Order for a hearing regarding transparency and publication of the Organization of City Government, the City Charter, and City Ordinances. On motion of Councilor Breadon, Rule 12 was invoked to include Councilor Bok as co-sponsor.
Aye, I opposed nay. The ayes have it. Docket 0297 has passed. We will now come back to docket 0293. Mr. Clerk, please read docket 0293. Lucky number 0293. Councilors Braden and Lou offered the following order for a hearing regarding transparency and publication of the Organization of City Government, the City Charter and City Ordinances. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Clarke. The chair recognizes Councilor Braid and Councilor Braden. You have the full. The original co-sponsor to this docket, please. So, added Mr. Clarke, please. That Council block. Having just completed my first full term on this legislative body, there was a massive learning curve over the past two years and getting oriented to the structure of our city and its governing texts. The state statutes that make up our city charter and other special, special acts affecting our city and the ordinance that comprise our city code . Through the arc, through the City Archives, my office has found a 200 year institutional history of published and updating of publishing and updating official documents as the framework for our city, including the municipal registry from 1821 to 1991, listing government departments and officers and the Organization of City Government from 1911 to 2006, listing the enabling legislation and members of the city's boards and commissions. Our ordinances were first codified and published in 1995. In addition to a compilation of special acts affecting the city, the ordinance is passed by the council and approved by the mayor were supplemented to the 1975 ordinances are available in the clerk's office and are posted online and annually updated by the publishing company. However. Code. Publishing companies suggest a standard of record defying and consolidating codes every 10 to 15 years to resolve inconsistencies and conflicts. For example, Framingham, one of the city's newest communities to become a city, requires that their charter be that their charter requires in their charter a review of the charter charter every ten years and and renew and renewal and modification of the ordinances every five years. It has been nearly 50 years since Boston has comprehensively reviewed our code. 15 years since we have revisited compiling state statutes in our city charter as well as other special acts that affect our city. At the end of the last term, five councilors moved on from this body, and currently two thirds of their members are serving their first or second terms. We are in a period of significant shifts in our city and it is immensely important that we access the institutional knowledge we lean on to conduct legislative duties as stewards of the city. This hearing is intended to be an opportunity for partnership of the city council, the clerk's office, the administration and the law department to assess the current condition of our governing document. Documents. Consider adopting updated best practices for periodic maintenance and ensure necessary capacity, support and appropriations. Ensuring efficient, easy to read up to date and enforceable governing documents free of obsolete and convoluted language enables our constituents and laypersons to have free, open and easy access to understanding our local laws. Thank you. Thank you, counsel. Great. Would anyone else like to speak on this matter? The chair recognizes counsel. And Jen just want to say. Thank you for. He gave us a great reason for it. It's really just about transparency. I know. And I was, you know, just got elected. And even before that, trying to find the mean the updated charter to access the codes, having everything in one place online, we need to make sure that that's available to all of our residents so that everyone can access and feel like they know the governing structures of our city. So access to an updated charter, a clear organizational chart with the departments, all of that. We need access to it all. So thank you, Councilor Braden and I look forward to working with you and making sure that we can tell folks that we're working towards a transparent government here in our city. Thank you. Thank you. The chair recognizes counsel. Counsel. You have the floor. So much, President Flynn. And thank you to Counselor Lujan for partnering on this. I think it's a great time with the start of a new administration to really look at updating these things. Often we see a certain amount of reorganization with the new administration and and so that makes it a good time to try to codify that and make it clear also something that Councilor Edwards has frequently raised in this body is that technically and officially, like all offices and such of the city, are meant to be codified by the city council, and that is a practice that has fallen off. And so I think there's a good opportunity here to work with the administration and kind of understand the overall chart and think about how we're making that publicly accessible. Because I'll just say that we have often found with, you know, interns and research fellows in our office that even trying to explain to them where they can go to find the most basic city information is often a challenge. And and it's an ironic thing that a number of the compilations that Councilor Braden mentioned, they've sort of they've been discontinued because the idea was, oh, well, now we have the Internet, we don't need those books. But the books used to really gather it all in one place. And now you have to be a bit of a Googling wizard to find all of the things. And so I think, you know, making sure that we really have this information about city government in our operations transparently available and in one place for people is a very important thing that the council can do. So. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, counsel. Would anyone else like to like to speak on this? Would anyone else like to add their name? Please that counselor Arroyo Counselor Edwards Counselor Fernandez Andersen. Counsel Clarity. Counsel LRA counsel me here. Counselor Murphy Counsel. We're all pleased that the chair docket 0293 will be referred to the committee. On city services, in innovation technology. Mr. Carr, can we take a brief recess? Yes. We will. We'll be in brief recess for a few minutes. Thank you to the city, to the clerk for working with us on an on an issue. Um, Mr. Kirk, I want to go back to 0294, please. Yeah. At this time. The clerk. The chair recognizes city council member. Councilman. Here you have the floor. Q Mr. President, I have learned here in the last two years. But I'm I to always choose my battles and I'm going to fight when I need to. And this is one of those moments. So I'd like to put a motion to reconsider the committee, insert a docket to 94, was assigned to, I believe, city services and it should go to either the Education Committee, the workforce development and even for that matter, the Accountability and Transparency Committee. So I would ask the lead sponsor to support the reconsideration and move to one of my three committees. Thank you. Thank you. Counsel near me here. So there's a request. Is there is there a second? There was a second. Councilor Arroyo as second. And Council. Would you like the floor? I'm okay with. Thank you, counsel, and thank you counsel on the Hill for bringing this to our attention. We want to. Provide you that provide the this hearing to the education committee. So. 02029411 Albion to be reassigned to the Education Committee. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. Going into our trials. Yeah. Thank you. Mr. Clarke, we're going into personnel orders. Will you please read? Docket 0298.