City Council - Public Safety & Criminal Justice Committee Hearing on Docket #0978

Thank you.

I'm all set.

Henry Santana, at-large city councilor, and I am the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Public Safety and Criminal Justice. Today is November 6th, and it is 2.03 p.m. in accordance with Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, modifying certain requirements of the Open Meeting Law and relieving public bodies of certain requirements including the requirement that public bodies must conduct its meetings in a public place that is open and physically accessible to the public. The City Council will be conducting this hearing virtually via Zoom. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being livestreamed at boston.gov slash city-council-tv and broadcasted on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Files Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.ps at boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all counselors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you wish to sign up, For public testimony and have not done so, please email our central staff liaison Megan at megancoruto at boston.gov for the Zoom link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 0978. in order to adopt Chapter 270 of the Acts of 2024 regarding local law enforcement continuity between the City of Boston and the Town of Dedham. This matter was sponsored by Councilors Enrique Pepen and was referred to the committee on April 30, 2025. Today I am joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councilor Murphy, Councilor Pepen, and Councilor Flynn. We also received a letter of absence from Councilor Worrell, Before I turn it over to the lead sponsor for opening remarks, I'd like to just thank everyone for joining us today. As the chair of the Committee on Public Safety and Criminal Justice, it is my priority that Boston's law enforcement is able to provide services effective effectively for all residents, including ensuring that they can work in cooperation with law enforcement and neighboring communities if needed. Today's hearing is considers adopting a statewide bill allowing for police cooperation between the City of Boston and the Town of Denham. If adopted, this bill would allow a police officer from Denham to exercise police powers as if a sworn officer of Boston within 500 yards and a Boston officer will be able to do the same in Denham. This will allow for more law enforcement cooperation and more seamless services in several Boston neighbourhoods, including Hyde Park, West Roxbury and Roslindale. This kind of interagency collaboration keeps our residents safe and supported, and I look forward to the testimony and insights shared today as we work together to ensure that our law enforcement is seamless, effective, and supported by our city laws. So now I will turn it over to the lead sponsor, Councilor Pepén, for any opening remarks you may have.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon to my colleagues and the panelists. I'm happy to support my State House colleague, State Representative Rob Consalvo, by bringing this order to adoption to the Council. I know he worked with State Representative Paul McMurtry on this. I'm glad that we are having this hearing to address some of the specific concerns that I know that I share with some of my council colleagues, my district, District 5, contains all of Hyde Park. So we are very aware of our neighbors in Dedham as we are the border. I represent the border between the two towns. We know that there was a continuity buffer in Brookline that has been put in place for over 40 years, and adopting this law would extend the buffer for public safety. I think the chair, the Boston Police Department, and the chief and superintendent from the Dedham Police Department for being here today to answer the question and explain the reason behind this order as well. So thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I look forward to the questions.

Great. We can move on. Murphy, you have the floor.

Thank you. I'm just happy to be here to make sure that If we do move forward, the questions that I believe the panelists will be able to address, and we talked about our relationship already with Brookline, but it does remind me of our BHA housing, Police Offices, our colleges. So there's many times we do the state police need to collaborate. Just looking forward to this conversation and making sure that the Boston Patrolmen and the union also is part of this conversation. But thank you to Our city police and employees who are here in administration but also to the dead and police to kind of share how we can be more collaborative and making sure that we support our residents. So thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Murphy. Councilor Flynn, the other floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to you, Chair, and to the Boston Police that are on, but also to the Dedham Police. Also, I have great respect for the Dedham Police. I know it's an outstanding police department. I spend a lot of time actually over at the VA in West Roxbury and have seen the professionalism of the Dedham Police Department, the men and women of the police department over in Dedham. So just want to acknowledge them. and the important work they play in their city, in their town, but also the cooperation That already exists. So just want to want to acknowledge Denham Police, but also certainly Boston Police as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. So we would now like to introduce today's panelists. With us today, we have Superintendent Robert Sikola, Jr., who is the Chief Bureau of Field Services with the Boston Police Department. And we have Michael The Trauman, please excuse my pronunciation, Chief of Police with the Dedham Police Department. Thank you both for being here. Really appreciate you taking your time. I'll turn the floor over to you both for any opening remarks or presentations that you have for us.

All right, so good afternoon. Good afternoon to Chief D'Entremont. We've known each other quite a long time. The Chief's brother was Boston Police Office for a very long time as well, so we go back. Thank you. Thank you for the members of the council. I want to thank Representative Consalvo. He and I actually worked on an earlier version of this back when he was City Councilor Consalvo and I was the captain in District 18 at the time. As the Chair has stated, we share a very similar arrangement with both the City of Brookline and the City of Newton. where there was a 500-yard buffer between the two. And this legislation was modeled on that. It is, it's in fact word for word, if I remember correctly, simply substituting the word get them for Brookline or Newton. It's to address the same problems. The border between Boston and Dedham is becoming increasingly developed. There's probably increased development going to happen, particularly along the Hyde Park-Dedham boundary in the area of Sprague Street. and I think there's constant plans for the old stop and shop warehouse every seems like every week somebody puts something a new idea for that space And that creates risks. It creates public safety risks and it creates liability risks for both municipalities where it becomes Because, you know, we have a border, for example, with the city of Quincy, but it's kind of a wide river, right? So there's not a lot of confusion possible there. where in this, and I have a slideshow that I'll put up just briefly so that people can get a visual. We have places where the city boundary runs through woods, through swamps, and in some places directly through the middle of existing buildings. So, and I'll try to keep this quick. This, what you're looking at, it's pulled right out of Google Earth, illustrates the boundary between the city of Boston and the town of Dedham. The top left corner, that would be your boundary on the West Roxbury side over by, for example, the VA hospital starting about there at the top left. and it runs down to where the boundary is in Hyde Park at the Neponset River and roughly the vicinity of the I'll refer to for this purpose as the old Stop and Shop warehouse at the end of Meadowbank Road. Can I have the next slide, please? So what you're looking at here is, you know, an aerial photograph. And you will see the building that's labeled ABEX in that. That is the former Stop and Shop warehouse. And you will see there that the city line in that case runs right through the building. And the rear half of that complex is actually in the town of Dedham. That creates a public safety risk for the people who are there in that. You know, it is, at the moment, the rear of that is exclusively the jurisdiction of the town of Dedham. But in order to respond, they have to come all the way around through the town of Canton and up the Neponsha, Milton up the Neponsha Valley Parkway. or they would have to respond over Sprague Street Bridge and come around the Nepata Valley Parkway. It also would create a risk where You could have an officer, a Boston officer, responding there. He's inside the building in some sort of a tactical situation and doesn't realize that he has actually left The city of Boston and is now operating what would effectively be as a private individual in another municipality. And the risk there is that he could be both personally liable and the City of Boston could be liable for him acting outside of his jurisdiction. A similar building, if you will look at the top left on this map, it talks of the Boston Pickle Club is located there. And we have the former J. Baker Warehouse. It's almost half a mile long, and it's the same situation where the rear one-third of the building is in the city of Boston, creating the same Response time issues and liability issues. So that's on the Hyde Park side. Can I have the next slide, please? This illustration is an area of the West Roxbury-Geddon line. You will see Carrollton Road there. And there are other places, but I just thought that this illustrated the issue. where you have the city line running right through people's backyards and so on and so forth um and you know requiring our offices to try to keep track of that line When they're in, you know, out there, they're in the dark, it's in an emergency and so on. There's risk involved in that and it could be delay that would compromise public safety. The next slide, please. So the space you're looking at now is off of Sprague Street. It's Industrial Drive. The only way to access that space is to go through the railroad station at Reedville around under the Sprague Street Bridge and down Industrial Drive and Again, you can see there's a large building bisected by the municipal boundary. Additionally, you have the large space to the left side of the photo that is currently undeveloped. And it's in the town of Dedham, but can only be accessed by the city of Boston. And my understanding is when we talk about places that are perennially discussed for future development, that those problems could become worse in that. I will say this, that as the chairman mentioned we have had a similar agreement in place with the city of Newton and the city of Brookline for decades and honestly it's operated seamlessly there's never been a problem Thank you for joining us. We can sort out where exactly the border is later in terms of who's going to do the paperwork and so on. I'll sum up with that it's we've done this for decades with others and we are just looking to duplicate that here in a way that will enhance public safety and limit liability for both municipalities. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Awesome. Thank you, Superintendent. Chief, do you have anything or are we good to move on?

Good afternoon. I'll just add a couple quick comments, if that's okay, and thank you for your time this afternoon to consider this proposal. It's been a long time in the works. So I agree with everything Superintendent Ciccolo mentioned. We have these areas that Dedham needs to go through Boston and Boston needs to go through Dedham to get to a piece of your own jurisdiction. There's several of them. along with the split buildings. There's just a couple other things just to mention that the traffic signals on Providence Highway at the Dedham-Boston line. Those traffic signals are in Dedham, but just barely in Dedham. So any enforcement of those traffic signals have a little buffer. It is certainly helpful. Otherwise, we wouldn't have any authority to stop a car and say that we're in a red light. At those lights, it went into Boston or an OUI situation. You know, and then there's also... Cut through that takes place. You know, Boston cruisers will use Buzzy Street and Milton Street, Center Street to go from areas of Boston through Dedham and into areas of Boston and our offices You know, can use Providence Highway going from the Spring Street area, you know, to get down to the Dedham Mall area. And that puts you in the other jurisdiction. So if there's something that You come across that's in front of you that you really need to act on, it would be better for all of us if we had that authority. while conducting the, you know, just cutting through the area that we have the police authority that we need if something should be presented to us. And as the superintendent said, you know, we certainly have no intention of, Going over the borders unless activity draws us over the border. Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you, Chief. Do we have Representative Rob Consuelo as a panelist?

That's for me.

I know I saw your message, so I wanted to make sure that it Do we have him online? Do you know? I just want to make sure that I give him the opportunity if he is here. But I see Councilor Pepén's hands up. Councilor Pepén, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Brett Gonzalvo is on as an attendee. I would like for him to be the first testimony to explain why. So if we could, if central staff could elevate him. Thank you.

Okay, he's on with us right now. So once he's set up, Brad, thank you so much for being here and for this proposal. And I'll turn the floor over to you before we go into councilor's questions.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Always thrilled to be testifying back at the Boston City Council, where I logged thousands of hours testifying during my 13 years As a proud member of the Boston City Council and I want to thank you guys, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing. I want to thank my dear friend and my partner in crime out in District 5 slash the 14th Suffolk. and to the second best District 5 City Council to ever serve, Councilor Pepén for filing this local adoption of Docket 0978, which I would ask this honorable committee. and Honorable Body to please pass as soon as possible so we can get it before the Mayor for her signature. I want to thank both Superintendent Ciccolo and the Chief of Police in Dedham for supporting this and for being on. And Superintendent Ciccolo did an amazing job and with that PowerPoint summed it up perfectly. And I want to thank him. He is correct. We have worked on this back since the mid 2000s. where I filed this repeatedly as a home rule petition working in collaboration with then-Captain Ciccolo, and also my dear friend Mayor Tom Menino who had supported this wholeheartedly and we worked collaboratively with him on that. Really is just a common sense thing that we need to do to sort of close this loophole. As the superintendent and the chief said, we have this already with the town of Brookline and other towns. and this is why we have passed this the the superintendent's slide deck showed perfectly it's really a unique situation for Hyde Park and West Roxbury and really particularly to my district in this end because I actually have All of the Hyde Park and Readville properties that the superintendent pointed out. I actually have precincts in West Roxbury that run Washington Street. Pass the Beethoven School down to the Dedham line, which also impact this same area. And I want to thank the Chief and Dedham for particularly pointing out not just The properties where the property lines run right through buildings, but also the traffic signals as well, and other stop signs and things of that nature. That would be traffic enforcement issues. I even know, it wasn't on the slide, Superintendent, but if you go down West Milton Street, There is one house in Hyde Park, and it's a great friend of mine and a constituent who I grew up since grammar school with, who the Dedham... The Hyde Park line runs literally halfway through his house. His bedroom is in Hyde Park, his kitchen and living room and backyard are in Dedham. and God forbid there was an issue with his property, knock on wood, hopefully he doesn't have one, but there would be an interesting decision made there if his house was broken into and the burglar ran from the kitchen to the bedroom. or vice versa. So it's really a common sense, I think, approach just to close this loophole to bring it in line with some of the other bordering municipalities. Again, just to recap, you look at the 50-plus acres at the Stop and Shop warehouse, the Boston Denim Commerce Park, which was on that slide, the Reedville Yard 5, where the superintendent showed, the Boston Public Schools Bus Yard, Hurley Wire, the National Grid Yard are all split right down the middle between Boston and Dedham and then the house on West Milden Street, the properties that abut the one house in my park and all the other ones in West Roxbury in my district. Just given the continuity of the police in both towns being able to enforce the law beyond those boundaries should it exist. Clearly, we have a great working relationship between our captain and the Boston Police and the chief of the Dedham Police. I have many Dedham friends who are police officers and relatives who live in Dedham, so we really enjoy our close working relationship with the town of Dedham. Rep. McMurtry, who is a joint co-host of this bill, is a sponsor with me and is a great friend and a partner who we enjoy many. Reciprocal issues between the towns of Dedham and Milton. So it really is just a collaborative effort to continue to have both towns work collaboratively in terms of public safety enforcement It's really cleaning up sort of a loophole that's out there, but unique to the Dedham West Roxbury piece because there's so much land that borders both The city and the town of Dedham that we want to make sure we give the police all the tools needed to do this and I was so excited when I got that the nod from the chair and of Public Safety that they wanted to move forward with this finally after almost 20 years of trying. It doesn't seem like it's the most largest thing that we're working on here at the Statehouse or at the City Council, but it's really an important issue to Hyde Park, to Boston, to Dedham. and something that I'm thrilled after literally 20 years of trying that we finally got passed through the House, the Senate and signed by the Governor. So I would urge my colleagues on the City Council to please this committee to issue a favorable report. and hopefully that the whole body would pass this and get it to the mayor as soon as possible so that that's one more tool in the toolbox. God forbid something happened and I'm happy to take any questions about this legislation or any historical issues as I work through this for the last 20 years.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Rep. Consuelo. Really appreciate your leadership and your testifying here with us today. We're going to turn it over to my council colleagues' questions. I also just want to mention that we've been joined by Councilor Weber from District 6. But we'll start with the lead sponsor, Carl SuperPenn for any lines of question.

Thank you Mr. Chair and to the Chief, to Superintendent Schiccolo, to my My partner in crime, State Representative, Rob Consalvo, and the third best District 5 City Council, because we all know who's the first. But I wanted to honestly start off with more of an informative question, which is, What is the origin of this bill? Why is it that Brookline and Boston already have this in place and why doesn't it exist still for Dedham and Boston?

Yeah, just quickly before the super chimes in or the chief, I mean, this passed the State House and was signed by the governor of Chapter 607 of the Mass General Laws in 1979. So it gives you sort of the history of when it was done. I think, you know, we've been trying for 20 years, and I neglected to mention that it was State Representative Angelo Scotia My predecessor and I was his legislative aide at the Statehouse in the 90s when he was even trying to do it then. And I think it's just one of those things that never made it across the finish line in any session up here at the Statehouse. More to do with just the legislative workload as you know we have for example this session 9,000 bills that have been filed before the legislature and I think often the case we just run out of time and things don't make it across the finish line particularly smaller matters like this and for whatever reason this just never did but there was momentum to do it this year and that's thanks to the leadership of Chair McMurtry, who's in a chair of a committee and was able to exercise his authority to help push that on the finish line. Chair McMurtry, great credit on helping to get this across the goal line. So more, I just think, a housekeeping thing and really running out of time here at the Statehouse to get it done. I'll say that from the legislative front. It would certainly defer to the superintendent or the chief for any past history. If there was any. More likely it's our fault up at the legislature. It just never got done. But that's not here nor there. We let bygones be bygones. I'm thrilled that the Speaker and the Senate President and the Governor of all states Wade in and wanted this to happen and have signed on to it and have passed it and signed it.

Yeah, so on my part, I will only say that You know, we need to plan. We need to be prepared for the future. And the boundary with Brookline certainly became much more heavily developed much earlier. So I think that was the first place that the issue kind of raised itself. And then sometime after that, you know, Rep. Consalvo probably knows exactly when, The city of Newton followed suit for similar reasons regarding development around LaGrange Street, Bryan Road, Broadlawn Park. where we have the same issue. So I guess my answer, counselor, is that similar problems breed similar solutions. Chief D'Entremont, any additional comment?

Nothing that I can speak on about the prior legislation with Brookline. Yeah, it will just like, you know, kind of a recent example that is, you know, would be beneficial with experiencing these car meetup problems all across the state. On October 5th, there was a street takeover at Washington and Grove. Well, that's right over the border. So if our officers are going over to help, we'd prefer them to have their authority if need be. And the same thing down on Sprague Street. That same night, there was a gathering in a parking lot where a pedestrian was struck you know Boston and Dedema down there in Boston ultimately you know took care of the issue down there but it just creates all this confusion and To take any confusion and liability out of the mix for all of us. And I think obviously, as the Superintendent just mentioned, more development kind of pushes everything closer together and more chance for Not knowing where you are.

Okay. So I also I'm going to ask a tougher question here. It's regarding the Boston Trust Act. So obviously the Boston Police Department holds firm with the Boston Trust Act, which is something we I want to know what does that mean for this kind of relationship and is there something that you can compare to Brookline, how that relationship is working? I have to ask this because obviously in the world that we are living in today, that is a question that many people do have.

So what I'll say, if I can speak first, Councilor. Yes, sir. You know, The way this works in practice is we respond, whoever gets the call responds. They take whatever immediate action is necessary to preserve public safety. And then We hand the follow-up off. Now that we have time, relax, okay, am I in Boston, am I in Brookline, right? And all the paperwork, All the information sharing, which is what you're concerned about, goes to the department that has actual jurisdiction, right? So what this allows, to give you an example, and we've had this happen, This is years ago. Respond to a domestic violence incident off of LaGrange Street in West Roxbury. There is a place down there off of Bryan Road where the city line runs through a building. The phone number is West Rock Street. The zip code is Chestnut Hill. But the actual physical location turned out to be in the city of Newton in that case. We responded, interrupted an assault, made an arrest and then realized, hey, we're actually in the city of Newton. We called Newton Police, they responded, and we said, here's your prisoner, right? And that's it. That is the end of our involvement. And the same thing happens in reverse, right? So for the sake of an argument, a Dedham officer on his way from Spring Street to the Dedham Mall Pulls a car over on Providence Highway because he's doing something crazy. He's doing donuts in the middle of the street or something. He's still going to call for a Boston unit. I see. We each will handle our own work. This is about not getting sued and not making unlawful arrests for something that we're doing in the immediate need to resolve the public safety threat. Chief, do you want to follow up? I know we do the same thing, but you want to follow up with that?

I would just agree. I mean, that all makes perfect sense. And yeah, I don't have anything else to add. Was there any specific question?

No, Superintendent Chocolo, I appreciate that clarification. It's just, The nature that we're living in in the moment, you know, I have to ask that question just for the sake of our immigrant community that we have. But thank you for that, Superintendent Chocolo. OK, my third and final question is actually regarding the third example that you all provided, which In regards to the industrial drive, the first person who brought this to the attention of my office was actually a resident of Dedham on Ashcroft Street, who spoke to us about the noise and the smelling coming from the property. Since then, a few residents of Reedville and Hyde Park also refer to They refer to the noise and air pollution. So I wanted to ask you if you all were looking into this and if the city or the state was helping, and if not, could we assist in any way? And hopefully this type of relationship can help with this moving forward.

So I guess I'll speak first on, I mean, I guess my first question is, are we talking about rail yard or are we talking about the industrial drive space? The industrial drive space. So I do know, I'm not familiar honestly with any recent developments out there. I can tell you that going back Even to my time as the captain in Hyde Park, there would periodically be noise, dust, complaints, whatever, that we would address. Usually in the sense that we would act as a conduit to inspectional services or, as the case may be, to the town of Dedham. You know, a lot of times you'll get a Boston resident calling to complain and we're saying, yeah. Number one, it's not actually a police issue, right? It's an inspection services issue or whatever. and we've been able to serve as the conduit to put them in touch with the right folks that they need to talk to over there. Chief D'Entremont have you had any recent

I haven't heard of anything recently related to our residents on Ashcroft Street, but I do know that the issue that's being referenced You know, and with that, we're not going to go over and try to address any property in Boston ourselves. We're going to communicate with Boston to address it as the superintendent said it in the normal manner.

Right.

Okay, just had to close that out there. I've gotten a few calls about that, so I'll connect with my team about that. So thank you. Okay, so honestly, I don't really have any more questions. So, I wanted to just thank Superintendent Ciccolo, the Chief, and Rep. Goncalvo, all three of you for doing this. I feel like this is One of those nuts and bolts conversation that we have to have in government to make sure that it's working smoothly. And like you said, superintendents so that no one gets sued and have a healthy relationship between everyone. So I'll yield the rest of my time, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Pepén. Councillor Murphy, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Superintendent Ciccola, for your Institutional Knowledge, and I like your background screen. Is that the park in the south end there?

That is actually, yes, that's about 10 years old, but that's Worcester Square.

Yeah, that's nice. But also, thank you, Rep. Consalvo, I know Your, you know, knowledge from all the different roles you played, not only just being a neighbor, but, you know, an aide at the State House to this counselor. And Enrique, you beat me to it, but I was going to ask... How'd you get number two? Because I feel like we did forget about Menino as one of the good District 5 councilors. But I... I have the privilege of being an at-large counselor so know very well going around all the different neighborhoods you know the relationship with you know Newton, Dedham when you're in Ulster, Brighton when you're In Jamaica Plain, you're often crossing over. I've known just from living here my whole life that the way I always knew if I had crossed into Brookline or over into Dedham, the street signs would be different colors or the Hydrance, change a painted color. So there's ways to, you know, figure out if you're, you know, just driving through. But this is a common sense thing. That was said earlier by you, Rep. Consavo, and just seems like something we should definitely support. And the questions being asked, I think, are good ones. I know just growing up here in Dorchester and now living off of 203 here in Mattapia I grew up in a neighborhood where there were questions, if there's an accident at the intersection of Adams, and Gallivan. Is it the state police? Is it the Boston police? If you're playing basketball at Garvey Park, it's Boston police. If you're skating at the rink that's in the park, it's, you know, DCR state police.

So

All of the police departments across the Commonwealth understand this, but there are obviously, like Dedham, ones that need to deal with it more often than not, so... Thank you for bringing it up now. Thank you. Like you said, no need to worry or question why it took 20 years, but I think it is important that we get this over the finish line so that there is No question for our offices who are always out there just trying to do the best. One question, well two. Would this, or does it already apply? Does it affect details? Could Dedham Police then do details And does the buffer go in both directions? Is it just for us going into Dedham? Or would the distance, I think you said, what is it, 500 feet? Does it also go from Dedham into Boston? and it may just be like the pictures you showed in backyard so details wouldn't happen in those places and the other just kind of curious question if A crime or an accident like started say in Dedham, but then as you're pursuing them and you cross over into Boston, I mean that must happen a lot around the city, right? What legally, because you did mention that we just want to make sure our police, it's not just about the paperwork, obviously, it's making sure that people and our police are safe, right? We don't ever want police to feel like because their intuition, they're gonna do the right thing, but we don't want them to feel like we put them in a place where then they have to worry. We don't want their families to worry about that either. So if you could just touch on those two questions.

So the first is I do not expect it to have any effect whatsoever on details. It will allow for some greater cooperation. There are occasionally projects that involve, I've had it happen to me where, you know, there's a project that goes across the city line, right? and it would allow for example perhaps one denim officer on one end and one Boston person on the other and they could You know, work a little bit more cooperatively. It would be helpful. But as far as any whose detail is it? No, that's not going to have any effect. That's one of those, Councilor, where we do have time to look and look at plot plans and things like that, right? I mean, honestly, I use mostly the City of Boston Assesses database. When I look to see where exactly things are, when there's time to do so. Your second question bears more on the issue of what is called fresh and continuous pursuit. The issue there is, and that's part of what this will address, when it's a felony, You can have the, and it's arrestable in your jurisdiction. You can pursue someone outside the jurisdiction and place them under arrest. No problem already. Where it becomes an issue, and I'm going to go to Chief Don Tremont's reference, for example, of the set of traffic lights on Providence Highway. You're familiar with them right by the McDonald's there. So those lights are in denim. The issue becomes that neither one of us can really enforce that light because you're not allowed to stop someone outside your jurisdiction. For a mere traffic violation that happened in your jurisdiction. So his officer gets sent out there to do traffic to enforce the red light. He can only enforce it in one direction. because they have to commit the violation in Dedham and get stopped in Dedham. If either of us tries to do it in the other direction, you've crossed the city line and I don't have jurisdiction over the lights because they're not in Boston and Dedham can't stop the car in Boston because they've left Dedham. Does that make sense? Did I explain it?

Yeah, no, that was good. One last question. I am a true believer of not reinventing the wheel. And we basically use the language from the past, you know, the previous Times, we did this with Newton and Brookline, but that was, it seems like that's been in place for decades now. Is there any need, which has changes in, you know, society, law, development? that we needed to, and maybe Rep. Consavo or Dedham too, maybe you know, is there anything that we would like to add or take out that may just be different based on the distance and time since It was done in other neighboring towns.

I'll speak first. I'm not aware of anything. As you say, I'm a firm believer if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We've been operating without a smooth as glass for decades.

Awesome. Thank you. And I apologize if you can hear my dog snoring because when you take a call from home, so it's loud. I apologize, but I will mute myself now and just thank you for for this and looking forward to it coming forward at our next council meeting to vote in favor. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Murphy. Councilor Flynn, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to you, Chair, for this important hearing and to Councilor Pepén for bringing it forward and Representative Consalvo as well for his leadership. Thank you to the superintendent for your leadership, to the chief of police as well, for your important leadership as well. Rep. Goncalvo, I know he's not here, but he mentioned a mutual friend also, Angelo Scaccia, who I've known my entire life. As we celebrate Veterans Day, I want to acknowledge Angelo as a Purple Heart recipient and Vietnam veteran as well. So I'm going to wish my friend, Angelo, Happy Veterans Day. Maybe one question to the superintendent, and I support this 100%. Just one quick question. Superintendent, Is this the only remaining jurisdiction that is kind of outstanding that needs to be settled? And I say that because Are there other areas of the city that border a particular city or town that we don't have that We don't have that agreement with them. Does it make sense to include that in another resolution? and another hearing, I guess. But just kind of thinking out loud what your thoughts might be, Superintendent.

And do you think there are, so I would, I prefer not to complicate this with trying to add other things to it, but certainly there are places along the Cambridge, Charlestown, border that are similarly complex we have we may end up with having something Needing something similar if there turns out to be some development of a stadium or something over by Alfred Street. But legislation like this is necessarily dependent on both municipalities seeing a need and pushing forward together. To date, I don't know that the City of Everett or the City of Cambridge have expressed any real interest in that.

Well, thank you, Superintendent. This is a common sense approach to law enforcement, and it's about working together. And I know the Boston Police respect the residents of Dedham and their police department as well. So I want to Acknowledge the Dedham Police Chief for their outstanding work of the men and women of the Police Department. Mr. Chair, I have no further questions. Thank you, Councillor Flynn.

Councillor Webber, you have the floor.

Thank you. Thanks to everyone for having this discussion. Rob Consalvo, you know, what his ranking is, As a city councilor, he may be the best state rep in District 6. He's in the top three, I'm not sure. So I had a question, I guess, for Superintendent. In terms of this 500-yard number, do you know where that came from? Is that a question for...

I can tell you that the original Brookline legislation was expressed in rods and that was updated. I think it's again, it's just sort of a common sense I don't ever expect there to be an argument about whether you're 500 yards or 499 yards. It's just a distance that's far enough that if you get stuck out in the dark somewhere, there's no argument.

right yeah yeah it's a strange number yeah running track in high school sometimes we'd run the 600 meters sometimes the 600 yards and you know uh even though we use yards for anything Any more other than football.

Historically speaking, the yards was an update from rods.

Yeah, they had to update all the track. We had 440 yards for 400 meters. Anyway, okay, more importantly, so just to follow up on the questions Councilor Pepén asked about the Trust Act, and it sounds like this is not going to have any impact, that's my sort of understanding. But so is there a mechanism by passing this where Someone from Dedham could try or someone from Boston could give information that we wouldn't be able to Divulge under the Trust Act or Act On indebted on that, you know, because of that. It doesn't sound like it, but just I'd like to hear it from you.

So what I'll say is, you know, I can't speak for what members of the Denham Police Department will do. I'll let Chief Don Tremont speak for his own people. But what I will say is, We would consider it, the police department would consider it, one of our members that did something to try to evade the strictures of the Trust Act. to be misconduct that would be punishable, that's all. It would be no different than somebody doing it now that Dedham wasn't involved in at all, right?

Well, so just a scenario maybe. If somebody from Boston goes into Dedham, pursues somebody into Dedham, And we have rules here which do not permit us to ask about someone's immigration status. And I don't know what the rule is in Dedham, but let's just say you could. You know, with the Boston police officer, which jurisdictional rules would he be or she be bound by if they've gone 300 yards or 120 rods into denim. I don't know how much a rod is.

The Boston Police Department is always governed by its own rules, and that includes the Trust Act, no matter where we go. Okay, that includes, within this 500 yard... If we're going to arrest somebody on a warrant in Stockbridge, we are still covered by the Trust Act for our own stuff. We have no argument about that.

Okay, and let's see. Yeah, I mean, I think that, and then so like liability, then because of this, then... The city would be on the hook or would cover that Boston police officer if he goes into Dedham and does something which... gets the city sued, so they would be covered by that. Do I understand that part right? You mentioned liability.

You are correct. and the city of the town of Dedham would of course indemnify or choose not to, I suppose, its own people, right?

As long as they're in the schools. Yeah, that sounds fine. In your presentation, I recommend Crosstown I think it's Avenue, just behind the Chevrolet. It looks like a right angle, and at the corner, right across the corner is the Denham border, and somebody called my office and because the city of Boston paved the Boston part and not the dead and it's like to skip the corner and then on the other side of the of the of the of the V pave that and they were like why didn't we pave The whole street. And we left out the middle. It's because it crosses over to Dedham. We don't pave Dedham streets. And I look at the map and it's, you know, it's... It's inconvenient for people who live on the street, but to illustrate this point, I think that's a good one to look at. But okay, thank you very much. Thank you to the filers and appreciate it. Thank you, Councilor Santana.

May I just add that we do have a policy on immigration. We don't ask anyone their immigration status.

Okay. Okay.

Thanks. Thank you, Councilor Weber. Pepen. Do you have any other questions?

No, I'll just redo when you're ready for closing statement.

How about you, Skoro? Actually, I was asked Superintendent or Chief, if there's anything else that you would like to add.

I'm just the summary that I think it's common sense legislation that protects both public safety and liability for both municipalities.

Absolutely. Well, thank you again, Superintendent and Chief for being here with us. I just want to ask central staff, do we have anyone for public testimony?

We only had Representative Consalvo, so I'm not sure if he's still here.

Yep, he's all set. All right, great. Well, Councilor Pepén, I'll hand it over to you for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to say thank you to the Chief of the Dedham Police and to Superintendent Chocolo for all your knowledge and for the work that you do for both your cities and towns. Again, common sense legislation here. We're making sure that things are done correctly and that if there is an emergency at an intersection or at the border of Hyde Park and Dedham that the appropriate department does show up. and that people actually get the help that they need. So I'm just glad that my colleague in government, Representative Consuelo is finally getting this done after 40 years in the making. So I'm thankful to him as well. I'm also, I want to give a shout out to my team, to my city council staff for just organizing this and making sure that everyone was here for today. And to you, Mr. Chair, thank you for organizing this hearing. So thank you. That's it.

Thank you, Councilor Pepén. Thank you for filing. I really want to thank the superintendent and the chief for being here and taking time out of your day. And as Councilor Pepén mentioned, a special thank you to Thank you, everyone. I hope you have a good rest of your day. This hearing on docket number 0978 is adjourned.

Thank you.