Boston City Council Passes Solar Grant, Emergency Relief Fund Ordinance, and Free Bus Resolution

BOSTON — February 25, 2026 — Boston City Council approves solar grant, splits 7-6 on Blue Hill Avenue committee fight. The council unanimously passed a $189,000 Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources grant to recommission solar arrays at three city buildings — the Archives building ($126,000), Boston Latin Academy ($56,000), and Dearborn STEM Academy ($7,000) — and advanced an ordinance by Councillor Gabriela Coletta Zapata to create a Boston Emergency Relief Fund, described as a first-of-its-kind standing mechanism to help families displaced by fire or building collapse through rents, lodging, and food. The session's sharpest debate came over a Blue Hill Avenue hearing order: Councillor Minyard Culpepper appealed a committee assignment to Planning, Development and Transportation, arguing the corridor's history of bus-lane opposition being honored in majority-white neighborhoods but not in majority-Black District 7 is "exactly what disparate impact is under the Constitution," while Councillor Ruthzee Louijeune and Councillor Sharon Durkin held that the planning committee was the appropriate venue. The council upheld the chair's assignment 7-6. A resolution urging continued MBTA funding of the fare-free Route 23, 28, and 29 bus program — which costs approximately $300,000 per month in expiring ARPA dollars and now carries 24,000 daily trips — passed 12-1, with Councillor Michael Flaherty Flynn casting the lone no vote.