Businesses should have advertising space on city websites as a way to boost revenue, said City Councilor Robert Consalvo during Wednesday's regular meeting. "We're [allowing advertising] already," he said. "This would expand it." The city permits ads on Boston's buses and trains, and the state is on board with programs like Adopt-a-Highway, which works with corporate sponsorships. In 10 to 15 years, it will become the norm as more of our lives move online, he said, and pointed to other major cities, such as Chicago, that have started to embrace the idea already. "It's not like we're …

The day after City Council incumbents all defended their seats in the municipal election, the board held a quick, controversy-free meeting. City Councilor Stephen Murphy, who came the closest to losing his seat in Tuesday's vote, ran the Wednesday meeting. "I’m very proud to welcome all of us back to our rightful places here in Boston City Council Chambers,” said Murphy. Among the agenda items was what has become an annual rite: passage of a resolution supporting Transgender Awareness Week, which begins Saturday. It was the third year in a row councilors had filed the resolution, according to…

Several Boston City Councilors including Mike Ross, John Connolly, Matt O'Malley, Tito Jackson, Ayanna Pressley, Felix Arroyo and Sal LaMattina, called for a hearing to further discuss the latest Boston Public School plan to move schools. The latest plan includes two elementary schools in Mission Hill to be moved and replaced with high schools, resulting in the neighborhoods of West End, Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fenway and Mission Hill to contain a single K-8 school, said Ross, who called for the hearing. The Committtee on Education will hold a hearing in the near future. The councilors spoke …

Nobody realized that 17-month-old Gabriel Josh-Cazir Pierre had never made it to his daycare facility when the driver of a school bus van parked at home. Forgotten for hours in the hot afternoon of Sept. 12, the baby died outside the Floyd Street home.  Had the van's windows not been tinted, Gabriel might be alive today, some say.  "The truth is, we don't know, but it's very possible someone might have seen Gabriel in this van and intervened," City Councilor At-Large Ayanna Pressley said Wednesday at the city council's weekly meeting as she introduced a proposed ordinance that would ban …

Boston City Councilors decided on Wednesday to pursue an ordinance that would require convenience store owners to obtain a license to sell certain knives in an effort to protect child safety. To sell knives with a fixed or locking blade, 2 inches or longer, store owners would have to obtain a license from the Boston Police Department's Licensing Unit. The law would not apply to owners of department or hardware stores. Michael Ross, who presides over the council’s Committee on Public Safety, said that the sales of knives at convenience stores led to some 1,300 stabbings in the past two years…

City councilors voted unanimously on Wednesday to petition the state Legislature to require the city to divide its precincts and wards equally based on population counts from the decennial census. A state law has exempted Boston from restructuring its precincts and wards for the past 80 years, as the majority of other towns do, said Councilor Michael Ross. Council President Stephen Murphy said that some Boston precincts have as many as 6,000 residents and others as few as 1,000. Having the same number of people in each precinct, Ross said, would shorten lines at polling locations, thus …

Members of Boston City Council debated on Wednesday whether or not it should formally oppose cuts to federal programs or let voters weigh in on the issues in the form of ballot questions on Nov. 8. Congress will likely cut $1.2 trilliion dollars by Thanksgiving to reduce the federal deficit. City Councilors Charles Yancey and Tito Jackson say those cuts would harm Boston residents who depend on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. In addition, they said, cuts would shrink the city’s budget for housing, education, job training and other programs.  Yancey and Jackson want to put the issue …

Boston could be one step closer to being the least wasteful city in the country if its administrators take the City Council’s advice about reducing paper use at City Hall.  The council is recommending the city send its 16,000 full-time employees electronic copies of their paychecks. District 6 Councilor Matt O’Malley proposed the resolution and it won a unanimous vote on Wednesday at the regular council meeting. “It’s a huge environmental waste, and it’s also a waste of energy and time,” O’Malley said about generating paper receipts for the paychecks the city deposits directly into bank …

Boston City Council President Stephen Murphy would like to put Boston's checkbook online for all taxpayers and citizens to view. During Wednesday's City Council meeting, Murphy said, "The city of Boston has some information on the web, but it isn't easy to access. We should bring forward the IT people, the city auditor, city treasurer, and finance department to work on this within the next year so any citizen and taxpayer can see what we do. "For example, how many lightbulbs we buy, and where do we get them? Who is doing the contracts on waste management? And how much are we spending on the …

Segways. Are they a problem in Boston? To make sure that they aren't the Boston City Council unanimously approved new rules to restrict personal use of vehicles such as Segways. The weekly council meeting was a quick one with a focus on the personal motorized vehicles. The regulation creates a general prohibition of Segways for personal use, but provides a licensing structure for tour groups to continue usage through the Boston Police Department's Hackney Division. Read the new ordinance here. District 3 Councilor Maureen Feeney, chair of the Committee on Government Relations, stressed the …

The Boston City Council joined forces with state legislators at the State House today in what was supposed to be a meeting about redistricting, according to the City's website. While the City Clerk's office designated the session as a discourse on redistricting, City Council President Stephen Murphy emphasized "no particular agenda," to the meeting, which was very short and more of a social affair for Boston legislators to meet and talk. State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, D-Boston, explained the importance of "trying to better advocate for Boston on legislation," and called for more joint …

Before Wednesday afternoon's snow came the Boston City Council fit their weekly meeting in before councilors donned winter wear and headed out back to their neighborhoods. It was a very quick meeting with fewer than 10 people in attendance, most of who were Council staff members. The following are highlights of motions, orders and resolutions that the Boston City Council discussed and moved on to several different committees: District 5 City Councilor Rob Consalvo filed an ordinance that require fingerprints to be used to for background checks for certain licenses like taxi drivers, door-to-…

Shortly after his election as president of the city council this morning, Stephen J. Murphy told a packed chamber that difficult financial decisions lie ahead. "The overarching issue is a singular one: the national revenue crisis continues," Murphy said, adding that the city should expect even less federal and state money as it struggles to finance expanding needs.  The big budget issues, as Murphy sees it, are healthcare, pension and benefits. "Those accounts are growing at five times the rate of the city's revenue," he said. But he offered no immediate solutions on how to close that gap.  "…

At Wednesday's meeting the Boston City Council voted unanimously to pass an increase in the residential tax exemption for the city's elderly. "This will increase the exemption for our elderly from $500 to $750, which hasn't been raised in quite a number of years," said Ways and Means Committee Chairman and District 9 Councilor Mark Ciommo. The change will help to alleviate the burden on the many elderly city residents living on a fixed income budget, said At-Large Councilor Stephen Murphy. In addition, the Council voted to approve the residential tax exemption for Fiscal Year 2011. The …

City Councilors pushed for a ban on Four Loko and other caffeinated alcoholic drinks Wednesday, saying they want to thwart a tragedy on local college campus. The council voted on Wednesday to hold a hearing on Four Loko, which has been blamed in recent weeks for the hospitalization and death of college students around the country. But within an hour of the council meeting adjourning, the Food and Drug Administration sent warnings to the makers of Four Loko and other alcoholic energy drinks, saying their products violate federal laws. In an interview late Wednesday, At-Large Councilor John …

All eyes were on District 7 Councilor Chuck Turner at Wednesday's City Council meeting, the first since a jury convicted him of taking a $1,000 bribe.In remarks after the meeting, Turner said the FBI set up a sting operation in an attempt to take him down.Turner, who said he would not step down from the council voluntarily, could be removed by his colleagues at a Dec. 1 meeting. City Council President Michael Ross called the meeting. The six-term councilor, whose district includes the South End and part of Jamaica Plain, said he isn't sure councilors have the authority."I've been told there's…