Family of Louisa Gag to City Council: ‘We Are Counting On You’
On Wednesday afternoon, the family of Louisa Gag, who was killed this summer by a truck driver on Tremont Street in Mission Hill, addressed the Boston City Council to demand more accountability and action for safer streets throughout the city.
“Your public statements, social media posts, and hearing orders have been well-intentioned. But they are not concrete steps that have produced meaningful action towards achieving the city’s Vision Zero goals (to eliminate traffic homicides),” Emily Gag, Louisa’s sister, told the Council.
The visitors’ galleries of the Iannella Chamber in Boston City Hall were packed with supporters who had come to hear Gag’s family speak. Emily Gag spoke to the Council from the lectern while her parents, Steve and Laura, stood just behind her, next to City Councilor Enrique Pepén, who had invited them to address the Council, and City Council President Liz Breadon.
Gag’s family announced that they had raised over $100,000 in donations in Louisa’s memory, which they plan to donate to ten Boston-based Vision Zero advocacy organizations.
They also plan to lobby for a set of legislative safety priorities for the state legislature, which they plan to outline in more detail at the World Day of Remembrance later this month.
For the City Council, though, Gag’s family made more specific requests. They asked councilors to support a new ordinance, sponsored by Pepén, to require annual reporting on Boston’s transportation projects, their costs, planned budgets, and their status.
The ordinance is partly a reaction to the Wu administration’s capricious decisions, almost all of which were made without any public consultation, to cancel dozens of planned safety and transit improvement projects over the past two years.
Emily Gag also chastised certain City Councilors for a failed last-minute attempt to gut staffing at the city’s Streets Cabinet, where Louisa worked, during this year’s budget votes.
“Last year, during the budget season, we watched as you nearly cut several staff positions that would have directly impacted Louisa and her team. Some of the people who helped design and implement the safety improvements where Louisa lost her life would have been impacted. You can not make a mistake like this again,” Gag told the Council.
Emily Gag closed her remarks by asking the City Council to do what Louisa would have done: to “get to work, with a spirit of joy and collaboration.”
“The people in this room are counting on you. We are counting on you. Louisa was counting on you,” she concluded.
As Louisa’s family left the lectern, City Councilors and the spectators in the overflowing galleries rose for a standing ovation that lasted a full minute.
As the applause died down, Council President Liz Breadon observed “we have a call to action.”
“The work is ahead of us, we have a lot to do,” said Breadon. “You certainly have my commitment to continue this very important and essential lifesaving work.”
