Boston’s City Council discussed updates to technological infrastructure, the creation of an office of Inspector General in Boston and a hearing to discuss pedestrian safety at its April 3 meeting.
Councilor Enrique Pepén of District 5 stated that he and several other councilors have been in recent hearings to discuss technological infrastructure improvements across the City of Boston.
The councilors met with Chief of Information Officer Santiago Garces and Chief of Staff Kerry Jordan to receive updates on technological improvements in the city.
“This was a continuation of a conversation that we first had in October of last year, an amalgamation of two separate dockets, one broadly speaking of the technological infrastructure of our city but then also the digitization of parking regulations in our city,” said Councilor Gabriela Coletta of District 1.
This docket was sent to continued hearings per the request of Pepén. Councilor Edward Flynn of District 2 has his own goals for these hearings: to improve school bus tracking and school bus arrival times.
City Councilor-at-Large Julia Mejia presented a proposal to create an office of Inspector General within the City of Boston.
“I think that we have an amazing opportunity to really look at what we need to do to really restore trust in the city government. When we look around the national landscape, when we look around at things happening in our own backyard, there seems to be a common theme that people do not trust the government to function the way that it was intended to,” said Mejia.
According to Councilor Brian Worrell of District 4, the office would be tasked with “rooting out waste, fraud, abuse and uphold the highest standards of ethical conduct” primarily through investigations.
All councilors present supported the proposal, sending it to further hearings for the possibility of an office of Inspector General for the City of Boston.
Flynn introduced a discussion on pedestrian safety, traffic calming and expanding the Safety Surge program, a program for Boston that creates speedbumps, safer intersections and safer signals for both drivers and pedestrians.
Flynn notified the council of two recent vehicular accidents with pedestrians that were hit and killed. He specifically mentioned the recent death of four-year-old Gracie Gancheva, who was struck and killed by a driver at the intersection of Congress and Sleeper streets in March.
Flynn stated his concerns surrounding intersections that signal for pedestrians and vehicles to enter at the same time. He also wants to hold these hearings in order to discuss the expansion of the Safety Surge program.
“Currently, the speed hump program is only being installed on smaller side streets but not on wider streets and busier streets where cars and commuters are consistently speeding and serious crashes also occur,” said Flynn.
Alongside the hearing to discuss the Safety Surge program, Flynn called for the speed limit in Boston’s residential streets to be lowered to lowest 15 mph.
All members of the council voted to hear more about Flynns propositions.
