcript:
Looking at specifically how to dismantle these structures in terms of informing allocations and, for example, the bank could be participatory budgeting, right, where policies would actually inform why they would need the money, and then it would be less of just, you know, throwing the slush fund somewhere.
AT BUSY REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING D8’S DURKAN SENDS RESOLUTION SUPPORTING HER OWN STATE SENATOR’S LEGISLATION TO COMMITTEE
Wednesday’s regular Council meeting featured an important community activist delivering the Council’s blessing, two interesting hearing orders, and another resolution sent to committee by District 8 City Council Sharon Durkan - the second time she has done it this Council term.
At the 1:48 mark, Council President Ruthzee Louijeune recognizes Pastor Dieufort Fleurissaint, better known by his nickname, “Pastor Keke,” who the Boston Globe wrote a profile of two months ago - read that here. With thousands fleeing gang violence and a collapsed state in Haiti, Pastor Keke has become an important part of the local effort to house and care for those refugees. His remarks start at the 3:41 mark and he is Speaker 4 in the transcript.
The first interesting hearing order was from District 5 City Councilor Enrique Pepen, who offered docket #0840 to discuss creating a vandalism repair fund for local businesses affected by graffiti and other forms of vandalism - he is Speaker 3 and begins speaking about the docket at the 30:58 mark in the transcript. The second interesting hearing order was from District 8 City Councilor Sharon Durkan, who offered docket #0841 to discuss the shortcomings of the short term rental ordinance passed back in 2018. Now-Mayor Michelle Wu championed the ordinance in 2018, earning an attack from AirBnB. Multiple Councilors laid out shortcomings with the ordinance, with Councilor Durkan saying “Unfortunately, we are are not seeing this ordinance bear the fruit that we once hoped,” she is Speaker 11 and her remarks start at the 36:11 mark in the transcript.
Councilor Durkan was also involved in the most interesting action at Wednesday’s Council meeting, which centered on a resolution from District 2 City Councilor Ed Flynn to support a State Senate bill that would allow rideshare and food delivery drivers to unionize. After statements of support for the resolution from Councilor Flynn, Councilor At-Large Erin Murphy, and District 3 City Councilor John FitzGerald, Councilor Durkan said: “I feel really brave getting up here and saying this, but I'm gonna object to a vote today on this.” Her objection sends the resolution to committee, and she said was motivated by a divide inside organized labor - check out this Boston Globe article for more on that divide. This is the second time Councilor Durkan has objected to a resolution and sent it to committee this Council term. The previous time was a resolution calling for the expansion of the ‘Sundays for All’ program, which like this week’s resolution was offered by Councilors Flynn and Murphy. A hearing on that resolution was scheduled and then canceled by Councilor Santana, which produced a sharp exchange between Councilors.
Stay tuned to whether this resolution meets the same fate as the last one - this time the resolution is going before the Labor, Workforce, and Economic Development Committee, chaired by District 6 City Councilor Ben Weber.
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