On the message and order, referred on March 2, 2022, Docket #0313, for an appropriation order in the amount of Twenty Seven Million Two Hundred and Five Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty Four Dollars ($27,205,854.00) from Fiscal Year 2022 community preservation fund revenues for community preservation projects at the recommendation of the City of Boston Community Preservation Committee, the committee submitted a report recommending that the order ought to pass. The report was accepted; the order was passed.
0313.0313 The Committee and Community on the Community Preservation Act two, which was referred to a March 2nd 2022 docket number 0313 message in order for an appropriation amount in the amount of $27,205,854 for fiscal year 2022. Community Preservation Fund Revenues for Community Preservation Projects at the recommendation of the City of Boston, Community Preservation Committee submits a report recommending the order ought to pass. Thank you. The Chair recognizes counsel clarity. Chair of the Committee on Community Preservation Act. Counsel Clarity of the Floor. Thank you, Mr. President. In accordance with General Laws, Chapter 44 BE The Community Preservation Committee recommended a total of 52 projects for consideration for the allowable uses of the community housing, open space and historic preservation. Of the approximately 27 plus million appropriation, 14,000,660 and 159,000 are being recommended for ten affordable housing projects. $6,141,357 recommended for 25 historic preservation projects and $6,404,338 recommended for 17 open space and recreation projects. This matter was sponsored by Mayor Michel Will, referred to the committee on March the second. As previously discussed at the last council meeting, the committee held a hearing on April 5th for public comment was taken and members of the administration provided testimony on all 52 projects. With that said, I am happy to report that the 52 recommended projects support and align with the objectives of the CPA and the priorities of this Council. And I know that is referenced in the opening prayer as we are in Holy Week. The prayers of the ministers and pastors in the congregation of a lot of churches were answered by the CPA this week, so congratulations to them and the other recipients of the many in much needed causes. And this was also a call to other organizations and groups and churches out there to take a long, hard look at CPA . Get the word out there also to my district and colleagues. If there are things in your district, if you are driving by something and you think it could be a good fit, that's kind of how this thing works. It's you get to introduce folks to CPA and introduce the CPA to the different organizations around the city. And as mentioned through the chair, it's an opportunity to kind of bring people and organizations together. So with that, as the chair, I recommend or could 0313 ought to pass then and that will be the full owner will be $27,205,854 from fiscal year 2022. Thank you. Thank you. Counsel. Before we take a vote on this, does any council wish to speak? The chair recognizes. Councilman here. Councilman here. You have the floor. Thank you, Councilor Flynn. And thank you to the chair. I just, um. I'm really excited to see all of these investments. The only thing that I just want to point out that in the affordable housing line, most of those projects are just earmarked to Dorchester, Roxbury on Jamaica Plain, which is great. I'm glad to see more affordable housing, but I think as we continue to move through these conversations in the future, I would love to see affordable housing being spread across the entire city so that we're looking at affordability across other spaces and places. I just want to want to name that and something for us to continue to hold ourselves accountable to that. Affordability should be across the entire city, not just in concentrated areas. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman. Here, the chair recognizes council block. Council, block. You have the floor. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Just as vice chair of the committee, I wanted to say add my support to the chair on approving the slate and also say that I really appreciated how much the administration came to also answer our questions, kind of about how CPR is being administered, how we measure the questions of equity, geographic distribution, how we make sure that the historic preservation program in particular supports the parts of our community that have amazing historic assets but don't necessarily have a endowment or a board or whatever organized around them. And I just as somebody who fought for EPA back in 2016, it's just really great to see it sort of coming in to that maturity and also to see the administration recognizing that it's still a work in progress in terms of how it puts all those things together. So I know I saw a docket go into Councilor Flaherty's committee today about the administrative budget for the year ahead. And so I think some of the conversations we started there will get to continue, but just really excited about this slate today. So thank you. Thank you. Counsel book the chair recognizes counsel Baker. Counsel Baker, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. President. I just have a quick question through the chair to the the other chair over here. I guess, does a 27 million does that deplete what we have in EPA now or do we start at a zero balance for 23 counsel? Clarity on the floor. Here, and I'll refer that one obviously to counsel because I think that they hold back, but then it's going to continue. It's a revolving door. So not necessarily depleted. This probably similar to what we do with the um. Yeah, there's a statutory hold back, but through the chair to counsel. Counsel to counsel blocking of the floor. Yeah. I would just say so there, there is a bit of a residual but it's not huge. But then we get a whole bunch more in like July 1st. So the. Wait at the CPA. For anybody watching at home. If you are thinking about applying for a CPA project, it's a rolling application process. So you and your group could submit an application today. If you go on the CPA website, there's actually a whole bunch of info sessions coming up in April and May, and I think the deadline for actually filing is all the way in August and then through the fall they work with projects around like viability and making you qualify for CPA. And then it's really the winter where we get this slate of projects and then voting in the spring. So it's kind of a year long process. Okay. Thank you, Counsel Bork. Thank you. Counsel Baker The chair recognizes Constitution Council and you have the floor. Thank you. And I want to echo something. Katzenbach said the administration really did a great job with their presentation in terms of allocation of CPA funding. I also just want to echo something, Counselor Flaherty said. When we're out and about, looking at, you know, what can need upgrades, I want us to pay particular attention to our immigrant communities. When we look at the distribution of who receive these funds, I don't see a lot of representation from immigrant congregations, from folks who may not have access to City Hall in ways that others do. So just a plug for us do be a lot more intentional about reaching out to communities that may not know about TPA or may not have access to folks who know about CPA. Thank you, Counsel. Again, the chair recognizes Counsel Fernandez Anderson. Counsel Fernandez Anderson. You have the floor. I guess just piggybacking off of my colleague sister occlusion. I think that, you know it's it's it's they did an amazing work presenting thank you to the chair and councilor Fox presented presentation and questions as well engagement it really I learned a lot from the presentation I think piggybacking off of Councilor Allusion, it's just really eye opening to see that access is everything. So everything that is getting preserved or rehabilitated and we'll probably see that in the budget as well, is about people who have access, people who are directly connected, people who know councilors, people who are politically connected as well. So if we continue that way in this city that we continue to rehabilitate and fix and put capital funds or preservation funds into projects that stakeholders or activists or people are of affluent communities. Even with the budget at the Tory budget process, with the community, we noticed that it was about 70% white and affluent communities, therefore empowerment , therefore knowledge and navigating of resources. So if we continue in this way, I would like to set precedent to at least to be if this is educational moment, an aha moment, whatever. Like let's get to the point where we actually put our money where our mouth is and actually start changing this thing. Because I heard one comment in there that was very offensive, extremely offensive. And to just like to even today, I can I'm still emotional about it about and I'm not going to call out names or anything like that. But it was about and it was a public thing. I guess I can talk about it. It was about Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, not wanting or not caring about fancy stuff. And so what the hell does that mean? We do care. We do want that stuff. The thing is, is that we're so poor, we want to eat. We're just so busy, we're just so poor that we are so busy to just advocate on getting housing and food. So, of course, we're not our first focus is not get beautifying and fancy stuff. So I just to go back and I don't want to get sidetracked here, but I want to open up and encourage everyone in moving forward with any types of programs or any types of funds or any type of capital that we really open up our mind to look at how we're redistributing funds and how are people connected and how people get money because it really seems lopsided. And it really, as I said, it really seems like it goes to affluent communities because they are more connected and know how to advocate and understand how to reach this money. Thank you. Counsel Fernandez innocent. Anyone else like to speak on this? The chair recognizes Councilor Braden. Councilor Braden, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. President. I also want to. This is a great program. Um, we're still ironing out some of the kinks is fairly new. It's, it's putting a huge amount of money into projects that wouldn't necessarily be funded otherwise. I do share my colleague's concern about the geographic spread of of the allocation across the city. But part of that is I know from my experience and also in Brighton, I have a list of the back of my paper here of things that possibly would be eligible for some EPA money. But very often it is. You need community groups, you need people who are volunteers, your historic society or your neighborhood groups to really dig in and do the work to prepare these presentations. So I hope that we can ensure that community groups all across the city or our neighborhoods that need support, technical support and guidance. I know that the EPA has that technical support and guidance to help, but that people will be emboldened to sort of think about their neighborhood and and ask for help to prepare a presentation for CPA funds going forward. So it's a great program. I hope that we can expand the reach and and the distribution of funds going forward. And thank you for all the work that's been done so far. It's incredible, incredible group of folks that review all the applications and and present the ones for approval. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Counsel Brain. Um, I would like to add that, you know, just want to say thank you to counsel, clarity, counsel and a former counselor counselor. Campbell Those three were really instrumental in bringing CPA two to Boston. So I want to recognize counsel by our counsel, clarity and counsel, former counsel Campbell bringing this to bringing us to the city. It's an incredible program, as everybody mentioned. Just. Just as just as a follow up to Councilor Braden's comment. In my district, I host a list. I host a session which each each neighborhood in my district on CPR itself, just try to encourage neighborhood associations to attend and to complete the application. So there's an important role for for us to play as well in the CPA staff will attend a meeting if we do ask them to attend. So let's all try to work together in bringing this program throughout the entire city. But let's also use our district city councils as well, because they have great contacts with neighborhood associations, community leaders and in the CPA will will gladly assist us in some of these outreach information sessions. So I just wanted to mention that in case it's helpful, anybody else like to speak on this matter. So thank you. Councilor Flaherty, the chair of the Committee on Community Preservation Acts. Councilor Farrelly seeks acceptance of the Committee report passage of Docket 0313. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. The ayes have it. The docket has passed. At this time. The chair recognizes counsel of our counsel. Our I apologize for not calling on you. Thank you so much, President Flynn. And I don't think that this will impact the vote at all. I unfortunately missed this hearing. And so I wasn't there for the process. But I because I missed the hearing, I set up a one on one meeting with the dean to ask these these questions ultimately. And so our office is hoping to. Look over the eligibility and create a list of eligible organizations and schools that didn't have access to these resources so that we can send a letter to those offices. I wanted to offer that to my colleagues because it's just we know it became it was evident to me as well as it became evident to everybody else that having access and knowing about the fund was a barrier to it. And so obviously that's gonna take some time to comb through the entire district and see, like, organizations or schools that are eligible. But our hope is that by sending kind of like a mail in letter and maybe doing some phone banking to like make calls to people to just let them know and having some of the community meetings that you just mentioned that it would increase. Access and just knowledge of the CPA program. I know that there are still going to be barriers because it is a grant. And although you don't have to be a grant writer to write it, you still have to have some sort of knowledge like council and said to put it together. But I think that letting people know about it is a good first step so we can actually ultimately see what the what the need is for more technical assistance and make sure that they, Dean and the CPA office, has all of the resources that they need to run the program effectively. Thank you, counsel. Lara. One final comment, Councilman. Here. Yes. I'm here for all of that comes with a lot of and you know, I'm in my, what, 28 months here on the council. And the more that I am in this building, the more I realize the access of accessibility and who has it and who doesn't. So I really do think as we continue to move forward, all of these conversations are going to need to be led through an equity lens, as my colleague Fernandes Anderson says all the time. And I think that while I am voting yes and moving this along this time, I do believe that we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard when it comes to city resources, because the haves and the have nots continue to persist. And I think there's 13 members of this body and we all have a responsibility and making sure that we're serving all of our our all of our constituents. And right now, this as the end and as doled out does not really, truly reflect equity. Thank you. Thank you, counsel here. Matters recently heard. Matters recently heard the possible action. Mr. Clerk, please read Docket. 01990199 order for a hearing on State Receivership for Boston Public Schools.