BPR Talks 8/12/26: Trump's Escapade

Support for Boston Public Radio comes from the law firm of Davis Malm. Employment laws are complex and ever-changing. Representing both employers and executives gives their attorneys a 360-degree view and a deep experience of every workplace situation. Learn more at davismal.com. And MIT Sloan Executive Education, offering short courses on critical topics led by world-class faculty. Professionals can get up to speed on AI, innovation, cybersecurity, and operational strategy. More at executive.m.m.t.edu. I'm Jim Browdy. I'm Marjorie Egan. And this is BPR Talks, where we feature the calling segments from the day. If you're looking for the full two hours of guests, you can find the whole episode right here in the same feed. Today on the podcast. We will start today with Trump's Air Force One disappearing act. His mid-meeting oval office, Naps, his latest retaliatory prosecutions and his incompetence in Iran. Can you take another two years of this? Hour two is the August edition of Ask the Mayor with Boston. Mayor Michelle Wu, she'll answer our questions and yours on city street safety, housing, the upcoming school year in the latest on a property tax battle. And here's the show.

So we teased this topic yesterday at the end of the show. Trump in the White House telling the public in the press that he was aboard Air Force One as he left the NATO summit in Turkey. Instead, nobody knows this, an elaborate ruse, this is first reported by the Washington Post, involving a catering cart and truck, had him traveling home on a secret military aircraft, leaving the press corps and his top staffers vulnerable, all because... of an unnecessary war that he started and has absolutely no idea how to end. So today we're holding an informal, let's call it a dangerousness hearing for Donald Trump. To recap, this is just some of the stuff from one week, lying daily about the state of everything, from the economy to saying we own this. I can't even read it. We own, we're in total control of the strait of our moves. That's why no ships go through it at all, because we're in total control. He falls asleep regularly during important meetings, most recently about the one about childhood vaccine, when the head of the NIH is lying about autism, and then Trump issues an executive order dangerous to every child in this country. He once prosecuted a guy that his own... U.S. attorney in Washington dropped charges against. This is the guy with the algae in the pool, reflecting pool. Why did she drop the charges? Because there was no evidence he did anything wrong, yet Trump wants somebody else to charge him. Our question for you, it's one we ask ourselves every day, can we do two more years of this with this guy? And are you concerned? I read a lot about this last night, including a wonderful piece by Jonathan Reiner, often on CNN. He's a doctor who was Dick Cheney. a physician asking a lot of questions about the physical and mental condition of Donald Trump. Are you concerned that he is so incoherent and on the verge of being so incapacitated that for the final two years, and this has happened with other presidents, he won't be leading the country, people that almost nobody knows, Susie Wiles, his chief of staff, and the vile racist Stephen Miller. will essentially be the de facto president. Call us or give us a text, 877301.89. And since Marjorie always loves what we call a side pickle issue, we also want to know, where is Mitch McConnell? Yeah, 77301.8970. thought that Stephen Miller was tight with the president. But we know now that he's not tight. Why? Stephen Miller was on the decoy plane with all the reporters that the president didn't care if they were going to go up in smoke. Marco Rubio was there. Apparently Marco Rubio did know he's a national security guy. He took Pete Hegseth along, though. He took Pete Hegseth along with him. Yeah, he took Pete Hegseth along with him, and he took the human reporter, what she called the human printer. Explain who who who she is. She is a very young woman who apparently is quite close to the president. Where is her name? quite close to the president. Well, I don't know. What she does is she... She's with him in the middle of the night while he's posting on True Social. She is with him in the middle of the night. But he took her with her in the food cart. Food cart. And he left Miller on the airplane to possibly... And we should point out that when other presidents have been in these very dangerous situations, they have either warned the press...

to shut up about it until they're out of the situation, or they have not, as Bill Clinton said, in one of these incidents when he was going into, I think he was going, was he going to Bosnia? He said the press was not going to be used as a decoy. So this is unusual for the president. I'm sorry, it was not Bosnia, Pakistan. He switched planes to avoid detection, but he said he was not going to leave the press on a plane to be. Can I play just to make me happy and probably make you miserable? Here's Trump yesterday from the tarmac at the Joint Base Andrews in Maryland asserting again that the US has total control of the Strait of Hormuz. Here's Trump. I'm the last person that Tresorat. They've lied to me constantly. We have total control over the Hormuz Strait right now. They don't have control. We have total control. We own it. Now, by the way, there are a lot of Trump supporters who listen to the show who mostly just text. If you identify yourself as a Trump supporter and call, we will put you at the top of the list. We rarely do that. If you were willing to say that obviously Donald Trump is right, we have total control of the straight-horred moves and explain it to us. And if you watch, by the way, the last thing before we had the calls, 877301, 8970, if you watch this meeting yesterday, like all other meetings, I think it's the head of the NIH, is making up stuff about vaccines and autism, making it up out of whole cloth, Trump is fast asleep. I know. Fast asleep in the middle of this press availability in the office. You add the incoherence to the sleeping, the questions. This guy, Jonathan Reiner, who asks a bunch of questions. I think there's seven questions in this piece he wrote. for the New York Times headline was, I was Dick Cheney's cardiologist. Trump has not looked well, we should know why. One of the things he says, which is always my favorite, the president has spoken about how well he performs on cognitive testing. However, the exam that Mr. Trump describes, the Montreal cognitive assessment is a brief and basic screening tool with questions like, draw a clock and identify a camel. And the President of the United States apparently can identify a camel, at least for now, and can draw a clock. 877301.89. How worried are you? Okay, I just mentioned it's Natalie Harp, who is the human printer. Human printer. The young woman who spends a lot of time in the President's office. Why don't you mention the notes, private notes she is sent to the President of the States. How much she adores him. She thinks about him every minute. But anyway, it's important to point out that the people that did make the cut got into the military plane were all... people who worked for Trump at Mar-a-Lago during the four years between his presidency. Dan Scavino, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Natalie Harp, the human printer, as they call her. And Steve Walsnata, remember he was in trouble for a while if Trump pardon him for involving the moving the documents to Mar-a-Lago. Those are the three. But everybody else got stuck on the decoy plane to have, and by the way, did you hear Trump say?

He was, what, 60 when he had that kid? Roughly, yeah. Or something like that. And older men and has been linked to autism. Maybe there's something a little off about his youngest son. He doesn't, that makes him think it has to be the vaccine, nothing to do with him. But, you know, just imagine. Measles, mumps, Rebella. Usually you go, you have to get it, you know, you have to go and get them all three at once, right? You guys want that anymore. That's one shot for the kid and that one day, and you have to make sure the kid doesn't get a fever. You want you to bring them separately, go once for measles, then come back and get mumps, and then come back and get Rebella. Three shots instead of one shot. I mean... Nobody wants to do that, Jim. Well, particularly young doctors, young people who are doctors that care for young children, almost universally opposed to what he's proposed. Yeah, and young parents have to deal with worrying about the child at every shot and screaming at every shot and worrying about having to take time off from work. It's crazy. David from Connecticut apparently thinks Trump does have everything under control. So David, welcome to the show. Glad to have you. What's up? Hey, how you doing? Thanks for taking my coffee. Pleasure. Yeah, I'm just wondering, who do you believe does control the state of Hormor? I don't believe I know who controls the state of Hormuz. Iran. Yeah. Let me ask you, can I ask you. You can ask anything you want? I asked you to call, and you were kind enough to call. Ask away. Right. No, what I'm saying is, if Iran controls it, why don't they kick the U.S. out of there? They have. What's the next question? But we're still there. No, excuse me. How many ships are passing through the Strait of Hormuz and the fact that they aren't is why the cost of living in this country is totally out of control, as I'm sure you know, David. It's out of control. It's out of control. What? I think it's, let me ask you a question. You already did. Ask a third. Joe Biden, do you think Joe Biden cognizant? was better than Trump's copy? I don't do those what-if questions. I mean, David, with all due respect, and I really appreciate calling. Whenever a Trump supporter has no idea what to ask next. They say, what about Joe Biden? We don't do the what about thing on the show. We talk about who's president now, and when there's an ex-president, we'll talk about him or her. But thank you for your excellent call. We appreciate it. And anybody else who is a Trump supporter wants to call will pop you up, and you can ask the same questions. Well, I think he keeps thinking that since so many people have believed the lies he's told right along, that they'll keep believing the lies he's told right along. It's hard to believe the one about the Iran straight being totally open when we know that... It's not. It's not. You know, we've said this many times on the show, but for new listeners and for people who've not seen some of the incredibly wonderful documentaries that Michael Kirk has done for Frontline, this whole lying relentlessly.

and thinking it will convince people, which it does, unfortunately. All goes back to a housing discrimination lawsuit when Donald Trump was a private citizen. Who was his lawyer? Roy Cohn from McCarthy Committee hearings. And Trump lost a racial, as in Donald Trump, lost a racial discrimination case around housing, lost it across the board. And what Roy Cohn, his lawyer, said to do was to go out and say they won. And he relentlessly did it, and the lesson he has learned that he has perfected, and I mean that not sarcastically, is when you lose, you say you win, and if you say it enough, there is at least a core of people, and our election time, a majority of people, or at least the plurality, who will buy it. Well, we forget to mention Mr. Pillow and Mike Lindell lost in... Minnesota, he was one that was, you know, was sued successfully by these election machines for lying about the election machines. He's lost again. Now he's still blaming irregularities in the election. He's going to come up with the proof any day, is that he is. Right under the pillow. Zach in Springfield, welcome to the show. Hi. Hi, Jim. Hi, Marjorie. Hi. What's up? So. Yeah, basically, we're kind of seeing a manifestation of the problem we've been afraid of since 2015, that he was going to tweet his way into a crisis so that he couldn't get out of. We saw what COVID kind of, he didn't, he wasn't able to tweet his way into it, but he certainly made a mess of things, and he couldn't bluster his way out. He can't do it with Iran now either because, like, the war went hot. We got stuck with things. I agree, Jim, I think we're in a very dangerous phase these next couple of years where he might do something worse. And to put a fine point on it, to any caller that asks about that Biden's cognition, he never got us into a, he didn't start a war in his term like this. But also, I hear you, Zach, but comparative analysis does not help get us out of Iran unless there's a history lesson that might apply now. But it's the, it's when you can't. defend Donald Trump as a Donald Trump supporter, you always resort to Barack Hussein Obama and Joe Biden. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Zach, thanks for cold. I appreciate it. I shouldn't do the what aboutism, but I will do it in this one instance. Can you imagine if Barack Obama got on a different plane and left his age and White House staff and the pilots on the crew and all the reporters on the decoy plane and just took off? Can you imagine the uproar? He would be called the low-t president, Jim. Exactly. Now, by the way, this will make you happy. Our staff apparently, I don't know if it's from the Washington Post, whatever. Oh, no, we have exclusive cockpit audio from the decoy plane. Here it is.

Roger. Huh? LA departure frequency, one, two, three point-nin. Roger. All right. Request vector, over. What? Flight two-09er, clear for a vector 324. We have clearance, Clarence. Roger, what's our vector, Victor? It makes Marjorie and me laugh. Of course, it's from the great and hysterically funny movie Airplane, which still holds up. They could never show it today, though. It's very un-PC. But, you know, the guy, remember that Harrison Ford movie in 97 Air Force One about the Air Force One being hijacked? I don't remember. The guy that wrote the screenplay for that was queried about the instance with Mr. Trump getting on a different airplane. He said it would be very difficult to make a hero out of the person that got into the snack trolley, as one of our textures call it, and wrote it. a military airplane. An anonymous texter says, I hear Mitch McConnell is busy catching up with Chuck Grassley's vacuum cleaner. We're going to discuss this by on Friday. There is a beautiful story in the New York Times. Chuck Grassley is a United States center from Iowa, who is a mere 93 years old. And there's a actually. the part that is real is there's a beautiful story in the near times about his sadness that his vacuum cleaner its name was beth if i think it was he named it i forget the name which had been in his family for more than half his life i think 47 years i'm not a big fan of Chuck Grassley but this made me like him more hearing about his attachment to his vacuum cleaner you know what Chuck Grassley believes in cameras in the courtroom well there he's right on one thing let's go to christen welcome to the show hi chris Hey, thanks for taking my call. Of course. We got to get by the midterms, but I think after we take the house, we go after Todd Blanche, impeach Todd Blanche, and cut him off before he gets going, and then go after Pete Hegseth and try to dismantle this project 2025 piece by piece. Well, I think that's part. We'll find it. We're going to have a Democratic congressman with us in about five minutes. We'll find out what their plan is if they take over, they do take a majority in the House, and thank you for their call. 877301-8970 is the number. Joseph in New Hampshire. Thank you for calling. Hello, Joseph. Hi. How are you? I think we're good. Thank you. Okay. So, I mean, I'm listening to your show, and I normally don't, but. I'm listening to about Donald Trump. What do I think about the future with Donald Trump? And I think the biggest part that most people are calling, not even noticing is what's being talked about in the back rooms in this country. And the things that are being talked about, which I don't condone and I don't want. But they're talking about a revolution, and there's a lot of people throughout New England that I have talked to because I travel between Maine and New Hampshire a lot and Massachusetts about this. People are so disparaged with the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. It's not just both. I mean, we have watched, as I have watched over years, 62, I have watched while things in the political system are they're going to go after this one, they're going to go after that one, and nothing is ever done. Everything's whitewashed. No one goes to jail. No one's ever prosecuted. And nothing has changed.

And that's where I believe this country is heading. Unfortunately, I think we're waiting for the second shot around the world, and this is going to be... Donald Trump's fault for having it occur. Well, Joseph, if I can quarrel with at least one thing you said, we don't prosecute anybody, we don't hold anybody accountable. Hundreds of people were prosecuted for their effort to overturn the government of the United States at the behest of Donald Trump on January 6th. A lot of them were convicted. A lot of them, proud boys, oath keepers, heads sentenced to decades in jail. That was under a Democratic president and a Republican president, I don't know if I can't remember who was day one or not, chose to pardon all those people who, again, I want to repeat, attempted to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States of America. So while I would agree with you that Democrats are as unhappy with their own party as they seem to be with the Republicans, you can't say that the opposing party hasn't tried at least. to hold people accountable. Sadly, it was undone by a felonious sex-abusing president. Joseph, thanks for the call. Appreciate it. Well, you know why I'm not worried about a revolution. Why is that? Because I don't think we're really that busy protesting. It means you have to leave your house, which our people would not. You're talking about the Albanians. They've been protesting almost nonstop because Ivanka Trump wants to, out in the streets about the... island she wants to take over for a resort. And it's difficult. She being the daughter of the president and her husband. But we did get lots of people out for these different rallies that we had. I mean, there were tons of people down there for the no kings. The Albanians are relentless. The Albanians are relentless. And we periodically get up and do something, but we're not consistent. Support for Boston Public Radio comes from the Museum of Science. From live science demonstrations to hands-on exhibits, families can explore the wonders of Earth's evolution and the frontiers of space this summer. Learn more at MOS.org. And M&M Skylights, offering the full range of V-Lux Skylight products, installation, and maintenance services to customers from Boston to Portland and surrounding areas. More information at MMSkylights.com.

It's time for the August edition of Ask the Mayor with noted long distance runner in Boston Mayor Michelle Wu or short distance runner regardless. Yeah, congratulations. For the rest of the show, she's here, we'll explain a minute. Take our questions and yours. You can call her text to Mayor at 877301.8970 or if you're at the library, come find our colleagues, Hannah or Jack. And you can ask a question directly to the mayor. Mayor. It's good to see you. It's great to see you. Well, as long as Jim mentioned it, you ran a 5K? Yes. At 41 years old, I did my very first ever 5K this past that. I can still feel it a little bit. Did you win or not? Well, I didn't actually think I was going to be able to make it the whole way. I ran with both of my sons. Blaze is 11 now, and so he said he would run with me since it was my first time. Cass is nine, and he said he wanted to just run. So he left us when we took off. And Blaze was kind of like, okay, let's just, we're going to get to the end of the park. Then we start walking. And it was always one more thing to get to. And then by the time we were. Back at the park on the second loop, it was already over, and I could not feel my legs anymore, but it was a lot of fun. And meanwhile, Cass had, this is our first time doing the Matapan Unity 5K together, so he didn't know the route. He didn't realize it was only two loops. He did three loops and then still finished before us. Good for him. Good for him. And, you know, just an amazing... neighborhood initiative. Ruth and Rob put this on together to really highlight health and well-being and that every neighborhood needs a race. Every neighborhood needs the opportunity for people to come together and talk about your physical health, your community health, your mental health, and it was really powerful being out there with everyone in Metapan. So, and Miru read this headline in the globe a couple of days ago about ICE looking for 250 parking spots in downtown Boston. Are they looking to put some kind of facility there? What's happening? We don't have any specific information, not that we ever have gotten any information from ICE, even when we have asked, even when we have exercised our legal right through submitting FOIA requests to get any sense of data on what their operations are and who they're targeting and why. So we don't have anything beyond just the national news that they put out a nationwide request in certain locations to secure what looks like private parking. And we continue to make very clear that Boston does, has, will continue to oppose any expansion of their illegal and immoral actions. They are not a public safety agency. So if they want private parking, what can you even do about that if it's private parking? There's not too much that...

we can directly prohibit in terms of business contracts that they could theoretically arrange on their own. We in Boston have signed an executive order alongside seven other of our surrounding municipality saying ICE is not permitted to stage any of their operations on public property at the city level. They're not permitted to use public spaces that are open to everyone, but for specific purposes, like libraries or community centers, they cannot conduct other operations here that are not in line with these institutions purposes and the governor has also signed an executive order similarly around state property that the legislature has codified to some extent with the protect act now and so we where we can at the city level and the state level have carved out areas like public spaces, churches, schools, other institutions. But we're going to keep fighting and keep holding on. I will say not too long ago, the federal government's lawsuit against Boston, the sanctuary city lawsuit that they had had much fuss over, and that was about going to D.C. and all of this. that was tossed out in federal court. And so Boston soundly won that lawsuit fairly recently. And so we are going to continue to follow the law and continue to protect our community. Before we get to the calls in the text at 877301, 8970, one more question about the savagery of the Trump administration and a related thing. We talked yesterday the Attorney General. We spoke last week or two weeks ago to the governor about this TPS decision by Trump and the ruling supporting it essentially from the Supreme Court of the United States. Beyond urging Congress to do something, does the city have any ability to protect individuals here? And a corollary question, your buddy, Zohran Mamdani, announced the other day that he had to lay off a ton of Haitian employees in the city of New York because the work permit thing, which you understand far better than I, had expired under this ruling. Have you encountered a similar situation? So the responsibility of employers is very clear in something that we've been communicating alongside the governor and the Attorney General's office that we have to follow employment law, including federal law. It is employers' responsibilities to ensure that when someone is hired to your organization that they have legal authorization to work. It is not an employer's responsibility to every single day or week monitor everyone's employment authorization throughout your entire workforce. And so we have had employees who have taken leave from the city of Boston now that they are not able to. live and work and are trying to figure out other situations, but we are a city that does not ask or make decisions based on immigration status other than that sort of following the letter of the law when it comes to hiring. What if you didn't follow the letter of the law? And I don't mean that as a reckless question, just screw them all kind of thing. Let's assume you didn't follow the letter of law vis-a-vis the right to work of...

Haitians in this country. And again, as we said yesterday, people should know. Marco Rubio's office has released information at travel advisory saying it's unsafe for any American to go to Haiti, yet he wants to deport Haitians back to the country. They left for reasons of fear, economic hardship, etc. What if you failed to comply? What would happen in the city? There are specific consequences around violations of law that could be anywhere from audits to penalties around how knowingly the law was flaunted or not followed. I think, you know, there's a... an entire legal movement right now as well, particularly focusing on our TPS holders or former TPS holders about going through the court system and asserting the injustice of what's happening. I think in the day to day, we never want to put the city of Boston in a place where we're opening ourselves up to legal liability when we are stewarding the entire city's resources. We have... We are in court against the Trump administration. We've now been, I think, over 30 times involved in one lawsuit or another, whether they were attacking us on our own public safety laws related to protecting immigrant residents or attacking our fair housing program, which they say discriminates against white residents, which is absolutely false. federal funding that we have actually won the right to continue to use and deploy for our residents. We are very careful that when we make decisions, it is whatever we can do to protect our residents, we do it and we stand on the law. And in this case, there are also other avenues to help individual employees when they do want to come forward and avail themselves of the Office of Immigrant Advancements legal consultations. If you are not able to lean on TPS as employment authorization, there are other avenues if you have a pending application for another kind of pathway to legal status or citizenship. There are other ways to secure work authorization. So our legal services community is doing incredible work right now. Our legal community, I should say, is doing incredible work right now in legal services. Many, many attorneys volunteering their time, getting involved, helping sort out person by person, family by family. What are the options and how do we stabilize each family? Adam in the North End, you are first with the mayor of the city of Boston. Welcome to the show. Hi. Yes. Good morning, Jim. Good morning, Marjorie. Good morning, Mayor. Good morning. Well, morning last year, last week, Councilor Flynn blocked a measure in the city council that was proposed to help people from Haiti and other ethnic areas who have lost their TPS with housing issues. I understand he was concerned about the financial impact of it, but can you speak to that? And would you urge a city council to change his mind and come back to the city council doesn't meet until August 26th, so I think that's too much time to wait.

What do you think? Would you urge the council to change the position? Can the council come back early and pass this? Yeah, I mean, it's very disappointing at a time when our residents are under attack for their housing stability, for their right to education, for their very ability to survive and support their families and have a sense of safety and belonging in this country. when Boston is a city that has seen what happens when we're a community for everyone. We become... the safest that we can possibly be. We become the most economically powerful and supported that we could be. We become the best World Cup host city because people recognize the sense of diversity and belonging and fun that can cross cultural and neighborhood and other boundaries here. So it is really important to speak. in one voice protecting our residents and sending that message. On this particular instance, a city council resolution is non-binding, so it did not necessarily mean that there was a dollar amount that would have been spent that all of a sudden is not going to be spent we are on the administration side doing everything we can possibly do to support our residents including our Haitian community members including our TPS holders and the idea that the statement that Councilor Louis-en brought forward around in and Councilor Pepin around ensuring we were coordinating all those services to make it as easy and simple as possible is a really important initiative and one that we are going to continue working with them on. So we are going to keep doing that regardless. So rest assured, it doesn't mean just because Councilor Flynn was again blocking a particular measure that is causing calamity. We're doing it anyway. But it is a disappointing message at a time when... Our residents need to know that we have their backs and we are going to do anything possible as urgently as possible to be the city that they have helped build. Adam, thank you much for your coal and your concern. We appreciate it. You know, we've talked to you a lot about cycling in the city and making the street safer for cyclists. Terrible tragedy, 36-year-old. Louise Zaggagg who was a city transportation planner and an avid cyclist, and someone that you knew was struck and killed by an 18-wheeler on Mission Hill. That was earlier this summer. I know you told BUR that you were very upset, furious, never going to get over it.

Is there anything post this awful tragedy that has changed? There's been work prior and certainly in the days since the loss of Louisa to ensure we're doing everything that we can. Boston has long been a city that is working to lead on keeping people safe in every way. That is how one might traditionally think about public safety and violence prevention, and that is on our streets too. Our streets cut through... every aspect of your life and every single resident in Boston has feedback and is impacted by how our streets are designed. Pedestrian safety, cyclist safety, whether seniors can cross the roads, whether you can count on the bus getting there on time, or whether the T has slow zones or doesn't have slow zones, whether car traffic is unbearable and causing you to want to move out of the city, or whether you can put all the pieces of your life together and access the great opportunities that we're working on, it all comes back to whether it's connected, reliable. affordable for everyone to access. And so I have put out some, I wanted to make sure to communicate very clearly what had been in progress and what we're continuing to do, ensuring first and foremost that we are prioritizing the work of well-designed, well-maintained, reliable, safe streets across our city, 800 miles of roadway, plus all the sidewalks and crosswalks and everything to maintain, closing key gaps in our various networks for, transit priority and for cycling as well as making sure those are protected and safe along the way. Effective enforcement because you could design a street perfectly to accommodate every use, but then if a car is still blocking the crosswalk or the bike lane, it makes it unsafe for everyone. Or if cars are zooming through red lights, it makes it incredibly dangerous. And we're working, one, to be able to more effectively and efficiently issue those tickets. We need some support on legislation that would allow the city of Boston to have that power. We are now the...

Okay, I want to make two points on this. One on moving violations, there is legislation up at the state house that would allow for red light cameras like other states already have to capture when people are breaking the laws and then to immediately issue them a ticket that does have a clear and immediate deterrent effect on behavior. And then the other set of violations is parking violations. So right now, the city of Boston is bound by state law that we can only issue a ticket. when someone, one of our traffic enforcement officers, physically goes and puts a ticket on the windshield of a vehicle that's violating something. We are the only city in the Commonwealth that still has that requirement. Other cities now are able to use photo enforcement in different ways or are moving towards that. We should be able to do that too because we get... photos all the time and if we could set up photo enforcement that would go a long way we are going to begin to take the 311 and we're setting up a different app for people to report issues But we are going to begin to take those photos that we have and communicate once we have the license plate numbers of vehicles who are parking in dangerous ways. Send them a letter, since we can't issue the ticket yet until the law changes, send them a letter that they are putting others' lives at risk, that this is... illegal behavior and a violation that we were not able to get to their windshield ticket, but that we expect them to change their behavior. And we're also working towards bike enforcement and, you know, sending enforcement officers on bicycles to move more efficiently through bike lanes and other more congested areas. And then, sorry, last big, big topic. Two more. School zones and pedestrian safety targeting where our kids are. The most crashes that we have for pedestrians are near schools and parks and playgrounds. And so really focusing there on how we add the crosswalks, add the protections so that our little ones and their families are safe. And then ensuring we're using technology to manage traffic for traffic flow that is efficient for everyone. We now have changed the signal timing at... nearly 200 intersections throughout the city using AI and analyzing Google Maps data of when traffic is red, yellow, and green at different times of day. If we can continue to improve and upgrade our signal technology, we should be able to have buses go right through and get a green when they approach a stoplight, and we should be able to have more real-time adjustments of the signals to help traffic move along as possible. Who could change that law about being able to tick it without physically? The state legislature. There's another thing that the state legislature has to change.

Before we leave this topic, and it's clear, I listened to your interview. I've heard you speak about this. You've been criticized around some street and transportation issues for wanting too much control, which slows down the process. In retrospect, do you have any regrets about how you handled these kinds of issues in the wake of the death of this, again, this woman who you knew? I take every detail of our city very seriously and I see it as the job of any leader within an organization to be able to understand at a 30,000 foot view and also at the ground level how decisions are being made and where resources are being allocated. And so we are still in the midst of rebuilding and getting our streets and roadway operations to a point where it's not only responsive but also sustainable and able to be carried out in the long run. There have been, you know, over the history of Boston's 15 years of working on multimodal streets, there have been different reports written and internal audits done over many years. In the last several weeks, I've gone through and read probably 400 pages of all of them. And any one of those snapshots from 2020 to from 2017, you could have applied it to, if you didn't see what the date was, you could have thought easily that it was being written about right now based on what some of the headlines and the concerns have been, that historically there has always been a push and pull in every transportation and streets department about when are you maintaining and managing the operations of repaving, making sure you're... keeping crosswalks and sidewalks built up and smooth and safe and when are you doing new things and using your dollars and capital investments to add a pedestrian bump out or to add a new bike lane that is protected with either posts or concrete or some other barriers we haven't gotten that balance right all the time in the city and it's always been a push and pull over the last 15 years and so when we Over the last four years, made a historic investment in closing key remaining gaps in the cycling network. We more than doubled the amount of protected cycling mileage that existed in Boston. But we did it in a way that was fast and cost effective with plastic posts that quickly become damaged after every single snow season. And then at $300 a post. They get knocked down by trash trucks one week or snow plows one winter and then it's another cost, another cost, and soon the money is going there instead of repaving streets when we began to see falling behind and deterioration of roadways when we weren't getting that balance right. Now, over the last year, we've been retooling and I have been involved in every single detail to say, how are we deciding where speed humps go? Did we ask the community? Do we have a process that's beyond just...

an algorithm that feeds things in. Are we going on site and talking to neighbors? Are we thinking about the context of this street versus that one differently? And are we... coordinating all of our processes so that instead of thinking do we put our dollars to repaving so we have smooth streets for drivers or do we and bus riders and cyclists or do we build new things so we can improve safety and urgently close gaps that are there and in safety we have to do both so that our repaving is driven not only by how deteriorated the road is but also by where the most urgent safety concerns are and anytime any street is being repaved That's when you also go in and look to see, should we add a crosswalk, should we change the configuration? So very quickly, do you think the criticism has been unfair of your involvement in this? There's no fair or unfair. I think the reason why Boston is the best in so many categories is because we hold ourselves to really high standards, and that is the role. in city government to take any bit of feedback, criticism, complaint, or raising a concern or a fear that someone, experience that someone tells you, and to really think about how do we, how, what are the options to translate this into something better? What can we do to fix this situation? And how do we then ensure that that is also what the larger community... needs in terms of balance and that what's good for cyclists is good for drivers. And I think sometimes we've created this false dichotomy between the two camps. But when we do our services right, when we do our community engagement right, if we do our street design right, we're able to serve everyone's needs. That's Mayor Wu if you want to talk to her. 877301.89. Craig is at the Boston Public Library microphone. Craig, go ahead. Hello, Craig. I have a question about the elections that are upcoming. There's a rumor. I'm going to be a poll worker in Charlestown. There are rumors that there are going to be federal agents coming into the poll stations. And is your office or is there any guidance from the state regarding how that's going to be approached? Yes, it is, as we know, more than a rumor. First of all, I like your shirt. I love your shirt. We got to bring back the vibes. We did get notification through social media that we are among the handful of cities that the Trump administration is planning to send federal election monitors to. We run... safe secure free elections every year with multiple avenues to vote the primary election is September 1st this year so it's coming up very very soon and mail ballots have already gone out the door to the first wave of residents who requested them so residents are voting now by mail you also have early voting starting very soon in a couple days and then election day September 1st so we will

be monitoring the monitors in the situation, but we have been working very closely with the Secretary of State's office to ensure that we have the latest technology. Now all of our poll workers using... what are called poll pads so that we can check in every voter, know how many ballots are given out, how many are needed, monitor the supply of all the ballots. The upgrades and technology over the last year, year and a half have been really, really intensive. And our elections department has worked incredibly hard, done a great job on that. And we are prepared to administer. elections as we always do, including in this current federal context. Greg, thanks for your call. You know, before we take a break, I'm just thinking about what you said in the first 30 minutes here. The mayor of Boston learned about federal monitors being targeted at Boston from social media. Marjorie asked you a question about, is there an ice facility on the way in downtown Boston? You've done FO Freedom of Information requests. get a response from our own government. This is not, you're not asking Vladimir Putin to... It's not just that they're not responding to us. They're attacking us. They're suing us. They're taking away our funding. They're doing everything they can to undermine the places that prove why they are wrong about everything. Their philosophy under this current administration at the federal level is that... Public is bad. Public is where you meet people who look different than you and speak a different language or worship differently or love differently. And when public gets together, that's when billionaires can't make as much money. And so in order to... do what they're doing to cut science funding and to pair back environmental protections so that the coal, gas, fossil fuel companies make as much money as possible so that the financial executives make as much money as possible. They need to be able to have the money come from somewhere to go to gigantic corporate tax cuts and gun violence. public education, fair housing, those are all ways that we build power at the grassroots level that is stronger than any dictator or any autocratic administration. That is the single biggest threat as to, and the way that they are trying to dismantle cities like Boston who showed the entire world over the summer what it means when you are beautiful, welcoming to all, family friendly, investing in the public good. It's tactics of intimidation, of drawing our resources into legal battles, and we know we're on the right side of the law. I hope that these midterm elections will also continue to just dampen the momentum here as we get towards 2028. But we're gonna have a lot of rebuilding to do, and I would say,

Again, going back to the last question about September 1st, we have to hold ourselves accountable to that too. There are legislators, there are people on the ballot right now who have taken votes alongside. those who are trying to terrorize our immigrant communities or undermine reproductive rights or take us backwards on climate or give tax cuts, tax breaks to corporate interests over residents. If our proposal that we had put forward for residential tax relief that the city council passed three times, that the House of Representatives passed twice and then got blocked by the Senate when Senator Susan Collins and Senator Brownsberger stepped up and blocked that if that had gone through, Boston residents would have saved more than $150 million over the last two years in property taxes. Instead, that went to tax cuts for corporate interests here in Massachusetts, here in the city of Boston. And so this is all important and real to talk about at the federal level and to organize, but our everyday... government and our local decisions also have to be held to the same standards. Before we leave, we're going to take a break, but since you brought it up very quickly, there was a piece in the globe the other day, which I'm sure you read by a representative leader or something of the group that is responsible for the repeal of rent control in 1994 on the ballot, citing a study from the Lincoln, Lan Institute, wherever it's called, saying that vis-a-vis your plan that you're just referencing, that the effective tax rate for owner-occupied houses in Boston is half the national average. Is that true? Okay, so I have read that entire Lincoln Land Institute report. I didn't get to read the one that just came out this year, but I went through it extensively last year and the year before as we were going through the tax legislation conversation. And there's a, the key sleight of hand that they're doing, first of all, this organization's goal is to advance corporate, in this case, trying to reduce. property taxes for commercial interests rather than homeowner occupied residential interests and I do not begrudge than that that is what a lobbying organization is supposed to do is to make their best case that they possibly can but it is important to understand what they are um I think sometimes confusing or putting out in confusing way, that a rate is different from an amount. And so if you go through that exact report, it goes through all 50 states and the largest cities in each of them and what the tax rate is for residents and what it is for commercial interests. It is true that Boston ranks about halfway in the pack or lower down in the rate that is assessed on residents. We are about halfway in the middle of the pack when it comes to corporate rate. But when you turn it into absolute dollars, the report, at least from the last one that I read from last year, notes in there that when you apply that rate to the rapidly increasing property values in Boston, we have among the highest total tax bills anywhere out of those cities. And these, I mean...

It's all, you can sort of pick and choose cherry pick data to make whatever case you want to make, I suppose. But there's nothing more real than hearing from our residents. And I have been in conversations with the state senators. I've spoken with senators who represent multiple communities, and Senator Brownsberg has said he believes that Boston paid too little in property taxes relative to Belmont and some of the other communities. At the same time that they prevented Boston from having our compromise temporary provision go through that Boston had already put in place under Mayor Menino and it was temporary and it worked, it stabilized things and then it returned to the usual tax code. At the same time, they blocked that for Boston. Watertown had... just about the same tax just proposal go through and for all the oh we can't take change precedent this would affect entire state if Boston gets to do this other communities have had the same exact problems and I'm thrilled for Watertown that they were able to have their solution move forward we just wanted to have the ability to do the same to protect Boston residents but you know I think what's clear here through this situation which is really wonky and hard to understand when it's about municipal finances and taxes and is it this data point or that data point. However complicated a policy newsletter or op-ed or however wordy the explanations are, the result is the same. We have senators representing Boston right now who don't feel the urgency to act because they don't see government's role They don't see government's job as needing to take charge of problems that communities members are facing. This is Susan Collins and Brownsburger you're talking about. That's correct. And there are great people running for office right now who feel very differently. Daniel Brad Lander running in Fenway, Alston Brighton, and then Watertown, Cambridge, Latoya Gale running in South Boston, Dorchester, Chinatown, South End, September 1st's election day. Please, no matter... where you live, no matter who your representation is. Get involved. Get out to vote. It matters just as much to vote in 2028 for a new president. It matters just as much to vote for your local state legislators this cycle. That's the voice of Michelle Wu. She'll be with us to the top of the hour, taking our questions in New York. You're listening to Boston Public Radio, 897 GBAH, broadcasting live from the Boston Public Library. Streaming at YouTube.com slash GBH News.

Welcome back to Boston Public Radio, Jim Browley, Marjoriegan, streaming at YouTube.com slash GBAH News and the list of say. We're at the Boston Public Library and we're joined for the rest of this hour in the first half of the hour by Mayor Michelle Wu. You can contact her at 877301.8970 or talk to our colleagues and we'll get to you as fast as we can. Okay, the mayor, as usual, has brought us presence. Okay. What do we have today? Please pass this along to a little one in your life. These are from our Boston Reeds program where we're trying to encourage literacy and really the experience of reading together. So the book, Abuela, is one that all of our kindergartners will read in school this year. We have also created story stops now where you can, out in the neighborhoods, there are stickers on the sidewalk that have a QR code of a particular story you can stop to read. We launched one outside a fire station that was about Boston firefighters. And anyway, this is summer fun as we're starting to move into back to school and getting our readers engaged. Dolever, well, can I take this one here? Oh, sure. Deliver from Northeastern, you're on with the mayor of the city of Boston. Welcome. Hi, Meru. I was wondering if you've been following the ongoing crisis of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which I'm from familiar with the Red Flower Campaign, which has actually started by to Boston residents as the port of the BSO musicians, as well as my show, Andrus Nelson's. Those two gents have been managed to mobilize thousands of people to stand in solidarity with the musicians. And I was hoping you could share your thoughts on what it means when a non-profits such as the BSO pushes aside those artists who create music and ignore the thousands of fans that have been speaking up over the past ending up. Thank you for your service in our beloved city. Thank you, thank you for calling in. You know, as as at least Jim and Marjorie know, the BSO has a very special spot in my heart. It was the first kind of expenditure that I made as a young professional before I could really afford it to have a young professional subscription to the orchestra to be able to go and I've now had the chance to... see how involved they are in the community and to even play alongside some of the incredible, incredible artists and musicians who are there. And it is deeply painful to see a rift and rupture in the various parts of this institution that the city leans on so much. You know, I don't know the ins and outs of every part of what's happening. I do know that the musicians have continued to produce just gorgeous, unbelievable.

sound and concerts and and continue to share their love with the city and at Tanglewood with the larger community and I also know that organizational change is really hard all the time in our institution in the city of Boston there is there are you know conversations every day about what direction we should take the city and to be able to have processes in place or to be able to have leadership that is fully aligned is really important across all the different pillars of that and so I am going to continue supporting the institution and I know Chad has been a great partner for the city of Boston when it comes to expanding our Boston family days and doing work directly in the community. Andrus, of course, is a treasure. But there are times when it doesn't work out. And I don't, again, don't know the details of exactly why it hasn't worked out. But I hope that we can get to a point soon where everyone feels cared for and that this institution can be whole.

phase of a chapter of their story and we at the city of Boston will be there to support however and whenever we can. By the way, I've just urged people who miss yesterday's show, Thomas Dinsmore, was with us and did a brilliant job of responding to some of the concerns of the management at the BSO. That's available at YouTube.com slash GBA News. Charles, I'm sorry. Oh, no, go ahead. Charles, is it the mic. Hello, Charles. What's up? Hello. Hello, Mayor. Hello. I'm a proud special education teacher with Boston Public Schools. Thank you for your service. So I just wanted to get an understanding of where you stand on the budget cuts that are going to be made for this year. Boston, well, our budget is done and being implemented at this point. I will say just in terms of how we get to set our budget every year. revenues and taxes are bound by Prop 2.5 and as long as Boston, unlike most other cities in the country, cannot make our own decisions about how to fund city services. We're sort of buckled in, cinched really tight by that 2.5% limit when every year other costs for... inflation for healthcare to support our workforce are going up by far more than 2.5%. So this last year, our budget projections, every time we got updates on how health care was going, they got worse and worse. Usually you... plan for the worst and then it gets better. But this year, you know, a combination of different factors, but we had healthcare costs grow up by 20% in terms of what the city was being charged. And at the same time, enrollment, as you know, enrollment patterns across the country have shown the number of students going down, although Boston had had. sort of stabilized and then under the Trump administration and their immigration policies began to decline again. We did make some very painful adjustments that probably should have needed to have been reckoned with many years ago in terms of keeping programs or buildings open that were not matching where the enrollment patterns were actually going. And so when it comes to budget cuts, The total budget for the city went up compared to last year. Our revenues went up compared to last year. BPS and the dollars allocated to the Boston Public Schools went up by more than any other department relative to all the city departments. But the issue is that it wasn't enough because costs have been going up so much on those fixed things that we can't control that are just, we're in a really high inflationary period. It is incredibly painful. I think if we were not subject to the strict constraints of Prop 2 and a half, or if we had not had just an outright rejection of our ideas and compromises at the State Senate that we had put forward around revenue, or if we had had any of our proposals that we've sent up to the State House for more revenue, like transfer fee, that would have funded affordable housing, which could have then freed up funding for other things, or more funding for MSBA, that would help.

redo even more school buildings. There are ways that we need to be getting at the underlying issue here. We only can spend what we have to spend. And when costs are going up so fast, the system that was put in place isn't working for cities across the Commonwealth. A record number of cities had to go to the ballot to ask for Prop 2.5 overrides. And sometimes by just a couple dozen votes, they did not get the authorization to increase their revenues and had to cut firefighters and police and teachers. And we have not had to make direct cuts for budget purposes alone. We did make adjustments on enrollment so that we preserve the student-teacher ratio and sort of went back to the truing up of the baseline that, again, should have been reckoned with a while ago. But I'm very concerned that it may get worse before it gets better. Every city's plight right now to be recognized that the funding systems aren't working out how they need to be in this current economic environment. My kids are in the Boston Public Schools. We're getting ready for back to school. I was just at ALI, August Leadership Institute with all of our school leaders and the superintendent earlier in the week. And this is the most important investment that we can make, the best return that we get on our dollars. And it's incredibly painful to know that we can't provide that soft landing, can't. go above and beyond to what we want to do because we're cinch so tight. We've done the best that we can to be responsible about that. But it is a larger fight that I am ready and continuing to take on around how we get the revenues overall that will allow us to do what we need to do. You know, you've mentioned several times in your answer to Charles, Prop 2.5, and several months ago you said on our show that you thought the legislature should consider repealing Prop 2.5, and I think you... Don't want to carry. I think you may have had second thoughts afterwards. Where are you today on what the legislature should do around Prop 2.5? I haven't. I'm not back and forth. Second thoughts. I think what happened was initially I answered a yes or no question and probably should have just given more details then. But the question would ask was, should Prop 2.5 be repealed? or changed yes it needs to be do i believe that we should just scrap our intact code entirely no but here's here's what what we need the benefits of prop two and a half are that by setting a certain number it does provide stability, right? So we then give homeowners the sense that, you know, in stable times when commercial values aren't fluctuating wildly, generally there's a little bit more predictability. For cities, it does mean that our two and a half percent is something that we can rely on, even though it can be very unfair how that gets allocated between residents and commercial interests in certain years.

Stability is important. However, Prop 2.5 was designed at a time when they were not, I don't think, ever anticipating inflationary costs, the rate of inflation being way higher than 2.5%. 10 times higher in in certain cases and so cities need to be able to have the flexibility to make the investments that count and so what should they do just give you the power to tax locally rather than what should they do other cities around the country have that set up the city of Boston would gladly do that and we would do that responsibly and we're accountable to the voters and how we do that if that is not the system that we're starting with which is not We need to, at the very least, have tweaks to the current system where in very high inflationary years, cities have the flexibility to apportion between residential and commercial differently or to be able to make investments that then don't count against the cap that is holding us back. So two and a half might be inflation connected, is one of the things you're suggesting. Yes. And it also comes down to local aid that New York City, for example, Net, you know, every city receives some amount of dollars from the state. And we also have to pay dollars to the state and the city of Boston. We have to pay more than $100 million to the MBTA for a local assessment. We have to pay for charter school, chargeback system, this and that and the other. On net, when you even all of that out, state funding is about 2% of the city of Boston's budget net, in and out. In New York, it's about four times that. And their state has also stepped up and provided a billion dollars for... Child care to be expanded to two-year-olds and so that kind of partnership being able to work with a shared agenda for the Hub City that is connected with every city across the Commonwealth and in conversation with those cities and then working to access the tax dollars that we all generate and ensure that the state and city are aligned and how we're doing that, that's really important. And again, that is why this election matters and why we need to have representation that understands that urgency. You know, speaking of taxes, and we'll get to the BU deal you cut in just a few minutes, but people realize that Boston is full of tax-exempt property, you know, colleges, universities, hospitals, et cetera. There's something called a pilot program payment in lieu of taxes. In some places, GPH are paying their full share, for example, some of the hospitals like Beth Israel, but a lot of places are not paying their full share at all. They're just 20%, 50%, and they just seem to get away with them. That would make a difference if all these places, Roxbury Latin School is playing nothing. I can't, that's a private school with high tuition, so I don't get that. But anyway,

Can anything be done about that to have people pay what they're supposed to be paying? So more than half of the city's land parcels, if I have my numbers right, are actually tax exempt. It's non-profits, large institutions like the sectors that you mentioned, and public property. So state property, for instance, or city property. And when our payment in lieu of taxes program was started now probably about 16 years ago, it was really revolutionary because there's no legal way for... cities, there's no legal way to require institutions that are tax exempt to pay taxes, right? That is the federal designation they get. But in recognition that they use our city roadways and first responders and other services and they are, they rely on the stability of their local community for the university to thrive or for the hospital to have patients, we have been revamping that program. It's not only being able to come to agreements with individual institutions like BU and Northeastern Wentworth to be able to increase the pilot payment that they're making, but also to be clear about where those dollars are going. We now have specific housing commitments recognizing that student housing and where students live are a big part of the supply that's available for families and for residents in Boston and being able to engage universities in that partnership goes a long way. Our hospitals also, I mean, the other, I think the other key thing to keep in mind about these institutions is that just as the city of Boston is under attack, they really are the industries that underpin Boston and they have been very directly under attack. Science, research, healthcare, education, higher education, our Boston and Cambridge institutions in particular just in the eye of the storm. And so we want to both strengthen what they're doing, be able to protect the important work that they're contributing to the community. and also ensure that they are working with us so that we make the most of the dollars they put into our neighborhoods we only have 30 seconds couldn't the legislature i mean not that they do it couldn't they mandate that a certain level of what would be the property taxes of a nonprofit have to be paid they could address the situation rather than you having to go hat and hand one by one to every i mean you personally but one in one to every single institution, right? I'm not sure if it's state law could override federal law. Maybe there's a separate state tax that could be assessed. Well, not churches and stuff like that, but regular nonprofits, universities, that kind of thing. Well, whatever. It's possible. We're out of time. We get to it. I will say a quick example. We created a housing fund. All of our hospitals turned their community mitigation dollars into that revolving loan fund. It has now helped stabilize more than a thousand families. So there's possibilities of good work. We just have to keep going at it.

Thanks for listening to the BPR Talks podcast. Our crew is Zoe Matthews, Hannah Loss, Ariana Gonzalez, John Parker is our engineer. Jane Bologna is our executive producer. This episode is produced by Ariana Gonzalez. As always, if you're missing the full BPR experience, you can get the full show on this same podcast feed. And listen to us live 897 every Monday for Friday from 11 to 1 and... Watch us on the YouTube.com slash GBH News Station. BPR's production of GBH News.