On November 12, Mayor Marty Walsh provided several updates on the changes and proposals made by his office at both a roundtable with the Office for Immigrant Advancement (MOIA) and a public Media Availability.
In light of the historical election, Mayor Walsh said, “I’m looking forward to working with the administration.” Specifically, the mayor is hopeful that things will be different with the new administration for the immigrant community.
“I do believe that Vice President Biden and Senator Harris, they are going to be good for Boston and great for America, especially for our immigrant community,” said Mayor Walsh. “I do feel that President-elect Biden already has, in my understanding, executive orders; DACA was one of those. Executive orders in TPS, executive orders that we can initiate on day one, the first second they’re in administration, that they can be law of the land.”
As for the COVID-19 crisis, Boston is also experiencing an uptick in cases. With the recently launched “Get the Test, Boston” Campaign, the positive COVID tests in Boston increased, yet the rate stayed the same, at 7.2% as of November 6. The good news is that this means more people are getting tested, giving us more accurate data to track and contain the virus. However, the bad news is that Boston is really experiencing a spike in COVID-cases.
Mayor Walsh said, “My advice is you look at three numbers, you look at the average daily case, you look at the average positive daily rate, and also look at hospitalization. If two of those are in a high place, we’re not in a good place. Right now, we’re not necessarily in a great space.”
For this reason, the Boston Public Schools at the moment remain fully remote. During media availability, Mayor Walsh mentioned working with Public Health Experts on new guidelines reviewed by the superintendent and the Boston School Committee to reopen schools safely.
The mayor recommends that everyone remains vigilant: wear masks, maintain six feet of social distancing, and wash your hands frequently. On top of that, Boston is once again under curfew, now from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. This is in response to Governor Charlie Baker’s statement, a week before, regarding guidelines to prevent another shutdown. With the understanding that businesses would be devastated if Boston is to go into lockdown again, Mayor Walsh stated at the media availability that he would be monitoring the numbers closely for the next 10 days to see how effective the curfew is in controlling the spread.
Although Pfizer reported that they are at 90% effective in their COVID-19 vaccine development, Mayor Walsh “took a wild guess” that it will take until the summer for the pandemic to be over. This has to do with distribution and properly ensuring everyone has access to the vaccine once available. While there are no discussions yet about financial coverage for the vaccines, Mayor Walsh said, “We have to make sure that insurance covers the vaccines,” just like the funded COVID tests that are available in more than 30 locations.
In the case of Housing Stability, there is a new act passed that requires landlords to provide information about legal and financial resources when evicting their tenants. Deputy Director of the Office of Housing Stability, Dominique Williams, said, “This act provides and requires landlords and foreclosing owners to provide the information when they’re serving a notice to quit. The notification document that we have is available in 11 languages on our website. It requires any foreclosing and landlord to give us a copy of that as well.”
While a violation of the act will not stop an eviction, tenants can report the breach to the Office of Fair Housing and Equity. After an investigation, the Inspectional Services Department can issue a warning and a fine of up to $300 per day for subsequent offenses. For more information about this act, visit https://boston.gov/housing-stability to learn more. Landlords can visit https://boston.gov/landlord-notification, and tenants may visit https://boston.gov/tenant-notification.
As for police reform, Mayor Walsh updated the progress of his pledge to achieve all the final recommendations a month ago, in a timeline that the task force laid out. Mayor Walsh announced that they filed a petition to give Boston high School graduates a preference in police hiring. Along with the Chief of Equity and other city leaders and the police department, they updated policies through an equity lens. They also created a diversity and inclusion unit as well as a job description for the Executive Director of the proposed Office of Public Police Accountability and Transparency.
This is still not final and has yet to be addressed by the City Council until the hearing on December 3. Mayor Walsh said, “I hope that the City Council will act quickly on this, so we can advocate together for this petition before the state legislature in the start of the new session in January.”
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