Boston City Council, MA September 2021, 30 Sep 2021

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From YouTube: Committee on Government Operations on September 30, 2021

Description

Docket #0441 - An ordinance relative to the investments of the City Treasury

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We'll pull them in after.

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Administration speaks so for right now, good morning, everyone, I'm city, councilor, lydia, edwards, chair of the committee on government operations, it's thursday september 30th, and we're here today for virtual docket hearing on docket zero, four four one in order relative to the investments of the city treasury referred to the committee on march 17th.

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This matters sponsored by myself, council ruling council o'malley.

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And, according to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 uh modifying certain requirements of the open meeting law, we are having this hearing via zoom. This allows for us to um balance the need to get our jobs done to city counselors, while at the same time adhering to the public health needs of the day. The public may watch this hearing via live stream at www.boston.gov city council dash tv and on xfinity 8 rcn82, verizon 964.. It will also be rebroadcasted at a later date.

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Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.go at boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all counselors.

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This ordinance would prohibit the use of public funds from investing in stocks, securities or other obligations of companies, which derives more than 15 percent of the revenue from the sale of tobacco products, fossil fuels or carceral facilities.

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The proposal requires the city to divest public funds from investments related to those fossil fuels by december 31st of 2025 and requires the collector general or excuse me. The collector treasurer treasurer to submit a report to the city council on city investments.

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The city passed a similar ordinance in 1984 regarding the investing and divesting of public funds and companies doing business with the republic of south africa joining the committee today on behalf of the administration, are maureen garcia, first assistant, collector, general elect or treasurer excuse me treasury department who will provide opening remarks and then richard dipiano second assistant collective treasurer, to assist with questions and answers.

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We will also hear from members of the public. We have saw a second panelist of folks who are part of who will be testifying about divestment. I I we may be joined also by bob massey, um we'll check and see if he's coming on. But for now we have kanan um bureau van gaadam from east boston, founder of east farm and he's an incredible climate activist and a constituent of mine from east boston and richard clapp, professor emeritus, at boston, university school of public health.

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uh Yeah bob massey will hopefully be joining us, who is, of course, the executive director of the math boston, sustainable solutions lab and the new economy coalition, emily norton uh who's, a newton city councillor our colleague over there uh in newton and executive director of the charles river watershed association.

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I'm going to turn it now over to the co-sponsors. I believe we're joined by just right now: counselor o'malley, and then I will turn it over to my colleagues in order of arrival. So counselor o'malley. If you want to go ahead.

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Yes, thank you very much, madam chair I'll, be brief because I'm looking forward to getting to the heart of this, but um I'm just delighted to be with each and every one of you can't wait to hear from some of our great uh advocates and partners in the work um I wanted to particularly thank professor clap, a constituent of mine who's been a leader on this and really educated me, and the fact of the matter is, is that you know working with you working with counselor wu working with other colleagues.

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We've had this hearing, we've done these resolutions a number of times, specifically as it relates to fossil fuel infrastructure, and I wanted to just briefly note my opening that um a decade ago, in 2011 exit mobile was the top performing company in the world and nearly every endowment um had invested in it, and I wanted to really um acknowledge bill mckibben, uh a an absolute leader in the space who began the divestment movement again as sort of what was seen as a fringe movement a decade ago.

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It's now a 15 trillion dollar movement and, as I've often said, every environmentalist should be, or every fiscal conservative should be an environmentalist. Fossil fuel related funds are underperforming and clean energy related funds are over performing. So not only is this the right thing to do to invest in renewable energy and divest from fossil fuels which are killing the planet, um but we will also get a better return on investment for our pensioners, uh so this is obviously a no-brainer.

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I'm delighted for your partnership, as well as with counselor wu, um and this is something that I know we are dedicated to getting done. It's been wonderful to see harvard to see bu as recently as last week, so many other major funders divesting from fossil fuels. It is our moral obligation to do so. It is also our fiduciary obligation to do so and that's why I'm so delighted to continue this work with all of you. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. Colleagues, uh look forward to this hearing.

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Thank you very much um up. Next is counselor braden.

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Counselor braden um we'll let her get on and go to counselor flynn.

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Thank you thank you, councillor, edwards, and to the makers for bringing this important subject to the to the public. um It is important to know where boston invests its money in and what happens here has a big impact on on national decision making in what happens across the world as well.

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Just as a brief brief example, the city of boston in the mid 80, mid, 80s, divested money from the racist government in south africa and other cities followed new york city under mayor dinkins, on mayor koch and chicago under mayor, harold, harold, washington and los angeles under tom bradley in boston under mayor flynn. So it's important that our values are also considered when we're investing city money, taxpayer money um for various in various companies, so hats off to the makers. Thank you, council edwards.

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Thank you to the professional people that are on this call with us as well.

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Thank you- and um I don't know calendar brayden's back, but just to give some quick background for folks and why we're doing this and how this is a little different than the other divestment um uh hearings. We've had this one isn't necessarily targeting the retirement funds. This is targeting our our trust funds and the funds that are almost totally controlled by the city of boston, and so that is why this is different.

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It also builds on something that's already the law, which is um we have a tobacco divestment ordinance um and this actually expands on what we're already doing when it comes to um to tobacco products. um The I believe it's the tobacco treasury divestment policy exists as it is, so we're expanding on that policy as well. So these are about city funds um and in the treasury, I'm sure we'll hear from our our colleagues from the treasury department.

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There are a lot of trust in how much money is totally in the treasury that we have control over, and that would be impacted by this and I'm sure they'll explain to us the pros cons and what we're talking about in terms of real dollars and timeline. um But this is something that we need to.

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We need to take very seriously because we again are already talking about greenhouse emission reduction, we're talking about um consistently as a city and shifting our moral compass towards building a city that is readily available for climate change and not contributing to climate change. As we already passed a massive ordinance under matt o'malley's leadership for beardo.

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We want to make sure that our investments aren't going into helping the client, oil and fossil industries grow, while we're also trying to build differently and control the emissions and how we move as a city, we don't want to talk out of both sides of our mouths, essentially and we've taken other again.

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We've done this before this is not new divesting from south africa divesting from tobacco products. So this is just expanding the conversation and I look forward to hopefully getting this done. um I'm going to now turn it over to the treasury department and when liz councillor braden gets on we'll. Let her do some opening remarks, but we're going to turn it now over to maureen garcia for opening remarks, and then I think richard depiano will stay on for any q. A thank you.

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President o'malley chairperson, edwards and other counselors on today thank you good morning um just to follow up on councillor edwards, I'm maureen garcia. I began as first assistant collector treasurer at the beginning of august. However, I've been with the city for in the treasury department for 21 years um here with me today is richard dipiano second assistant, collector, treasurer and rich has been with the city for nearly 40 years on the bulk of that time. In treasury, the city of boston treasury department oversees the general fund investments.

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We do so with overall inject objectives of safety, liquidity return and wherever possible, sustainability. Approximately 35 to 40 percent of these assets are, with the massachusetts municipal, depository trust mmdt, which is managed.

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