Good afternoon.

Again, let's see here.

Thank you for uh being here on uh uh it's Star Wars Day, it's May the fourth.

Um hold on, let me bring up the right opening statement.

Uh so I am Ben Weber, I'm the chair of the Ways and Means Committee and the District Six City Councilor.

There you go.

Um today is May the 4th, and the exact time is 205 p.m.

Uh this hearing is being recorded.

It's also being live streamed at Boston.gov slash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and FIOS Channel 964.

The council's budget review process will encompass a series of public hearings beginning in April and going through June.

We strongly encourage residents to take a moment to engage in this process by giving testimony for the record, which they can do in several ways.

One, they can attend a hearing either in person or virtually and give testimony.

You check out the uh hearing schedule on our website at Boston.gov slash council dash budget.

Uh you can also attend, we have two listening sessions.

Uh no, sorry, we have one listening session left, or the fourth of four, on Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m.

You can give uh again at our hearings, you can give testimony in person here in the chamber via Zoom.

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

You can sign up using our online form on our council budget review website, or by emailing the committee at CCC.wm at Boston.gov, or by emailing Chris Machohan, that's K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A dot C H O U H A N at Boston.gov.

When you're called to testify, please state your name and residence or affiliation with an organization and limit your comments to two minutes.

In lieu of testifying in one of our hearings, you can also submit written testimony, which you can uh send to ccc.wm at Boston.gov.

Lastly, you can submit a two-minute video of your testimony through the form on our website.

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

Uh in-person testimony uh will be taken following the first round of questions from our uh the counselors.

Um again, sign you can sign up on the sheet where you walk in if you want to testify publicly, or email our director of legislative budget analysis, Chris Machon at K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A.

C H O U H A N at Boston.gov for the Zoom link and your name will be added to the list.

This afternoon's hearing is on docket number 073 to 0740, an overview of the FY27 operating budget for the inspectional services department, property management department, and public facilities department.

This is one of several hearings or a series of hearings on the FY27 budget.

These matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and were referred to the committee on April 8th, 2026.

This afternoon I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councillor Flynn, Councillor Murphy, Councillor Culpepper, Councillor Santana, and the Vice Chair of the Ways and Means Committee, Councillor Fitzcherald, oh, and Councillor Braden.

Uh yeah, Councilor Braden.

Um I have received uh a letter of absence with some questions from uh Councillor Coletta Zapato.

Um we waive our opening statements in these budget hearings, so we're gonna go to the panel, which I'll introduce now.

We're joined I'm sorry, I'll use um the updated list.

People should have received uh which was printed out.

We've got Chief of Operations Dion Irish, Executive Director for the Public Facilities Department, Carlton Jones, uh we've got Inspectional Services Department Commissioner Tanya Del Rio, uh we have the Commissioner for Property Management, Eamon Shelton, and we have uh first deputy commissioner for property management, Sam Lovison, uh and uh Taylor uh sorry uh Bosler, uh the assistant director of administration and finance from the public facilities department.

So uh I'm just gonna hand things over to the panel.

Uh if you have coordinated among yourselves how you want to do this, uh I guess Dion, you're gonna get us started.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um yeah, we do have a plan.

First of all, I'd love to know if there is a Star Trek Day, so please inform me if that's in the Well, that's it's May the 4th, it'll happen again.

Yeah, May the 4th.

I don't know if anyone who doesn't uh somebody approached me this morning on my way to the subway and said happy Star Wars Day.

And I said, What?

And they said it's May the 4th.

You learned something new every day.

Yeah, uh next year.

Thanks.

Um continue to be honored by the mayor who would be able to serve in this position and work with these amazing colleagues who will talk to you about their respective departments.

And it's truly an honor to every time we have the opportunity to come before the council.

We understand the council's rule, and you know, we we certainly appreciate these opportunities to to speak to the council and speak to the members of the public about the work that we are all charged to do.

Um before I turn it over, um go to the next slide to have each department.

We'll begin with public facilities and um executive director Carlton Jones to talk about PFT and go on to the other departments, but I just do want to share that in addition to the work of each um individual department.

The the cabinet does a lot of work across um city cabinets and and different agencies on things like we've done the uh citywide facility condition assessment, uh land audit.

Now we're working on a citywide lead assessment, lease assessment to work with all city agencies.

Um I think it's also important to highlight the work that we do with our state of good repair steering committee, which is something fairly new.

It we talked about in the fast in the past that we needed really good data to understand uh the condition of our facilities so we can avoid unexpected um things that unplanned capital project, for example.

So we have that data now.

We've done that work.

We're working with all city agencies who have key and custody of city properties to make sure they're you they're using a um central database and uh work order system, and we're making sure that we're factoring in the conditions of our facilities and our capital planning.

Uh in addition to coordination that we we do with with all departments who have pools, the BPS, um, property management, um BCYF to make sure that we have as many pools available as possible, uh in addition to this coordination on major events like this summer's World Cup and CO250.

But I'll stop there, and if there are any other questions that you um that come our way uh outside of the department is happy to answer those, but for now we'll turn it over to Carlton Jones.

Okay, thank you, Chief Irish.

Uh good afternoon, Chairman Weber, City Councilors.

Again, Carlton Jones, Executive Director of the Public Facilities Department.

I'm here with my uh assistant director of administration and finance, Taylor Bossler, and we're here to answer your questions after a brief presentation.

Uh so I'd like to start off with just kind of an orientation.

So the public facilities department, uh we support other city departments uh in the planning, design, construction, and major renovations of city buildings.

Um for the FY27 through 31 capital plan, uh the public facilities department will manage 27% of that plan in terms of our work.

Uh, our workload for that same uh time period will cover 88 projects.

Again, in collaboration with city departments, um our most notable.

Oops, I think you're ahead of me.

The slide on the up there is ahead of my slide, but anyway, um, I'll just continue.

I happen to be on slide five and it helped me catch up.

The um public facilities department uh works with major city departments such as BPS, public uh Boston Public Schools, uh the library department, uh BCYF, as well as police fire and the rest.

Okay, so oh I'm not gonna do that.

My apologies.

Just getting used to the clicker.

Okay, so FY26 accomplishments uh in this fiscal year.

We've had four uh ribbon cuttings that you I think there's a delay or something.

I might be double clicking.

There we go.

I'm just gonna put it right there.

No, I'll just because I must be hitting it twice.

Uh so the we have four ribbon cuttings as you can see here.

Uh the Carter School, Henderson Upper School Yard, uh, PJ Kennedy Elementary, and the Sarah Roberts schools.

So we're very happy to get those uh open and and uh in the use of the uh school department in this case.

Uh we also had groundbreakings.

Um you can see here that we had two community center groundbreakings, the BCYF Grove Hall Community Center, which happens to be the first purpose-built uh community center that uh we're building in the city of Boston, as well as the North End Community Center.

Uh we have two libraries, the Chinatown Branch Library and Fields Corner Branch Library, and the EMS Seaport Station.

Um I'm happy to report that the uh the last two, the Fields Corner Branch and Seaport Station, those will open this summer.

Uh we also have the Grove Hall Community Center, which is scheduled to open in 2028.

And the other one, which is the sorry, I got my slides off.

See the Fields Corner.

I mentioned that Chinatown branch in 2029.

So notably the public facilities department reopened the 26th Court Street Building, which is home to the Public Facilities Department and many other city departments.

I am double-clicking.

That's fast.

Okay.

So public facilities departments received several awards.

Notably the Josiah Quincy Upper School had three awards that were presented to it, having to do with its build environment.

It received the Green Building of the Year Award, LEED Platinum, which is the only school and the first in the state building that received LEED Platinum, as well as accommodation from the Boston Society of Architects for the Educational Facilities.

The Roxbury Library received the 2024 Harrelston Parker Award.

That was announced in 2025, even though it was a 2024 award.

You can see here also the Carter School, the Construction Managers Association of America, their Chapter Choice Award, City Hall Plazas received the 2025 Boston Preservation Alliance Award along with the Curley Community Center, also receiving the same award.

We have three major ongoing initiatives I'd like to present to you.

Three major ongoing initiatives.

So that's a major initiative of ours.

We historically have heard that there's certain suppliers and bidders who are unable to access public facilities department projects.

So we're working to uh figure working with the supplier diversity office to figure out how we can actually increase that applicant pool to increase supplier diversity.

We're actually at the last stages of hiring a senior project manager for trade and supplier diversity so that we have someone internally as well as working with the supplier diversity officer office to ensure that we are moving steadfastly in that direction, trying to increase the number of uh the minority and women business enterprise firms who've been on our projects and can qualify.

In terms of process improvement, uh years ago in 2023, in fact, we started we were working on a system called then called e-Builder, it's now called Trimble.

Um this is a uh a software project and product that we're able to use to keep all of our project information uh contained.

We are able to report off of it.

Uh we're able to uh look forward to project scheduling and the like.

So it's helping us move from a paper process and paper-driven environment to pretty much all electronic, which is great, so we can look for things and call up plans and the like.

And then the last one is the operational transparency.

This is where uh in 2025, we uh with support from the operations cabinet, uh we created a project dashboard, which I'll go into a little bit uh more detail in a moment, but basically allows residents to view updates for PFD capital projects.

We've heard numerous times that people really don't know what's going on, so this is a way for folks to not only have access to what our project information is, um, but we uh this is not a static uh display of information, but it's monthly updated.

So when our project managers update their projects, it actually feeds our dashboard so you can get relatively real-time information on our project work.

This particular dashboard wasn't uh cited by the City of Washington, DC, for instance, as a model for how municipal governments can promote operational transparency.

So that I mentioned that was an issue all along.

Right.

So this is an innovation that we even added to that.

So, you know, we have this website, but people walk by projects and they're kind of like what's going on here.

And so on our project signs, we've added a QR code, which you can see in the upper right-hand corner, which allows passerbys to actually use their phone to uh access the QR code, which will then take them to the website and gives us uh access to project information.

So it's basically allowing real-time information on the street.

So that on the lower right-hand corner, I'm gonna blow that up for you.

There you go.

So this is what one would see on our dashboard.

This particular uh project is the Fields Corner Branch Library.

You can get project information here.

We also have a project bar.

That green bar actually goes through the major phases of um projects, planning, design, and construction.

So in this particular case, you can see that the Fields Corner project, maybe you can't see, but it's 88% complete, showing that it will complete in in July, as I mentioned before, and also a description for the project.

There's also a link at the bottom where you can get more information if one wants to get information, is the public facilities department email address.

And and the whole point of this is to make sure that we had transparency for our project information so we can ensure that the public is fully aware of what we do.

So now I'm going to pass the clicker, yay, over to uh Commissioner Del Rio.

Thank you, Carl.

You're very welcome.

Good afternoon, everybody, Chair and Counselors.

Thank you for having us again.

I want to start by just shouting out members of the ISD staff that are here on hand to answer any questions that I may not be able to answer and work really hard every day to serve our constituents.

Um, our admin and finance team, Mari McLennan, Mary Morgan, um, assistant commissioner for our environmental services department, uh, John Ulrich, and lastly, our the city's floodplain administrator, Logan Grant.

Thank you.

So, okay, I'll do my best with the clicker.

I'll give you a short overview of what we do at inspectional services, as most of you know or all of you know, we are kind of like uh hodgepodge of five different organizations all in under one umbrella, but we do have one same mission, which is to protect the health and safety of Boston's businesses and residential communities by enforcing codes, uh both build all building housing health codes and environmental regulations in a way that's effective and in a way that's consistent across the board.

We are going to be discussing our budget, which is proposed for 25 million dollars this year and um some selected highlights for last year as far as the volume of work that we're performing uh these days.

It's uh building division is performing over 37,000 inspections on permits and 50 sorry 37,000 permits we issued, 58,000 building inspections performed.

Uh John's team are has performed almost 15,000 rodent control inspections, moving uh increasingly more into proactive inspections.

This year, well, in 2025, we provided over 6,000 reactive inspections, 4,000 site cleanliness inspections, which are proactive rodent control, 3,268 violation inspections, and a thousand more inspections uh proactive, which include neighborhood walks and uh block surveys.

And lastly, we performed almost 17,000 health inspections in food establishments.

I'm gonna talk about also some select accomplishments.

It's uh just a summary.

There's a lot more that the team has done, but some highlights that I want to share with members of the public and yourselves.

First is the plans and zoning division reorganization, which we've completed, are very excited about, and it's we're starting to see some results from it.

Uh it in it included enhanced performance management tools to monitor the review quality as well as timeliness.

And we've seen from that some reduced permitting time.

It's currently being measured by time to first review in our plans and zoning applications, which went from 35 days on average in 2025 to what we have year to date in 2026 of 33 days.

We want to keep moving in that direction.

Also moving forward, we're continuing to work with our colleagues at the innovation and technology department to provide better reporting on time to issue for all of our applications instead of um different parts of an application.

Right now, those permits stand at six days for our short form applications, which is simpler projects, one day for permit for trade applications, which is electric electrical or plumbing, and 44 days for non-ZBA long-form applications.

And again, our objective is to continue reducing those numbers.

Next, we want to talk about some process improvement that we've done.

Um, a lot of work this year had to do with moving some legacy in-person or phone processes to online options.

We importantly had to note have not gotten rid of in-person or phone call options for people who prefer those, but we have added that online channel for for people who prefer to work that way.

We brought our sheet metal, our trench, and our sprinkler permit applications online in 2025.

And as we speak, we're um rolling out the online option for the certificate of occupancy applications for the first time, which uh had been exclusively in person before.

We also, through the mayor's permitting transformation initiative, have worked on understanding where we can reduce uh the burden of permitting and found a couple of places where you know we may be able to do that.

Last year we did remove the yearly certificate of inspection requirement for establishes that have under 50 persons' occupancy and that aren't serving alcohol.

This is in accordance to state regulation, and as I shared as part of the initiative.

Just a little deeper dive into the mayor's permitting transformation initiative.

That CI requirement was removed for certain establishments, which we've gotten excellent feedback on for the restaurants involved.

Provided the first version, one of many versions that will be provided of a website that helps people figure out in plain speak in you know the language that normal non-construction people use, what permit it is they need to apply for, which had been you know the first the first barrier for people in completing permitting.

It's already launched and new versions will will come up as we receive and workshop feedback that we get from people like yourselves or people in the community going through our process.

And lastly, I'll mention the collaboration we had with the planning department and the Boston Groundwater Trust in removing the requirement for substantial rehabilitation projects that are not digging down to go through ZBA zoning relief for if they're in the groundwater conservation overlay district, which makes those projects move through the process much faster.

I want to also spend some time on the Boston Road and Action Plan, which I know is of interest to the council and a lot of the members of the public.

Of course, Assistant Commissioner Ulrich and all the departments.

Some of the key initiatives that are going on right now have been the continuation of the rat resistant barrel deployment with our colleagues from public works and the parks department.

In collaboration with BHA, we've launched uh containerization pilots and with Boston Water Sewer, we've been doing trapping of the of the sewers to understand again the most effective interventions that we can deploy and get the highest ROI.

Our response time to rodent complaints is currently meeting service level in 99% of the cases, thanks to the team.

So we do encourage any member of the public that has a rodent sighting to put it in the 311 app with as much information as possible, and it will be responded to.

Looking ahead, what is our goals for 2026?

We want to continue for the permitting transformation.

Oh, sorry.

Hard to move.

Um, the coordination, we are looking at implementing a new permitting system, our digital tool to update that.

For our plans and zoning division, we, as I mentioned, want to continue looking at better reporting and reducing initial time to review and also overall permit issuance times.

And we also are looking to implement a new plan review tool to make the plans uh examiners' jobs easier and more efficient.

In our building inspections division, we are already testing the mobile inspection resulting.

We want to fully launch it later this year.

Uh, it will help the the permitting process move quicker because inspectors will be able to pass or fail right then and there on the field without having to come back to enter data.

Um, we'll also, as I mentioned, continue the website improvements.

In our housing division, we plan or have the objective of include increasing the number of registered rental units by a thousand, um, looking at comprising about 76% of the estimated universe, which is really high for cities that have comparable programs.

And for the Boston Rodent Action Plan, I mentioned we want to continue analyzing the pilots, make decisions based on that data.

We do want to increase compliance with the site cleanliness ordinance by 10% and bring our total to 4,605.

Uh, this we see as a prevention program for rodent control.

And lastly, we want to continue investments on public awareness campaigns so that uh people can help us with spotting areas that need more attention, as well as helping people achieve the best behaviors possible around waste management.

With that, I'll pass it to my colleagues, Sam and Eamon.

Good afternoon, counselors.

My name is Zaman Shelton.

For the last almost four years, I've had the honor and privilege of leading the property management department.

I'm joined here again by my colleague, Senior Deputy Commissioner Sam Lovison.

Also in the gallery, some of my other colleagues.

So I very briefly want to highlight the work of the property management department for those that don't know what we do.

The mission of the property management department is to manage, maintain, repair, and provide security for the city's municipal buildings, including City Hall and Fannual Hall, to preserve the useful life of city facilities and reduce operating costs through effective preventative maintenance.

In addition, we provide proactive and reactive maintenance, equipment repairs, and replacements.

We do uh graffiti removal throughout the city, snow removal as well.

We provide public safety, we oversee building and security technologies, uh, and uh we also oversee intrusion management systems for more than 600 buildings across the city.

We collaborate on sustainability and energy efficiency efforts across our portfolio.

We provide space design and building upgrades, and finally, we uh plan and host special events.

Next slide, please.

Uh so just to highlight a few of our accomplishments in FY26.

Um we've continued in collaboration with PFD OBM, uh, the the operations cabinet.

We've advanced the goals of Boston's resilient building program.

Uh the program reorganized facility management resources across the city.

Um we performed facility condition assessments for all city buildings, and we deployed facility management technology uh across all city departments that have responsibility for buildings.

Uh, as through that program and part of that uh initiative, we were able to refinish and actually touch every single gym floor throughout BCYF.

So just this past year.

Um we've repaired and completely refinished the Nizaro Community Center, the Vine Street Community Center, the Galvin Community Center, the Shelburne Community Center.

We screened and recoded the Tobin, the Thomas Johnson, the Roach, Curtis Hall Community Center, the Pino, the Menino, Hyde Park Community Center, and the Paris Street Community Center.

In addition, uh, we've uh we continue to activate City Hall and City Hall Plaza, some of our recent uh large programs that brought people down uh to the city to downtown but also to City Hall, where the uh Red Bull uh heavy metal snowboarding event, uh, most recently the Marathon Fan Festival, which we hosted.

We've also formalized our agreement to uh make our um uh architectural tours of City Hall uh permanent, so those happen every Wednesday.

Um we've uh overseen this past year historic uh improvements uh in our backlog and our open graffiti removal cases, uh some of the lowest on record.

We've overseen and sub successfully manage the move in and the transition for the reopening of 26th Court Street.

We help move uh the public facilities department there, uh Mayor's Office of Housing, Environment Department to name a few.

Um then uh we've also provided uh space improvements for various cities, city departments across the portfolio, but uh wanted to highlight here the uh Aid Strong Department, which is just on the second floor of um of City Hall.

Uh it's sort of mostly windowless space, is sort of a tough um place to do business, uh, but we've uh made some real good enhancements and allowed them to better serve their constituents.

Next slide, please.

Um, so for our ongoing initiatives in 20 FY 2027, of course, we're gonna continue to host and support the events coming up this summer, FIFA Fanfest is going to be one of our largest.

Um we're working on several uh accessibility improvements or projects here at City Hall in collaboration with the public facilities department.

The rendering you see on your right is a new elevator that will be installed to replace the retired escalators and the transaction levels.

Next slide, please.

We'll continue uh working through the Boston's uh Boston's Resilient Building Program, uh improving pools, um, reducing downtime, reducing emergency closures.

Uh one other project I want to highlight here is uh City Hall Plaza Phase Two, which you see the uh rough rendering on the right hand side.

That project uh again in collaboration with the public facilities department will uh provide new accessibility to the South uh entrance of City Hall Plaza, but it will also uh improve and repair uh some uh real tough uh structural conditions and water infiltration problems that we have on the South Plaza.

Um finally uh in addition to our work in buildings uh and special events, we also actually have projects that um touch sort of every neighborhood in the city.

We oversee the uh neighborhood, the blue neighborhood signs.

Uh two of the the newer signs that we've installed are shown here in the images.

Uh we also, as I said earlier, provide graffiti removal services both for private and public um building owners, and uh finally we oversee the uh city street furniture uh program.

Um with that I will pause and uh happy to uh answer any uh questions that you all may have okay.

Yeah, I think each department could have gone for a half hour just on their own, but we'll we'll end it there if no.

Okay, uh thank you very much.

Uh we did we did get a uh a new neighborhood sign in West Roxbury.

That was great, and uh just my staff said I have to shout out Kenny Ryan for amazing graffiti removal.

So thank you very much for that.

Uh okay.

So just want to make sure I get the all-important order right.

I believe Councillor Flynn is first.

So, yeah, Councillor Flynn, then Murphy, and then Culpepper.

Uh, what do you need uh six minutes for the opening round?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you to the administration team for being here.

ISD property management have all always been responsive with um constituent issues.

As you mentioned, Chair, I also want to mention Kenny Ryan and the graffiti busters for the important work they do.

Um 45,000 locations that they've worked on.

Um outstanding work.

Um let me start with um I was gonna start with pest control.

It's one of one of the issues I've focused on for the last eight years.

We've made progress.

Um also want to acknowledge John Elric's professionalism and hard work, the entire pest control team, including Chuck McGodell, who's an outstanding um dedicated city employee as well.

Um so wanna want to acknowledge acknowledge them, their team.

We still have more work to do.

Um but I do I do think they're doing, I do think they're doing a good job.

Um, let me let me start with you.

Um I started my day or Dion in Carlton.

I I started my day with um Superintendent Skipper um having coffee, and we talked about some of the schools in my district, including the Blackstone School.

I I know eventually there's going to be a new blackstone, but because the they need significant repairs, the pool is obviously not gonna open until the until the school building itself is torn down.

Um give me an update on the blackstone.

It's important for me in my constituents.

Uh I want to see us have a state of the uh blackstone school in the heart of the south end.

Um thanks for that question, counselor.

Um as you mentioned, the Blackstone School, um, it's the project is much more significant than the pool itself, and I know BPS um has isn't um does have the intent of um of getting a new building, and though there was a previous effort to get MSBA support on it.

Um would have to get back to you as to the current timing of it, but I know it's something that that is um on the list of the things that the BPS would like to accomplish.

Okay, yeah, I know long term there is plans for a new Blackstone school, including a new swimming pool, but I I would really like to prioritize that.

I I did stress that to um Superintendent Skipper today.

Um I think it was aiming you were talking about the BCYF gymnasiums.

Um, and I talked to Superintendent Skipper about this one as well, but the indeion you're familiar with the uh Josiah Quincy School Gymnasium needs some work to it.

I I know we're going to get there, but are we able to prioritize fixing the Blackstone school?

I just want to make sure my constituents um have the same um access to a good gymnasium as other students again happy happy to reiterate this with um Superintendent Skipper and BPS, but pretty much the same answer as previous question.

Okay, okay.

Um the other issue I wanted to I wanted to highlight as well.

It includes the EMS station and the Flynn Marine Park, the South Boston Waterfront.

Thank you, Carlton for your work, and I know DN Dion, you worked on that as well.

Um what's the time frame uh Carlton?

I know you you mentioned this summer, but do you have anything um more specific that than that?

And want to say thank you, Carlton.

You've been very professional and very responsive.

Uh thank you, Counselor Flynn.

So I do have a date.

Um, but I'm also a little reticent to give a date only because things do happen.

Um so I'm gonna couch it that way and say that the team is working for a July 1 substantial completion date.

So if you so that is a known thing.

Uh I was just there maybe two weeks ago, and there's a lot of work to be done.

But I know the team is steadfastly working on it, so I'm conf I'm reasonably confident that they're gonna hit that date, July 1.

Um, after substantial completion, there are always things that need to follow on, so they're follow-on activities, but the work is substantially complete.

The building gets its per occupancy permits, so we should be able to fingers crossed, count on, being able to use that facility come July 1, but very soon after that.

Okay.

And in Carlton, um, as you know, it's in the Flynn Marine Park, and it named after my father.

Um I do want to include my father in the um invitation when the when it is ready.

So absolutely.

Yeah, when you when you do have a date, I'd like to um if you could let me know, okay.

Absolutely.

Thank you and thank you, Carlton.

I uh have worked with you for eight years.

You're an outstanding um city employee.

Um, one of the other issues I focused on in work with you as well, Eamon, for about eight years.

Accessibility in and around City Hall, in City Hall.

I know we're getting a new, we're not getting a new escalators, we're getting a new elevator down at the mezzanine level.

Um where else can we make improvements in City Hall to make it more accessible or and or outside of City Hall on the City Hall Plaza area to put to make it even more accessible for persons with disabilities.

Thank you for that question, uh, Councillor Flynn.

Um so I I highlighted uh a couple of projects, and and it's really there's sort of two buckets of projects where we make accessibility improvements.

Of course, we rely on the city's capital plan, and so the two of the uh larger projects that we're doing.

One is the four-stop elevator, what we're calling the four-stop elevator project, and that will uh turn the escalators uh in the transaction level of city hall into uh stairs, and it will include a brand new elevator that will get you to all of those levels that the escalators got you to, but also add accessibility to uh what we call the mezzanine level, sort of the upper level and the and the on the third floor entrance.

Uh that's never actually been accessible before, not by escalator or any other way.

Well, it it's got a temporary lift, but uh it'll be sort of universally accessible once we have the that elevator project.

In addition to that, um the plaza phase two project, which is also a large capital project, will uh make the south entrance uh accessible, which it's not today, and so it'll provide ramping up to the south entrance of or the south approach uh from Washington Mall.

But it will also uh include wire cut brick.

So currently, sort of that original brick is not necessarily considered uh accessible.

Uh the new plaza that we've uh fairly recently renovated on the north side or the main plaza is wire cut.

So you'll notice that sort of a flatter, smoother surface.

So those are the large um capital projects that were uh will advance these accessibility goals.

But in addition to that, we do sort of minor improvements and enhancements as needed.

Um we we talked, I think last time about a study that um property management oversaw to um improve accessibility for the third floor entry mezzanine and sort of make those stairs more legible so people can see them and they're not a tripping hazard.

That's an ongoing initiative.

Uh also uh more recently there's a staff um restroom on the ninth floor.

Uh and believe it or not, we actually don't have many accessible restrooms uh in this building, and so it's a sort of a minor enhancement in the grand scheme, but we'll make a big impact on staff.

So uh it will provide an automatic um sort of door opener for the the um the ninth floor staff restroom.

Lastly, last sort of large capital initiative I want to highlight that's actually ongoing, and you you all will see in real time is the registry department.

So the registry department where people get their uh sort of birth certificates, death certificates, all those windows are actually uh not really accessible today.

Uh we have an ongoing project.

Uh it's underway under construction right now, as a matter of fact, where uh we'll open up those windows and make them accessible for people in wheelchairs.

Thank you, my okay.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn.

Uh Councilor Murphy.

Thank you.

Thank you, um, everyone for your presentation.

Councilor Flynn may have asked most of my questions, but I'll just piggyback off that.

Um you Amy, you talked about the escalator and the replacement, so you don't have to go over that again.

But I mean, ever since I've worked here, and I think even before then, when I've come to you know, maybe pay a ticket down at that level.

Like, do we know how long?

I mean, it's been year years, has it been a decade since we haven't been able to get people from the third to the two and a half, second floor?

So um, do you do you Sam?

Do you know the date that the escalators were decommissioned?

Uh it was the year 2021.

So since 2021, they were uh decommissioned.

Completely decommissioned.

I feel like they were always kind of working, not one side maybe, but that that's right.

Okay.

Yeah, no, that's right.

So they they were decommissioned uh officially in 2021, and that they they were challenging for many years, kind of like you see escalators um you know throughout this this the city and the state, and that's sort of why we wanted to move away from escalators.

Um but just to answer the question, like people were able to access the other floors.

It was just a more of a security route, and so not not as easy, of course.

Um the project is actually gonna kick off.

We expect construction to kick off sort of late summer uh after all of the events.

So you will see some real progress in construction in this space uh beginning uh this this summer, um early fall.

And um, I know we've met recently in some of the questions that I asked at a last hearing, but this would be a budget one, knowing that 2026, so many departments, but especially many of yours, uh are we giving you like this one-time kind of supplemental uh kick into the budget, knowing you're gonna have to be doing you know so much, especially you know, FIFA and fanfare right here on City Hall Plaza that we know we won't need to carry over into the next year.

Does that show in this budget this year?

Yeah, no, thanks for the questions.

No, some of that doesn't show in the budget simply because we've been um working with the state and and others to try to get funding to cover those costs.

So we've calculated uh what we expect those costs will look like.

We have gotten some funding commitments already, and we continue to to work to try to get uh all the uh anticipated costs coverage.

Okay.

Um could you describe um first you said how you kind of feel like you're an umbrella or are definitely on five departments.

Could you just quickly list what you consider the five departments under your care?

Sure.

Uh a little joking, but no, but they are very different.

We have environmental services division under assistant commissioner or right who deal with our rodent controlled work, but also our auto shop licensing.

We have our housing division who oversees the rental units in the city.

We have our building division deals with construction permit permits, our health division who deals with our food establishments, and lastly, our weights and measures division who deal with um consumer issues are around that.

And we have some more administrative divisions.

We have our legal, our constituent services, but the ones I named are the field divisions performing inspections.

And are any cuts that were needed to be made if I need to your department?

Could you describe where they came from?

Yes, sure thing.

Um as you know, all of the departments are facing this tight um budget situation, so we're weathering it as best as we can in our case.

We are um we're saving our our two percent or 3.6 percent through salary savings and three positions.

Um we're talking about one wire inspector, our electrical permits.

We are talking about um two IT positions.

So um, you know, those those salary savings is just means keeping the vacancies for longer.

It is painful, but it's also doable for us.

Um we also have some reductions in our contracted services, so rodent control equipment, some constable services for um serving violations and contractors that we had working with our plans and zoning division.

We did remove our some plans and zoning software, um, which is okay because we are trying to upgrade from what that was anyway, and um some non-personnel reductions in um different things like mailings and things like that.

Okay, thank you.

Um Carlton, I I mean I could look it up, I don't have my computer with me.

What was the lead award about for the Quincy upper school that they received?

Sure, that's that's an ext uh good afternoon, uh, Councillor Murphy.

That's an exciting award.

So uh lead typically it's a uh environmental concerns.

We're trying to be very environmentally um friendly, and it typically the city goes for elite silver.

Um, but this particular project not only went exceeded elite silver, we went to leave gold and then to leave platinum.

So uh really looking at uh cost cutting measures, environmentally friendly, having to do with uh electrical use of the building, uh no gas except for one small, small exception, which would be the chemistry room, uh they need gas for the for their experiments.

Uh that's the only gas that goes into the building.

Uh it's virtually all electric other than that.

Uh but other other controls having to do with their HVAC.

Um just it's a really cool project, and again, first in the state.

Yeah, and it's a wonderful building.

I would say they were doing great things in the old building, but it's a wonderful space for the students.

Um and one last question.

I'm not sure if it was property management and public facilities.

One of the slides showed either the study started or um maybe complete the state of good repair.

Was that for all the buildings that we run or which one was that?

Yeah, so um the yes, that was the facility condition assessment.

Uh it was a collaboration between property management and public facilities department and the operations cabinet, and so that's where we sort of analyzed uh every every building that the city owns, not schools because they did their own and got facility condition assessment uh or facility condition assessment information.

And it's completed.

Could I get a copy of it?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay, thank you, Councillor Murphy.

Uh, Councillor Culpepper.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you, Dion, and your entire team.

Um really appreciate all the work that you've done and are doing it and uh plan to do.

I had um let me ask Halton about that orchard garden school auditorium and the status of it.

And I think we talked last time about it being in an emergency, so that it would be moved up on the list.

Where is that now?

So new counselor called it.

Good afternoon, Colin.

I mean, Mr.

Jones.

I mean yes, executive director Jones.

That's quite all right.

So unfortunately, I don't have the answer you're looking for, so that's not one of our projects.

So we built the Orchard Gardens building back in 2003, but we don't maintain the interior, so that's a Boston Public Schools project.

So when we were on that call and you had the young man that answered, he was from the Boston Public Schools.

That's correct.

He he talked about handling the emergency.

The uh I wanted to ask about the six intervention types that you had on your slide.

What are they about rodent control?

Right.

Sure.

Looking for them.

Give me one moment.

Okay.

Mr.

Chair, who is that my time or is that your time?

Sorry, can come this is I don't know if you ask a difficult question.

It's uh we can come back.

Why don't we come back to those?

Okay.

I have them at so small, I will go ahead.

Okay.

The uh on all of the rodents inspections, are they all by complaint, or is there an area where ISD focuses for in terms of rodent control?

I can answer both questions at a time.

Okay, go on.

So I'll I'll tell you the types of interventions and I'll forgive the glasses, but it's a font very small.

We have sewer traps, we have tree pit uh interventions, we have trash compactors, barrel treatment, uh surface traps, trash barrel toppers, ground sensors, camera sensors, and other.

I can't answer the other, but I know John can uh about what that is.

You've got camera sensors?

Yes.

And they only put in public places?

Yes.

So when you have a complaint from uh private citizen about an apartment building, you can't put any traps or any sensors there?

They can.

And it can tell the difference.

Your other question.

Oh proactively.

Let me get back to that.

So they they can only place them on public property.

They can't if a constituent request that they be placed on private property, the city is only able to place them on public property.

Correct.

Yes.

People in private property, the owner is responsible for any rodent treatment or control within the property, although we do meet and advise them.

Yeah, with regard to just how the sensors are placed, so they would have to be placed on somewhere on the public that would then pick it up in private areas.

So the the sensors we deployed the sensors in city parks and public housing sites.

Okay.

And they mainly were to measure intervention.

So the new trash barrels are toppers on the barrel.

So we're trying to measure the impact of improving trash containment.

And at the BHA site, it's the container is changing the kinds of dumpsters.

And so these motion sensors that we use, they're um infrared motion sensors, they go inside a bait box.

So they're just recording it when the rat enters the box.

We put a non-toxic bait inside the box.

Um and so the activity around the rats go in the box, and then that that's what we're measuring.

Let's say you had a request, a compete uh consistent request, let's say from someplace in Nubian Square, would you then go out and place a sensor where you had consistent complaints?

Or do you have areas where you consistently monitor for road infestation?

Do so we're using the sensors right now.

We only have them in certain parks and public housing.

If we got a complaint in Nubian Square, we would respond with the area inspector.

If it was a wider area, um we would coordinate a walkthrough where there's multiple inspectors and we cover a larger area that might uh consist of like a block survey where we're inspecting every property on the block.

Homeowners are responsible, but when we do walkthroughs, or if we deal with um, say a senior, you know, we can try to provide as much as assistance as possible.

And so can uh let me just come back to again a certain area.

If you got a certain area in a public space like, and I I just hate to use Nubian Square, we've been using it so much, but let's say Nubian Square, would you then go and place a sensor in the area where it was identified that there was rodent infestation?

Not necessarily it it we could, um, but if if it was in public property, we would treat it.

We would go out there with our machines.

Um if it was like a parking lot, we have a couple parking lots in Nubian Square, and if there was rodent activity around the perimeter, we would go out there and treat it and treat it until we resolved it.

So there are other areas other than VHA property and parks where you would go with the Yes, we we we treat all private, I mean all public property.

Okay, counselor, if I may add, uh real quick.

So the purpose of the sensor and camera program is to test which interventions work.

So what the analytics team has done is placed a few in different areas and then picked comparable locations, so a park and then a park that looks very much like the other park, uh, VHA site, and then another one that looks very much like it in one that will do a rodent treatment intervention, and in one we won't.

The idea is that at the end we'll compare the the six types of interventions and see which ones work best, and then we can invest our money in the most effective ones to deploy um citywide with with you know more volume.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, we're just trying to be data driven with our uh our approach.

Thank you.

And uh I'll save my questions for the second.

Yes, yes, Mr.

Chair.

Second quarter.

Because I had some for Dion, but we'll come back to that.

Okay, uh, so uh we've been joined by Councillor Durkin and Councillor Louis Jen.

Counselor Santana, you're up next.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and good afternoon.

Thank you all for being here.

Um similar to some of my colleagues, I do want to start with some shout outs because all of your departments do amazing work, especially those on the ground, and um are constantly responding to um a lot of our requests.

So um, you know, I know um um Sharon Freeman from ISD um and Peter Sullivan from property management.

Um we um our office bothers them a lot and they respond, so I want to give them a shout-out.

I want to give a special shout out to you, lady.

Um, just um someone who um is so responsive to our office um with whatever we need, and obviously um a former um central staff, so we all love her there.

Um I know um um Kenny Ryan has received a lot of love, but I don't think he receives enough.

Um he is the best of the best, and um we're so lucky to have him in the city of Boston.

Um with that, I think I actually do want to start with right where we left off with rodents.

Um it's such a uh um it's such a uh it's an area where I get many calls from.

I I currently live right now in Roxbury, and a lot of my neighbors um and then and I know um Councilor Cole Pepper was just talking about Millby and Square.

Um did you go over the six different um can you just quickly go over them again?

Um Commissioner, I'm sorry to have you do that again.

It's okay.

Uh uh I'll visit the eye doctor after we have sewer traps, we have treat pit treatments, trash compactors, burrow treatments, surface traps, trash barrel toppers, ground sensors, and camera sensors that we are testing out in the field.

Okay, great.

And then I think I I do want to touch on uh forgetting your name, but you just mentioned about um property owners and then public space, right?

Um and there's an in uh industry seven, there's um a few situations where um your team has actually come out and um for for the public places, but because of the property owners um who are homeowners, uh can you just talk about the collaboration?

What uh I know you mentioned you do some help with the homeowners, especially if they're senior, like what type of help is that?

Like can you give examples?

Sure.

So the team is responsible for treatment of boroughs or rodents in the public space.

Um however, and property owners are responsible for their own properties.

However, there's interplay, right?

Like the rodents don't suddenly, you know, stay out when when there's a property line, right?

And it's possible too that the source of the problem may be in a public side with effects on the private side or backwards, right?

The source may be on the private property.

So it's very much on a case-by-case basis.

Obviously, if the source of the issue is on the public side, we'll treat it, take care of it.

Um, if it's on the private side, we uh specifically John and his team will come out, have a discussion with the owner, they'll either issue a violation, issue some guidance, just kind of work with them to see how it is that we can remedy and understand if other properties are affected.

Um some of our proactive work includes that type of work where they'll be called by a neighbor and do uh commun uh neighborhood walk and they'll try to they'll survey and they'll try to understand what the source is and the best way to approach it.

Um so yeah, and currently they're experimenting with um uh uh model uh computer model that's trying to point out for us where our areas that we haven't touched in a while but are likely to have rodents um to deal with equity issues of you know, some neighborhood, some people in some neighborhoods complain or uh reach out to us, you know, less often than others.

We don't want to not be in those areas because we're not hearing from them if there is a problem there.

So we have a model that's trying to get us out to those spaces or to pace places that based on the different qualities of the site might have a likelihood of having a rodent issue, such as older sewers or just different materials that are around.

So that work is happening, and our goal is to get those proactive inspections and that increase that proactive approach.

Awesome.

Thank you, Commissioner.

We appreciate that.

And our office will follow up.

I think there's a couple situations in where that's an issue with property, and uh so definitely we'll follow up with um with the appropriate person.

Um Commissioner Shelton, you know, I think you mentioned um you you listed uh a bunch of different gyms um and floors, which I'm very happy about the Tobin and the Johnson Community Center.

Um those were long overdue and really appreciate that.

Just for my understanding, I mean, these are BCYF property, um, but property management is the one taking care of it.

So just so that I understand where the money is coming from in terms of budget.

Does it come from BCYF budget?

Does it come from property management budget?

And um, how do you decide those things?

Sure.

So uh thank thank you for the question, Counselor.

Um, so when we first implemented uh Boston's resilient uh building program, I referenced earlier.

What we did is we reorganized some of the facility uh management resources across the city.

What we found was there was like sort of inequity in terms of different departments.

Um and so property management departments actually came under the umbrella of uh I mean sorry, BCYF uh facilities became came under the umbrella of the property management department.

Uh they still have their own custodians, which uh they do the daily cleaning uh and normal custodial duties.

They still fall under BCYF, but for sort of regular maintenance, uh management of HVAC, roof repairs, all of that work uh now falls into property management's budget.

Uh the only sort of caveat there is when there's capital money involved, uh the capital uh dollars or capital projects for BCYF actually still fall under BCYF's budget.

That's really good to know.

Just so we as we're going to the budget process, we know where money is being taken care of.

So really appreciate that.

Shout out to um Chief Harris, you're amazing.

Thank you for the fact that you do.

Um, and um I'll try my time's up, so okay.

Um thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you very much.

Councilor Fitzgerald.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh, and thank you, panel, for being here.

I am not gonna show Kenny Ryan any love.

No, he's uh he's fantastic.

He took down your graffiti.

It was my I know it's my graffiti.

Now I gotta go put it up again.

Ridiculous.

Um so typically I start off this question was asked, but I I've been starting off every hearing with just sort of where are the where are the cuts happening, where are we feeling it in each one, and what are you guys doing to uh sort of counteract or backfill?

I think we've you you guys have mostly covered that, but if there's anything we haven't covered in terms of how to how to cover these cuts or any other unique ways that you guys are sort of um you know making up for the loss in a different way.

Is it just asking people to do more, stretching thin?

Are we finding any uh are we working with any outside partners to try and figure something out?

Um if you feel like you've covered it, that's fine, but just wanted one more chance to um sort of see if there's anything unique you guys are doing to backfill these cuts.

Yeah, we're just all living with them.

I get it.

No, it's a fair you did already answer the question.

So um uh Tanya, I know a couple of years ago we did the uh it was the first amendment I did for a budget was 250,000 uh for um uh the plans examiners to try and get that bottleneck loosened up for people's plans uh to move a little bit quicker.

Uh I saw some of the data.

I think you said that we've that that time has decreased uh relatively.

Are those were those plans examiners or was the money originally I know we put towards one, I think, and maybe something else.

Has that money carried over each year since then as well?

Yes, so we added two things.

One is a supervisor for the plans and zoning team, which has been really helpful in helping us in allowing us or starting the work towards standardizing decision making and resolving, you know, kind of gray area debates about what the zoning interpretation should be in the department.

That's been really helpful.

And then we also added as part of the reorganization of zoning analyst, that's been a position that's been crucial to help permits get out the door when there's no building involved, so like change of use or sometimes signs, things like that.

Um and specializing the teams has been really helpful, and yet that that funding continues, and we're very grateful.

And feedback has been good from on the community side on the on the user side of uh noted improvement.

Uh yes, I I think I have to say that uh my first year on the job, I did a lot of troubleshooting for projects that or applications that needed an ETA or were wondering where they are at, and I do a lot less of that now.

Um I also have to acknowledge that there's still a lot of work that we need to do in many areas of the permitting process.

So while we are happy to see those time two issuance times come down, we think we can do more, and that's that's part of our goals for this year.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Um in the summer events prep with the busy summer coming up, and you guys touched upon this as well.

Thinking about just do we have a determined amount of overtime that we're expecting, or you guys just are we're just gonna kind of be surprised at the number, or do we have like a rough idea of uh the amount of work we're gonna take given to our capability and our bandwidth, and then looking forward to what uh you know, because we're asking a lot of our city workers for this summer.

Um, and of course, it's gonna already being in the financial crunch, we know that it's gonna be another gut punch.

So uh just sort of your uh mentality, maybe Dion, this you could speak to to everyone on this of um just sort of how we're wrapping our head around potential overtime cost, potential just regular cost uh from from for the city uh for all these events, seeing that you just I think you said earlier, right?

We're not getting uh in your in your department, we're not seeing any money coming in from the outside.

Yeah.

Thanks for that question, Councillor.

Um, and I would say uh Office of Budget Management has been doing a great job working with property management, ISD, um uh streets cabinet, uh, and public safety most importantly, where we expect to see um a lot of increased costs based on um things that we know about and things that we don't know.

We know we'll have millions of people here, and so there'll be a need to make sure that that all events and activities are safe.

Um so we've been collecting that public safety data.

Um, property management has given their estimate based on the things that they're aware of uh, i.e.

Fanfest and the duration of that as well.

So uh I think we're in a good place in terms of understanding what we think the cost will be based on what we know and also some unknown um things factored into it, but I would I would defer to OBM to really speak on the larger context of of what that looks like.

Thank you.

Um I had a close relationship in previous jobs here at the city with the municipal officers.

Are we are are we fully staffed?

I know at one point they I don't think they were fully staffed.

Are the munis fully staffed at the moment and sort of um what is their training looking like for this summer as well?

Because I imagine they'll play an impactful role in helping out.

And while he was passing the mic, let me let me say that in the years past that this was a huge challenge for us.

Yeah, um the team has done an amazing job.

I don't know what the number Sam is gonna say now, but I know at one point we got to I think one day we were at 100%, and maybe the next day someone moved on to the police department.

So thank you, Chief, and thank you, Councillor, for the question.

Uh at Full Staff, uh we have a complement of 67 municipal protective services officers uh serving across a range of properties in the city.

I think right now we're at about 65, 64, um and actively hiring for those remaining two.

As you mentioned, it's gonna be a very busy summer for for the men and women of protective services, so we want to make sure that we're uh doing our utmost uh in terms of training.

Um thank you, thanks to Deputy Commissioner Donlin, who is a former municipal protective services officer.

We've had a lot of insight into what this summer may require.

Um every officer and every supervisor in municipal protective services recently uh completed uh certification through Boston MS, and and thanks to Chief Hooley and his team for that.

They're all certified now in uh AD um CPR, stop the bleed, first aid, all of those things in time for the summer, which of course we hope we won't see, but we likely will.

Um, and as we speak, we have a second cohort of 15 officers going through a week-long training uh with a group called Empower Communications, which is run by some former Boston police officers uh who are MPATC certified at the state level, um, uh following police reform and who are like teaching them a lot about de-escalation, dealing with people experiencing mental health crises, intoxicated behavior, um defensive tactics in the event that they sort of the de-escalation tactics don't work, all of the things that they uh hopefully will need or hopefully won't need, but still need to know um to keep themselves safe, our employees safe, and our patrons safe as they visit the city and um enjoy all the programming we have available.

That's awesome, Sam.

Thank you so much, and thank you to all of you on the panel.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Chief.

Okay, thank you, Councilor, Councillor Braden.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Good to see you all.

Um I'd love to know more about the resilient building program.

You mentioned um that uh gym floors have been refinished at BCYF centers.

I was just wondering, I know I was at the Jackson Mann community center recently.

The gym floor and the dance studio floors in pretty rough shape.

Uh are there any plans to refinish uh the floors in the Jackson Man?

Yeah, sure.

Um so one of the sort of sticking points uh counselor uh Madam President has been that uh many of the BCYF centers operate in B s in Boston Public Schools facilities, as you're aware.

Um property management currently we're only actively managing the gym floors in the standalone facilities, which is why in the commissioner's list it was just the central standalone properties.

Um, you know, as as you're aware, and as we've been discussing, the the Jackson Man does need a lot of work.

I think there are some discussions uh at the administrative level about sort of the future of that building.

Um we'll take a look at it.

Uh we did uh in in ARPA funds who got a million dollars of ARPA that was specifically targeted at the Jackson Man, because we thought it was gonna have to vacate the building and go somewhere else and then to fix the other building up.

So thinking about those floors would be really helpful.

The other question I had was you know, in terms of resiliency, the Jackson Man is supposed to be a cooling center.

Um, and I was just wondering uh what sort of shape the air conditioning is in as we face into another summer.

Uh I know last year, maybe the year before we had uh we had a heat wave, it hit over 100 degrees on Juneteenth, and our schools were closed and everything was closed.

We we needed places for people to go, and there was nowhere because the city was basically closed for business.

Um what what's what's the plans for and I know I talk to Dion pretty regularly as soon as the temperature goes up, I'm calling him about the heating cooling centers in Alston Brighton.

Um what's what have we got on the docket for cooling centers for Alson Brighton?

So um thank you for the question.

Um Counselor, we um so we do, I mean, as you know, the the heating and cooling system is in quite rough shape.

I don't want to sugarcoat it for the uh Jackson man.

Uh we have temporary cooling that we use in there.

Uh so that is sort of um an option for a space to cool down, although we don't call it uh an official cooling center because it's not sort of up to um up to what our standards would be for a cooling center.

Uh we do have the Veronica Smith.

Um I know it is it also has some cool cooling challenges, which we're addressing this summer, but we have used that for a cooling center and listed that as a location.

Um will it will will the Veronica Smith be open this summer for as a cool because I know that it's scheduled to have a new HVAC system and I'll put it in there?

Yeah, so so uh as long as it's open to the public, we'll we'll have it in and uh we'll have it as a cooling center.

Uh and then alternatively, they're going to move to a temporary location once the renovation project starts, and that can be used as a as a cooling location.

Yeah, they're they're going over to Brighton Marine as far as I understand.

That's right.

Um the Brighton Center Library is uh flagged up for a new roof.

I know it reopened after a big renovation in December of 2010.

Is that seems like a really short time for uh a roof?

Um do we have any warranty on roofs?

Like it seems uh on what are we doing about quality control and make sure we're getting a good product because that seems 15 years seems very short.

Like I would like 25 years on a new roof, at least if it was myself.

Yeah, we'll have to uh check on that and report back, counselor.

Um it doesn't fall under sort of our our portfolio.

Um you're right, we usually get 25 or or longer year warranties on our roofing projects.

I actually don't recall if roof was included in that uh renovation from 2010 that you referenced.

Um but uh we'll we'll check on that and report back.

Okay, and um oh and then um back to elevators in this building.

Um I've got you know been here around this block a few times.

So the elevators a few years ago there was an elevator to bring us from the the third floor up to the mezzanine level.

It was with rushed, we had to rush to get it past the accept and expend the money because it had to be delivered by a certain time, otherwise we'd lose the money.

Did we get the money?

Did we get the elevator?

We did, yeah.

So so technically speaking, uh we call it a lift, a wheelchair lift, so it's not sort of a full service elevator, but it is it has I'm happy to report we did get the money, it has been uh installed, and so it is functioning, uh, but it's not it doesn't perform the same function as a traditional elevator.

So and then you're putting in a new elevator that will link those floors for a regular elevator.

That's correct.

Um I also have a uh rather strange question.

It's sort of in the realm of almost like rodent control, but uh why do the bathrooms in the city hall continuously flush?

I don't know what our water bills is are, but I I imagine we must pay a lot on water.

Um yeah, it's a good question.

Uh what I would ask maybe offline if you if you tell me which uh bathrooms you're referring to and we can take a look at them.

I I will say uh it being an older building, we actually have a lot of sort of old infrastructure, which probably contributes to what you're talking about, but we'll take a look uh if there's a restroom in particular that you're referring to.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, there's a few.

And and I have it on good authority that other ours is not the only bathroom that flushes all the time.

Yeah, have it happy to take a look at.

Um okay, I'll come back.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Braden.

Counselor Louis Jan.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you to this esteemed panel for all the incredible work that you do.

And um also want to give shout outs to so many people who work on behalf of the city.

But I think you know, there's no one who my office has worked closer with than uh John.

Um and I know that you and Emily in my office work so closely on all things rats in the city, which is uh uh like you know, we we joke about it, but it really is a quality of life issue for our residents, um overflowing dumpsters, and so I'm really grateful for the partnership that you have with our office in helping really address um everyday constituent issues to make their lives better.

So just wanted to say uh thank you.

Um and thank you to all of you for all of the work that we do, uh Commissioner in chief recently working on an issue together, so really appreciate uh your support and flexibility and helping to support our our businesses here.

Um I have a question about uh the citywide lease assessment um that uh that the operations cabinet initiated to evaluate how we manage properties that we lease to others.

Um can you share what that review has recover uh recovered so far, whether in terms of um misalignment with market rates, underutilized space, or compliance issues?

Thank you for that question, um counselor.

I'm gonna ask uh deputy chief um Patricia Kaffuki, who's been spearheading this particular project to step up and give us a response.

Thank you.

Can you hear me?

Yep.

Uh thanks for the question, Counselor.

So currently we just completed our data collection phase, and what we we employed uh the real estate team from the planning department to do a market look at everything that we have, both where we are a tenant and where we are the landlord.

And what they found is that when we're a tenant, because we prioritize those first, we are actually paying in general market rate or below market rate, which was great.

I don't want to tell our landlords that too loudly, but um we do a really good job at making sure that for the most part we're getting good value out of the assets that we're leasing.

Um where we are a landlord, it's a little different because we often consider what the public good is that our tenants are bringing.

Right.

And so it's uh honestly like we can try to put a market value to it, but um we don't nearly charge in most places what we could, but generally it's to the benefit of the communities that those spaces are in.

Thank you.

Um and I and I and I do appreciate on the issue that we were just working on that we in the city can can think about what is a public good in the way that the market doesn't care about, right?

And so I think that that is just a lesson in terms of why sometimes the private market isn't solving our problems as a city when it comes to a number of things, and that we are able to take more into consideration.

So I just really appreciate that.

Um across the city's portfolios of facilities, um, it's hard for us to maintain a state of good repair.

Um from everyone's perspective, what represents the most significant deferred maintenance risk that we have today as a city?

Um, because we we you know it's all about their trade-offs and we can't do everything at once.

But what is the biggest risk that we we face, whether it's in terms of safety, maintenance, uh service disruption, cost escalation.

Um I think in terms of I can I just answer the question in two ways.

So in terms of priority, it's it's certainly safety, and that's what we prioritize.

So we look at elevators, fire protection systems, uh, those those things first.

Um but in terms of a risk like to the city in terms of its ability to provide services.

I I think service disruption is probably sort of the biggest risk.

Um, and you know, you see that across the the city.

Um, you know, we suffer from sort of like years of deferred maintenance um over time, and so uh we try to supplement that through the capital sort of budget as best we can.

But but um uh, you know, there's we we try to be creative and do what we can to try to um limit those disruptions.

Um but with the aging infrastructure, if things aren't being proactively replaced, you know, HVAC systems have a uh life expectancy, and if you're beyond that life expectancy, eventually they're gonna fail, even if you're doing the best uh facility management you can.

Uh just add a little color to that.

Just some specific projects that sort of led to us um taking on this initiative, like the clarity pool.

Um frontage rule.

We had a summer way employees suffered through a summer without adequate climate control.

So we really wanted to get ahead of those type of things to to avoid those type of disruptions.

Thank you.

Um I have two more questions.

One is um this council has been really great at supporting rodent resistant uh trash cans.

Um where do we have that rolled out and where are we looking to expand?

New York City just is there, I think the law was in place under Mayor Eric Adams, but right now they're stepping up enforcement on requiring certain types of lids for residents to have.

But I know we as a city we've been investing.

So where are we now with rodent resistant rodent resistant trash barrels?

Um where do we hope to be?

Um, and then the last question is also uh for you, um, Chief uh Del Rio.

Commissioner Del Rio?

Commissioner Del Rio.

Um is how how what progress are we making for business owners in terms of getting like ISD documentation or ISD applications online?

Okay.

Um so I'll start with the barrel, the rodent resistant barrels.

Right now we have rodent resistant bills installed in Chinatown, the North End and the Boston Common.

There is funding to install barrels in Mattapan Square, so that's gonna happen next.

Yeah.

Um then, yeah, there's there's uh ongoing work with Boston Parks and the analytics team, GIS team to map out the total inventory of barrels across all the parks to understand where we need more improvements.

There's also the BHA containerization pilot that's uh happening right now in Commonwealth.

And the I will just say that me and my staffer were out a lot this weekend, and the number of through and ones, like you know, she's driving and she's like at the same time, put a 301 three one, three one here, here, here.

So like rodent sightings?

I mean, I mean, like the lack of containerization the on on bins, the the lot the lack of bin cover, this is what we are dealing with in Mattapan and in Hyde Park with a specific, but like it's also really rampant having making so if we could do a better job generally of enforcement around dumpsters.

Um I know that a lot of those are private dumpsters, but I think that uh at least with BHA, that's sort of within the city BHA's control.

So just wanted to interject that.

Yes, but I will say please do put the private dumpsters in 311 because our site cleanliness program does license them, which then gets us in on an inspection schedule of those dumpsters, and if they're flowing, broken, badly maintained, we can issue a violation and begin an enforcement process and all the ones at Bunker Hill looked bad, just by the way.

So we are taking note, yeah.

Um that is the bulk of our prevention work around rodent control.

So thank you for thank you for reporting those to us.

The other question around this.

Online, yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So I shared earlier that all of our permits are now available online.

We did not remove in-person um application options, but if you need a sprinkler, tranche sheet metal permit, they used to have to be in person, they're now available online.

And our certificate of occupancy is moving online this very month.

So the last one we'll we'll have to do is our certificate of inspection, which we hope to start at the end of this year, depending on how our CO roll out goes.

Thank you.

Counselor Louis Jean.

So uh just I I I have a letter with some questions from Councillor Coletta Zapata, and I as I let my colleagues know last hearing, you know, if they're they're absent, they should definitely submit questions and I'll ask them.

Not this many questions, but if you're if you're overdue uh to give birth and uh you know you're you're you're on bed rest essentially, I will just read out all your questions.

So I'm gonna give Counselor Coletta six minutes and and and and read out her questions uh for for you to answer.

Um so what capacity and funding do we have in this budget to support better short-term rental oversight and regulation?

So there's no change in our budget for the housing division that's in charge of enforcing the short-term rental program.

We do have very capable uh team down there with Regina Hansen and inspectors that are working under her.

Um we've made since we last spoke in this in this chamber about short-term rental, a couple of technology updates that are really helpful.

The most crucial one being blinding the the number for an applicant that's before an applicant that was trying to get a short-term rental license was being given an application number that ultimately ended up being their license number, which is what they required to put up the post, and people were misusing that number.

We've been able now to um withhold that number until the point where they're actually approved, which we think is going to be really helpful in terms of enforcement.

And um, we're working really closely with the IT team on on others.

Okay, is I mean short-term rentals that include Airbnb?

Yes, yes, Airbnb VR.

Have we seen an increase in applications because of the World Cup and the other?

Not so far.

Okay.

We have we've been observing the increase in prices of the existing inventory, but um, as far as workload and applications, okay, not nothing, nothing extreme.

Do you have an average of the because I I've I've heard like 8,000 or something absurd.

Uh yeah, uh for the world cup.

We have we reached out last week to Airbnb to identify trends about that.

We don't have an answer yet, but as soon as we have, we're happy to share.

Okay.

I've just anecdotally seen um some pretty exorbitant prices, and that's because a lot of people want to come and participate in the events.

Okay.

Uh what is the status of vacancies for fire inspectors, plans examiners, and building division intake clerks.

Yeah, I'm I'm happy to share, and and I have to shout out Mari McLennan specifically, our HR director in getting our vacancies really um really low.

So we are 95% staffed.

That's an accurate number.

We have the following vacancies.

We have 10 through vacancies and three positions being filled by employees temporarily out of grade.

Um as we know, we're facing a hiring slowdown citywide, and that's the reason we haven't filled them.

Uh but we have vacancy, one wire inspector, two building inspectors, one chief building administrative clerk, and one plans examiner fire um review position.

We have three housing inspector vacancies, our director of IT.

I I think I I missed the number, but um three health inspectors, I want to say.

I may be getting that number right because I didn't write it.

Um, and then an admin assistant for the accounting team, my Mary Morgan's team, three head clerks and one administrative secretary in John's environmental services team.

Okay.

Um let's see, there's a fair concern over a lack of internal coordination within ISD to approve permits and send information to constituents in a timely manner.

What internal technical operational administrative work has happened to produce better outcomes for residents?

I guess you've talked a little bit about online stuff, but uh I don't know if that addresses this in part, but I mean I'd love to I can't ask what what they mean, but um we people ask for permits through our permitting portal, and every time our staff moves their permit from one milestone to another, they get immediately notified through the portal, and that's how people can keep up on where they are in the process.

Um as I mentioned at the outset, we are going to change the permitting database.

I mean, not the database, but like the the permitting system that the city uses so that all the departments can be on the same system and communicate.

There are many reviews that other departments do.

Um I'm not sure exactly where that particular constituent might be getting lost in the process.

They can access more information via our constituent services team emailing us 311.

Uh, but the the first source should definitely be their portal.

Okay.

Uh and then so what's the current impact of the rat mitigation program in District 1?

I don't think that we have any specific pilots running.

Oh, we do in the north end, obviously, the containerization.

Yeah, we so we talked a little bit about that.

Yes, I don't know if you want to add anything for district one, John, which would be Boston Charlestown on the North End.

I do know that we received extreme positive feedback for the trash toppers in the north end and the new trash bins.

Uh I don't think we have any pilots going on right this second in East Boston or Charlestown, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

So we removed the uh we completed the soil pipe uh trap.

So we had smart pipes, um smart pipes and smart traps in the sewers, 21 of them in the in the north end.

Uh street barrels, street containerization.

Um I think that's that it and and starting tomorrow, we will we're installing five new uh sew sensors.

Um and um we're just trying them with the first uh I think in the country to have these sensors, so trying those out to see if they're successful, and if they are, we'll we'll expand on that too.

Okay.

We do concentrate in the north end because it's been identified as a hotspot multiple times.

Okay, speaking of the north end, um during the summer months.

Can uh can you speak about the feasibility of implementing an overnight code enforcement shift to address noise, trash, and other quality of life issues uh during peak hours?

Yeah, the code enforcement team is part of public works.

Yeah.

Okay.

There you go.

Okay.

Uh so I I have a couple questions, and one the first one overlaps with Councillor Coletta Zapata's, which is um on rental inspections.

Uh so um is the goal to inspect 100% of apartments every five years, and are we uh are we gonna meet that?

That would definitely be the goal.

We're not currently staffed up enough to to meet that goal.

Is it 26 inspectors?

I saw that from last year's uh do you know what the number is?

I want to say that's right, but I would want to check with Mari, our our housing inspector count between 20 and 30.

25.

25, okay.

Can I jump in and just add that the goal is not necessarily for the city to actually inspect a fifth, but we expect a fifth to actually be in compliance each year.

There are other ways of achieving compliance through the alternative compliance um plan.

They can uh landlords who will feel like they're a good landlords can apply for that exemption.

There's also an ability to use uh authorized inspection inspectors to perform these inspections, um, as well as we do accept um section eight types of inspections as well to achieve compliance.

Okay.

Um yeah, how many inspections do you uh kind of expect uh one inspector to perform a year?

A year.

They're they're doing about 10 inspections a day.

Okay, okay.

Um yes.

Um as a department completing a little over 13,000 inspections per year.

That includes a lot of re-inspections that happen through the enforcement process.

Units that we inspect per calendar year is a 8,468.

Okay, and then I said because in the slide presentation, it was like look looking to inspect it.

Yes, I couldn't, I didn't understand if that was sorry for yeah, I could be more clear.

So the rental registration program is what allows us to do proactive inspections, and so any unit in the city that's out for rent is supposed to be registered with us so that we can get it on an inspection program of thereabouts one every five years.

We're probably not meeting that.

We're probably getting to them one or five every every six years, or if there's complaints, we'll get there, obviously.

Um we haven't been able to register that complete universe for a number of reasons lack of awareness, lack of interest in compliance, things like that.

Um we're covering about 75% right now.

We want to increase this year by a thousand units and explore ways in which we can capture obviously our ultimate goal is compliance, so we want to capture the whole universe.

It's a work in progress.

Yeah, just in by increasing by a thousand, is that that's an addition to the the ones you would normally inspect, or is it a just getting a lot of people?

So if you're registered, we will inspect you at some point, right?

And you're supposed to renew that registration every year, but there's a percentage of units that have never registered or that don't update their registration, so they're not receiving letters from us to schedule an inspection.

Okay.

Yet.

Yeah.

And then I guess we uh counselor Cleta Zapata and I filed uh an ordinance to update the fees.

Um I mean, what what are do you have any thoughts about what we could do with by increasing the fees for these rental inspections to sort of 21st century level numbers?

Yeah, um, well, I'll share that for a number of years ISD was not issuing fines at all and using the court process for enforcement.

We last year or the year, yeah, we've been standing up a compliance program to allow us to restart um charging fees specifically focused on the rental registry.

And we've started a month about a month ago, we started with the first batch of units that we knew had not renewed their registration, so we're out of compliance, and we started issuing fines at the level that they existed.

So for us, it's kind of upping the fines is I guess helpful, but even more important is just standing up the program in the first place.

Yeah, and so I guess what what are uh other than adding inspectors?

Is there anything else we could we can be doing uh to I mean, is the issue that landlords aren't c contacting us or like what what is the what what's kept us from reaching our goal?

We're we're trying to understand that there's been a number of obstacles.

First one was just have having a hearing officer that allowed us to do the whole process appropriately.

We've solved that.

Um another option, another kind of obstacle is that a lot of the systems that we would rely on don't talk to each other, so you know we could use a database that lives in another department uh that lives in another place uh outside of city to allow us to get at that information and uh that's ongoing work.

So uh it's uh it's very operational.

Okay.

Um and then uh I guess is the uh uh problem properties.

Is there's a task force that runs it?

Is that fully staffed?

Yes, the problem property task force is fully staffed.

It's chaired by Deputy Chief of Operations Keith Williams, who's here with us today, but more importantly, it involves um about a dozen departments per city ordinance that work together and identify properties that meet the threshold requirement so that we can have um qualitative conversations to determine whether or not they should be designated and work with property owners to hopefully avoid designation.

But that part that program is is up and running and fully staffed.

Okay.

Uh thank thank you very much.

Uh Councilor Jerkin, your uh first round, six minutes.

I sent some shade, I will not accept it.

Okay.

Um so thank you so much.

I just wanted to thank um, you know, amen.

I call you every time I see anything weird in City Hall.

Thank you for anytime I sell smell smoke or anything's going on, I see a random bag.

Thank you for securing our building and uh keeping us safe.

Um, and obviously our chief of operations.

I have so much respect for all the work that you do.

Um, and obviously ISD dealing with you guys all the time.

Um I wanted to ask some interesting questions about permitting modernization.

I know that's something that we are you know spending time and resources to deliver for businesses and residents.

Um I do have a hearing order on how um to make some of this work more public facing.

So I was just curious um how you feel like the city is doing on cutting permitting time, and um obviously we definitely have the outliers that that we as district city counselors you know get outreach about.

Um you know, we have the out we definitely have the outliers of like it took me this long to to do this thing, and and they usually come to us when there is a crisis.

So um, so I just wanted to get your overall impression on how permitting is going in the city and how we can make things easier for local businesses.

Yeah, I'm I'm happy to speak to that.

It's um a little bit like a rodent work in the sense that there's a lot of ongoing work and we've seen improvements uh specifically in the time to issue metrics in the last year, and there's a lot of work still to be done.

Um of the bottlenecks that I that we worked on this year as part of the permitting transformation initiative that I haven't spoken about and I wanted to was the upgrading of some of our plans and zoning positions so that they would be able to perform fire reviews in the in the status quo situation.

We had one uh one fire reviewer that was kind of every permit that needed a fire review was going through one person.

Um thanks to a number of the city hall teams that supported this reorganizations will now have five staff members be able to perform those reviews, and I think that will help.

We have yet to see the kind of the product of that effort.

Um again, right now I can I can read off just the the times of where we are, and I hope that by next year we'll be able to see lower numbers when I come back.

Um we're doing 44 days for non-ZBA long-form applications.

We're doing six days for short form, like simple project applications, and one day for the trades.

Um yeah, I I think that's that's where we are in summary.

We have seen improvements, want to do want to do better.

Yeah, and um, how would you characterize the coordination between departments?

Um I know that I think the last year's budget cycle, I asked a similar thing to fire about you know, about inspections, and so glad to hear that that um you know issue has been dealt with, and I think everyone who works on this stuff is very hard working, and that's never the issue.

It's just making sure that the systems all work together.

Um so um, how would you characterize sort of that collaboration between departments?

I think it's it's it's in the works, it's great.

The mayor convening the permitting transformation initiative has been really helpful because again, all of the departments are sometimes on in the same and sometimes in different just IT systems, and that um change that's gonna come through that initiative will be extremely helpful.

But the in-person, you know, we're talking collaboration is a great first step.

And um, one of the points of um collaboration that I've tried to create um a couple, I think two years ago, I came up with the idea of like having there be like you know, when you're doing a big development project, there's like a board outside that says like this is the project that's coming, and like this is who's involved in the project, and here's what the materiality will look like when the you know, with when they do sort of the tiny um facade, and I'm using the wrong word for that, but um, but I feel like for some of this construction and permitting um that's happening in our neighborhoods, like with National Grid and Eversource and Boston Water and Sewer.

Um, oftentimes there might be you know weeks of work being done on your street, and you don't really know when it's going to end.

And I know that the mayor and her administration and um that your team is really working to digitize permits, which is huge.

I'm to getting all the permits digitized, that's a huge feat.

Um, and so now I'm sort of asking the question like how do we get that to a point where it it can feel very public-facing because a lot of constituents, that's their first time that they reach out to me is because they want to find the permit for something near their house that's going on.

Um so I just wanted to sort of ask, like, what is the plans for that?

And I mean, could we get to a point where on you know, a project that Boston Water and Sewer is doing, there's a QR code on one of the trucks where anyone from you know the neighborhood can kind of see, like, oh, this is when they have the permit until um obviously I don't I would love for constituents to reach out to me for this information, but sometimes it's like I'm getting an email at 10 p.m.

the constituents like is this emergency work?

What's going on here?

And it would be nice if and I I think maybe this only applies to these downtown neighborhoods where you're actually walking past the construction project, and a lot of people are you know, in dense neighborhoods, a lot of people are dealing with uh the impact of construction.

So I just wanted to ask, sort of what's the plan to make that and is there a plan to make that more forward-facing?

Sure.

So for ISD's permits, which we do on all private property construction projects, that data is available through Analyze Boston.

People can search by address.

I'm happy to share the link and you'll see what type of permit it is, a job description that tells you what's happening there, and we're also happy to answer you know any questions if they if they want to know more.

Um they can also find information around our violations, um, our food establishments, after hours construction permits.

We get a lot of um people who are concerned with work happening outside of normal business hours, they can check the after hours construction data set to see if it's permitted or not.

Um so yeah, zoning board of appeal truckers as well.

And I want to give Carlton the opportunity to re mention the the work that you were just talking about with the QR codes in in your projects, um Eversource, water sewer, that type of work happening on the street.

I wouldn't be able to talk about it.

Yes, of course, yeah.

But when we did, I just want to say that when we did talk to uh which now it's a whole cast new cast of characters at the streets cabinet, but when we did talk to folks about that, they said the biggest person that would have an issue with um QR codes and other was ISD, so that's why I'm bringing it up.

So I do feel like it's a lot of when I've suggested an ordinance, there has been a little bit of finger pointing about who who would not like certain things.

I will take a guess at what they mean.

So we permit construction projects in private property, so like if I'm building something on my house, right now it's not a requirement for me to post what I'm doing.

However, the information is available online as far as what the permit is for, and people do are are required to post the permit.

I know it's a small little paper, but that permit has the same information.

Um it would just be an added cost for people to I don't know, like come up with a bigger sign.

I that is my guess of what they would mean by that.

But you haven't been approached to say that you don't like that idea.

Well, like I said, the information about our permits is is available.

Okay, thank you.

Sorry.

Okay.

No, thank you, Council Councillor Jarkin.

Carlton had potentially response to it.

I then I saw this uh head shape.

I can I didn't think that's right.

I mean uh good afternoon, Councillor Durkin.

So very quickly, so for the public facilities department projects, we do have job signs or boards, and uh what I was mentioning is our innovation this year is that we've not only added a dashboard, we've added a QR code as well.

Or we're adding a QR code, they're not on existing projects, but as new ones come to be like the Grove Hall project, for instance, is the first that has our QR code on it.

So it sounds like utilities are next.

Just saying, okay, thank you.

Okay, Chair.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Uh Counselor Culpepper, we're going for a second row.

We're doing four four minutes.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um couple of questions regarding the road and restriction barrels.

Can we put newbie and square on that list for those road and restriction barrels so that uh we can make sure we get some over there?

Um with regard to rodents, we've got a consistent caller, and she's she's at eight Ruth Vent Street.

And if you could put some traps inside that sewer, it's almost right in front of her house.

And I went there and I saw, and she kept saying, just stand there, they're gonna come out, they're gonna come out.

She just kept saying, stand there.

And it was if she was talking to them because they did come out.

The rats came out.

And there was another hole where he just poked his head out.

But there was one that came out.

Look, how are you doing?

Kept moving.

The sewer is almost right in front of her house.

And if you could put something, some traps in that uh sewer at eight Ruthfin Street.

That's her house.

So John is taking notes, and we'll also pay that homeowner visit.

Okay.

Because I'm gonna go out there.

I did talk about dry ice and how and how that works and how well it works.

Have you thought about some kind of dry ice program with regard to the residents?

Because I think that works very well.

And I told her I'm gonna buy some dry ice and I'm gonna come out.

I'm gonna put some in those holes.

I've learned a lot about rats, dealing with them on nasing street.

They dig one hole, then they dig two others.

And so I understand that you have to put dry ice in all three of the holes.

So I think we have something that's even better that John will talk about.

Oh, great.

Come on, John.

Yeah, thank you, Counselor.

Um, so we used to use dry ice um to to get the dry ice and store it.

Very difficult.

So now we have tanked carbon dioxide.

Okay.

Um so we we have tanks we can come out, fill the holes with the carbon dioxide, does the same exact thing.

That works just as well.

And and I'll get now.

The difference we also have carbon monoxide, carbon monoxide, you just have to be a little far from a structure, an occupied structure, but uh the carbon dioxide you can go right up to the building.

You can give that to me later, or so we can make sure we get some a couple of questions.

Colton, where are we with regard to the South End Library?

I know we were in the design phase.

If we are still in, when will we be out of the divine phase, the design phase?

And I keep getting calls that it's not on the library's project list.

And so when is the design phase going to be completed?

Uh and then we'll move into the construction phase.

Right, so it's an interesting good afternoon again.

So it's a good interesting question you asked.

So uh right now we're still studying um some aspects of that project, so it's definitely still in design.

Uh when it gets out of design, it's a little bit up in the air at the moment.

Uh I don't have the information, so I'm I'm looking over here because they're gonna look at the project.

So I think as I mentioned before, we're very close to completing design.

We're gonna have a community meeting sometime this month.

I don't have the exact date.

I saw that.

Okay, so that is the intention to that is to share the different options that I talked about for um ensuring that the alley can be properly serviced by public works, and so we'll be sharing what those options are with the residents and getting feedback, and I think from there we'll be able to complete design.

And the counselor and the counselor.

Let me just say this.

Uh I really appreciated Dion how you handled Final Touch and how you resolve that because I know it was a big thing with the community, but I really appreciated how you handled that.

Um, they came down to the office.

I just appreciate it how you handle that.

Not only how you handle it, but look, this was a great day for me at a great hearing this morning with public works, having a great day with uh Dean, you and your leadership team, and I really commend you for the good work that you do in the response.

But I do have one quick question regarding that steam room at the Grove Hall Center.

You're gonna give me how much it costs, and then we're gonna talk about that so that I can somehow connect that with the uh requests from the mostly senior men requesting the senior uh the same room.

But I don't want to put a damper on the good work that you guys have doing.

I mean, it's just incredible the responses that I get from you.

Uh whenever I ask a question, so I just think it's you know, regarding these rats, I'm telling you, it's but it's I've had a good day, Mr.

Chair, and uh I just want to thank Dion and his team for the good work and all the good answers.

If you could just that steam room, and we could get to that.

Uh but I appreciate everything you do.

And uh, I'm a little past a hundred days, but this has been one of my best days since I've been here.

Thank you.

Okay, thanks.

Congratulations on 100.

I'll follow up with you on the steam room, but I do just want to um touch on um final touch and the other tenants.

So credit does not go to me, be honest with you.

Property management, um, and also the economic opportunity cabinet has been working with all all of our tenants, and as Trish mentioned, like we we understand that as land we're not a typical landlord, and we're we're working to support all our businesses, and we hope that they all succeed.

So thank you.

Uh Councillor Braden.

Thank you.

I'm glad he's having a good day.

Yeah.

So happy for you.

Um I'd love to ask about fines and enforcement.

Um Boston's own open data and independent analysis for parking violations and sanitation enforcement show clear neighborhood level disparities in where fines are issued and where they're ultimately collected.

Um what are we able to do to ensure that we're collecting fines for violations?

I think we have a lot of we have a lot of regulations and we don't really enforce a lot.

There's a lot of them we don't really obstacles to enforcing them, but anyway.

Uh and is the system working?

And um can the operations department deliver fines collection data so that the council can determine whether the current system is fair and effective.

That's just thinking about.

Oh, and the other question I had is I know we did a home rule petition and got it through the State House with about two years' work, got it passed about almost two years ago.

Um, and just thinking about uh we got the permission to raise the maximum fines.

Um and I was just one for code City of Boston code violations.

And are we are we are we adjusting our fines uh to make to a to um uh in in light of that new home home rule petition that we got passed yeah um I would say relative to um overall with fines and collections, so we're it's a work in progress, and we're working with the finance cabinet on that.

Uh I think with fines that are issued on the parking, those seem to have better collection because it's like see me now or see me later, but at some point folks do come to see us to make sure those fines are paid.

But other types of fines, we're working to make sure that we have the right processes in place and um the administrative process in particular to improve there.

So we're happy to follow up on that.

Uh in terms of updating fines to take advantage of the opportunities to increase some of the fines.

I want to commend you, Councillor, for helping to get make that a possibility.

I I think it's something that the city will definitely take advantage of.

I think we we're trying to do it in a in a step-by-step approach where instead of just increasing fines, we we want to really look at some of our ordinances, look at our policies, make sure we have like the right processes in place, and then as we approach the council to make targeted updates, you know, ordinance by ordinance, increasing fines or making sure the fines are correct will be a part of that process as well.

Yeah.

I'd love your advocacy if you can help me advocate, because we we've been advocating to try and update the the Boston municipal code for several probably since nearly as soon as they got here, we were more looking at that.

And um we're at the stage now of we've we've almost had a complete change of personnel on city council.

So new offices are you know, we're we're considering whether we need to print up the binder with all the municipal code, but if if a lot of it is sort of antiquated and out of dates and needs updating, that's a significant investment.

We'll go we'd rather hold off until we update the code.

So um I'm sure you folks might be interested in doing looking at that and doing it.

Um we did try and earmark again some ARPA funds to do that, but I don't I don't think it went anywhere at the time.

So um anyway, I'd love your help in advocating to get that that sort of modernized.

Um I think you're supposed to do it every 10 years.

I think it's probably been closer to over 20 years at this point, but anyway.

Um other thing.

Was that it?

Um yes, the electric the vehicles, the vehicle maintenance.

Um I know we're increasing very volatile oil prices at the minute.

How what percentage of our fleet is electric and um EV and do we have um uh and and what sort of how many how many vehicles have are off the road at the minute if for if they need to be replaced or are they not functional at the minute?

Is that something you can yeah?

I think we'll have to like follow up with our colleagues to get that information more holistically.

I don't know if any department can speak to your department, but we'd have to talk to like Central Fleet to get it.

I don't know if any department can speak to your department, but we'd have to talk to like Central Fleet to get it.

Yeah.

Um thank you, Councillor.

Very quickly, uh for for property management.

We actually have a relatively small fleet, so I think the question would be better asked.

The central fleet for look at the city as a whole.

Um but one of the um one of our challenges is really also infrastructure for charging stations and that sort of thing.

Uh so we have been rolling that out, and certainly that's our goal.

So as we replace vehicles, we are looking at uh electric uh uh more electric vehicles.

Um Sam, I don't know if you wanted to speak to like the number within our small fleet.

Yeah, I think our our fleet is approximately 3637 vehicles, and I think we have probably 10 of those vehicles being harbored, and uh three should be coming online um this spring that'll be fully electric.

Um I think one thing that we've been struggling with as an organization that deals with snow and other sort of heavy duty equipment is that the electricity is a very important thing.

Vehicle market doesn't really exist yet.

And um so um, you know, sometimes you just need a big pickup truck and and to put a psalter and a sander on the back of it, and uh um but we're certainly doing what we can for the sort of non-heavy industry vehicles to to electrify or at least hybridize those um so that we're not uh you know contributing to carbon emissions and um increasing athletes' longevity.

In our case, go ahead.

In our case, it's a small fleet too.

We're on a schedule of replay placing one vehicle a year.

Every new one is electric.

Okay, that's good.

Um thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I know you're kind of watching the time there.

Yeah, yeah, thank you.

Um just uh can can you explain in terms of the permitting process, like uh what parts of it are under the planning department and what's an ISD, what the coordination is there.

Sure.

I will do my best to make it uh be simple.

So a short form and a trade permit, they don't go through the plans and zoning team, they just go through the building and inspector or the appropriate inspector.

Umce you're making like a structural change or a bigger project, you will go through the plans and zoning team for construction.

Okay, and likely many other reviews um within ISD and outside of ISD depending on the project.

Do you have times where you're just you're pointing at each other?

I mean there's a delay and it's like you know, we normally know we can know what's pending, but it is possible that many reviews may be pending at the same time.

So we can do them simultaneously, let's say the historic commission, the parts department, our own review fire, they may be happening at the same time.

We can see what's missing and we can see what's already approved.

Okay.

Okay, th thank you.

Councillor Culpepper, do you have any anything?

Saunas, uh what do you what are you uh um you know the uh baths just you know we have the seniors need help?

We all I you know this sitting all this time, my back is killing me, so I I could use a son.

But Councillor Culpepper.

Yeah, d yeah, just one thing about the South End Library, and I understand part of the challenge is the way the design was um presented in the parking or the driveway.

Is that a separate design that has to do with the driveway so that cars or the trust can make it by the library?

Is that a separate design?

Yeah, so uh let me start with saying one of the goals uh for a request from the community with this new design is more programming.

If you look at the current library, there's not a lot of space to do a lot of things, so we went up a floor and and added more programming space uh and and also extended further onto the library's property.

Yeah, so there's still all the library's property, but it makes a alley that's already very tight behind the alley that services all the buildings in that area um tighter.

So we've had to make some changes to the building design, and now we're making some changes to the landscaping and how traffic flows through the alley to allow to ensure that we can allow service delivery.

Yeah, I think I would say that's the final issue that we need to resolve.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Councillor Culpepper.

Yeah.

Uh uh, so I just I want to thank everyone for for for being here.

There's no no one online.

Okay, no one signed up for public testimony.

Again, I mean, uh I think we this today talking about streets um and sidewalks and permits and public facilities.

I mean, this is really the bread and butter of what we're we'll you know, what we provide as a city.

So I just want to thank you for making the city work and and for for being there when our constituents need you uh and for running these offices uh you know uh which so you know requires uh so much from from our residents.

So thank you very much.

And can Councillor Culpepper, you want to take us home?

And Julie, we didn't get to ask you anything next time, but I just want to thank you for your expertise because it shows uh in all that you do.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Yeah, okay.

Uh this afternoon's hearing is now adjourned and may the fourth be with you.

I guess I'm gonna do this.