Boston Policy Institute, Inc

Our AI-generated transcript feed is live! This is the first time that the public will have free access to AI-generated transcripts of Boston City Council meetings & hearings. Meetings and hearings are often hours long and feature dozens of agenda items and actions - the City of Boston has a great YouTube channel with all those videos. Now with AI-generated transcripts everyone from advocates to reporters to the public can easily find specific parts of meetings. Check out how the transcripts & an example in the graphics, then go to our website for the feed: https://lnkd.in/eUqJPjag #mapoli #bospoli #boston #citycouncil

The 1st 'Weekly Transcript Round-Up' of 2025 is out! It focuses on this week's regular Council meeting which clocked in at over five hours and featured a packed agenda with 117 dockets. There were simply too many different issues to touch on each one here, so WTR focuses on three big issues: 🥊 FIGHTING WITH THE COUNCIL PRESIDENT Councilors continue to criticize and clash with Council President & Councilor At Large Ruthzee Louijeune, disputing everything from how much time Councilors have to speak to which committees she assigns dockets to. 🏘️ ABOLISH PARKING MINIMUMS Building parking is often cited as a major driver of new housing construction in MA - costs per space ranging from roughly $1,500 per space for surface parking to over $20,000 for underground parking - and the Council is considering abolishing those rules. ⚽ DEMAND FOR ANSWERS ON WHITE STADIUM TURNS UGLY Between Thanksgiving and New Years the cost to renovate White Stadium went from Boston contributing $50M to $91M to “no matter what it costs” and a signed lease. The issue brought out strong feelings from Councilors, with warnings about the Boston Calling corruption case and loan approvals. Read more about each item through the link in the first comment!

The Banker & Tradesman published an op-ed from BPI comparing City of Boston - Planning Department draft plan for Article 80 reform with the Article 80 reforms proposed in Michelle Wu for Mayor’s 2019 white paper 'Abolish the BPDA.’ Here are a few lines from the piece describing why this sort of analysis could not be been done for Mayors past: “Unlike previous mayoral administrations whose policy promises were just a line or two in a speech or press release, the Wu administration’s new report can be directly compared to the 76-page white paper, “Abolish the BPDA,” written by then-City Councilor Michelle Wu that details an ambitious set of reforms for Boston’s planning and development processes and bureaucracy. Boston Policy Institute’s analysis of these two documents finds that Mayor Wu is not implementing Councilor Wu’s Article 80 reforms.” Read the whole piece in the first comment on this post.

Today is the deadline to submit comments to City of Boston - Planning Department / Boston Planning & Development Agency on "Article 80 Modernization Draft Action Plan" which proposes a long series of changes to one of Boston's most important development processes. So what is in the Draft Action Plan? Boston Policy Institute, Inc has an answer, delivered with a brand new analysis comparing the Draft Action Plan to the report that then-Councilor Michelle Wu published in 2019, "Abolish the BPDA." This is really important because Councilor Wu committed to a number of big ideas and proposal that would change Article 80. BPI's conclusion is that the boldest ideas from the 2019 report have been abandoned, thorny technical questions raised in 2019 remain unanswered in 2024, and even good ideas from the 2019 report the Wu administration has embraced are still on the drawing board in 2024. Read the whole post in the first comment, make sure to follow BPI on LinkedIn, and subscribe to their newsletter!

What happened to Mayor Wu's tax shift proposal? Heading into Thanksgiving just a few weeks ago, it appeared to have a clear path to passage. Fast forward to Monday, Dec 3, when a powerful State Senator told reporters “I personally do consider this bill dead,” and the Senate President followed that up with a statement that said "there currently is not sufficient support for this proposal." Here are 5 reasons that explain what happened - check out the whole post in the first comment.

This past week has been dominated by one issue: the fate of Mayor Wu’s tax shift proposal. Until this past Wednesday night, the entire conversation about the tax shift proposal was using estimates - first from a Boston Municipal Research Bureau report and then from Boston’s Assessing Department. On Wednesday the final, state-certified property valuations were released. The problem that the tax shift now faces is that the new, state-certified numbers do not show that homeowners are facing the “dramatic increase” that Mayor Wu warned about. Instead, as the Boston Globe wrote: “Without it [the tax shift proposal], the typical bill would jump 10.5 percent — not far from the average increase of 9 percent over the last five years.” It is fair to say that the earlier estimate from the Wu administration appeared to show things in Boston were even worse than BPI - which first quantified the impact of falling office values on Boston’s budget - and others thought. Here is BPI’s Executive Director Greg Maynard describing that - he used the same language in testimony before the City Council’s Ways & Means Committee on October 17 and before the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Revenue on November 20: "The 7% decline is close to half of the total [$1.5 billion] decline in commercial property value that BPI’s report expected. BPI expected that the total fall in commercial property values would be 25% in real terms over five years. This 7% nominal decline in value is closer to 10% in real terms. Put in plain language: Boston’s commercial property value is dropping much faster than BPI predicted back in February." The fact that the state-certified numbers are much more in line with what BPI expected to see this year does not mean Boston has escaped a budget crisis - the City is still on track to face the $1.5 billion short fall in commercial property tax revenue. However, this week’s events do raise really serious questions about the credibility of the Wu administration when it comes to budget numbers. Assessing Commissioner Nick Ariniello told the Council on Tuesday the state-certified numbers are “roughly in line” with the fall estimates and that just is not true. Read the whole WTR thru the link in the comment - there was other City action happening this week and BPI has the statements, the letter, the speeches, and the next steps on Mayor Wu’s tax shift proposal.

BPI was featured prominently in coverage and in elected official's remarks about Mayor Michelle Wu's tax shift proposal. First, BPI report and City Hall's reaction to it was the subject of Jon Keller's piece in today's MASSterlist from State House News Service, titled "Beacon Hill's Double Header." Then on Beacon Hill in remarks about Mayor Wu's tax shift proposal the Senate's Revenue Committee Chair, Su Moran, quoted BPI's Executive Director Gregory Maynard, alongside NAIOP Massachusetts' Tamara Small and Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation's Doug Howgate. Check out the first comment for the link to Keller's piece!

Today’s ‘Weekly Transcript Round-Up’ included a link to MassINC’s new 2024 Gateway Cities Housing Monitor. It was one of 6 must-read reports that got released this week, along side important work from MBTA Advisory Board, LG Kim Driscoll, AG Andrea Joy Campbell, and more. Read the whole WTR here: https://lnkd.in/eEHKZfh5

This week's WTR looks at 4 things: 🗳️ Council's sharp debate over Boston's ballot snafu; 🎓 School Cmte got update on MCAS & graduation requirements in the wake of Q2 passage; 🎒 CAL Julia Mejia renewed her push for an elected School Cmte - 79% of Boston voters wanted it in the 2021 mayoral election 🏫 D3 Councilor FitzGerald walks a tight-rope to improve BPS schools Read the whole WTR through the link in the first comment!

Yesterday the latest issue of our newsletter 'Weekly Transcript Round-Up' came out, and it looks at three important meetings the City Council held this week: 🎙️ NEW BEHIND-CLOSED-DOORS MEETINGS REVEALED TUESDAY: Boston Municipal Research Bureau’s Marty Walz revealed that in mid-February the Wu administration talked to her as part of a series of previously unreported meetings about how to deal with the impact of falling office values on Boston’s budget. At the same time Wu administration officials publicly denied that falling office values were a problem. 🖋️ COUNCIL APPROVES TAX SHIFT DEAL W/ NO CHANGES WED: Mayor Wu's tax shift proposal went through two major rounds of changes - but neither round involved the Council or individual City Councilors. Instead, this week the Council approved without amendment a home rule petition negotiated by State House leadership and then a group of four business & policy orgs. 🎟️ BPS SUNDAYS FIGHT DRAGS ON AFTER NO-SHOWS MONDAY: "I'd like to extend my appreciation to the sponsors for finding this hearing order, and I look forward to the discussion," Councilor-at-Large & Ed Cmte Chair Henry Santana told the Council back in September when this hearing order was offered by Councilors who he'd clashed with over BPS Sundays, Erin Murphy & Ed Flynn. But more than 40 minutes into Monday's hearing Santana told attendees that the City’s CFO Ashley Groffenberger and Budget Director James M Williamson would not be appearing at the long-awaited hearing on a controversial BPS program. Read the whole post through the link!