Weekly Transcript Round-up for 04/23/26
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Weekly Transcript Round-up for 04/23/266 takeaways from an unusual transportation policy hearing
ICYMI: BPI’s Executive Director Gregory Maynard talked to Joan Vennochi for her column this week, titled: “Mayor Wu says she texts and talks to developers all the time. Is that enough to spur growth?” BPI posted about the column on LinkedIn:
This week saw 3 budget hearings, but the major action was at Wednesday afternoon’s hearing on 3 transportation-related hearing orders, including one on Mayor Wu’s 30 Day Review that was first filed almost a year ago. Wednesday’s hearing was prompted by the Globe’s deeply reported article last month, which laid out how for the last year Mayor Wu has required her personal approval for transportation projects, resulting in slow-downs on things like speed hump installation and the loss of millions of dollars in external funds due to missed deadlines. The Boston Globe and Boston Herald both captured the outrage from advocates and Councilors at Wednesday’s hearing. What was missing at Wednesday’s hearing was much new information. Fault rests about equally between City Councilors - who failed to ask specific questions about either the 30 Day Review or the Globe’s reporting - and the 2 administration officials - Interim Streets Chief Nick Gove, and Neighborhood Services Executive Director Mohammed Missouri - who gave few substantive answers. Despite the lack of new information, the importance of the issue, and the behavior of both Councilors and City Hall officials make the hearing important. There are BPI’s 6 takeaways from the hearing:
Before getting into those, this week City Hall began to provide requests for information for the offices having hearings before the Council. Below, find the links to each RFI responses from this week’s hearings, plus transcripts for each hearing:
1. There was only 1 reference to the Boston Globe’s reporting, and it was a member of the public during testimony. While Niki Griswold’s reporting in the Boston Globe prompted Councilors to offer 2 of the 3 dockets heard on Wednesday, no Councilor referenced it during their question. In fact, the only reference was near the 3 hour mark during public testimony from Sarah Freeman - she is Speaker 39 & starts at the 2:57:03 mark. For example, no Councilor asked Gove or Missouri about the Globe’s reporting that Mayor Wu instituted a policy “requiring her personal approval on most transit and road safety projects, numerous current and former city employees told the Globe.” That meant nothing was learned about what the impact of the Mayor becoming personally involved in transportation policy minutiae like this:
This lack of interest was particularly shocking because this was the Council’s opportunity to learn more about decision-making in the Wu administration. Understanding that will be important for Councilors who want to see progress on issues like school building, zoning reform, and climate change mitigation where City Hall policy has seen transportation-like behavior: unexplained about-faces, months-long delays in decision-making, and mass exodus of staff. 2. Mike Brohel, the Superintendent of Basic City Services who wrote the 30 Day Review, was not at Wednesday’s hearing. No City Councilor asked where he was. Given that the 30 Day Review was published more than a year ago, and the docket about it was filed almost a year ago, it is surprising that the Council chose to go forward with a hearing without his participation. Contributing to the lack of information at Wednesday’s hearing is the fact that he was no the only absence. None of the people involved in the decisions Brohel wrote about even work for the City anymore. The Boston Editorial Board wrote back in March:
3. While the 30 Day Review was referenced a number of times by City Councilors, none got into either the specific recommendations of the memo, or how those recommendations were influencing current decision-making. This produced exchanges like this between Councilor Weber - who became visibly frustrated during it - and Chief Gove - this starts at the 28:23 mark:
Egleston Square is mentioned just once in the 30 Day Review, 1 of 26 projects names listed on the 2nd to last page as an example of projects that the memo recommends “should be reviewed and evaluated with the above recommendations in mind.” Weber didn’t actually ask about the report’s broad recommendations, and so Gove and Missouri did not answer. 4. The 2 City Hall officials disputed how Councilors described changes in transportation funding, but Councilors often didn’t have enough details about those projects to get past the semantics. The clearest example of this was when Neighborhood Service Director Missouri disputed Councilors’ use of the word “pause” saying - he is Speaker 9 & starts at the 1:13:08 mark:
This focus on semantics started early, with the 2nd question of the whole hearing. In that exchange between Council President Breadon and Gove, Gove got an assist on semantics from Chair Durkan, a close Wu ally - this starts at the 23:45 mark:
While Breadon didn’t know details of the $8M Fenway project, there has been extensive public reporting about it, most of it done by StreetsblogMASS, which has been doing really great work on this issue. According to StreetsblogMASS this project was supposed to get $8.15M in FY26, the current fiscal year.
The lack of knowledge about this project meant the Council missed an opportunity to talk more about the term “reallocated”. Here is StreetsBlogMASS describing what happened to that funding:
5. Councilors weren’t provided the City’s list of state and federal funding and its current status before the meeting. In an exchange between Councilor Worrell and Gove, it was made clear that Councilors weren’t given all of the information before the hearing - this exchange starts at the 1:21:28 mark:
BPI requested that list from the Council’s Central Staff, but as of 7:00 AM on Friday, April 24 hasn’t received it. 6. Councilors didn’t ask about Gove’s order to seek his “express approval” for “external meetings, including meetings with partner agencies” during a hearing focused on federal funding. A project that a lot of members of the public talked in their testimony was Columbus Avenue Phase II. This reporting from StreetsblogMASS shows why:
No Councilor asked Gove why he ordered his staff “not to participate in external meetings,” despite the fact that he was testifying and the hearing was focused on federal funding, which is obtained from “partner agencies.” Instead, there was just one reference to Columbus Ave. Councilor Worrell, and he wanted to know if the City had done any studies on the impact of the project on local businesses. Gove told him - he is Speaker 8 & starts at the 1:18:41 mark:
Based on the emails published by StreetsBlogMASS, it is notable that the City is working with T on anything to do with Columbus Ave. Boston Policy Institute, Inc is working to improve the public conversation - help us by following BPI on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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