Hearing on Wu Admin's Tax Increase; Rooney & Keller defend BPI's report against Mayor's "false information" charge
Tuesday's hearing left a lot of Council's questions unanswered; Rooney & Keller push-back to Wu's charge follow earlier Globe editorial board critiquing Wu admin's response to BPI report
With Boston’s public schools on April vacation this week, there is no regular City Council meeting on Wednesday. There has already been a lot of news this week, so we are putting out a mid-week round-up:
Tuesday’s hearing was the first public opportunity that Councilors had to ask Wu administration officials about their home rule petition to raise taxes, as well as find out more about the evidence and analysis the administration compiled to make that decision.
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce CEO Jim Rooney and WBZ’s Jon Keller both pushed back against Mayor Wu’s “false information” charge against BPI’s ‘The Fiscal Fallout of Boston’s Empty Offices’ report, joining earlier critique of Mayor Wu made by the Boston Globe editorial board.
TUESDAY’S HEARING ON HOME RULE PETITION TO RAISE TAXES
Yesterday’s hearing in front of the Government Operations Committee on Mayor Wu’s proposal to increase commercial real estate taxes above the state-mandated limit was widely covered - check out the Globe, the Herald, and the State House News Service. CFO & Treasurer-Collector Ashley Groffenberger and Assessing Commissioner Nicholas Ariniello made a short presentation to the Council before answering questions - check out the slide deck.
SHNS’s Chris Linski had the best lede out of the coverage:
How likely is a potential downturn in Boston property values to mirror a crisis that prompted legislative action in 2004? Did Mayor Michelle Wu send the wrong message by proposing to rebalance commercial and residential taxes while also advocating for an 8 percent increase in city spending? Will workers eventually return to the office more regularly, or will the changes brought on by the pandemic be permanent?
Those are just a few of the questions Boston city councilors will weigh as they continue their review of a plan Wu rolled out last month that would temporarily shift a greater share of the city’s property tax levy onto commercial owners.
BPI planned on identifying the Councilors who asked the questions above and providing speaker numbers and minute marks for each. Unfortunately, while a Council Ways & Means Committee hearing held on Wednesday morning has been posted to the City Council TV’s page, a video of yesterday’s hearing on the home rule petition to increase taxes has not yet been posted.
Reviewing notes BPI took during the hearing, there were a lot of direct questions from Councilors that did not get complete answers from the two administration officials who served as yesterday’s panelists: CFO & Treasurer-Collector Ashley Groffenberger and Assessing Commission Nicholas Ariniello. Here are two examples:
Ways & Mean Committee Chair and District 4 City Councilor Brian Worrell asked about property values over the next five years and Ariniello said that his department does not have the resources to produce such an analysis.
Council President and At-Large Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune asked about the long-term consequences of remote work and in her response Groffenberger declined to provide any specifics.
Make sure to check out BPI’s AI-generated transcript feed for the latest!
“NOT FALSE INFORMATION”: CHAMBER’S ROONEY & WBZ’S KELLER JOIN BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL BOARD DEFENDING BPI REPORT
The public response to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s charge on Boston Policy Institute, Inc’s report ‘The Fiscal Fallout of Boston’s Empty Offices’ as “false information” continued over the weekend and into this week.
On Sunday one of former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s Chiefs of Staff, and current CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Jim Rooney was asked if he agreed with the Mayor’s charge. He did not, and you can see more of the answer here:
Watch the whole interview on WBZ’s website or YouTube channel.
Then on Monday WBZ’s political reporter Jon Keller released a new column adding to push-back against the Mayor’s statement. Here is a clip:
Listen to whole thing on SoundCloud, and subscribe to MASSterlist for a daily newsletter and Keller’s weekly columns.
Rooney’s response on April 14 and Keller’s response on April 15 follow an editorial from the Boston Globe published on March 29 and titled “Stopping Boston’s ‘doom loop’ means it must face its tax woes.” The Boston Globe editorial board criticized the the Wu administration’s reluctance to accept BPI’s findings, writing:
When a report detailed the pandemic’s gloomy — and lingering — consequences for Boston’s tax picture just last month, city officials remained firmly in denial. Today those problems are bubbling to the surface, in a way that Mayor Michelle Wu has finally acknowledged can no longer be ignored.
The editorial board finished that piece with this line: “But one thing is certain — the time for denial is over.”
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