Council President Wants City Checkbook Put Online

Boston City Council President Stephen Murphy would like to put Boston's checkbook online for all taxpayers and citizens to view.

"The city of Boston has some information on the web, but it isn't easy to access," he said at Wednesday's City Council meeting. "We should bring forward the IT people, the city auditor, city treasurer, and finance department to work on this within the next year so any citizen and taxpayer can see what we do."

"For example, how many lightbulbs we buy, and where do we get them?" he continued. "Who is doing the contracts on waste management? And how much are we spending on the all important topic of school busing?"

District 7 City Councilor Tito Jackson supported the idea.

"When we use the words 'the budget,' that piece of paper lives as the dollars and cents of the people," he said. "Really what we're pushing for is increasing transparency."

"[I] would like all aspects of government to open their books to show the people of Boston and Massachusetts what they're doing," he added.

A hearing for resolution will be scheduled at a later date. 

Other orders of business were:

• District 3 City Councilor Maureen Feeney honored Vivian Bui, 12, winner of Young Miss Dorchester, and Marie McCarthy, 8, winner of the Little Miss Dorchester title. "What is important about this is that it gets these young women to a place that they recognize all the community activities that exist," Feeney said. "They become at a very early age aware of civic engagement." To enter for both of these honors, contestants had to be Dorchester residents, meet the age restrictions of seven to nine for Little Miss and ten to twelve for Young Miss, and write a short essay on how they would improve Dorchester or their most memorable Dorchester memory.
• District 1 City Councilor Sal LaMattina had proposed a resolution encouraging Boston residents to reduce meat consumption by participating in "Meatless Mondays." While this was not mentioned during the weekly meeting, his office said that it would be discussed during next week's meeting.