Councilor Baker called Docket #0265, An order authorizing the City of Boston to accept and expend a grant funded through the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery fund (CLFRF) in the Treasury of the United States established by section 9901 of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) awarded by the United States Department of the Treasury for $10,000,000.00, from the Committee on Boston's COVID-19's Recovery. No objection being heard the matter was before the body. Councilor Baker moved to amend Docket #0265 from $10,000,000.00 to $5,000,000.00. Seconded by Councilor Murphy Motion Prevailed; yeas 12; (Absent 1 Mejia). Docket #0265 as amended did not Pass; yeas 5 (Baker, Flaherty, Flynn Murphy and Worrell), nays 7 (Arroyo, Bok, Breadon, Coletta, Fernandes Anderson, Lara and Louijeune). (Absent 1 Mejia)
0265 In order authorizing the City of Boston to accept and expand a grant funded through the coronavirus, state and local fiscal recovery fund. C o. F. R f. In the Treasury of the United States, established by Section 9901 of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a r awarded by the United States Department of the Treasury. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Recognizes Council Bach, Chair of the Committee on Boston COVID 19 Recovery Council. You have the floor. Thank you so much, Mr. President. Last night we had a great hearing on the potential of utilizing ARPA funds to support the Dorchester Field House was sponsored by a Councilor Baker and I want to thank colleagues for joining councilors Murphy, Flaherty, Louis Flynn, Worrell, Edwards and Fernando Sanderson and also to councilman here for sending a letter in support. It was you know, it's it's great to have colleagues in these chairs, but it was even better to have the young people here last night. And it was really, I think, inspiring to see what it looks like when young people are involved in a planning process. And then they actually get to talk about it and talk about the way that they have seen their agency reflected. So I think that was a real highlight for us here from the Youth Advisory Board panel, as well as being joined by the Martin Richard Foundation and the Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester. So we heard extensive presentations from Bob Scannell, Dutch Joyce, Kevin de Blair. And then, as I mentioned, that youth advisory board and also heard from Mr. Bill Richard and a large number of community testifiers. So, um, the Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester, in partnership with the Martin Richard Foundation, is proposing a field house that is designed to be adjacent to the depth. The McCormick Clay School is on a ground lease from land. One of the subjects of the the conversation was about making it deeply accessible to students. So they've been working on an MBA to make sure that both every student there gets access as a member of the club, and also that during the day it could actually be used as an extension of the school facilities. So I think we had a really robust, exciting conversation. And I also just want to, as chair, say that, you know, what Councilor Baker was modeling last night is that if councilors have proposals that they want to have considered obesity, the American rescue plan funds sort of. In concert with us looking at the proposals that are coming across the transom today from the mayor, that I encourage folks to file a docket and that my intention is to hold hearings on kind of some of the subject matter areas that the mayor's made proposals on and to co notice that with dockets from counselors that are related to this subject area. So I think, you know, this has to be for us to spend these one time funds in the best possible way. It has to be a collective conversation between the council and the mayor. And I think we had a very good go at that last night. So I just really want to thank everybody who testified we were here until 8 p.m., but it was just about the most cheerful till 8 p.m. hearing I've been a part of. And I think the students who are here in the chamber were taking photos and investigating the space after 8 p.m. and yeah, and I think some of them are probably coming for our seats before too long. So with that, Mr. Chairman, because we're continuing to consider the American Rescue Plan funds, I would ask that this docket remain in committee and also would obviously defer to the sponsor if you wanted to say a few words. Thank you, Counselor. BLOCK The chair recognizes Counselor Baker. Counsel Baker, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. President. Is. My concern with the ARPA money is. That we are going to spend it all and not have anything to show for it. I mean, we we're in our budget initial discussion today and basically there was 350 million there that that they are looking to just send around 30 later gone. I don't know about anybody else, but I haven't been asked my opinion on where I think the money should be spent. This was a way for me to get my opinion on record here and in for a little bit of history. On a Columbia Point was formerly the city dump, and it was a Columbia Point housing project, which is probably the most overlooked, one of the worst in the country, but one of one of the first. Also, they sent in the I believe it was early fifties. They sent 5000 families over on the on the peninsula one way and one way out. No stores, no amenities, no playgrounds, nothing. The peninsula is a different place now. We have we have Dorchester Bay City looking to do some building over there that will connect on to UMass. And we have this project right here in a time where we have. Not just kids, but all of our families are suffering to some degree with what just happened to us and in COVID and just being shut in and trying to figure out how we how we get on with life and how we heal as a city , as communities. And I believe in my heart that this building here. We'll go a long way at doing that. And $10 million is a lot of money. It's a big yes. I've never asked for $10 million. Someday, maybe I'll be asking for 10 million for myself someplace but 10 million out of three. It's not from Ways and Means to 10 million. 10 million out of the 350 million that's available to us now is 2.8%. 10 million is 2.8% of what's left on the $350 million. And that's not including what's going into what the school has. BP's budget has they have another 400, $500 million. This project this project will provide everything from indoor fields. So when we when we have 15 feet of snow, we can still play soccer. We can still play baseball. We can still play lacrosse in the middle of the winter. We'll have basketball courts will have. We'll have. Sorry. We will have performance spaces. We will have spaces that that will will be dedicated to kids with disabilities that may have sensory issues. Will, will, will, will allow the challenge of leagues to come in. And the challenge leagues are set up for kids that have disabilities that are in wheelchairs so they can experience sport. There'll be a test kitchen in the. Basically this this project, if we do end up coming for a vote, we're kind of figuring out how we end up doing. The vote isn't for me. It isn't my vote. The vote was for the kids that were here last night that totally amazed a lot of people that I think were in the audience. And it's this sort of investment in our future, in our kids that's going to allow them to be successful into the future. We're a different city now than we were 1980 and 1980 when I was growing up. All fields are all terrible where I mean, the best baseball I played was on. I was on a hard parking lot that it shouldn't be the case anymore. We have technology. We have really, really good. Building systems where this building will be teaching and. Training. And healing. Not just kids, but families for generations. And part of the larger picture, this will be infrastructure that will be community infrastructure before we have a whole lot more development over there in the next 10 to 15 years, akin to the seaport. Not necessarily to that scale. But there's going to be a lot of building that happens over there. And one of the criticisms on the seaport is there's no space for families or kids to run, to play, to. To have a community in this would be in their first and a $10 million investment with from the city of Boston would allow us to really position. The large foundations in the city to say, okay, the city's committed. The state will. I shouldn't say will, but I feel confident the state's going to come up with a good a good bit of money also. And the whole peninsula, the whole Columbia Point Peninsula. And when I look at the Columbia Point Peninsula, I do it from standing with the with the globe in front of me. The globe is now going to be is is is the bead. It's going to be 700,000 square feet of lab space research and development, which is part of excuse me, it's going on so long, but I need to get this out, which is part of the whole. New industry that's coming to Boston. It's it's biotech. It's high tech manufacturing. We don't know the jobs. None of us here know the jobs. You know what plumbers are? We know what crop and design. We don't know. Well, I don't know. Maybe I'm maybe I'm being a some making assumptions, but we don't know what the people in those labs are doing. The globe's going to be training towards those jobs. The project at Dorchester Bay City is going to be connected on to on to UMass is going to be training towards those jobs. The whole peninsula is going to avail us the opportunity for kids to build. So. The peninsula is going to be 0 to 16. Training and development of young minds. And this is the first step of it right here. And it's an amazing, amazing building concept. And I think that when it gets built. Regardless if the city gives us 10 million or not, this thing's going to get built. It helps us a lot if the city is committed. But when this thing gets built, we're all going to be able to look at and point out. I see. I want one of those in my district and we're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to take that model and replicate it because it's not just like when I was growing up, it was all sports. It was that was the only outlet you had. We weren't thinking about we weren't thinking of singing. We weren't thinking of poetry. It's all different here now. There's so many different ways to form the child. This building is going to form. The child is going to form. The community. And the most important thing that I heard last night was from a young kid that said, we want to add to the good in the world. This is going to add to the good in the world. And that's why it's a formal request for $10 million across the hall to say, look at it. Pay attention to it. This is the way we should be spending our ARPA dollars. And I don't you know, I don't want to poo poo on any other way that we're spending ARPA dollars. I don't necessarily agree with a lot of it because I think it's going to feel like a Vegas weekend when we're done that pockets are empty, we got nothing to show for it. Right. I want to be able to point to it. Look at this thing right here, $10 Million. You know, we won in Vegas. We hit it craps. I'm bringing 100,000 home or whatever. You know what I'm saying? Making the analogy. I don't want to feel like we went to Vegas and it's all gone. So thank you for allowing me to ground on there a bit. Mr. President. Thank you, Counsel Baker. The chair recognizes. Councilor Fernandez Anderson. Council. Fernandez Anderson. You have the floor. If it's okay with you. Council President, it's council me here. Council Murphy. Council Fernando Sanderson. Then council for clarity. Okay. The chair recognizes calcium here. Calcium here you have the floor. So in this tired of me standing up, that's why he's trying to silence me. You know that's not going to happen. So I just quickly wanted to say, and I really do appreciate Councilor Baker's advocacy on behalf of this particular project. I also would be remiss if I didn't mention that there was a little bit of a controversy in regards to this very specific piece of land. The McCormick students, the faculty and some of the folks really wanted to keep that space green and there is some tension there. And I think it's important for us as we continue to move forward in this conversation that, you know, in the true spirit of really reflecting community voice, that we, you know, we honor that and we just uplift it because that is definitely something that was said in the presidency or that community voice is also being overlooked. So I just wanted to name that. And while I appreciate, you know, the whole vision of what the city could look like ten years from now, I also want to be 100% that the city, what it's going to look like ten years from now is not going to be a lot of us being able to go to this beautiful community center that that we're fighting for, because we're not going to be able to afford to live here in the city. So I think that while it's really beautiful and I'm excited to to support this initiative, I think it's also important for me to uplift. The fact of the matter is, is that every day the city changes and the beauty, the beautiful things that we're fighting for, most likely most of our people are not going to be able to benefit from it. So while I support this project, I want to do so with naming that. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Here, the chair recognizes Councilor Murphy. Councilor Murphy, you have the floor. Thank you. So it was a very inspiring hearing. And I just want to thank my D-3 city councilor Frank Baker for advocating so strongly for this project, but always showing up in the district and advocating for your constituents. So as one of your constituents, I did just want to take this time to say thank you. Thank you, Counselor Murphy. The chair recognizes counselors and counselors. And you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank Counselor Bach and Counselor Baker for holding this hearing last night. Those students were extremely impressive. I have obviously a bias for some of the students. I'm a McCormick kid myself, and a lot of McCormick kids were here. I played basketball, track and field at McCormick because we didn't have a good track. We didn't have our own track. At McCormick, we had to use RBC High's track, right? A private school. In. But we also. Use the outdoor area for recess. And I think that it's important as we look at this project, to also think about the outdoor space and how we can maintain as much outdoor space as possible for the McCormick kids. There's also the issue of McCormick is merging with Buchla. That's going to add a lot more students to the campus, students who should be able to access the outdoors pretty freely. I'm also really encouraged by a memorandum of agreement that will exist between the project and the school so that we make sure that our our students in the area, both in the DeVry, the McCormick, BCA and McCormick UCLA, are able to access the site in a welcoming and and fully accessible way. So I look forward to further discussions about this project and also to honoring the voices of those who live in Columbia Point. They also presented a letter before the BPA announcing some of their concerns, which I think that we just need to take into account when we're considering this project. I also think, Councilor Baker, because last night, one of the things that he mentioned was that this project is a it could be a really great project in response to the reckoning that we are having and experiencing here in our city and in the country, trying to find spaces where we can find common ground. I think this project, especially with the use of ARPA funds, would really create a precedent and I think that is a precedent that I'd like to see a lot of our communities, especially communities of color use and how we're sending and supporting private initiatives, even though it's a nonprofit, it's not it's not a public initiative. And then, yeah, I think something else that was said was we should be creating beautiful buildings as a city. We can do that. We have the capacity to do that. And I'd like to see us build more beautiful buildings that really honor and affirm the dignity of all of our young ones. We as a city have the capacity and ability to do that with the land that is in within our purview. And so I want to I want to see us doing more of that. Thank you. Thank you, counsel. And the chair recognizes counsel. Flannery Council. Flannery, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. President. Just want to go on record and support, strong support of this. And I think it's important to note that both of these organizations have a stellar track record in delivering real deliverables to children and to families in Dorchester. I referenced at the hearing it's a it's a it's a gem of a location. You think about the Columbia Point housing project across the street, depending on who's golfing. It's a five iron from the memorial. McCormick, where I was born. The old have a projects, right? Think about the partnerships with the McCormack and the Devore BC High UMass. All the jobs that are going to be coming online at the Bayside Expo. Don't forget the Geiger Gibson Community Health Center there and the the plan to revitalize the JFK train station. So lots of opportunity down there if there's ever an organization or partnership that is going to help close these gaps. We're looking at them. And I think it's also important to note the the author or the first speaker did mention that the collective partnerships, both in the private and public sector, that this this ask there are there are matches that are lined up with that match. To put this in a shovel ready position, which is what clearly we want to make sure that happens. So, I mean, if you can think about what is sort of been in front of me and my team in terms of the future of that peninsula, it's absolutely amazing. And to think about the pipelines that are coming from these schools to those other institutions to those jobs, particularly in the STEM field, will be servicing these kids in the sort of the first two priorities will be the high point. The housing development in just on the other side of the circle will be kids from the Marilyn McCormack I mean sky is the limit that not not hard to get excited about this so I think this will be it's a modest request frankly particularly given that the matches that are lined up to make this a reality for the folks over there on Mount Vernon Street and for futures to come, you know, the track record of these organizations, not fly by night, not Johnny come lately is not mediocre kicking butt in their respective fields. And it's about children and families and they will be served. Our most vulnerable residents in the city. Thank you. Thank you, counsel. Finally that she recognizes counsel FERNANDEZ Innocent Council. Fernandez Innocent. You have the floor. Thank you. Councilor Baker, thank you so much for actually filing this. And. And before I go in to talk about why I support the project, I go back to my point about, you know, it's it's so it's one thing to actually know that there's a disparity in certain areas, but it's another than to have to get people on technicalities or bureaucratic processes before you can have access. So it's I've been working in the last hour, my my office and my team and I have been working the last three months in building asset mapping comparative data across the city and looking at the deficits. We have a list of those companies and nonprofits and organizations. We know exactly everything that Roxbury needs by now because we've been doing the study for the last four months, actually, before I even got inaugurated. But then there's the other thing that in 2022, Boston understands deficits and yet only provides to those who have access. That's odd. And so then the question is, it's like you slapping me twice. You know the problem. You don't fix the problem. But then when you fix the problem, you give the other side double the money of what you could give me or what you end up giving me. So we are going to be looking at those things to see if any of what I'm saying makes sense. But I learned a lot from the presentation yesterday. Oh my God. Like you have the resources Boys and Girls Club does. I connected to everything there. The three girls that were here, they were all West African, right? You pull them my heart strings. The Burtons, you had BPD. Like it was such a sorrow and such a influential presentation. How could I not? It was holistic. It was impressive. We want one of every BP's. We want BP to look like that. Right. So I agree with confusion. If we are to sit for forward, is this what we're doing? This is a new culture, y'all. We're setting precedents. This is what we're doing. What we can do is actually access money. This is what this government says. We can access money. And if you don't have access. You, Counselor Laura, will. Help us with technicalities. And if you don't know how to present counsel, Baker will help with that. And if you see disparity, counselor, me here will help you advocate. We have what it takes. We have the money and we have all of that. Yet I'm I'm I guess I'm just spilling over because I'm looking at all of the projects that's already proposed and I'm looking at what's happening. And now I'm learning little by little, all snap. I'm a rookie. I don't know, Jack. That's why it's just bypassing me so fast. And meanwhile, people are, like, suffering, so I support you. It doesn't take away from your project or their project. It doesn't take away right it right wrongs wrong. If it's a good project, let's support it and let's keep it moving. Let's do the same for other communities. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Fernandez Anderson for I call counsel Baker. I just wanted to weigh in. I had the opportunity to attend last night's meeting as well. And just listening to the young, young children there from from the McCormick School talk about how important this this facility would be to them. They don't they don't have money. They don't have any influence. A lot of them a lot of them actually live in public housing developments. But they're. I said that they should have a state of the art facility. That's as nice as any one in the city or nice as anyone in Lincoln of Wellesley. Those kids certainly deserve it. Council So I already mentioned that it's walking distance and as did Counsel Baker from the Mary Ellen McCormack Public Housing Development, which council counsel Baker represents. But it's probably the most difficult and challenging environment, living environment in the city. Um, so I just want to say thank you to Counsel Baker for advocating hard for your constituents. And I appreciate that that type of level of advocacy that you've provided. Most of them. Most of them have kids, kids of color, kids in public housing developments. A lot of a lot of African-American kids, black necks kids, a large, large Vietnamese population as well. And in Dorchester. So just want to recognize the live work counselor Counsel Baker did on that. Let me let me ask let me call on Counselor Baker. Now, Counsel Baker, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to make a couple more points, and I apologize. So in 1974 for us here in Boston, on my side of the city, I was passed over to the devil to the devil school. This parking lot looks exactly the same that I did in 1974. So for us to try and hold on to this, I think is a bit shortsighted. We should be shooting for more B.S. high across the street is is getting ready to spend $49 million on fields and field houses directly across the street. So that means our kids in the Devil McCormac will be looking out over the fence saying, Look what's going on over there for them. BCI had one benefactor that gave them the $49 million. We're asking for ten to go towards this end. And some things happened in the redesign about the open space because before the kids were totally involved, it was more like a large one story kind of took up a lot. It took up a lot of light through the student council. They pulled the building in and went vertical with it. So it's it's it's on, it's on floors which provides. An open line on the on the front on Mount Vernon Street, which would be the only one on front on on Mt. Vernon Street. There will be outdoor basketball courts will be a lot of outdoor space here. That's that wasn't there in the original design and that came from involving that involving the teens. There's three housing developments that speak to ten years down the line. There's three housing developments, like you mentioned, within walking distance of the Harbor Point. Of course, Miriam Cormack and Old Colony, all calling might be, you know, might be a little more than a walk. But certainly if you have something to walk towards, you just go towards it. And that's I think, in those three developments is almost 2000, 2000 kids under the age of 21. So, I mean, and those are those are units that are going to be deeply affordable. For all of our lifetimes in those in those housing developments. So in 021202125, which is where this city, which is part of my district, which is where I grew up, has been identified as the most diverse district, the most diverse zip code in the entire country. So that means all people are congregating in zero two, 125 and this is going to be in 0 to 1 two five . But it's not just going to be 40125. It's going to be for Mattapan. If they if they can get there, it's going to be for South Boston. It's going to be for whoever wants to get there. I envision citywide track meets the citywide basketball tournaments. So I think. I understand the the the tension, the initial tension that was about saving green space. But I challenge anybody to go look at the green space is a green space. Is it green space? Is brown grass. Green space is a cracked parking lot with some paint on. Is that green space? I don't know. I think this is. Far more. Important. Far more. It will be it will deliver far more in the development of our kids than just open space. Thank you. Thank you. Counsel Baker. Docket 0265 will remain in committee motions. Orders, resolutions. Mr. Clerk, please read 05100510.