Committee to consider City Council raises next week
The City Council's Committee on Government Operations holds a hearing on proposed council raises on Monday, Sept. 29.
The session begins at 10 a.m. in the council's fifth-floor chambers in City Hall.
The committee, chaired by Councilor Michael Flaherty (at large), will take testimony from councilors and the public on Council President Bill Linehan's proposal to give the council a 29% raise, to $108,500.
At a meeting last week, one councilor proposed tying future raises to median Boston salaries, while two others suggested an independent salary commission to deal with pay.
After the hearing, Flaherty committee will come up with a recommendation for the council to vote on.
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Comments
A hearing for the hearing.
Will Boston City Council provide CART services so that mildly deaf, moderately deaf, severely deaf, and totally deaf Bostonians can participate?
Will Boston City Council provide CART services so that people on the Autism Spectrum and people with processing disorders can participate?
17% of adult Massholes have hearing loss.
I think raises would be a significant financial burden.
a) Hearing Loop System. b) Captioning. Boston City Council
How do you arrange for access to the Transcript of Captioning on webcasts/cablecasts of Public Meetings of Boston City Council?...
WGBH Media Access Group http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/mag/ indicate they routinely send only to primary clients a Transcript by email after each production/webcast/cablecast but among the 4 or so Offices considered as the production's clients for the Captioning noone signed up to receive the Transcript by email. It could be a simple thing to resolve but among the city government Offices of Programming, Television Operations and Technology at Boston City Council http://boston.gov/citycouncil/live.asp Office of Cable Communications http://boston.gov/cable and WGBH Media Access Group and Boston Neighborhood Network Television http://bnntv.org all involved in the Captioning arrangement, none of the Offices have anyone delgated to receive each Transcript of Captions from each production/webcast/cablecast of the Public Meetings of Boston City Council. Consequently hard of hearing and deaf folks haven't access to the Transcript !
a)Hearing Loop System
Councilors Linehan and Murphy Announce Major Breakthrough in Hearing Assistance Boston City Councilor Bill Linehan and Council President Stephen Murphy are proud to announce the installation of a Hearing Loop system in the Boston City Council’s Iannella Chamber in City Hall. Contact the Offices of Councilor Linehan tel 617-635-3203 email Bill.Linehan at cityofboston.gov
or Councilor Murphy tel 617-635-4376 email Stephen.Murphy at cityofboston.gov
MEDIA CONTACT:
Molly O’Connell 617-635-4376
https://www.muckrock.com/foi/boston-3/accessibility-of-public-meetings-o...
b) Captioning
Closed captioning requests are made from the Programming Office to the WGBH Captioning Center. When a hearing or meeting begins the caption center dials in to an encoder housed in the programming office. Captions are then opened and embedded onto the LIVE feed, allowing open caption for playback whether it be online or DVD... Contact Kerry Jordan, Programming, Television Operations and Technology Office
Boston City Council
1 City Hall Square
Boston MA 02201
tel 617-635-2208
email
kerry.jordan at boston.gov
https://www.muckrock.com/foi/boston-3/accessibility-of-public-meetings-o...
CART Communication Access Realtime Translation
http://deafness.about.com/cs/cart/a/cart.htm
Fix their pay to the median
Fix their pay to the median income of City of Boston residents. And while they are at it cap the base pay of any city employee at 200% of median income.
That's a bad idea
We should be encouraging people to be city councilors. If their pay is limited to the median income, then by definition, half of people would have to take a pay cut to join the city council. And even people in the lower half would be facing some financial burdens, since running for city council isn't as easy as just submitting a resume. City council isn't necessarily a conventional nine to five job, but it's not something you can easily fit a day job alongside either.
Twice the median household income is a much nicer income, but when you apply that to all government employees, it might be difficult to attract employees when the private sector can pay more. Of course, a lot of Boston's best paid employees work for the police/fire department, which isn't an area where the private sector directly competes, but still, it's not like if you cut their wages they'll just passively accept that.
Oooh, the suspense is killing me
This is going to be an even more unpredictable outcome than the public hearings my cat holds to determine whether or not he should eat the treats I leave around for him
a little warning next time, dude
Your comment made me choke on my bagel. That was really, really funny once I was able to breathe again.
Avenues for public comment?
Other than showing up or writing to a council critter, is there an avenue for public comment that could be lodged as part of the record for their consideration? Like an FCC hearing public comment period?
Written comments that will be
Written comments that will be part of the record may be provided as described at http://www.cityofboston.gov/cityclerk/docs/SKMBT_42014092120464-c10251.pdf
Gracias!
Thanks!
Stenograph Record of Public Meetings of Boston City Council
Stenograph Record of Public Meetings of Boston City Council and Transcript of Captions on webcasts/cablecasts of Public Meetings of Boston City Council give a greater opportunity to comment on the remarks during the Public Meeting. Incumbent Councilors' Campaigns can get their message out through the good work from Public Meetings. It's 2014 already and time to update the technologies and software for the Boston City Council.
Chapter 447 of the Acts of 1947
Come on Don, you know the law!
Are you willing to publicly commit to paying the legal fees of the Clerk of Boston when she violates state law?
Perhaps rather than pestering the public servants of a city where you do not live, your lobbying would be better spent pestering the General Court to repeal said law.
A week?
Weren't they going to form a committee to research the issue? Wasn't the last hearing a week ago? That's some quick work by the committee! Maybe the City Council should have been responsible for handing out the casino license....either that or they just want to get their raises ASAP.
Well
It doesn't take long when you're judge, jury and executioner.
Compare Boston City Council and Cambridge City Council
Compare Boston City Council and Cambridge City Council
http://rwinters.com/
https://www.facebook.com/notes/michelle-wu/boston-city-council-meeting-s...
But Cambridge is really run
But Cambridge is really run by a city manager. The council and "mayor" there is for theater moreso than governance.