Boston City Council Looks At Logan Flight Patterns, Small Businesses Week & Artists, Elections & More

Councillor-At-Large Michelle Wu provides notes from Boston City Council meetings. The Boston City Council considered the items below and more at their April 15th and April 22nd, 2015 meetings:

2015 Preliminary Municipal Elections: The Council voted unanimously to move the date of the Preliminary Elections in Boston from September 22nd, 2015 (the 3rd Tuesday after the 1st Monday in September), to September 8th, 2015, in observance of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur holidays. September 29th, 2015 was not an option because by law there must be 60 days between the Preliminary and Final elections, so this would keep the rest of the Election calendar intact. 

Logan Airport Flight Patterns: Councilors Zakim and McCarthy reported back on a hearing held by the Special Committee on Transportation, Public Infrastructure, Planning & Investment on the FAA's changes to flight paths at Logan Airport that have resulted in a concentration of flights over Boston neighborhoods. This recent change has the planes flying low over neighborhoods and leading to increased noise and pollution. Councilor McCarthy asked that this issue remain in committee to give the FAA an opportunity to respond and to have working sessions. He also recommended that we include our federal representatives in those working sessions.

Boston Arts Academy Renovations: The Council voted unanimously to approve the $1.7 million dollar feasibility study and design of Boston Arts Academy. The item received its first reading and vote on April 1, 2015. Today was the 2nd vote, in accordance with the proceducre for approving appropriations and loan orders. 

Acoustic on Main: Acoustic on Main is a 10-day initiative to help neighborhood small businesses recover from a tough winter, while also showcasing the city’s arts and culture talent by encouraging acoustic performances throughout Main Streets districts (no permitting involved!).
In concert with National Small Business week May 1st-10th, any Main Streets small business is invited to host acoustic performances with up to 5 instrumental or vocal performers between 4-9 PM - no need to apply for a live entertainment license and no fees.  The below registration links are to help the City track and promote participation.  An official promotional website will be coming soon.  Please help encourage businesses and performers to register, and save the dates to spend time in our neighborhood small business districts May 1st-10th!
Musician Registration and Business Registration

Paid Parental Leave: Today the Council's Government Operations committee held a public hearing on the Paid Parental Leave ordinance that Councilors McCarthy, Jackson, and Wu introduced in partnership with Mayor Walsh at the March 25th City Council meeting.  The ordinance would require the City to offer paid leave to new parents—moms AND dads—for birth, stillbirth, or adoption, and including same-sex couples.  Currently, there is no paid leave available, so new parents must use vacation or sick days if they wish to spend time with their new baby but can’t afford to take unpaid leave. (See more details of the ordinance and the text at www.michelleforboston.com/paid-parental-leave).

For complete notes from the April 15th and April 22nd meetings, visit www.michelleforboston.com/notes or sign up to receive these notes automatically each week by email at www.michelleforboston.com/sendmenotes.

Boston City Council Tackles Budget, Art Feasibility, Parking Fines & More

Councillor-At-Large Michelle Wu provides notes from Boston City Council meetings. The Boston City Council considered the items below and more at their April 1 and April 8, 2015 meetings:

Annual Boston Health Assessment: The Boston Public Health Commission filed the completed 2014-2015 annual assessment of the health of Boston residents. This should be available online shortly.

Boston Arts Academy & Josiah Quincy Upper School: We voted to approve orders to conduct new feasibility studies for separate buildings for the Boston Arts Academy (Fenway) and Josiah Quincy Upper School (Chinatown) with applications for reimbursement from the Massachusetts School Building Authority where appropriate. The City had conducted a feasibility study for $4M ($3M of it reimbursed by the MSBA) to co-locate the schools in Chinatown, but the resulting design ended up being too expensive and the joint project was stalled. These new orders would authorize appropriations for new feasibility studies. 

FY16 Budget: Mayor Walsh and his team presented the first version of their FY16 budget to the Council this morning. It is a $2.86B operating budget, up 4.4% from last year.  67% of revenues come from property tax levy, with additional new revenue from building permits.  Boston Public Schools make up 36% of expenditures, about $1B. You can find the whole budget, executive summary, and departmental details at www.cityofboston.gov/budget. Key highlights include:

• 100 more pre-K seats and 16 schools implementing an extended day, with a total phase in over the next three years
• Parks Department funding at highest-ever, with tree-pruning funds and 2nd shift of crew for parks maintenance, allowing more turnover and use of parks. 
• $1.75M for affordable housing focused on elderly housing
• Arts funding has increased 33%, with the City nearly doubling their match for the Mass. Cultural Council's grants to arts organizations
• $22M snow budget increase, along with some key equipment purchases planned
• Creation of a diversity officer position for the Boston Fire Department
• Fully funding the City's youth summer jobs at the same level as last year, even with increased costs due to the minimum wage increase
• Innovation: Creation of a 311 centralized hotline for the City, $6M for new smart parking meters, and $500K to create an electronic bluebook of street signs and regulations citywide to better analyze parking policies

Parking Fines & Towing: Mayor Walsh filed an ordinance that would allow the Transportation Commissioner to designate Pilot Zones where fines for not moving your car during posted street cleaning times would be increased from $40 to $90 while making it a non-towable offense.  The neighborhoods that would be Pilot Zones have not been set.  The matter was referred to the Government Operations committee for a hearing.

Fenway Parking Fines: We voted to pass an amended version of Councilor Zakim's ordinance to increase the fines for parking in residential spots without a resident parking sticker 2 hours before, during, and after a Red Sox game and also during other events as designated by the City.  The penalty will be increased from $40 (which is comparable or even cheaper than Game Day parking in the area) to $100.  To address concerns voiced at the hearing about confusion from having special parking rules in a single neighborhood and a potential negative impact on small businesses, a sunset clause was added that would have the ordinance expire December 31, 2015 for more evaluation on the data.

For complete notes from the April 1st and April 8th meetings, visit www.michelleforboston.com/notes or sign up to receive these notes automatically each week by email at www.michelleforboston.com/sendmenotes.