Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Ed Flynn, District City Councilor.

I'm the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on City Services.

Today is August thirty first, twenty twenty-six.

The exact time is two zero three.gov slash city council dash TV, broadcast on Xfinity Channel Eight, RCN eighty two FIOS, channel nine sixty-four.

Written comments may be sent to the committee email at CCC.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all city councilors.

Public testimony will be taken at the end of the hearing.

Individuals will be called on in order in which they sign up and will have two minutes to testify.gov for the link, and your name will be added to the list.

Before I begin, I do want to say thank you to Shane and Ethan for being here.

City Council President Braden.

At this time I do want to acknowledge a letter of absence I did receive from one of my colleagues.

I'll read it into the record.

Dear Chair Flynn, Mr.

Clerk, City Council colleagues.

I regret to inform you that I am unable to attend this morning's Committee on City Services on Docker 033135.

Order for a hearing to discuss accessibility issues in Boston City Hall.

I will follow up with additional questions upon reviewing my staff's notes and watching the recording.

Please do not hesitate hesitate to contact my staff with any questions.

Sincerely Enrique Peppin, Boston City Council at District 5.

I have the honor of introducing two exceptionally well qualified advocates in the disability community and work with both of them for a number of years on accessibility issues.

But before I ask both Cassandra Xavier and Bill Tog, before I ask them to give an opening statement, I do want to give an opportunity to my city council colleagues to provide an opening statement.

I do want to give my colleagues as much time as necessary for their opening statement.

I'm going to give I'm going to give five minutes.

If you go over five minutes, that's okay.

Continue going, and I will not cut you off.

Let me start with Councillor Fitzgerald.

Councillor Fitzgerald, you have the floor.

Thank you very much, Chair.

I do appreciate it.

And I am happy to be here for this important hearing regarding accessibility in and around Boston City Hall, but also just the wider city in general.

And I think how we show up for accessibility in and around the property that we manage here at City Hall should certainly be the forefront and the leader of how we provide accessibility to the rest of the city.

If we can't do it in our own backyard, it's going to be pretty uh difficult for people to think we can do it elsewhere in their homes and in their neighborhood.

So I look forward to learning a lot uh from both Cassandra and Bill.

Uh thank you for being here today uh and for educating us on on what the problems that persist, uh what some of the new problems are uh and how we can best learn and uh react to what we're seeing out there and and um from you guys who uh are living it every day, uh putting us in your shoes and and telling us what you need and how best we can support you, uh I think is very important.

So I thank you for taking the time to be here and chair, and I look forward to both working with the administration, uh, the advocates and my colleagues uh to make sure that we can see sure that some of these things are followed through on to make life a little bit easier for our residents.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Fitzgerald, City Council President Braden.

Council President Braden, you have the floor.

Thank you.

Uh Councilor Flynn, Mr.

Chair.

Good afternoon, Bill and Cassandra.

So nice to have you here.

Um this is an important discussion just to evaluate where we're at in terms of accessibility uh in and around Boston City Hall.

I know we have made incremental improvements over the years, and it's an ongoing project.

We're not there yet.

Uh so I'd love to hear your um impressions, your suggestions, and hopefully we can uh actualize uh some of your suggestions and make our city hall and city city hall plaza and the environs around uh here in government center uh more accessible to everyone and across the city.

So thank you for being here.

Thank you, Council President.

Council Louis Jean, you have the floor.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm happy to be here.

Thank you to my colleague uh councillor Flynn for hosting this hearing, and I want to thank Cassandra and Bill for being here.

We need to make sure, yes, Cassandra, our our policy queen, thank you for being here and our advocacy queen.

Um it's important that we make sure that the doors of City Hall are open to everyone and that it's accessible.

We don't have a city for everyone if we're not uh remembering to bring the margins and making sure that those who have been historically excluded from our spaces and places that they are centered, and so I want to continue to learn from all of you to think about what we can do better here in the city of Boston and work alongside the administration and my colleagues to make that possible.

I think that was only 40 seconds, so I'll yield all my time back.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Louise Jean.

I believe the Americans with Disability Act is arguably one of the most important pieces of federal legislation on the books.