City Councilor At Large and Finance Committee Chair Ben Wheeler.

By The Times Staff

City Councilor Ben Wheeler reported at the City Council meeting on March 12 about the seven-item agenda from a March 10 Finance Committee meeting.

The committee recommended approval of a $31,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection for upgrades to the Franey Road hazardous household waste drop-off site.

“The Department of Public Works staff explained that this will fund winterization and a new garage door with a pedestrian cutout for better access,” said Wheeler.

The committee recommended appropriating approximately $56,000 from the Bike Share Stabilization Fund for an 18-dock Blue Bike station at Boynton Union Connect.

These funds were donated by the developer for Somerville to purchase equipment using our existing regional contract, he explained.

Three police department grants generated extended discussion during the meeting. The first was for some $23,000 for youth violence prevention, with roughly $6,000 from the city.

“The new captain of community relations is exploring programs like aquarium trips and basketball games alongside hotspot patrols and youth academies,” said Wheeler.

There was concern regarding a requirement in the grant text that the police department submit daily crime data to the Commonwealth Fusion Center through the system known as either CopLink or CrimeTracer, he said.

“We received written confirmation that this data is not shared at the federal level, though some questions about the risk around this sharing remained,” said Wheeler.

The Finance Committee recommended approval for a $43,000 police software grant.

Police department staff explained that the gray key forensics tool is used to bypass smartphone passwords in crime investigations, but only by a small number of approved officers, and only with a search warrant or explicit consent often from victims seeking to share evidence, Wheeler explained.

Existing surveillance technology impact reports provided transparency regarding these legal and procedural safeguards, he added.

This grant also covers Blue Voice Inc., a new AI tool. “We discussed how this might be used, what data would be uploaded to it, and how to ensure it’s not used to leak personally identifiable information about Somerville residents, nor to substitute AI decision making for human decision making,” said Wheeler.

Additionally, a $127,000 grant was recommended for special response team equipment and training, including protective armor and cameras that are pole-mountable and investigation-specific, and detailed in their own surveillance technology impact report.

Addressing concerns regarding over-militarization, police department staff emphasized that department policies ensure this tactical gear remains behind the scenes and only used to protect residents in high security incidents, Wheeler explained.

Last item of the agenda included the economic development staff presenting UCH-TIF, a tax incremental financing policy managed from the state level to incentivize housing production.

When the City Council sees a clear affordability benefit in a case of development, this tool allows the city to waive a portion of future taxes on the added value that development will bring to a property, he explained.

“To be clear, this is not a tax cut or a city payment,” said Wheeler. “It’s a time-limited reduction of the increased taxes that development would normally generate. While the state sets minimum subsidy criteria to qualify, Somerville, and the City Council in particular, will maintain the power to demand deeper affordability on a project-by-project basis.”