Consalvo: Dealing with Federal, State Fiscal Issues Biggest 2013 Priority

District 5 Boston City Councilor Rob Consalvo sat down with Patch.com to discuss his 2013 priorities.

Patch: What are your 2013 priorities?

Consalvo: From the big picture stuff from the city council, we’re going to have to tackle is the fiscal situation from the fiscal cliff, and the impact on the city of Boston. The greatest responsibility we have as councilors is approving a three billion budget. The city can’t spend a single dollar without our vote.

The mayor submits his budget in April, and we vote on the budget the last Wednesday in June. We get hundreds of millions of dollars of funding from the federal government for public housing, public safety, affordable housing and housing in general. And for the Boston Public Health Commission - the majority of its funding is federally-funded, with very little from Boston. 

How will Boston deal with federal fiscal cliff?

Consalvo: Starting with the budget, our greatest issue is facing how we manage (the federal and state funding from) Washington (D.C.) and the state. When we’re getting the budget from the mayor in April then they are meeting three more federal fiscal deadlines, and the fiscal cliff. That's hundrds of milions of dollars, The Boston Globe estimated 50,000 jobs, if we lost that federal funding, what is the impact on employment in the city? And tax rates? 

What’s going to occur to the reoccurring grants from HUD (US Housing and Urban Development)? How do we address the budget with the fiscal crisis on the federal and state level. The governor said tax collections are below projections, and he's considering mid-year fiscal local aid cuts. We would have to adjust our budgets for this year. I don’t envy the chair of Ways and Means Committee (Mark Ciommo). That’s our #1 toughest challenge. It's going to impact hundreds of services we provide in the city and hundreds of organizations we partner with. We could be talking about cutting budgets.

Not in my 10 years of the Boston City Council (has there been mid-year local aid cuts).

Patch: What about your personal priorities and legislation?

Consalvo: Personally, I’m already working on things out of the gate. One is zoning of medical marijuana dispensaries. We had a hearing in December, now (medical marijuana is) legal. We’re keeping an eye on them opening, and furiously crafting zoning laws where dispensaries can be, and marijuana can be commercially grown and operate in the city. It’s not an issue of how you stand on medical marijuana but how it is appropriately zoned in our neighbrohoods. We respect the view of the voters, and have to ensure what’s in the best interest of the neighborhoods. We're hoping for a draft of zoning laws by February.

Boston's special needs registry 

Consalvo: The special needs registry. Around Thanksgiving I met with Mayor Menino who threw his support behind it. We're working with Bill Oates, Boston's CIO, on implementing the special needs registry and hope to have that going live in the next two months. The special needs registry will be integrated into our 911 system to allow people to provide voluntary 911 info about a loved one who may have a special need during an emergency. So when police are showing up with ambulances, they will have from dispatch that someone in the second bedroom has autism, or there is someone with cerebral palsy in the rear bedroom. This will dramatically help them improve rescuing. This is being doing around the country, and Boston will finally join using this public safety tool.

I've been reappointed the chair of the Housing Committee – which includes the Neighborhood Housing Trust, which works with developers, nonprofits to build affordbale housing by spending the city’s Linkage money. 

Patch: What are your Roslindale priorities?

Consalvo: In the neighborhood we have some exciting construction projects like the Flaherty Pool, and we need to continue to ensure the Flaherty Pool project gets done by July 1. And on time and on budget. We've started construction on $850,000 for the Archdale Community Center giving it a new roof, HVAC, new gym floors and a new rock climbing wall.

I'm working with Laura Gang and the Friends of the Roslindale Library on conducting a feasibility study on how to improve the library. We're working with Steve Gag and Roslindale Village Main Street in starting to put a plan together to renovate Adams Park. We're beginning the public process for both to see what the public wants to do to them. There will be public meetings about those two isssues this year.