City Council - Ways & Means Committee Hearing on Dockets #0733-0740, FY27 Budget: Neighborhood Services

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

and many more.

Thank you for watching!

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Ben Weber. I am the Boston City Councilor for District 6. and the Chair of the Boston City Council on Ways and Means. Today is April 28th, 2026 and the time is 10.11 a.m. This hearing is being recorded. It's also being live streamed at boston.gov slash city dash council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Fios Channel 964. This is part of a series of hearings on the budget that go from April through June. We strongly encourage residents to take a moment to engage in this process by giving testimony for the record. You can do so in several ways. You can give testimony in person or virtually at our hearings. We'll take public testimony usually at the end of the first round of questions from the Councillors. The full hearing schedule is on our website. at boston.gov slash council dash budget.

You can also show up at one of two listening sessions to give public testimony. Those listening sessions here in the chamber. The next one is tonight at 6 p.m. And the last public testimony listening session will be here at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 26th. Again, at all of these hearings and sessions, you can give testimony in person here in the chamber or virtually via Zoom. For in-person testimony, sign up at a sign-up sheet which is near the entrance. For virtual testimony, you can sign up using our online form on our Council Budget Review website by emailing the committee at ccc.wm.boston.gov. or by emailing krishmachohan, that's K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A dot C-H-O-U-H-A-N at boston.gov.

When you are called to testify, please state your name and affiliation or your residence and limit your comments to two minutes. In lieu of testifying in person or virtually, You can send in written testimony to the committee at ccc.wm.boston.gov. You can also submit a two minute video of your testimony through the form on our website. Sorry. More information on the City Council budget process and how to testify, please visit the City Council's budget website at boston.gov slash council dash budget. Again, in-person testimony, which doesn't look like we may have at some point, will be limited to two minutes each person and will be taken after the first round of councilor questions.

Again, if you want to testify virtually, please email Karishma Chauhan, our Director of Legislative Budget Analysis, at karishma.chouhan. at boston.gov for the Zoom link and your name will be added to the list. This morning's hearing is on docket numbers 0733 to 0740, an overview of the FY27 operating budget for the Office of Neighborhood Services. We'll be focusing on 311, Spark Boston, and the Office of Civic Organizing. Again, this is one of a series of hearings we're having on the FY27 budget. These matters were sponsored by the mayor, Michelle Wu, and referred to the committee on April 8th, 2026. Today, I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival. Flynn, Murphy, Breadon, Pepén, and Fitzgerald.

Generally, we're waiving opening statements in these hearings. Going directly to the panel, which I'll introduce. We've got Chief of Neighborhood Services, Brianna Millor. We've got Executive Director of Neighborhood Services, Muhammad Missouri. Civic Organizing Director, Natalia Benitez-Perez. We have Director of Spark, Aiden McDonough, and 311 Director, Ergasola Budo. Okay, you almost were in order, but it's never happened. This order is the same as the order on the panel. It's just completely out of luck. Anyway, so I think you have a presentation. Let's go to that and then to my colleagues for questions.

Good morning, chair, as well as city council, public. I'm Brianna Malor. I'm the chief of community engagement for the city of Boston, and I get to oversee an amazing team that you will hear from today about each single department. Overarching, the community engagement cabinet is, I like to say, the cabinet that's closest to the people. We are, you know, in taking information through 311, having conversations through OCO and SPARC and Neighborhood Services. And it's really an opportunity for us to hear directly from residents and partner with key stakeholders in each community. That's my spiel. I'm going to give it over to each director to kind of talk a little bit specifically about their departments. And then we will obviously pass it over to the community as well as the counselors to answer any questions about our budget.

Thank you, Chief. Is this picking me up? Yes.

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

Thank you, Chair, and good morning, Councillors. So you're all familiar with the Office of Neighborhood Services. You work with us a lot. We're grateful for that partnership. Our mission is to bring City Hall close into the neighborhoods, into residents, but also to make sure that all kinds of stakeholders have Access to the city and to different departments and make sure we're making those connections and delivering facilitating excellent city services. Our mission and goal and commitment is to make sure that residents are included in the work that the city does to foster to foster a good relationship, but also trust in government. Our liaisons are on call 24-7 to respond to neighborhood emergencies. That includes fires, building collapses, other city emergencies. They're also obviously on call and show up in the neighborhoods to make sure that we're providing direct services to residents.

Our community engagement specialists specifically focus on facilitating abutters meetings through zoning for the Zoning Board of Appeals, licensing, and cannabis. and we have deputy directors who provide training staff management and make sure that liaisons are supported in their professional development as well. And then some of the successes we had last year is Distributing more than 3,100 turkeys, donating more than 2,000 toys to children and families with illness, Toe Drive, and leading the mayor's first ever citywide office hours in Roxbury to connect more than 350 constituents to city services in one night. With that, I'm just going to pass it over to Natalia.

Thank you. As you guys know, 311 is our 24-hour hotline to City Hall. We provide services in multiple languages. We're the main data collection center for the city for City Services to identify trends in resource allocation. And we're leading community outreach through tabling at events and facilitating conversations to provide constituent services in neighborhoods. We serve as the first point of contact for residents seeking information about city services through the 311 app, phone calls, online, email, yes, some mail as well, and social media. We answer questions about a wide variety of topics including basic city services, state and federal questions, outside agencies like National Grid and Eversource, and other day-to-day inquiries.

We create and route service requests to appropriate city departments that then go out and handle those requests and close out those cases. 3-1 is the addiction recovery line as well, since we are the 24-hour hotline to City Hall. will be the first stop to then connect people to resources. Our agents also work closely with departments to improve constituent services. We gather, track, analyze the data for other departments, press inquiries, FOIA requests, and even requests from our counselors as well. and we communicate with a lot of 311 centers across the nation for best practices and process improvements. This is some of our data over the years. Our service level percentage falls around 88%, which the national average is 80%. So we're doing pretty well there.

and the number of cases and calls that have come in this year are just around the 300,000 mark and you can look at those on the graph as well. Thank you. I'll pass it along to the Director of Office Civic Organizing, Natalia Benitez-Perez.

Thank you, Arie. Thank you, Councilors, for having us today. Our office works to reduce barriers.

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

Is that better? Yes, perfect. Our office works to reduce barriers and expand opportunities for all Boston residents to be active citizens in their communities. We are committed to proactive community engagement like Love Your Block Initiative, Civic Summit, Block Party Grants for street activation, community-led cleanups, and City Hall and the Go Truck. We also raise civic awareness and service in the City of Boston neighborhoods. and we are incredibly proud of our accomplishments throughout the last year. Getting City Hall out of City Hall. We hosted 150 neighborhood beautification cleanups across the city of Boston in April 2025. This is not the correct one. Okay, for this year, we're doing 171 sites for 2026. We supported, I'm sorry, this is the wrong package. I have to. Thank you. Okay, there you go.

177 neighborhood beautification and cleanup sites in April 2026. The most recent was last Saturday and then we are closing out Love Your Block season this upcoming Saturday. We have supported 78 community-led cleanups and four citywide days of service, strengthening neighborhood beautification across 73 sites. We awarded 120 summer block party activation grants last year to fuel resident-led community connection and celebration. We awarded 78 Fall Spooky Streets Activation Grants to bring safe, family-friendly programming to neighborhoods across Boston. We delivered city services directly to residents through 143 City Hall-on-the-Go truck stops, across Boston neighborhoods. And lastly, we will convene 300 civic and community leaders again at the 2026 Civic Summit at Boston University Questrom School of Business. And with that, I will pass it on to my colleague Aiden McDonough to speak on his part.

Hello and good morning. My name is Ada McDonough. I serve as the director of Spark Boston, the mayor's 20 to 35-year-old civic leader council made up of all volunteers who represent all of Boston's neighborhoods. The Council of Members helped to create and develop ideas to get 20 to 35 year olds more involved within the city as well as then As I said, Spark Boston engages Boston residents between the ages of 23 and 35 through civic programming like our neighborhood social events and structured opportunities to be better informed with municipal leadership. Annually, we select 40 SPAR council members representing the 23 neighborhoods. This past year we received 487 applications for this year's council. We collaborate with city departments and external partners to develop and implement new initiatives such as building a creative Boston and our building our neighborhood stories events that we had this year.

SPARC Council also promotes City of Boston resources that 20 to 35-year-old residents will find beneficial, such as the Early Child Care Survey, Venture Survey, and the First-Time Home Buyers Program. With that, I'll pass it back to Chief Moore.

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

Okay, thank you. We've been joined by Councilor Durkan. So we're going to start with my colleagues in order of arrival. Councilor Flynn, we're going to go with six minutes each, Councilor, for the first round.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the administration team for being with us today. Earlier this month I filed a hearing order to discuss the role, responsibilities, and staffing levels of the Office of Neighborhood Services In light of Boston's fiscal crisis, ONS is intended to facilitate and attend community meetings, assist residents with basic city services, share information with the community, report neighborhood feedback and relevant information to the City of Boston, including to various entities such as the Zoning Board and Boston Licensing. Traditionally, ONS was also responsible for hosting and the community process in meetings on zoning and licensing projects in the neighborhood that required variances and approval at City of Boston boards. In November 2021, however, ONS was restructured

to include an additional three community engagement specialists assigned to various neighborhoods across the city to facilitate the community process, including Barraza meetings that was mentioned here. These meetings are intended to play a critical role in the community engagement process by obtaining feedback from those neighbors most impacted by a particular project. During these challenging economic times with reports that the City of Boston currently holds a budget shortfall of $100 million, it's important that we discuss the role, responsibility, and staffing levels of ONS. along with how its budget is allocated to ensure that taxpayer funds are being used efficiently and responsibly. I always had respect for ONS. for many reasons. One was it was established under Mayor Flynn.

But I do want us to focus ONS back on neighborhood services and really away from the politics, I think, Delivering quality basic city services is really the goal of ONS and trying to keep away from the politics is a critical aspect of it. Why do we need community engagement specialists?

Again, good morning, Councilor. So thank you for a little bit of the background. A part of the restructuring was exactly about what you mentioned, connecting with community, making sure that liaisons had opportunity to build substantial and long-lasting relationships, and also making sure they are able to solve problems, et cetera. So the CES team was implemented because the liaison's time was only spent doing a butters meetings and we wanted to create space for them to have conversations on street projects or have conversations on development as well, on beautification, on housing concerns, on everything. and creating the opportunity for them to build those different build space to have different conversations while still being deeply involved in the abutters meeting process licensing, cannabis, and renaming process.

It allows them to have the space to build that capacity.

OK.

One of my concerns, can you guarantee me that ONS is going to stay out of politics? They're going to stay out of political campaigns? especially during the day. Is that a fair question to ask?

O&S is not involved in political campaigns. So, yes, that's a fair question. They're not involved in political campaigns.

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

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

Okay. Have they ever been part of campaigning during the day?

Never during the day unless someone decides to take time off and do whatever they wanted. I don't ask people what they do when they take time off. Obviously, that's their right. If you take a vacation day, you're allowed to go on vacation. You're allowed to do whatever you want.

Okay.

But I don't, that doesn't mean that anyone was involved. I have no idea. That's not something I would ask about.

How much time do people have off for vacation?

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

They get four weeks. And what about, so that's four weeks vacation, do they get personal days too?

Personal, sick, the same way as like any staff person gets.

Yeah, any city employee. They're city employees, of course, or we are city employees. We get the same rights that everyone else has.

Okay. I'm doing my due diligence as a city councilor to ensure that the taxpayer money is spent appropriately. That's what I'm trying to do.

And we appreciate that and we're very proud of our liaisons and community engagement specialists for working around the clock. I mean, as you know, ONS is not just a nine to five role for our liaisons. Some liaisons attend as many as, 20 civics, or they have as many 20 civics in their area, and therefore have to attend, obviously, many, many meetings during the evening, and that's just civics. We also have many other types of community meetings that we facilitate. We're proud of the work that we do.

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

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

No, I know, but does anyone there that answers the phone throughout the day speak Cantonese?

at the moment no it is an older language kind of hard to find people that do still speak that language but that's why the universal line is easiest it's also for our call center if we Sometimes what we've noticed is when you speak a specific language and all calls just get routed to you, you end up getting more work than the next person next to you. So the best way to do it is to just use the language line rather than overburden one specific person.

Mr. Chair, do I have time for one final question? Sure. Okay. I just want to be respectful to my colleagues. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. The Chinatown liaison, the downtown Boston liaison, was recently filled, was unoccupied for a long period of time. How long was that position unoccupied for?

I don't know off the top of my head, but we're excited about the new Chinatown Leather District downtown liaison.

No, I know, I know, I know. I'm saying how long was it unoccupied for?

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

Okay, why was that position? That's a second question. I know, but the answer was, I didn't get the answer, but I guess...

In the interest of this time, I'll just say... Was it over a year, basically? It's possible. I'm not sure I need to get back to you on that. I can just tell you that we went through a long process to make sure that we got the right person for the neighborhood. She's wonderful, she speaks Mandarin, she wants to learn Cantonese, and that's the kind of commitment we're looking for for a neighborhood like that. It's not easy to find, obviously, liaisons who can speak different languages as well and represent that. We had an open process, we waited for

I can say I was at a community meeting this week actually actually last night with the ONS liaison in Chinatown and she did an outstanding job representing the city. Mr. Chair, I'll wait for the next round. Okay, thank you, Councilor Flynn. Councilor Murphy?

Okay, where should I start? Aiden, I'll start with you, okay. You have that age group that oftentimes when we have meetings with different departments, if it's youth summer jobs or just how are we making sure that our 20 to 25, but always 20 to 35, Aren't falling through the cracks. So if you could just talk me through like what your staff looks like and what your capacity is because to me I feel like we should make sure your office is fully funded and you're able to really connect because it's such a need for that age group. especially with kids now aren't able to buy houses, rent so high. It's like a different world for that age group than when I was that age.

Yes, thank you, Councilor Murphy. I appreciate the question. So as of right now, as a formal hired role, I'm the only person within the SPARC department. However, with our 40 volunteers, One of the greatest things about the council is they come in each year with passion projects and subject matter that they hope to go over within their one-year council term. and through that I connect them with the city the department heads who may be touching on those subjects so they can be more affiliated more have a better understanding of what the city is doing to address those needs and then also create the space for them to also advocate for things that they hope to see coming out of their council. We meet monthly on a regular basis, and then from there, any type of programming is an additional capacity on them.

And people must come to you with actual needs, knowing that you are supporting that age group. So who do you reach out to and rely on the most when those calls come through? What are your most common needs? Request from residents.

We actually have a great, I mean, with our sister cabinets, we work really closely definitely with OCO in terms of getting out and finding opportunities to give back to their neighborhoods. Additionally, we try to get creative in figuring out how to collaborate with, for example, the Mayor's Office of Housing. One thing that's very transparent when coming through the council, we're not going to solve the housing crisis within a year at a volunteer capacity, but just being able to have conversations and as well as, again, receive that education as to what the city is doing to try and address that is One of the biggest needs that we come across of within the program.

Awesome. Thank you for that. Appreciate it. So I know that the roles of the liaisons have changed and Many of the residents, especially when we're at civic meetings, it's older residents who are attending, so they still have the understanding of what a neighborhood liaison should or shouldn't or whatever. If you could just describe What the new expectation is for the neighborhood liaisons? I know you said that they're still involved in a lot of the abutter and development, but I often see and hear, and I think rightfully so, if we're paying other people to kind of take over that responsibility like well that's not you know they're not like trying to pass off work but it's like I don't get into that or that's not my role so if we could just have a if I could have a better understanding of what they are doing now compared to what we who got used to seeing them do before.

Yeah, so the expectation from our liaisons is to, like you said, in addition to attending civic meetings who are, you know, have, currently they're, You know people are used to going to them and you know they know what the liaison is what they expect but the other expectation is to expand and be very proactive about reaching out to people who are not used to going to the meeting so We have coffee hours that we highlight and we try to make sure that we're doing our very best to It's as advertised as possible so we can attract new people who are not potentially able to go to a Civic in the evening. We also sometimes like this something that we want to do a little bit more of is to just door knock some streets to ask people very directly like what can we do? What are you seeing? How can we be helpful? Obviously, it's a big city, and we have limited time to do that, but we're going to do that to the best of our abilities as well.

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

Thank you for that. How many neighborhood liaisons do we have and cultural liaisons? And are there any openings currently?

I can't speak to cultural because it's a different cabinet. I can speak to my team. We've got 14 neighborhood liaisons. We currently have three vacancies.

Which neighborhoods are vacant?

Roslindale, Jamaica, Plain, and Charlestown.

And the cultural ones don't fall under?

No, they fall under the equity cabinet.

What's their role? Isn't it similar too? Is there a reason why we don't...

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

I didn't know they were different. In my last 40 seconds, Ergie, one of the big things... I hear, like, how are cases closed? And if people feel as though a case was closed and it may not have been addressed, what should I do or my staff do if someone reaches out with that concern?

Yeah, I get that question a lot, so thank you for that one. The way that the process works is we'll get it from either email, phone call, wherever it comes from, right? A case is created, if contact info is left in an email, That resident will get an email update. That case is then sent out to the department that's responsible for that case. They go out, they do their investigation, They see what they need to do, and then that department is responsible for closing out that case. There are some nuances where we do close out cases, like outside agencies, Eversource, National Grid. We don't always get back a response. They're not our jurisdiction. We'll close those out just saying reach out to that agency if they need to. But for city departments, they are responsible for closing out their own case. When that case is closed, residents would get an email if they left their email saying, This is what has happened. Your case has been noted, resolved.

Residents can respond to that email and will receive it and get information if it hasn't been responded to or wasn't to the best of their satisfaction or whatever it might be. They can also call back to 311 and we can put in a note in the cases and flag for departments that way. and then if it gets escalated that's where we also plug in the liaisons and just say like hey we're kind of getting a lot of this can you guys take a look and see what's going on.

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

We do, yeah. We take a look. I also do some reporting every week or so about case closures and seeing how they're being closed out. What's going on and flagging for departments. And then on top of that, we are working on a new system. So that data is going to be so much cleaner and better as we're transitioning. Right now, we are working off of two, so it's a little harder. But we have dashboards that we've created just to stay on board and watch that data as well.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Councillor Murphy, Councillor Breadon, and then after that it's Pepén, Fitzgerald, and Durkan.

Thank you. Good morning. I'm going to pick up on the 311 issue. I'm just wondering in terms of... He mentioned that just a moment ago that when it comes to utilities like National Grid that it's outside our jurisdiction. If residents call with an issue with, do you Do we have a liaison with those utilities? Can someone in ONS call the liaison with whoever the government?

We do, yes. We have a good relationship with the Eversource liaison. National Grid, we have contacts. I don't know exactly if they call it a liaison role. but typically depending on the request because there's different types that come in if you know there's a wire down we'll send that over but the cable office stays on top of that as well just because it could go from Eversource to Verizon to Comcast. Could take a second to figure that out. The other side though is typically when they're doing work on the street, that's where we plug in our CIU team, the construction management team at Public Works. because they stay on top of contractor complaints and making sure they look at those. That's good.

And on the app, is there an option for different languages on the app?

There is, yes. There are 12 different languages. You just have to have the whole phone set to that language.

Okay, very good. And then I just wanted to wonder why... Why does the Spark not have a budget in the budget book? There's no, do you get paid, Aidan?

All the budgets are in one capital, and in one budget. So everyone here is in the same budget. So it's not broken down separately. It's not broken down. Okay.

And then... So the Office of Civic Organising, there's an increase in the line item for personnel services from $130,000 to $316,000. Can you explain the increase and what's that for? Can you repeat that? Office of Civic Organising. There's an increase in the line item of personnel services from £130,000 to £316,000. And what's that for?

Where are you seeing that? What number line item, councillor?

Personnel, just my list of questions. Never mind, we'll come back to that. Yeah, I don't see the increase. And then also, I know one thing you mentioned earlier was that the cabinet, this cabinet is the closest to community. And as I have voiced, I have serious concerns about the transparency of the capital budget over many years going back. It's sort of very opaque to most people. So at a neighborhood coffee hour recently, Brianna, you told residents that there was no new money would be allocated to the Jackson Man Community Center. And I'm just curious as to how that decision was made. That decision, because we've been in a community process since before I was elected, 2019. Before 2019, we've had a programming study, we've had a siting study, we've had a land use study.

And the next logical step would be to move towards getting an RFI for programming design and moving forward with this project. It's been a long time in the works. We had a really well attended city council hearing out there with over Over 300 people turned up. We had to turn people away. There wasn't room in the building for everyone. So what's the process in deciding what's a priority for our neighborhoods? We have the second largest neighbourhood in the city with 87,000 people and we don't have a fully functioning community centre. So why is the decision to just put that to one side and not move forward with that obvious need, how is that decision made?

Thank you for your question. My role is to make sure I'm going out in each neighborhood, having these conversations, explaining the processes, and making sure we're uplifting what we can, neighborhood stakeholders' concerns. In this particular instance, we've heard loud and clear, of course, the Alston Brighton community wants to see a community center there. My understanding of the process is that it's going through the process. There has to be a housing study, there has to be A site study that has to be...

The site study's done.

Okay.

A programming study was done. The siting study's been done.

I believe there's not a housing study that has not been fully completed yet.

Well, housing study, there's two sites there. The housing study would be on the back end. The front end is a community center space. So, you know, we're studied to death, basically. We've had more studies than I've had hot dinners. So it's time to stop studying and actually do something for us. and this community center is essential for our neighborhood. And we're really tired of this sort of palm on his off.

No, I hear your advocacy again. The administration shares that. Obviously, we want to see something there. And we're really excited about getting folks involved and having a more

We've had a programming study, we had a community, we had UT come in and they did A really long community process. I think you were probably at Main Streets at the time and you remember this. People from all over the neighborhood, different ages, different backgrounds came and we had a process. We had a programming study.

Yeah, I know that...

So why waste money doing studies? Because studies age. They're useless after five years. Yeah. So why...

So, like, obviously, I don't oversee the, like... That part of the capital budget, I know there was a process already here where the operations team had this conversation and they had this conversation with you all. So my role in this process is to uplift the community's concerns advocacy that they have and that is what I am doing and that's what the team is doing and obviously they have to have those conversations on trade-offs etc.

What was the takeaway when you stood at the back of that room with 300 people trying to get into the space? and saying we needed a long list of public testimony, saying we needed a community center. What was your takeaway from that meeting? Was the community like, oh, we don't give a damn, we don't need a community centre?

That wasn't what... No, like I said, it's clear that the community wants a community centre. I think that's loud and clear.

So how long do we have to wait? There's no clear progress through the capital plan this year. Putting money on a piece of paper is not delivering. That's just a piece. That doesn't mean a thing unless you see the next logical step is programming design. So we need to go forward.

Madam President. I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Do you have the budget book? Because it's page 139 in volume two. is the Office of Civic Organizing. I think we were getting to our earlier question. The personnel services. The overall cabinet budget went up that amount, not the... Well, I'm just saying it says, yeah, for 26, it was $130,000.

I'm not sure if maybe some lines were moved, but we have not changed, added or done any type of of change to the positions or salaries. We'll just have to get back to you on that.

Okay, so that may be an error. We have to look at it ourselves.

There has been no crease to OCO's budget at all.

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

Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all so much for being here. I wanted to start off by saying thank you for the work that you all do. I've found appreciation for this cabinet for obvious reasons. I was able to just learn a lot during my My time there was under two different administrations. And I wanted to also just start by thanking the liaisons that represent my district, Asia, former Rosna liaison, Josh McCorkle, and Zoe Petty, who represents Hyde Park. Nothing but great partnership with my office there. I also always want to shout out our 3-1-1 call takers. Just in a 24-7 role, that's a really beautiful resource that our city has that our residents can call or use the app at any time. I look at this cabinet as the front line of city government. All three of your departments and entire cabinet, every single day, you're the ones that residents call with frustrations and historically.

A lot of the employees have been underpaid, but yet not working traditional nine to five hours. And I thank you all for that. My first question is for the Office of Civic Organizing. I have a really strong appreciation for the work that your office does because You truly do bring City Hall out of City Hall recently, most recently and coming up this weekend is the Love Your Block initiatives. I also love a lot the grants that you put out. I love all of them. I think that they... I've seen how they ignite the residents in my district because Throughout last summer, I was able to visit a lot of the block parties and they really ignited so much energy amongst residents that two different civics were transpired because of the result of that. So I wanted to just shout that out. And I wanted to ask you, throughout your different initiatives, how do you see that really benefiting the city of Boston?

How do you see residents come together? Can you elaborate a little bit on everything that your office does?

Thank you, Councillor. I think the main focus of our office is always on increasing neighborhood participation, especially from residents, and especially from residents that are historically not as close to the city or have not participated with the city. for a long time. Also, the bigger focus of everything that we do in terms of initiatives and grants, et cetera, is to increase social fabric in the city. So like you said, our hope is that all of these events will get people out and talk to one another, especially in this time that this course is not as healthy. We really value having investment out in community so that residents can really connect with one another in an amicable, happy, neighborly way.

Thank you. For Director Missouri, thank you so much for the work that you do. I almost called you Commissioner, but never mind. Obviously, the question was brought up that neighborhood liaisons no longer do a Butters meeting specifically. I remember the days when they would go in person to different community centers to do the meetings. I've also learned that they do basically the community engagement for the transportation department. They do community engagement sometimes for the planning department. They do communication for the environment department. Can you break down a little bit of the different... Thank you for joining us. essentially solve the issue, speaking for the Parks Department. So can you break down a little bit of what they do?

Yes, so thank you, Councillor. We, liaisons and coordination obviously with deputies myself, we work with all other departments to make sure that the engagement process is essentially as similar as possible across the board. and the reason that we were using similar principles and the reason for that is we want to just make sure that residents sort of have, are getting exactly what they And so it's kind of like they wear different hats.

Despite not technically working for those departments, they're providing that assistance whenever that's needed, correct? Absolutely, yes. Okay. That's good to understand because I know that the role has changed, but they still cover a lot of ground.

Yeah, I mean the important thing here is to make sure that for us is that every department in the work that we're doing that is going to impact obviously different neighborhoods and residents that Residents and neighborhoods input is actually built into the process from the very beginning. Not just work is being done and then we go out there and have a community meeting. We want to make sure that that involvement is happening throughout the process. and residents actually have been able to inform the work that we do and that it's as transparent as possible.

I'm going to take the rest of my time to pitch an idea that I've always had. It's kind of like Similar to bringing City Hall to City Hall, now as a District Councilor, I've been able to see how valuable our community, I've always seen it, but now more, how valuable our community centers are. I've always thought about how potentially the liaisons could have an off-site office. For example, my Rosnell liaison could be sometimes stationed at the Rosnell Community Center. Zoe could be stationed at the Hyde Park Community Center. or Deja either at the Matterhunt or the Mildred. It's sort of like bring some of those resources as well for the transportation department, for parks, the birth certificates, et cetera. and do that type of onsite constituent services. I think that, I represent a district that's very far away from City Hall, so it's very difficult for folks to come here unless they really have time. So bringing that, I know they do coffee hours on Fridays, It would be nice to see them have a space of their own.

Obviously, there'll probably be a partnership between the BCYF department and you guys, but just an idea that I've been able to come up with. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. We've been joined by Councillor Culpepper, Councillor Fitzgerald, then Councillor Durkan and Culpepper after that.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, administration, for being here today. Also, I just want to give a shout-out to Madison and Anthony in Dorchester, who do a great job in splitting up a very large neighborhood, but they do a fantastic job, and I work well with both of them. typically I've been asking these administrations so what is the this year see the theme seems to be so what is the cut right like where did you guys get hit I know it was touched upon a little bit earlier and there might be a discrepancy in the budget book we have to figure out but Are you guys level funded this year as to last year? I know you said there was no increase, but has there been a decrease? And if so, where are you seeing that?

Yeah, so we had an eliminating block party grants. So we're, you know, Looking forward to external partners building funding there. And I believe there's an elimination to a long-term vacant role as well.

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

Yes, that's because of like three-on-one overtime. So as I mentioned, all of our departments are in one Personal Line, so it's also 311, OCO, SPARC, and ONSN1. So overtime spending, making sure that we expanded some, like, We right fit some 301 call takers for new union roles, stuff like that. That's mainly where you're probably seeing the increase.

But ONS, for instance, is a decrease of over 200,000.

I want to mention Sarah Sharp as well in the South End, of course, fantastic in the South End, love Sarah. Okay, thank you. Butters meetings, we'd just like, if we could do a slightly better job at notifying the councillors as to when, if we could sort of codify something, because I think sometimes we hear about it and we're like, people call us and we don't know. That the meeting had happened already or is coming and we're not prepared for it that night. So any sort of system that infrastructure we can put in place that we would be notified would be very helpful.

Thank you. We can work on that. We're always looking to get better at everything and feedback is always appreciated.

Yep, thank you, Marvin. And then is there ever thought about going back to in-person, ever, for some of these things? Or has there been any discussion? I guess as of this point, has there been any discussion?

Yeah, we've definitely discussed it. I think when it comes to this specific topic on everything, not just the voters' meetings, Even when I talk to residents, people have done it for a long time. People have either been engaged or worked for city government. It is like sort of split. Some people think that hybrid just brings, I mean, not hybrid, virtual brings more people, makes it easier, especially as people have gotten so used to it. But we're definitely still discussing how can we improve that. Are we potentially going to go back in person? We haven't made a decision, but we're definitely having conversations, and we appreciate any input you have on that. Any thoughts on that, too?

Thank you. Yeah, no, I can see where there's pros and cons to each way. It was all a 3-1-1. I just want to throw, by the way, I just want to say overall, guys, I do believe that the Community Engagement Cabinet is where, like, City Hall's bread is buttered, right? Like this is what people think about the average constituent when they talk about City Hall. 90% of the work is what comes out of the five of you folks right here, right? As to what they expect. So if we're ever hard on you guys or pushing you guys, it's because we know this is what people want to see. I appreciate you guys for taking the baton on that and it's not an easy role amongst all of you. I have a 311 open case from three months ago. I would just like to call it out. It's an upside down stop sign at the bottom of Oakton Ave. And it was put in and it is still upside down. I took a picture this morning just to make sure. I said, okay, it's still down.

And if I could add at the top of Oakton Ave, there is a do not enter sign with some school hours that is swung upside down as well. And that's for the school that's right there to make it a one way. and so also vitally important that that gets corrected just so people see. So at the top of the hill of Oakton and at the bottom of Oakton a stop sign and a do not enter sign. I would just like to put that on the record officially. Thank you.

Absolutely. I'll reach out to BTD and pick them. I know they just hired a new group of sign investigators, so that probably is part of that.

Someone told me this and I tried looking up, couldn't find it. Is it when there is certain things that have a certain hours that has to be done by, right? Like a down stop sign I thought was like, we will get on that in 48 hours or something like that, right? There's SLAs.

They are very updated. They haven't been changed in over 10 years, I think.

What is it? I'm sorry, an SLA?

Service Level Agreement. A case was agreed to be done on. So some service types have them, some don't. It just kind of depends on what we came to. 12 years ago. And so as we're revamping technology, those are also things we're looking at to make sure it's co-aligned with staffing and resources and things like that as well.

Great. Two other quick things I want to bring up. When is the 2026 Civic Summit? The one at BU?

Thank you, Councillor. It's going to be hosted on August 1st.

August 1st. Could I... I don't know if my other colleagues have felt this way, but they're either civic groups that are dying, Like falling off and just saying we're not getting back or there's no one to take the baton afterwards and say, hey, it's the person that's been there for X amount of years and they're like, I'm done. Who wants it? and everyone's going like this. I think that's the biggest concern the city has right now because once the civic associations die off, There's not a lot of organization right and so I think that just should be a main part of building up the bench especially as we have you know all the new people coming to the city and other folks are moving out and things that There's a lot of turnover. No one knows really who is stepping up in the community. I think it's important to call those people out.

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

Yeah, I mean, I would say most recently we had our Building Creative Boston panel in collaboration with the Downtown Boston Alliance. Typically, when we've done panel events, we brought out a crowd of 30 to 40. This crowd we brought out 50 with a wait list that continued to grow even up to the day of that on the day of we had to make the judgment call of going virtual as well to cater to the audience that we had. I'm an alumni to the program and I think one of the things that I've always found beneficial is just the creativity and The idea is that each new council comes in for programming. Our council member who came in with this idea was right out of the gate passionate about having a conversation about what does downtown look like in its future. And we had a successful event that came from it. If you have any ideas, let me know. We'll do. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, team.

Thank you, Councillor Durkan. We're doing six minutes.

Thank you, and I hope people didn't miss Councilor Fitzgerald, you know, name dropping that he's doing the Pan-Mas challenge. I saw that humble brag, so.

He also doesn't train. I haven't started your time yet.

But I am really, really grateful to the partnership that I have with the ONS team and with this cabinet. I am really thrilled that a member of our team, Sam Courage, has gone off to be the most of our neighborhood liaison. I know she's doing an incredible job and the former ONS liaison for most of our district Mackin Bonner did an incredible job and I love working with Maria as well and the West End and loved working with Ciara and still love working with her so So we have a great history and great collaboration. And Ergy, I know you've shown us how 311 works and all of that. Constantly, I'm calling 311 when I'm off hours, when I see something in the neighborhoods that I know needs to be fixed immediately. So I want to thank some of the call takers who responded to Bustard, White, Pate, Can, all over Kenmore Square.

I actually got in within an hour to see Public Works crews come out and fix this sort of Paint explosion that was, but it just shows the power of 311 and the power of like all the work that this cabinet is doing. So I'm grateful for that. I know that we're headed for a budget year where we are investing less in grant funding and I know that that is a big part of a lot of folks jobs so I was just curious sort of how you feel like that will impact this cabinet And then another thing that I have, another question I have related to that is we've heard concerns from constituents who have thrown block parties. Sometimes they get the block party grant, but then the permitting actually costs more than the grant. And I was just curious, and I have actually brought this up to the mayor directly. I was just curious if there's been any thought to waiving permits for block parties as part of if we don't have as much

Thank you. Thank you. without a detail and just with, you know, Bollard. So I was just curious if you've thought about thinking of waiving block party fees and if that's been part of the conversation.

Thank you, Councillor. So we only require residents to go through one permitting application, which is the Play Street closing permit, which is the permit that allows you to close a public street. This permit has no fee. It's free. Any other permit that you want to get for like amplified sound, if you are having a band or like a bigger event, not just a typical regular putt luck,

Well, just imagine, like, you want to have a block party, but then you can't have music or sound or a band or, you know, the... Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Neighborhoods are more away from the downtown area. You have more space, private property space. There's neighborhoods that don't have that. So I understand your question. We would have to work with the licensing I definitely think that's something we should look into because for this particular block party

I think they received a couple hundred dollars and then they spent six hundred dollars on all of the additional permits that they needed. and so I'll get you the specific case offline but I think it's just an important thing to think about if like we're trying to encourage fun and we're trying to encourage like activity in the summer and but I'm really thrilled I know that the block party program existed because I think these neighbors saw that it was a great way to create community and at least for me in the summer months it was a great chance for me to meet all the residents of Keswick Street. So I have that to thank your cabinet for. I'm thrilled, Muhammad, that you are now the director of this. I think that you've done a great job working for the city. and this role is really important, so thank you for your leadership. I know that there have been conversations around ONS's relationship to transportation,

and sort of the broader decision-making processes within the city. And I think we had a great hearing last week that sort of illuminated some of those nuances. I'm just curious, sort of, Mohamed, like how you see, sorry, director, Missouri, how you see your role in amplifying certain voices and making sure that, you know, We have one vision for the city and it's not just reactive to potentially the people that we hear from the most.

Yeah, thank you so much and thank you for the kind words. And it's always a pleasure to work with you in your office on everything. I heard this a little bit at the hearing last week, too, from residents and advocates about not listening to the loudest people. And I would just say, and that's Pretty much the opposite of what we're trying to do. Our goal for everything is we sort of have a vision, obviously, for let's say transportation or what a walkable neighborhood, for instance, would look like. We have that vision, but what we want to do is work with different people to see who either lived there or who are advocates or counselors, obviously, other stakeholders, people with disabilities. It's just like so many considerations. We just want to make sure all those considerations are taken into account as we move forward towards the vision that we have and that, you know, Where there are very finer details, for instance, about if it's a park, do we want a bench or whatever, again, that we're just hearing from people there and we have real input.

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

And chair, I'm sorry, I have one more question. So the, I see that like the budget line expenditures have essentially for personnel gone up around 200K each year. And I was just curious sort of what, I mean, it seems like it's been like 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027. And I was just curious sort of if there were specific jobs that were within this sort of new tranche or if it's just like escalating wages or if it's a mix of the two.

Yes, okay, so I got a little bit of clarity for both questions. So one, there's been an intentional effort to actually make each department within ONS and a separate department. So what you're seeing with OCO is that they're becoming its own entity So it's not technically an increase. It's just they're becoming their own entity versus just like ONS. As we talked about, people just reference the entire cabinet as ONS. When OCO is a separate cabinet, we're trying to build out the room line, trying to build out Spark, ONS, because they are their separate entities. So that's why you're seeing the increase, but it's not an increase. It's just like reshifting or reorganizing. To the second question.

Oh, you're saying that there are jobs that are moving underneath this cabinet to

No, so to President Breadon's question of like, why do we see an increase in the budget line? So I want to answer that first. And then to your question, the increases you usually see is because of wage and step increases that happen, health insurance, and a little bit of overtime every year. That's usually what you're seeing. Got it.

Thank you so much.

Okay. Thank you. Councilor Culpepper. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good to see you, Breonna. Good to see you, Muhammad. Good to see all the good work that you do. And I agree with my councilor, colleague, when it comes to all the work that falls on you and the significance that the community Fitzgerald. I had constituents that continually I've continuously complained about a sign and I just checked and they put that sign up two weeks ago so thank you for that. I'll work with you. So here's what I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to understand the protocol for when you notify

Councilor's offices that you're in the district? Or do you only notify them under certain situations? What's the protocol for before you go out, you call a counselor office, and let them know that you're there for whatever.

So we work with IGR, our intergovernmental affairs team, and we let them know, like, here's relations team, here are some things coming up in these districts, please... And then they just, you know, obviously they inform you guys. So that's our typical.

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

No, no, no, no, no, no. They're sitting around here. I appreciate you all being here today. I'm just trying to get to the protocol. It's not Ricardo's fault. It's not Ricardo's fault.

I'm just trying to get to the protocol. Because let me say this, we get very little notifications of things going on in District 7. Very little. Now, and I know things are going on because I go to something, I say, Asha, Adam, where is she? She's always in the district. Every event I go to, she's there. I'm just trying to get to how you make... The contact or give the information to the district about what's going on with neighborhood services in the district. Or should we set up a series of meetings so that we can meet weekly or biweekly to find out what's going on in the district.

Sure. I mean, there are different types of meetings. So yes, you see Asha everywhere. She's incredible. We don't obviously host every meeting in the district, so if we don't host a meeting, you may not be notified about that one. We're just going as well as attending on behalf of the city to know what's going on and to pay attention. If we are hosting a meeting ourselves and organizing it, that's when we engage IGR and they engage with you.

There was a meeting that I heard about, because we hear about the meetings even when you don't notify us. I mean, the folks in the community let us know. And I heard about the Nubian Square meeting that you just had. And is there a task force going on? With Nubian Square that you're heading up?

So there's no, it's not official. We were having conversations with key stakeholders in Nubian about investments, cleanliness, public safety, public health. It was really opportunity for the ONS, the mayor, the different departments to hear what we can do to improve also economic opportunity as small business, understanding what we can do a little bit more.

And so we weren't notified about that meeting.

So in that instance, from my understanding, we want to make sure that we're connecting with the businesses and the main streets, folks that were in the neighborhood. Our role is to make sure we're connecting with the community to make sure they're involved. We could make sure to include it in the future on what that looks like.

Yeah, because here's the deal for me. I want to know. Exactly what's going on in District 7, from the mayor all the way down. And so when we hear about a meeting that's taking place with the businesses in Nubia, and we don't know and I don't know, then I do get concerned. I do get upset. And I remember when Commissioner Davis was police commissioner, and we worked with the young folks at Trotter Park. Gray, and I made sure, I told Mayor Menino, may he rest in peace, that when they came over there, when the police come, because we consider Trotter Park ours where we work, let me know. And they did. They let us know before they came to Trotter Park. The one time they didn't, all hell broke up. And the H block kids and the police got in it with the dogs. So my point is that, for me, as the city council of districts, whenever y'all step in there,

Somebody, Culpepper, look, we're going into District 7 today so we can know. And those kind of meetings are critical that you're talking about when you're talking about businesses and not to have let me know. I want to know. I really want to know. and I don't know how much, I texted me that day. I texted once, I texted me and told her because I really want to know when y'all will come into DC so we can work together. I mean, we've got a lot of challenges, a lot of challenges we work together. And, in fact, we did better when I wasn't a counselor. I would get more calls, to be honest, when I wasn't a counselor. So... So I just want to know whatever it is, whoever it is. Just call me. Tariq is right there. Call him. Because if we don't know what's going on in our district, it's not helpful to us. And it makes us look bad. And we're trying to build.

We have been having Nubian Square meetings with the same folks y'all are meeting with. So it didn't make sense to have two separate meetings. We're trying to look at Nubian Zone, Nubian Square from an empowerment zone perspective. And there's a lot of need there, but I look at it as a diamond in the rough. Mr. Chairman? One more question? Sure.

Your ears are working better today.

That's great.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just had a 311 question. I know you're getting cut 1%.

So our budget's weird. It's outdated. The way that it's structured, it's ONS. But we actually have four different departments within that, which is actually community engagement cabinet. Our department... is not getting touched for funding. So again, our percentage has dropped as a cabinet rather than each department. We are 24-7. Taking cuts to our budget would be a major loss for constituent services in the city, so we focused on some other positions within the cabinet.

And what are they?

We have the chief of staff. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, chief.

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

Okay. Mr. Chair, this is not a question, this is a comment. As we work on Mass and Cass closer to the south end, and as we see the shift to Newby and Square, let's really sit down and talk about putting that together I just got a text that there was a bank robbery in Dudley Station, the bank I robbed there. I was on my way here.

That's breaking news.

I didn't know why. I was in the middle of all these police, and one was coming down a one-way street. I didn't understand what was going on. I hollered at him, put your lights on. I didn't realize what was going on. But my point is that there's so much going on there, especially with regard to the new captain. Let's sit and talk about, What we can do in Nubian Square to not only make it more safer but make it a little more attractive for folks that are coming from the outside. Thank you for all the good work that you do with the neighborhood services.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Culpepper. I'll give myself a few minutes. For the summer block party grant and the Spooky Street grants, those are not in the budget for next year. Those are zeroed out.

Okay, and then we are looking at external funding partners philanthropy to make sure that we can continue that those great programs Okay, and I guess I had

So do we still have block party grants to give out for fiscal year 26? Yes.

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

Okay, where are they coming from?

Partnerships.

Okay. And I mean, I just, So I saw on the data it was like 40 spooky street grants and 54 summer block party grants. Were those all given out? And it's about... So it's like $750 each one.

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

OK. So we're talking like, I don't know, between the two of them, like 100,000 or less?

Yes. I think it's about 50,000, 50 to 60 during the summer. and then about $25,000 for the Spooky Streets.

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

For this year.

Oh, okay. So there's zero left over from us. Correct.

And we funded through partnerships even last year as well. We had very little expenditure when it comes to operating for this program.

Okay, and then for neighborhood liaisons, can you just talk about what's the salary? I think historically it's sort of like a really difficult job that you have to take a lot of flack and the salary was very, So how is that going up or is that, do you know how much a neighbor leaves on the starting salary is?

Yeah, I mean, I forget the actual grade, and I apologize. I mean, I just started as director, so I'm learning, obviously, the different intricacies on the administrative side. I think the, and I do think the rest, I'll get back to you if the compensation advisory board at some point several years ago had an input on this. I'm not sure, but I can get back to you on that. I do know that I think it starts Around 68 to 75, you know, I'll get back to you on exact numbers, but then it goes up obviously every year, like every other city employee. And there's, you know, it's step by step and there's a range.

Okay, yeah, because the personnel service is going up, you know, about the same every year. I assume part of it was just, you know, people, they hopefully stick around.

Yeah, no, we've had people stick around, and yeah, those are... Salary steps.

Okay. And then in terms of positions being added, I think the number is actually going maybe I think you're losing one position. And so I think it was like 71 positions and about 65 are filled. or something in that range. Sorry.

That's probably the total for the cabinet, including 3011 takers and others. For ONS in particular, it's... 14 neighborhood liaisons, four deputies, and we've got three vacancies in the neighborhood liaisons.

Okay. And myself, of course. Okay. Yeah, you're gone. No, I'm just kidding.

Okay.

And then in terms of, I don't know if I had any other questions, I guess what we currently We don't have a neighborhood full-time liaison in my district. Jamaica Plain is unfilled. West Roxbury, Ben Tai, who's great. is on leave. I don't know if he's defending the country. He is defending the country. Yeah, great. So I think you have some regional people who are or helping out but I don't know it's a vital service I think as everyone said and it certainly helps our office work so I just you know whatever resources you could or fill that position at Jamaica Plain and

Just make sure somebody has the time for West Roxbury, not just that they obviously have other job responsibilities, but just ask you to keep an eye on that. I don't have any specific complaints about that, but.

Just noting that, you know, and you've got, you know, you can always reach me and like, I'll plug in and help whenever we've got that kind of, you know, vacancy and like intent again, obviously being on leave. Same with the deputy for that neighborhood, overseeing that. And one thing that's really great that I think everyone here will appreciate, because you appreciate this cabinet and this department, We have many, many applicants for these vacancies, and we're going through them, many great applicants, and we're excited about hopefully filling some of these vacancies soon.

Okay, thank you very much. Okay, so we're going to go to a second round. Do we have any public testimony? No. So I'm just going to go to a second round. So Councilor Flynn, we're going to go to four minutes because we still have a lot of people here. Let's see how that goes. Obviously, I've been flexible at the end, so if you're in the middle of a conversation, I'm not going to cut you off. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just to follow up the ONS liaison in Chinatown, was placed on leave May 2025. The person was hired by the mayor's office, the new person, March 2026, so about 10 months that we didn't have a liaison. My team filled in, obviously, during that period of time, especially on language and communication access-related issues. Meeting scheduled May 15th, a Friday at 1pm with some residents of Back Bay. They asked me to meet with them and do kind of a walking tour of The Back Bay heading out towards the Copley area, St. Patolf Street. We invited Boston Transportation Department, Public Works, haven't heard anything back yet, but just wanted to flag that if someone from their team is able to join.

May 15th, Friday, 1 p.m. We also invited the Boston Police. I wanted to follow up on Reverend Culpepper's comments to us. I don't get any invitations at all to attend any events in District 2 or meetings with city administration, especially working on the same issues. However, I don't get that invitation and at times I will get a couple comments later from community leaders and say, Ed, why weren't you or your staff there? After the meeting is over, and I said, well, I didn't know about it. And it kind of puts all of us in a bad position that, you know, I didn't know about it. The mayor's office is not informing district city councilors.

And it's not just me, I think it's a lot of district city councilors. Reverend Culpepper, I think, expressed it perfectly, the frustration that we all share, but Are we committed to inviting district councilors to meetings, hearings, events, or is that just not part of it?

I mean, Councilor, I think one of the privileges, truly, and it's tremendous, of being a public servant, of being a specially elected official, is that you have a platform. You have obviously access to the mayor. You've got access to IGR. You've got access to us. We're in constant communication, I would say. And I know where you stand on a lot of issues. And we take your input into consideration, same with all counselors. It all depends on the meeting. If there's a public meeting, we will notify you. Sometimes we have private meetings, just like you have private meetings with residents that we may not be invited to, and sometimes you invite us, it depends. Our focus as ONS is community.

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

Our focus, again, truly is on community and people who don't have the platform and who don't have this access and making sure we're hearing from them and including them in our process. There are other departments who obviously deal with the council. But we also still, you know, I would say we engage with all of you. You know, you engage with Ciara, you engage with Katrina, and, you know, that for me is us engaging with you and hearing your perspective.

Okay.

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

Okay. I'm disappointed in that answer. I'm disappointed in the overall process. I think some district councilors are included. I think some district councilors are excluded, depending on who they are. Let me ask another question, a final question. When someone is filling a complaint out on 311, I've asked this a bunch of times. I've gotten commitments that we would get it done. Is there a box that we could add? on the 311 that would automatically place the, when it goes from 311 to the respective city departments, say Public Works, and if it's in District 3, and the address is in District 3.

Can that District 3 City Councilor, his or her office, know about something that's taking place in their district? That's been a challenge that I've worked on for a lot of years. All it would take is someone from DOIT. They were here yesterday. But are they able to physically place a little box in the application so a district city council knows exactly what Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. making sure those flow properly. But our data is public, so you're able to access 311 data at the tip of your fingers at any time. So if you go to data.boston.gov, you can pull 311 reporting whenever you'd like. or use the 311 app as well. So you could do 301.boston.gov or data.boston.

Yeah, I understand that, but I'm just saying instead of us looking for it periodically, Can it just be added so it automatically goes to the district city councilor regardless of what the issue is so we're aware of it and maybe we can help in a certain way. It would just In terms of streamlining things, it would be very helpful because then the person would call the district city councilor after and ask, can you help about a particular issue I had that I just put into the 311 app And then I would say, well, can you send me what the city, a confirmation or a receipt that the city sent you? And they'd send it over to me.

but I'm just saying can we just be part of the process initially where a District City Councilor can be included on it so when it goes to the Public Works Department and if it's in District 3, the District 3 City Councilor knows automatically about it. Is that a fair question?

No, Councilor, I appreciate your question. Again, we are going through a CRM system revamp. It's important that obviously on the front end that the departments that help solve the problem are in the loop on the front end. We do actually share that, of course, the counselors should be aware of problems that may be more longstanding or need help unsticking, and we could look for what that collaboration looks like. specifically, but happy to talk a little bit more. Another thing I just want to plug and add is that Ergie has been running trainings for folks and happy to run a specific training around 311 so you guys can see So the answer is yes or the answer is no. The answer is we'll work on it and we'll definitely connect with DO-IT to see at what point in the process that is appropriate.

And we could get this done probably in the next 30 days or so. Is that accurate? I can't commit to that, but I'm happy to follow up. That's my recommendation is let's get it into the system. Mr. Chair in 30 days. That's a simple request, Mr. Chair.

It's not as simple as you would think because, again, we're going through a whole system revamp of the CRM system, so there are things that are necessary that we have to do to get out of an old system that was made in 2008 before we start adding more of these special features to it.

Okay, thank you, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Murphy, four minutes.

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

Thank you, Councillor, for your question. Our office has maintained The same amount of people as the very beginning. So we have the director, we have the digital and project manager, which is one job description, and then the community outreach coordinator. The Digital and Project Manager oversees all the projects, initiatives, grants that our office puts forward, and the Community Outreach Coordinator oversees the City Hall and the Go Truck, all the community-led cleanups, Love Your Block, etc. In terms of cuts, all the grants have been cut. So the Spooky Streets grants and the Block Party grants.

Okay. Thank you. Ergie, could you... Explain going from the old system to the new system, I hope. I'm going to assume you've See the benefits of it. It reminds me of when transportation was in here with BPS and we're going to go to the Zoom app and things are going to be better. If you could explain the investment we've made to this new system and what advantages we'll see once it's all up and running.

Yeah, absolutely. In the past, we've worked out of a system that all departments were in. And therefore, the departments that go out and do the actual services didn't have a system good enough to look at asset management, right? So like how many times was this microphone fixed in the past three years? The old system was not easy to report on that. And so now with the tech updates, we have a system for departments that can better view what's happening with resources and allocation of their money and what and many more.

whether you know maybe this needs a long-term repair rather than just changing a bulb right now you know things like that. That's the Wait for all the other departments, like all departments that benefit from this. 311, our old system was very... Long and outdated and you had to do a lot of clicks to get to what you eventually needed and it revolved around way more training, whereas now with the new system, it's so much more straightforward and the information's at the tip of their fingers that our call takers are able to submit cases And you mentioned that this data is public, which I am aware of.

Either going through the data.com or 311.com system, is that the same way department heads search their data?

For the most part, it is. There was some changes to it and we looked and we're like, oh, because I guess it was hard to see where people were looking at it because some people in DO-IT didn't realize how much we actually did use it. Use that as well when we're trying to do something quickly, right? When we're trying to look at an overall view of a whole road, that's where we're going directly into our system and saying, okay, let's look more into this, right? We want to also keep things confidential from the public, so there are some details and contact info that won't be public. to keep that confidential that we would need on our end.

So if I was to search that way, the same thing that the public is excluded to see, I would also not be able to see? Correct. Okay. And so like what does like, Mike Brohlsee, when he looks, does he see the same thing then with all of that information not shared?

The only information that's not shared is just the contact information of the person that reported it. So yeah, you'd see the same thing on both sides.

Okay, just one last statement, not a question. I do agree though that us having access somehow, and I don't know exactly what it should look like, but many times when I call A department head about an issue that's coming through my office, oftentimes the answer I get is, oh, we got that through 311, we've already been working on it, so it seems like there's lots of people not connecting and they're kind of working on the same thing. and so that would be helpful to streamline it if there was a way to see like oh I could say to that person I don't need to start at the bottom and work my way up I can see that they've been working on that for this many days over it's in progress so The next conversation obviously today that we should have about how we can make that happen. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Councillor Breadon.

Thank you. On page 134, it says contracted services are $143,400. $443,390, and that's down $40,000 from last year. What contracted services do you have?

So that's the, usually with contracted services, that's where we put the grants that we give out. Sometimes contracted services is like paper that we procure, stuff like that. It's all in one.

Okay, so paper wouldn't be supplies. It would be contract.

Sorry, repeat that one, sir.

Paper wouldn't be under supplies. It would be.

It depends if we like. It depends what line you're actually looking on. Yeah, it might be like office services. Supplies.

Educational services, you know. Transportation of Persons. What number, what page in the book are you looking at? 134. No, you know, it's gone down $40,000 from last year, so. Yes.

Is your question why?

No, just what was, if clarified, what is it? You know, supplies, then. On the next page down, it's got office supplies, materials, clothing, educational supplies, miscellaneous supplies. So the homeless supplies piece of it is in the next section down. So just contracted services, is that for personnel that you hire to do certain projects or what is it? Just a question. And then you said that with regard to block grants for block parties, funds for block parties and events, you're going to try and... Thank you very much. contracted services, and that was for external funds coming in.

I'm assuming that was like ARPA funds or something that that's sort of twilighting now. Last year, 25, it was 4,000. And then we haven't had any more. In terms of bringing in other external funds, where are we anticipating bringing in external funds? Are we writing grants? How are we looking for external funds other than what we've been using the last few years?

Thank you, Councillor, for your question. So we work extensively with the Partnerships Office and the Mayor's Office. to make sure that we are building partnerships with nonprofits, with foundations, with other external business partners that want to fund some of the activities that we do, such as the block party grants. We really believe in the power of partnerships. Our office is the office of civic organizing, so we want to make sure that we are also organizing those that can potentially help fund a lot of these initiatives for the residents.

So you're not projecting any income from Thank you very much. I don't think I have any further questions. Although I'm a little agitated about a certain project in Austin, Brighton, I really do appreciate all the great work I was out on the weekend with the The whole street cleaning and park cleaning and I think we had a lot of love your block. We had a lot of volunteers out organized out of Brighton Main Street so It was a really great day. The weather was good and it's a great way to build community. So thank you for all your work and I appreciate all you do.

Thank you, Councillor. We always want to give a shout out to Austin-Breton because rain or shine, they're always pleasantly showing up and ready to assist the residents in beautified areas.

Okay, thank you very much, Councillor Pepén.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I only have one follow-up question, and it is that We have a vacancy in Rossendale for our liaison position. I wanted to get a sense of timeline. Do you guys have an idea of when that position could be filled? I know that a lot of residents just really appreciate that position and they're asking our office.

Like I said earlier, we have a lot of applicants. We're interviewing them, and we're obviously hoping to make a decision as soon as possible. Okay. And whenever there's a vacancy in a neighborhood, is it the deputy director that helps step up? It's the deputy director, and I'll step in as well. We all pitch in to make sure that there's no felt vacancy in session.

Perfect. Then I'll make sure that if there's any Rosnell conversation, Loupeman, specifically.

You have my number.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I will yield the rest of my time.

Okay, thank you. I guess just before we get to Councillor Culpepper, you don't get any extra time based on that, but... Yeah, I'm the chair. He yields his time to me. Just for 311, in terms of if there was more money in the budget or resources, like What more capacity? Is it technology? Is it just people? Supervisors.

Why is that? We have only two supervisors, and we're a 24-7 operation, and so that leaves some lacks, and we do hear from residents pretty often saying, I want to speak to a supervisor at 2 a.m., right? and unfortunately we just don't have the staffing to have that there. Evening shifts as well. So we have shifts and manager roles that work later in the day where ideally we'd rather have them nine to five, We have to shift our data team a little bit so they're working a little later into the day to just have more support for our team.

OK. Thanks. Councilor Culpepper?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair. So I'm going to set the timer of four minutes. Obviously, you know, we've been a little loose with that. So whenever you're ready.

Thank you. So I don't get Councilor Pepén's two minutes, huh?

No.

There's been a lot of discussion about the grant cuts. What's the total amount of the grant cuts?

That's a citywide or just ours?

Yeah. You mean just ours? What's the total amount across the city?

So Nadia can share what our grants cuts are within our department.

Okay, give us that, and if you can share across the city. And could we get a list of all the grants that are cut? Because we're hearing different people say different grants have been cut. We'd like to know. All the grants that have been cut so we can look at that, okay?

So we can share the OCO grants. We don't obviously oversee all grants, so happy to follow up after what that looks like with IGR, but we could share with OCO. Okay, great, great.

Thank you, Councilor Culpepper. So the cuts for the grants this year are $60,000 from the block party grants, the summer block party grants, as well as $10,000 from the Spooky Streets grants.

Is that it? And so that's what I'm looking for, the grants across the entire city. So if you could get that to us. And I want to follow up on my earlier question. because you guys kind of put it on Ricardo right in terms of us getting notice of when events are taking place in our district but I don't want to put it on Ricardo I want to put it on you and I want to put it on you from this perspective you mentioned when Flynn asked you about different events. You said, if it's appropriate, we'll let you know. When we're meeting with folks in your district, when is it not appropriate to let a council know that you're meeting with folks in our district?

No, that was more about Again, there are meetings we, for instance, don't even schedule, right? We're just attending a meeting. We may not notify you about that one. I mean, Asha sometimes will go to a meeting, let me know, hey, I'm going to go to this thing.

Or sometimes constituents ask us to schedule a meeting where it's like we are scheduling it on behalf of them because they want to talk to us.

but it doesn't they're not like asking for the counselor to like be involved they're just like want those are the meetings that we want to know about those are the meetings that we want to and I'll tell you why because there are constituents and so if we're one city and they're going to another arm of the city that's in our district we're going to hear it at some point right so it's easier to hear it up front and I don't think there are appropriate meetings and I hope there aren't meetings where folks are saying Well, don't invite Culpepper to this meeting because he's going to raise hell. Don't invite Culpepper. I mean, I hope there's a system, and that's why it's about the protocol that you use to determine Who gets invited to what meeting?

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

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

No, can I clarify? The procedure is if a constituent is coming to us and saying, oh, we have concern about this intersection, Our job is to include the streets team or the engineers or the folks that can help solve the thing. And that's how we kind of... include who's in the meeting. What I am hearing from you, both the district councilors, is that you want to be included. And I think we could see how we can make sure that collaboration happens better in the future. But it's helpful for you all to understand how we think about situations of making sure when residents come to us, we're getting the folks that are doing the engineering, doing the study, doing the thing that can answer the technical questions for them in the room so they can help get their answer solved. That's like what we're thinking about.

I would hope there's a protocol because when you have a protocol, it's not a subjective on who should or who shouldn't be. When you have a protocol, everyone gets included based on that protocol. So you might want to Thank you. Thank you. Whether it's appropriate, because that becomes subjective. When it becomes subjective, then it really becomes a problem. Mr. Chair, I just want to read one text from a constituent regarding 311. Hello, just called 311. Trash truck just came, but the dumpsters are overfilled. and Glass and Trash fall to the street. I asked the maintenance guy at 3 Nazian Street to sweep it up because it's from their dumpster. He only picked up the paper. We have plastic bottles, paper, glass, going up Nathan Street, and this is ridiculous.

The ticket number is, here's the ticket number, 101006620526. Then she gave me the name of the truck, Capital Waste License Plate Truck Y76-496 consistently allowing trash that falls to the ground when dumping to stay in the middle of the street. This happens every day. And so she sent me pictures of it with the paint Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

and just reiterate that when trash because when you look at the dumpsters at some of the streets the dumpsters are just overfilled and so when they put the Dumpster up to the truck and the dumpster picks up the big trash can that's overfilled, obviously it's going to fall in the street. The question that this constituent is complaining about, they drive off and leave it in the street.

Yeah, we get those requests. They come in. I think that's where, if you look at our data, street cleaning, some of those requests are from that. They are a contracted service, so they're not directly city, Employees, it's our contractors. So we typically will reach out to the sanitation team and let them know and they'll speak directly to Capital based on those.

I'm happy to follow up on that. And if you could just follow up on that ticket number. Okay, great. 6620526. So the first 10, 100 doesn't apply?

On my end when I search it, they're all like that. But can you confirm it's 6620526?

662052, yeah. And this is a constituent that's always on me, I'm telling you. I could send you some of these text messages late at night. I'm always on call, so if you need something, let me know. He will, he will, and he will, and he will.

Give me 24 hours to respond.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Councilor Culpepper. Thank you. If you have anything else, but just before, we have been joined by some observers here, just to, I don't know how much you know about what's going on. Here in City Hall, we have the mayor who has an office over here. and then on this side we have the city council where I'm a city councilor, Councilor Culpepper, Councilor Flynn, we represent different parts of the city and we're sort of like the legislative body. and the federal government. You've got an executive body and a legislative body. We're sort of the legislative body here. And we're conducting budget hearings over the mayor's proposed budget for next year. We work on fiscal years. So next fiscal year starts July 1st and runs through the end of next June in what's called the FY26, 2026 fiscal year.

We're talking about next fiscal year, which we call 27, because it'll end in 2027. And so we're having all the departments that do things in the city. We've had three hearings with the Boston Public Schools. We had Superintendent Skipper here. We've had hearings with the city's Information Technology Department. We have cities with the Office of Housing, which runs all the housing that the city provides. And today, this morning, we're with the Office of Neighborhood Services which helps do all these amazing things in the communities. And they have neighborhood liaisons in your neighborhoods that the counselors work with. So we're talking about their proposed budget for next year. and the big thing is we give out summer block party grants, stuff like that's not in the budget for next year. So if your block had a spooky For Halloween, there are block programs. Those aren't in the budget.

The fact is certain costs are going up. So we're having to cut things. Most departments have around 2% cut in their things. So that's enough background. Yeah, you're not here to speak, testify publicly. OK, we do take public testimony. Flynn, if you're welcome to do that. But so I just I want to thank my colleagues for being here. Councilor Flynn, did you have anything else? I'm happy to give you time for another short round.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And maybe I'll direct this to Mohamed. And I know It's not your responsibility, but want to ask if you could help me work with the mayor's office and Commissioner Santiago at the Veterans Department on an issue. Again, I know I'm not placing any blame at all with anybody. And as you probably know, I have outstanding respect for Commissioner Santiago. I think he does a tremendous job. But here's my issue. Just want to ask for your help in trying to arrange something. The FY27 budget for the Boston Veterans Engagement Transition Services, Boston Vets, Department budget will decrease by $724,000, or 14%, driven by the removal of grant programs. The budget includes funding to continue supporting key events, initiatives such as African American veterans,

Veterans Appreciation Events, Heroes Squares, Memorial Day. So I think as a war veteran, as a disabled veteran, I can't support a decrease to the veterans budget. So can you help me arrange a meeting with Commissioner Santiago and someone from the mayor's office on this specific issue and maybe we can talk after.

I will talk to IGR. I'm happy to do that.

Okay. I just want to be very clear. I could never support a decrease to a veteran's budget, having served 24 years in the Navy. A disabled veteran, I understand how important this department is. I'm going to do everything I can to get money back in that budget. But a decrease in the Veterans Department is just something I will not except under any circumstances. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, thank you. Councillor Culpepper.

Real brief, just want to reiterate the Information sharing with regard to meeting and activities in District 7 because there's so much going on right now. And I think one of the things we probably need to focus on for Nubian Square Looking at these text messages coming in about this bankruptcy, it's safety in New Green Square. So I just want to be, and Mohamed, we can talk more about it. Yeah, any time. But it's... I mean, who would have thought there would be a bank robbery in Nubia Square? It's all kind of activity, people running. But you never know. I do think we need to meet and plan. They've got a new captain there. Let's plan the meeting with the captain and the community, see what the community thinks that we need to do more of, or less of, but let's meet to see what we can. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Okay, thank you. Okay, so we don't have anyone signed up for public testimony. I just want to thank everyone for coming in for this hearing. I want to thank all my colleagues for being here. This morning's hearing is now adjourned.

Thank you for watching!