Weekly Transcript Round-up: Planning Department Ordinance Edition
6 takeaways from the Council's most important hearing of 2024 to date
NOTE: Boston Policy Institute, Inc provides a free feed of AI-generated transcripts of all Boston City Council meetings and hearings, powered by local civic tech start-up Legislata. Check out the whole feed here, and find the transcript for the hearing referred to in this post here. Go to ‘Reading the Transcript’ at the end of this post for the meeting’s agenda and list of panelists.
Thursday’s hearing on the planning department ordinance offered by the Wu administration delivered on its promise as the most important hearing of the year so far, lasting almost 4 hours and featuring everything from in-depth policy discussion to emotional appeals to Boston’s history. This hearing made clear that making significant changes to one of the most important economic development agencies in Massachusetts requires a bureaucratically and legally complicated set of actions. Keep reading for the 6 take-aways from today’s hearing.
You can find the language for the ordinance this hearing was focused on here, the language for the home rule petition that is referred to repeatedly here, and the transcript with a link to the video here.
1. THIS ORDINANCE IS NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF BPDA REFORM
While the ordinance hearing has gotten a lot of attention, the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council Mark Draisen (Speaker 17 in the transcript) highlighted the most important point of the day - the real action on planning reform is happening elsewhere:
There are many ways in which the preceding step of filing the home rule petition [in front of the state legislature] and the currently ongoing effort to do a thorough going review and modernization of Article 80 are in a sense more important processes than the ordinance that is before you today.
Draisen was there in his official capacity to indicate his organization supported the ordinance. Find this quote in Draisen’s statement at the 2:20:48 mark.
2. BPDA EMPLOYEES’ RETIREMENT BUY-IN IS A WANT NOT A NEED
Wu administration officials made clear that while BPDA employee retirement benefits are something they are concerned about, this concern will not stop their plan to move BPDA employees over to the City’s employment on July 1, 2024. That clarity came from an exchange between Councilor John FitzGerald and Chief People Officer Lawrence in the video above and at the 2:43:26 mark. This issue could be a major sticking point in passing the planning department ordinance because BPDA employees’ salary, benefits, and most importantly retirement has been a major issue for City Councilors since the Wu administration released their BPDA reform package last year. As Councilor FitzGerald says in the video about, the home rule petition contains a provision that would allow BPDA employees to buy into the City of Boston’s pension system, an important retirement benefit. The state legislature’s committee responsible for the bill extended it to May 1, meaning that the committee has given itself until that date to advance or kill the bill.
3. BPDA BOARD COOPERATION REMAINS AN OUTSTANDING QUESTION
One of the biggest questions that BPI had heading into this hearing was whether or not the BPDA Board would go along with the set of reforms proposed by the Wu administration. Unfortunately, that question remains unanswered. The closest that the hearing got was this exchange in the clip above between Councilor FitzGerald and CFO Graffenburger at the 2:36:25 mark. Graffenburger’s response underlines how important the BPDA Board’s cooperation is to the successful execution the complicated funding scheme laid out in the ordinance. Her response does not shed light on whether or not that cooperation is forthcoming.
4. WHAT DOES ‘TRANSPARENCY’ MEAN TO YOU?
The word transparency appears 31 times in the transcript with nearly every Councilor asking a question that includes the word and the Wu administration officials also using the word in their answers. Chief Jemison made clear that for him part putting a planning department into the City’s regular budget process represented a big step on transparency. This is best captured in the clip above at the 1:05:30 mark, which captures part of Chief Jemison’s response to District 6 City Councilor Ben Weber (Speaker 1 in the transcript). In a later exchange Councilor-at-Large Erin Murphy (Speaker 3 in the transcript) asked about transparency outside of the budget process to which Chief Jemison responded: “Is that [the budget] enough at some level? That's a question that that you and other councilors will answer, but it is certainly very different from the way it has been.”
5. THE COUNCIL HAS AMENDMENTS
District 9 City Councilor Liz Breadon (Speaker 8 in the transcript) and District 7 City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson (Speaker 9 in the transcript) asked questions about the lack of policy and programming specifics in the ordinance, and Chair & District 1 City Councilor Gabriella Coletta (Speaker 0 in the transcript) summed up their questions saying at the 2:12:17:
Annual reporting, transparency, and dashboards, these are all things that I have been thinking about, and I think there's an opportunity to bake into this document.
Councilor Breadon and several other Councilors also asked questions about how the transfer of funds from BPDA would work and what the Council’s role in that would be. The arrangement proposed in the ordinance and detailed by the Wu administration officials testifying on Thursday is complicated and unique. Councilor Breadon made a specific proposal at the 2:01:39 mark:
About the future transfers being approved in the language of the ordinance, would the administration consider use of a revolving fund? Or is the mechanism that you've set up adequate for a revolving fund for the planning department that would be subject to an annual review like every other fund rather than just being a sort of a done deed? The revolving fund would leave some flexibility.
6. THIS IS FAR FROM OVER
Time ran out before Councilors’ questions did on Thursday, and a number of Councilors said that they would submit questions in writing. In addition to the specific amendments aimed at reporting and the details of the planning department’s unique funding arrangement, Chair Coletta said at the 3:21:07 mark: “I have so many thoughts about language specific and provisions here.” The most immediate next step for this ordinance is a working session which has been scheduled for March 8th - check out the public notice for more information.
Boston Policy Institute, Inc will continue to monitor this ordinance, the home rule petition before the State Legislature, and the other elements of the BPDA reform package.
READING THE TRANSCRIPT
Understanding how the hearing was organized will help with reading the transcript:
Councilors gave introductary remarks until the 23:04 mark;
The four person panel gave their introductary remarks and a presentation until the 40:11 mark;
Several rounds of questions and answers between the panel and Councilors go until the 3:22:40 mark; and then
Starting at that mark there is public testimony until the hearing wraps up at nearly the 4:00:00 mark.
Most of in-depth policy discussion was between Councilors and the four person panel - here is who was on the panel and their designation in the trancript:
Arthur Jemison, City of Boston’s Chief of Planning and BPDA’s Director is Speaker 12
Devon Quirk, BPDA’s Deputy Chief is Speaker 13
Alex Lawerence, City of Boston’s Chief People Officer is Speaker 14
Ashley Groffenburger, City of Boston’s Chief Financial Officer is Speaker 10
IMPORTANT LINKS
Read the transcript & find a link to the video to the hearing this post is referring to on the planning department ordinance
Read the planning department ordinance
Read BPI’s most recent work monitroing the package of BPDA reforms ‘Preparing for Thursday’, which laid out where things stand with the BPDA Board and the State Legislature in additon to the City Council
Check out the public notice for the next official step in the planning department ordinance, a working session on March 8
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