Weekly Transcript Round-up: Beacon Hill Hearings, City Council, and School Committee

Beacon Hill hearings on Boston's train ticket prices and planning reform, sparring at Council's first regular meeting & School Committee questions quality conclusions

This week Beacon Hill had two hearings on the future of Boston - BPI looks at the transcript to show the stark difference in participation and engagement from Boston’s state delegation. We also highlight action on a $13 million counter-terror grant in the transcript for 2024’s first regular meeting of the Boston City Council, and a summary of last night’s Boston School Committee meeting from the outstanding ‘Last Night at School Committee’ podcast.

BOSTON’S LEGISLATORS SHOW MORE APPETITE FOR TRAINS THAN CRANES

The two Beacon Hill hearings this week were on Monday for the home rule petition making changes at the BPDA, and on Wednesday for a bill making changes to Commuter Rail ticket prices for several Boston stations. On Monday, no state lawmakers testified in support of the home rule petition. On Wednesday, the number of Boston elected officials asking questions and testifying was much higher.

At the hearing about the future of the BPDA, few elected officials testified. The home rule petition’s sponsor State Representative Dan Ryan did not appear in person at the hearing or testify, and no state lawmaker testified at the hearing. Two local elected officials from Boston did testify at the hearing in support:

• Mayor Michelle Wu¹, whose administration wrote the home rule petition; and

• District 8 City Councilor Sharon Durkan², who was not serving on the Boston City Council when the home rule petition was passed by that body.

Boston delegation members on the committee asked questions:

• State Senator Liz Miranda³ and State Representative Bill MacGregor⁴ asked one question each;

• State Representative Brandy Fulker-Oakley⁵ asked two questions; and

• State Senator Nick Collins⁶ asked the most questions, as well as offering closing remarks laying out next steps for the bill.

Check out the Legislata transcript of the hearing here and check out the footnotes below to find each legislator.

On Wednesday, many more elected officials turned out to testify in favor of a bill from Hyde Park State Representative Rob Consalvo⁷ to reduce commuter rail fares for several stations in Southeastern Boston. Unlike Monday, when Mayor Wu⁸ was joined at the testimony table only by her planning chief, on Wednesday she was joined by a phalanx of elected officials. At the table were State Reps Consalvo and MacGregor⁹, Boston’s MBTA Board appointee Mary Skelton Roberts¹⁰, and attending virtually was West Roxbuy’s State Senator Mike Rush.¹¹ Their testimony starts at the 16:36 mark.

Also unlike Monday, the Joint Committee on Transportation that hosted the hearing has only one member of the Boston delegation on it. That member, State Representative Brandy Fluker-Oakley¹², was an active questioner at Wednesday’s hearing.

For more about the hearing, check out Commonwealth Beacon’s coverage. The Legislata transcript can be found here and check out the footnotes below to find each legislator.

COUNCILORS SPAR AT FIRST REGULAR MEETING

Wednesday saw parlimentary manuerving in the City Council over the $13 million grant, with At-Large Councilors Julia Mejia¹³ and Erin Murphy¹⁴ thwarting an attempt by Council Vice President Brian Worrell¹⁵ to approve the grant. The Boston Herald has all the details, and you can read the transcript of the meeting at BPI’s Boston City Council Transcript Feed - the action starts at the 24:53 mark and look at the footnotes below to find each Councilor.

The Council also approved committee assignments - check out BPI’s post on that.

‘LAST NIGHT AT SCHOOL COMMITTEE’ COVERS ON-GOING QUALITY FRUSTRATIONS

The Boston School Committee met on Thursday night, and as they do after every School Committee meeting, the Shah Family Foundation was out with a podcast the next day summarizing and explaining the hearing. Here is a start of their emailed summary:

Last night’s meeting lasted about five hours with only one report and nearly 50 speakers testifying during public comment. The meeting began with the Superintendent’s Report, where Superintendent Skipper spent the majority of the time discussing the School Quality Framework (SQF). The district made changes to the SQF last month without a full presentation or discussion, and School Committee members have been seeking clarification since those changes were announced.

You can learn more about the podcast here.

BPI is joining the effort to foster a more informed conversation about public education in Boston in the coming weeks:

• Adding an AI-generated transcript feed for Boston School Committee meetings;

  and

• Releasing a new report on how Boston Public Schools is progressing towards its goals more than a year into the agreement with the Department of Elementary & Secondary Education.

Boston Policy Institute, Inc is working to improve the public conversation - help us by following BPI on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

1. Speaker 2 in the transcript for the BPDA hearing

2. Speaker 14 in the transcript for the BPDA hearing

3. Speaker 6 in the transcript for the BPDA hearing

4. Speaker 7 in the transcript for the BPDA heairng

5. Speaker 8 in the transcript for the BPDA hearing

6. Speaker 18 in the transcript for the BPDA hearing

7. Speaker 11 in the transcript for the Commuter Rail hearing

8. Speaker 10 in the transcript for the Commuter Rail hearing

9. Speaker 13 in the transcript for the Commuter Rail hearing

10. Speaker 7 in the transcript for the Commuter Rail hearing

11. Speaker 12 in the transcript for the Commuter Rail hearing

12. Speaker 4 in the transcript for the Commuter Rail hearing

13. Speaker 8 in the transcript for the City Council meeting

14. Speaker 10 in the transcript for the City Council meeting

15. Speaker 1 in the transcript for the City Council meeting