Four regular meetings left in 2026: what's still waiting in City Council committees

Most of what gets filed at the Boston City Council does not get a vote right away. It goes to a committee, and it waits there until the chair schedules a hearing and reports it back. With the year nearly over, that queue is long.

After today's meeting, the council has four regular meetings left in 2026, according to the Boston Policy Notes newsletter's preview of the agenda, which also noted that no committee reports are on today's agenda.

By the numbers

Counting the dockets filed since the council's 2026-2027 term began in January, our records show 355 items currently in committee:

• 220 hearing orders still listed in committee, plus 35 items that have had a hearing and are waiting for possible action.
• 31 ordinances filed by councilors and referred to committee. Two more have had hearings and are pending. Of the 34 ordinances councilors have filed this term that our records track, none has reached a final vote; one was withdrawn.
• 26 orders from the mayor, including grants, appointments and a contract.
• 9 home rule petitions, the requests that need State House approval after the council acts.
• 20 resolutions and 10 other orders.

Hearing orders often stay in committee for good even after a hearing; that is normal. Ordinances, grants and appointments need a committee report and a vote to take effect.

Where the items sit

The Committee of the Whole, made up of all 13 councilors, holds the most, 49. Then come Planning, Development and Transportation and Government Operations with 40 each, Public Safety and Criminal Justice with 35, and Education with 34. Committee pages list each one's backlog: see committees.

The mayor's requests

Grants the administration has asked to accept, about $17 million across 11 orders, include:

• $13,471,070.40 in federal Urban Area Security Initiative money (docket 1675), in Public Safety and Criminal Justice since Sept. 16.
• $1,361,182 in federal Treasury money passed through the Metropolitan Area Planning Council to the Department of Innovation and Technology (docket 1772), in City Services since Sept. 23.
• $750,000 for the police department's Boston Regional Intelligence Center (docket 1773), in Public Safety since Sept. 23.
• $668,500 in a state gaming mitigation grant (docket 1953), in Ways and Means since Oct. 21.
• $267,721.80 in federal WIOA youth money (docket 1775) and $250,000 from the Boston Foundation for a youth career pathways pilot (docket 1776), both in Labor and Economic Development since Sept. 23.
• $60,000 from the state for recycling and waste reduction (docket 0976), in City Services since May 13.

Appointments waiting for confirmation include nine members of the Boston Waterways Board, among them City Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata (docket 1692), in the Environmental Justice, Resiliency and Parks Committee since Sept. 16; a member of the board that reviews building emissions rules (docket 1590), since Aug. 26; and two Highland Park Architectural Conservation District commissioners (docket 1314), in Planning, Development and Transportation since July 8.

The largest single request is a contract: authority for up to 20 years for the program that runs bus shelters and public toilets (docket 1886). Our explainer has the details.

Oldest councilor ordinances

The longest-waiting ordinances date to January: City Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata's rules for street food carts (docket 0158), City Councilor Benjamin Weber's wage theft ordinance (docket 0161) and City Councilor Julia Mejia's municipal ID card (docket 0160). Others include City Councilor Miniard Culpepper's ban on using city property for civil immigration enforcement (docket 0266) and City Councilor Brian Worrell's ordinance to codify the Equity and Inclusion Cabinet (docket 0267). Three more were filed Oct. 19, including the bad-landlords list we covered last week.

What's next

Committee chairs set hearing dates, which the city posts on its public notices page and we list on our meetings page. Every docket linked here shows its current status and will show any hearing or vote.

How we counted: these figures come from the council's legislative records as of Oct. 28 for dockets filed since Jan. 1, 2026, grouped by the committee each item was last referred to.