Good morning.

My name is Ben Weber.

I'm the District Six City Councilor and the Chair of the Boston City Council on Ways and Means.

Today's April 22nd, 2026, and the exact time is 10.06 a.m.

This hearing is being recorded.

It is also being live streamed at Boston.gov/slash city dash council dash TV and broadcasts on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and FIOS Channel 964.

The channels uh sorry, the channel, the council's budget review process will encompass a series of public hearings uh which began uh last week and will run through June.

Uh we strongly encourage residents to take a moment to engage in this process by giving testimony for the record.

You can do so in several ways.

First, you can attend one of the hearings and give public testimony.

We'll take public testimony at the end of each departmental uh hearing and also you can uh testify in person at two uh uh public testimony listening sessions.

The full hearing schedule is on our website at boston.gov slash council-budget.

Our scheduled hearings dedicated to public testimony are in person at City Hall on Tuesday, April 28th and 6 p at 6 p.m.

and again on Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m.

You can give uh testimony in person here in the chamber or virtually via Zoom.

For in-person testimony, please come to the chamber and sign up at the sheet sheet near the entrance for virtual testimony.

You can sign up using our online form at our uh council budget review website, or by emailing the committee at ccc.wm at Boston.gov, or by emailing uh Krishma Choan, that's K-A-R-I-SHMA dot C H O U H A N at Boston.gov.

When you're called to testify, please state your name and affiliation, your residence, and limit your comments to a few minutes uh to ensure all comments and concerns can be heard.

Um in lieu of uh uh personally testifying, you can email your written testimony to the committee at ccc.wm at Boston.gov, or you can also submit a two-minute video of your testimony through the forum on our website.

For more information on the city council's budget process and how to testify, please visit the city council's budget website at Boston.gov slash council dash budget.

Um we'll be taking in-person testimony uh at this hearing, this morning's hearing after the first round of counselor questions, individuals will be called on the order in which they've signed up, and we'll have two minutes to testify.

If you wish to sign up uh for public testimony, have not done so already.

Again, you can uh sign up at the sign-up sheet, uh, or if you're a virtual, please email our uh director of legislative budget analysis, Chris Machon at K A R I S H M A dot C H O U H A N at Boston.gov for the zoom link and your name will be added to the list.

This morning's hearing is on docket numbers 0733 to 0740 and dockets uh zero seven four four to zero seven four six.

Uh an overview of the FY27 budgets for the environment department, the office of food justice, and the following revolving funds conservation commission, distributed energy, and birdo.

Uh this is one of a series of hearings to review the FY27 budget.

Uh for my colleagues' information.

This is the uh first year the Birdo Revolving Fund uh has been filed with us.

Um these matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and we're referred to the committee on April 8th, 2026.

Um we uh we are joined by my colleagues in order of arrival.

No surprise here, councillor Flynn and then Councilor President Braden.

Um let's see.

Uh we've received a letter of absence from Councillor Santana.

Uh I'm now gonna introduce the panel.

Uh we have with us this morning.

Oliver Sellers Garcia, Commissioner of the Environment, Energy, and Open Space.

And Liza Wasserman, Director of the Office of Food Justice.

I don't know if the panelists have presentation, anything they want to opening statements.

Do you want us to go through the brief presentation first?

I think I think that would be so we're waiving opening statements in these budget budget hearings.

So the panel, the floor is yours.

Great.

Thank you so much, Council Weber, for the opportunity to present.

We have a few brief slides just to set the context.

Sorry, this is fast.

So in terms of uh thank you for introducing us, uh brought obviously my colleagues with me to help present um some successes from the current fiscal year budget uh and the return on investment there and our uh our proposed budget uh that is under your consideration for the next fiscal year.

We the orchard not making any might be at the end where it used to be.

Sorry, we can flip the order of some of these slides.

Go back to the um so just in terms of grounding uh what we're covering here today.

The environment energy and open space cabinet uh for the city is composed of five uh offices and departments currently.

Uh you'll hear from three of them today.

Uh the environment department, Office of Climate Resilience, and the Office of Food Justice.

Uh the Office of Historic Preservation were completing the RFI that was requested.

Uh, and then Parks and Rec has a hearing scheduled in a couple of weeks.

Um, and that is obviously from a budget perspective the largest uh in the cabinet.

Uh so here to focus on uh those three.

I think the you know, and just as a reminder, uh, in terms of government organization, we have created back in September of 2024 a climate council to help organize uh a number of our climate efforts and really uh operationalize an all-of-government approach uh that is still in effect in supporting both our policy and action plan agenda, uh, as well as making sure that we get the highest uh return on investments uh for uh the uh the budgets uh in this cabinet.

Uh so at a high level, I just want to sort of preamble for my colleagues.

Uh we you know, this is our response to uh the mayor's uh directive of uh of finding some savings, uh, and we you know we're able to uh to do that while preserving key services and programs that have been invested in over the last several years uh to minimize any potential negative impact uh on uh constituents and residents and businesses in Boston.

Uh and and I believe we've been able to do that.