Proposed stairway at Ipswich Street.
The Boston City Council yesterday approved a change in a regulation designed to protect the Emerald Necklace from being overwhelmed by tall buildings so that a developer can build a 28-story, 400-unit apartment building at 2 Charlesgate West, next to a little used portion of the Emerald Necklace along the Bowker Overpass. Read more.
Louijeune calling for a hearing and soon.
Both Secretary of State William Galvin and the Boston City Council decided today to investigate how precincts across the city ran out of ballots and numerous other ways voters had obstacles placed in the way of casting their ballots, from one polling place not having any working lights to voters with disabilities being refused access to handicap parking spaces at another. Read more.
The City Council voted 12-1 today to ask the state legislature and the governor to let Boston increase the tax rate on commercial properties to higher levels than normally allowed over three years as a way to protect homeowners from potentially large property tax rates. Read more.
In an emergency Zoom meeting this morning, the City Council agreed to hold a public hearing before voting on a proposal to potentially increase taxes on commercial properties over a three-year period to help cushion the blow on residential property owners from expected large decreases in the value of downtown office buildings because many have higher vacancy rates as a higher percentage of workers continue to stay home in the aftermath of Covid-19. Read more.
The Boston City Council, which usually only convenes on Wednesdays, has scheduled a Zoom meeting for 9:30 a.m. tomorrow to consider asking the state legislature to let Boston increase the commercial-property tax rate over a three-year period. Read more.
The City Council yesterday approved holding a hearing at which to consider ways to combat what some said was drug use and related violence that are so bad they are making some residents think of moving away and of threatening Boston's tourism industry. Read more.
The City Council agreed today to look into the environmental and safety issues related to plans for at least two industrial-sized electricity-storage plants, one on the aptly named Electric Avenue in Brighton, the other on a wooded hill behind the Stop & Shop mall on American Legion Highway on the Roslindale/Hyde Park meet that was most recently in the news for being the summer home of Moodini the Steer. Read more.
The Boston Licensing Board says it will be accepting applications through Dec. 6 for the 66 new "neighborhood" restaurant liquor licenses and the 4 new anywhere licenses it now has the authority to issue over the coming year. Read more.
Three Boston city councilors yesterday called for a hearing to ask local postal officials why mail service has plummeted like a rock, in particular on Mission Hill in particular, but also across the city. Read more.
Gov. Healey last week signed a bill giving Boston 225 new liquor licenses, most to be doled out to restaurants in 13 specific Zip codes - and at prices nowhere near the $600,000 or more that most current licenses go for on the open market. Read more.
Ed Flynn being not happy about the first week of school busing.
Boston City Councilors ordered up a hearing today at which to press Boston school officials to explain how the new BPS Zum (pronounced "zoom," but for obvious reasons not spelled that way) app that was supposed to make BPS buses run as softly as a cloud instead led to some buses not showing up in the morning for an hour or more - and some kids riding buses home for up to three hours as their poor, befuddled drivers tried to navigate Boston's dropped-bowl-of-spaghetti roads. Read more.
Cathy Vitale, who hopes to improve next year on her dead-last finish in the 2023 at-large council race, decided to park in the Tremont Street bike lane along the Common Friday night, then refused to move when a cop asked her to - and when he went to write her a parking ticket he discovered she had a suspended license. Read more.
For the past couple of days, at-large Councilor Henry Santana has been listing interesting and fun stuff to do in Downtown Crossing and across Tremont on Boston Common. Read more.
After a man was stabbed in Downtown Crossing yesterday, City Councilor Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Downtown) called on the city to end all organized events on the Common: Read more.
The Boston City Council this week agreed to consider a proposal by Councilor Sharon Durkan (Fenway, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Mission Hill) to amend an ordinance aimed at preventing some city parks and parkways from being overwhelmed by tall buildings next to them to allow a tall residential building next to the Charlesgate section of the Emerald Necklace. Read more.
The Boston City Council will consider a proposal by Councilor Brian Worrell (Dorchester) to deal with the issue of big-ass SUVs making it harder for people with driveways to see oncoming traffic as they pull out by letting homeowners create yellow-paint no-parking areas 18 inches on either side of their driveways - and then calling for $25 fines for people who disregard those zones. Read more.
A federal appeals court has tossed a lawsuit by Salem-based Satanists over the way the Boston City Council has local clergy members start its weekly meetings with an invocation - and over the way the city fought the group's efforts to make then Councilor Michelle Wu show up for a deposition way up on the North Shore on the day of the election in which she was running for mayor. Read more.
A proposal to begin charging drivers a fee to come into downtown Boston will remain in committee as its sponsors consider what are turning out to be some possibly complex issues. Read more.
The Boston City Council today agreed to look at using rodent birth-control pellets to try to control the city's burgeoning supply of rats, by building on a pilot started in Jamaica Plain last year that one councilor said had meant an 80% reduction in the gnawing, long-tailed vermin. Read more.
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