Public Safety & Criminal Justice on November 13, 2026

The Boston City Council Committee on Public Safety and Criminal Justice held a hearing on November 13, 2026, on three grant-acceptance dockets: $850,000 for the FY25 Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), approximately $13.4 million for the FY25 Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), and $750,000 for the FY26 BRIC earmark. The UASI grant would support regional preparedness across nine municipalities, including personnel, training, cybersecurity, communications, medical and emergency-response equipment, critical-infrastructure protection, and intelligence capabilities. Officials described the city as the grant’s fiduciary, fronting project costs and seeking federal reimbursement. BRIC funding would support analyst and privacy-officer positions, technology, and training. Specific UASI uses mentioned included $150,000 for SWAT equipment, $75,000 for gas masks with radios, $80,000 for an explosive-ordnance vehicle, and $150,000 for law-enforcement command-center upgrades. No vote was taken; councilors discussed a possible later vote and requested detailed spending plans, regional allocations, staffing costs, and goods-and-services breakdowns before deciding.

Councilors and public speakers raised concerns about surveillance technology, the BRIC gang database (Avis), data sharing, civil liberties, and potential federal grant conditions related to immigration enforcement and voter-registration verification. City representatives said Boston does not use the SAVE system and could potentially forfeit about $44,000, or 3% of the UASI award, under the cited condition; they also said the city does not participate in the regional license-plate-reader program. The administration stated that fire, EMS, and police allocations could not be separated for a separate vote. These questions, along with requests for additional oversight and transparency, remained unresolved at the hearing.