Some Boston city councilors want to study how to better keep feds from getting hands on data collected by police, and not just about immigrants

In what has become an annual December rite, Boston city councilors yesterday approved a federal homeland-security grant only after a sometimes pitched battle over the roll of Boston Police in collecting information on Boston residents - and the way the council schedules votes on things.

The council voted 9-4 to not delay action on accepting a $12-million "urban area security initiative" grant from the federal Department of Homeland Security. Tania Fernandes Anderson (Roxbury), Councilors Julia Mejia (at large), Benjamin Weber (Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury) and Brian Worrell (Dorchester) voted to delay a vote to allow more hearings.

The money, which will be shared with other nearby communities, will go mainly for planning for emergency and police preparedness, for example, to protect large events such as the Boston Marathon, sports-team victory parades, the 2026 World Cup games and the 250th anniversary of American independence.

However, $2.5 million of the money will go to the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, which oversees surveillance cameras across the city and maintains databases of gang members and white supremacists.

But even some councilors who voted for the measure said a key goal of the council in the coming year should be to tighten up the city's Trust Act, which bars police from cooperating with the federal government on civil immigration issues, to protect even non-immigrants from federal wrath.

"As a Black man and immigrant, the issues of how we surveil and police the community are deeply personal for me," Councilor Henry Santana (at large) started. "I fully understand the concerns and fears surrounding surveillance and the sense of fear our communities can feel interacting with the government. My family has lived through it, I have lived through it."

At the same time, he said, the city needs to protect itself from potential harm surrounding large events, in particular 2026, including celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the US, World Cup games, the Marathon and Tall Ships, and that while the city would likely find someway to fund public-safety planning without the grant, the money might very well be pulled from other valuable programs, such as those involving youth and the arts.

Still, he continued, come Jan. 20, the council may need to find ways to protect "the bodily autonomy of people seeking abortions, reproductive care and gender affirming care" in Boston.

The council, he said, needs to focus "a critical lens on BRIC and BPD to ensure they align with our values and the true safety of our community."

Weber, who wanted another hearing, joined Santana in calling for a new look at protecting BPD data.

"With this incoming Trump administration, we need to make sure that we strengthen all the rules governing how our police department functions, including to strengthen the Boston Trust Act," Weber said.

"We heard from the police department that they're obligated follow not federal rules but local rules," he said. "We need to make sure that the police department is not sharing information. I think we can strengthen that and we should also work with our surrounding towns that are participating in the regional intelligence center to make sure we're not sharing information with them that they're going to share with the federal government."

Council President Ruthzee Louijeune (at large), who has been critical of the BRIC's gang database in the past, said she believes BPD has successfully changed its handling of the information to keep innocent people from being accused and their information handed over to the feds, and that most of the money will go to legitimate efforts to protect the city.

Councilor Sharon Durkan (Fenway, Mission Hill, Back Bay, Beacon Hill) said the BRIC was helpful in distributing information to residents about a recent spate of swastikas that appeared on Mission Hill, and said that she is particularly unwilling to hold up money to help protect her district for specific events, such as the Marathon and, she hoped, another Celtics victory parade down Boylston Street.

Mejia said she's not opposed to protecting the city, but said she felt a $12-million grant deserved more of a public airing than the one hearing it got the day before the council vote, especially when it involves the BRIC and its impact on Black and Brown communities.

She said this is just the latest example of the council being pushed to approve something in an emergency fashion when councilors and the public should have had more time to study it; in fact, she said the council has been reduced to a rubber stamp for the mayor, when it should be providing "checks and balances" on her.

As is her wont, Mejia vowed to take off the gloves and really battle with her fellow councilors on this procedural issue in the coming year and speak truth to power in a way she insists she's never done before, y'all.

"I'm about to unleash this little dragon," she told fellow councilors. "Y'all can come for me all you want, because I'm here for it."

And as his wont, Councilor Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Downtown) who sits next to Mejia and who has frequently cast the lone or almost lone vote against votes on measures he feels need more study, demanded an immediate vote on this measure, because public safety should be paramount and because the grant is meant for Boston and surrounding communities. As a Navy veteran, who served during Operation Enduring Freedom, he said is is disappointed the council is once again debating the issue.

"As elected officials, we have a responsibility to tune out social media and listen and represent our constituents the best we can. we can't play political games with the safety and security of Boston and greater Boston residents," he said. The city and its neighbors need the money to help protect themselves from threats.

"Boston is the capital city," he said. "We have a res to help our cities and towns that surround the city. ... It not just about Boston. It's also about Cambridge. It's about Somerville. It's about Winthrop. It's about Chelsea. ... They're counting on us today to support this. They don't want a delay."

While Flynn said the grant needed an immediate vote, after the vote for the grant, he called on City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune to call a special City Council meeting for Dec. 18, so he and other councilors could hold a flock of hearings on matters he feels need more public airing, which led to sniping from Councilor Sharon Durkan (Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Fenway, Mission Hill), who said that as president, Louijeune has control over the council's agenda and she's not about to encourage anybody to "really encroach on what council president's role is."

Louijeune ended the matter by assigning Flynn's request to a committee, effectively killing it, since the council typically only votes on issues coming out of a committee at a regularly scheduled meeting, and there are no more regularly scheduled meeting's in the council's legislative year, which ends Dec. 31.

Watch the discussion (Mejia refers initially to both the grant in question and $4 million in less controversial public-safety grants):