Boston City Council Unanimously Approves 5 Percent COLA Boost for City Retirees

BOSTON -- March 15, 2023, Boston City Council unanimously approved a one-time increase in the annual cost-of-living adjustment for city retirees and passed an 11-to-2 resolution opposing a proposed Eversource electrical substation in East Boston at its March 15 session. Council President Edward M. Flynn presided as Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, chair of the Government Operations Committee, reported that the Boston Retirement Board had already voted unanimously January 20 to authorize raising the COLA from 3 percent to 5 percent for fiscal year 2023, retroactive to July 1, 2022, under Chapter 269 of the Acts of 2022. On the Eversource substation, Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata told colleagues that East Boston residents have faced "the definition of an injustice," citing a November 2021 non-binding ballot question in which nearly 84 percent of East Boston voters opposed the Condor Street site and noting that an appeal of the Energy Facility Siting Board's special certificate is pending before the Supreme Judicial Court. The council also referred a new hearing order, filed by Councilor Julia M. Mejia after a constituent reported that a father and son died of overdoses with no public notice, to the Committee on Public Health, Homelessness, and Recovery, and unanimously passed a $235,000 Boston Foundation mobile-outreach grant pulled from the same committee by Councilor Erin J. Murphy.