City Hall

(traffic humming) (siren blaring) (traffic humming)

WOMAN

Is it an emergency situation that you would need an on-call animal control officer to go there?

MAN

Do you by any chance know if your parents were married at the time of your birth? She wants to speak about food tax. And is the control box door open or missing? So we just got a call from Boston Fire reporting a one-alarm fire at 33 Browning Ave.

in Dorchester, and there's no displacements at this time. Just wait one moment while I do some research for you. I'm going to open up a case for Parks, the Parks Department. They deal with trees.

We got a call from Boston Police. At the intersection of VFW Parkway and Lagrange Street in West Roxbury, the traffic signal is out. Yeah, I just want to confirm that you had it. I have a constituent that's asking about road maintenance.

Is it okay if I put him through? Is it a stray dog? Yeah, she said she couldn't see a visible cause. Like, there was no downed wires or anything.

Um, but the whole block appears to be out.

WOMAN

And is it blocking both the roadway and the sidewalk?

MAN

Constituent's saying her landlord turned off her electricity to her apartment. She said that she's currently going back and forth with him for other things. They're in court with something, and she thinks she turned it off on him. (distant chatter) (door shuts)

MARTY WALSH

I had a meeting with some community activists, and one of the biggest pushbacks I got was not on the police. It's after the police do their thing, after an incident happens, what's the follow-up on trauma? And, you know, we have the counselors, obviously, and police have their counselors, too, I explained, and the, you know, police walks, works with the family through, I think, the burial, at least.

WILLIAM GROSS

Yes, we do. And then what happens after that? And what happens to the greater community, like, what happens to the group of friends and, and, you know... I know we're taking, I'm taking criticism for Carlos Henriquez.

Part of the role for Carlos Henriquez was going to be to coordinate services to make sure that there's follow-up. So, for example, kind of like O.N.S. When there's something going on in the community, whether it's a development or street cleaning, or whatever it is, Jerome's shop, O.N.S., goes in and does their thing, and they're working with the BPDA and they're working with the Housing... And they're working with all the different departments, and they're kind of the constant in the neighborhood.

And I thought of, and it hasn't been fully vetted yet, but I thought of doing something like that around the streets. So when the police, when your work is done, what happens then? And we're not going in and, and we have, we have Public Safety doing their thing for a while, trying to work to keep areas calm and combat violence, and the street workers are out there doing their thing. And, but there's not coordination, necessarily, of services.

So when, you know, a person gets killed, and there's a lot of, kind of, indirect concern and wreckage of that, we don't, we don't have a coordinated effort per se to coordinate that. And I thought of, you know, Carlos's work on returning citizens and working in different areas could slowly build up capacity and bring on individuals like O.N.S. that will be actually the, kind of the intake coordinators in the community, and work with everyone that needs to work with it. Because I think what happens now is, you know, when we have, like we did a few months ago, when we had eight people killed in ten days, everyone's looking for a blame.

Hm. You know, police get blamed because the violence is up. Street workers get blamed because they're not there. Trauma counselors get blamed because they're not there.

Everyone, it's, city gets blamed because it's happened in the city. Everyone's kind of get blaming, and our thing is, can we coordinate services so there's a better coordination of services to kind of follow these families through, and maybe get into a family and see that, you know, wow, there's really some difficult situations here, and can we help them individually to kind of connect them to services as things move on? That's the intention behind Carlos's role, and that's, whether it's Carlos or whoever it is, he was the person that I thought of because he understands the streets and he understands the community, and he's done the work both as prior to being elected and after elected. He's done a lot, a lot of different networks, so that's kind of why I think the missing link here of...

I think we have a lot of great things going on. I think the police department does some great programming. I think (inaudible) does some great programming. And I think that there's an opportunity now through, not necessarily through Nora's office, but what Nora's doing, and how do we tie it in?

Because you can't do it, you're, like... Nora needs to have a contact. "Who should I call?" Like, "Instead of me calling, you know, Marty and, and Will "and Chris and Mark and Danny and Conan and Jerome and Laurie and me," is there one person she can contact that can actually help pull all this stuff together and that will be a liaison in the neighborhood?

So that's kind of... GROSS

I like that. That's what I'd look at. And that came out of a conversation, it was with, (inaudible) put a meeting together, and the room was a very honest meeting. It was a very honest, people in the community, like, were very...

It wasn't a bad meeting. It was, like, one of those direct meetings, and people didn't understand all the work that we're doing. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And, like, I don't think we do a good enough job of telling that story, what we actually do in the city.

We also don't do a good job, I don't think, of tying it all in together. (voiceover): So that's kind of where I think we want to go with that. So, I'm just letting you know that I've got a list of people. So, you guys, if anyone wants to come in, you may just want to let me know, so I can give the mayor the list of people that need to see him before the, you know, before the weekend.

MAN

What is the budget? The budget is a set of financial documents. It's how we spend money. It's how we raise money, it's how we decide how to pay everyone's salary.

But it's also a statement of priorities. It's kind of the one annual time of year that the city can take a pause and take stock of what's going on, what are the decisions we've made, what are the decisions that we need to make, how is the city changing, and how do we make investments to do that. The budget refers to both the day-to-day operational side of things, so that's everyone's salaries, that's what you pay for utilities, that's what you pay for heat, and it also means the capital plan, which is what we do for five-year, sort of, big projects, like roads and bridges and schools and all the big stuff that you see out there. So, Boston's budget parameters.

What we say by that, we mean, we can't do everything that everybody wants all at the same time. And the reason that is is because we live in a really kind of constrained, fiscally tight structure. What I mean by that is, we can't run a deficit like the federal government. The state law requires us to have a balanced budget every year, and we are capped in what we can raise in our own revenues.

And what I mean by that is, we're capped by our property tax at two-and-a-half percent, but we also don't have the ability to, say, raise an income tax like other cities across the country, or the state. So we're living within a pretty tight, fiscally constrained world. Which means we have to make strategic investments, we have to make priorities, and we have to make tradeoffs between what those things are. The reason that that is a good thing at the end of the day is because when there is an economic downturn, like there was in, say, 2010, we do a lot better than the state, and we do a lot better than other cities and towns across the country.

A lot of other cities and towns had massive layoffs in 2010 when the economy tanked. The state obviously ran a billion-dollar budget deficit. This city, because of the way it's run and because of the way the sort of history of financial management has gone, actually came out on the other side pretty unscathed. And frankly, we avoided a lot of the pitfalls and a lot of the negative consequences that came with the economic recession in 2010.

So what do we have for revenue at the end of the day? So we kind of collect money in a few different buckets, as you can see right here. The FY19 budget is about $3.3 billion. 70% of that comes from property taxes.

State aid makes up of about 13%, and then we have other revenue, excises, local permits, all these other types of things that are out there in the world. Property tax is vital. Property tax is not only the two-and-a-half percent that we grow every year on our existing property, but also what we call new growth, which is sort of the new buildings, the new residential and new, all the new construction that comes into the city every year, which is a little bit harder to predict, but at the end of the day, is a lot of what we build our bread and butter on. That's how we've been able to make pretty strategic investments over the last two years, and continue to kind of push the city forward.

State aid, state aid is on there at 13%. Ten years ago, that used to be about 20%, and 20 years ago, it used to be 30%. So that means that the state used to represent a much bigger portion of our budget. Now, that's both a decrease in what we call state aid at the end of the day, and property tax has been so strong in the last few years, that that's actually helped increase our reliance on that, as well.

So overall, we're kind of, we're in a growing environment. We grow about four to five percent every year. That's both from the property tax side and other strategic revenue initiatives that we pushed forward in the last year. Moving on to how we spend the $3.3 billion, so I've, it's in basically five very big buckets right now.

There's obviously a lot of complexity that goes into each of those. The first one, which should be pretty familiar for everyone, education represents about 40% of the budget. That's both BPS and charter schools. Obviously, both of those have been increasing since the mayor's been in office.

$200 million more per year for BPS as a part of the last budget, and sort of our charter assessment is up another $100 million in that time. So since the mayor's been in office, education spending has increased by about $300 million, which is something to be proud of. Public safety, that's police and fire, they make up about 20% of the budget. City departments, so that's things like streets and PHC and Parks, and everyone in this room, we make up the smallest portion of this budget, but it's, it's an important part of it.

(audience chuckling) And frankly, it's, it's something that we've tried to grow a lot more, but there are a lot of demands on a lot of different parts of the city budget at the end of the day. Fixed costs like pensions and debt service, and then finally healthcare, that support all the rest of the other city departments, are basically how we spend the majority of that $3.3 billion on the operating budget side. The other big piece of the capital plan, the big piece of the budget that we have is the capital plan. So right here is just a map of what we have sort of from a top-down view of all the different types of projects that we have out there.

It's a $2.4 billion plan over five years to invest in roads and bridges and schools and libraries, and all the great things that you have out there. A lot of folks, especially in the rating agency world and people who buy our debt at the end of the day, want to see that we're making investments in places that we planned for. So that's why the mayor committed ten percent of all new capital funding towards climate resiliency. We have the billion-dollar BuildBPS plan and a whole host of other things that we're investing in.

The annual capital plan is over a five-year period, because these projects are typically bigger in scope. We borrow money for them and then we pay for it on the operating budget side for debt service. So it's a kind of companion piece to the operating budget, but something that goes through the very similar process to what we do on the operating side. (background noise) (indistinct chatter) We have come to join Becka and Molly in marriage.

A wedding is a joyful celebration of the promises you make today. Learning to love each other and live together in harmony is one of the greatest challenges of a marriage. But know that love, trust, and loyalty are the foundation of a happy, enduring marriage. Remember to listen, respect, encourage, and inspire one another.

Support each other's dreams as you build your lives together. Comfort one another during times of struggle. Laugh together during times of joy. Now if you want to face each other, we'll do vows.

I, Becka... I, Becka... Take thee, Molly... Take thee, Molly...

To be my wedded wife. To be my wedded wife. And I promise to be... And I promise to be...

A loving and faithful wife... A loving and faithful wife... Through joy and sorrow... Through joy and sorrow...

Sickness and health... Sickness and health... To love and to cherish... To love and to cherish...

From this day forward. From this day forward. Now, do you, Becka, take thee, Molly here present, to be your wife? I do.

Excellent. All right, Molly's turn. I, Molly... I, Molly...

Take thee, Becka... Take thee, Becka... To be my wedded wife. To be my wedded wife.

And I promise to be... And I promise to be... A loving and faithful wife... A loving and faithful wife...

Through joy and sorrow... Through joy and sorrow... Sickness and health... Sickness and health...

To love and to cherish... To love and to cherish... From this day forward. From this day forward.

Now, do you, Molly, take thee, Becka here present, to be your wife? I do. Excellent. Now, we're going to go on to the rings.

These rings are a symbol of eternity and made by your friend. The unbroken circle of... It represents the unbroken circle of love. Today you've chosen to exchange rings as a sign of your love for one another and the seal of the promises you make today.

You're going to repeat these vows after me, and then the last line, you're going to put the ring on Molly's finger when you say, "With this ring," okay?

BECKA

Great. All right, this is my favorite part. (chuckles) Just as this ring... Just as this ring...

Encircles your finger... Encircles your finger... So does my love... So does my love...

Encircle your heart. Encircle your heart-- my heart. Now you can place it on her finger and say, "With this ring..." With this ring... I thee wed.

I thee wed. Okay, Molly's turn. Just as this ring... Just as this ring...

Encircles your finger... Encircles your finger... So does my love... So does my love...

Encircle your heart. Encircle your heart. Now, with this ring... (chuckles)

MOLLY

Now with this ring...

WOMAN

I thee wed.

I thee wed. WOMAN

Perfect. Inasmuch as Becka and Molly have exchanged rings, have consented to matrimony and vows, by the authority vested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I now pronounce you hu... Uh, married. (laughing) Here we go, stand together.

Okay?

BECKA

Uh-huh. All right, smile. All right, let me show you what we got.

WALSH

I want to congratulate Alex Cora and the Boston Red Sox and the entire organization for an incredible run. 119 wins from start to finish, and I didn't realize till last night that they had won the Spring Training League, and they won the regular league, and then they won, obviously, the World Series last night, so it's exciting here in the city of Boston. I want to congratulate Red Sox Nation for our ninth world championship here in Boston. This is an all-time great team that we had.

I think a lot of people enjoyed watching this team. Everybody contributed. I was talking to people, talking on the way in to work this morning, and thinking about everybody in this whole team. Everyone had a special play in this World Series.

So, congratulations to the entire team for your resilience and your positivity, and the way you carried yourself on the field and off the field. And even last night during the interview session, thank you to all the players for the great work they did. These players are role models and we want to celebrate them in Boston style. A championship duck boat parade will take place on Wednesday,

starting at 11

00 on Boylston Street by Fenway Park. (cameras clicking) We hope to see a big crowd out there, but we do have a few messages out there. Do not try to drive to the parade. Take public transportation.

There'll be traffic and parking restrictions surrounding the route. This morning, we're working on a web page. It will be up in a little bit. It will be boston.gov/redsoxparade.

As far as safety goes, be respectful of the city. Be respectful of the property. Be respectful of the people. Be respectful of the businesses.

Be respectful of the Red Sox. We are a city of champions. So let's celebrate like champions, and I'm going to turn the microphone over to Commissioner Gross, and then we're going to turn it over to Chief Green, and then I'll open it up for any questions that people might have.

GROSS

Thank you, Your Honor. Good morning, everyone. Well, congratulations not only to the Red Sox, but the city of Boston. We would ask everyone to act responsibly and be respectful of the other revelers in the parade.

Also, we will have full coverage in our neighborhoods. But for those attending the parade, no public drinking. Alcohol will not be tolerated. And you should know this, this should be common sense, but no weapons at all, either.

So we fully expect to have a great parade. It's time to celebrate. Well, now I'll turn it over to Chief Green. Thank you, Commissioner.

You know, this doesn't get old. I mean, I think this is my eleventh championship in the last, what, 16 years? It just doesn't get old. That being said, the Transit Police are well experienced and prepared for special events such as Wednesday's parade.

We encourage everyone, as the mayor says, to come in the city of Boston utilizing the MBTA transit system. We will have increased coverage, both uniformed and in plain clothes, throughout the system to ensure a safe and travel by all. We ask our riders to, to be respectful to one another and especially mindful of those with young children, the elderly, and people with disabilities as you utilize the MBTA transit system. And as the commissioner stated, alcohol consumption and/or unruly behavior will not be tolerated at all on the MBTA.

Currently, I mean, we got updates from the BRIC. There are no known credible threats to this event. With that being said, we also, we also ask our riders to please, if you see something, say something. Nothing's too small.

We need you to be our extra eyes out there. Contact us immediately and we will send an officer out to investigate. With your help, we can have a safe and enjoyable celebration. (traffic humming)

DOMINIQUE

So, the goal of the taskforce is really to focus on eviction prevention. We would like to meet four times. This is the second meeting. And ultimately to put together a list of recommendations for public comment by spring of 2019.

And then to present those recommendations to the mayor and to the City Council. (car horn blares in distance) Hopefully... some sort of legislation to come out of it.

SHEILA

What's the total amount of the awards, roughly?

DOMINIQUE

2.5? $2.5 million. So we put two-and-a-half million dollars out for tenancy stability and eviction prevention. So it's a very, it's a sizable commitment.

Our office has also been working in conjunction with the Neighborhood Housing Department here in DND, and to put together an eviction prevention policy that is required for all, all landlords, or all property... prospectors who are looking to purchase property or bid on property here in the city of Boston. That policy was implemented, and I know it went out in the RFPs for September of this year. Yeah.

So we have, we're still under, the policy is under review or the proposals that we've received are under, now under review, and we'll be trying to figure out exactly how effective that was during the first, the first implementation of it. The same policy was under, put under, out under our Dudley Square RFP. And that, I believe, is wrapping up today, right? Yeah, those, um, those-- thank you.

Those proposals, the Dudley proposals are due today. Which is very exciting, and there was, like Dominique said, there was a very clear requirement that anyone submitting for land in the, on the... (door shuts) Submitting proposals for the four sites in Dudley, had to provide a proposal on how they were going to, how their development was going to not contribute to displacement, and including in that, if they were going to develop housing, an eviction prevention plan. So it was very, very, very specific, good language, and I'll, before you leave, I'll make sure to make, have a copy.

And yeah, the NHD proposals, if you want money from us, you're going to tell us how you're going, what's your eviction prevention plan, which is, and we're getting, Dominique's shop is reviewing them right now with NHD. And if they're not adequate, we're going to have to make it a deficiency if we really love the proposal, or not fund the proposal altogether. So really asking new, developers of new, of new developments to tell us how they're not, how they're really going to reduce evictions. And we cannot just scratch things on the surface, because they usually come back a few years later, stronger, deeper, uglier.

So at the same time, in the meantime, those folks who are facing eviction, they keep facing eviction all of their lives. I know someone, from the age of 12, she faced eviction. And now she's 39, she's facing eviction again. So it's a cycle, you know?

If we want to, if we really want to fix it, we should think about community land trust, also, have a site for it. What we need is more-- I mean, my opinion-- we need more housing.

More and more housing. WOMAN

Yeah. You can't have enough. And everything you do short of that-- and that's just one way of thinking about it-- but everything you do short about, short of that is, you know, gap-filling kind of thing. Not that it's not necessary, but I guess what I'm wondering, based on what I've heard so far, is, it sounds like we're...

It's so easy to move broader than simply, "What are we doing about evictions?" I'm, I'm asking the question. Are we focused on the eviction question or are we, are we morphing into, or is it part of the mandate here, how are we going to fix the big problem? Until we have enough affordable housing for everyone, you know, we need the Office of Housing Stability and we need to work on evictions, because not everybody's safe. But we do have a housing plan.

It's pretty robust in the city, and I can share it with you, about increasing housing overall, increasing affordable housing, preservation, getting people to buy homes. So, we have a lot of, we've done a lot of work on more of the systemic issues. And then, and then, but, but we still get 100 calls a week from people that are in market-rate housing that are getting their rents, you know, increased. Or are in subsidized housing, but have fallen behind in their rents, et cetera.

So there is this, there's this special sort of work that we're all doing that is not fixing our, our larger housing issues. Does that make some sense? So say there's 30,000... 30,000 notices to quit served in Boston every year.

It's, that we are estimating. I think the challenge with early intervention is that it's super-valuable, super-necessary, probably more effective, and opens up the sort of target population that you could serve to be large enough that it's impossible to even conceive of how to serve them. There were 1,100 households who were in subsidized housing who actually went to court, somehow didn't get RAFT, didn't get anything else, did get evicted in a year, and the thing that we also know is that subsidized household, family households who are evicted are not eligible for E.A. Which to me just makes them the red-alarm population.

The most vulnerable population. WOMAN

That's true. And so to some extent, there is a benefit to, I think that there is a benefit to focusing on that population above all else, if only for that reason.

SHEILA

If you get evicted from subsidized housing, or you have a housing voucher and you get evicted, you can't access family shelter at the state. So you have no safeguard. So you might be the lowest income, you know, and you've been evicted probably for, probably for rent arrearage. Small amounts.

And now you have absolutely nowhere to go, because you can't access the shelter system.

WOMAN

For three years?

SHEILA

For three years.

MAN

What could we do to get, to intervene sooner? And, and what I... What I thought was, I guess it's reinventing the wheel a little, except we haven't invented it yet. I think we do a particularly bad job of informing and persuading.

Maybe informing. Maybe the small landlords in particular are informed that there are resources, but persuading them to actually use them? The small landlord groups seem to feel like they're embattled, and they approach everything from that point of view. And it's just economics.

I mean, it would make so much more sense to be able to say, "Okay, we're not going to hit you over the head. "You don't have to do this. "But if you know somebody's chronically late, "or somebody's not budgeting, or somebody is falling behind, "catching up every four to six months, "clearly that's not a good business model. "You bring them to us, we'll help them budget.

"You bring them to us early. We'll do this, and it's so much more cost-efficient." But we don't do anything. I mean, and because we were, I was talking to the City Life group, I said, you know, "Could City Life see its way to holding itself out to that?" I'm not sure, because... But somebody should be able to say, on a more intimate basis than simply, "We've got a website," "Here's what we can use, here's how to do it," and I think that's the only way you're going to, you're going to get to them.

So if we really concerned about what we're doing, we need to also think about community land trust. For those folks who really can't do anything, they could go there and it will be a safe zone. And it could go from generation to generation. Why can't we do that?

Other places have done it. That's great, that's good. (traffic humming) (crossing signal buzzing) (birds chirping)

WOMAN

Everybody gets the first round. But you can only get one. (indistinct chatter) What do you want? You want pie now?

Sweet potato, apple, cherry. What kind do you want, sir? (indistinct chatter, woman chuckling) Not right now. You have to come back the second time.

Let everybody go through. Ma'am, some more people got to have some, please. Just be, like-- that's all I got. Thank you.

Ma'am, no problem. (chatter) I don't mean for nobody to get mad, but I got to, trying to get enough for everybody. Please don't take the ice. No, go on with that...

Go. If you take it, the rest of them won't be cold.

WALSH

Any questions?

WOMAN

I need some help. I'm a victim of PC scam. I thought it was Microsoft, and it wasn't. It turned out to be some scammers, and I actually gave them my name, my, my card.

Um, I need help. Don't give any information out over the phone. If somebody says it's your doctor, "Send me a letter." If somebody says you're going to shut your cable off tomorrow, "Send me a letter." Don't give them your email. Tell them to send you a letter.

Serve it, if they say you owe money, "Send a constable." "Send somebody down, give me a..." Don't talk to me. "Petition me-- don't even bother." You're going to get letters in your house. If you own your home. My mother gets them, because I get her mail.

I go to her house and do her bills, and I get the mail. (laughs) There's always, oh, I can, "You can earn a lot of money on your home." Oh, get outta here. Or, "We can give you a mortgage that can, low-interest mortgage." Just don't believe any of this stuff. Unless it comes from the city, from the councilor's office, or one of the councilors' office, or our office, or, or something that you can, that your civic association might have talked about.

Do not give anybody any information. The councilor was talking about scams. Somebody might call and say to you, "We have your grandson and we're not going to give him back until you give us money." And what, the instant reaction is, "Is it Billy or Bob?" "I got Billy." (crowd reacts) And that's all they need, and they will frighten you into, you will think that they're kidnapped. There are literally people that do this from other parts of the world.

And they scam people, and people will give them money. They'll run around, get money, and they'll give it to somebody. So do not, do not do that. If Eversource calls you for a deal, "Can I have your name and number?

I'll call you back." Call your city councilor, call the mayor's office, and say, "Does Eversource have a deal? Does Comcast have a deal? Does RNC Cable have a deal? Does..." Whatever it is, make sure you follow up.

We're going, I'm going to follow up with you. Emily's going to get your information. And we'll get on it today and we'll find out what, we'll contact the authorities, and we also have a couple of police officers here, so if we need to take the next step, we will. From my area in Lower Mills, and those calls and those phone numbers and those people knock on the door, they come into the station, and they report it to the police department and they take it over to the detective department.

But the thing about it is, nothing never get back to me or anybody else. What has taken place since we reported this? And the calls and the numbers thing, you could have them right there. So how do we handle that to get some kind of response to what we're trying to stop?

One thing I would suggest, maybe what we'll do is, at one of the meetings coming up, we're gonna, I'll ask Nora Baston to come in. Nora Baston is the new superintendent. Her role is community policing. Her role is, and under community policing, follows the elderly department, as far as going out to the districts.

So I'll ask, we'll ask Nora to come to your next meeting, and she can explain and come up with a process. There might not have been a process. My experience has always been, the information flows back and forth. But we have to make, it's going to change.

We're going to make sure that it really does flow back and forth. So if you make a complaint at a civic association, or something, you should get a call back, because simply reporting it into a black hole, if you're not getting information back. And then you can share the information with other people. So I, we'll have Nora come to the next meeting.

Okay, thank you.

WALSH

But if you live in a BHA housing development and you're not getting a response,

my advice

two things. Number one is, call your complaint into 311. Because 311 is the city hotline. And it's a public information, and it's in my office.

I see it up on the wall. And I will follow up and say, "What's going on with that?" Number two, reach out to the elderly commission. There's been times where I've gone to different events. Some of you have grabbed me about situations that might not be related to the elderly commission, but the advocacy there, they will call over.

And when they call over, I'm calling over. So I think that it's important for you to take, use all those different steps. So if you're not getting somewhere and you live somewhere, you call 311 and make a public, and when they ask you, "Why'd you do that?" "The mayor told me to." Okay? And if you see me in the street, grab me and tell me what the problem is.

Because I guarantee you, by the time I get in the car and back to the next stop I have after this, somebody at the BHA will be talking to me. All right? Questions over here, and then I'm coming back this way. Now, I have medicine that I actually need, and they want me to pay a copay of $65 that I can't afford.

And I need that medicine, and I don't know what to do about it. We have to really think about here, in Massachusetts, at the legislative level, and in Congress, at the congressional level, to do something about pharmaceutical costs. Um, they're out of control, um... My father passed away in 2008, but before he passed away, he was on-- and I didn't know what a donut hole was until then.

Um, and he was on a pill one, once a day, for prostate. It was $500 a month, the prescription. (crowd reacts) So for the first five months of the year, it was covered 100% by his health insurance. The next $2,500, as you know, the donut hole, the next five months was out of pocket.

And then the last two months of the year were covered by insurance again. What Obamacare did, what the Affordable Care Act did, was close the donut hole. And that donut hole now is there, but what they've done is, I think they... I don't know what the right answer is, but they've done something with prescriptions that end up paying, you end up paying more out of pocket.

I haven't seen it in any prescriptions that I've taken, but it happens to seniors all the time. So we do have to think about, legislatively, how do we file something that closes that gap for you? Because many of you-- all of us, as you get older, you take prescriptions for high blood pressure, for cholesterol, whatever it is you have, and it's important that we understand there's more health risk as you get older, because the body breaks down a little bit. So there's more chance that you're going to be on a prescription as you get older.

And we need to make sure that that's covered. So the answer is, we have to look legislatively at fixing that. One of the reasons why we have the elderly commission is to advocate on your behalf. The people that work for the city work for you.

They're there to service you. So take advantage of that opportunity. Take advantage of that office. Ask questions-- they'll get the answers.

And if, if we got to a point where... What I'd like to do is get to a point with the elderly commission that I'll have to double the size of the elderly commission because the amount of calls they get. (applause) And believe it or not, we don't get that many calls. We get a lot of calls, but not as many as there are people in the city of Boston that are over 60 years old.

WOMAN

We need a bigger budget. So we need, we'll get the budget there, but we need you to use the office, because I'd rather you talk to one of the specialists we have and get a benefit, than be taken advantage of. So that's why they're there. They're there for you, they work for you.

Our primary purpose is to help people with the situations you might have. So, please, call them. (traffic, plane overhead) (lawnmower running) (distant traffic) As usual, it was a busy night last night on Halloween, and just be aware of any kind of violence that might extend from it. At Townsend and Warren, there was a firearm recovered

at 7

00 p.m. with an arrest. There was a person shot and stabbed at 137 Center Street. There was a large party, a couple of hundred people.

Full notes on the person shot, but they're probably going to survive. The gang unit then had a car chase through H Block of Bailey associates, so be aware of that.

And around 3

00 a.m. this morning, the K-car got a firearm arrest in Uphams Corner. And that was... I don't know if it's related, but there was a violent assault up there.

That was the reason why people were up there, and it led to a firearm arrest up on, um, over to the C-11 side. (indistinct chatter) Any issues? Concerns? Check your assignments.

Let's have a good day. All right, fall out. (indistinct chatter) (truck engine idling) (wind blowing, seagulls squawking) (distant traffic) (car engine roaring) (seagulls squawking) (traffic humming) (distant chatter) I had a chance to, over the last five years, get to know almost every single person in this room. And what, what's amazing is that we have developers in this room and housing developers in this room that believe in resiliency.

And that are here month after month after month after month after month-- after meeting, after meeting, I should say. We have developers who are developing buildings in town that believe in resiliency. We have folks that work in the area of whatever it is, and you come back here. We have universities, we have universities...

B.U. is one of our great partners. And we have construction companies. And to me, it's special, this room's a special room in the sense of the commitment by the people in this room.

Um... Since I've been mayor, a lot of natural disasters have happened in different cities across America. Houston kind of... kind of hit me a little different.

I was talking to Mayor Turner as it was going on, and when he was talking about his city-- he was a brand-new mayor, literally, brand-new mayor in his first term. The people of Boston wanted to send things out to Houston, and we ended up... We were going to send one tractor trailer down. We ended up sending 18 tractor trailers of stuff down.

And I thought to myself, "What if that was Boston?" And it wasn't, it wasn't the, it wasn't the giving to Houston that struck me, it was the need in Houston that struck me. It was the 18 trucks going down there, and that wasn't enough. When you think about it, 18 tractor trailers from Boston and other places around the country, that wasn't enough, and I thought to myself, "Are we really... Where are we in our city?

Where are we in the city?" Not in the Green Ribbon Commission, and not on the global plans, and not working with the state. "Where are we in the city?" So we had, I don't have it here with us today. We have, we have a plan that literally protects the harbor, protects the shoreline, creates 47 miles of shoreline. We talk about, a lot about bringing people back to the water.

This plan brings people back to the water. This plan allows people access to the water where we have 67 acres of new open space on Boston Harbor. It creates 122 acres of revitalized open space on the waterfront. It's about protections and connections.

So when people like you in this room look at, look at what's happening, you know that we're protecting what we have to protect in our, in our neighborhoods. We're protecting Charlestown and East Boston and South Boston. We're protecting Downtown, North End, the Dorchester coastline. We're protecting Roxbury.

We're protecting the South End. We're protecting all of those different neighborhoods in our city that it's important for us to do. What we're doing here is, I think, important for the future. I think it's time for us to take this conversation beyond our walls.

I think it's time to take this conversation to the editorial boards, and let them understand fully what's happening here. Because the first editorial that came out with, in all due respect, it was a nice editorial, but it was, like, "How are you going to pay for it? Who's going to pay for it?" The questions that it asked, "Who's going to pay for it?", or "How's this going to happen?" It's not about who's going to pay for it, it needs to happen. The editorial needs to say, and people need to start, the press needs to start and other people need to start saying, "This has to happen." It's not about the costs.

It's not about who's gonna, who's going to put up the biggest chunk of money. It's, how do we get everyone together to put this plan together? The Green, Green Ribbon Commission is vital in this work. As we continue to move forward in this work, we need to help convey the urgency and bring diverse partners into our strategy.

We need to talk to all of our schools, not some of our schools. We need to talk to all of our museums, not some of our museums. We need to make sure all of our hospitals understand the importance of this, not some of the hospitals. And more importantly, we need to make people, business people, know that this is really important for them, as well.

It's important for us, for the health and safety of our residents are at stake. Making sure that Houston... Puerto Rico, Florida, New Orleans, Louisiana, Florida again, New York-- all of those different cities and areas had a storm, and if you go back and talk to Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans, who wasn't the mayor when Katrina happened, he said if they addressed this 20 years earlier, the outcome might have been different. It still would have been bad.

Because Katrina was a bad storm, but it would have been not as detrimental. We have to think about that now and think about, how do we prevent that from happening? We need to work with other leaders. We need to work with other elected officials.

We need to let the legislature know and the City Council know the importance of focusing on the work that we're doing here today. We know that mitigation is resilience. It's about the impacts here in Boston and it's about the example we set for the nation and the world. By showing that it can be done, we can improve public health, create jobs, and also help people in our neighborhoods.

We can also show the way and help rally the global community to do their part. I know that what we wanted to do here is be a leader in the country and a leader in the world here in Boston as far as resiliency. And now that we have the plan, it's about, what's the next steps and what's the actions? We know we don't have a national government, at least a leader down in Washington, a president in Washington that doesn't understand the importance of resiliency.

We know that we don't have the commitments right now in the E.P.A. down in Washington that understands the importance of resiliency and what we're doing here. Even if we had the greatest champion in Washington, it's still incumbent upon cities and towns across America to carry out the plan. I do think it's important first, though, that we start to take this conversation outside this room and have real conversations.

I would suggest that we go to editorial boards of the news outlets. I would suggest that we start talking to more business leaders. I would suggest that we start thinking about how do we, how do we amp up this plan so it's not just the people- on-the-inside crowd, whether it's the Chamber of Commerce or here at the, at the commission, or someplace else. We need to take this conversation beyond this.

(distant traffic) (car horns honking) (traffic humming) (distant siren) So what are we here for today?

BRENDAN

Uh, fire blocking. Okay, so the rough inspection? Rough inspection. Okay.

When are you guys looking to insulate? Um, it's later next week.

PETER

Next week you have on schedule.

BRENDAN

Schedule, yeah, on schedule for Monday.

PETER

Okay, all right. So you're thinking, you're thinking Monday. Monday, Tuesday-- he said two, two-and-a-half days, he'd have it all wiped out. And what, what do you do it with, spray foam?

Spray foam, closed cell. Closed cell on the exterior. Yeah. And so you're thinking that if all goes well today, you have them scheduled for Monday.

Scheduled for Monday. I spoke with him earlier, he said two, two-and-a-half days to wrap it all. Okay. And you want two, yeah.

He can put two... He'll send two crews. I'm going to be off on Thursday. Okay.

Yeah, so... Yeah, if we could get you maybe, well, provided he sends two crews Monday. All right, so then you, you just, you'll just email me. Yep.

Yeah, and let me know how that goes. And if, if Wednesday comes around and I have time, I'll squeeze you in to keep it going, okay? That'd be brilliant. Brilliant.

So all the fire blocking's done. All the penetrations. Penetration's done.

Yeah. BRENDAN

Fire caulking.

PETER

You use the caulking, the 3M caulking? Yeah. All right. No foam, right?

No foam. Okay. And now what do we do down-- the basement is extended, extended living spaces as part of this unit? Extended living space for the first-floor master suite, master bath, master shower.

Okay, all right. And this is fully sprinklered, right? Fully sprinklered, yeah. Okay.

This was new, um, underground plumbing. Okay. We had our plumbing inspection yesterday, so we got, we can close out. So that he got, he got a look at it.

This is a master bath, master bedroom. Master bedroom, master closet, master bath, laundry. Okay. Extended from that unit up above.

Correct. Okay. And then you have, you have this door here for your egress.

BRENDAN

Yeah.

PETER

Okay, what are we going to do with this here? How are you going to...

BRENDAN

Um, It's going to be a drain here with a wet well on the bottom. And then it's going to be two steps up. Two steps up, okay, all right. Yeah.

We're going to green all that stuff and some flagstones or something. Are you going to patio this? Yeah. Okay, all the way out to the back?

Yep. Okay, all right. Okay. All right, so all this fire caulking is done, all the penetrations.

Yep. Okay. And then this is all getting closed cell. This will all be closed cell...

Okay, sprayed in. Yup, okay. And then as I said, they'll be all batts in, in between. All right.

Where's your head, your, your sprinkler head down here? One there, there's one over here. This is for, this is to go outside underneath the deck. Okay, so that's going to go out.

That's going to go out, yeah. Okay, all right. There's one on each floor... Yeah, okay-- exterior, right?

Exterior, yeah. Okay.

PETER

Low temperature. What are you doing for railings here? The railings are all on the second floor. It's, um...

Iron? It's iron railings, yeah, the wire. Okay, all right. So...

That's not a bad view, huh? (inaudible) Are these going to be sold or rentals? These are condos. Condos, okay.

So they're going to, you're going to put them on the market when you're done. Yeah. Yeah-- no roof deck. There is a roof deck.

There is. Yes. Okay. Do you have the, how's the access?

There's going to be a spiral. Spiral? Okay. Spiral right here.

That's on the plans? All right. And then this is all being spray-foamed, right? Correct.

This is what you're using, right? Yes. Okay, all right. Okay, let's go to the second floor.

And then with this over here, Brendan, you're going to box this all out? Yep. So you're going to come off, box out that sprinkler, right?

BRENDAN

Yeah, that will all be boxed in. Yeah, and then you have all your heads here. And then that, yeah. (inaudible)

PETER

You're going to need some LedgerLok on that, right?

I was thinking. PETER

Yeah. It's not a bad view until that building gets built. Have you seen any plans for that one yet? It'll probably go up just as high.

PETER

Take a picture of this, Brendan, so you don't, uh... Yeah. This thing's going to get... Someone's going to throw this out.

Take a picture and make a copy for the record. Yeah. Hold on to that. Thank you.

So you're all set, Brendan. Give me, give me a shout early next week.

It's a short week. BRENDAN

Thank you, Peter. (plane passing overhead) (streetsweeper running) (distant traffic) (distant chatter, footsteps)

MAN

If a 16-year-old has services at Bridge, and they're connected to the services at Bridge, if they're no longer served by Bridge, they don't have a relationship with Bridge anymore, right? So, like, it's, like, how do we, and I'm not sure how we do this, right? This is why we need an RFP, but, like, literally, the definition is, like, it has to be not connected to the services that they're getting. Because once the services go away, the relationship goes away, right?

Okay. Which is what keeps young people in the cycle, because they don't have long- term relationships with people. So the challenge, the challenge that the RFP's addressing, the first one, is that unfortunately, the scope of services for youth or young adults experiencing homelessness is limited, not only in the city of Boston, but across the country. And most services around people experiencing homelessness are services for adults.

And so the adult shelter system, unfortunately, sometimes, is the place where 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds finds themselves if they're homeless, on the street, dealing with behavioral health challenges, they end up finding themselves in a shelter, right? So what we're trying to do is to say to these shelters, the services and the environment and the culture that's created for adults who may experience chronic homelessness, who are 40, is different than a 19-year-old, who we know statistically-- and I think this would be in the RFP-- is more likely to be LGBTQ, more likely to be people of color, experiencing other issues. So what we want to say is, the challenge here is that there's, that the gap of services to meet the specific needs of youth and young adults experiencing homelessness is great, and multiple parts-- Mayor Walsh's plan is working on that. However, in the meantime, we know youth and young adults already find themselves in the adult shelters.

What we're trying to say is that in an ideal world, we want youth in young adult shelters. But in the meantime, the city's plan is to not gonna just wait till we have all those shelters, or have those services. We're going to meet the needs of youth and young adults today. Okay.

And so we want these shelters to do that. So that's what, that's the challenge or the need we're trying to meet in that first one. And to be fair, we want the shelters to think about how they're doing this in a way that, what do they need to do to do better? You know what I mean?

Like, I mean, you know this better than I. Sometimes the shelters will say, "Well, we have a separate space," right? Like, upstairs, in the corner, these ten beds are meant for 18- to 24-year-olds. Okay, I guess a separate space is important.

But when I have to, like, get through all the chaos of the shelter to get to the separate space, I still have to go downstairs to the kitchen to eat. I still have to go to the shared bathroom, right? I still have, you know, and at night, there's only one person upstairs, or one staff person, right? Like, so how are they really thinking about the fact that youth and young adults are really vulnerable in these spaces?

Right. So we want them to say, "We know it's a gap..." We have to say this because we know our funders don't agree with us. It's not a long-term solution, but that's where they find themselves today, so we're going to meet them where they're at, okay? So this solution that you would envision.

Right. So we're talking about physical space. We're talking about policies and practices. We're talking about competencies of staff.

We're talking about, you know, how we do outreach and engagement and connection, right? I mean, it's all this stuff we know about, how do you make a space youth-friendly? It's the same thing, right? Okay.

How do we think about all those things that we already know? So, I think that's how you, we should bucket it. We're talking about space. We're talking about policies and practices.

We're talking about this. They're concerned about the one-time funding-- I get it. There's a lot you can do with one-time funding in all of those buckets that then they have to sustain, post-that. So I think that's what that is.

Okay, and would you like for me to stay a little bit away from programming because it's not multi-year funding? I would. Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.

So on the challenge that RFP's trying to address is that we know that young adults experiencing homeless lack the social capital and the personal connections with caring adults in their lives to help them navigate the challenges that exist, right? So to help them access opportunity, but avoid the challenges that are in front of them. And that too many of the relationships-- and this comes from youth and young adult voices-- too many of those relationships are relationships based on a provision of service. And what young people have told us through this process is, they need more permanent connections that are not tied to a service, not a case manager, not a clinician, not a, my behavioral health specialist at the community center, whatever, but people who just care about me and my well-being separate from that.

Permanent connections, we... The more relationships young adults have, the more likely they are to be successful and overcome these challenges. And so that's what we're trying to address. That youth and young adults need this, especially LGBTQ and youth of color, who are more likely to experience homelessness.

(distant voices, seagulls squawking) (wind blowing, birds chirping) (garbage truck brakes squeaking) (garbage truck rumbling) (hissing) (brakes squeaking) (talking in background) (squeaking) (indistinct radio chatter) Program, folks, five dollars here! Program, folks, five dollars here. Last chance to get a program for the World Series champions, folks. Five dollars here.

Program, folks, five dollars here. Get a program for the World Series champions, folks. Five dollars here. Comes with your free bumper sticker, "Best team evah." Red Sox parade, folks, get a program, five dollars for the World Series champions.

NEIL DIAMOND

Sweet Caroline (music pauses,

crowd sings)

Buh, buh, buh (song

resumes)

Good times never seemed so good

CROWD

So good, so good, so good! (cheers and applause)

ANNOUNCER

119 wins, it was 108 during the regular season, 11 more in the postseason to bring the championship home. (cheers and applause)

WALSH

Let me just say, thank everyone for coming here today. I wanna thank the Red Sox, they're an incredible organization, starting with the ownership down to our general manager. I had the chance to go to Caguas, Puerto Rico, with Alex Cora in the very beginning of the season, and I saw what type of person he was. He's an amazing man, amazing team, with the best fans in the world.

Go Red Sox! (cheers and applause) Mayor Walsh, how you doing? This is great, I'm doing good. You can't complain, the Red Sox World Series, Red Sox parade, people are happy, what else, what can you ask for?

You know, this isn't our first rodeo. As a matter of fact, as a friend of mine in L.A. said, "Didn't you guys invent the rodeo?" I think we did, I mean, it's just, I was saying that earlier today in the car. We were driving to the police roll call, and I'm, like, other cities are dying for one, and we've had 11 in the last 14 years or 15 years.

It's amazing. Yeah, yeah. Everyone's won one, too, which is incredible. So much goes into this.

Um, what does it do for the city? I mean, sports is so ingrained in the city of Boston. When there's a parade in the city, what does it do for the city, despite all the logistics and all the issues that go into it? Well, even when our teams are doing well, it's good for the city, for the restaurants, and the bars around the different venues.

The excitement in the city, the teams being part of the community, so that's another important part of these teams. They're all part of our neighborhoods and community. It's great for the city, and the parade, it just, it keeps the spirit up, and I think today, in the world of politics, and what's going on in the world, you know, the horrible incident that happened in Pittsburgh, I think something like this is, it makes you realize that, you know, to be positive and move forward in a good way. (crowd cheering) (crowd

chanting)

MVP! MVP! MVP! (cheers, whistles, applause) (indistinct chatter, dog barking) (engines idling) (radio chatter) (cheers) (men yelling and cheering) Let's go, Mookie!

Mookie, what's up! Mookie! Mookie! Mookie!

Mookie! Mookie!

MAN 3

Come on, Mookie!

MAN 2

A wave!

MAN 3

Ugh, just a wave, just a wave! (dog barking, indistinct chatter) (cheers) (loud cheering, screaming, horn honking) (horns honking) Whoo! (raucous cheering) ("Dirty Water" by the Standells playing) Love that dirty water (cheering) (parade noise and cheers fading) (distant traffic)

WALSH

Thank you for being proud of who you are and where you're from. And as I look around the room, a lot of you are the future leaders of the city. You might not see that, you might not understand where your pathway's going to take you, but it's going to take you to, to amazing places. So when you think about advancement, when you think about moving forward, it's about who you are as a person and the commitment that you have to your own professional career in being recognized and realized and involved and engaged and moving forward.

Whatever you do, there are opportunities. When you think about the community, Latino community, when I first became the mayor, I spent a lot of time-- I still do-- but I spent a lot of time with organizations, particularly around Latino community organizations, that felt that they were underrepresented or not represented at all in a lot of different places. And we sat down and we really started to look at boards and commissions and staff and who's around and how we're doing, what's going on. And making a real concerted effort to change that reality.

Not image, reality. To make sure that we continue to make sure people have opportunities within city government. And as I, as I think about you, all of you in this room, I think about being future leaders in the business sector, future leaders in the nonprofit sector. This is a starting point.

Now, some people are going to stay, come from the city, they're going to work their whole career in the city, and I commend you for that and love you for that. Some of you are going to say, "Okay, it's time to move to something else." And you're going to go into the business sector. And that's honestly what you have to start thinking about, how we do things. And how you, how you advance yourself, number one.

First and foremost. Second piece is Latino pride. And I think that it's really important. These service projects are about education.

They're about pride. You know, one of the things I think that's special about Latino community is that you are a diverse community within your community. Because as you were going around here and everyone's introducing themself, you know,

every time Colombia was mentioned... WOMAN

Whoo! (laughter) You heard that. You know, there are some Venezuelans here that were excited. Mexicans seemed really excited, as well.

So there is a sense of pride. And I think for us in the city, you know, doing these service projects, you're doing it because you're trying to help people, but what you're also doing is, you're teaching people about government. You're also teaching people about what can be possible. You're also creating opportunities to open doors.

How do you take your expertise and what you know as a person, as your heritage, and your, your nationality, and also what you've learned-- whether it's been in school, if you were born here, if you weren't born here, what you learned at home-- and take it to the community and give people opportunities? The day that Trump came down with the ban, I looked up at the screen, and I saw what was going on, I'm, like, "What's he doing today?" And Dan's, like, "Well, you know, he's doing a Muslim ban and he's banning against immigrants." And I said, "Let's do a press conference." "When?" I said, "In a half-hour." I said, "I want every single immigrant "that works in the building standing behind me, "and I want every first-generation person in there, as well." Because I didn't think I had, enough, enough immigrant community to stand behind me to fill the room. We were out in the hall-- if you weren't here, it was out in the hallway, it was packed. That was a proud moment, because I was standing amongst my peers, because I might be the mayor, but I'm a public employee.

So we're no different. And I was proud of that moment. And that has nothing to do separate. So I'm proud of my, where my heritage is.

You know, and I think back to comparing, maybe, doing a little history of Irish. In the end of the 19th century, Irish were called dogs, servants, slaves, pigs, monkeys, animals. If you look at the portrayal of Irish people back then, it was just, like, it was, it was completely racist. And a group of people got together and started to think about being a power broker.

And they slowly but surely started to go into cities around America, and they got elected to town councils, city councils and then a couple of legislators, legislatures. And then eventually continued to build up a brief of support, and understood who they were, and next thing, they're mayors. And that's really what every community that comes to this country has done over time. And you don't settle at politics.

Our job, our job is to represent and support the people of Boston. That's our job. Whether it's for, through somebody or directly for somebody, that's what our job is. And when you're a public employee, you have responsibility for that.

And I think that you have, in this room, everyone in this room is more motivated than the average person at City Hall in a lot of different ways. And take that motivation and take that desire and keep that moving forward. Because that's who we have to be. (crossing signal, horn honking)

WOMAN

This car doesn't have an active registration. I should have brought my passport, but that wouldn't have been any good, either, right?

MAN

So to get married, it costs $75 cash on the day of the ceremony.

WOMAN

So you can only park at the meter between those times,

12

00

to 8

00.

WOMAN

I'm looking to get a Allston-Brighton parking pass. It doesn't have your Boston address. Did they send you an email confirmation? Next!

There are three fairly significant master plans that are happening in city departments right now that we're going to be a part of. The first one is the Boston Public Library. They're starting a master planning process in the spring to look at the McKim Building, which is the old building of the library. Specifically for interest to our community is looking at the front entrance.

As we know, thanks to great advocacy of the board and an individual Boston resident, they installed a semi-permanent ramp last year, or earlier this year, so that the front entrance is now accessible. However, they want to build a permanent ramp, a very nice artistic structure, so that they don't have a temporary metal ramp up there for long. So that's going to be worked into the master plan. And also there are two rooms, two meeting rooms in the library, in the old building, the McKim Building, that the only way you can access them right now is with a lift, a vertical lift.

That is the Map Room and the Commonwealth Salon. So we're going to be looking at those areas to see if there's a way to improve accessibility to those rooms. Unfortunately, there was a meeting scheduled a few weeks ago to give updates on the PCA Program, scheduled by MassHealth, and there was some communication where the library staff told the people at MassHealth the room was accessible, and it was one of these rooms which is technically accessible, but when you have 20 or 30 people coming in wheelchairs trying to go up that lift, it was not very accessible. So I'm working on communication with the library and looking at different strategies to try to improve accessibility.

Another master plan that's happening is, the Parks Department is working on a master plan for Boston Common. There is a large barrier in the Common that we've been interested in working on for a long time, and that is the set of steps at the Shaw Memorial, which go from the Common up to Beacon Street, across from the State House. Right now, if you're in the Common and you can't use the steps, there's no way to get to the State House except to go back to Tremont Street and walk all around up Park Street to Beacon Street. So it's a really long path of travel, and it's not, even that path is not very accessible.

So, we had worked with the Parks Department for a few years to try to get some measurements of slopes and come up with some design concepts to either do a ramp or an exterior elevator in the Common. So this will be included in the master planning. I heard you say on the master plan regarding the Boston Common, with the steps going up to the State House, that input would be valuable. Would it help...

I get complaints all the time as the A.D.A. coordinator at the State House. Would it help if I got a letter from the State House saying that we would appreciate that, those steps being made accessible? Yes, I definitely think a collaboration between the city and the state, because it's definitely the State House, which is part of the Freedom Trail, this, this route.

So when they have people with disabilities on the Freedom Trail, they have to detour and they can't go on the standard route. Right, and it happens, and I see it happen almost every day. Yeah. So, yeah, I think we can definitely collaborate on that.

Okay. Thank you. So I'll put together a letter and have it signed by the superintendent of the State House to send to you. Great.

(musicians playing "When the Saints Go Marching In") (song continues) (trumpet playing through mute) (clarinet playing solo) (cheers and applause)

WALSH

For me, this is personal. When I was four years old, when I was seven years old, I was diagnosed with cancer. For four years, I was treated at the Children's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. And the people, and the people that were in our corner every single day-- the doctors were there-- but around the clock, it was the nurses.

It was the nurses who we got to know. It was the nurses who comforted my parents. It was the nurses who helped everybody. It was the nurses that held my hand.

It was the nurses that did everything in my life, and I never forgot that. And it's something that's really, really important for all of us never to forget. Because in a time of need when you're in the hospital, it's the nurses that show up at your bedside. It's the nurses that comfort your families.

It's the nurses that are there for you. And I want to thank you for that. And I want to let you know that that's why I'm here today. Because when I needed to be taken care of and my family needed to be taken care of, it was the nurses that took care of my family.

So thank you for that. (cheers and applause) (cheers, noisemakers)

CROWD (chanting)

Yes on one! Yes on one! (chanting continues) (chanting fades)

JOYCE

Pedro and I have talked pretty extensively about some of the work that's been being done on the opioid crisis in Boston, and Pedro expressed a particular interest in that work and in exploring how we might use public art to, I don't know, inform or tell a story, or whatever it is we want to do about that particular crisis. So, I told him the last time we met about a couple of things in particular, the engagement center and also the effort to build a recovery campus on Long Island. And thought it would be a good idea to put together this particular team who are working on arts and culture and the recovery campus, and a whole host of other things, to just have a conversation and see if there's something we might be thinking about doing in art and recovery. (man coughing) Something small or something significant, I don't know.

But it seems like there's a really great opportunity if there are patrons around who, who might like to help us tell the story of the recovery campus or of the engagement center. So I'd like to try to figure out how to, if that's something that you're willing to, that you want to explore, I'd like to figure out how to get you access to the places that we, that,

the two places that we're talking about. PEDRO

Yeah. What's interesting is that Long Island, if you think about, being the place that sort of is the long-term sort of recovery place for people, kind of completing our continuum of care that we offer as a city, the engagement center is really the low end. It is the thing that starts the continuum of care. It's, like, it's sort of, you know, in bureaucratic speak, called a low-threshold space, because even people who are kicked out of shelters, people kicked out of programs, are allowed to be there.

You can be, you know, in any state of mind as long as, you know, you're respecting the space. You can come and you can sleep, you can come and play games. You'll see some pictures of it. What's interesting is that we, we tried to make the best of what we had.

Yeah. So it was a storage tent, basically. You know, like, with a structure. Like, it had, it has air conditioning and it has all sorts of things you'd find in a building, but it's still, it's canvas.

Yeah. And so, very quickly, the most random assortment of ragtag gang of people in the city from many departments kind of came together and figured out what to do with this space to make it habitable, but more importantly, to make it a place that people wanted to be. Because we really wanted this to be a place where you're not even on the recovery spectrum yet. You're not necessarily wanting recovery.

Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. It's just a place for people to go so that they're not on the streets, so that they're not in danger of falling into the highway, because that's sort of where this is located. Wow. And just a place where people could be their full selves.

It's important to people, it's home for a lot of people. And just to follow up on what Sabrina said, like, you were talking about your art in a way that we've kind of been talking about some of the artistic approaches here, and we sort of discussed, around a civic art. It's, like, art that is not just public, it's not just, like, there to see, but rather, there's some purpose, or the artist or the community can sort of articulate, "This is doing-- this is this." Like, "This is how we're going to put it to use." And, like, here it's not just because it looks nice. It's the little, teeny things that, like, push people into recovery.

The little, you know, breath of fresh air, or the, being able to, like, talk to somebody that, you know, gives some meaning to your day. And, like, that is totally what this space could, you know, could always use.

JOYCE

We're year two into this. We've put some money in the capital budget for a permanent space at some point, but we have no idea how long it's going to take

to actually do that. PEDRO

Yeah. In the meantime, this space is being very well utilized. Like, to the point where things are wearing out faster than we would like them to and that sort of thing. So very, very cognizant of trying to make sure that the place is, um, welcoming and, and a good place for people to be.

Yeah.

JOYCE

But the administration is committed to, to keeping an engagement center in some form up and running pretty much permanently at this point. There are a number of people who have found their way to recovery through the engagement center.

So it's an important... PEDRO

Oh, okay. And so, like Steven said, it's a, it's a low-threshold space. So these are folks who might not have even thought about that yet. But, you know, but at least having the ability to ask for help be right in front of you makes it, I think, probably a little bit more likely that you might actually ask for help.

So it's a friendly space. It allows you to take that first step. Springboard-- not even a step. Springboard...

Because there's no expectation of recovery. Like, it's not like most other services. You don't go there because you're ready, necessarily. You can go there and just to get your snack, but then over enough time, maybe that will be the thing...

WOMAN

Right....that, that springs you forward. You got everything from, "Hey, I'm looking for a coed space that I can be with my partner," to, "Hey, I've been barred "from all these other spaces that the city provides, "but I definitely need to, you know, access, you know, "fruit cups in order to deal with, you know, my low blood sugar," and this space offered that opportunity to provide that for them, and then sort of ease them back into being a part of, you know, whatever they may have not been a part of before. And so it's acted like an incredibly interesting mediation space for some, a social space for other, a living room, a pit stop, a sort of community, and again, being in that meeting, just hearing everyone talk about, this is like a family. And so I think we're at a really interesting point where, yes, we're trying to think about how to refresh the space, as a city trying to think about, well, what does it mean to keep the engagement center?

What does that look like? Does that mean more of them? Does it mean a better version of what we have right now? All that aside, also thinking about, you know, how do we tell the story about what's happening here?

Both on the level of the humanizing folks and meeting people where they are, but also just functionally, we've done something here that clearly is filling a gap and a need and really, like, what's the story that Boston's trying to tell around recovery? Being such an epicenter, I think, regionally, and so I think there's, there's some interesting connections to think about. You know, how do we talk about this? How do we talk about Long Island?

JOYCE

Well, obviously, there's a political side to all of this, too, because this exists in a neighborhood, right? And the South End neighborhood has been very good about accepting the amount of social services that have to be absorbed by that community, because, you know, the shelter is in that neighborhood. There's a methadone clinic in that neighborhood. So this is the corner of Melnea Cass and Mass.

Ave. People call it Methadone Mile. We call it Recovery Road. (Pedro chuckling) And, you know, we need to do a better job of telling the story, and also lifting up the neighbors in the, in the South End who've been good about absorbing all of this activity that not every neighborhood would be so...

open to receiving. Yeah. You know, I think that it goes a long way that most people have substance use disorders somewhere in their family. Most people probably have it pretty close in their families.

So, that helps, but we owe it to them to tell a story about why this is needed. And this is, you know, sort of a short-term, it's big for us, but it's also small and short-term, when you, in the context of the recovery campus on Long Island, much longer-term project, you know. It calls for the rebuilding of a bridge, and obviously, there's a, there's a court case that's going to go on about that. There's the, an argument between two municipalities about how that gets done.

But Long Island was a place where a lot of programs like this existed for many, many years. And the mayor's made it clear that he wants to build this recovery campus, which will serve long-term residential programs in recovery. So where it used to be, there was a homeless shelter-- at least one homeless shelter, maybe two? Yeah, there was two shelters out there.

So where it used to be that there would be, there would be a night shelter, that's not going to be the case anymore. Now it's going to be focused on long-term recovery. So it's residential, as opposed to sort of shuttling homeless people out at night and bringing them back into the city in the morning. So there's a whole-- and where, I don't know, I actually don't know what the latest update is on when we could really even expect a bridge to be rebuilt, but it's at least three or four years out.

So in the meantime, we're thinking about programming, assessing the viability of all the buildings that are out there, and trying to figure out how to tell the story of Long Island. Because we have, we definitely have a story that we need to tell, because we need to build political will to actually make the recovery campus happen so that it can serve not just Bostonians, but people dealing with substance use disorders from around the Greater Boston area. So there's some great opportunity there for storytelling, and we're very much in the beginning, the beginning stages of that.

I think I've mentioned Swoon in the past. STEVEN

Yeah. So Swoon, you know, she was actually... I mean, this is public. Her, she was raised by-- her parents were addicts.

Heroin, if I, if I remember correctly. And, um... So it's, it's a topic that she's very attuned to, and I think she's made it clear that she wants to dedicate, you know, maybe the rest of her career to really looking at, at addiction and trauma. And how, you know, trauma leads to addiction.

And so... The project that I did with her in Philadelphia, she worked with, um, men at Graterford State Prison, inmates, which is the largest state prison, maximum-security prison, in the state of Pennsylvania, women in a re-entry program, and... I'm sorry, women in a halfway house and a re-entry program. The most important thing was the element of telling the story.

And she worked with participants to teach them how to tell their story. And we were all crying. It was so, you know, powerful. So I...

This-- I think that the oral histories are, are very important. The portrayal of people who we often forget about, disregard, are, are really important tools for humanization.

STEVEN

So much of recovery is about storytelling, anyway. Who knows what tomorrow might bring? And so I think the more that we can sort of tell, use these stories to put them out there, but also to really, like, put at the center of all this work the idea of storytelling, or the idea of, like, owning your story and sharing it. (traffic humming, distant siren)

WOMAN

What happened? (sirens blaring) (brakes hissing and squeaking) (radio chatter) (sirens blaring) (radio chatter) (engine idling, radio chatter)

WOMAN (on radio)

We're running a line to check for additional extensions. (inaudible) all companies.

OPERATOR (on radio)

Operations call.

MAN (on radio)

They're saying it looks like the fan belt's caught on fire. It's locked down right now. (inaudible) going to give it a final washdown.

DEPUTY CHIEF (on street)

Yeah, I think a fan belt inside the generator caught fire, so they, uh... Okay. They extinguished it, I think they shut the power off, and they're on their way down now.

POLICE OFFICER

All right, awesome.

Thank you. DEPUTY CHIEF

Thank you. (helicopter whirring) (alert beeping) (street drumming and percussion) (drumming continues) (drumming continues on audio) (tempo increases) (staccato rhythm) (first tempo resumes) (drumming fades)

WOMAN

I just want to give a brief background of how this event came to be. For those of you familiar with Sebastian Junger, who's a writer, his last book was called "Tribe." And in this book, he explores the concept around homecoming and belonging within the veterans community. And he often talks about how the best thing a community can do for our veterans is to listen to their stories without judgment and with full support. And this is what this town hall is intended to do.

This is a community forum aiming to establish greater understanding between local veterans and the friends and neighbors that they fought for. We took care of English and American soldiers when they came back from the front. Some of the soldiers' wounds would heal and they were able to get up, but most of them were bed patients. We helped the soldiers recuperate from physical and mental injuries.

Back then, we called it shell shock. We tried to keep the soldiers' spirits up. Many of the soldiers had lost a leg or an army, or sometime both legs and armies. Those men-- and arms.

Those men were sent to Walter Reed to receive artificial limbs and appendages. I had a patient who wrote a letter to his wife to tell her that he had lost his leg. He was worried that she wouldn't want him when he came home. But his wife wrote to him and told him that she was just so happy that he was alive.

He cried, and I cried, too. The street right down the, a few houses away from me was named Andrew Biggio Square, and, as I was introduced, that's my name. Except that square was not named after me. It was named after my uncle who was killed in action in World War II, the first Andrew Biggio.

When I was a kid, I didn't know anything about it. I told the other kids just what my parents told me, that it was named after my uncle. It wasn't until I was getting ready to go to my first tour in Iraq that I was looking at that street sign saying "Andrew Biggio Square," and it was a, it was a weird feeling knowing that, um, I was the... I'm the next Andrew Biggio to go to war, and the first Andrew Biggio went to war and didn't come back, so...

(clears throat) I survived Iraq, I survived a tour in Afghanistan, and I came home, and I was staring at that street sign again, and I said, "I got to find out what happened to that first Andrew Biggio on that hill in Italy in 1944." So I went to my grandmother's house, I asked her if she still had Andrew's letters that he wrote home from World War II. She said she did, I went upstairs, I pulled the shoebox out, of letters, and I started reading them. I started to track down men from his company that were with him, and it went from men from his company to all different types of veterans, and I ended up covering almost the whole war on the rifle as far as divisions, places, battles. How did I get the rifle?

So, I go through Andrew's letters, and I read on how much he enjoyed to shoot the M1 Garand. So I said, "I'm going to go out and buy an M1. "We should have this in our family history. "We should have it forever.

He died carrying this kind of a rifle." I went out and I purchased the M1, and I'm in my house, and I'm aiming it at the wall and I'm playing army man again at 30 years old in, in my living room. But I said, "Who, who do I bring this to? "I can't show my family-- would they really understand? "They're not veterans.

"It's great, but now what? "I bought the rifle, now what? "How do I fit the puzzle piece together on what happened to that first Andrew Biggio?" So I thought about my neighbor, my next-door neighbor, Joe. He had fought in the Battle of Okinawa and was a grouchy prick to me my whole life.

(laughter) Anytime a foul ball would land in his backyard, I'd hear an earful from-- it wasn't, he wouldn't crack a smile to me until I graduated Marine Corps Boot Camp. Then I started to see him wave to me from his yard. It just, the relationship became different. So I said, "I'm going to go show this rifle to Joe." I went to his house, opened the door, and he's sitting in the wheelchair.

He was 92 at the time. And I said, "Hey," you know, "Check what I bought." I placed the rifle-- which was empty, not covered in signatures, like it is now-- I put the rifle into his arms. He was in his recliner. His legs had atrophied to nothing after years of not being able to walk at his age and illness, and he brightened up.

It was like a burst of energy soared through his body. He started waving the rifle around the room, smiling like he was 18 years old again. I said, "Holy crap, I am holding something special." He said go into his top drawer. (clears throat) "I want you to have these now." I went into his top drawer, I pulled out a velvet Crown Royal bag.

Inside of it were Japanese gold teeth. He said, "I want you to have these now." Now, I'm not saying here, justifying war or what happened in the 1940s, but I figured out this is why this man was a grouch my... I finally understand what was bothering this man my whole life and what he had seen and what he had went through. I wanted to...

This was more than just, "Oh, my God, let me hear a war story." He began to pass on the advice, life advice and suggestions on how to live a long, successful life after combat. I was 28 when I had this conversation with him, and he was 92. I said, "I want to remember this forever." I said, "Joe, sign, sign the rifle." He was the first signature on it. I left his house and I said, "I'm going to go around "and get as many World War II veterans' signatures as possible." I want to be able to pass on to the younger veterans how to live a long, successful life, how to have a career, have a job.

And if these men could do it, and what they saw in Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Normandy, Burma, France, Belgium, Germany, Saipan, Tarawa, Tinian, that our generation could do it, too. And that is the story of the rifle.

KURT POWER

Well, we come out of the factory, and for you Ramadi vets, we're out on Route Michigan, and we stop two possible VBEDs. And they're both coming down Michigan to the point that we, we have, I believe, two Humvees. We stop. Everyone dismounts to get more guns downrange to back off the vehicles.

Well, while that happened, about 450 to 600 meters out, I look, I look at what would be known as the White Apartments, for anybody that served in Ramadi. And there's three military-age males, or, at that time-- because I'm old in comparison to these new kids-- Al-Qaeda on a roof, and they're tactically observing us. So I go to take the shot, and then I think, you know, it's Ramadi, it's the middle of the day. Everyone's getting sniped, everyone's getting killed.

I'm going to turn, I'm going to tell the lieutenant I'm making the shot, so guys don't think it's incoming fire. When I go to take the shot, the whole thing was a setup. It was a, it was a sniper from my three. So I turned at the last second before I took the shot to tell the lieutenant, and the round actually blew through my holographic sight and into the side of my chest.

But I didn't know that at the time. So, I said, "I'm hit." I get in the Humvee, and then I said, "No," I said, "I'm good." I said... It's not being tough. I said, "My..." Your adrenaline goes through the roof.

Anybody that's been shot here... My man over there knows, to say the least. And I said, "No, I'm good." They stop the Humvee, I go to get back out of it, I open the door, and my platoon sergeant reaches over and grabs me, because blood's coming out of the side of my chest. And I know at that point, he hit me exactly where he wanted to hit me.

They were shooting through the side of the pectoral into the heart. We believe that same sniper killed a couple of my friends the same exact way. So they rushed me into the forward operating base and onto the operating table. And, you know, I, I think, "Okay," you know, maybe, hey, you know, "Maybe a piece of plate got me.

I feel good, I'm feeling fine." You know, I, uh... And then I get out of the Humvee, and that's always a big thing, right? Like everybody knows here, it's, like, if you, if you can walk into the hospital, even if you die on the floor, like, if you can walk into the hospital, like, that's how it goes. So I said, "Don't touch me." I take my clothes off, and one of the baddest guys I ever met in my entire life that, you know, had survived a battle over there with a handful of our guys getting killed, and, you know, he was...

He was, you know... One of two survivors out of, like, seven guys. He looks at me, and he's mortified. And I have a big gaping hole in the side of my chest.

What happened was, because it shot through my holographic sight, it created, like, buckshot. So now, at this point, I'm, like, I know, I know I'm going to die. It is what it is. Like, I believe in the cause.

I feel good, you know, in terms of, like, "Hey, this is, this is what it's going to be. This is what it's going to be, I'm a true believer." They get me on the operating table, and I'm saying, "No, but I, you know, I feel good." They tell me the bullet's still inside me, so everyone's just waiting for me to bleed out on the table, bleed out internally and die. And my, my commanding officer's holding my hand, and he said, "Hey, you know, Kurt, hang in there, buddy." You know, "Do you know what date... "Do you know what the date is?

Do you know what's going on?" And I said, "I know what you're doing." I said, "Today's October 10." I said, "I'm a lifelong Patriots fan." I said, "Adam Vinatieri just kicked "the game-winning field goal. Best kicker in football." (laughter) And I said, I said, I looked around the operating room and everyone was mortified, but they, they knew I was going to survive. So, I make it, I make it through surgery, and they said, you know, "Son," you know, "Thank you for your service. "You're going to go from Ramadi to Baghdad, Baghdad to Germany, Germany back to the United States," and, you know, I said, "With all due respect, like, everyone's dying-- I'm not going anywhere." And they said...

They said, "You're stupid." They said, you know, "You, the, the bullet's still in there. "Your chest isn't going, isn't going to close. "There's no granulation, you need skin grafts. "You're going to get infected, and it's going to die...

And you're going to die over here." And I said, like, like, "It, it is what it is. I'm, I'm staying." And I checked myself out of the hospital. I had talked to my father via sat phone, and then I said, I always, one of my biggest supporters, I said, I called my aunt. She's a former nun who then went on to be very successful on Wall Street and a no-nonsense kind of woman who grew up here in the city of Boston.

And I said, you know, I said, "I need you to grab my back in this." I said, "I got shot." I said, "And I'm staying." And she said, "Well, I wouldn't expect anything differently." (laughter) So, I said, I, you know... I continued to fight on the ground for eight more months, and, you know, it was heavy. We lost guys, and, but I wouldn't have done it any differently. But I'm, I'm an open book, and I tell everyone, but, like, listen, war is war, and it's tough, but, like, honestly, the hardest part was coming home.

I said, I actually know Tommy, because I went through the Home Base program and same thing, not to get too organization-specific. But I said it was, it was the best thing I ever did, okay? I said, because I said I wasn't scared. I wasn't scared when I, when I hit I.E.Ds., I wasn't scared when I was shot and I knew I was going to die, but I said, "When I came home, and I'm on the side of 93 "seeing my family, and Local 103 has, 'Welcome home from Iraq, Sergeant Kurt Power,'" I said, "It hit me." I said, "What am I doing back here?

I don't belong here anymore." I had never thought that I would have to prepare for it, because I never thought I was going to survive. And there was a... For guys, you know, guys and gals that were over and in it, there's a certain comfort level to that. There's no-- listen, we're all going to die someday, right?

And if you know it's sooner than later over there, well, then why sweat it? You know, that's, that's the reality of it. The best way to honor the guys that didn't make it home is to do what you can to make the world a better place. And that's how I live my life every day, and I just want it, you know, everyone to know that our coming home and our going through things, like, that you're not alone.

Like, we're all in this together, okay? Because we're losing 22 veterans a day, because everyone thinks they're the only one that ever went through anything, okay? That, like, nightmares and cold sweats and anxiety, that's all part of the process, okay? And that the only way we're going to get people to get help and to get in and to continue to live another day is by being open and talking about it.

So keep fighting. Keep fighting for the guys that didn't make it. Keep fighting for the gals that didn't make it. You know, we're proud of all of you.

Thank you so much for your service, and God bless America.

MAN

And we were further north. We were in I Corps, and you can see it in Ken Burns' documentary. He focuses on Con Thien. But we were at Con Thien, we were at Gio Linh, we were at Camp Carroll, and almost every time we went to one of those places, we were under siege.

And they were shooting rockets. We could literally look right into North Vietnam. We could see the little sparks from the artillery guns when they fired them on us. And they'd usually fire three at a time, and they'd fire them every hour.

And some of you have seen the, the Boston Marathon bombing? Remember the panic when the first bomb went off and folks started running one way, and then another bomb went off and folks didn't know what to do? Well, that's what was happening to us every hour. Three artillery rounds would come in and guys were literally getting blown to bits.

And it was clear that we were being sacrificed. We were the most northern outpost that the Marines had, and it was almost like we were a pawn in somebody's chess game. And I had the opportunity to call home. And I called my mother, and I...

The first thing I said to her was, "Ma," I said, "Ma, I want to just apologize to you "for all the problems I caused you in, when I was in high school." And she said, "Why are you talking to me like this?" And I said, "Because you'll probably never see me again." And she said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Everybody in my unit's dying." I said, "We're the most northern outpost "the Marines have, we're surrounded, they're bombarding us every day." I said, "Sometimes they don't even bring us water. We have to drink mud and eat grass." And my mother said, "You're not going to die." I said, "Ma, I'm trying to tell you something." She said, "I talk to God every day. And you're special-- you're coming back." And I said, "Ma, everybody's mother thinks they're special. "Okay?

I'm putting pieces of special people in bags. "Listen to what I'm saying. "Don't believe what you read in the 'Globe' "or

what you see on the 6

00 news. "We're losing the war. "We're being sacrificed. You're probably not going to see me again." And she kept saying, "You're coming back." She tried to tell a joke.

She said, "Besides, if you don't come back..." She said, "You got to come back." I said, "What do you mean, I got to come back?" She said, "If you don't come back, who's going to pay this telephone bill?" And every time I see or hear anything about veterans who lost their lives in, in Vietnam, or when I see, I pull up on the corner and I see guys with the cardboard placards and, and their cups, I realize how, how blessed I am, having gone through all that. And everything that I do, I do it for them. I do it for the guys that didn't make it back. I do it for the guys who lost their, their arms and legs and the guys who even lost their minds.

I long for the day, with all this technology-- like, we can walk around with computers in our pockets-- I long for the day when we can evolve to a point where we can resolve conflicts without sending our sons and daughters to kill each other. Let us not forget the total cost of war. World War I was among the deadliest conflicts in human history, up to that time, at least, anyway. The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was around 40 million people.

40 million people. Of which 9.7 military personnel and approximately ten million civilians lost their lives as a direct result of this conflict. About 23 million military personnel were also wounded. In the United States, which was isolated from the combat conflict in Europe, 321,000 military casualties was approximately three percent of the total military casualties of the Great War.

To put things in perspective and why this date is so important, 90 million casualties of World War II and later conflicts further signifies having a day each year to honor and remember all veterans and their sacrifice to protect our freedoms and their way of life. Thank you for your, your service to our country. Thank you for your sacrifice to our country. To your loved ones, thank you to your loved ones, as well.

Because oftentimes, we don't realize that families are affected by not having their loved ones here. Any Gold Star families here, we pray for you and thank you, as well. I have a great-uncle that fought in World War I. My family didn't talk, my father didn't talk about him much.

His name was Patrick, and he, and he left Ireland and came to America and came to South Boston and he enlisted in the Army. And he went over to France and he never came home. And I was at an event right after I got elected mayor, and I was talking to, to some World War I guys. And they were talking about, you know, about keeping the memory alive of World War I service members.

And they sent me his draft, his card, the day he signed up. And they sent me the letter that they sent to his brother Jimmy when he died, when he got killed in action. And we never talked about it in the house, and we never really thought about it much. And my father never talked about it, and I grew up in an Irish home, and, you know, you don't talk about your things, and I'm not a veteran.

But I know the importance of telling, telling what's on your heart sometimes. I'm in recovery. So my connection to, to getting help is in recovery. I grew up in Dorchester and I went to work construction, and you didn't tell your feelings back then when, when you're drinking and things like that.

And my drinking got out of control, so much that I ended up in detox. It was the last place that I wanted to be. But when I was in there, I realized I didn't go there to stop drinking. I went there to get the heat off me.

But while I was in there the first night, a meeting came in and somebody spoke, you know, an A.A. meeting came in and they talked and whatever it was, I was interested. It kind of, kind of perked my interest, and the rest of that week, I, I listened to talk of addiction. And I learned about what alcoholism was.

And when you get out of there, you're not cured. The key for me is, is the aftercare. And it's 23 years later, I'm still working on it. And you just think about every now and then, you think about situations you might have put yourself in.

And if you don't deal with it, and you don't talk to somebody else about it, it's going to stay inside of you. Because whether, whether you're, whether, whether you're in the battlefield and you come home, or you're in the barroom and, and you're not talking about it, or you're, or you're in a dark room where they're putting a needle in your arm, and not talking about it, there's no way of helping. And I equate, I connect the, the... Not the same way, because it's very different.

The going and fighting for your country and coming back is different on the surface of alcoholism, but inside, it's all the same. It's that feeling, that hopeless, what I had, hopeless, helpless, don't-know-what-to-do-about-it feeling. And like I said, I, I didn't, I, everyone had suggested that I go get help and many times, and I'm, like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." I went to one A.A. meeting one time and I used that as an excuse.

"I got help, I went to a meeting." And I used that for about five years. But it wasn't until I hit my bottom. And when I hit my bottom, I didn't realize it was my bottom, but I knew-- it was pretty low. And a lot of other things happened in my life that, that built up to that point.

Every time I drank, I didn't get in trouble, but every time I got in trouble, I was drinking. So, you think about that, and I think about sharing experiences and I love, I go to, I still go to my meetings. And hearing people share their experience, strength, and hope about addiction, sometimes there's somebody up there talking that's in so much pain that they don't see the benefit, or they don't see the hope in it. They don't see the help.

They don't see the endgame. And if I get a chance to talk to them, I just kind of say, "It's a day at a time." Because when I first got sober, I'd hear people talk about, they have a house and they have a job and they have a car and they have this and they have that, and I used to be, like, "I want that." But I was in no way in the situation that I could get that at that particular moment. And seven years later, I bought my first, I bought my house. And I remember sitting on my back porch of my house, even ten years after I had it.

I looked up and said, "I can't believe it's mine." And it all goes back to going for help and asking for help. And I know many of you in this room shared your story today, and I thank you for that. And there's probably some people in this room that, that might be listening and saying, you know, "I don't know what I'm going to do." Ask-- just reach out. Put your hand out and ask for help.

That's all you got to do. That's the first step. That's the first step. You know, you fought for this country.

We owe it to you to help you. That's our job. As a government, that's our job. Our veterans office, veterans' affairs office, I'm proud of the work we do because we're there for the veterans.

I said this earlier as we went out. In my five years as mayor, I have never once had to suggest to the commissioner or the office, "You need to do this for the veterans or do that for the veterans." They're already doing it. It's set up for you. If it weren't for the veterans of the Revolutionary War, of World War I, II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, fighting all over the, all over the world, I wouldn't have the opportunity to be the mayor.

We wouldn't have the opportunity of a democracy. It's because of you. Because you fight for that democracy. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for what you've done for our country. Thank you for what you continue to do for our country. For me, Veterans' Day is a day on the calendar just like Memorial Day's a day on the calendar. But Veterans' Day and Memorial Day's every day.

It should be every day in our country.

MAN

We've been closer. (laughs) All right, everybody lean in for one more, ready? (camera clicks) Can you guys move in just a little bit tighter? Sorry.

Everybody go 45 degrees towards the center. (chuckling) I don't want to break the camera. (laughter) All right, cheese. (indistinct street noises) (breeze blowing, brakes squealing distantly)

WALSH

Tuesday, right after the elections for the Congress were complete, I reached out to Richie Neal. Congratulated Richie Neal. He's in line to be the next chairman of Ways and Means, from Springfield. I reached out to Jim McGovern.

Congratulated him. He's in line to be the Rules chair, from Worcester County. That's the seat formerly held by Joe Moakley, who he worked for. And so, you know, we have some really good allies in there.

I mean, obviously, they can't favor Boston per se, or Massachusetts, but having them there as a, as a contact in their office,

there's a contact for a lot of different issues

education, climate, transportation, fire stuff, police stuff. I mean, that's really important to have. We'll have staff in those offices that we can call, reach out directly to. So, I think on a national level, that will be important.

I also just reached out to the governor this morning to say that I'd like to get together with him to talk about education, transportation, and climate issues, and is there an opportunity for us to go and lobby in Washington for some of those funds for the commonwealth and for the city? I think we have decided to take a different approach. Last couple of years, we really haven't done much of that, because I think we were used to going right to the White House. We could go right to the secretaries when Obama was there.

We haven't done that with this president. But I think there's an opportunity for us to go down to Washington and lobby for all of our different pieces that we're looking at here through the congressional folks right now. That's usually how it worked in the past. It changed under Obama the last couple of years.

They really made an, a concerted effort to reach out to mayors and build a relationship directly with mayors. Usually, you go through the legislative leaders like you do at the State House. So, you know, I think that's a, that's a really good thing for us. Hopefully, uh...

Hopefully, some good things can happen out of, out of Washington. (church bells ringing) (bells ringing hour)

MAN

There's an openness that John has. If he opens it up, it's, we get a really bad storm, to 30 or 40 women, it doesn't go back down. Right? So he was willing...

It worked well last winter

00 and 8

00 p.m., but then leave a little room for overflow from other places. There needs to be some space, because if he's going to step up, he needs to be able to know that there is space that he is going to take these people to right there. That we're not going to be in a situation where he's showing up at Pine Street or he's showing up somewhere and saying, "You can't, you can't..." Yeah. A group of women who are sort of chronic, they seem to be severely mentally ill who don't leave shelter at all.

I mean, they're in it, because we're open 24/7, and they, they don't leave. I think we have a number of people, also, you know, with sort of a combination of behavioral and substance-use disorders that are a combination there. There's a host of women who just desperately want to get housed, who just don't have the income, you know. Like, we have a woman, an evacuee from Puerto Rico, who has, just wants to get housing, but has, like, a $535 SSI check, and then about 50% of the women also had some sort of domestic violence or some sort of violence issue prior to coming, so we're trying to get more service providers in, because there, there does seem to be a group of women who are like, hiding.

(group acknowledging) Like, like, "I'm just trying to stay under the radar" for whatever reason.

MAN

You know, in the cold weather, transit stations are places where people who are sometimes less well-known or sometimes kind of hanging out have aggregated, and, and we know last year how the unintended consequence of the compassion of the T at South Station that really attracted people who were not so vulnerable, but kind of... Predatory? Taking advantage... (laughter) Well, there was some of that, for sure.

So we just want to think about this year, you know, what, what the approach, how, working with the team, because I think, Superintendent, you want to talk a little about what you pivoted to last year, kind of when it was clear that South Station wasn't working in January, February? Unfortunately, we, we had to just keep muddling through it. And unless we come up with something better, I think we're going to have it worse this year. So at its peak, we had 170 people in there.

There was no vetting. The place is not secure. There's no metal detectors. There was all kinds of activity going on, inappropriate, criminal.

(clears

throat)

I know a lot of people were telling me, "Just throw more cops in there." That's not, that's not the answer. That's putting, that's treating the symptom and not the cause. (clears We have intelligence that suggests this year, and I know everyone's aware of what's going on at Mass. and Melnea, we're right in the middle.

That's where our headquarters are. There's anywhere from as low as 50 to as high as 200 people that are gathering there, using drugs, engaged in violence, prostitution, you name it. (clears We have intelligence that's already telling us that core group, which is in the dozens, are going to go to South Station when it gets cold to do whatever they want to do. So, it's great.

One or two nights, we hit some extreme weather, they come in there, but what happened last year is, you know, it started November 10. Right away was the first day we had to do shelter in place. (clears Two weeks after that, we went on a stretch that went 17 straight nights. (woman murmuring) We just can't do it.

(clears I think we're, we're doing them more disservice, the whole... We, we got killed in the media. We got killed amongst homeless advocates, because when you think of a homeless shelter, right away you think of showering facilities, food, uh, mental health, medical. We have none of that.

And I can tell you that the, the folks that are paying, you know, a lot of rent inside South Station were beside themselves. Commuters coming in in the morning were beside themselves. This isn't me getting it thirdhand-- I personally would respond. And I would say a vast majority of them

probably weren't even homeless. WOMAN

Hm. And it's impossible for us-- and I wouldn't ask my officers to do it and subject themselves to all kinds of accusations-- to go around and pick and choose who should stay in there and who shouldn't. So, I think we need to come up with a better solution. I'm willing to, to hire people and transport people all over the city all night long.

We want to be good and responsible neighbors, and we, we want to do our part. But just from seeing that firsthand, I, I think we were almost causing more harm than good. None of the folks who left South Station when the overnights ended, very few of them ended up out on the street in, in places that we saw. They, they migrated to other places.

So I think we have to work together to make sure that the transportation is offered, that where the shelter capacity we've added is available. The most humane thing that we can do for people who find themselves in, in the middle of a very bad weather situation is to get them to the place where they can get the support and the resources they need. That they can get a meal, that they can, they have... There's a bathroom, there's a shower, and there's support there.

Leaving them at South Station, especially some of the more vulnerable folks, you know, just... So I feel, as a public position, we're in a strong position to be able to say that the T is stepping up, doing what it does best-- transportation. (laughter)

MAN

So the, the weekly outreach meetings on Tuesdays, we're making sure that we have represent... Because the other first responders, the Boston Police Department District I, Boston E.M.S., the, the Squad 80 group, and the State Police are all at that meeting. So just making sure we have conversations in those meetings about how the outreach networks can help. (car horn honking) (indistinct chatter) (handheld scanner beeping) Do you have anything in your pockets?

(scanner beeping) (objects clattering)

GUARD

Do you have anything in your pockets, ma'am? (scanner beeps)

GUARD 2

Any metal in your pockets? Phone, keys?

WOMAN

Uh, belt?

GUARD 2

No, belt's fine, just your pockets. (objects clattering) (metallic clanging)

MAN

All right, have a good one, sir. Thank you.

GUARD 2

Just the metal in your pockets. Phone, keys. (scanner beeping) Your watch? Oh, yeah.

Any metal in your pockets? Phone, keys?

MAN

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 pretty much eliminates, or it makes it illegal for anyone to discriminate when it comes to housing, especially for certain classes of people based on race, gender, color, sexual orientation, and a bunch of other things. Currently what is happening is, HUD has proposed a new rule. Or is proposing a new rule under the Trump administration. And as you know, the Fair, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 has, for the last 50 years, governed or guided how we-- the laws of fair housing.

And so what's happening is that with this new rule, or under the Fair Housing Act, let me start by saying that, there's a portion we call Disparate Impact. And under Disparate Impact, what it does is, it allows a complainant-- so, meaning anybody that has a complaint of discrimination that's happening in housing against a policy or practices that are happening-- to bring a complaint, formally bring a complaint against a bank, landlord, lender, or any kind of housing provider. So, currently, what's happening is, the... HUD wants to propose a rule that is going to make it basically next to impossible for people to, um, or anyone who is, um, experiencing any kind of discrimination under the Disparate Impact rule to be able to bring a complaint.

How this will work is, currently, there's a very neutral test for it. All that needs to be shown is that there is a, that is, that there is a, that whatever the policy or practice is has a wide-reaching discriminatory effect, right? But under this new rule, what's going to happen is that anyone that brings these complaints will now have to show not only that it's doing this, but also intent. That whomever the housing provider is, has these policies or practices that are happening, and not only do they have them, but they're, but they intend to discriminate against a person of color, race, gender, sexual orientation, what have you.

The problem with this is that it makes it next to impossible, because people who normally bring these complaints don't have the time, the money, the resources under the current rule as it is to do this. That's why we're able to investigate if such a thing happens, and under the current Disparate Impact rule, we're able to look into it. Or HUD is able to look into it and investigate and figure out if in fact this is happening. With this new rule, it makes it next to impossible.

So, and it shifts the burden onto the complainant. The complainant now will now have to show this, that it's happening. So we have written a letter, along with the mayor, to challenge the federal government on it, challenge HUD on this new proposed rule. Our department has linked up with other city agencies, and we have been part of the comment period that is currently open right now, and the mayor has also written a letter to HUD, you know, opposing this new rule, because if it does in fact pass, then this thing, not only is it going to affect how we currently do fair housing under the Disparate Impact rule, but it has even far more wide-reaching effects, which is that it is an attack against civil rights, right?

Because the Fair Housing Act was enacted under the, under civil rights. And if you can erode this rule, then you can erode civil rights. You can erode it when it comes to discrimination, segregation, voting rights, equal opportunity in employment, because these things, we all follow the same thinking process. And it's all under the civil rights umbrella.

So if you, so if HUD is able to do this, that means later on, they're going to be able to attack all these other civil rights that the country has fought for over the last 51 years to make sure that people have or are being treated fairly. So, this is a really huge thing at the moment, right now. We don't know what's going to happen with it. We've submitted comment letters.

We have encouraged all of the other FHIPs and FHAPs, meaning, fair housing providers and the agencies that are involved in this work, to submit comment letters, as well, too. The mayor wrote a really good comment letter that hopefully, we're praying, you know, gets some traction with HUD. But in the event that it doesn't pass, and HUD's rule is, and HUD's new proposal rule does pass, then we are now in a situation where basically we're, we are watching the erosion of civil rights in the country.

WOMAN

What do we have here in Boston that highlights the strength of diversity and of our immigrant population? How can we celebrate what unites us here in the city and having Boston be a city of immigrants with a majority minority population? What do we have to say here and what can we do to really communicate and celebrate that our diversity makes us stronger, and it actually leads us back to one another and to a sense of unity and solidarity with one another? And that is that our diversity and our strength really comes from the immigrant population here in this city.

So that's really where it came from. Just really thinking about, how can we highlight these intersecting types of issues around health which have to do with food, have to do with the activity that we really started with at the Armenian Heritage Park, starting with walking and physical activity and meditation. And then coming over here and being... And having a cooking class to sort of celebrate all of us being together, healthy food, and, again, all the ethnic cultures of Boston.

That was really the goal of this series, is to break down some of the barriers that have historically existed here in Boston and really sort of, by being next to one another, by being together, sort of create the sense of community that really exists and break down some of the separations that have historically existed here in the city.

WOMAN 2

So the meal that we're going to demonstrate today is shrimp lo mein. So, "mein" in Chinese means noodles. And "lo" in Cantonese means stirred. So it's a stir-fried noodle.

(pan sizzling) And noodles in the Chinese cuisine symbolizes longevity and prosperous life. Traditionally, it's served at celebrations such as Chinese New Year or birthdays. So, for the sauces we are going to use today is oyster sauce, low-sodium soy sauce, cooking wine, and a little bit of sugar. Some spices, either chili powder or the pepper, black pepper.

And it also will give it a little flavor without adding too much salt. That's what we call rice noodle. So it has different flavor and goes with different kind of sauces, and a lot of people from China, they go back to their hometown just to have that dish of the noodles that, that were in their childhood memory. Wine.

And we also put a, a tablespoon of our cooking wine and, just to give it a little flavor, and also to reduce the, the fishy-- a little bit fishy smell in the, in the shrimp, as well. The shrimp... Yeah. Now we put into the shrimp.

The shrimp already cooked. So the shrimp is already cooked from our demonstration, but we do recommend to prepare the protein separately from our noodles, just to make sure that it's cooked all the way through, and then reach the, the internal temperature that's recommended. (sizzling)

WOMAN

Thank you-- thank you. It looks good. (laughs) (indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter) Do you want me to do this? I think that would probably be easier.

It's very... it's very heavy. (laughs) Ooh, that's where all the sauce was. (indistinct chatter) (lute tuning) (playing gospel tune, chatter stops) (song continues) (tempo slows) (song ends) (din of the street) (walk signal beeping) (car horn honks) (reverse signal beeping) (vehicles passing) (brakes hiss) (truck engine idling) (brakes hiss) (reverse signal beeping in distance) (distant horn honks) (wind blowing, leaves rustling)

JOHN BARROS

55% of Bostonians are non-white. But in addition to being a majority city of color, we are also a city of immigrants. And so 28% of Bostonians are foreign-born and come from about 150 countries of origin. Immigrants own 33% of incorporated businesses in Boston.

And in 2014, according to Brookings Institute, Boston was ranked number one in terms of income inequality. By 2017, they ranked us number seven, and that was due primarily to the increase of income in the lower income brackets. In the Federal Reserve Bank's, Boston's, "Color of Wealth" report, it, it listed a number of different things. First, it was the first report to break out net worth by ethnic groups.

It's a fascinating report, if you haven't had a chance to look at it. But for, for Black Americans-- U.S. Blacks, as it listed it-- the net worth, median net worth for U.S. Black families was eight dollars.

And the median net worth for white families in the same period of time, $247,000. This is not something we're proud of. Many Bostonians are underemployed-- over-credentialed. And so meeting with companies, and doing a comparison on their job postings in Boston, versus job postings around the, around the country, right?

And asking, we've got some folks, um, uh, I won't name them, but we looked at one company, and, like, 100% of their jobs, you needed a bachelor's. And it's, like, really? And then when you look at like jobs around the country, it's just not true. And so having conversations with employers that allow us to, to access those jobs are important.

Jobs are a big part of, of the work that we do. So the Boston Residents Job Policy, which was a policy that was developed in 1983, was recently updated by Mayor Walsh. And this policy essentially mandates that, in, in the construction space, where there is any private development or public development that is looking for private, um, uh... variances or any kind of public approval, we are mandating 51% of those on a construction site be Boston residents, 40% people of color, and 12% women.

And so, and this is something that, you know, is really important, because the construction jobs end up being pretty good jobs. And so part of that is creating the pipeline and working with the unions and others to make sure that we have a diverse workforce, so that we can hit those numbers. The other one, frankly, though, is the new good jobs policy that the city just announced on RFPs. So any city land that is being disposed of, the mayor announced that we will be looking for a good jobs analysis or a good jobs program for the permanent jobs that will be built or, or attracted to the developments that are built on city land.

And so we don't have the, the necessary legal levers to demand certain wages. So we set criteria and definition for what good jobs are at certain wages, and benefits, and conditions, and we want the developer to respond to that. Once the developer responds to that program and says, "Here's what we're gonna do," in front of the community and in front of the city, we will then codify it. In the city agreement to what's going to happen on that land, we are leasing the land, so we will have serious legal levers on any lease on what they should be doing with permanent jobs on that land.

On the small business side, the other piece is, following the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston "Color of Wealth" report, we do believe that there is an ethnic strategy to wealth creation. So the ethnic groups are very different in how they approach wealth and wealth creation. And, so how do you have a conversation with the immigrant communities? And the different immigrant communities look very different.

Very different. Some immigrant communities are, are high unemployment. So the employment rate for some of the immigrant communities and... Cape Verdeans, which is an immigrant group here from West Africa, their, their employment numbers are really high, but their entrepreneur numbers are really low, right?

It does, it does something for income, but it does nothing for wealth, right? And so how do you have that conversation in that community? When you look at the Black community, which is very diverse here in Boston, when you look at the U.S. Blacks, there's one picture.

When you look at Caribbeans, the folks, the Blacks from the Caribbeans, it's a different picture, right? So how do you help to think about what's happening there and how we have different strategies? So we're rolling out-- and we haven't announced this publicly-- but we're rolling out, um, conversations that are ethnic-based conversations. The BPDA has set up some research around it.

We've got some numbers. We just did an internal presentation recently, and we're gonna roll out ethnic-based conversations to have a conversation about the difference in our, in approach in our ethnic communities, not bad or good, but we're gonna put out the number, and we're gonna set up panels, panels of people from the community to have the conversation about what this might mean, and what might, might be new strategies, and how we can approach this to make sure that we're having a very responsive conversation about the economy that people live in. We're now mandating that people tell us how their team is diverse and inclusive in all areas. And then we will score them on that diversity and inclusion, and weigh, obviously, to those who are more diverse and inclusive of women and people of color on their construction team, on their design team, on the development team, on financing, on operation, on ownership.

And so we, we're driving to use public assets for... and align it to the mayor's agenda. We're also asking that people work with us in terms of what the community has said it wants to see in the neighborhood. And the recent RFPs that we put out is actually in response to something that's called Plan Dudley Square.

And we're making sure that there is clarity between alignment on what the community has asked for and what these developments are bringing. The second innovation is, we picked a neighborhood following the first comprehensive city-wide plan that Boston's done in 65 years-- or 50, depending on how you look at it-- called "Imagine Boston 2030," to, to pilot an effort of trying to develop a neighborhood without displacing that neighborhood. And one of the strategies calls for the city being more aggressive in acquiring property, right? It's something we're doing now on the housing side, as well, right?

So we are out there acquiring existing property, and not trying to just create affordability on new developments that are coming. How do we go after the high-risk property, buy them, and then make them permanently affordable, and hopefully, making the tenants the owners of those properties? So now we're doing that on a neighborhood-wide scale in Uphams Corner. Acquiring as much property as possible before we launch any kind of public conversation around the development of those properties.

And a third one would be working with corporations that are coming to Boston who are looking for tax incentives, or any kind of incentive, to relocate to our city-- or a headquarter, or bring a headquarter to our city. We have an agreement with Amazon, who is building about a million square feet in the Seaport, which equates about 4,000 jobs in two waves-- 2,000 for the first wave, another 2,000 for the second wave. There's an agreement with Amazon that we will use the linkage fees that those, that that construction is, is producing to create a workforce development and placement program specifically for those 2,000. We're meeting with HR this December, we're gonna look at the criterias, the skills, what's needed.

We're then gonna work with our, we're gonna work with Trinh and her team on RFP that looks at the development, the workforce development community in being specific in designing that pipeline or that journey to those jobs, right? And so this is something we're doing more and more of, is, is linking the employers or employment opportunity to the development and, and programs that are happening all the way down to high schools, which is something we really didn't talk about here, but Boston's effort to map the job development ecosystem, and then link it in a way that it's more effective and then it's evaluated.

WALSH

The concept of resilience is a powerful one. Um, it resonates with every aspect of city life and planning in our city, and what we do in our city every day. And our decision to focus on our racial equity work was important to our city to move on. And to move forward, really-- not move on, move forward.

It's something that's important. I grew up in, in Boston, in Dorchester during... I guess the busing... when busing came in.

I was at grammar school. And I used to walk... I went to... My mother and father are from Ireland, they're immigrants, and when they came here, they sent me to a parochial school, to Catholic school.

And I used to walk by the William E. Russell every day in the early '70s, and the kids would come up in the school buses, but they were, they were led by motorcycle police officers, and there was motorcycle police officers behind them, and there's ones on each side. And they were, they were moving kids in and out of schools, and I thought that that was a little, a little hard, when you think about, I'm walking down to St. Margaret's down the street, and we're walking down to school, and these kids are being escorted by the police.

Not understanding at that time really what was going on because I was seven years old, I was six and seven years old, and eight years old, so I wasn't really sure what was happening, going on. Um... Since that time, Boston has, has made some progress. Um, and we've worked on that progress with other elected officials in talking about addressing the disparities, and addressing racism, and addressing the past that we've experienced here in the city of Boston.

But the disparities remain deep, and there's a real... The distrust that we have is real in a lot of areas of our society. People wanted more open and honest conversations. And I saw the duty as a mayor, who's a white mayor-- Irish Catholic white mayor of Boston-- to start by listening and learning.

And that is something that, that is important that you have to do, because I don't think, if you get somebody up here making conversation and trying to make up answers, like I did when I was a candidate, it's not the way to go. And I did that as a candidate, trying to see what I could do. A city can't thrive if we're disconnected from each other. And that's something that is also important as far as the work that we do moving forward.

Racial disparities are our deepest form of disconnection that we have in this country, too. And we realize in Boston-- I realize in Boston-- we can't solve the problems of the Unites States of America in here. What we can do is work on the issues that we're dealing with here in Boston, and hopefully that other cities will see what we're doing, and mistakes we might make, they won't have to make those mistakes. And things that are successful in our city, they can say, "Okay, this is something that we can do "and use in our cities as success." We were just in Columbia, South Carolina, with Mayor Stephen Benjamin a couple of weeks ago-- there was about 40 mayors, I think, there.

And inevitably, this conversation comes up about equity and race, and we tie it into what's happening on a national level, but we also come back to saying that the impact can be made locally. And all it takes is one city. One city in this room to do something about it. To be able to share best practices, and share ideas, and that's what we do as mayors.

That's what we do as cities. That's what we do as city councilors. That's what legislatures around the country do. They take ideas from each other and they use best practices.

So I just continue to have these dialogues, continue to, to have, you know, these conversations, and hopefully we can continue to move forward as the city of Boston, but also as a country-- thank you. (indistinct chatter) (leaves rustling, cars passing) (siren blaring) (siren getting louder) (siren chirping) (siren stops) (siren blaring and chirping in distance) (machine humming) (men speaking, indistinct)

MAN

You're gonna have to turn the, um, stuff on. (car horn honks) (vehicles passing) (car horn honks) (engine idling) (car horn honks) (object scraping) (leaf blower running) (indistinct chatter)

RECORDED BUS ANNOUNCEMENT

Route 66 going to Harvard. (din of the street) (dance music playing faintly)

WOMAN

Morning! How are you? (indistinct chatter)

WALSH

The Food Bank is a great partner to the city of Boston, obviously. They work closely with our Office of Health and Human Services and Office of Food Access, as they do with the state. They're a member of our Boston Food Access Council, and we all know the important partnerships that, this partnership, how important it is. One out of every six Bostonians struggle with food insecurity.

One out of every six Bostonians struggle with food insecurity. We've added 20,000 new jobs every year for the last five years. We have $9 billion of new development going on in the city of Boston. We've built almost 28,000 new homes in the city of Boston in the last five years.

We have great prosperity in the city of Boston right now, and one out of every six Bostonians is struggling with food insecurity. That's the message today. That's something that we need to work together to tackle this issue to get that number to zero. No one should have to worry about where their next meal's coming from.

Everyone deserves access to food, and that's everyone's basic human right. In Boston, we need to know that that work of fighting hunger is important, and the impact that we're doing in fighting has to go much further. (cameras clicking) (indistinct chatter) ("Get Ready for This" by 2 Unlimited playing) (music continues)

WOMAN

You took my gloves. (indistinct chatter) Here we go! (music continues) (indistinct chatter) (music fades) (indistinct chatter)

WALSH

I don't know what it's gonna take the United States Congress and Senate to recognize the need for gun legislation. And also, you know, we can look at Boston and see, when we have a violent... When we have a, when we have a homicide in Boston, you can generally tie it back to poverty, you know, maybe dropping out of school, lack of education, desperation, whatever it might be. I don't think anyone's ever done a real study on what's going on with all these mass shootings.

(applause and cheering in background) These mass shootings don't happen in other countries. They happen in the United States of America. They're targeting seniors, and religious groups, and kids, and night clubs now-- that's the second night club shooting in the last couple of years here, Pulse was the first. You know, something has to give here.

You can only protect the NRA for so long. They have an obligation, the NRA, National Rifle Association, if they don't want to change the laws, then they have an obligation to the American people to come up with some solutions. When Purdue Pharma-- I'm not going to give them credit here-- but when Purdue Pharma was, their back put up against a wall on oxycontin, they, they tried to offer some solutions. When, you know, the labor movement, anyway, when their back's up against a wall, they have to come up with solutions.

The NRA needs to be held responsible and accountable for coming up with some solutions. And if we can't pass legislation, maybe that's the route we have to take. The NRA is allowing mass shootings to happen by not letting any type of action happen in the United States Congress, and that's a sin. (distant siren blaring) (indistinct chatter) (car horn honks) (chatter continues) (distant radio music playing, man speaking world language) (din of the street) (man and woman speaking world language) (cars passing) (din of the street) (dance music blaring) (birds twittering) (cars passing)

MAN

The ultimate goal of making this stuff usable, getting out here to West Roxbury is one way to get to this data, but if we get it all online, you don't have to travel all the way up here. And say, if somebody's looking at a governor's mansion in Virginia, and wants to compare it to the governor's mansion in Massachusetts, they may not even have to do anything more than open a computer to get all of our data. They might have to email or call us just to find out what do we mean by this or that or the other thing, but the more accessible our data is, the more usable it is. And, frankly, the more usable it is even here.

So when I look for something, I either have to know which box of the 2,000 boxes we have contains the artifact, or I can look it up on our, on our searchable database myself, and open it up. So if a researcher comes in looking for a certain type of artifact, I can actually search our entire database to see if we have it, or how many do we have it, and what sites it turns up in. And within 20 minutes, Sarah or I could get out to the, to the box and pull it for a researcher. Which is how it works.

Usually, when I get research requests, somebody will say, "I want to look at one particular type of ceramic," and if I don't know where every piece of that ceramic is in the two million artifacts we have, I can't make it accessible to them, even though I know we might have some of it. It's making them usable by people who may not even know that they, that we have these collections. I myself am still learning what we have every day. I haven't seen this stuff, most of this stuff, even while we were digging, because I was in the hole most of the time, not seeing the actual artifacts.

But there's some really cool stuff here. Can I talk about the clams real fast? Because the clams are really cool.

WOMAN

Yeah, oh, take your time, I'll take it all. All right, so when we were digging, we got down to the very bottom of the site and we hit a layer of clay, which is this deposit here, in the very bottom of our site. It's, it was man-made, as far as where it came from, 'cause there was little bits of brick in it, so we know it wasn't a natural clay deposit. But it's a, it's a blue clay, we call it Boston blue clay.

And it's a marine clay that was deposited by the glacier right after the glacier left. It melted a lot of soil. Basically, the, the ground that Boston is was pushed down by the glacier. And when the glacier melted, it was still down a little bit deep.

It's almost like jumping off a dock. The ground bounces up after the glacier leaves. But before that happened, the ocean flooded Boston. And so we have a couple of thousand years-- around 10,000, 15,000 years ago-- where Boston was underwater completely, and then it bounced back up above water.

But during that time, it laid a huge deposit of clay, and that's the Boston blue clay. And you see it in construction sites all over the place. We found clay that was then dug up by somebody, probably in the late 1800s, early 1900s, and used to line something. We're not even sure what it is.

A cistern, like a water collection, or something like that. And they had dug up the clay, and they pulled out all of these shells in the clay still. These were stuck in the clay from where they dug it out. So these are actually clams that were living in Boston when it was flooded that are between 11,000 and 15,000 years old.

So these are, like, prehistoric clams. (laughs) They're really thick. They're huge. And it's just really kind of fun to see them from 11,000 years ago, stuck in the clay.

A scallop and two soft-shell clams. I just think they're really cool to find. Basically, they're fossils. We don't get to find a lot of fossils in archaeology, 'cause we don't do dinosaurs, but it's nice to have them every once in a while.

But in that deposit, we also have artifacts from the 1700s, like this-- 1800s, like this glass, and 15,000-year-old clams. That's awesome. Not very typical, but it's interesting. (wind gusting) (cars passing) (wind gusting) ("Crazy World" by Jamestown Revival playing faintly) Megaphone marauders Beating down my battered door Master of the soapbox Gonna shout a little more Tin Pan Alley tomcat Said I'd be a millionaire I lost my sense of time I didn't even care I tried believing Believing in the goodness of a man I learned my lesson He took all I had Turned around and ran Yeah, man, it's still a crazy world I guess some things are never gonna change Yeah, man, what you gonna do?

Gets harder every day (wind howling) (wind howling) (cars passing) (cars passing) (band music playing faintly)

SAMEER

Do minority- and woman-owned businesses face any barriers when it comes to city contracting? The disparity study is designed to assess that question in a number of different ways. So first, at its core, we'll look at the degree to which minority- and woman-owned businesses participate in city contracts relative to their availability for that work. And I'll unpack those terms in just a few minutes.

We'll also provide a comprehensive analysis of the local marketplace to help understand whether minorities, women, and minority- and woman-owned businesses face any barriers working in the Boston region, and whether any of those barriers lead to less success with city contracting in particular. We'll also provide a comprehensive review of the contracting policies and program measures that the city uses to help identify any policies or practices that might be inadvertently making it more difficult for small businesses and minority- and woman-owned businesses to compete successfully for city contracts. And then we'll also provide a great deal of insight and recommendations around how the city can refine the programs it uses to encourage minority- and woman-owned business participation, and what programs it could consider using in the future. Educate me a little bit about this, uh, disparity studies, let's say.

I've been in this business, in my industry, for the past 30 years. I have encountered all kind of difficulties and I'm still a small contractor after 30 years in business. When you say, "Disparity study," meaning a study that there is a doubt. Is there a doubt that this exist?

Because I find that in these 30 years, that is difficulty in contracts for me to achieve all years in the study. I don't think there should be a kind of a doubt. It's clear we can... Maybe we need, we're looking for proof.

Okay, but I've been part of it, and not too long ago, as a minority in a contract, a state contract with housing, I was a third-tier subcontract just for so I can fill the minority quorums. But there is two major company, let's say white, right in front of me to hire me just exactly for that. Is that something why wouldn't I be directly to the GC? Why do I have to be to second and third tier?

So we know that thing happens where connections are made to just use us for the particular... I'm sorry if I'm out of the equation, or I'm getting out of the point that we're talking. But for the past 30 years, I... I can feel it, I can be, that we...

If the dollar is taken green, I'm suddenly, all the qualifications are not... I can't meet that. Usually, like I was speaking here to Greg, I cannot do a $20, or let's say $10 million, let's say $2 million project, because I don't cover. But I have ten, 12, sometimes 15 $200,000 project.

I can do 20-- as many on 200, but on one, then so really you see that what is there, there is something to keep us or keep me still on that $200,000 or $300,000, but where the dollar is greener, so the disparity is there. I don't know if it's proof you're looking, you come to me, I've been a victim of it for the past 30 years. It's been very hard for a small company like myself to grow. And usually I find, let's say, major stream, what do you call it, not by using the color of the skin, but the mainstream companies in five years in construction, they doing $20 million, $30 million, and they speeding up there.

And what we say, if you really want to help this, I don't understand that, in bigger companies, bigger projects-- like, I heard Honeywell have so many million dollars negotiated contract with the city. The casino was negotiated. Why with a small contractor, so we can't not negotiate with the city to get that it has to be... Divvy up ways of doing it, that we can sit down and negotiate contracts and make sure we eliminate that gap.

But suddenly, with us, it's illegal. But with major companies, it's not illegal. That's my point. Question is there, I think, essentially was, why do the disparity study?

So there's a belief on the ground that, uh, these barriers exist. Um, so there's a, there's a few reasons why we have to go through this process. One is, um, as researchers, we... As strong as...

As strong as our feeling is that these barriers might exist or not, we've got to do the work, and understand, and look for evidence, objective evidence, that this exists. The reason why is because, in order for the city to develop its program, and for the city to develop a program that can stand up to legal scrutiny, there has to be objective evidence in place to, that they can point to that informs what programs they use and why they're using those programs. So that's really the reason. I wouldn't use the word "doubt," necessarily, but it's really an exercise in making sure that we're gathering the evidence that the city needs to make sure that it's tailoring its program appropriately.

So that's really what it comes down to. There is no doubt that there are disparities that exist in doing business. There's no doubt that there are disparities in our economy. In fact, the mayor would be very clear, and has been very clear, that his number-one priority right now is addressing the inequities that exist in the participation of our economy all over the city.

Now, we think the inequities that exist in the participation in doing business with the city is where we need to put real effort and try to lead. Right? And so there's been historic challenges doing business with woman-owned and minority-owned businesses here in the city that, way before we got in. And there are systemic barriers and policy barriers.

And we want to address them, right? We've been doing things, and there also have been challenges, legal challenges to policies that the city-- before we got into office, but all over the country. Whenever a city adopts a policy that begins to work with one group or another, you know, people will challenge it. Right?

And say, "Hey, what, what... Is that fair? Is that not fair?" Um, BBC and Sameer is representing the city's effort to make sure that we are well informed when we introduce any of these policies. And, more importantly, that they can stand up in court.

(car engine squeaking) (cars passing) (children playing in distance) (bird squawking) (car passing) (dogs barking)

VETERINARIAN

Good boy. So the good news is, to take his temperature, I don't have to put a thermometer in him. I have a scanning thermometer I can just put on his skin. Oh.

And it's going to scan for his temperature. Perfect. So he doesn't have a fever. And he's neutered, correct?

Yes. All right, so the plan for today, because he's already got his rabies vaccine, we're going to do a distemper/parvo vaccine. We were going to give him a kennel cough vaccine, which is a drop that has to go in his nose, and we're going to give him a de-wormer and we're gonna do a blood test. We're testing him for heartworm disease, okay?

That's transmitted by mosquitoes, and it's a really horrible disease to have to treat that's really easy to prevent. (dogs barking) (barking continues) (barking) (dog growling, barking) (barking continues) Distemper. You ready? Sorry, baby girl.

A little bit-- what? What? Nothing. What was that?

What was that? What was that? Nothing. What was that?

Okay, another one. Rabies. I'm sorry, baby girl-- all done. So you want to give her a bath now?

Cool.

WOMAN

Yeah, I can run her upstairs and give her a bath. (dogs barking) (barking) (dogs barking) (dog whining) (water spraying) I know, I know, I know. (water spraying) There you go.

VETERINARIAN

You can call 1-800-PETMEDS and ask for a prescription of heartworm medication, and they'll call here and verify that the test was clean, okay? But the way to keep him healthy is to have him on the preventive medicine once a month all around the year. Okay? Oh, okay.

Thank you so much. Do you have any questions? No, it's okay. Okay, all right, take care.

Okay. (indistinct chatter) (broom sweeping, distant chatter) (truck engine rumbling) (reverse signal beeping) (engines idling)

WALSH

This organization is incredible. Morgan Memorial, we all have a story growing up of Morgan Memorial and Goodwill providing opportunities for, for training, for housing, for, for food, for, for supplies, for clothing, helping people. This organization has always wrapped its arms around people that are in need. It's one of our largest employers for people with disabilities.

I want to thank you, as well, for the great work you do there. I want to thank all, all the people that are here today that, that we had the honor of serving. Thank you for letting us serve you today. Thank you for letting us be part of this day.

Um, Thanksgiving is... (applause) Thanksgiving is one of those holidays, I think, that allows us the opportunity to come and serve somebody else. And a chance to see people and may... It should fill our hearts with gratitude for what we have.

And on behalf of myself and all the folks from the city and the state, I want to thank you, because my, my heart is filled with gratitude today because of, of the great work that Goodwill does and the great work that the young people and the people that are here today. So I'm going to stop talking and then we're going to have, we're going to have, um, dancing.

WOMAN

Will the runners go to the kitchen, and dinner will start. Thank you all. (cheers and applause) (band playing in background) (indistinct chatter)

ED MARKEY

More? You want more mashed potatoes? Okay, here you go. Let me give you that.

Oh, sorry. Mashed potatoes? Beautiful. Mashed potatoes, beautiful.

(indistinct chatter)

WOMAN

Hey, do you guys have any more gravy? Gravy? We have more-- you want gravy? Yeah.

MARKEY

Where's the... You know where the gravy is?

WOMAN

It's... There's some right there.

MARKEY

Beautiful. Would you like some gravy with that? Yeah, yummy, gravy! You want some more mashed potatoes?

Okay, good.

SINGER

Will you be my girl? (band playing "Hey! Baby")

MARKEY

Here you go. Let me give you that. Would you like to have gravy with that? Would you like some gravy?

Okay. Gravy? Gravy!

SINGER

Will you be my girl? (band playing "Johnny B. Goode") Well, his mother told him someday you will be a man And you will be the leader of a big old band Many people coming from miles around To hear you play your music when the sun go down Maybe someday your name will be in lights Saying Johnny B. Goode tonight Go, go, go, Johnny, go Go, go, go, Johnny, go Go, go, go, Johnny, go Go, go, go, Johnny, go Go, go, go (engines idling) (engine revving) (hip-hop music blaring) (distant car horn honks) (cars passing)

MAN

We're going to be doing the general contracting. We're the developer and the property manager. And this is some of the additional organizations that we have. We're very proud of Cruz CARES because it's a nonprofit that does outreach to youth.

We mentor young people, we take them on trips, we do computer learning. We do all kind of backpack giveaways. But the most important thing is, we spend time with youth that live in our properties, because we think mentorship and interaction is vital in young people's lives. Next slide.

We also had heard through the community and this process about the wealth gap that exists. And we all know, in the Black community, the wealth gap between Blacks and whites is $275,000 for an average white family and $750 for an average Black family. So one of the things that we made as part of our mission in this proposal is to give as much back economically to the community and leave it better than we find it. And so we just wanted to give folks a little bit of sense of what we do from a payroll standpoint.

This is the last seven years. You'll see our people of color percentages go up from 77% to 93%. Boston residents are in the 60s, women and Section 3 workers. So, and we continue to put money back in the community.

And this is not only on an employee standpoint, but on a business standpoint. We think it's very, very important that we support local businesses of color. So these are MBE numbers, utilization of firms of color in the last seven years. And you see, out of the $152 million of total development costs that we've done, on average, 75% to 78% have gone to firms of color.

And you look at the worker hours, we've hit as much as 95% on 35,000 hours. So again, it's about giving back to the community-- next slide. To talk about the program, it's now 160 units. When we were selected, it was 150.

But as you get more into design and, and more finite layouts, you find that you have a little bit more footprint. So right now, it's 160 units, of which 105 are home ownership condominiums, and there's 15,500 square feet of retail space. That's also an increase from when we were designated, because during... we've had about nine meetings with DND, BPDA, and part of the feedback we...

Most of the feedback we incorporated, and you'll see in the designs, we have more of a street presence, and as that evolved, it, it opened up for more retail space. So you'll see, when they do the architectural, that our retail space has in fact increased. Estimated real estate tax, people ask us, is about $700,000 annually. As some of you know, as part of our community benefits, we are going to be leasing space to the NAACP at no cost for ten years.

In addition to that, we've endowed a $5,000 scholarship annually for ten years, for them to allocate any way that they want. We also have agreed, YouthBuild Boston, for those who aren't familiar, is an organization that trains young people in the trades. Helps them get on a, on a straight path. We've committed $100,000 to that organization over five years.

Plus, we're going to hire at least one YouthBuild graduate in every major trade during the life of the development, the life of the construction, and we have estimated that to be about 20 positions. Community benefits should be driven by the community and not by a developer. So it's not, I'm not taking issue with that, so it's a broad statement that I'm making. It's not targeted at Cruz specifically.

So I think... What in that sort of proposal and package can we revisit and look at, and really build more consensus around, from the community's perspective, as to what they would like to see as a community benefit? You know, much of what you listed out... Of course, NAACP, I'm not sure they need 1,000 square feet of space.

And some of the others that are, that are noble, right, endeavors, but could there be others and that make more sense, particularly for this site? So I would just like to hear, I think, from not only the I.A.G. group, but also from the community, and have that community benefits process be more inclusive of what the community wants, as opposed to relationships that developers have with specific groups, or people, or whatever, and how it appears. It may not be that thing, but it, it can look like that for us to, to go a little deeper on that.

I would like to just respond. We try to get out ahead of... Any, anytime we put in a proposal, as part of that, we think about the benefits back to the community. And I think the Roxbury Strategic Master Plan

Oversight Committee asks the question

how come the Cruz proposal has benefits and none of the others had them? And it's because we always try to be proactive. So we can always have a discussion. You know, John's always open to having conversations and considering things.

But we made a commitment to the NAACP in writing. (clears throat) That not only would we give them free space for ten years... You know, not to date myself, but when I was growing up, the NAACP was on Mass. Ave., a prominent sign.

You'd drive by, you see them, you had ethnic pride, because you knew their mission. Now, unfortunately, they're in Washington Park Mall, where no one sees them. So we thought it was an excellent idea to have them visible, where better than in Dudley Square, when people come down. So we made that agreement with them.

We also made an agreement to, to fund a scholarship at $5,000 a year for at least ten years, that they would have the control to determine who got it. We wouldn't be involved in that at all, just from the vantage point of giving the money. And with YouthBuild, YouthBuild does a great job. If you're not aware of them, you should just Google them.

Not that a lot of organizations don't, but they do a great job taking our troubled youth and turning them around, when their, their next step is either incarceration or they have to turn their lives around. And so we thought that that was a high priority for us to make a commitment on, and providing jobs. We've worked with them before. In fact, John has hired at least ten YouthBuild graduates in probably the last ten or 15 years, because we think it's so important.

It's like ex-offenders, they need a chance, they need another chance. So conversation on community benefits is not off the table, but the ones that we've given, we feel like we've given our word to those people, to those organizations. It would be hard to go back and say, you know, "We've changed our mind." Community benefits should be driven by the community. It should, it should have its focus come from the community.

And I understand that, that you as a developer, and others, want to-- some of you, not all of developers-- want to get ahead of that and, and put on the table meaningful, long-term community benefits. 'Cause that's the other thing, and this is also, I think, more for the city, that community benefits shouldn't just be a shot in the arm-- it should be long-term. It should be... It should, you know, build equity in, in the community.

So, I'm, that's my concern, and my concern is that the voice that, that carries that piece around community benefit resonate and come from the community. (train passing) (walk signal beeping) (beeping stops) (distant helicopter flying)

MAN

And we're open on Wednesdays, but we don't do weddings on Wednesdays. I'm here today to tell my story on how I got in front of the hydrant and why I'm in front of the hydrant. First of all, I'm not denying I parked there. I was wrong, um, in parking there.

How, how I ended up there, my industry's biggest conference of the year is September 22-23. That's something I know. Mm-hmm. It's also, happened to be two weeks before my wife's due date.

So, it was a big debate throughout the year if I should go, if I should not go. That conference was in Rockland, Maine. So, predictably... Was that Tuesday night, September 23, I get a phone call, my wife's having contractions, and I race home to, from Rockland, Maine, Bar Harbor area.

Ah, yup. Yeah, so I drive home three-and-a-half, four hours... It's East Boston, past midnight, there's no parking anywhere within two miles of my house. I'm a first-time father, new father, I have no idea what to expect, I just have to get a parking spot.

So 2

30 in the morning, I park in front of the hydrant. Um, wake up the next day, and there's not one, but two tickets on my car. So, I'm here... (laughs) Letting you know I was wrong, but as a exhausted, stressed, tired new father that is facing a pile of medical bills, asking for a reprieve from one of the tickets.

(printer whirring) So, based on the evidence you provided, as well as the evidence provided by the officer that wrote the tickets, factoring in what I'm allowed to factor in, legally speaking, I should deny the appeal today. What I'm going to do, however, instead, is, I'm going to dismiss both tickets-- one with a warning, the other with a final warning. What that means is a couple of things. First, it means in the future, you do gotta make sure you check where you park, because especially with issues like this, and with no stop or stands, they can tow the car if they really wanted to.

Right. Which would not have been helpful in this entire process for you. Right, okay. Second, if you file an appeal, you do need to bring any and all evidence that you have that can corroborate any testimonies-- paperwork, receipts, photos, whatever.

And third, means you don't have to pay anything today. Well, thank you very much. Okay, not a problem.

WOMAN

For the record, we're here today for ticket 754471406, issued to resident permit only on 8/9/2019

at 10

09 p.m. at 343 Congress Street. So what can you do to prove the ticket was given incorrectly?

MAN

Okay. It's tough for me to prove the ticket was given incorrectly, but I didn't, when I parked the car, there wasn't any sign for resident permit parking there. It was just a meter, I thought. And then, I mean, I've lived in, lived in, lived in this town my whole life.

I didn't even know anybody lived down there. Okay. I haven't been down there in a long time. So it, it's, you know, for me to park in that part of town and think, "Wait, wait a minute, this might be resident permit," like it was the Hill, or like it was the Back Bay, or like it was the South End, you know.

And I just didn't see a sign. Okay.

And I figure 9

00, I'm fine, and I come out,

and get a ticket at 10

00. I mean, I just, I can't understand what happened. All right. So...

I don't, I just don't know. So what could have happened, so, like, there are some parts of Boston where

it's resident permit after 6

00. So, like, without any evidence that there isn't a sign posted on the block, more likely than not, it was given correctly, but I'll dismiss it. Just make sure every time you park the car, even if you're at your meter... I have to check a little bit harder than I did that night, sure.

Yeah. So, like, I was even on a date the other night, and I'm, like, "Hold on," I, like, made her wait. I'm, like, "I got to check the sign." So, like, just keep going until you find a sign. There's always going to be one.

I just didn't think to look. Again, because... who lives down there? Yeah.

Oh, evidently a lot of people live down there now. (laughs) Yeah, maybe it's, like, a new, like, high-rise or something. I'm not sure, but just make sure you check it. Back in the day, nobody lived down there.

(laughs) Yeah. All right, so that's a copy of the decision. Okay. Do you have any further questions?

No, that's fine. All right, awesome, you're all set. I thank you for hearing me, because I missed my date and everything, so... Oh, you missed your date?

Like I said, but the guy said you can, you know... Thank you.

KEITH

Except for Atlantic, nothing's that bad.

MAN

Don't worry, it'll get there.

KEITH

Herald Street's not bad, at least so far.

MAN

So far it's not bad.

It's going to be getting bad... KEITH

Could be worse. Yeah, starting to build up, even inside the tunnel. Park Street's... (whistling) A Street's not bad tonight.

Who? A Street. Oh. Yeah, I made a little adjustments over there earlier.

You figure they start diving off the highway, cutting, cutting through the back streets. Right. Look like, look like the highway's starting to slow down now. Pardon?

MAN

The highway-- the Expressway's starting to slow down.

KEITH

Everyone's going north, going skiing.

MAN

Gotta stay ahead of the traffic. Gotta stay ahead of the problem.

KEITH

Yup. I might make this change permanent here. Which one? Uphams Corner.

Oh, okay. I'm always doing this. Just don't think those left turns need that much green time. Mmm.

I never see that many cars making the move. Backs up. Mm-hmm. Some nights it doesn't, but...

Yeah, but say it don't, does... It don't do it all the time, you know. No, but... it's 50/50.

MAN

Gotta give it time. It'll clear up. What was that, double park?

KEITH (clearing throat)

Yup. (dial tone buzzing) Hi, it's Keith from the tech center. Hey, good, how's it going? I got a vehicle stopped in the bike lane on Congress Street at Milk Street.

Great, thanks. (phone ringing) (ringing continues) (din of the street) (cameras clicking)

MAN

Okay?

MAN 2

Yeah.

WALSH

We're going to take a couple of more pictures, then I'll take questions, all right? (indistinct chatter) (jet engine roaring in distance) (crosswalk signal beeping)

TANIA DEL RIO

I'm the executive director of the Mayor's Office of Women's Advancement here in Boston. And you're now joining a community of almost 8,000 women that have been trained to know their worth and demand fair pay. You may or may not know that Latinas in Boston, through the data that we measure locally-- and we are the only city that measures this pay gap, pay gaps, these pay gaps locally-- Latinas are making 49 cents to the white man's dollar in Boston. And then the figure nationally is slightly different, but almost the same, which makes today Latina Equal Pay Day.

That means that we have to work up until November 1 to make the same amount of money that white men made last year. So, if you think that's shocking and depressing, as I do, that's why you're here. And I wanted to say thank you. You are part of the solution.

We have a two- or three-pronged solution that we're working on putting together at the Mayor's Office of Women's Advancement. The first part of it is training ourselves, empowering ourselves, and learning how to navigate the system as it is. So we acknowledge that the system is unfair and that there's, it's not our individual fault that we are experiencing this pay gap as Latinas, but there is a part of... There is something that we ourselves can do about it, and that is learning to negotiate, learning our work-- our worth-- doing our research, and then demanding fair pay.

And at the same time, at the Mayor's Office of Women's Advancement, we do understand that that's only going to get us so far. So, on the other hand, we are working on fixing that system and leveling it off so that we are playing in a more equal playing field. And what that entails is doing a lot of work with employers so that you guys will learn how to negotiate and demand your worth here. They have to be ready for that on the other end.

So we work with more than 200 employers in the Greater Boston area to talk about this issue, to get them to measure their own wage gaps, and then to come together and learn and propose strategies for what is it that they're going to do about it. Part of it is, how do you figure out, for this role, how do I know that I should be getting paid more? Or that I should even get anything outside of just a paycheck? Or what, what is that?

So with the advent, thank goodness, of, of the internet, that, that type of information is very readily available. So one of the things that I did learn at a, at an early stage, thanks to the same manager, because we had a conflict at one point, and it was a conflict about the size of my skirt. It taught me one of these lessons-- good negotiating point and why you research. Somebody complained that my skirt was too short.

Now, mind you, compared to these days, whoo, it was like having a knee-length. (laughter) But I asked him that, I said, "Would you ask or say something, say the same thing to a man?" I mean, obviously, at that time, you know, men didn't have the options that they do, or, or non-binary wasn't a thing then, so we didn't have that, those types of conversations. And what he said is, "I'm gonna teach you something. I don't care if you're a woman or a man." He said, "Do you want people to think about these things "because you're a woman, or do you want them to think about the value that you're bringing to your role?" And so he did teach me that, so part of that was, every single time that I go for a new role, or I'm helping someone, I say, "Go look up what a man "and a woman's making for that role.

"Find out what they're making here and find out "what they're making at other parts of the country. Find out what that scale is and then use the man's scale." The other thing, too, is, again, when you talk about knowing your value is, besides that number on a piece of paper, what else should you be negotiating for? And that's one of the great things about doing your research, between the internet, between what the company is offering and what other people are making, are you, do you have bonus potential? Are you moving expenses?

Do you have, you know, training that's involved or memberships, professional associations? There's so many things that you can actually negotiate that should all be on the table. So how my strategy changed is, was, I learned how to research, I learned how to do those types of things. But the other thing that I also learned how to do, and Evelyn, you, you touched upon this,

and this is so very important

learning how to read people. You can have all of the knowledge in the world, but if the person across from you does not want to negotiate, or you don't think they know, want to negotiate, or you don't know their negotiation style, you may go nowhere in that conversation. So that's another really, really important part of that negotiation, is trying to figure out a person's negotiating style. It's not that difficult, to be honest with you.

One of the things I had to learn early on in my career, because when I started negotiating, there was not that many women in my field. So it was not even women of color, it was just women. And I had to learn to hold my own with all of these men that, in a lot of times, I was leading them, especially early in my career. So I was 23, 24, leading men that were...

had been in corporate careers for 20, 30, 40 years, if not more. So that was my first lesson because I remember, um, just from a cultural type of perspective of a gentleman from Alabama calling me "sug" one day... (audience murmuring) Now, I know, knew culturally that he wasn't trying to be offensive. And I also knew him, you know, personally.

But I also knew that that could impact how other people looked at me. And when you talk about value, that's not a dollar sign value at that point in time, although it could translate into it at a later, a later point. I had to go to my manager and say, "I know he doesn't mean, "you know, harm by this, but he could be creating harm, "you know, based on the fact that I'm a woman. And I'm a woman, a female negotiator." So one of the things that I had to learn from a cultural and just the value as a woman was my job was a negotiator.

If I could not negotiate my salary, what was I saying to my potential employer? So it was even more stressful to be able to put a package together. Couple of things that I learned, I actually learned a lot from, from men. I had a lot of male mentors.

Mostly because of the fact that there was no one else, again, in that space that were women. And they were definitely not women of color-- very seldomly, I should say. Very seldomly did I ever run into a woman of color. So I had to lean outside of that space to actually find different women and women of color who were doing something different, and they, they could teach me and they could give me a voice.

So mentorship was huge for me. Without that mentorship, I would not have learned, as a woman and as a Latina, what my value was. Then the other thing that I did lean on, as far as my approach was concerned, was, I watched men and I watched how they conducted themselves. So when you talk about learning your value, a lot of times where I learned and heard those conversations were at bars at happy hours.

(audience chuckling, murmuring)

So number one

I was taught you should not be a woman going to a bar at happy hour with all of these men. So I had to take a risk at that point in time in my career to say, "But there's something going on there." And so I would go and have a beer or two and have these conversations, because, again,

negotiation strategy

people will let their guard down at different points. And it was usually at the bar for men. The other thing that I had to learn value as far as what was going on in corporate America at the time, things were happening on the golf course. (audience murmuring in agreement) I didn't play golf.

My... we played no activities. We had no money for it. So I went and took golf lessons at the public golf course.

I was horrible. I'll tell you, the first time I joined the company golf league-- and I would tell them I'm horrible-- the first time that I ever went up to hit the ball, I missed it, and I missed it horribly. (audience chuckles) And I... but I told everybody, I was, like, "I told you I was not good at golf." So at least people knew I was gonna go play golf, but I was gonna be on that golf course.

And I knew at the time that, especially when I was living in Pittsburgh, there really was not that many women of color in the community, much less in corporate America, that I was doing these things and I was representing, so I had to be careful of my actions, I had to be careful of my words. But when that did translate into salary, it was... I was at a stronger position, because people knew that I was willing to go do these things to understand what my value was. Because at that point, I wasn't comparing myself to other women.

And I definitely wasn't comparing myself to women of color, 'cause they weren't there. I was learning what to do and what my value was

compared to a guy-- compared to a white man. WOMAN

Yeah. And so that was huge for me, as, as far as my career in negotiation was concerned. (cars passing) (hydraulic brake hissing, footsteps shuffling) (hydraulic brake hissing) (distant bell tolling) (indistinct chatter, laughter)

WOMAN (over loudspeaker)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the fourth annual winter camp here at the Boston Common Frog Pond. (woman continues in distance, bell tolling) (cars passing) (bell stops) (siren blaring)

OFFICER

We had a shooting today at Quincy and Ceylon Street. Um, the, it was a guy on a, um... A kid on a scooter. The scooter's been recovered, but the, the suspect's still outstanding.

He was seen going to a house. Pull it up, it's on the BRIC, but I printed out, like, 15 copies or whatever, so you guys can grab one if you need to. Check your emails, it's in there. Otherwise, we'll be on the lookout for him.

And 7

00 p.m., the 201... What did I say the 201 was? Hogan and Lahey, Cheese, you guys do the, um... Gloucester versus Boston Latin game up at Madison Park.

Just go up there, a couple of code 19s.

Or just drive around 7

00 p.m. and take a look at that. Let us know if anything needs attention up there. (cars passing) (distant horn honking)

MICHAEL O'NEILL

I remain concerned about the precedent established from past practice of this committee to approve such as requests like this of allowing the increase in enrollment for a school when we know that the current physical capacity of their building is not equal to what we're proposing going to. And that we are setting ourself up for a year or two years from now, the school rightfully coming back to us and saying... Right. "We expect, we need a bigger facility.

You told us we were going to have a bigger facility." And this is something that this committee has perpetually done time after time. This is no reflection on the school whatsoever, but I'm concerned we're setting up a conflict a year or two from now, when you're trying to expand to your approved enrollment level-- particularly when there's a lot of demand for your school, 'cause you're doing really, really good things there, with some youth who are very challenged. You're doing outstanding work. And yet, unless I hear otherwise, the answer I have here was about suspension, but was not yet about facilities.

So this is a long setup to then hear from the superintendent on where the district stands about what we will do for facilities for this. Because I remain deeply concerned about approving this amendment. And I recognize we're at a challenge. That we're doing this because of DESE.

And yet we're setting up a problem a year from now. I believe there was testimony last time that the school is already well in excess of what its approved enrollment is. And so part of what is in, in front of us right now is an opportunity to right-size the maximum enrollment of the, the school that would capture what the excess enrollment would be. So that's not an excuse and that's not a total answer for what your question is, but I think, you know, just to give that context, we are serving, through the current building or the current facility, students in excess of what our current allotment is.

And so there is a, a need for an additional building, or additional space-- I don't want to presuppose a building. And within that context, I think that might be helpful for the district to further elaborate on its comments on the facilities from the last meeting. But Mr. Chair, correct me if I'm wrong, we are not just improving their, approving for the charter for the enrollment to go up to what the existing enrollment is right now, but in fact, we are approving...

We're going beyond that, which would allow the school to expand, particularly in the 2.0, right? So this is a, kind of a newer program. So this will be an expansion for the school. It's not just...

Absolutely. Part of it is correcting to where they are, I agree with you completely, but just help me out with that. Absolutely. And I want to just make sure that, you know, within the context of that, you know, the increase is not 100 students.

I think the increase to the approved maximum enrollment is 100 students, but the increase, I believe, in the actual enrollment is... Can you help me out with that, what that number might be?

ALISON

From next year, it's 430. And the enrollment is 405, is in our charter. And this is a multi-year rollout? Over, over three years, the idea would be to grow to a hundred.

O'NEILL

To grow a hundred additional students. To 505. To 505. And that's 100, that's 100 additional students over your existing maximum enrollment, but it's about what, 70 students?

70, correct. Yep, yep. 70 students over your actual enrollment, right. And that will require new physical space.

More space, yup. Okay. So we're setting ourselves up here for a big challenge. So we're not proposing simply to adjust the amendments to the actual enrollment right now.

But we're proposing now to allow them to expand for students that we know we do not yet have space for. We cannot identify specific space, so we can't say a plan is part of it. Um... Am I correct on that?

Well, I can tell you that we are committed to finding space for the current students who are off-site already. So we will be finding space for them regardless. They are currently in an off-site location this year. They're in the Dearborn, right?

They're in the Dearborn. Right next door. And Dearborn's gonna need that space next year. Right, we're not, yeah.

So we already know we need to find some space for them. Right, right. But now we're talking about additional space beyond that, as the... And by the way, again, this, this is a great problem to have.

It's because you're an outstanding school doing outstanding work. And there is huge demand. When we talk to folks at the re-engagement center, they would love to have so many more students there. This is...

this is... (chuckling) It's not about a bad problem, but it's a... It's a problem that we have done over and over and over again here, and that's what concerns me.

ALEXANDRA OLIVER-DAVILA

I just wonder if we can come to a compromise of what the, what the enrollment actually is for the building, and come back and have this conversation.

MICHAEL LOCONTO

In order to capably serve the varied and diverse and high-needs populations within our district, we need to be able to, you know, essentially walk, walk and chew gum at the same time. Be able to move these programs forward, while we also continue to think about how we are best creating the facilities and the architecture around the district to support these programs. I'm wondering if it may be better for us, since we're approving policy, just to make it clear in the policy that we're approving you to 435, or whatever the number is, immediately, and to 505 contingent upon finding a suitable facilities solution for the, for the school. So that the school and their leadership and their students and their staff know that this is a priority for the school committee to find that solution for the district-- for the, for the school, and that we're also very supportive of the school, because we know the population they're serving is critical.

But also now, it's a school committee, by policy, putting it back to the district that it's critical you find a solution, and not putting it solely on the back of the superintendent to say, "We're going to find something." My recommendation at this point would be, rather than change the number, which would require a whole new process of approval, that we table the current request until we have completed their satellite location identification, and we will bring this back to you subsequently with that space solution connected to it.

O'NEILL

Or simply adding the sentence to the approval that the expansion is subject to finding an appropriate facility solution. Does that create a problem?

LOCONTO

Thinking about, um, the issue that the interim superintendent just laid out, I suppose an approval like that would allow the district to move forward simply upon notification to the committee at a later date that a space has been found. And so what that would then do would be, um, would be, we would simply be delaying the opportunity for BDEA to move forward to DESE and seek the approval for the full 505 at a later date. So in other words, we would be taking care of our committee business this evening with that provision. And in the alternative, if we were to table this, we would be voting at a later date.

Either way, it's gonna result in a vote-- or, excuse me, action from BDEA to DESE that follows the identification of space for these students. So, you know, I think it's probably six of one, half-dozen of the other.

LAURA PERILLE

We do think that's a wise path forward. It allows the current charter proposal as presented to be approved, but the approval of moving beyond the 435 is contingent on us coming back to you with their off-site space plan. And so if you want to propose the amending language, that would give them the approval and also make it clear that before we submit it to DESE, we will have come back to you with a space plan. And, Alison, if that buys you the right amount of time...

Okay.

ALISON

We're not waiting until fall of next year.

PERILLE

No, we're talking about for the end of this school year. Okay.

LOCONTO

To bring it back from the very, um, focused conversation we've had about facilities this evening, this really isn't about facilities. That's just a condition precedent to allowing you to continue to serve the populations that you serve so well, and expand that service to a number of students across the district that really need it. So we're very excited. I think something that was lost in this conversation is that you're also changing your enrollment policy as part of the charter amendments that are going forward, and so making it easier and more accessible for students to find high-quality education at BDEA is the sum and substance of the charter amendments that you put before us tonight, and we're very happy to approve those, and we wish you well.

WOMAN

Thank you.

LOCONTO

And we look forward to hearing about your new location. (din of the street) (brakes hiss) (cars passing) (engine idling) (dance music from passing car) ("Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis playing in distance) (distant siren blaring) (song continues faintly) So your main issue was the rodents, correct? Yeah, yeah, I already... I found one of them dead under, under that cabinet.

I moved the refrigerator cabinet. Under this cabinet? Yeah. I, I had to throw him away.

He was, he was about that big with a bit fat tail. Yeah. And, oh, it stunk bad. Yeah, it was underneath, and I pulled out the refrigerator...

You were seeing him over here? Over... Yeah, he was, he was... I threw one away, I killed one.

I had, I had traps under there, trays, and they were empty. And then I smelled a bad, bad odor, really bad, and he was, like, that big, that wasn't no mouse, and he had a big fat tail. Yeah, yeah. With rings around it, you know.

So it could possibly, could possibly be a rat, yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of rat, rat stuff. Yeah, 'cause... Okay.

Did you, did you already clean out the droppings over there? Yeah, but I did take some pictures on my phone. 'Cause I want to just check around here just to make sure. Yeah, oh, yeah.

Possibly getting in through right there, huh? Yeah, he's coming through the cellar, I think. Yeah, he's coming through the cellar. Okay, we could take a look.

Yeah. But those droppings right there are pretty big. Yeah, they're big, it's not a mouse. One time I had three tomatoes on the top of the counter?

Yeah. It smashed all over the place. I never see a mouse do that, yeah. And how often have you been seeing them?

Every, every day for the last month, month and a half. Wow. Since they've been working on the streets. Okay.

You know? Yeah, 'cause I can't even sleep at night, 'cause, you know... 'Cause that's been going on? Yeah, because, I mean, I, I saw one of them running...

He runs fast, and then I hear him in the, in the broiler there, where I leave them some peanut butter. Yeah. And then the next day, it's half-gone. I'm surprised he's still kicking, but there might be more than one.

'Cause this is probably the second one. There might be three or four. Yeah, yeah. You know?

That, those kick plates underneath the cabinet can come out easy. They're not nailed in. Okay. So maybe you kick it in or...

Yeah, I could kick it with my foot. Here, I'll just kick it with my foot. (muttering) Give you an idea. Okay, yeah, there's, there's definitely heavy activity down here.

Okay, I knew I wasn't imagining it. No, no... I've never seen rats before here. Yeah, you're getting a lot.

Before this, I had raccoons in my, in my ceiling, and they... Oh, yeah?

OLDER MAN

They dug two holes, and I patched that one up. But with the heavy rain, he dug a big circle in the wood. Yeah. And the water was coming in, and the rain, the Sheetrock just came down.

And does the management usually get back to you when you try to tell them... Yeah, she's got problems. My sister's got problems on her side of the house. There's water leaking in.

Okay, so it's you on this side and your sister on the other side. Right, my sister on the other side. And my, my two brothers own a part of this, and they... One of my brothers is trying to evict me, 'cause I think he, he wants to come down to my apartment, which is better than his.

Gotcha, gotcha, okay. Yeah, I put all those in there. They're pretty, they're pretty clean. Okay.

Yeah, there's no food on them, but... All right. What's going on with the flooring? Well, it's just cracking from the water.

You know, it's, it's been that way for the last year or so. Okay. Yeah, with all the little leaks. When you have a chance...

Yeah? And possibly get to it sooner than later? Yeah? Start scrubbing that, getting rid of that heavy build-up, that grease?

Okay, all right, yeah. 'Cause any sort of food source... Yeah. Yeah, he ate half of my...

I had a sponge with some food on it and he chewed half of it away. So what you, what you really want to do... Yeah?...is not leave any kind of food source out for them, okay? Right, yeah.

So anything, like, for instance, these onions right here... Yeah. If you can, get a plastic container... All right.

And just put them in there. Okay. At least until... 'Cause I'll, I'll let the management or the landlord know what's going on as far as the issue.

Right, yeah. Right. But in the meantime, you're going to have to do your part. Right.

So that would be the stove... Yeah, okay. And putting these onions... All right, right, okay.

Or any kind of fruit or vegetable in a plastic container. Yeah. What I'll do is, I'll try to talk to them. Right.

Find out what's going on. Right, yeah. And where the disconnect happened. Yeah, right.

So hopefully we can come to some sort of resolution... Yeah. Where you're not living in... Yeah, I know.

You know, with a pest infestation... Pest, I know. And the leaks, you know? 'Cause they, they spread disease, too.

Right, right. You know? And, you know, I try to keep it clean as I can here, but I'm a bachelor right now, and living here for 18 years since I got divorced. Gotcha, gotcha.

Yeah, and, yeah, I made my mistakes, but, you know, I don't do drugs or anything. Right, right. You know, I'm clean and... Well, that's good.

I have a glass of wine here and there. Even lately I lost my, yeah, I'm just, my spirit's broken. Mm-hmm, no, no, I hear you. You know?

'Cause they want to throw me to the street after all, you know. Right, right, right. You know, they know, so... No, I can imagine.

Anyone's spirit will be broken, so... But, you know, I've been going through mental health with the V.A. Right, mm-hmm. And, you know, I got some anxiety pills, and, you know, I'm on, you know, blood pressure pills, and, you know, baby aspirin, 'cause I got stents in me, my heart.

Right, right. But, uh, I'm still alive. Yeah. Hopefully move on to something better soon, you know?

Yeah, no, and, you know, we'll try to, you know... You know? I'm almost 71. We'll try to help you out as, as much as possible.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it, yeah, I appreciate it. And I'll talk to them to see what exactly is going on. Okay. All right?

Thank you. All right, sounds good. Appreciate it. I appreciate it, thank you.

Anytime. God bless. And I'll leave my card for you. Okay, yep.

On the back of my card, I'll leave my cell... All right, all right. Just in case you have any issues or anything comes up. Okay, sure.

So most of this stuff will be on a 30-day notice. Right. Some things will, that I deem as an emergency... Right....will be on an emergency notice.

Okay. And so once they get an emergency notice, that's 24 hours. Okay. The other stuff will be 30 days.

So there are 30 days to fix that. Yep. What I need from you is... Yeah.

When they come by... Yep. Or when they're letting you know, like... Right.

Within 24, 48 hours, like, "Hey, I'm gonna come by and do the repairs"... Yeah? Just let them in. Let them in.

Yeah, yeah... Oh, yeah, that's no problem, sure, yeah. I want the repairs to be done, believe me. I know.

I don't want to be, I don't want to live like this. I hear ya. Yeah. So, like I said, I'll...

I'll touch base with you later on today after I talk to your siblings... Okay, yeah. And then we'll take it from there. Okay, thank you very much.

All right? Okay, all right. (cars passing) (distant chatter) Currently, we need to finalize the community process, which we're doing right now. And then finalize the host community agreement with the city.

And then apply to the Cannabis Control Commission for the provisional licenses, and then that'll allow 617 to move forward with the build-out and final inspections, and hopefully, ultimately, license to operate. Sir? How close are the cannabis shops gonna be to the school? How many people are you hiring?

And where are you hiring them from? I believe the closest school is about 600 feet. To say that we just want to offer jobs is actually a misnomer. We actually want to, we want to help people with a career.

We also have a cultivation facilities in Southwestern Massachusetts that's going through licensing process, as well. Anybody can get a job, that's very easy, but in this particular industry here, we want to be able to mentor somebody and be able to let them have a pathway to a career. If you're interested in edibles, we can help you with that pathway. If you're interested in extractions, we can...

We have a facility going up that will be able to mentor people to go through that particular program. And if you want to be a grower, yeah, we do have some pretty good growers on our team that would be able to mentor people to get to a certain point where they can become successful in this industry. And not just, not just so they, you know, they can go get a job, right? We're looking for a pathway to, to a career, a mentorship program that can really, can really turn, turn some things around for this neighborhood in certain ways that a job just probably couldn't.

WOMAN

How many parking spaces do you guys have dedicated to your facility? What's it like in the surrounding area? Have you done any traffic studies? And then how many shoppers can you physically handle inside your store, and what's your plan for, like, line management and, and overflow?

'Cause I only saw a small mantrap on that floor plan. So, curious if you could address that. Someone would come into a vestibule, they'd be identified with the proper government I.D., and then they would buzzed in to the retail area there. So as soon as, we want, we'll have someone outside telling everybody, "Have your I.D.

ready." We'll try to move that line as fast as we can safely, professionally, and securely that allows them into the next. And then when they make their purchase, they will exit a different door, so there won't be that backlog right there. Are you gonna have a line down the block? Are you gonna have a waiting area inside?

Just, these are the things you need to think about. Because these situations will come up when, you know, you're at capacity and, and people are gonna be standing outside. You know, these are things that you gotta think about. You know, given the neighborhood, given the location, we absolutely think that a lot of the traffic and customers is going to be pedestrian-based, as well as public transportation.

And then, certainly, rideshare, which is, which is, you know, being used all over the place. When you talk about... You're speaking to the community and the host community groups, I'm sorry, there's some of those groups that you... that are being talked to that really don't matter.

And some of those people that you're talking to are making decisions for the rest of us in this room that don't consider us. Like some of the people over in Savin Hill that don't like this side of Dorchester, okay? So I think when we talk about, when we're making plans about host community and talking about, to the community, I think you need to reach out to the regular people of the community. Because some of these, some of these organizations and some of these little groups and meetings don't really give a crap about us.

And it's all about their agenda that they have set forth. So that's one thing. Also, often in our community, we do have Asian businesses that are run, but there's not people that look like me that work in those Asian businesses. So I'm...

And I don't want, I don't-- we've talked, Richard, so I don't, I don't have a problem with you, and we've, we've already discussed this. But I'm just concerned that, are we going to make this a multicultural employment area? Because, like I said, a lot of the times, the Asians that do come in our community, they don't hire... me.

We have to hire locally, because that's the easiest, uh, uh... community outreach we can do. And also for the operation sense, it's the best way to do it. As a business owner, once you get in here-- and I'm not gonna say right away-- but maybe six months or a year in, depending on how your profit goes, what are you...

Are you willing to personally give something back to this community to help educate the young African Americans, the young Cape Verdeans, the young Asians in, that live in this poor community that's riddled, riddled by gun violence, and, and other drugs that are not marijuana, that keeps everybody calm? Because if everybody was on marijuana, they'd be calm somewhere. (people chuckling) Your first comment regarding the various groups that we are supposed to meet-- and I, and I really strongly use the word that we were supposed to meet-- is because that, a lot of those are dictated by the city. Exactly, that's my point.

Right, right. So, you know, for us to jump outside of that particular parameter is not very easy for us. You know... As a businessman, as a lifelong resident of Boston, Massachusetts, you know, I...

We want to give back. But because there are some things that are beyond our control, as a business, you know, there are only so many things we can do per the host community agreement, right? Yeah. Now, if you want to touch upon the personal stuff, well, well, that's a personal passion of mine, right?

Yeah. To really give back and, and do things for the community. Can't promise you anything today. But I can pledge...

No, I'm not... I can pledge-- let me finish. That's why I said... Let me finish, let me finish.

I can pledge that there are times where we will outreach to the community, people that think that we didn't include them in this particular talks, round of talks, and everything like that, you know, because that is a personal mission for me. That is something that, that I hold dear and near, and is a passion for me. But first things first, I need to make sure that I cross my Ts and dot my Is with the city, because they are the ones that are in control of a lot of things in our, in our situation here. I just want to make sure that when whatever funds that you're going to be giving out of your pocket goes into a great entity in this community that really matters, and that is actually having an effect in our community.

Sure, sure. And as I said again, I support you guys, I just want to... Thank you. I want to make sure that you guys have a solid plan, and especially around security and, and the overflow thing, is really, we need to address that, as the young lady said.

Because we can't have a line of people, particularly if we have people coming from, like, Milton or other places, it's kind of, like, "Ooh, look at them, let's go set up for robbery." And I don't, I want to make sure that those are addressed, okay? All right, thank you. Thank you....in the back. I guess I want to find out from you what you're going to do, truly, to address safety concerns around the store that you're looking to open.

You know, we have some phenomenal officers in our neighborhood, they work extremely hard to keep us all safe. And it sounds like part of your public safety plan is to lean on the BPD. And I think that's a bit unfortunate. There's a lot going on in this neighborhood, unfortunately, that isn't good.

And we lean heavily on them to help support the community, and so that doesn't help when we're layering something additional onto the BPD. Second question has to do with the process for approving this. If someone can just sort of address whether or not the community has an opportunity to, to vote up or down. This has to go through another process, the Board of Appeal, which, they have not received a date as of yet.

You can make your voice heard through that process, as well. So this is not a done deal here today. They have more meetings to do, and more applicants to visit and do outreach to as many people in the neighborhood as possible.

MAN

You know, leaning on the police for their expertise in this neighborhood and what the police needs for resources in this neighborhood, 'cause I don't think, you know, we want to stand up here and say, "Oh, we're going to do X, Y, Z for security," and then the police come and say, "Oh, you don't want to do that in this neighborhood," or, "That's not what we need in this neighborhood." So I think that, that conversation's ongoing. And, you know, one of the big things that I think 617 can do as an entity is obviously that surveillance, and extending, sort of, that circle of surveillance, really, in conjunction with BPD and what they're looking for, and making sure those systems talk to each other. But also making sure that BPD and who's ever running the store have, have a relationship. My concern is, I'm a, an abutter to this whole establishment.

So, I'm right behind Walgreens. I don't get any-- I maintain it, there's dumpster-diving back there with Walgreens. They park in my driveway, I can't get in and out, I can't get in and out the alley half the time, I gotta call the police, I gotta call 311. It's a huge, major...

If there wasn't any... If I wasn't such a gentleman, I would say what it is. So what I'm saying is that, having no parking, dealing with the security issues that I'm dealing with right now, not having it, they're just dealing with, just dealing with the restaurant and dealing with the smoke shop and dealing with Walgreens, is, is enough. I can't even get in and out my driveway as it is.

You know, I got people dumpster-diving in the middle of the night. I have security cameras. When the police comes and they look, and look and see what stuff that goes on back there, doesn't do anything. So those are my, my issues whatsoever.

The parking is, I got people that park from Bowdoin Street up and down Blakeville Street, blocking their driveway, just when people are going to the restaurant. So never mind having a dispensary there. Where they going to park at? Where they block my neighbors, I got one, two, three, four, four or five other abutters here that, they block their driveways here, and we always, like, up in a rage, trying to figure out whose car's blocking whoever, whose car's blocking your driveway.

So what are your plans for that? We're gonna have cameras out front to indicate that someone's there, and we'll have one of the security go out there and ask them to move. We'll-- we're gonna work hand in hand with Boston Police on this. There may come a time when we may have to hire some details to help us out at the early goings on this.

And we're going to have a conversation with them. They're going to approve our plan. They're going to have input to our plan, and those are things that we'll discuss with them that they can be on the lookout when they send their patrols by, as well. And I can tell you that there is no way that we're going to let our customers double-park in front, say, "I'll be right back," and run in.

They won't be allowed entry into the store. We have personnel who will be on-site inside and outside, as well as some sort of combination of Boston Police outside, but also, our store person will be checking people as they get in, and we won't let them in. Go ahead. Walgreens is a staple of our community and a intersection where people go to get family supplies, they go to get Pampers, they go to get their medical needs.

So within that going on, they have to pass through a smoke shop, a weed shop... Then, that alley that's running there is famous to becoming a smoke... destination. Before the smoke shop got there, that was the smoke destination.

The smoke shop came and it became even a bigger smoke destination, a barber shop was there, it became a bigger smoke destination. Um, the Walgreens has been raided-- I mean, from us doing an event for the community, and people literally go across the street and raid it. There's been shootings and other negative things going on in the community. So just having that entity there constantly is, uh, really worrisome for our seniors, our young people, who has teen centers, we have schools...

Even though there's a radius, at the end of the day, this is a common intersection for everyone-- those imaginary lines doesn't exist, because we have to go to Walgreens to get our medications, we have to go to get Pampers, and our daily stuff that we need right away. We need Walgreens in our community. (chuckling): Um, we don't necessarily need a smoke shop, or a weed shop, but we do need Walgreens. As I read this, you guys are talking about, you know, "fostering a mutual, beneficial, healthy, and safe partnership." Again, we had a store, never got robbed, never got anything, but we have seen people who have been getting shot in corners, inside stores.

There is a lot of trauma in this neighborhood... AUDIENCE MEMBER

Mm-hmm. And I just, in your whole beautiful presentation, I didn't see bullet points around how you guys are doing all that and bringing it back to the community.

MAN

And how they're supporting us. And also about, you know, where you say that you're "creating a positive economic impact beneficial to the city of Boston and Dorchester neighborhoods." Bowdoin-Geneva is a high-needs. We don't have police available in the evening hours. So it's my concern how you guys are saying that you're gonna reach out and get supports from, you know, the police department, which is all nice and dandy, but they're short-staffed.

They have people retiring day in and day out, and academies coming in, and we're not getting the people that we need in order to, you know, provide the services that we need, in order to be a safe environment. So bringing in this flow where you guys are going to have somebody at the door, I didn't hear anybody directing traffic or telling people, you know, where to go and how to park. It sounds beautiful when you're saying, "We're going to tell people to move their cars," but that's not how it works around here. (audience member murmuring in agreement) We are not in Downtown.

We are not in Back Bay. We are in Dorchester, where people will say, "I'll leave my car there and what you going to do about it?" I think that we all agree that hearing that type of feedback is the starting point, because we don't have all the answers right now, you're absolutely right. There are certain things that we don't know. And we need the feedback from the community to be able to work together to come up with a plan that works.

Are we going to have all the answers on day one? I hope so, but it's unlikely. We're not going to know what problems may arise. There may be problems that are resolved by our presence just as, as much.

But I think that we can commit to working with you to resolve them as they come up. I mean, that's all that we can promise right now. Hearing that, that's something that's important. It's noted-- we want as much feedback as we can get on those types of issues that we may not be able to see at the moment.

And if we can help prevent issues like that, and there're ideas on how to do that, we're all ears. It may sound like we haven't addressed it. It's only because there are a lot of moving parts that we have to make sure that we coordinate with the city, having community meetings like this to meet with you guys to talk about stuff that concerns you guys, and then incorporate that into our business plan and plans moving forward. This is by far a done deal.

This is something that we would like to discuss further with everybody in the community, as well, and hopefully tonight's a great start to that, something more, more elaborate and a little bit more lengthy in the future. This community meeting is part of the process for you to get your license?

MAN IN AUDIENCE

Mm-hmm. And then does this community meeting have a process to vote? No. So does this community...

So after we talk and we vent, and we cry and we laugh... That's exactly what it is... What happens? Nothing-- nothing.

MAN ON PANEL

I'll answer that for you as I did earlier. We take what happens here back to City Hall.

WOMAN

Uh-huh. Okay? We have a conversation there about what happened here, you're also allowed to... To City Hall meaning the mayor or...?

Yes. Okay. Go back and we iterate what happened here. So you also have an opportunity yourself, if you'd like to send in an email, a phone call, write a letter...

And it gets taken look at? And it does, it absolutely goes into a file for this address for this applicant for this project. Okay. I'm new to this, I'm sorry.

So that's how the information that the public puts out gets put into play and... You say, "Mr. Mayor, generally, this is what they said." And then what happens? In a nutshell, we go over what happens, and then it's deliberated, a decision's made, and if they move forward, they move forward.

You have good intentions. I believe you. If you have good intentions, forget the requirements. Communicate with us.

Go above and beyond. Make sure that everybody knows about it. No? Too much?

MAN

No, no, you're right, you're right. You have good intentions. Do more, make sure that everybody knows about it, because you know what? I, I know that this kind of stuff is beneficial to Black communities if done properly,

because I've done my research. MAN

Sure. However, if done in this way, in this, in an ill-prepared manner-- and I'm not saying you have been, because I don't know enough-- then you have detriment at your hands. This, this kind of business, if not, if it doesn't benefit our community, it's a detriment, and it will disproportionately affect brown and Black people.

MAN

We have been outreaching to the community members, neighborhood, the neighborhood associations, to, to address us and to introduce us. We cannot literally go knock on door, every single door in Dorchester, that's not possible. No, what happens is, those neighborhood associations are predominantly represented by whites. So what happens is, the people that we're saying that are impacted, the people that suffer from trauma or not.

We're not generalizing this culture and saying everybody suffers from trauma, we're saying that this is a poorer neighborhood and poverty affects us in this way, right? In, in one sense... So, the people that it impacts are not being communicated to. And so, it makes sense, then, if you have good intentions, that you go above and say, "Look, "we want everyone to be aware "and we want to be very transparent, so we're going to do more." This process is not dictated by us, the applicant.

As much as we want to be in control as business owners, this entire process is dictated by the city. Yep! (snaps fingers) Let me reiterate this again. This entire process is dictated by the city.

A lot of things that you guys have brought up as concerns, I personally have brought up, as well. Some of the things that you just talked about and you've reiterated, some other people have said that same thing. We've heard it-- several, many times. But the fact of the matter is, there's a lot of things that we're, we're hand-tied.

To go above and beyond something that was instructed us to do by the city, we just do what the city asks us to do. Now, to say, "Forget about the requirements, just go ahead and do that," sure, okay, we can. We will, and we've listened tonight, and we shall.

WOMAN

We need to get organized and get to the city, then.

We need to change this process. MAN

Yes, yes!

MAN

Representative?

LIZ MIRANDA

I represent the Bowdoin-Geneva community. It's an amazing community, but it is a community that has some of the worst public health outcomes. When you look at the geography of incarceration, even currently today, in our commonwealth, about 60% of the people in the Massachusetts jails actually come from the ZIP codes that I partially represent. And so I want to just ask a couple of questions that constituents have brought to me.

The first thing I'll say-- I've only been in office seven weeks-- the state didn't do a good job, right? And I've said this at every cannabis meeting, because applicants are educating residents about things that should have been done by state and city government, at least that's my opinion. And so I've offered to bring the Office of Emerging Industries and the commission to come to our community to talk to our community directly, because we have questions that can't be answered by asking an applicant, and an applicant having an agitative, agitated conversation with the residents. The first is, this is one of the most diverse communities in the entire city.

It is the poorest part of Dorchester. It's over 90... 90% of color. My question is, do you have anybody on your team that represents one of the major ethnic groups in this community?

And I know the Vietnamese community is 20%, so that answered, probably, yes. I don't want to assume Asian identity. Two, also, mass incarceration has deeply impacted our community, and when this law was first passed, I know a lot of people went to vote, because we wanted to right the wrongs of also what has happened to our community because of the war on drugs. Do you have anybody on your team that has been impacted by that, or have you thought about that?

Third, we know that the host agreement goes into a general fund, so the other question I had is, have you discussed as a team how you will put resources together for this community that is highly under-resourced also by the city and state government, to be quite honest? But there's immediate needs on this, in this corridor that are not represented in areas like Neponset, or in Lower Mills, that Bowdoin-Geneva has specifically been deeply impacted by bad policy and under-resources. So those were three questions, and are you open to a second meeting or conversation? It's 42%, this district is 42% Cape Verdean, and a lot of the times, these meetings, I might see four or five Cape Verdean Americans, but nothing is translated in our language, and so what I find is that they're not even participating in these conversations, not because they don't want to.

They care about this community, but you're not going to walk into a room where you, people don't speak your language or at least try to have things translated for you. So I just wanted to know if you'd be open to another, 'cause you're only required to have one meeting, so the question is, are you open to another conversation? So those are the points that I want to share that mainly came from constituents who couldn't be here tonight, and so part of my job is to represent their interests and share that. Somebody brought up a comment earlier about, you know, when they walk into these particular stores, they don't really see a representation of themselves.

And I do want you to know that we're not open yet, and so we will have representation of, of this neighborhood. A lot of people will ask us to drill down hard on what that number is. That's a business question-- I don't have that answer for you, because that business part of the question has not been answered during our business plan discussions. Yeah, but we are going to have more conversations and have more dialogue with everybody involved that should be involved.

As you stated in your first comment before saying anything else, that the state didn't do a very good job on this. And it fell to the applicants to go ahead to elucidate and enlighten the public. And we've done that. Through our own pockets, through our own measures, and through our own grit.

We don't want to see this industry fall, because, yes, Dorchester has been disproportionately affected by this. I don't see anybody else really stepping up to really say, "Hey, let's bring this to Dorchester, and really make this happen." You see a lot of Colorado people, you see a lot of Washington people, you see a lot of California people. But that barrier is so high during the DPH era for you to get into this, that it was a nigh-impossibility that you might even think of bringing a medical marijuana establishment to Dorchester. We're talking high six figures to even be heard!

So not only had you been disproportionately affected by having your members of the community arrested, and now there is a economic barrier for you to go ahead and overcome, just so you can do business in an industry that has affected your life and generations down the road. Look, we're not the type of people that should come and say, "I can go ahead and clean this up for you." I'm not that type of person. But what I can pledge to you is that we can come down here and have discussions and frank conversations with everybody to make sure that we include as many people as we can. We can't do everything for everyone, but we can do a lot of things for a lot of people.

But again, we have not opened yet. Give us the opportunity to come down, and really show you our mettle, and show you what we're really all about. And let the state know that what they did and what have they been doing is not the correct process. And with your help, we can go ahead and let them know that we can overcome that situation and bring this neighborhood around.

This is the poorest neighborhood in Boston. Do you guys not want economic development? Do you guys not want to be a piece of something that has taken your lives away from you? And if I'm the catalyst for that, then so be it, I can do it, and I look forward to helping you and you helping me, and we can accomplish this together.

Thank you. We see everyone who's at the table here, and as a community, we need to make sure that we're holding them accountable. So we shouldn't just be saying this now in the moment, but we really need to take everybody who has a hand in this to task when things are not working correctly, because you all have to live here. We have people who work here, we have people who care about this community, who's been here for many, many years, putting in the hard work and effort to get ourselves together.

And so the way we do that is, every time somebody says something to us, let's make sure we're going back to them. And let's make sure that we're holding them accountable. And let this evening not be the only time where we're continuing to do that, because if we do that, then we're-- you know what? It's just gonna be another situation, same old, same old, and we get to hold the crappy end of the stick.

And we've been doing that for many, many years, and so let's hold folks to the fire

and let's hold folks to task. MAN

Thank you.

MAN

There'll be business cards on the back table. If you have comments, you can call up or you can shoot an email. We'll be responsive and we'll make sure that it's noted and that it's on file. (dog barking) (barking continues) (indistinct chatter) We talked about this, you know, from, you know, a year ago, when we first, when we first met.

Right. To talk about, you know, utilizing the restore program. Hiring an architect through, through our program to work with you and your family, to, um, you know, to really elevate, you know, your, your business. Right.

But I know one of the other goals was really, I mean, this is a very successful supermarket. Um, you know, I think that you have a very loyal customer base, but I do know, and this is true for any, any business in the city, it's always important to attract new customers. Mm-hmm. So you were hoping, is one of the goals that by doing this project, it will attract some new customers in the city?

Uh, yeah, absolutely, 100%. You know, I know during the rush-hour traffic in the morning, rush-hour traffic at night, there are thousands of cars that go along Cummins Highway that pass the store and probably don't even think twice about ever coming in here to do their grocery shopping. But I think once we remodel and redesign the front, I think they might have, you know, second thoughts about that and maybe give us, give us a chance and see what we have to offer for them and their family. Yeah, I mean it would...

(clears throat) We do know, like, through this program that, um... When people complete a project of this scale, two things happen. Your existing customers, um, feel, um, grateful, um, and taken care of. Really.

And it's a, in many ways, it's a thank you to them for shopping here. Right, absolutely. And I think people get very excited when a project like this that, a store that they're going to constantly is transformed, but I think also people discover you for the first time. Mm-hmm.

And as you said, people are driving up and down Cummins Highway and not stop, you know, not pulling into your parking lot, 'cause they're not really seeing you. Right. And I think that's absolutely gonna happen for you, and we see this happen over and over again for many of our projects, is that people walk by a storefront, and once we actually transform it through the restore program, with the new signage and design, you know, it's getting people through that door. Right.

And obviously that, it helps you be more successful. Who are the customers that come to this store? So predominantly, you know, residents of Mattapan. We also get a fair amount of people from, you know, Dorchester, Hyde Park, a little bit of Milton, as well.

Um, and, you know, demographic-wise, come from, you know, many different countries, all the Caribbean countries, South America, Central America, that's predominantly where our customers come from. And, and, you know, I... You know, I live in the neighborhood, too, so I know, and America's Food Basket's been in the neighborhood for so long, you know, I do know that based on the constituency that America's Food Basket's been, you know, serving in your four locations-- so do you, so, do you carry specific, um... foods and, that, that really, the community needs?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, especially in the meat department, the produce department, and grocery department, as well. Basically, we want customers, when they come in, they feel like, you know, they never left their home, left their country. Whether they're Haitian or Dominican, you know, they want to-- we want them to be able to come in here and get whatever it is, whether it's plantains, yucca, ox tails, you know, whatever seasonings that they, they use in their countries, we want them to be able to, be able to use that same recipe that, you know, their, their grandmother or mother used when, when they were growing up back home. Only now they're in Boston.

So how do, how do you develop that list of ingredients and foods over time? Um, I mean, the, uh... The founders of America's Food Basket, you know, it's a-- they're Dominican, so, you know, that aspect, the Caribbean aspect of it was fairly easy. But then, you know, as you're in the store, as you gain experience dealing with different, um, different types of customers, they'll ask you, you know, what they're looking for, and, you know, we try our best to get whatever, get whatever it is that they're asking.

And, you know, I think to a great extent that we've done a good job of that kind of serving to their needs. (music over intercom) (carts, baskets rattling) Hey! (indistinct chatter) (music playing in background) (music continues) (traffic sounds, indistinct chatter) (wind blowing) (dogs barking) (birds chirping) (car horn) (birds chirping) (siren blaring) (siren continues) (traffic sounds) (footsteps) (birds chirping) (footsteps) (traffic sounds)

MICHAEL CURRY

Because managing expectations is important, so where we can get folks in a room who are interested-- because they're calling me, too, and they have all these great ideas, and I said, "Well, that's not how national NAACP conventions work. "We're not organizing from the ground, "it's really organized from national and there's some local activity." So I've had to educate folks locally on that, but I think if we can have a community conversation, then I think Tanisha could host. And then I manage expectations that it's a convention of delegates, but it's a voting convention. So people are here to do business.

Mm-hmm. They're here to go to luncheons, be part of panel discussions. There's not a lot of free time that, to leave the area that they're in, and if they leave the area, they're not there to vote on a particular matter that's coming before the body. So there'll be some limited opportunities to get out of the convention area and see Boston, and we just got to be intentional about when those opportunities come up.

We talked about that. There might be, you know, NAACP members that are police chiefs and firefighters and nurses, and doctors and, that want to, like, maybe get a tour of, you know, behind the scenes at Mass. General or, or go to Dimock in Roxbury, and see how the recovery community that they have there, one of the best in the country. Look at these different places and so we can offer that up for people.

We have a criminal justice community here, so if we tap Harvard and some of our other higher ed institutions and say, "Hey, we need Skip Gates to be at the convention." Yeah. "And we as the city of Boston are reaching out to you, Harvard, to, say, make your folks available," Yeah. I think there's an opportunity for us to provide value in that way. If we can do that basic part first, then all the extras come along after that.

There's a fuller picture of Boston's history, good and bad, that I want West Roxbury to know and Roxbury to know and Dedham to know, and I think we have an opportunity to share that through different ways, so that it's an education for us Bostonians and an education for our visitors. I think it's great. And I say this all the time, I think there's kids in Roxbury and West Roxbury that have no idea-- they don't even know busing. Yes.

Because they, they weren't even here. Right. Their families were, were... Their families impacted by it.

Yeah. And not even understanding, I think even with busing, there was a step before that that's not talked about, that if the, if the... school committee elected at the time... Yes.

Took action... Yeah, it would have staved off that whole experience. That whole thing, so that was, there was a lack of action-- inaction by local representative people elected by the people. Absolutely.

Right. And if they'd dealt with it and addressed it, history might have been a little different. Yeah. And it would have been maybe a little different, but if you, if you'd tackled the issue at the time, in a different manner, but it wasn't thought of, so...

And not to debate that, but I think what's interesting is, is, the values of the city wasn't fully reflected by that City Council as it is today, right? We see the diversity on the City Council today. The diversity, the lack of diversity at that time didn't take the racial imbalance issue seriously enough. Oh, true.

That if they had had more diversity, they would have said, "No, let's avoid court action and let's do something proactive to create the kind of diversity..." But to back it up even further, the Civil Rights Movement? Yeah. Yeah. That same diversity wasn't in the City Council today that it was back then.

Yes, yeah. And they took action. Yeah, yeah. And the abolition of slavery, a lot of things, so it's like that generation had an opportunity.

Yeah, they missed it. And, I mean, obviously, it's easier to talk about it today, sitting here and not saying, "You should do that." But there's a different mindset today.

CURRY

So we talked about all the talent here, the Cornel Wests, the Skip Gates, the academic institutions, the healthcare industry, dominant industries here in this, in this city and in this region, we say, "Hey, we can offer those up as resources as you have the conversation here," so we know the folks and partners are already interested. We know the folks at TJX Companies. I talked to Bob Rivers today, at Eastern Bank, and the banking community wants to be involved. Now we just gotta sort of harness all that interest, and I think, you know, they're reaching out, to me and to you and Tanisha, and it's exciting that this is, in my years of being president of NAACP, there was never this much focus on being involved in civil rights.

Yup. And in contributing to it, so we just have to harness that. Um, how do we get Black and brown and white Boston to become observers, delegates, alternates, at the convention during that week? That would be huge, and I've not seen it done as well as I think Boston could do it.

That we have an additional 3,000 Bostonians at the convention to listen to the presidential nominees, or presidential candidates, at that point, to partake in a conversation around criminal justice and what's going on in terms of today with mass incarceration. The folks are here and the interest is here. And we just got to get them over to... I think it's the marketing.

Right. It's how do we market it to let people know that this is open for you, so that you live on, you know, whatever street it is, you live on Humboldt. This is your convention. You might not be a credentialed voting delegate, but you are as engaged in this conversation as everyone else.

And we need you to get that, and I think that it's about marketing. We've done all this, but yet we're still not where we need to be. And why did that happen? And how do we take the past and celebrate it, but also understand where the problems happened?

And I think that, you know, when people talk about, you know, "Racist Boston, racist Boston, racist Boston," you know, like you said, a lot of, a lot was done here. So, to, to bring equality, but for some reason, we have more work to do. And I think that there's an opportunity for, maybe one month's a reflecting month. History is the key thing, right?

Is, if people know history, they get the good, they get the bad, they got a context for where we are, and then they can act. Yeah. But the problem is, many of us don't know our history. So we think that the poverty rates in our communities is an accident.

Yeah. That people just decided to be poor, or our health disparities is an accident. People just need to eat better. And they don't understand the context for access and opportunity and inequities.

So I think there's a unique opportunity with the convention coming here, and the work that you've been doing around racial justice and equity and these conversations is, to have it be a citywide conversation, as you said, that plays out throughout the course of the year and is really grounded in history. (wind blowing) (traffic sounds, seagulls squawking) (machines running) (saw buzzing) (machinery whirring) (grinding) (percussion playing) (percussion pounding) (indistinct chatter) (percussion continues) (percussion continues) (percussion fades) (vehicles passing) (distant music, car horn beeps) (bagpipes and drums playing) (music continues) (music ends) (color guard marching, leader giving orders)

LEADER

Left... Left, right... Left... Left...

Left, right... (indistinct)

WOMAN

Oh say can you see By the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed At the twilight's last gleaming

BOTH

Whose bright stripes and bright stars Through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched Were so gallantly streaming And the rocket's red glare The bombs bursting in air Gave proof through the night That our flag was still there O say does that star-spangled Banner yet wave? O'er the land of the free And the home Of the brave (cheers and applause)

LEADER

Left... Left, right... Left... One, two, three, four...

Left... Left... Left... Right, left...

WALSH

To the people of Boston, thank you for the privilege of serving you these past five years. I love my job. Every day, I get to go out into the neighborhoods to talk, listen, and work with the people of Boston. Every day, Bostonians walk through the doors of City Hall and share their hopes and dreams with me.

They remind me of how grateful I am to live my dream, and walk through those doors as the son of immigrants. I think of another door that opens. It was the morning after my election in 2013. I was in a hotel room and opened the door for the worker to deliver breakfast.

Her name was Leti. She immigrated from Africa to follow her dreams here in Boston. She came around the cart and gave me a big hug, and she was crying. She said, "We did it, we won, we are going to be mayor." (laughter and applause) Leti's here somewhere-- thank you, Leti.

(laughter) It hit home, right at that moment, what this job means. It means opening doors for more Bostonians to walk through. People of every race, creed, and class. Changing a city, changing a nation.

One year ago, I pledged my second term to strengthening and expanding Boston's middle class. Today, more people are working than any other time in our city's history, unemployment is 2.4%-- the lowest ever recorded. (applause) We are ranked number two in the nation for moving people up and into the middle class. And we've been named the best city in the entire world to find a job.

(cheers and applause) We have thrown open the doors of opportunity, and Bostonians are surging through them to live their dreams and lead us forward. And because we are drawing on more of our people's strength, the state of our city is stronger than ever. But I'm concerned about the state of our union. What happens in Washington we feel on the streets of Boston.

But here's what matters more. What we do in Boston can change this country. We've shown that differences don't have to divide us. When we come together, anything is possible.

That's democracy in action. That's how we built this administration. We won office in a coalition that wasn't supposed to be possible. Working people-- Black, white, Latino, Asian-- all came together.

We created the most diverse administration in Boston's history, from the cabinet to the front lines. We listened to the voices of every community. We took on Boston's toughest longstanding challenges, and we began changing our city. We are opening doors to new schools, new libraries, new homes, new jobs.

We're listening to new voices. It's not always easy or comfortable. But a more open conversation means better solutions for our city-- the sign of a more vibrant democracy. We put social justice at the heart of our vision because a more equal conversation means a more resilient city.

So we'll keep leading the fight to defend immigrants. We'll continue our groundbreaking work to achieve gender equality. And we'll never stop protecting the rights and embracing the identities of our LGBTQ community. Five years together, we've made Boston a more compassionate, a more dynamic, a more democratic city.

We've listened, we've learned, and we're leading. I'm proud of what we've achieved. We should all be proud, and we should be ready to do more. Our city needs us, our country needs us, and we're just getting started.

(cheers and applause) (traffic sounds) (phone ringing)

MAN

Boston 311, how may I help you? 1,367 customers affected, estimated time

00 and 5

30. Um, and is this in, only in Brighton, or does it extend beyond that?

MAN

And you said that it fell onto your property, correct?

WOMAN

Nope, so that's furniture. Furniture, you can just throw that out with your regular trash.

MAN

If you want, I can connect you over with the credit union. Okay, but, yeah, if you were in Watertown, that would be a responsibility of Watertown. It wouldn't be with... It wouldn't be anything with Boston.

WOMAN

Okay, is it a whole tree, a limb, or a branch?

MAN

The first step is to request... A birth certificate request form. You'd print it out, fill it out, and then with that form, you would send it in with a $14 money order or check, um, addressed to City Hall. So, the senior shuttle, you mean?

I can connect you with their department so you can see exactly when it's going to get there, okay? Okay, I have down that you reported that there is something wrong with the hawk's eyes? And that the hawk isn't acting normal since it is feeding on a pigeon on the street other than flying away with its food. There are a lot of people around the hawk and the hawk doesn't seem able able to fly away.

But it's only picked up on your specific trash day. Yeah, so if it's public housing, you want to contact the Boston Housing Authority Work Order Center to get that replaced for you. Sir, please, please don't yell.

WOMAN

I just have someone on the other line that's trying to locate a gravestone. They have a name, but they just are trying to find the burial ground. (phone ringing)