The Boston City Council met on Wednesday, December 6 at at Boston City Hall.
• The City Council’s Special Committee on the Community Preservation Act to appoint four finalists to the Community Preservation Committee has been pushed to the following hearing date, Wednesday, Dec. 23. City Councilor Michael Flaherty said that City Council is expecting the five from the administration and want to hold off until those are received.
• Passage of the ordinance to provide for the safe disposal of sharps will be held off until the New Year. The sponsor Councilor Annissa Essaibi George said that she would re-file the order in a new draft in the next session to reflect all of the input she has received from community. The ordinance will ask pharmacies to provide a place for safe disposals of used needles at all store locations.
• An order for a hearing to discuss the sexual harassment policy in the Boston City Council was called for by City Councilors Josh Zakim and Ayanna Pressley. After several high-profile cases across the country, including the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, have recently shed light on the considerable scope of this issue, the Councilors wanted to provide an important opportunity for the Boston City Council to examine its own policies and procedures regarding sexual harassment policy. The hearing will make sure that the Boston City Council has best practices in place to ensure the safety of all employees, visitors, and others and if any incidents do occur, that systems are in place to properly address complaints.
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>"Campbell says she will focus better bringing constituent suport to the city through her role, prioritizing innovatine tools and new technologies into the council and continuing to seek increases in transparency." --By Jennifer Smith
Records Management at Boston City Council is deficient...
a) Out of reach City Stenographer Stenographic Records of Council Public Meetings... Out of reach for hard of hearing folks, out of reach for ESL English Second Language folks, out of reach for all folks.
b) Permutable Table/Chart of Roll Call Votes in Public Meetings of City Council permutable by Topic/by Councilor/by other interesting parameters and easy to read, understandable... No permutable Table/Chart available.
c) The latest version of the City Charter isn't available online in searchable format... and annotated.
d) The updated City Code isn't available online... and annotated.
e) Redistricting Maps of Districts need to be made more readily available online clearly showing the Names of Bordering Streets for Districts.
The lack in Managing Council Records affects the balance of power in City Government. A better balance of power when Boston City Council is more open managing Council records.
Two Stenographers record Council Public Meetings. The first, the City Stenographer records the more accurate Transcript on site during the Public Meeting in the Council Chamber. The second, the less accurate Captioning Stenographer off site at WGBH Media Access Group Captions from video transmission.
Article 2.3 of the City Contract for Stenographic Services provides everything produced is City Property.
New Council Central Staff are needed at Boston City Council more interested in updating practices, updating technology/software than in protecting out of date practices.
New Legislative Support Staff are needed for maintaining the City Council Document System Database and updating the City of Boston Code, see page 312 at
https://budget.boston.gov/img/pdfs/volume-3-complete.pdf
New Legislative Support Staff are needed for Boston City Council more interested in updating practices, updating technology/software than in protecting out of date practices.
Legislative Support Staff Division of the Boston City Clerks Office fail to put many important City Notices online in Searchable format.