boston politics

With less than four weeks left before Election Day, eight at-large candidates look to be residents’ top picks to either remain in their positions on the City Council or take over as new members.

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh announced this week his capital plan for fiscal years 2020 through 2024, a list of city-sponsored improvement projects which span education, transportation, public safety and open space upgrades totaling $2.78 billion.

City councilor Lydia Edwards has proposed a change in Boston’s zoning code which would require the city to analyze future developments based on the 1968 Fair Housing Act, and look at how potential building would affect displacement in the city.

A trio of departing incumbents has ratcheted up interest in this year’s Boston City Council races and spurred at least 13 candidates to vie for the soon-to-be vacated seats.

City councilors in Boston are working to put a full-time nurse and full-time social and emotional support professional in every public school in the city. At a hearing Monday evening, councilors heard testimony from members of the Boston Public Schools administration and the public in support of their effort.

Thirty-three years ago, while Boston was still in the aftermath of the contentious school desegregation era, a student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education sought to analyze the impact of school integration on the system. As part of his research, then-student Monty Neill conducted interviews with 29 activists, attorneys, elected officials, teachers and parents, accumulating a box of 33 cassette tapes in the process.

At a Boston City Council hearing last Tuesday, affordable housing advocates voiced their support for a city law that would establish an investor and commercial properties transfer fee, while members of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board expressed opposition.

While Boston Teachers Union leadership is in the midst of negotiations over pay raises and other matters with Boston Public Schools officials, outside the Bruce Bolling Municipal Building teachers and school staff rallied last Wednesday for more resources for the schools in which they teach.

Suffolk Downs, a vast tract of vacant land in East Boston, could soon become Boston’s newest neighborhood, with 10,000 units of housing planned for an area more than four times the size of the Seaport District.

City Councilor Josh Zakim has called for a hearing on the Boston Police Department’s involvement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the 2017 arrest by ICE of an immigrant worker in Boston.

At a council hearing Thursday, Councilors Lydia Edwards, Michelle Wu and Matt O’Malley said that they wanted the city to be more transparent about where the money in its pension and treasury funds is invested, and to divest from industries such as fossil fuels, private prisons, student loans and weapons manufacturing.

With at least four candidates contending for the District 5 City Council seat and at least nine vying for the four at-large seats on the body, members of Boston’s Haitian-American community had an opportunity last week to hear first-hand the ideas the aspiring officials plan to bring to City Hall.