City Council presses on with hands-on plan
City Councilors vowed to keep their fight for change moving forward in their first meeting since a contentious budget vote, introducing a raft of new orders taking further aim at police funding and pushing for more control of the total budget.
“Our focus on racial equity and economic justice goes far beyond a single vote on the budget,” began Council President Kim Janey, who joined four of her colleagues in voting against the city’s annual budget two weeks ago amid the ongoing protests over police funding. “I believe that since we all want to see structural change and address systemic racism that the the protests in the community must be coupled with policy from the council.”
Councilor Lydia Edwards introduced her push to give the council more of a role in the budget process, calling the mayor-dominated current way “a farce.”
“We need to break this wheel,” she said during the meeting. “We need to change how we do business.”
Several councilors on the virtual meeting gave Edwards social-distanced pats on the back spoke in favor of the proposal, with Janey calling it a “game changer” and Councilor Kenzie Bok saying “It would be one of the most consequential things we could do for the city.”
Councilor Andrea Campbell said she wants to hear more but has “lingering questions on some of the legal pieces” of the push.
City Councilor Frank Baker didn’t sign on, and afterward said he’s against it.
If the City Council approves Edwards’ proposal, it would head toward being a question on the November 2021 city ballot. If voters then approved it, the City Council would be able to create proposals for the city’s capital and operating budgets, change line items within the proposals, allocate parts of the budget for a participatory budget process, and amend the budget for Boston Public Schools.
This comes after more than a month of protests over conditions for people of color, particularly in terms of how they’re treated by police.
Amid calls to “defund the police” several councilors sought larger cuts to the police budget and more resources reallocated to social programs.
Bok, the council’s Ways & Means chair, partnered with several councilors including Campbell, Julia Mejia and Matt O’Malley to introduced several hearing orders around the police overtime budget, the budget in general and police union contracts.