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?

Can you hear me?

You're good.

Yes.

Okay.

Oh, and I just say to the panel uh don't press the buttons, our uh central staff will take care of making sure your mics are on.

Sounds good.

Thank you, Chair, and good morning, counselors.

Um, you know, you're all familiar with the Office of Neighborhood Services.

You work with us a lot.

Uh, you know, we're grateful for that partnership.

Our mission is to bring City Hall um close uh into the neighborhoods and to residents, but also to make sure that all kinds of stakeholders have access to the city and to different departments and make sure we're making those connections and delivering uh facilitating excellent uh city services.

Um and goal and commitment is to make sure that residents um are included in the work that the city does to foster um uh to foster a good relationship, but also trust in government.

Um our liaisas are on call 24-7 to respond to neighborhood emergencies.

That includes fires, you know, building collapses, other city emergencies.

Um they're also obviously on call and and and and show up in the neighborhoods to make sure that we're providing direct services to residents.

Um, our community engagement specialists uh specifically focus on facilitating abutters meetings or zoning uh for the zoning board of appeals, licensing and cannabis, uh, and we have deputy directors who provide uh training, staff management, and make sure that uh liaisons are supported uh and you know in their professional development as well.

Um and then some of the successes we have last year is you know distributing more than 3100 turkeys, uh donating more than 2,000 toys to children and families with the ones, tow drive and leading the mayor's first ever citywide office hours in Roxbury uh to connect more than 350 constituency city services in one day.

Uh with that I'm just gonna pass it over to Natalia.

Oh, sorry.

All right.

Thank you.

Um as you guys know, 311 is our 24-hour hotline to City Hall.

Um we provide services in multiple languages.

We're the main data collection center for the city for city services to identify trends in resource allocation, and we're leading community outreach through tabling at events and facilitating conversations to provide constituent services in neighborhoods.

Uh we serve at the as the first point of contact for residents seeking information about city services through the 311 app, phone calls, online, email, yes, some mail as well, and social media.

We answer questions about a wide variety of topics, including basic city services, state and federal questions, outside agencies like national grid and ever source, and other day-to-day inquiries.

We create and route service requests to appropriate city departments that then go out and handle those requests and close out those cases.

31 is the addiction recovery line as well, since we are the 24-hour hotline to city hall.

Um we'll be the first stop to then connect people to resources.

Our agents also work closely with departments to improve constituent services.

We gather track, analyze the data for other departments, press inquiries, FOIA requests, and even requests from our counselors as well.

And we communicate with all three, well, not all, we communicate with a lot of 311 centers across the nation for best practices and process improvements.

This is some of our data over the years.

Um our service level percentage falls around 88%, which the national average is 80%.

So we're doing pretty well there.

Um, and the number of cases and calls that have come in this year are just around the 300,000 mark, and you can look at those on the graph as well.

Thank you.

I'll pass it along to the director of Office Civic Organizing, Natalia Benitez Perez.

Thank you, Argy.

Thank you, Counselors, for having us today.

Um, or office works to reduce barriers.

It would help if you had the mic a little closer.

Thanks.

Is that better?

Yes, perfect.

Um, our office works to reduce barriers and expand opportunities for all Boston residents to be active uh citizens in their communities.

We are committed to proactive community engagement like Love Your Block Initiative, Civic Summit, Block Party Grants, First Street Activation, Community Like Cleanups and City Hall in the Go Truck.

We also raise civic awareness and service in the City of Boston neighborhoods.

And we are incredibly proud of our accomplishments in throughout the last year.

Um getting City Hall out of City Hall.

Uh we hosted 150 neighborhood beautification cleanups across the city of Boston in April 2025.

This is not the correct one.

Okay.

Um for this year we're doing 171 sites for 2026.

We supported.

I'm sorry, this is the wrong package.

I have to thank you.

Okay, there you go.

177 neighborhood beautification and cleanup sites in April 2026.

Um, the most recent was last Saturday, and then we are we are closing out Love Your Block season this upcoming Saturday.

We have supported 78 community-let cleanups and four citywide days of service, uh, strengthening neighborhood beautification across 73 sites.

We awarded 120 summer block party activation grants last year to fuel resident-let community connection and celebration.

We awarded 78 fall spooky streets activation grants to bring safe family-friendly programming to neighborhoods across Boston.

We delivered city services directly to residents through 143 City Hall and the Go Truck stops across Boston neighborhoods.

And lastly, we will convene 300 civic and community leaders again at the 2026 Civic Summit at Boston University Questern School of Business.

And with that, I will pass it on to my colleague Aidan McDonough to speak on Spark.

Hello and good morning.

My name is Ada McDonough.

I have I serve as the director of Spark Boston, the mayor's uh 20 to 35-year-old civic leader council made up of all volunteers who represent all of Boston's neighborhoods.

The council members helped to create and develop ideas to get 20 to 35-year-olds more involved within the city, as well as then uh receive a first-hand uh education from uh department heads as well as to how they can be better involved with the happenings at City Hall.

As I said, Spark Boston engages Boston residents between the ages of 20 and 35 through civic programming, like our neighborhood social events and structured opportunities to do better inform to be better informed with municipal leadership.

Annually, we select 40 uh SPAR council members representing the 23 neighborhoods.

This past year we received 487 applications for this year's council.

We collaborate with city departments and external external partners to develop and implement new initiatives such as building a creative Boston and our building our neighborhood stories events that we had this year.

This uh Spark Council also promotes City of Boston resources that 20 to 35-year-old residents will find beneficial, such as the early child care uh early child care survey, renter survey, and the first-time home buyers program.

With that, I'll pass it back to Chief Boy.

Again, thank you all for um allowing us to uplift some of the key um accomplishments that we have um successfully executed in FY26, and we look forward to FY27 and in a spirit of centering decision and activations in community um and seeing where we can obviously collaborate and um connect more.

Okay, thank you.

Uh we've been joined by Councillor Durkin.

Uh so we're gonna start with my colleagues in order of arrival.

Uh Councillor Flynn.

Uh, we're gonna give it with six minutes uh each counselor for the first round.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you to the administration team for being with us today.

Earlier this month, I filed a hearing order to just discuss the role, responsibilities, and staffing levels of the Office of Neighborhood Services in light of Boston's fiscal crisis.

ONS is intended to facilitate and attend community meetings, assist residents with basic city services, share information with the community, report neighborhood feedback and relevant information to the city of Boston, including to various entities such as the zoning board and Boston licensing.

Traditionally, ONS was also responsible for hosting the community process in meetings on zoning and license projects in the neighborhood that required variances and approval at City of Boston boards.

In November 2021, however, ONS was restructured to include an additional three community engagement specialists assigned to various neighborhoods across the city to facilitate the community process, including abutters meetings that was mentioned here.

These meetings are intended to play a critical role in the community engagement process by obtaining feedback from those neighbors most impacted by a particular project.

During these challenging economic times with reports that the city of Boston currently holds a budget shortfall of 100 million dollars.

It's important that we discuss the role, responsibility, and staffing levels of ONS, along with how its budget is allocated to ensure that taxpayer funds are being used efficiently and responsibly.

One was it was established under under Mayor Flynn.

But I do want us to focus ONS back on neighborhood services and and really away from the politics.

I think I think delivering quality basic city services is really the goal of ONS and trying to keep away from the politics is a critical critical aspect of it.

Why do we need community engagement specialists?

Again, good morning, Councillor.

Um thank you for the a little bit of the background.

Um a part of the restructuring was exactly about what you mentioned connecting with community, making sure that liaisons had opportunity to build substantial and long-lasting um relationships and also making sure they are able to solve problems, etc.

So the CES team was implemented because the liaison's time was only spent doing abutters meetings, and we wanted to create space for them to have conversations on street projects or have conversations on on development as well, um, on beautification, on housing concerns, on everything.

Okay.

Um, and creating the opportunity for them to build those um different diff build space to have different conversations while still being deeply involved in the in the abutters meeting process, licensing cannabis, and renaming process.

Um, it allows them to have the space to build that um capacity.

Okay.

One one of my concerns, um, can you guarantee me that they're gonna ONS is gonna stay out of politics?

They're gonna stay out of political campaigns, especially during the day.

Is that is that a fair question to ask?

ONS is not involved in political campaigns.

So, yeah, that's a fair question.

They're not involved in political campus.

So ONS will not be involved in political campaigns or politics.

You're talking about during the day specifically, yes, of course not.

Okay.

Have they ever been part of campaigning during the day?

Never during the day unless someone decides to take time off and do whatever they wanted.

I don't ask people what they do when they take time off.

Okay.

Obviously, that's their right.

If you take vacation day, you're allowed to go on vacation, you're allowed to do whatever you want.

Okay.

But I don't that doesn't mean that anyone was involved.

I have no idea.

That's not something I would ask about.

How much time do people have off for vacation?

Um, I'm happy to, yeah, I'm happy to follow up with that, but I think it's like standard four weeks like standard city time that you know all staff get.

They got four weeks.

And what about so that's four weeks vacation?

Do they get personal days too?

Personal thick, the same way as like any staff present get.

Yeah, any cities, any city employee.

There's city employees, of course, or we are city employees, yeah.

And okay.

That's that's what I'm trying to do.

No, we appreciate that, and uh, we're very proud of our liaisons and community engagement specialists for working around the clock.

I mean, as you know, ONS is not just a nine to five uh you know role for our liaisons.

They some liaison attend as many as 20 civics, and they have or they have as many 20 civics, you know, in their in their area, and therefore have to attend obviously many, many meetings uh during the evening, and that's just civics.

We also have many other types of community meetings that we facilitate.

So we you know we we're proud of the work that we do and the committee.

When when someone calls 311 and they're speaking Cantonese, is there someone that um on on the other line that also is speaking Cantonese?

24-7, 365 days a year, we can connect someone to any language, not just Cantonese.

No, I know.

But does anyone there that answers the phone throughout the day speak Cantonese?

Um at the moment, no, it is an older language, kind of hard to find people that do still speak that language, but that's why the universal line is the easiest.

It's also um for our call center.

If we sometimes what we've noticed is when you speak a specific language and all calls just get routed to you, you end up getting more work than the next person next to you.

So the best way to do it is to just use the language line rather than overburden one specific person.

Ms.

Do I have time for one final question?

Uh sure.

Okay.

I just want to be uh respectful to my colleagues.

Thank you for giving the opportunity.

The Chinatown liaison, the downtown Boston liaison, um was recently filled, it was unoccupied for a long period of time.

How long was that position unoccupied for?

I don't know if that's at the top of my head, but um, we're excited about the new Chinatown uh leather district downtown liaison.

No, I know, I know, I know.

I'm saying how long was it um unoccupied for?

Um again, we're happy to follow up with the details on how long, but again, we're just looking forward and excited about the role being filled, ability to connect with Chinatown, downtown, and the leather district.

Okay, why was that position?

Uh that's a second question.

Yeah.

I know, but that's the answer.

The answer was I didn't get the answer, but I guess in the interest of just time, I'll just say uh was it over a year basically?

It's possible.

I'm not sure I need to get back to you on that.

I can just tell you that we went through a long process to make sure that we got the right person for the neighborhood.

Um she's wonderful, she speaks Mandarin, she wants to learn Cantonese, and that's the kind of commitment we're looking for for a neighborhood like that.

Um it's not easy to find obviously liaisons um who can speak uh different languages as well and represent that.

We had an open process, we waited for you know interview different applicants, and we had to wait for the right person to apply.

I can I could say um I was at a community meeting this week, actually, actually last night, um, with the ONS liaison in Chinatown, and she did an outstanding job representing representing the city.

Uh Mr.

Chair, I'll wait for the next round.

Okay, thank you, Councillor Flynn.

Counselor Murphy.

Um Aiden, I'll start with you.

Okay.

Um you have that age group that oftentimes when we have you know meetings with different departments, if it's youth summer jobs, or just how are we making sure that our 20 to 25 at all, we say 20 to 35 aren't falling through the cracks.

So if you could just talk me through like what your staff looks like and what your capacity is, because to me, I feel like we should make sure your office is fully funded and you're able to really connect to it's such a need for that age group, especially with you know, kids now aren't able to buy houses, rent so high, it's like a different world for that age group than when I was that age.

Yes, thank you, Councilor Murphy.

I appreciate the question.

So as of right now, in as a formal hired role, it it's I I'm the only person within the the uh Spark department.

However, with our 40 volunteers, one of the greatest things about the council is they come in each year with passion projects and subject matter that they hope to go over within their one-year council term, and through that, I connect them with the city uh the department heads who may be touching on those subjects so they can be more affiliated, more have a better understanding of what the city is doing to address those needs, and then also create the space for them to also advocate for things that they hope to see coming out of um coming out of their council.

We meet monthly on a regular basis, and then from there, any type of programming um is additional capacity on them.

And people must come to you with like actual needs with this knowing that you are supporting that age group.

So who do you like reach out to and rely on the most when those calls come through?

Like what are your most common requests from residents?

Um we actually have a great, I mean, with our sister uh cabinets, we work really closely, uh definitely with OCO in terms of getting out and uh finding opportunities to get back to their neighborhoods.

Uh additionally, we try to get creative in figuring out how to collaborate with um, for example, the mayor's office of housing.

Um thing that's very transparent when coming through the council, uh we're not gonna solve the housing crisis within a year at a volunteer capacity, but just being able to have conversations and as well as again receive that education as to what the city is doing to try and address that is um one of the biggest needs that we come across of within the program.

Awesome.

Thank you for that.

Appreciate it.

So I know that the roles for the liaisons have changed, and many of the residents, especially when we're at civic meetings, it's older residents who are attending, so they still have the understanding of what a neighborhood liaison is, you know, should or shouldn't, or whatever.

If you could just describe what the new expectation is for the neighborhood liaisons, I know you said that they're still involved in a lot of the abutter and development, but I often see and hear, and I think rightfully so, if we're paying other people to kind of take over that responsibility, like, well, that's not, you know, they're not like trying to pass off work, but it's like I don't get into that, or that's not my role.

So if we could just have a if I could have a better understanding of what they are doing now compared to what we we got used to seeing them do before yeah, so the expectation from our liaisons is to, like you said, in addition to attending civic meetings who are you know have um currently they're you know, people are used to going to them and you know they know what the liaisons would expect.

But the other expectation is to um expand and be very proactive about reaching out to people who are not used to going to civic meetings.

So you know, and that's we sort of find people we have coffee hours that we highlight, and we try to make sure that we're uh doing our very best to uh that that the you know it's as advertised as possible so we can attract new people who are not potentially you know able to go to a civic in the evening.

Um we also sometimes like this something that we want to do a little bit more of is to just door knock some streets to ask people very directly, like what can we do?

What are you seeing?

How can we be helpful?

Obviously, that's a it's a big city, and and we have you know limited time to do that, but we're gonna do that to the best of our abilities as well.

Um then as far as the abutters process and helping with the community engagement specialists, they will the community engagement specialists will ask liaison for their input in what they're hearing so that that you know, in case they're you know, because they're running the meetings, they're making sure things are fired and and all that and of that nature, but they also do rely on the liaison to at least share some insight from their neighborhood to make sure that uh again we're hearing it from every single person in the city.

Um thank you for that.

How many neighborhood liaisons do we have and cultural liaisons?

Right.

And are there any openings currently?

I can't speak to cultural because it's a different cabinet.

I can speak to my team.

We've got 14 neighborhood liaisons.

We currently have three vacancies.

Ums are vacant?

Roslendale, Jamaica Clinton, and Charlestown.

It can and the cultural ones don't fall under No, they fall under the uh equity cabinet.

What's their role?

Is it sim isn't it similar to is there a reason why we don't keep it?

I can't speak for other departments um candidly, and and that's gonna be a different hearing.

Counselor.

I didn't know they were different.

Um in my last 40 seconds, Ergy.

Um one of the big things I hear is like how how are cases closed, and if people feel as though a case was closed and it may not have been addressed, what what should I do or my staff do if someone reaches out with that concern?

Yeah, I I get that question a lot, so thank you for that one.

Um the way that the process works is we'll get it from either email, phone call, wherever it comes from, right?

A case is created, if contact info is left in an email, that resident will get an email update.

That case is then sent out to the department that's responsible for that case.

They go out, they do their investigation, they see what they need to do, and then that department is responsible for closing out that case.

Um there are some nuances where we do close out cases like outside agencies, ever source, national grid.

You know, we don't always get back a response, they're not our jurisdiction.

We'll close those out, just saying reach out to that agency if they need to.

But for city departments, they are responsible for closing out their own case.

When that case is closed, residents would get an email if they left their email saying this is what has happened, your case has been noted, resolved.

Um residents can respond to that email and will receive it and get information if it hasn't been uh responded to or wasn't to the best of their satisfaction or whatever it might be.

They can also call back to 311 and we can put in a note in the cases and flag for departments that way.

Um, and then if it gets escalated, that's where we also plug in the liaisons and just say, like, hey, we're kind of getting a lot of this.

Can you guys take a look and see what's going on?

Do you collect data or keep data on departments that how many may not be solved or have to be elevated?

Do we have data on that?

We do, yeah.

Um we take a look.

I also do some reporting every week or so about case closures and seeing how they're being closed out, what's going on and flagging for departments.

Um, and then on top of that, we are working on a new system.

So that data is going to be so much cleaner and better as we're transitioning.

So right now we are working off a two, so it's a little harder.

Um, but we have dashboards that we've created just to stay on board and watch that data as well.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Councillor Murphy.

Uh, Councillor Braden.

Uh, and then uh after that, it's Papen, Fitzgerald, then Durkin.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning, good morning.

Um I'm gonna pick up on the 311 uh issue.

Um I'm I'm just wondering in terms of you mentioned that just a moment ago that uh when it comes to utilities like national grid that it's outside our jurisdiction.

If residents uh call with them an issue with do you do we have a liaison?

Do we have a lay uh like a liaison with those utilities?

Like can someone in ONS call the liaison with whoever the government we do, yes.

We have a good relationship with the ever source liaison.

Um national grid, we have contacts.

I don't know exactly if they call it a liaison role.

Um but typically, depending on the request, because there's different types that come in.

If you know there's a wire down, we'll send that over, but the cable office stays on top of that as well, just because it could go from Eversource to Verizon to Comcast.

Could take a second to figure that out.

Um the other side though is typically when they're doing work on the street, that's where we plug in our CIU team, the construction management team at public works, because they stay on top of contractor complaints and making sure they look at those.

That's good.

Um, and on the on the app, it doesn't, is there an option for in different languages on the app?

There is, yes.

Uh, there are 12 different languages, you just have to have the whole phone set to that language.

Okay, very good.

Um, and then um I just wanted to um wonder why um why does the Spark not have a budget in the budget book?

There's no do you get pen, Aiden?

They're all the budgets are in one like capital, like and in one budget.

So like everyone here is in the same budget.

So it's not broken out separately, so it's not broken down, yeah.

Okay.

And then um so the Office of Civic Organizing, there's an increase in the line item for personnel services from 130K to 316K.

Um, can you explain the increase and how that what that what's that for?

Can you repeat that?

Office of civic organizing.

There's an increase in the line item of personnel services from 130K to 316.

And what's that for the Where are you saying that?

What what number line item?

Council.

Personnel.

Um, just my list of questions.

Uh never mind, we'll come back to that.

Yeah, I don't I don't see the increase on our touching.

Then also um, I know one thing you mentioned earlier was that the cabinet uh this cabinet is that is the closest to community.

Um I as I have voiced uh I have I have serious concerns about the transparency of the capital budget over many years going back like it's sort of very opaque to most people.

So at a neighborhood coffee hour recently, uh Brianna, you told residents that there was no new money would be allocated to the Jackson Mann Community Center, and I'm just curious as to how that decision was made.

That decision, because we've been in a community process since before I was elected, 2019, before 2019.

Uh we've had a programming study, we've had a sighting study, we've had a land use study, and the next logical step would be to move towards getting an RFI for programming design and moving forward with this project.

It's been a long time in the works.

We've had a we had a really well attended um city council hearing out there with over 300 people turned up.

We had to turn people away.

There wasn't room in the room in the building for everyone.

So you know what's what's what's the process in deciding what's a priority for our neighborhoods?

Like we have the second largest neighborhood in the city with 87,000 people, and we don't have a fully functioning community center.

So why is that decision to just put that to one side and not move forward with that obvious need?

How is that decision made?

Thank you for your question.

Um my role is to make sure I'm going out in each neighborhood, having these conversations, explaining the processes, and making sure we're uplifting where we can, neighborhood stakeholders' concerns.

In this particular instance, we've heard loud and clear, of course, the also and Brighton community it wants to see a community center there.

My understanding of the process is that it's going through the process.

There has to be a housing study, there has to be a site study that has to be the site study's done.

Okay.

The programming study was done.

The siting study has been done.

I believe there's not a housing study has not been followed.

Well, the housing study, it's there's two sites there.

The housing study would be on the back end.

The front end is a community center space.

So, you know, we're studied to death, basically.

We've had more studies than I've had hot dinners.

So it's time to stop studying us and actually do something for us.

And this community center is essential for our neighborhood.

And we're really tired of this sort of pod paminess off.

No, I hear I hear your advocacy.

Again, the administration shares that obviously we want to see something there, and we're really excited about getting folks involved and having a more um clear communication process between the administration and the community, and we look forward to that um down the line more as well.

We've had a we've had a programming study.

We had we had it a community, we had you UT come in and they did uh a really long community process.

I think you were probably at Main Street at the time.

And you remember this.

We people from all over the neighborhood, different ages, different backgrounds came and we had a process.

We had a programming study.

We have I know that so why wait why waste money doing studies?

Because studies age, they're they're useless after five years.

Yeah.

So why why why so like I obviously I don't oversee the like that part of the capital budget?

I know there was a process already here where the cap the um operations team had this conversation and the d the they had this conversation with you all.

So my role in this process is uplift the community's concerns and the advocacy that they have, and that is what I am doing, and that's what the team is doing.

Um, and obviously they have to have those conversations on trade-offs, etc.

What was the takeaway when you stood in the back of that room with 300 people trying to get into the space and saying we needed a long list of public testimony saying we needed a community center?

What was your takeaway from that meeting?

Like, was the community like, oh, we don't give a damn, we don't need a whole community center?

That wasn't what that was.

No, like I said, it's clear that the community wants a community center.

I think that's loud and clear.

So how long do we have to wait?

Like there's no there's no clear progress through the com through the community through the capital plan this year.

Like putting money on a piece of paper is not delivering.

That's just a piece that's not doesn't mean a thing unless you see the next logical step is a programming design.

So we need to go forward.

Um I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, thank you.

Okay, I just uh uh do you have the budget book?

Uh because it's page 139 in volume sorry, two is uh the Office of Civic Organizing.

I think we were too getting to our earlier question.

The personnel services uh the over the overall cabinet budget went over up that amount, not the well I'm I'm just saying it says yeah, for 26 it was 130 appropriated and 27 is 316.

I'm not sure if if maybe some lines were moved, but we have not changed, added or um done any type of of change to the positions or salaries.

Yes, we're just gonna have to get back to you on that.

Yeah, yes.

Okay, so that may be an error.

Uh uh we have to look at it ourselves, so but like it's not there has been no crease to OCO's budget at all.

Okay, so we'll we'll get we'll give you an answer to that question, uh Madam President.

Um uh Councillor Pafan.

Thanks.

Six minutes.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um thank you all so much for being here.

I wanted to start off by saying thank you for the work that you all do.

Um I have found appreciation for this cabinet for our obvious reasons.

I was able to just learn a lot during my my time there with only two different administrations.

And I wanted to also just start by thanking the the liaisons that represent my district, Asia, um, former Rosnalia's on Josh McCorker, and Zoe Petty, who represents Hyde Park.

Nothing but um great partnership with my office there.

I also always want to shout out our 311 call takers.

Just in 24-7 role, that's that's a really beautiful resource that our city has that our residents can call or use the app at any time.

Um I look at this cabinet as the front line of city government.

You all three of your departments and entire cabinet every single day.

Um you're the ones that residents call with frustrations and historically.

A lot of your employees have been underpaid, but yet not work in traditional nine to five hours.

And I uh I I thank you all for that.

My um my first question is for the Office of Civic Organizing.

I have a really strong appreciation for the work that your office does because you truly do bring City Hall out of City Hall recently, most recently and coming up this weekend is the Love Your Block initiatives.

I also love a lot your um the grants that you put out.

I love all of them.

I think that they um I've seen how they ignite the residents in my district because throughout last summer I was able to visit a lot of the block parties, and they really ignited so much um energy amongst residents that two different civics were transpired because of the result of that.

So I wanted to just shout that out, and I wanted to ask you throughout your different initiatives.

How do you see that really benefiting the city of Boston?

How do you see residents come together?

Can you elaborate a little bit on everything that your office does?

Thank you, Counselor.

I think the main focus of our office is always on increasing neighborhood participation, especially from residents, uh, and especially from residents that are um historically not as close to the city or have not participated with the city uh for a long time.

Also, the the bigger focus of everything that we do in terms of initiatives and grants, etc., is to increase uh social fabric in the city.

So, like you said, our hope is that all of these events will get people out and talk to one another, especially in this time that this course is not as healthy.

We really value um having investment out in community so that residents can really connect with one another in in an amical, happy, neighborly way.

Thank you.

Um for director Missouri, um, thank you so much for the work that you do.

Almost called you commissioner, but never mind.

Um obviously the question was brought up that neighborhood liaisons no longer do a butters meeting specifically.

I remember the days when they would go in person to different different community centers to do the meetings, but I've also learned that they they do the basically the community engagement for the transportation department, they do community engagement sometimes for the planning department, they do communication for the environment department.

Can you can you break down a little bit of the of the different roles that they play partnering with different departments?

Because for example, shout out to Zoe Petty.

She's been able to be my go-to person for the parks department.

There I had an issue at Ross Playground and in High Park, and she's been able to essentially solve the issue.

Um speaking for the parks department.

So can you break down a little bit of what they do?

Yeah, so thank you, Counselor.

Um we liaisons uh in coordination obviously with with deputies myself.

Um we work with all other departments to make sure that the engagement process is essentially as similar as possible across the board.

Uh and the reason we're using similar principles, um, and the reason for that is we want to just make sure that uh residents sort of have um you know under are getting exactly you know what they um expect from us from the communication process, whether it's for parks or like you said, transportation or or planning, which uh that's why we're engaged in that process, yes.

Yeah, um and so it's kind of like they wear different hats despite not technically working for those departments.

They're they're providing that that assistance that whenever that's needed, correct?

Absolutely, yes.

Okay.

Um that's good to understand because I know that the role has changed, but they they still encapsulate they they still cover a lot of ground.

Yeah, I mean the the important thing here is to make sure that uh for us is that every department in the work that we're doing that is going to impact obviously different neighborhoods and residents that residents and neighborhoods uh the input is is actually built into the process uh from the very beginning, not just you know, work is being done, and then uh you know we go out there and have a community meeting.

We want to make sure that that involvement is happening throughout the process, and and that you know, residents actually have been able to inform the work that we do and that it's as transparent as possible.

Cool.

Um I'm gonna take the rest of my time to pitch an idea that I that I've always had.

It's kind of like similar to bringing City Hall to City Hall.

Um now as a district councilor, I've been able to see how valuable our community I've always seen it, but now more how more how valuable our community centers are.

Um I've always thought about how potentially the liaisons could have an off-site office in, for example, my rosina liaison could have could could be sometimes stationed at the Rosland Community Center, Zoe could be stationed at the High Park Community Center or um Asia either at the Madahunt or the Milladrid.

It's sort of like bring some of those resources as well for the transportation department, for parks, the birth certificates, etc.

And do the that type of on-site constituent services.

I think that I represent a district that's very far away from City Hall, so it's very difficult for folks to go to come here unless they really have time.

If if that's obviously there'll probably be a partnership between the BCYF CAP department and you guys, but just an idea of that.

I've been able to get that.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

We've been joined by Councillor Culpepper, uh, Councillor Fitzgerald, then uh Councillor Durkin and Culpepper after that.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh, and thank you, administration, for being here today.

Um, also I just want to give a shout out to Madison and Anthony uh in Dorchester who do a great job uh in splitting up a very large neighborhood.

Um, but they do a fantastic job.

Um and I work well with both of them.

Um typically I've been asking these administrations.

So what what is the this year?

See the theme seems to be.

So what what is the cut, right?

Like where did you guys get hit?

I know it was touched upon a little bit earlier, and there might be a discrepancy in the budget book we have to figure out, but is there are you guys level funded this year as to last year?

I know you said there was no increase, but is there is there it has there been a decrease?

And if so, where are you seeing that?

Yeah, so we had an uh eliminating block party grants.

Um so we're you know looking forward to externalizing like external partners um building funding there, um, and I believe there's an elimination to uh uh a long-term of a vacant role as well.

But that's so really that's otherwise pretty much so almost level funded.

Yeah, okay.

But the the budget I think is going up like a couple hundred thousand.

Yes, that's because of like three on one overtime.

So as I mentioned, all of our departments are in one personal line, so it's it's also three-one one OCO, Spark, and ONS in one.

So um overtime spending and making sure that we're happy we expanded some um like we write fit some through one call takers for like you new union role, stuff like that.

Um that's mainly where you're probably seeing the increase.

But ONS, for instance, isn't it?

Uh over 200,000.

Decrease over 200,000.

Right.

I want to mention Sarah Sharp as well on the South End, of course.

Fantastic in the South End loves her.

Um, thank you.

Uh Butters meetings.

Uh, we just like if we could do a slightly better job at uh notifying the counselors as to when if we could sort of codify something, because I think sometimes we hear about it where like people call us and we don't know that the meeting had happened already or is coming and we're not prepared for it or that night.

So any sort of system that infrastructure we can put in place that we would uh be notified would be very helpful.

Thank you.

We can work on that.

We're always looking to get better at everything, and feedback is always appreciated.

Yep.

Thank you, Mahmit.

Um and then is there ever thought about going back to in-person ever for some of these things?

Or is there been any discussion?

I guess the ask as of this point, has there been any discussion?

Yeah, we've definitely discussed it.

I think um when it comes to like this specific topic on everything, not just the butter's meetings.

Um even when I talk to residents, uh, people have done it for a long time.

You know, people have either been engaged or worked for for corrupt with like city government.

Um it is like sort of split.

Some people think that hybrid just brings, I mean, not uh virtual brings more people, makes it easier, especially because people have gotten so used to it.

But um, we're definitely still discussing how can we improve that, you know.

Are we potentially gonna go back to uh in person?

We haven't made a decision, but we're definitely having conversations and we appreciate any input you have on that.

Any thoughts on that too?

Thank you.

Yeah, no, I can I can see where it's there's pros and cons to each way.

Um Sola 311.

I just want to throw by the way, I just want to say overall, guys.

I I do believe that the community engagement cabinet is where like City Hall's bread is buttered, right?

Like this is this is what people think about the average constituent when they talk about City Hall.

90% of the work is what comes out of the five of you folks right here, right?

As to what they expect.

Um so I I if if we're never hard on you guys or right pushing you guys, it's because we know this is this is what people want to see.

And so I appreciate you guys for taking the the baton on that, and it's it's not an easy role amongst all of you.

Um I have a 311 open case from three months ago.

I would just like to call it out.

It's an upside down stop sign at the bottom of Oakden Av.

And uh it was put in and it is still upside down.

I took a picture this morning just to make sure I said okay, it's still down.

Uh and if I could add at the top of Oakden Av, uh there is a do not enter sign with some school hours that is swung upside down as well, and that's for this for the school that's right there to make it a one-way, and so uh also vitally important that that gets corrected just so people see.

So at the top of the Hill of Oakton and at the bottom of Oakden, uh a stop sign and a do not enter sign.

I would just like to put that on the record officially.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

I'll reach out to the TDM pick them.

I know they were they just hired a new group of SI investigators.

Okay.

So that probably is part of that.

Is it and someone told me this and I I've I I tried looking up, couldn't find it.

Is it when there is certain things that have a uh a certain hours that has to be done by right?

Like a downstop sign, I thought was like we will get on that in 48 hours or something like that, right?

Okay.

So I do that so there's SLAs, uh, they are very outdated.

Yeah, they haven't been changed in over 10 years, I think.

What is I'm sorry, what an SLA?

Uh service level agreement.

So the time that a case was agreed to be done on.

Yeah.

Um so some service types have them, some don't.

It just kind of depends on what we came to 10, 12 years ago.

Um, and so as like we're revamping technology, those are also things we're looking at to make sure it's co-aligned with staffing and resources and things like that as well.

Great.

Um two other quick things I want to bring up.

Uh, when is the 2026 Civic Summit?

The one that be you think you can't say, it's gonna be hosted on August 1st.

August 1st.

Oh damn it, audio.

Could I uh uh doing the panels uh could I just address something I always feel at least in Dorchester in the civic groups, right?

And I don't know if my other colleagues have felt this way.

Uh but they're either civic groups that are dying, like falling off and just saying we're not good back, or there's no one to take the baton afterwards and say, hey, because it's it's the person that's been there for X amount of years, and they're like, I'm done, who wants it, and everyone's going like this.

I think that's the biggest concern the city has right now because once the civic associations die off, uh there's not a lot of organization, right?

And so I think that just should be a main part of uh building up the bench, uh, especially as we have you know all the new people coming to the city and other folks are are moving out and things that there's a lot of turnover and no one knows really who is the the stepping up in the in the community.

Um I think it's it's important to uh call those people out.

Uh and then finally I just wanted to give Aiden a chance uh something you're proud of Spark Boston, just uh you know, 15 seconds to brag, if that's okay, Chair.

Sounds good.

Yeah, I mean I would say most recently we had our building creative Boston panel in collaboration with the downtown Boston Alliance.

Typically, when we've done panel events, we brought out a cra a crowd of 30 to 40.

This crowd we brought out 50 with a wait list that continued to grow even up to the day of that on the day of we had to make the judgment call of going ver uh virtual as well to uh cater to the audience that we had.

Um I'm an alumni to the program, and I think one of the things that I've always found beneficial is just the creativity and the ideas that each new council comes in for programming.

Um our council member who came in with this idea was right out of the gay passion about having a conversation about what does downtown look like and its future, and we had a successful uh successful event that came from it.

Alright, well, if you have any ideas, let me know.

But we'll do that.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Durkin.

Uh, we're doing six minutes.

Thank you.

And um, I hope people didn't miss Councillor Fitzgerald's, you know, name dropping that he's doing the Pan Mass Challenge.

I saw that humble rack.

So he also doesn't train.

I haven't started your time yet.

Yes, uh, but uh I am really really grateful to the partnership that I have with the ONS team and with this cabinet.

Um I am really thrilled that uh a member of our team, Sam Courage, has gone off to be our the most of our neighborhood liaison.

So um I know she's doing an incredible job, and the former uh ONS liaison for most of our district, Mac and Bonner did an incredible job, and I love working with Maria as well and the West End and loved working with Sierra and still love working with her.

So um so we have a great history and great collaboration.

Um Ergy, I know you've shown us how to how 311 works and all of that, and I constantly am calling 311 when I'm off hours when I see something in the neighborhoods that I know needs to be fixed immediately.

Um so I want to thank um some of the call takers who responded to uh busted white paint can all over Kenmore Square.

I actually got in within an hour to see public works crews come out and fix this sort of paint explosion that was um, but it just shows the power of 311 and the power of like all the work that this cabinet is doing.

Um so I'm grateful for that.

I know that we're headed for a budget year where we are investing less in grant um funding, and I know that that is a big part of a lot of folks' jobs.

So I was just curious sort of how you feel like that will impact this cabinet and sort of what um and then then another thing that I have um another question I have related to that is we've heard concerns from constituents who have thrown block parties, just the sometimes they get the block party grant, but then the permitting actually costs more than the grant, and I was just curious, and I have actually brought this up to the mayor directly.

I was just curious um if there's been any thought to waive permits for block parties as part of if we don't have as much sort of money to give out um if there are ways to like for there's a perfect example, Kazwick Street in Audubon Circle.

Um, it's it's it's basically a slip street, so you can shut down the whole street without a detail and just with you know bollard.

So I was just curious if you've thought about thinking of waiving block party fees and if that's been part of the conversation.

Thank you, counselor.

Um, so we only require residents to go through one permitting application, which is the place street closing permit, which is the permit that allows you to close a public street.

This permit has no fee, it's free.

Any other permit that you want to get for like amplified sound, if you are having a band or um like a bigger event, not just a typical regular putluck block party, then you require to get more permits.

Well, and just imagine like you want to have a block party, but then you can't have music or sound or a band or you know, the cookie truck, you know, like obviously there's some pockets of the city that have a harder time navigating uh this issue, you know.

If if we're going to neighborhoods are more away from the downtown area, you have more space, private property space, there's neighborhoods that don't have that.

So I I understand your question.

We would have to work with the licensing um department and and permitting to see uh what they would want to do, as we don't get.

Yeah, I definitely think that's something we should look into because for this particular block party, I think they received a couple hundred dollars and then they spent six hundred dollars on all of the additional permits that they needed.

Um, and so I'll get you this specific case um when offline, but I think it's just an important thing to think about if like we're trying to encourage fun and we're trying to encourage like activity in the summer.

And but I'm really thrilled that the block party program existed because I think these neighbors saw that it was a great way to make create community, and um at least for me in the in the summer months, it was a great chance for me to meet all the residents of Keswick Street.

So um, so I I have that to thank your cabinet for.

Um, I also um I'm thrilled, um, Mohammed, that you are now the director of this.

I think that you've done a great job working for the city, and that this role is really important.

So thank you for your leadership.

I know that there have been conversations around ONS's relationship to transportation and sort of the broader decision making processes within the city.

And I think we had a great hearing last week that sort of uh illuminated some of those um nuances.

I I'm just curious, sort of, Mohammed, like how you see, sorry, director, Missouri, how you see your yeah, how you see your role um in amplifying like certain voices, um, and making sure that you know we have one vision for the city, and it's not just reactive to potentially the people that we've we hear from the most.

Yeah, thank you so much, and thank you for the kind of words.

Um, and it's always a pleasure to work with you in your office on everything.

Um I I heard this a little bit at the hearing last year uh last week too from some from you know residents and advocates about not listening to sort of like the loudest people, and I would just say, you know, uh on in that's pretty much the opposite of what we're trying to do.

Like our our goal for everything is like we sort of have a vision, obviously, for let's say transportation or um you know what a walkable neighborhood, for instance, would look like we have that vision, but what we want to do is work with different people to see who either live there or who are advocates or you know, counselors, obviously, other stakeholders, people with disabilities, like it's just like so many considerations.

We just want to make sure all those considerations are taken into account as we move forward towards the vision that we have, and that you know, where there are very like finer details, for instance, about if it's a park, you know, do we want a bench or whatever?

Again, that we're just hearing from people there, and we have real input.

Um, that's that's the goal.

That it's not so much just listening to one group over the other.

And chair, I'm sorry, I have one more question.

Um, so the I see that like the budget line expenditures have essentially for personnel gone up around 200k each year.

And I was just curious, sort of what it I mean, it it seems like it's been like 24 to 24, 2025, 2026, 2027.

And I was just curious, sort of if there were specific jobs that were within this sort of new tranche, or if or if it's just like escalating wages, or if it's a mix of the two.

Yes, okay.

So I I got a little bit of clarity for both questions.

So one, um, there's been an intentional effort to actually make each meet make each department within ONS a separate department.

So what you're seeing with OCO is that they're becoming its own entity in its own department, so it's not technically an increase, it's just they're becoming their own entity versus just like ONS.

So it's not technically an increase, it's just they're becoming their own entity versus just like ONS, as we talked about, like people just reference the entire cabinet as ONS when OCO is a separate cabinet, we're trying to build out the room line, trying to bet out Spark ONS, because there are their separate entities.

So that's why you're seeing the increase, but it's not an increase, it's just like reshifting or reorganizing to the second question.

Oh, you're saying that there are jobs that are moving underneath this cabinet to just um to President Braden's question of like why do we see an increase in the budget line?

So I want to answer that first.

Oh, okay.

And then to your question, um, the increases you usually see is because of wage and step increases that happen, health insurance, and a little bit of overtime every year.

That's actually what you're seeing.

Got it right into that.

Thank you so much.

Okay, uh, thank you.

Uh Counselor Culpepper.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And good to see you, Brianna, and good to see you, Mohammed.

Good to see all the good work that you do.

And I agree with my counselor colleague when it comes to all the work that falls on you and the significance that the community places on the work that you're doing the response.

Um unlike uh Council of Fitzgerald, uh I had constituents that continually continuously complained about a sign, and I just checked, and they put that sign up two weeks ago.

So thank you for that.

And uh I'll work with you.

I know what so here's what I'm trying to understand.

I'm trying to understand the protocol for when you notify counselors' offices that you're in the district, or do you only notify them under certain situations?

What's the protocol for before you go out, you call a counselor office and let them know that you're there for whatever.

So we we just we work with IGR or through governmental affairs team, and we let them know like here's relations team.

Um here are some things coming up you know in these districts.

Uh please uh and then they just you know obviously they inform you guys so that's our protocol.

So if we don't hear about it, it's IGR.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

I know they're sitting around here, I appreciate you all making it.

I'm just trying to get to the protocol.

I'm just trying to get the same thing.

Sometimes it's it's not Ricardo's fault.

It's not Ricardo's fault.

Um I'm just trying to get to the protocol.

It's not a good idea.

Because let me say this we get very little notifications of things going on in district seven, very little.

Now, and and I know things are going on because I go to someone I say Ace Adam, where is she?

She's always in the district.

Um every event I go to, she's at.

But my I'm just trying to get to how you make the contact or inf give the information to the district about what's going on with neighborhood services in the in the district, or should we set up a series of meetings so that we can meet weekly or bi-weekly to find out what's going on in the district?

Sure.

I mean, there are different types of meetings, so like you yes, you see Asha everywhere, she's incredible.

Um, we don't obviously host every meeting in the district.

So if we don't host a meeting, like you may not be notified about that one.

We're just going as well as attending on behalf of the city uh to know what's going on and to pay attention.

But uh, if we if we were hosting a meeting ourselves and organizing it, you know, that's when we engage IGR and let you know they engage with you.

So uh there was a meeting that I I heard about because we hear about the meetings even when you don't know notify us.

I mean the folks in the community let us know.

And I heard about the Nubian Square meeting that is just had in.

And is there a task force going on with new being square that you're heading up?

So there's no, it's not official.

We were having conversations with key stakeholders and newbie in um about um investments, cleanliness, public safety, public health.

Um, it was really opportunity for the ONS, the mayor, the different departments to hear what we can do to improve also um economic opportunity as small business, understanding what we can do a little bit more.

And so we're we weren't notified about that meeting.

So, in in that instance, for my understanding, we want to make sure that we're connecting with the the the like businesses and the like you know, the main streets, folks that were in the neighborhood.

Um, our role is to make sure we're connecting with the community to make sure they're involved, but um we could make sure to make sure include in in the future on what that looks like.

Because here's the deal for me, I want to know exactly what's going on in District 7 from the mayor all the way down.

I want to know and so when we hear about a meeting that's taking place with the businesses in New Bien, and we don't know and I don't know, then I do get concerned, I do get upset.

And I remember when Commissioner Davis was commissioner, police commissioner, and we work with the young folks at Trot Apart, right?

And I made sure I told M.

Benino may rest in peace that when they came over there when the police come, because we considered Trotter Park, ours where we were working, let me know.

And they did, they let us know before they came to Trotter Park.

The one time they didn't, all hell broke up, and the H block kids and the police got in it with the dogs and we have so my point is that for me as the city council with this, I whenever y'all step in there.

I want to somehow Cul Pepper, look, we're going into district seven today, so we can know.

And those kind of meetings are critical that you're talking about when you're talking about businesses, and not to have let me know.

I want to know.

I really want to know.

And I don't know how much I text the manager.

I texted once it I text the man told them.

Because I really want to know when y'all come in to do so.

We can work together.

I mean, we've got a lot of challenges, a lot of challenges.

We work together.

And in fact, we did better when I wasn't a counselor.

I would get more calls everyone when I wasn't a couple of so uh so I just want to know whatever it is, whoever it is, just call me.

Tariq is right there, call him.

Because if we don't know what's going on in our district, it it's not helpful to us.

Yeah, and it makes us look better.

And we're trying to build we we have been having Nubian Square meetings with the same folks y'all have meeting with.

So it didn't make sense to have two separate meetings.

We're trying to look at Nubian's own Nubian Square from a empowerment zone perspective.

Right.

And there's a lot of need there, but there's I look at it as a diamond in the rough.

I just mr.

Chairman, one more question.

Yeah, 311 question.

Your ears are working better today.

Uh but it's great.

Yes, no problem.

Uh I just had a 311 question.

I know you're getting cut.

Uh one percent.

Uh so our budget's weird, it's outdated like the way that it's structured, it's ONS.

Um, but we actually have four different departments within that, which is actually community engagement cabinet.

Our department is not getting touched for funding, it's the whole cat.

So again, our percentages dropped as a cabinet rather than each department.

Um we are 24-7.

Taking cuts to our budget would be a major loss for constituent services in the city, so we focused on some other positions within the cabinet.

And what are they?

Uh we have the chief of staff.

Oh, sorry, go ahead, Chief.

Yeah, so the the roles and the programming or line items that were taking away were around block party activations, and we removed it like a long-term break-in chief of staff rule.

Okay.

And Mr.

Chair, this is not a question, just for comment.

As we work on mass and cas closer to the South End, and as we see the shift to Newbian Square, let's really sit down and talk about putting that together.

I just kind of texted there was a bank robbery in Dudley Station, the bank got robbed there.

I was on my way here.

That's breaking news.

I didn't know why all that.

I was in the middle of all these police, and one was coming down a one-way street.

I didn't understand what was going on.

I hollered at them, put your lights on.

I didn't realize what was going on.

But my point is that there's so much going on there, especially with regard to the new captain.

Let's sit and talk about what we can do in New Bean Square to not only make it more safer, but make it a little more attractive to folks that are coming from the outside.

Thank you for all the work.

All the good work that you do with the neighborhood services.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Culpepper.

Uh I just I'll give myself a few minutes.

Um, so for the summer block party grant and the spooky street grants, those are not in the budget for next year, those are zeroed out.

Correct.

Uh okay, and then we are looking at external funding partners, philanthropy, to make sure that we can continue that those great programs.

Okay, uh, and I guess uh so uh I had um so do we still have we still have block party grants to give out for fiscal year 26?

Yes.

Yes, I just want to know that they're not coming from the operating budget.

Okay, where are they coming from?

Partnerships.

Okay.

Um I mean I just uh so do I we had I I saw in the data it was like 40 spooky uh street grants, were those all and 54 summer block party grants.

Were those all given out?

Uh and we we so and and it's about so it's like 750 dollars each each one.

So for the summer block parties is up to $750 in terms of funding for spooky streets, it's it's 350 flat.

Okay.

Um so we're talking like uh I don't know, between the two of them, uh like 100,000 or less.

Yes.

Um I think it's about 50,000, 50 to 60 during the summer.

Okay, and then about 25,000 for the um spooky streets.

Do you know how much is left in the fund for the summer, the the block party grants?

For this year.

Oh, okay.

So there's zero left over from us for partnerships.

And um, and we funded through partnerships even last year as well.

We have very little um expenditure when it comes to operating for for this program.

Okay, and then for neighborhood liaisons, can you just talk about like what's the salary?

You know, I I think historically it's sort of like a like a really difficult job that you have to take a lot of flak, and the salary was very low.

So how's is that going up, or is that do you know how much a neighbor liaison the starting salary is?

Um yeah, I mean, I I forget the actual grade, and I apologize.

I mean I just started director, so I'm learning obviously the different intricacies um on the administrative side.

Um I think the and I do think the res I I'm I'll get back to you if the sort of you know the advisory compensation advisory board at some point, like you know, several years ago had an input on this.

I'm not sure, but I can get back to you on that.

I do know that I think it's I think it starts around 68 to 70 if I you know I will get back to you on exact numbers, but then it goes up obviously every year, um, like every other city employee.

Um there's yeah, it's step by step, and there's a range.

Okay.

Uh yeah, because I the personnel service is going up, you know, about the same every year.

I I assume part of it was just you know, people they hopefully stick around.

No, we know we've had we've had people stick around, and yeah, that those are salary steps, correct?

Okay.

Um and then in terms of positions being added, it's I think the the number is actually going maybe you're I think you're losing one position.

Yeah.

Uh and so I think it was like 71 positions and about 65 are filled or something in that range.

Sorry.

Uh that's probably the total for the cabinet, including uh 301 takers and others.

For ONS in particular, it's uh 40 neighbor liaisons, uh four deputies, and we've got three vacancies in the neighborhood liaisons.

Okay.

Um myself, of course.

Okay.

Uh yeah, you're you're gone.

No, no, I'm just gonna uh um uh okay, uh and then um in terms of I don't know if I had any other questions.

Uh I guess well, we you know currently uh we don't have a neighborhood le full-time liaison in my district.

Uh because yeah, we Jamaica Plain is uh unfilled, uh West Roxbury, uh Ben Tig, who's great, is on leave.

I I'm as I I don't know if it's as he's defending the country or cities.

Um so I just you know I I think you have some regional people who are or uh helping out, but um I don't know, it's a vital service, I think as everyone said, uh and it certainly helps our office work, so I just you know whatever resources you could or fill that position in Jamaica Plain and just make sure somebody has the time for West Roxbury, uh not just that they're obviously have other job responsibilities, but um just ask you to keep an eye on that.

I haven't I don't have any specific complaints about that, but um just noting that you know it's uh and you've got you know you can always reach me and like I'll plug in and help whenever we've got that kind of you know vacancy, like and then again obviously being on leave.

Same with the deputy for that uh for that neighborhood overseeing that.

Um and one thing that's really great that you know think everyone here will appreciate because you appreciate this cabinet and this department is we have many many applicants for for these vacancies, and we're going through them uh many great applicants, and we're excited about hopefully filling some of these vacancies soon.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh okay, so that's uh we're gonna go to a second uh round.

Well, do we have any public test?

Um no.

So I'm just gonna go to a second round.

Uh so counselor Flynn, uh, we're gonna go to we'll do four minutes because we still have a bunch of a lot of people here.

Let's see how that goes.

Um obviously I've been flexible at the end, so if you're in the middle of a conversation, I'm not gonna cut you off.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Just to follow up, the ONS liaison in Chinatown was placed on leave May 2025.

The person was hired by the mayor's office, the new person March 2026, so about 10 months that we didn't have a liaison.

So my team, my team filled in, obviously during that period of time, especially on language and communication access related issues.

I wanted to follow up on Reverend Cole Pepper's comments to us.

However, I don't get that invitation, and at times I will get a invitation, I will get a couple comments later from community leaders and say, Ed, why weren't you or your staff there after the meeting is over?

And I said, Well, I didn't I didn't know about it.

Um it kind of puts all of us in a bad position that you know I didn't know about it.

The mayor's office is not informing district city counselors, and it's not just me, I think it's a lot of district city counselors.

Reverend Cole Pepper, I think, expressed it perfectly.

The frustration that we all share, but are we committed to inviting district counselors to meetings, hearings, events, or is that just not part of it?

I mean, uh, counselor, I think one of the privileges, like truly, and and it's tremendous of being a public servant, of being a especially elected official, is that um you know you have a platform, you have obviously access to the mayor, you've got access to IGR, you've got access to us.

We're in constant communication, I would say, and you know, I'm I know where you stand on a lot of issues, and we value you know, we we take your input into consideration, same with all counselors.

Um it all depends on the meeting.

If there's a obviously public meeting, we will notify you.

Sometimes we have private meetings, just like you have a private meetings with residents that we may not you know be invited to, and sometimes you invite us, it depends.

Um, our focus as ONS is community.

But I I don't I don't get invited to the meetings by the mayor's office.

I our focus again, like truly is on community and people who don't have the platform and who don't have you know this access and making sure we're hearing from them and including them in our process.

There are other departments who you know obviously deal with with the council and um, but we also still, you know, I would say we engage with all of you.

Uh you know, you engage with Ciara, you engage with Katrina, um, and you know, that for me is us engaging with you and hearing your perspective.

Okay.

But we can always, you know, we can always work with you and then try to you know make sure that we do an even better job of uh notification when it when it's appropriate.

Okay, I'm I'm disappointed in in that answer.

I'm disappointed in the overall process.

Um I think some district counselors are included.

I think some district district counselors are excluded, depending on on who they are.

Um let me let me ask another question, a final question.

On the when someone is filling uh uh a complaint out on 311.

I've asked this a bunch of times.

I've I've gotten commitments that we would get it done.

Is there a box that we could add on the 311 that would automatically place the when it goes from 311 to the respective um city department, say public works, and if it's in district three, and the address is in district three, can that district three city counselor, his or her office, know about something that's taking place in their district?

That's been a challenge that I've I've worked on for a lot of years.

Um all that it would take is someone from do it.

They were here yesterday, but are they able to physically place a little box in the application?

Um, so a district city council knows exactly what quality of life issue someone is um seeking assistance from.

It doesn't seem like it's hard to do, but is this something you are committed to doing?

Um as you know, we are going through a tech update, so we have to focus on making sure those flow properly.

But our data is public, so you're able to access 301 data at the tip of your fingers at any time.

So if you go to data.boston.gov, you can pull 311 reporting whenever you'd like.boston.gov or data.boston.

Yeah, yeah.

I understand that, but I'm I'm just saying instead of us looking for a um periodically, can it just be added so it automatically goes to the district city councilor regardless of what the issue is, so we're aware of it, and maybe we we can help in a certain way.

Um it would just, in terms of streamlining things, it would be it would be very helpful because then the person would call the district city counselor after and ask, can we can you help about a particular issue I had that I just put into the 311 app?

And then I would say, well, can you send me what the city a confirmation of or receipt of that the city sent you and it sent send it over to me?

But I'm just saying, can we just be part of the process initially where a district city counselor can be included on it?

So when it goes to the public works department, and if it's in district free, the district three city council knows automatically about it.

Is that a fair question?

No, counselor, um, I I appreciate your question.

Again, we are going through a CRM system revamp.

Um it's important that obviously on the front end that the departments that help solve the problem are like in the loop on the front end, but we do actually share that, of course, the counselors um should be aware of problems that may be more long-standing or need help unsticking, and we could look for what that collaboration looks like specifically, but happy to talk a little bit more.

Um, another thing I just want to plug and add is that um Ergy has been running trainings for folks and happy to run a specific training around through one so you guys can see actually how clunky the system looks on the back end um for to help understand like where um where this is possible and where it's not possible.

So the so the answer is yes, or the answer is no.

The answer is we'll work on it and we'll definitely connect with do it to see like at what point in the process that um is appropriate.

And this we could get this done probably in the next 30 days or so.

Is that accurate to say?

I can't come into that, but I'm happy to follow up.

That's that's my recommendation is let's get it into the system, Mr.

Chair, in 30 days.

That's a simple request, Mr.

Chairman.

It's not as simple as you would think because again, we're going through a whole system revamp of the CRM system.

So there are things that are necessary that we have to do to get out of an old system that was made in 2008 before we start adding more of these um special features to it.

Okay, thank thank you, Counselor Flynn, Counselor Murphy.

Uh four minutes.

Great, thank you.

Um where do I sorry?

Oh, so Natalie, if you could, I know you talked about like the things you do when I see your department out there, but similar to Aiden, if you could just talk me through like the size and what your department looks like, because uh obviously the focus for these hearings are budget and seeing and what cuts um to yours were you did you submit or were you were told were gonna happen for your department?

Thank you, counselor, for your question.

Um our office has has maintained um the same amount of people as the very beginning.

So we have the director, we have the digital and project manager, which is one um one job description, and then the community outreach coordinator.

The digital and project manager oversees all the projects, initiatives, grants that our office puts forward, and the community outreach coordinator oversees the city hall on the go truck, all the community like cleanups, love your block, etc.

Uh, in terms of cuts, all the grants have been have been cut.

So the spooky streets grants and the block party grants.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, could you explain um going from the old system to the new system?

I hope I'm gonna assume you are you see the benefits of it.

It reminds me of you know when transportation was in here with BPS, and we know we're gonna go to the Zoom app and things are gonna be better.

So if you could explain the investment we've made to this new system and what advantages we'll see once it's all up and running?

Yeah, absolutely.

Um in the past, we've worked out of a system that all departments were in, and therefore the departments that go out and do the actual services didn't have a system good enough to look at um asset management, right?

So like how many times was this microphone fixed in the past three years?

The old system was not easy to report on that.

And so now with the tech updates, we have a system for departments that can better view what's happening with resources and allocation of their money and um what is happening in one specific thing, whereas our old system really went off of an address rather than an actual asset.

And that's gonna be huge going forward for the city and how we look at where problems are falling and whether you know, maybe this needs a long-term repair rather than just changing a bulb right now, you know, things like that.

Um that's the way for all the other depart, like all departments that benefit from this.

311, our old system was very uh long and outdated, and you had to do a lot of clicks to get to what you eventually needed, and it revolved around way more training, whereas now with the new system, it's so much more straightforward, and the information's at the tip of their fingers that our call takers are able to submit cases way faster, which means that they're able to go to the next person to help them quicker as well.

And you mentioned that this data is public, which I am aware of, and the either going through the data.com or 311.com system.

Is that the same way department heads search their data?

For the most part it is.

Um there was some changes to it, and we looked and we're like, oh I guess um it was hard to see where people are looking at it because some department some people in uh do it didn't realize how much we actually did use it, so we use that as well when we're trying to do something quickly, right?

When we're trying to look at an overall view of a whole road, that's where we're going directly into our system and saying, okay, let's look more into this, right?

Um we want to also keep things confidential from the public.

So there are some details and contact info that won't be public to keep that confidential that we would need on our end.

To search that way, the same thing that the public is excluded to see, I would also not be able to see.

Correct.

Okay.

And so like what does like Mike Brol see when he looks?

Does he see the same thing then with all of that information not shared?

The only information that's not shared is just the contact information of the person that reported it.

So yeah, you'd see the same thing on both sides.

Okay, just one last um statement, not a question.

Um I do agree though that uh us having access somehow, and I don't know exactly what it should look like, but many times when I call a department head about an issue that's coming through my office, oftentimes the answer I get is oh, we got that through 311, we've already been working on it.

So it seems like there's lots of people not connecting and they're kind of working on the same thing.

And so that would be helpful to streamline it if there was a way to see, like, oh, I could say to that person, I don't need to start at the bottom and work my way up.

I can see that they've been working on that for this many days, or where it's in progress.

So the next conversation, not obviously today that we should have about how we can make that happen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh Councillor Braden.

Thank you.

Um on page 134, it says contracted services are um 143,000 four hundred four hundred and forty-three thousand three hundred and ninety dollars.

Uh and that's down for 40,000 from last year.

Um, can you what what contracted services do you do you have?

Um, so that's the um usually with contracted services, that's where we put the like grants um that we give out, sometimes contracted services is like that we procure stuff like that.

It's all in one okay.

So paper wouldn't be supplies, it would be contracted.

Sorry, repeat that one set.

Paper wouldn't be in under supplies, it would be it depends if we like procure like it depends, it depends what line you're actually looking on.

Yeah, it might be like um office services supplies.

Educational services, you know, transportation of persons.

What number, what page in the book are you like?

134.

Okay.

We only have no you know, it's it's gone down 40,000 from last year, so um and then is your question why?

Um no, just what was uh you've clarified it, you know what is it?

Yeah, you know, supplies then on the next page down, it's got office supplies, materials, clothing, educational supplies, miscellaneous supplies.

So the whole supplies uh piece of it is in the next line, the next depart section down.

So just contracted services, is that for personnel that you hire to do certain projects or um, you know, what what what is it?

Um just a question.

And then um, and then you said you you know that with regard to block grants for block parties for block funds for block parties and events.

You're gonna try and um get partnerships sponsorship from outside.

So in 1920, 24 financial year, you had 96,000 for um contracted services, uh and that was for external funds coming in.

Um I'm assuming that was like ARPA funds or something, that that's sort of sort of twilighting now.

Last year, uh 25 it was 4,000, and then this we haven't had any more.

In terms of bringing in other external funds, what where are we anticipating like if bringing in external funds or are we writing grants or how do we looking for external funds other than what we've been using the last few years?

Thank you, Counselor, for your question.

Um so we we work uh extensively with the partnerships office and the mayor's office to make sure that we are building partnerships with nonprofits, with foundations, with other external business partners that want to fund uh some of the activities that we do, such as the block party grants.

We really believe in the power of partnerships.

Our office is the Office of Civic Organizing, so we want to make sure that we are also organizing those that can potentially help fund a lot of these initiatives for the for the residents.

So you're not projecting any income from any external funds from those people, you know.

You just you'll add it, we'll know next year when they must be.

When they commit it, we'll add it.

Like if they commit it.

Correct.

And and obviously that has to go through an unacceptable expense with a stamp process.

Um very good.

Um I don't think I have any further questions.

I um, you know, although I'm a little agitated about a certain project in Austin Brighton, I really do appreciate uh all the great work I was out on on the weekend with uh the the um the whole uh street cleaning and park cleaning, and I think we had your block.

A lot of love your block.

We had a lot of uh volunteers out um organized out of um bright and main streets.

So uh it was a really great day.

The weather was good, and uh it's a great way to build community.

So thank you for all your your work and uh I appreciate all you do.

Thank you, Counselor.

We always want to give a shout out to Austin Brighton because rain or shine, they're always pleasantly showing up and ready to assist the the residents and and beautify the areas okay.

Thank you very much, Councillor Papin.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair for I already have one follow-up question, and is that um we have a vacancy in Rosnale for early liaison position?

I wanted to get a sense of timeline.

Do you guys have uh an idea of when that position could be filled?

I know that a lot of residents just really appreciate that position, and they're asking our office.

Uh it's like I said earlier, we've had we have a lot of applicants, we're interviewing them, and we're obviously hoping to make a decision as soon as possible.

Okay, and for whenever there's a vacancy in uh in a neighborhood, is it the deputy director that helps step up?

It's the deputy director, and you know, I I'll step in as well.

Um, you know, we all pitch in to make sure that uh there's no like felt um you know vacancy session.

Perfect.

Then I'll make sure that if there's any Rosnell conversations, I'll loop you in specifically.

You have my number.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um yield the rest of my time.

Okay, thank you.

Uh I guess uh just before we get to Councillor Culpepper, you don't get any extra time based on that, but uh you're looking at the time.

Yeah, I'm the chair of the yield society.

Uh um just for 311, in terms of you know, i if there were was more money in in the budget or resources, like you know, uh how what more capa capacity, you know, is it is it technology, is it just people?

Supervisors.

So yeah.

Uh why why is that?

Uh we have only two supervisors, and we're a 24-7 operation.

And so that leaves some lacks, and you know, we do hear from residents pretty often saying I want to speak to a supervisor at 2 a.m., right?

And unfortunately, we just don't have the staffing to have that there.

Um evening shifts as well.

So, you know, we have shifts of manager roles that work later in the day, where ideally we'd rather have them nine to five, but we've have to shift like our data team a little bit so they're working a little later into the day to just have more support for our team.

Okay.

Okay, thanks.

Uh Counselor Culpepper.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So I'm gonna set the timer of four minutes, obviously.

You know, we've been a little loose with that, so whenever you're ready.

Thank you.

Um I don't get counselor peppin's two minutes, huh?

No, no, no, no.

We can talk after that.

There's been a lot of discussion about the grant cuts.

How what's the total amount of the grant cuts?

That's a citywide code, or just you mean our total amount across the city.

So we can we um I can share what our grants cuts are um in within our department.

Okay, give give us that, and if you can share across the city, and could we get a list of all the grants that are cut because we're hearing different people say different grants have been cut?

We we'd like to know all the grants that have been cut so we can look at that, okay?

So we can share the OCO grants.

We don't obviously see oversee all grants, so happy to follow up after what that looks like with IGR, but we could share with OKO with great.

Thank you, Councillor Culpepper.

So the cuts for the grants this year are sixty thousand dollars from uh the block party grants, the summer block party grants, as well as ten thousand dollars from uh the spooky streets grants.

Is that it?

Yes, and so that's what I'm looking for, the grants across the entire city.

So if you could get that to us, and uh and and I want to follow up on my earlier question because you guys kind of put it on Ricardo, right, in terms of us getting notice of when events are taking place in our district.

But I don't want to put it on record, I I want to put it on you, and I want to put it on you from this perspective.

You mentioned when council Flynn asked you about different events, you said you said there aren't you said if it's appropriate, we'll let you know when we're meeting with folks in your district.

When is it not appropriate to let a council know that you're meeting with folks in our district?

No, uh that was more about again, like there are meetings we for instance don't even schedule, right?

We're just like attending a meeting.

Uh we may not notify you about that one.

I mean, Asha sometimes will go to meeting, let me know.

Hey, I'm gonna go to this thing.

Um why why wouldn't we meet?

Why would you have a lot of people?

Or sometimes constituents ask us to schedule a meeting where it's like we are scheduling it on behalf of them because they want to talk to us, but it doesn't, they're not like asking for the counselor to like be involved.

They're just like wanting to be able to do that.

Those are the meetings that we want to know about.

Those are the meetings that we want to, and I'll tell you why, because there are constituents.

And so if we're one city and they're going to another arm of the city that's in our district, we're gonna hear it at some point, right?

They're gonna so it's easier to hear it up front, and I don't think there are appropriate meetings, and I hope there aren't meetings where folks are saying, well, don't invite Culpepper to this meeting because he's gonna raise hell or don't invite Culpe.

I mean, I hope there's a system, and that's why it's about the protocol that you use to determine who gets invited to what meeting.

There's no protocol.

Just to be clear, there's no like secret criteria, there's no protocol.

So it's at heart.

If there's no protocol, if there's no procedure, then it is at heart.

No, the pre can I clarify?

The procedure is if you're if a constituent is coming to us and saying, Oh, we have concern about this like intersection.

Our job is to include the streets team or the folks that can help the engineers or the folks that can help like solve the thing, and that's how we kind of include who's in the meeting.

What if what I am hearing from you, both um the district counselors, is that you want to be included.

I think we could see how we can make sure that collaboration happens better in the future.

But it's helpful for you all to understand like how we think about situations of like making sure when residents come to us, we're getting the folks that are like doing the engineering, doing the study, doing the thing that can answer the technical questions for them in the room so they can help get their answer solved.

Or that's like what we're thinking about.

I would hope there's a protocol because when you have a protocol, it's not a subjective on who should or who shouldn't be.

When you have a protocol, everyone gets included based on that protocol.

So you might want to establish a protocol, or maybe we need to do an ordinance for a protocol for neighborhood services, so we'll know exactly when decisions are made to invite us and when they aren't, and it's not whether it's appropriate because that becomes subjective when it becomes subjective, then it really becomes a problem.

Mr.

Chair, I just want to read one uh text from a constituent garden.

Hello, just call 311 trash truck, just came, but the dumpers are overfilled and glass and trash fall to the street.

I asked the maintenance guy at 3 Nazi Street to sweep it up because it's from their dumpster.

He only picked up the paper.

We have plastic bottles, paper, glass, going up Nathan Street, and this is ridiculous.

The ticket number is here's the ticket number.

10 100 66 2052 6.

And then she gave me the name of the truck.

Capital waste license plate truck Y76-496 consistently allowing trash that falls to the ground when dumping to stay in the middle of the street.

This happens every day.

And so she sent me pictures of it with the paint in the middle of the street that fell out of the dumpster.

And so on that 311 call, it would be helpful if you could follow up with that ticket number so that we can maybe someone needs to talk to Capitol Waste and uh just reiterate that when trash because when you look at the dumpsters at some of the streets, the dumpsters are just overfilled.

And so when they put the dumpster up to the truck, and the dumpster picks up the big trash can that's overfilled, obviously it's gonna fall in the street.

The question that this constituents are complaining about, they drive off and leave it in the street.

And so Yeah, we get those uh requests.

They come in.

Um I think that's where if you look at our data, street cleaning, some of those requests are from that.

They are a contracted service, so they're not directly city employees, it's our contractors.

So we typically will reach out to the sanitation team and let them know, and they'll speak directly with Capitol Astone House.

And if you're gonna follow up on that ticket number, did you okay?

Great.

6620526.

So the first 10 100 doesn't apply, it's just on my end when I search it.

Okay, they're all like that.

So can you confirm it's 662 0526?

662052, yeah.

Okay, perfect.

And this is a constituent that's always on me.

I'm telling you, call me late.

I could send you some of these text messages later tonight.

And uh call, so if you need something, let me know.

Right, right.

I just yeah, I will uh it should never have said that.

He will, and he will, and he will.

Give me 24 hours, service five.

Thank you so much.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Culpepper.

Thank you.

Uh If you if you have a any anything else, but just before we have been joined by uh some observers here, uh, just to I don't know how much you know about what's going on.

Uh you know, this the city count we have here in City Hall, we have the mayor who's has an office over here, and then on this side we have the city council uh where you know I'm a city councilor, councilor Cole Pemper, Councillor Flynn.

We we represent different parts of the city, uh, and we're sort of like the legislative body, you know, you in the federal government, you got an executive body and legislative body, we're sort of the legislative body here, and we're conducting budget hearings over the the mayor's proposed budget for next year.

We work on fiscal years, so next fiscal year starts July 1st and runs through the end of next June.

We're in the we're it's called the FY26, 2026 fiscal year.

We're talking about next fiscal year, which we call 27 because it'll end in 2027.

And so we're having all the departments that that do things in the city.

We've had three hearings with the Boston Public Schools, we had Superintendent Skipper here, we had hearings uh, you know, with uh the uh the city's information technology department, we had cities with the the Office of Housing, which runs all the housing that the city provides.

And today, this morning we're with the Office of Neighborhood Services, which helps do all these amazing things in the communities, uh, and they have neighborhood liaisons in your neighborhoods that that the counselors work with.

So we're talking about their proposed budget for next year, and the the big thing is we we give out summer block party grants, stuff like that's not in the budget for next year.

So if you your block had a spooky thing for uh for Halloween, there were block there block party grants, those aren't in the budget.

Uh the the fact is we're we're we're we're our are certain costs are going up, so we're having to cut things.

Most departments have the round two percent cut in their in their things.

So that that's that's enough background.

Uh um, yeah, and you're not here to t speak uh testify publicly.

Okay, we do take public testimony.

Uh if you're welcome to do that.

But um, so I just I want to thank my colleagues for being here.

Counselor Flynn, did you have any anything else?

I'm happy to give you time for uh another short round.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and maybe I'll direct this to Mohammed and I know it's not your responsibility, but want to ask if you could help me work with the mayor's office and Commissioner Santiago at the Veterans Department on an issue.

Um again, I know it's I'm not placing any blame at all with with anybody, and I as you as you probably know I have outstanding respect for um Commissioner Santiago.

I think he does a tremendous job.

But but here's my here's my issue.

Just want to ask for you ask for your help in trying to arrange something.

The FY27 budget for the Boston Veterans Engagement Transition Services, Boston Vets Department budget will decrease by 724,000 or 14 percent driven by the removal of grant programs.

The budget includes funding to continue supporting key events initiatives such as African American veterans, um veterans appreciation events, Hero Squares, Memorial Day.

Um so I think as as a war veteran as a disabled veteran, I I can't support a decrease to the veterans budget.

Um so can I can you help me arrange a meeting with um Commissioner Santiago and someone from the mayor's office on this specific issue, and maybe we can talk talk um after?

Oh, you know, I will talk to AGR.

I'm happy to do that.

Okay.

I just want to be very clear.

I I could never support a decrease of veterans budget, having served 24 years in the in the Navy disabled veteran, understand how important this department is.

Um so I'm I'm gonna do everything I can to get money back in the in that budget, but a decrease of the veterans department is just something I will not accept under any circumstances.

Um thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Councillor Culpepper.

Real brief, just want to reiterate the information sharing with regard to meeting and activities in district seven because there's so much going on right now.

Um, and I think one of the things we probably need to focus on the Nubia Square, looking at these text messages coming in about this bank robbery is safety in New Brewing Square.

So just want to be Mohammed, we can talk more about it.

Yeah, uh but it's I mean, who would have thought there would be a bank robbery in Nubia Square?

So kind of activity people run in, but but you definitely never know.

I do think we need to meet and plan.

They've got a new captain there.

Um let's plan the meeting with the captain and the community.

See what the community thinks that we need to do more of uh or less of, but let's make this.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Okay, thank you.

Um okay, so uh we don't have anyone sign up for public testimony.

Uh I just want to thank everyone for coming in uh for this hearing.

I want to thank all my colleagues for being here.

Uh this morning's hearing is now adjourned.

Thank you.