Weekly Transcript Round-up for 7/26/24: Mass & Cass; Heat Regs; CRE Tax Hike Advances; More Demotion Fallout
This week there was little action at the Boston City Council but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t important updates on issues that BPI is following:
South End elected officials resurface a year-old proposal for Widett circle recovery campus amid deteroriating conditions at Mass & Cass;
Mayor Wu’s CRE Tax Hike advanced on Beacon Hill and got dueling opinion pieces;
After weeks of record heat in Boston, the Council held a hearing on how to protect workers from extreme heat;
Amid continuing community pushback against the demotion of former Boston Police Superintendent Eddy Chrispin, focus shifted this week to the performance, or lack thereof, of a police oversight agency created by the City Council back in 2020.
WITH MASS & CASS DETERIORATING, YEAR OLD PLAN RESURFACED
Three elected officials who represent chunks of the South End, one from each state legislative chamber, plus a local elected official, wrote a Letter-to-the-Editor published in the Boston Globe warning about the worsening situation at Mass & Cass.
State Representative John Moran, State Senator Liz Miranda, and Boston City Councilor John FitzGerald brought up an idea first proposed in August 2023 - a recovery campus at Widett Circle:
Last year, the Newmarket Business Improvement District and the South End Forum proposed Recover Boston, a recovery campus at Widett Circle. We strongly believe that this concept would be worth exploring again immediately, whether at Widett Circle or elsewhere.
Read the executive summary and a slide deck of a draft version of the plan.
This proposal is being resurfaced at a time when other large-scale projects that would provide support for those suffering from substance use disorder and experiencing homelessness that are further along the road to completion, like the Shattuck redevelopment, have shrunk.
MAYOR WU’S CRE TAX HIKE HAS A BIG DAY
On Thursday there was a lot of action on Mayor Wu’s CRE Tax Hike, with movement on Beacon Hill and multiple opinion pieces in City newspapers:
After a hearing last week before Beacon Hill, the bill was advanced out of the Joint Committee on Revenue.
A tax attorney who wrote an analysis forecasting that the CRE Tax Hike could further diminsh already declining office values, published an op-ed in the Boston Globe, writing: “New economic growth could come to a halt as the additional tax burden is piled onto the growing list of other cost increases facing developers.”
District 1 City Council Gabriela Coletta Zapata, who shepherded Mayor Wu’s CRE Tax Hike through the Council, wrote an op-ed in the Dorchester Reporter calling for some small businsses to get a carve-out from the tax increase.
WU ADMIN ORDINANCE ON EXTREME HEAT PROTECTION?
After weeks of record heat in Boston, the Council held a hearing on how to protect workers from extreme heat. On the expert panel at Wednesday’s hearing was Jodi Sugerman-Brozan, the Deputy Chief of Worker Empowerment and the Office of Labor Compliance and Worker Protections. She announced during her opening statement that the Wu administration was looking at writing an ordinance on the issue - she is Speaker 8 and this line is during the statement that starts at the 34:39 mark in the transcript:
We're providing train the same training and webinars that we're doing for all of our permitted contractors, all of our city of Boston departments, and we are exploring the possibility of an ordinance to protect outdoor workers.
During Wednesday’s hearing the Council also heard about efforts to deal with this issue through state and federal legislation.
COMMUNITY ANGER OVER CHRISPIN DEMOTION TURNS ON LOCAL POLICE REFORM EFFORTS
Fallout from the demotion of former Boston Police Superintendent Eddy Chrispin by BPD Commissioner Michael Cox due to Chrispin’s appointment to the POST Commission, the state board that regulates police, continues this week. According to coverage of a meeting on July 17 from the Dorchester Reporter and Boston Globe, it appeared that focus began shifting to how the City of Boston’s own police reforms were proceeding.
As a reminder, back in 2020 Boston created its own new police oversight agency, the Office of Policy Accountability and Training (OPAT). The first executive director for OPAT, Stephanie Everett*, was appointed as Suffolk County Register of Probate by Govenor Maura Healey back in April 2023, and a new executive director was not appointed until May 2024, more than a year later. In BPI’s 2024 budget hearing previews, we speculated whether OPAT had a future, given its lack of work product when compared to the state’s POST Commission. During OPAT’s year without an ED the City of Boston settled most of its police contracts, including with the largest of the police unions, the Boston Police Patrolmen Association.
During the July 17 meeting, OPAT was a major topic of discussion - here is how the Dorchester Reporter described that section of the meeting:
Jamarhl Crawford, who also served on the Boston task force, gave a presentation about how the city’s Office of Police Accountability and Training (OPAT) – which is separate from the state POST – has fumbled implementing basic information on its website. He pulled up the website in real time and clicked on several tabs that were not functional.
“There’s nothing there,” he said. “Three years, and there’s still nothing there. We need to push and demand what we want to be done.”
New OPAT Director Evandro Carvalho, of Dorchester, was in the room, but chose to only listen, and not to speak on the matters.
A number of City Councilors have spoken out on the demotion, including Council President & At-Large Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune, At-Large Councilor Julia Meija, At-Large Councilor Erin Murphy, District 2 Councilor Ed Flynn, and District 3 Councilor Brian Worrell.
The next City Council meeting is on August 7, the first Council meeting since Eddy Chrispin was demoted, and BPI will provide an update whether any official action is taken.
*Boston Policy Institute’s ED Gregory Maynard worked as a consultant for Stephanie Everett in her 2016 and 2020 campaigns for public office.
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