On April 28, 2026, the Boston City Council Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Councilor Ben Weber (District 6), held a hearing on docket numbers 0733–0740, reviewing the FY27 operating budget for the Office of Neighborhood Services (ONS), including 311, Spark Boston, and the Office of Civic Organizing (OCO). The hearing featured presentations from Chief of Neighborhood Services Brianna Millore, ONS Executive Director Mohammed Missouri, 311 Director Urgasola Budo, OCO Director Natalia Benitas Perez, and Spark Boston Director Aidan McDonough. Councilors discussed budget cuts, staffing vacancies, community engagement protocols, and the elimination of block party grants. No public testimony was given. The hearing was part of a series running from April through June 2026.
Good morning. My name is Ben Weber. I am the Boston City Councilor for District 6 and the chair of the Boston City Council on Ways and Means. Today is April 28th, 2026, and the time is 10, 11 a.m. This hearing is being recorded. It's also being live streamed at Boston.gov slash city-council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and FIOS Channel 964. This is part of a series of hearings on the budget that go from April through June. We are strongly encouraged 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, uh you can give testimony in person or virtually at our hearings. Uh we'll take public testimony uh usually at the end of the first round of questions from the counselors. Uh the full hearing schedules on our website uh at Boston.gov slash council dash budget. Uh you can also show up at one of two listening sessions to give to public testimony. We'll be having those listening sessions here in the chamber. Uh the the next one is tonight at 6 p.m. And uh the last uh public testimony listening session will be uh here at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 26th. Um again uh at all of these uh hearings and sessions you can give testimony in person here in the chamber or virtually via Zoom for in-person testimony. Uh sign up at a sign-up sheet which is near the entrance. For virtual testimony, you can sign up using our online form on our council uh budget review website by emailing the committee at CCC uh yeah, or by emailing the committee at ccc.wm at Boston.gov, or by emailing uh Chris Machohan, that's K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A.CHOUHAN at Boston.gov. When you are called to testify, please state your name and affiliation or your residence uh and uh limit your comments to two minutes. Um you can be you know in in lieu of testifying in person or virtually, you can send in written testimony to the committee at ccc.wm at Boston.gov. Uh you can also submit a two-minute video of your testimony through the form on our website. Sorry. For more information on the city council budget process and how to testify, please visit the city council's budget website at Boston.gov slash council-budget. Um again, in-person testimony, which uh it doesn't look like we're we may have at some point, um, will be uh limited to two minutes each person and will be taken after the first round of counselor questions. Again, if you want to testify uh virtually, please email Krishna Chohan, our uh director of legislative budget analysis at K-A-R-I-SHMA.Cho-u-h an 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, an overview of the FY27 operating budget for the Office of Neighborhood Services. Uh we'll be focusing on 311, Spark Boston, and the Office of Civic Organizing. Uh again, this is one of a series of hearings we're having on the FY uh 27 budget. These matters were sponsored by the mayor, Michelle Wu and referred to the committee on April 8th, 2026. Today I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, uh, Councillor Flynn, Councillor Murphy, Councilor Braden, Councillor Pipen, and Councillor Fitzgerald. Uh generally uh we're waiving opening statements in these hearings, uh, and uh going directly to the panel, which I'll introduce. We've got Chief of Neighborhood Services, Brianna Millore. We've got executive director of neighborhood services, Mohammed Missouri, Civic Organizing Director, Natalia Benitas Perez. We have Director of Spark, Aidan McDonough. Is that yeah? And sorry, 311 director uh Urgasola Budo, right? Uh okay, you almost were in order, but uh it's it's never happened uh that this order is the same as the order on the panel. It's just completely out of luck. Anyway, so uh I think you have a presentation. Let's let's go to that and then uh to my colleagues for questions. Good morning, um chair as well as city council um public. Um I'm Brianna Malore, I'm the chief of Keenan Engagement for the City of Boston, and I get to oversee an amazing team that you will hear from today about each single department. Umarching the community engagement cabinet is I like to say the cabinet that's closest to the people. We are, you know, in you know, in taking information through 311, having conversations through OCO and Spark in neighborhood services, and it's really an opportunity for us to hear directly from residents and partner with key stakeholders in each community. That's my spiel. I'm gonna give it over to each director to kind of talk a little bit specifically about their departments, and then we will obviously pass it over to the community as well as the counselors to answer any um questions about our budget. All right, thank you, Chief. Um can it can is this picking me up?