Regular City Council Meeting

A quorum of the City Council being present. I call tonight's June 22nd. I don't think it's on. Hello? Testing?

It just needs to be turned up. It's on. It is on. It is on.

Okay, well, technical difficulties. Testing. Hello? Hello? Yeah, they were.

All set.

Testing. Great, great. So a quorum being present, I call tonight's June 22nd regular meeting of the Cambridge City Council to order. The first order of business is a roll call of members present. Please.

Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Present.

Present. Councilor Flaherty? Present. Present. Councilor McGovern? Present. Present. Councilor Nolan? Present. Present.

Present.

Present. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Present. Councilor Zusy? Absent. Mayor Siddiqui?

Present.

Present. You have seven members recorded as present and two recorded as absent.

Prior to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025 adopted by Massachusetts General Court and approved by the Governor, the city is authorized to use remote participation at meetings of the Cambridge City Council in addition to having members of the Council participate remotely We've set up Zoom teleconference for public comment. We'll go to the Pledge of Allegiance and then pause for a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You can watch tonight's meeting via the city's open meeting portal or on the city's cable channel 22. To speak during public comment, you have to sign up at www.cambridgema.gov slash public comment.

You can also email written comments for the record to the city clerk at cityclerk at cambridgema.gov. We welcome your participation and you can sign up until 6 p.m. Please note that the City of Cambridge audio and video records this meeting and makes it available to the public for future viewing. In addition, third parties may also be audio and video recording this meeting. We'll move to announcements. Announcements from the body. Anyone on Zoom? Any announcements?

Yes, Madam Mayor.

Yes, go ahead.

Thank you for the floor. I just wanted to announce with a great deal of excitement that the Cambridge special needs basketball program as a part of the DHSP that are at the Olympics, which is in Minnesota, won their first game.

Amazing.

Thank you. I yield the floor.

We also have two, we have quite a bunch of meetings this week. We have a special meeting in the City Council, City Manager Performance Review tomorrow at 10 a.m. There is a... and Long-Term Joint Housing and Neighborhood and Long-Term Planning meeting on Thursday at 1230 as well. If there's anything else, please do let us know. Yes, Councilor McGovern?

Oh, yeah. England vs. Ghana Friday night's the dance party. And there's also a watch party from 3 to 8 p.m. right here on Norway vs. France. So those are, I don't know if folks have, I've been to all of them so far. They're a lot of fun. So if folks can get out there, I suggest they give it a shot.

Great. And Councilor Zusy, you just walked in. We're doing announcements at the beginning. So if you have any, let us know. Public comment may be made in accordance with the Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 20G, and City Council Rules 23D and 37. Once you finish speaking, the next speaker will be called. Individuals are not permitted to allocate the remainder of their time to other speakers. I ask that you state your name and address for the record and the item on the agenda that you are speaking on. Tonight we have 18 people signed up. Each speaker will have two minutes. And now there's 26. Okay, just let me refresh. Okay, we just refreshed it. So everyone still will have two minutes, so we'll go ahead to public comment.

Thank you. Our first speaker will be John Froyo, followed by Jalen Bernard, then Delphine Mooney. John, you have two minutes.

John, just make sure that green button's on.

Is that better? Yeah. Good evening. My name is John Ferreiro from De Novo. First of all, I want to thank the city manager for proposing CMA 2026-197, as well as the city councilors who sponsored The corresponding policy order. These provisions will provide critical one-year bridge funding for victim service providers in response to an unexpected reduction in federal and state victim of crime funding. Tonight, I'm here to ask that the City Council support this proposal. This is intended to be one-time funding and it will allow organizations like De Novo, Transition House, Bach, On the Rise, and MAPS to maintain essential services while they pursue more sustainable long-term funding. These organizations provide vital safety net services that Cambridge residents rely on, and this bridge helps ensure continuity of care during a period of uncertainty. I want to thank you for considering this. I ask you to support it.

That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Jaylen Bernard, followed by Delphine Mooney.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Siddiqui and the City Council for having me today. I'm writing regarding tabled item number three in the proposed changes to the Cambridge waste ordinances, including mandatory food waste requirements and the significant reduction in allowable household trash capacity. My primary concern is transparency. If the city is going to mandate food waste reduction and reduce the amount of trash residents are allowed to dispose of, residents deserve clear answers about enforcement before these ordinances are adopted. What happens if a household does not comply with composting requirements? Will there be warnings, fines, miscollections, or other penalties? What is the enforcement process? How will compliance be measured? Thank you very much. Thank you. In fact, mistrash collections are the most reported issues throughout the city of Cambridge.

I am sure this policy will impact a ton of residents who are not ready for this change. I'm also concerned about reducing trash from 150 gallons to 45 gallons per household through the air. I host big family functions that produce more than 100 gallons of trash and this would be a huge disservice to my family and friends because I would not be able to host these events At a time when property taxes continue to increase, placing additional restrictions on basic municipal services is difficult to justify. Property taxes increase are ultimately passed down to renters through higher housing costs. As a renter, I feel these financial pressures. I would also like the city to publicly provide data regarding compost participation, what percentage of eligible households have voluntarily enrolled in the city's free composting program. Before imposing mandates on every resident, the council should I am allowing, I am not

In disagreement with this policy, I'm specifically asking for the government transparency and that this policy be turned down and that DPW put the necessary information to make this transparent for all residents.

Thank you for your time. Our next speaker is Delphine Mooney, followed by Sarah Guyarog. Delphine?

Hi, thank you so much. Good evening, Madam Mayor, City Councillors. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. My name is Delphine Mooney. I'm the Executive Director of On the Rise, a Cambridge non-profit located over at 341 Broadway. We serve women and gender diverse people experiencing homelessness, including a great number of survivors of violence. I'm here to urge your support for a policy order 26, number 121, or the city manager's item, CM 26197, to stabilize critical victim services for Cambridge survivors. From my perspective, This investment is about preserving critical community infrastructure. Once programs are cut and experienced staff leave, rebuilding that capacity is far more expensive than stabilizing it today.

In fact the uncertainty surrounding these funding streams has already forced organizations to spend weeks preparing for layoffs, reductions, program cuts, and that uncertainty itself is destabilizing. A one-time investment now will help organizations maintain essential services while strengthening our fundraising, diversifying revenue, and pursuing replacement funding sources so we can emerge more resilient and sustainable. A stabilization fund exists to help Cambridge respond to extraordinary circumstances, and this is one of those moments. I respectfully ask for your support.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Sarah Geyerog, followed by Abigail Taylor, then John Kessen. Sarah, two minutes, sorry.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for having me. I'm Sarah Guyrog, Executive Director of Transition House, and tonight I'm speaking in support of the City Manager's proposed budget appropriation to provide stabilization funding for the five organizations that serve survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and exploitation in Cambridge. This year our organizations were hit by devastating state and federal funding cuts, continued instability under the current federal administration. budget cuts and being targeted by the federal administration do not only harm organizations but they directly impact survivors a budget reduction on paper means fewer advocates available to accompany someone to court Thank you. For 50 years, Cambridge has made the promise that survivors will not have to face violence alone.

Together, our organizations have built a community response that other cities look to as a model. Together we help survivors navigate housing crises, immigration challenges, legal systems, and trauma recovery. We do this work every day because safety is not optional. Violence does not stop because funding disappears. Survivors will still call us. They will still need shelter. They will still need counseling. advocacy and support. The question before us tonight is how Cambridge will meet that need. This budget amendment is not about replacing state or federal funding forever. It's about preventing immediate harm while organizations adapt to national funding crises that none of us created. When a survivor reaches out for help, the answer cannot be, sorry there was a budget cut.

Tonight I ask you to support this budget amendment and help ensure that the safety net that generations of survivors have relied upon remains strong, accessible, and intact. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Abigail Taylor, followed by John Kessin, then Joe Adeletta. Abigail, if you can unmute yourself, you have the floor.

Hello, my name is Abigail Taylor and I'm the general manager of UrbanHearth in Cambridge. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I am commenting on Rule 6A. These changes dictated within this ruling would essentially cripple operators' ability to serve alcohol. The changes are unenforceable and unprecedented within the law. We are already TIP certified and trained to control and monitor alcohol consumption. And I urge the Licensing Commission to reconsider and revise these changes using our public comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is John Kessen. John, you have the floor. Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is John Kessin. I'm a co-owner of State Park in One Kendall Square, and I'm commenting on the proposed edits to licensing rules policy order number one in this meeting. I've been a restaurant owner operator in the city of Cambridge since 2008. In my experience running both restaurants and bars, I believe the current rules and regulations to be sufficient in supporting license holders to operate safely and responsibly. There is no number of rules that will prevent an irresponsible or inattentive operator from missteps. Running restaurants and bars is challenging and the important responsibilities of alcohol service take work. The vast majority of Cambridge agencies do this work with the current guidelines. A regular review is wise, but the proposed changes seem capricious, some are onerous, and most will not result in better practice. In my 18 years as a business owner in Cambridge, I have found the License Commission to be extremely supportive of local businesses.

The Commission has recognized the value of hospitality industry to residents and visitors, not to mention the value of the revenue to the city. It has supported operators while at the same time fulfilling its responsibility of oversight to ensure safe operations. I hope this holistic and informed attitude isn't changing. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Joe Adeletta, followed by Suzanne Blier, then Kirill Alexandrov. Joe, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hello, Joe Ataleta, 68 Walker Street. I'm here today to discuss Cambridge's ongoing war on cars, specifically city manager's item number 17 related to the restriction on resident parking permits. Council's foundational belief that cars represent a luxury, good, or convenience rather than a daily necessity has to change when it comes to policy development. You have to realize that car ownership is binary. You own one or you don't. You need parking or you don't. And it isn't driven, no pun intended, by marginal trip reduction due to convenience or impediment. Specifically from item 17, quote unquote, parking availability influences whether people Why is the focus of the city on forcing people out of vehicles? This entire argument is predicated on the misplaced notion that we have an accessible, affordable, convenient, and reliable public transit network and or proximal necessary amenities. None of these things are true. The item gaslights us into thinking that some meaningful fraction of the 42,000 plus registered passenger vehicles in the city can somehow be converted into bus rides.

Please. Even more concerning is the implied assault on personal property. Note here the council's insistence on the removal of parking minimums further exacerbating just this problem. Let me give you some personal perspective. I'm raising four kids here in Cambridge, all in the public school system. You know what it takes to grocery shop for a family of six on a weekly basis? It requires an automobile. What's clear via the rest of item 17 is that the current city council does not care about families like mine that rely on cars for daily living. rather item 17 segues into promotion of affordable housing and bike lanes perpetuating language and policy of division within the city housing policy by the way that will only bring more cars to an already constrained city thank you

Thank you. Our next speaker is Suzanne Blier. Suzanne has not joined. We will go to Carol Alexandrov.

I'm here to speak about the war on cars. Number one, the city taketh away, already the city has taken away how many public parking spaces with the bike lanes, which are great, but how many spots have paid this price? More poor people fighting for fewer street parking spots. Number two, the city further taketh away. Off-street parking has not been part of the building codes for a few years now. And now with this relatively new upzoning, parking is once again not a requirement. Therefore, more cars. More poor people have to fight for even fewer street parking spots. Number three, the city even further taketh away with this new idea of restricting resident parking. This is a slippery slope. Restrictive parking permits is the exact same thing

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. without having an anchor tenant like Harvard or MIT. My family and I risked our lives escaping from a communist country in 1970 that did exactly this type of rationing then creating abundance. Those types of economies and countries failed. The city must giveth is the only solution. Abundant parking is the only solution. 1. Cambridge has to build more public parking that is affordable. An example is rebuilding, increasing the capacity of the Green Street Garage or other city-owned

properties that have already been discussed previously. Two, city has to modify the recent upzoning to force new builds to include off street parking. Your goal of building 12,500 new units results in 40% of those units having at least one car, whether you like it or not. Thank you, Mr. Alexandrov.

Your time has expired. Please email the remainder. Our next speaker is Louise Venden. Louise, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Louise Vendon, 10 Rogers Street. I urge you to reject the CDD proposal as written in AR 33 item 14 under awaiting reports, housing staff undertaking a housing needs study. Instead, I propose that you request that CDD issue an RFP to engage an outside firm to perform a comprehensive housing needs study that would include a professionally designed survey of residents and local businesses providing reliable data on housing demand. Cambridge prides itself as home to world-class researchers, yet CDD proposes to undertake a housing assessment that fails to answer the most important element of a needs study, an assessment of the needs of Cambridge residents. Firms that specialize in these studies and have helped other Massachusetts communities support housing development use not only census data and municipal and private data sources to identify existing population and housing stock,

More importantly, these firms conduct professionally designed reliable surveys to determine resident housing demand by obtaining information on the current housing circumstances of a sample of residents of all income levels A.J.S. and Family Configurations, their current housing size and costs, and housing stability. Residents would also indicate the size, price, Simmons, and others have pointed out City staff have a long list of studies and programs to manage. The inclusionary zoning study is due this summer and the incentive zoning study, zoning nexus study this fall. Residents are asking questions on why so many low and middle income They are leaving Cambridge each year.

The comprehensive housing study done by an outside firm would not be influenced by political interests that have exaggerated claims.

Thank you, Louise. Please email us the remainder. For anyone whose time expires, please email the remainder of your comment or your full comment to citycouncil at cambridgema.gov We're moving on to Charles Franklin, followed by John Pitkin, then Danielle Padavina. Charles, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hello, can you hear me?

We can.

Perfect. My name is Charles Franklin. I live at 162 Hampshire Street. I'm voicing strong support for all four policy orders. I want to call out POs 1 and 4 in particular. This past weekend has underlined, highlighted, and bolded just how archaic our liquor laws are. We certainly shouldn't be adding a 30-minute required cool-down time between drinks. Whoever suggested that should step down from their position. For Policy Order 3, the lawlessness of all things on wheels on our streets, including bikes and cars, is nearly as baffling as the lack of basic traffic enforcement. if the CPD has other higher priority tasks then we need to look to empower non-police officers to enforce traffic rules even if it's in a limited capacity such as treating or moving such as treating moving violations as simple ticketable offenses.

I think the planning board's conclusions on how to balance the need for housing with the desire for active mixed use corridors is sensible. I want to renew my dissatisfaction with the quality of our water. Yes, it's perfectly safe to drink but we use water for more things than human consumption our water destroys plumbing fixtures and voids warranties it has caused me thousands of dollars in repairs and replacements and why is this because it's 90% surface runoff a lot of which is from roads and highways whether we add better processing to our water or switch to MWRA water and call it a day something needs to be done Also, I 100% support the war on cars. Cars kill people, they take up space, and they're private property. You don't own the street. It's not your personal right to park your car anywhere you want. War on Cars, 100% support.

Our next speaker is John Pitkin, followed by Danielle Padavina, then Gordon Moore.

John Pitkin, 18 Fayette Street, speaking on City Manager Agenda Item Number 16, which suggests that there are three alternative options for rationing resident parking to reduce demand. One is to... Banned permits from residents in new buildings that are near transit stations. The second one is to cap the number of permits in each area based on the number of spaces. And the third option is to limit permits to one per person. To reach a consensus on the best approach, he says it's advisable to do community engagement. This is the right idea, but it doesn't go nearly far enough. There needs to be an informed, wide public conversation about the issues. This conversation has to include the holders of resident parking permits.

who numbered 38,262 in 2024, up from 37,000 in 2021 and 35,000 in 2017, the previous high years. These people, these thousands of permit holders, who are now to pay the city increased fees, as well in addition to excise taxes, deserve a clear accounting of the demand for and supply of street parking for residents, both citywide and in their neighborhoods. And just as important is the utilization rate of street parking, which reveals how easy and how long it takes to find a parking space at any time. According to the 2018 study on Cambridge Street Safety Project by city consultants, tool consultants, The standard best practices for parking management suggest that an 85% utilization represents an ideal balance of parking supply and demand. We need to pay attention to this. This is what really matters, how long it takes to find a space.

There is no information on this. This is what matters to the driving public. Let's have a well-informed conversation about this important public need and how to meet it and how to balance it against other needs. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Danielle Padavina, followed by Gordon Moore.

Hello, I am Danielle Pettivina. I live at 64 Reed Street in Cambridge. I have two businesses in North Cambridge, Mama's Grocery and Sousamen, and I'm here to speak about the alcohol policy order. I wanted to thank the city councilors who put this forth. It's in direct support of small businesses like me. It's also in support of the full entire community. I was surprised to read the licensing commission's draft rules. I was glad to see this policy order as an action to make the process transparent and engage the community and the small businesses who abide by these rules. I think, if I understand correctly, The City Councilor suggests we go back to square one and engage inclusively and robustly the stakeholders with the goal of ensuring that the City's licensing framework remains as efficient, accessible, and streamlined as the law allows.

Starting over with participation from license holders means Cambridge can modernize in terms of liquor laws. A friend of mine said in regards to the current orders for the Summer Districts of Fun, as I was calling them, aka the Open Container, My friend said that Cambridge is experiencing a period of sophistication and excitement that we haven't seen for many, many years. Frankly, as a license holder and a resident of Cambridge, I would like to see liberalizing of this and new rules that we've never seen before. For example, BYOB, year-round patios, patios for bars, currently those are not legal. perhaps alcohol vendors on city property. I'm sure that collectively the community of license holders and beyond have some really interesting ideas here. Cambridge is a cosmopolitan city full of people who have lived and worked and chose to move to Cambridge from all over the world, and it is something to celebrate.

I'd also like to say that I take rules very seriously, and every new regulation has an impact on my business monetarily, etc.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Gordon Moore, followed by Suzanne Schindler, then Paola Rabusco. Gordon has not joined us. We will go to Suzanne Schindler.

Hello, everyone. My name is Suzanne Schindler. I live at Fayette Street. I'm here to speak about Policy Order 3. Thank you to the City Council for tackling the decline in traffic enforcement. I walk, bike, and drive, and there's a lot of bad behavior out there. So I'm really just restating what you already know. The top four bad behaviors I experience every single day, running red lights, Speeding, phone use, and double parking. Every single day I see cars running red lights, and that's red, not yellow lights. Every single day I experience speeding, A place I know very well is the intersection of Broadway and Lee Street. It's not a particularly interesting intersection or busy, but somehow when there's a road that declines, it invites accelerating toward the red light because you've got to get it before it gets even redder. So basically when you already have a green light, you have to watch out if there's not another car already crossing, still crossing.

Every single day I see people driving with phones in their hands and that's everyone. With sort of what I'm doing right now, but at a wheel, gaze down on that street, it's about half, I would estimate half of drivers, and it's enormous trucks, oversized SUVs, electric scooters, cyclists and pedestrians, it's everyone. and almost every single day the bike lanes are double parked or blocked or driving lanes are blocked by people just stopping and doing things so it scares the jitters out of me and it seems like it's only getting worse so thank you for taking this on. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Paola Rabusco, followed by Buchanan Ewing, then Cynthia Hibbard. Paola?

Hi, everyone. Paola Rebusco, 179 Spring Street. I'm in favor of policy order number five, supporting an act to protect Massachusetts public health from PFAS. I won't repeat here all the proven health conditions linked to PFAS, but I support the bill because it aims at setting a fund to mitigate existing contamination. and also it aims at educating the public about PFAS. Only a small percentage of the population is aware of the health impacts of PFAS and more importantly of the daily choices we can all make to reduce exposure from choice of cookware to personal products to food packaging. I'm pretty sure that everyone uses toilet paper. Only some know to look for PFAS-free options, for example. And finally, the bill addresses the requirements on monitoring products in use and how they're disposed and recycled.

PFAS are called forever chemicals because they resist breakdown. So they accumulate in our bodies and in the environment. Even so, materials containing PFAS degrade and exposure to sunlight, acid rain, freeze-thaw cycles, they all accelerate the PFAS release. We can test only for tens out of tens of thousands of PFAS. So in my opinion, the best strategy is to avoid products with PFAS, intentionally or not intentionally add it. And I'm very grateful, for example, for the choice not to add PFAS on Ahern Field. For products already in use, this bill would help to set standards to monitor the degradation. So thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Buchanan Ewing, followed by Cynthia Hibbert, then Glenna Wyman. Buchanan, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Please go ahead. Buck Ewing, if you can unmute yourself We will circle back. We're going to go to Cynthia Hibbert, followed by Glenna Wyman, then Stan Rivkin. Cynthia, you have the floor. Please go ahead.

Hi, I'm Cynthia Hibbard of 23 Ellsworth Avenue, and I'm speaking today for the Cambridge Node of 350 Mass, a climate justice organization. We strongly support tabled item number three, The zero waste master plan ordinance changes. 80% of the city's solid waste comes from commercial, institutional, and large residential buildings that the city does not currently manage. The Chapter 8.24 ordinance changes would apply to this 80% and fulfill the City Manager's goal to, quote, realize a future with less trash, more sanitary neighborhoods, and more equitable programs. The updated bring your own bag ordinance and the new skip the stuff ordinance are common sense improvements that can both reduce waste and save businesses money. Requiring food waste diversion for all buildings is a quintuple win.

It will save taxpayers money, it will save building owners money, reduce rats for everyone, provide energy and reduce landfill waste. Our daughter's family lived until recently in a large apartment building near our three-unit condo building. They wanted to join the food waste collection program, which we have had for eight years. They organized and presented a building-wide petition to their building management, but it was denied. So they saved their food waste for our visits, and we walked at home to put in our bin. It seems to me that recycling and food waste collection programs are widely supported by residents in large rental buildings. The council voted unanimously last June to adopt the Zero Waste Management Plan 2.0. The plan cannot happen without these ordinance changes. They would go into effect six months after passage and DPW would focus on education for the first year.

350 Mass and I urge the Council to move these proposed ordinance changes forward and without any further delay.

Thank you. We're going to go back to Buck Ewing.

Oh, can you hear me?

We can. Please go ahead.

My name is Buck Ewing. I'm at 119 Antrim Street. I'm here for number 16, cost of parking permits. The pressure on on-street parking in mid-Cambridge is going to be intense. A resident may have up to four vehicles. If two residents per household each have four, that's eight parking permits in that household. That's excessive. In mid-Cambridge, in housing projects under review, numbers 32 to 39 increased units by 244 from 28 to 272. So let's say an average household has one or two people. That's 1.5 persons on average. The number of new dwellers would increase by 366. If half owned a car with no on-site off-street parking, that's 183 cars we need to park on the street. Where will they park?

I suggest changing the rule from four vehicles to one per resident at $75, seniors free, and a second vehicle under special consideration for $1,000. How does parking availability affect older adults or residents with mobility challenges? Long time circling, searching for a place to park, increased walking distance from car to home, difficulty during bad weather and increased safety concerns, heat, snow, ice, risk of falls, greater reliance on others for transportation, etc. If we can't readily find parking, what alternatives do we have? Walk, ride a bicycle, e-bike, scooter, take an Uber, Lyft, taxi, take public transportation, or move to a new home at an unknown location. In mid-Cambridge, what percentage of residents who must park on the street compare with those who can park on their property? 10 to 20 percent, 20 to 30, 30 to 40, 40 to 50.

Whatever it is, this voting block is significant. We're waking up. The light bulb has gone off. The immense impending stress on on-street parking is just starting. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Glenna Wyman. Glenna has not joined. We will go to Stan Rifkin followed by Dan Totten. Stan, you have the floor. Please go ahead.

Hi, Stanislav Rifkin, 17 Channing Street, speaking on Charter Right 2. I'm grateful for the initiative on the part of Mayor Siddiqui and Councilors McGovern, Sobrinho-Wheeler, and Zusy in supporting Various organizations that are potentially impacted by the MOVA cuts. Their services are essential. Funding them in this time of need is a moral imperative. But I am concerned that this money may be spent down from the fund's original objective, which is to support emergency and supportive housing As you know, the fund was established as part of a compromise involving the closure of the Transitional Wellness Center At the time, the city claimed that we couldn't afford to keep our largest dry shelter open because of the potentially overwhelming demands of backfilling future federal cuts to emergency and supportive housing.

and we were told that while the Transitional Wellness Center was going to close, similar funding for emergency supportive housing would continue to be allocated through other pathways. Such as the municipal voucher program, which is obviously very promising. And then also through the creation of this federal stabilization fund. But if the budgetary threat to emergency housing has subsided, and I think this should be clarified by the city, and the money saved from closing the transitional wellness center and eliminating 60 beds is no longer needed, to backfill federal housing cuts. We should not go backwards in our commitment to emergency housing and should instead reallocate this money towards additional vouchers, shelter support, or similar assistance. If the threat has not subsided, why are we draining the stabilization fund rather than supporting it with additional free cash to cover other federal cuts?

either way the city of Cambridge is one of the most financially healthy municipalities in the country we have the ability to honor the commitments we've made in fighting both sexual violence and houselessness rather than choosing just one of the two I hope you'll consider expanding support for both. Thank you

Thank you. Our next speaker is Dan Totten. Dan, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi. My name is Dan Totten, 54 Bishop Ballin Drive. I could not have said that any better myself, and I sent you guys an e-mail. along the same lines, but tonight I'm here as a bartender on behalf of my colleagues at Lamplighter. I'm a bargaining rep for our union as well and so a lot of my colleagues are either working tonight or it's their night off and so they don't want to be here so here I am. and I just want to say that this rule change the 30 minute thing I know that it's not coming from you guys but It's really not thought through. I sent you some of these thoughts, but I think first of all, it's important to emphasize that if the business is impacted, if there's less money coming in, not only is it less viable, but that hurts the bottom line of every single front of house worker. In the entire city. Because if less people are buying things, then there's going to be fewer tips.

And I'll tell you an overwhelming size of my paycheck comes from tips. It's probably something like 70 or 80%. and so that is really important. The other thing is it's just, it's not like we already know how long before somebody else has gotten a drink. Like it's in the computer system, we can see it. We can see how long it's been. but it just simplifies it to set this expectation that in 30 minutes you can come back and we're just going to do whatever you want because the fact is it's a lot more complicated than that. It matters which type of drink they got. Did they get, you know, Hard alcohol or did they get beer? Did they get a high IPA or did they get a Pilsner? You know, all these things. What state were they in when they walked in the door? Are they six foot four or are they five foot two? Like all these things I have to think about when I'm serving people and making those decisions.

And if you boil it down to come back in 30 minutes and we'll give you another beer, you're putting me in a really uncomfortable position, probably legally as well, where it's just really awkward. And so please don't do that. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Emery Allen followed by James Williamson, then Amy Waltz. Emery, you have two minutes.

Hello, my name is Emery Allen. And I came here because we basically have a thank you, like, note, card, note, book, thing. and we're happy that Ahern Field didn't get any artificial turf. Um, so we wanted to say thank you about that, that we got enough votes, that we won't have any artificial turf on our field. So, yeah. Where should we put it?

We'll take it over here to Naomi. Thank you.

Thank you, Emery and friends. Our next speaker is James Williamson, followed by Amy Waltz, then Heather Hoffman. James? James, if you can unmute yourself, I believe it's star six from the telephone.

Can you hear me?

We can. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Yeah. Well, the World Cup game is on a rain delay, so perfect timing. I have two observations I want to make about the policy order having to do with alleged diminution of traffic citations that's described as significant. The first observation is that for years I have, along with many other people in the city, been complaining about the lack of enforcement of rules for bicyclists. and I know I'm not alone in this. And it's just like blowing through red lights, going down streets the wrong way, just endless every day. and it's stressful, it's infuriating. I think it's a health risk for all of us who have to deal with it. And the answer has always been, the response has always been from

top city staff including now retired Clara Siderman, Kara Siderman for example, even people in Somerville, the mentality is We don't have to worry about enforcement. That's the wrong way to think about this. If we just get the infrastructure right, it's all going to be perfect. So I'm actually glad to see that somebody is now acknowledging that enforcement Thank you for joining us. Let's continue to understand the importance of enforcement. Now the second thing is about the data. Now the citation data is probably accurate. But what does it really tell you?

And this is another example of where the dishonesty of people who are pushing the bike agenda, the fanatics, the ideologues, aren't honest about the reality of enforcement. The answer was always well.

Thank you for your testimony. James, if you can, please email us the remainder. Our next speaker is Amy Waltz, followed by Heather Hoffman. Amy, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Amy, if you can unmute yourself. Amy has not unmuted. We're going to go to Heather Hoffman. Amy, is that you?

Yes.

Please go ahead. You have two minutes.

Hi, I'm Amy Waltz from Blakeslee Street. The Zero Waste Master Plan helps address numerous city challenges, including obviously waste reduction, Reducing fiscal and environmental costs. Rodent control and better sanitation. Less single-use plastic waste. It is good for business and easy and convenient for residents. Perhaps most importantly, it will help reduce methane from both agriculture and waste sectors in Cambridge. The side benefits of this include anaerobic digestion of our food waste, turning methane into much needed energy. and a potential 30 to 40% reduction in food waste resulting in over 30% less agricultural sector waste and over 30% grocery savings.

Seeing separated food waste in the kitchen bucket allows people and businesses to assess and change their habits. For example, purchase fewer perishables at a time, practice better food storage to avoid spoilage. Avoiding food waste, which is astonishingly, this can avoid food waste, which is astonishingly around 40% in the U.S. The climate crisis is a species survival crisis of monumental scale and urgency. Methane reduction is the key emergency brake on this crisis. We have the opportunity to do something about it today. We need to pass the Zero Waste Master Plan so that the City can move forward with plans to help make sanitation and waste reduction easier for everyone.

The plan includes provisions to make adjustments as needed, yet many are waiting so they can start the systemic work to implement these city-wide improvements in our waste management system. The waste production is a win for residents, a win for business, and a win for the city. It is a win for health and sanitation.

Thank you, Amy. If you can, please email us the remainder. Our next speaker is Heather Hoffman. Heather, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hello, Heather Hoffman, 213 Hurley Street. First off, nobody's talked about algorithmic pricing. It is another way that we are using computers to dazzle people and steal from all of us. Yes. make all of the types of algorithmic pricing go away in any way that the city can't and encourage people at higher levels of legislation to do so as well. Other things I saw in the agenda seemed to me to reveal a real lack of seriousness. I looked at this thing about parking and the idea that If we just know where there are subways and bus stops without knowing whether people can get where they need to go, and how often the subways and especially the buses go and whether there might be days they don't go at all.

does not seem to have occurred to the people who wrote this. So why do they think that that's useful information in deciding about parking needs? With respect to housing needs, Wouldn't it have been cool if we'd done any of these studies before we changed the zoning ordinance? Wouldn't that have been That's a great idea. But no, we are not serious because all of this is political. It is not connected to the real world except for those of us who have to live with it. And with the short-term rentals, you haven't enforced what we've got. I really hope if you're going to change it, it's going to include a way of enforcing it.

and we will also do some enforcing of all of the crazy stuff that goes on there with things on wheels, with humans propelling them. Thank you.

Thank you. We are trying to go back to Glenna Wyman who emailed me that she's trying to join. Glenna, if you're in the Zoom and can raise your hand, we can unmute you. Madam Mayor Glenna Wyman has not joined. That is all that we're signed up to speak. Thank you, Naomi.

That concludes public comment. We'll go ahead on a motion by Councilor Nolan to close public comment. We'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Simmons, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councilor Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

Public comment is now closed. We'll move on to the submission of the record. There are two sets of minutes of the regular City Council meeting held on February 9th, 2026, and minutes of the special City Council meeting held on January 27th, 2026. on a motion by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler to accept these minutes and place them on file. We'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes, Councilor Simmons? Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

Those minutes are accepted and placed on file. We have no reconsiderations. City Manager Agenda Items. I am going to poll number 9 and number 18. Pleasure of the City Council. Councilor Flaherty. 17. Councilor Flaherty polls number 17.

13, 19, 20, 21, 22.

13, 19, 20. 21, 22. 21 and 22. Councilor Zusy pulls 13. 19, 20, 21, and 22.

Mayor Siddiqui? Councilor Nolan. Number 14, 15, 17, and 18.

Number 14, 15, 16?

No, 17?

17 was pulled.

Oh, okay. And 18 was pulled.

And 18 was pulled. Any other ones on the first page?

Recommendation is always placed on file, so, I mean.

Are we all set? So we've pulled for the record number 9, number 13, number 14, number 15, number 16, No, not 16. Councilor Nolan, you're not pulling 16, right? Okay. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22. Hearing no one else, we can go ahead and do a roll call on city manager agenda items number one, number two, number three. Raul-Zubi. You said you didn't want to pull that. Yeah, we did pull it. We're not pulling that.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes, Councilor Nolan?

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Simmons? Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

City Manager Agenda Item 9 Communication Transmitted from Yi-An Huang City Manager relative to the appropriation in the amount of $625,000 from the federal grant stabilization fund to the grant fund human service programs other ordinary maintenance account We will go ahead also, I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules to take off the calendar item number. Two, on a motion by Councilor McGovern to take that calendar item number two, which is a policy order related to this, we'll go ahead and do a roll call.

On suspension, Councilor Al-Zubi. Absinthe, Vice Mayor Azeem, Councilor Flaherty, Councilor McGovern, Councilor Nolan, Councilor Simmons, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councilor Zusy, Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative.

We're in suspension. That matter is also, that PO is also before us. The charter was exercised by Councilor Al-Zubi at that meeting on June 8th. Councilor Al-Zubi is not here today. but I'll let the city manager speak to this. The timing of it is we wanted to get this forward at today's meeting because our next full city council meeting is in August. And so given the timing, it was appropriate. So I'll just say what I said last week. I think there have been some emails around the use of this fund and There's other housing needs. I think this is something that we should be funding. We don't know kind of what the future holds with the many other...

I don't see things as a matter of being competed against We are taking things as they come, and so I do think it's really important that we do this for the nonprofits who are in need. So I'll give it to the city manager, and then I'll open it up to my colleagues.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. I would say in the last couple of weeks we've had conversations with the affected organizations and also With the Community Foundation and with the Cambridge Nonprofit Coalition, I think, as you noted, there's both a recognition that this amount of funding loss for these organizations would be Thank you so much for joining us. and to find a way to mitigate some of those negative impacts. I think doing it in partnership and working with the Community Foundation has been something we did on the crisis over SNAP benefits and so we really appreciate Thank you. Thank you.

I think this provides some ramp for these organizations. to ensure that we don't have severe disruption of services and we have the rest of the year to plan for the next year. I think just two additional notes. One is that we are looking at this as a one time appropriation and that we would spend the next year working with the organizations to understand how they're responding to both the short term challenge of where state and federal funding lands, but also the longer term trend. So what are other revenue sources that they could potentially look for and how do we think about supporting the work that they're doing in our community. That would be a future conversation and we'd have to also have further conversations about what happens in FY28 as part of our budget process.

the other note is just very recent developments it sounds like there may be some possibility for state action we've always known that One of the challenges is the state budget may not be fully passed until a little bit later in the summer. And so maybe just to set expectations, we are asking for an appropriation of up to this amount, but we may make adjustments depending on if the state does end up taking some action. But I think this will provide for more stability for these organizations' ability to plan into July and August. And I do think ultimately there will likely be some gap that we will want to cover.

Thank you. I have Councilor Nolan, and then Councilor Flaherty, and then Councilor McGovern.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. Thank you through you to city manager and the staff for moving on this and to the folks who put in the policy order. I'd actually like to be added to the underlying policy order. I think this is critically important. and from everything I've seen, just like was noted with SNAP benefits and emergency housing vouchers and others, this is precisely why we did set up the federal stabilization fund. and we also to remind all of us that this is not something we should be having this conversation of because it's just been a dereliction of duty from the federal government to Do something to take away these funds. I'm fully supportive of both the original policy order and also of this allocation and grateful for the partnership from CCF to allow this to be Thank you.

Thank you. Flarety, and then Councilor McGovern.

Well, through you, Madam Mayor, I just want to say this is the purpose of government. This is the reason why we're all serving in office. These are the most marginalized, vulnerable members of our society. They are receiving critical services that are necessary. This is absolutely essential. This is exactly what a federal stabilization fund should be used for and I can't think of any better use of our dollars. I hope that we can help all of these city agencies moving forward. and budget for them appropriately but this actually is At bottom, the most important role that we serve, the citizens of Cambridge as Cambridge City Councilors, to approve a use of money in this way.

McGovern.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. You know, as the Councilor sort of last year when we were discussing Spalding and the closing of Spalding and how best to help The folks that were impacted by that as sort of the counselor that was out in front on that, I certainly understand the concern that folks have about the potential financial impact of I'm confident that we will figure something out. You know, that money that We don't even know if we're going to need to spend it just because we're in the middle of a lawsuit and things change. And so when you think of urgency,

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. and I don't think any of us will. But we have time on that. We don't have time on this. And so I do support making this allocation. And again, as I said the last time we discussed this, We have Vice Mayor Azeem on the line.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I had a question for the city manager. We talked briefly about this last time, so we don't have to go into a lot of detail. But do we have a sense of when we'll know about the funds and whether they're needed for the emergency housing vouchers or not?

Through you Mayor Siddiqui, I don't think we have a clear timeline. I think in particular the Hyde Continuum of Care Program. Some of those guidelines are coming out around this time and we'll be working out what the implications may be. I think we both have active litigation that we're involved in with HUD over some of those conditions and there's also programmatic decisions that may allow us to keep some of the funding that we're working through. In terms of emergency housing vouchers, I would say there's continued conversations and planning happening between the city, the Cambridge Housing Authority. I'd say it probably is most appropriate for us to bring back Thank you, Mayor.

Got it. And then just my final question is like, is this money fungible in that if we needed to find more money for emergency housing vouchers, could we or should we take the stabilization fund as is? And we've kind of decided that like, Either this is a higher need or we might not need those and we want to spend these now on a risk adjusted basis, but it is like a limited pool of funds.

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I think there's not a yes or no answer to that. I think the reality is we both do have Thank you. Ray Smear?

Thank you. So I'll just lead off with, I think obviously the use of these funds and the policy order that's before us and the conversation is incredibly compelling. I think that I will certainly be supportive tonight. I will also say I'm not the biggest fan in that I do think that there has been a slight change in The way that we set up the stabilization fund, what the expectations were, and I wish that we had been more transparent about it, that we would hold off till this long. and at this point you know may still come in handy but we feel like a little bit more confident than we did before and even though there's no certainties I think that would have been a little bit helpful just to make sure that people are on board with the premises I feel like you know now that this is before us it's really hard um and there's really compelling use for these funds um in front of us so I will certainly be supportive but

I really do think that we made some sort of commitment to these 128 households and I certainly hope that we continue to try to find that amount of money if we do end up needing it. Thank you.

Anyone else would like to speak on this? So what we'll do is we'll go ahead and add Councilor Nolan to the policy order and do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

And now to the amended policy order, we'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes, Councilor Flaherty. Yes, Councilor McGovern. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Simmons. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

The amended policy order is adopted. We'll now move to the appropriation itself and placing the matter on file and go ahead and do a roll call.

on Adoption, Councilor Al-Zubi, absent, Vice Mayor Azeem, Vice Mayor Azeem, absent, Councilor Flaherty. McGovern, Nolan, Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have seven members recording the affirmative. and two recorded as absent.

City Manager Agenda Item Number 9, the matters, the money is appropriated and the matter is placed on file. We'll go ahead and move on to City Manager Agenda Item Number 13. This is a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to a waiting report 26-34 regarding a report on citywide water use and water supply. Councilor Zusy, you have the floor.

Thank you so much, Mayor Siddiqui. As you all know, I'm really interested in water and I thought this was another fascinating report. It's fascinating that we had five major droughts between 1965 and 2015. That's over a 50-year period. And then we've had five droughts Thank you very much. Thank you. is on the top of a hill. So there's not a watershed that feeds it. So that's a little problematic. And then downstream there's Stony Brook, which is only 400 million gallons capacity. But that continually overflows. We lose 40% of the water. It goes into the Charles River. So it's not quite working. So my question for you is,

It sounds like you're thinking after 2030 we may need to be using MWRA water more regularly from Quabbin. My question is for you as you also suggested that we may need to make significant changes to water department revenues and infrastructure and I'm wondering What is needed? Are you thinking about groundwater wells? What's it going to cost? And then I heard rumor that the aqueduct that goes from the Stony Brook to Cambridge, which is 7.5 miles needs to be replaced. So is that true? So what do you see ahead? And I hope you're thinking the... I'm counting on you to be thinking about what is really best for the city in the long term because it sounds like will not be able to provide us with all the water that we'll need going forward, even though we use less water per capita than most communities.

Thank you.

Through you, Himeya Siddiqui. So just to clarify one or two points. First, that 2030s number is We would not be able to, if the population and employment increase projections come to fruition as they're projected right now, during times of drought we would not be Thank you. Thank you. That's that safe yield of 14.8, an average day demand of 14.8 million gallons per day. Currently, we're at approximately 13 to 13 and a half Million gallons per day average day demand.

So currently we can meet that. In times of regular precipitation levels, we could meet the city's demand back in the 70s. Average day demands were over 20 million gallons a day. And with standard rainfall, the city was able to meet that demand. The chart that I provided, since that time, you know, we have worked on water conservation and the city has done a great job, even though the population has increased by approximately 18% since 1983. Our average day demand has dropped 26% to roughly 12.5 to 13 million gallons a day. But we're currently reaching that point where

Thank you very much. We're going to get water as the population continues to grow and the average day demand continues to rise. So as stated in that, yes, our Hobsbrook Reservoir is our largest reservoir. Thank you very much. and typically in the past, you know, during an average precipitation year. We can close the gates to Hobbs. Typically we do it in October, November historically and allow Hobbs to recharge over the winter. When Stony Brook and Fresh Pond have enough supply to meet the city's demands.

Since we've been in these extended drought periods, we've had to keep the gates to Hobbs open longer. Thank you very much. So at this point, we're looking at how do we increase our water storage? How do we capture more water? What are our options? We recently worked on applying for a federal grant to do a feasibility study to answer those questions, you know. What are our options as far as increasing water storage and water supply?

Because going forward, looking at those population projections, et cetera, we are eventually going to need more water, especially with the increased drought over climate change, the trends that we're seeing now.

So the five minutes are up. We can come back again. We'll go to Councilor Nolan.

Thank you. Yes, I have a few questions. I was curious about that. The long-term drought, we're seeing it. We know. I've been talking about this for many, many years, even before I was on council. A couple questions. Are the stats only residential use or all-water use? Because there's one that talks about residential use, but then there's also a daily demand. And that wasn't clear. And this is all wrapped up in... I know I communicated earlier about ensuring that we have... The statistics on commercial non-residential use because our institutional, Harvard and MIT, some of our institutions are among the largest users of water. We don't apparently have seasonal data. I think that's something that an intern or we should be able to get in order to understand because for three months now we've been putting out the word that this is a challenging time. We should understand whether that has had impact. But part of the question is whether the statistics here, are they all, some seem to be residential only and some seem to be combined.

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui. That per capita usage, they base it off the population of the municipality as a gauge to what... Thank you for joining us. and just divide that by the population. So it does include all commercial and institutional uses as well as municipal uses. So all metered water is counted and unaccounted for water, too, is in there. So they use residential population as the base, but it's the entire amount of water produced.

Councillor Nolan? Thanks. Following up on the question about the Habsburg versus the Stony Brook, Currently, the Habsburg reservoir levels are 1,000 million gallons below the 15-year average. We're sitting at 1,600 instead of the 2,600, which is the 15-year average. if the usual trend continues we could definitely be in trouble generally during the summer there's a decline in that despite the rain today earlier this year we saw an estimate that there was only a very small Is that still our prediction or have we made adjustments and recognized that it may actually be that we will be needing to take more steps? Because at the time I think it was a 10 or 20 percent chance. I'm looking at the numbers thinking that may need to be revised. I'm just curious about whether it was.

Through you, Mae Siddiqui. I did the calculations just before coming here just to verify and you know based on the tool that was developed for us by CDM to you know quantify where kind of where we're at so we can for for planning purposes currently Based on all of our reservoir levels, we're at approximately 3.5 billion gallons of water in the system. and based on the graph and using that data, we are still in the yellow, which is approximately There's a 20% chance in the next year that we would have to purchase water from the MWRA. We're still not in that 15%.

I watch it every day. Thank you very much. But as far as continuing working on conservation, right now, so far this fiscal year, we've... used 153 million gallons less than we did last year at this time so in the past Nine out of 11 months, we have used less water than we did last year, and a savings of approximately 3.5% of our overall water production for fiscal year 26.

So, you know, it's a good indication that our conservation message is getting out there. We are getting a lot more communication from not only residents but businesses. and constant communication with Harvard and MIT. Their facilities folks, obviously right now, tomorrow they'll probably call us and say, hey, we got rain last night, can we turn on our sprinklers? and the answer will be no. As far as managing drought and water bans, we're following all the guidelines and I think it's Again is doing a really good job. Thank you.

I'll come back to you for a second and final round, Councilor Nolan. I'll go back to Councilor Nolan for your five minutes and that does include staff response. Go ahead, Councilor Zusy.

Oh, I just wanted to know, so when will you hear if you get the grant, and what's your plan? I mean, it sounds like we need to do a feasibility study no matter what. And just to sneak in another question, So again, someone who seems pretty knowledgeable was saying that the line from Stony Brook is more than 100 years old and is due to be replaced soon at a potential cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. So are you saying that's not true?

through Mayor Siddiqui. You know, we monitor the Stony Brook conduit. Yes, it is... Portions of it were built in the 1800s. Other portions of it were built later in the 1900s and the mid-1900s. Currently, our... Observations and maintenance on that show that it's not in need of replacement anytime soon. There are no indication that it is failing. Underground utilities can If properly protected and properly constructed can last much longer than their estimated shelf life would indicate. But currently right now, we have no plans. to replace the Stony Brook condo and no reason to think that it would need to be replaced. Occasionally we do have to make repairs, but we make those as soon as we find that there's an issue.

Thank you. And my other question, when will you hear if you get the grant, and will you proceed with some sort of study regardless? It seems like a feasibility study needs to...

Through you, May, Siddiqui. I don't know exactly when the grant will be awarded. We just recently applied, I think like a month and a half ago. I can look that up for you, and I will let you know. I'll send it to you. I don't know the date when we will hear.

Thank you so much. I yield. Councillor Nolan.

Thank you. I just have a couple of short points, I hope. Really good to know the usage is lower. That says that our communication is working. It's really critically important for everyone to know all non-essential use by state regulation is banned. However, street trees are allowed. You can do hand watering on certain places. So while it's banned, we also are taking care of our infrastructure in other areas. But everybody is encouraged to ensure that they use far less water. I did wonder when you, on the long-term planning about the 2030s, Does that mean we think this will be 2030s is 10 years? Is it like 2030 or more like 2035 or that? Just so that we are all prepared for a timeline to understand when your projections are that we may hit some decisions to be made about how it is that for instance that spillover for a very large percentage of the water to be spilling over which I didn't know until I read this report and

Then of course there's ways that we might address the 10% of the evaporation as well as the other. So just curious about the timeline for that. And then I yield.

Yes, through you, Mayor Siddiqui. So that threshold of 14.8 million gallons average day demand, Thank you very much. Over the years, those predictions have, you know, When they made the predictions for population growth for the city just in 2016, they had to amend that because they had over-projected and the numbers weren't showing up the way they had planned. And so part of their Thank you.

where that will fall in the 2030s is still unknown exactly.

Thanks. I will say I missed the first council meeting in six years, I think, last week, and I was in a place in the country where it's severe drought in Utah, and the only reason the rafts can continue is because they were releasing water in a very, very challenging environment from a dam. Clearly, but Cambridge is not immune either. New England is not immune. We used to be 50 years ago, and we're no longer. Thank you. I yield.

Any further questions from the body? We have Councilor Flaherty.

Just one for you, Madam Mayor. Director Gallagher, prior to the upzoning in Cambridge, did anyone question you about the potential for water drought?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui. So there's always been conversations about drought and population growth, etc. And, you know, Five years ago, people weren't really talking about drought as, you know, we're going to have this happen all the time. Because as stated in the report, you know, for 20 years we only had three drought cases. And then in the past five years, or since 2016, we've had five droughts. And we've been in some form of drought right now for 20 out of the past 27 months. So, But five years ago, that was not the case, and people weren't really talking about trout. So yes, it was discussed, but at the time, the numbers indicated through population, and at that time, our average day demand was continuing to drop.

It was discussed, again, in a normal... Thank you very much. from our reservoir system. And the plant can only produce 24 million gallons a day, so theoretically we could never, if we were constantly getting rain, never run dry with the capacity of the plant. So, yes, it was discussed, but it wasn't a big deciding factor on what the zoning changes should be.

Councilor Flaherty.

But I guess the point is we always knew we were a dense city to begin with, right? I mean, that's no surprise. Okay, well, thank you for your response. I appreciate it.

Okay. We will go to Councilor McGovern.

Thank you. Just in case I missed this earlier, I apologize. We didn't switch over to NWR water now, right? We're still...

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, that's correct. We are still on Cambridge-only water. and currently right now the prediction is as long as we continue to see somewhat standard precipitation, there's only a 20% chance in the next year We don't have any recharge that we would have to switch to MWRA or supplement with MWRA water.

I think one of the important things is just to note, like, so we're in a drought situation. We're talking about MWRA. It's different than water. Other times when we've had an issue at the plant or sort of completely closed down, it'd be supplemental water that would complement Cambridge's water. So just to be clear, it would not be sort of full on to MWA. It'd be supplemental water.

And the drought, do you think that this is because of increased usage or is this... Climate Change. And is this unique to Cambridge or other cities experiencing this drought as well?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui. No, so the drought is... Currently right now, the northeast region of Massachusetts is in critical drought. Most of the state is in a significant drought. There's only one area in western Massachusetts that is in a mild drought. Every part of Massachusetts currently is in one level of drought status. or another. So this is not unique to Cambridge or Massachusetts or New England. This is a national situation going on with Thank you very much. I assume too this is an international issue, not just local.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So you don't think it's a usage issue? No. Great. Thank you.

Any other questions on this matter before we go ahead and place on file? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and do a roll call on placing City Manager Agenda Number 13 on file.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Absinthe, Vice Mayor Azeem, Councilor Flaherty, Councilor McGovern, Councilor Nolan, Councilor Simmons, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councilor Zusy, Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

That's city manager agenda item number 13 is placed on file. We'll move to 14. This is a communication transmitted from Yanhuang City Manager relative to an update regarding A boards and commissions ordinance review and modernization initiative. Councilor Nolan, you have the floor.

Thank you Mayor Siddiqui and through you to the city staff. Really appreciate this update. This is a long time coming. We've been talking about this for a while. It's a really important part of us understanding what it is that we are doing with our 50 plus It's something that I think is just good governance to ensure that we're going over things. I pulled this because while I appreciate the work and appreciate that this will be phased in over time, I do have a request which is the timeline for city council input. should be moved up right now. If I read this, I would think the city council won't even be consulted until the very end when ordinances are already ready to be proposed. I would expect that instead of that, before any recommendations come out, that the council should have input early in the process, probably in the middle somewhere, you know, even before we go out to the public, that obviously

having input from the boards and commissions themselves makes sense, but that it should be, and I leave it through you, Mayor, to you to work with the city staff to ensure that that happens whether it's in a committee meeting or It really should happen before we come to an ordinance change, especially because these are the committees that were established by ordinance. You might even start with the council but I understand maybe starting with the commission but then going immediately to the council before much work is done. That was kind of my question and comment and I hope that that happens.

I think that's a great idea and it's something that I think we had briefly touched base with the city manager's office around some kind of working group some kind of counselor involvement in this so maybe Megan we can Any other questions on this? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and do a roll call on placing City Manager Agenda Item 14 on file.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes, Councilor Flaherty. Yes. Yes, Councilor McGovern. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Simmons. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

City Manager Agenda item 14 is placed on file. We'll move on to 15. This is a communication transmitted from Yan Wang, City Manager, relative to response to a waiting report 26-02 regarding school parking access. Nolan, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. So this is a report kind of long in waiting for. This has been an issue that's been raised, I think, over the last year. I will say I understand the rationale and yet I'm quite disappointed that we did not manage to figure out a way to Use publicly owned parking spots to mitigate some of the impact on much of the work and the work I've supported that the city has been doing to reallocate public space. It was a predictable use case for these projects, and it also, I think part of the reason this council had put that policy order forward, I believe it was even a couple years ago, was because It had been raised in the initial conversations from the community about the building to make this building, particularly on King Open and Cambridge Street. with an eye towards allowing the community use. So it is a very disappointment that we didn't have the foresight to design these new facilities in a way to better account for community access.

and as we had talked during the conversation about passing this is that Boston has done this it's not clear to me if we I mean it may be that all of where Boston does it they're all Lots that are surface lots, which are different from us. On the other hand, that would make sense if we'd reached out to Boston to understand because Boston does allow this dual use of their Thank you very much. would like that to happen, even whatever we can do for the future, and also to ensure a robust response to have reached out to other places that have addressed, have had this I will also note we did get an email which was copied to all the people at the table from Jason Alves.

Speaking on, again, understanding and yet disappointment that confirming that this had been on the table before the building plans were even solidified and that there's significantly less parking. It's a very thoughtful email that I think we should all bear in mind for moving forward to see if there's anything we can do to address the needs of the community every time we have a building. It's disappointing in future building projects that we've already now completed three buildings and none of them anticipated that this would be an important need for the community as well to move forward on.

Is there any response before I go to the next counselor? Or do you want to respond at the end?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I think happy to respond at the end. I mean, I would maybe just highlight, and I think this is where some of the initial conversation was clarifying the governance over these decisions is somewhat shared where ultimately the school committee has a voice in in the building and underground parking. And so I would say, when I think about going back All the way to the planning and design phase there were decisions made that ultimately assumed that these parking lots would only be used for School Purposes. And there was not built in, particularly for the King Open Complex, a lot of public access considerations. So where we kind of are at this point is the school committee has not expressed much Thank you.

Thank you. The idea of general purpose parking is one that we're not hearing a lot of enthusiasm from the school committee on.

Nolan.

Just quick. I understand that. It's just it was not good planning. It was not good foresight. I mean, this is a public building. This is a public lot. and if the design had included the idea of having a parking lot that was separated enough from the school that the safety issues were concerned, we could have done this. I appreciate the school committee being concerned given the design that was in place, but the design was not put in place with an eye towards dual use of land that is owned jointly owned by the city but run by the school department so that's part of the disappointment and concern again I understand it but it really says to me we need to do a better job of that kind of understanding in a very dense environment to ensure that multiple uses can be done

We'll go ahead to, I think I saw Councilor Simmons, you want the floor, please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair, through you to the City Manager. I support your recommendation as someone who sat on the school committee. Thank you. And it came before the city council. The city council, although they are sensitive and concerned and want to support city initiatives, they did not see at this time. that they could do this because of the issues of security. So it's not so much reluctance and not wanting to. It was around security issues. I don't recall the earlier conversations. I just can talk about the one I had. while chairing.

And it was around trying to keep the buildings secure, what it would cost by way of adding additional personnel if they had enough money. And I talked to the administration as well as We debated on the floor of the school committee if there were more money and we could afford the supervision it would require. Thank you very much. These practices on the street, if there are any buildings to renovate where parking would be a part of it, certainly something that we might want to talk about. But just as recent as today when I talked to people from the school side of it,

again it's not trying to be indifferent it is really about safety the school department parking for those that have toured it's tandem parking so tandem parking gets really crazy as As someone who's worked for the city and used tandem parking, it works when it works, and when it doesn't work, it's a nightmare. And so, again, I think it's important not to say that we're casting aspersions, but just to reiterate, it's not a reluctance. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

and there's I think it's something that we can certainly consider going forward as we bring other buildings particularly school buildings online and I just think it's important I'm trying to run out the clock here I think it's a important to acknowledge that we have been really good partners going back 50 years ago when We made sure that all schools had room for head starts. We don't do that anymore because we don't have the facility. I don't think we even have a head start, so it might be a moot point in that regard, too. So I just wanted to say I fully understand it. Thank you very much. for the main purpose. So with that, I'll yield the floor.

Thank you, Councillor Simmons. Anyone else before I go back to Councillor Nolan? Councillor Nolan?

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. Just a quick question. I understand as... Simmons noted this was brought to the school committee I think a year ago, but the school committee is four new members. Has this been reviewed by the school committee, not the superintendent, but the school committee, this question, this term?

I'll chime in. It has not. It has not come up. I did bring that up with the superintendent. I think he thought it was pertinent that this Thank you for joining us.

Point of information, if I may. It did go before buildings and grounds. Did it go before the new school committee? No, because it didn't come before the school committee when it came up as a subject. And I think because it was taken up already, they didn't revisit it.

I think that is a fair point around this new school committee could have this report before them and still discuss it in building and grounds. and say what they want and it may be just the same but we could still have a conversation so that just answers your question If the city staff wants to say anything, feel free. I don't think anything will change substantively from what has been given to us, but there could be some new opinions.

The one thing, Mayor Siddiqui, I would just add is that I think Brooke and I and a number of staff did a number of site visits with, School Department staff on site and I think we sort of went into it thinking like oh people being maybe overly conservative and I would say that when we went into the building, went into the garage, and really thought about how people would experience it when it's not a heavy use, when it's not staffed. And I'm not someone that sort of leads with security concerns, but I would say when we were in the basement Underground parking in terms of sort of dark corners and sort of like not high visibility, a lot of storage that they're also using in the space, that there were a lot of pretty significant security issues that The new school committee could talk about it, but I just would say that I think from the superintendent's perspective as well as the chief operating officer, really some significant concerns about the security.

So basic both up into the building as well as I think we were somewhat surprised by Cousin Ellen.

Again, it wasn't designed with that in mind, which is the problem.

And I just wanted to point out, I think the letter that was given to us by Superintendent was dated February 4th. and then there's another letter April 22nd so I'm not sure it took a while to get this on the agenda so you know and then the meeting for building grounds happened June 12th 2025 so I do think You know, this may have been... I don't understand the timing there, but it's taken a while to get this response. But, Councilor Nolan, on your point, we could certainly follow up if... The school committee does have further appetite to take this on. Any further questions before we move on? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and place City Manager Agenda Item 15 on file and do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

City Manager Agenda Item 15 is placed on file. We'll move on to City Manager Agenda Item 17, a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to a waiting report 26-07 regarding restrictions to eligibility for on-street resident parking. Councilor Flaherty, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. So I'm hopeful that we're looking at this through the right lens. and it should be a lens that thinks about whether persons who choose to live in the zero minimum parking buildings slated to be constructed in Cambridge are able to get resident permit parking in Cambridge? And the answer to that should be no. And what concerns me a little bit is that in the report it reads, and I'm reading, on street parking has always been a significant issue in Cambridge, obviously, with the level of demand and availability of parking varying from neighborhood to neighborhood. Research shows the parking availability influences whether people own cars and how much they drive.

So, you know, I think the lens that we've got to look at this is not... to eliminate the nucleus of people who live in Cambridge that need a car to satisfy their obligations. I mean, obviously there are elderly that need a car. There are disabled people that need a car. There are families that need a car. We heard from public comment. Grocery Shopping for a Family of Six. A fellow and his wife were supporting eight different youth or children's sports teams through coaching and bringing their kids to games. They need a car. And even someone like me, it's impossible for me. to live my life without the use of an automobile. Today, for instance, I had a trial in Plymouth District Court. I couldn't ride a bike and take public transportation to represent my client there.

And so there's a necessary use of automobiles in Cambridge for many of our citizens. So I think we've got to keep that in mind when we make this analysis and conceptually this is a good idea that parking should be limited but I think it should be restricted or at least directed towards those people that go in eyes full open to buying or renting in a building that is a zero minimum parking building. And that way... I think conceptually this makes sense because as we all know, Parking is a significant concern in the city and we've lost a lot of parking. We've lost metered parking. We're increasing our resident permit parking.

program here in Cambridge, and the micro-mobility and Installation and implementation of separated bike lanes throughout the city has had that impact. And there's massive frustration around the loss and competitiveness of street parking in the city. So I think overall it will be hopefully a good program if it's directed in the way that I hope is directed. But I think we have to look at it out of the lens that there is a significant portion of the population for which the use of an automobile is a necessary component of their life. So I yield.

We have a few hands up. We'll go to Vice Mayor Azeem and then I'll go to Councilor Zusy. Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I wanted to say this is fantastic. I've been waiting for this for a long time. And I wanted to agree with Council Flaherty. I think that I was a little bit surprised by the public comment, and perhaps it's about setting the standards right with what we're hoping to do here. but you know I think that it's very much true and I think that the single biggest issue with the new housing that we're trying to get throughout the city is that we only have so much on-street parking right and so As we are trying to build more housing, if there's 40 units going online there, can that street, can that neighborhood really fit 40 new parking spots? Or if 20 people have a car, can it fit 20 more cars on the road? And then I think that that is a real issue. And secondly, a lot of people will choose not to build parking onsite, which is fine. But if they don't, it shouldn't be because they're trying to take advantage of the commons and that street parking is abundant and available.

If you're not building parking, it's because you don't think that the person in the building is going to need it. because they're not gonna own a car, not because you're taking advantage. So I actually think that this will be really helpful I think that it'll make a pretty big impact in that I think that this will have a reverse effect in that I think that more people will probably build some amount of parking on their unit if they need it. and it'll really incentivize that but also for people who choose not to, I think it'll be a fantastic thing to say to like, hey, you know, I know that three unit building next to you is getting replaced one with 15, but actually there'll be more parking available because they won't be eligible for a parking permit. So actually parking will be easier for you with that new development rather than the other way around. So I think that this is a really important piece to fix. I kind of wanted to ask a little bit about next steps. You guys gave us three approaches and my personal approach At least my initial instinct is to do it around MBTA bus spots.

So I kind of wanted to ask, how would you guys want to get feedback? Is this something where you guys would be willing to meet with us individually, come back with recommended zoning language? or, you know, ordinance language or, you know, would you want some other process? Just really curious. And it'd be a big change, so probably would need some amount of public process around it.

Yeah.

Through you, Madam Mayor. We definitely envision our conversation tonight just as the jumping off point for this conversation because I think Thank you very much. So, you know, initially we were thinking that it might make sense to refer this to committee for a more in-depth conversation. And from there, we can kind of map out where we want to go from that. We are also happy to meet one-on-one with folks in the interim if that's the preference as well. But that does seem like the next step that makes the most sense would be a committee hearing.

Thank you. I think that that sounds great. I'm happy to forward it to either the Housing or Transportation Committee, whatever people feel like. I'm happy to offer either committee. But I'll yield for now just to see my colleagues' comments.

Vice Mayor Azeem yields. We'll go ahead to Councilor Zusy. You have the floor.

Thank you, Chair Siddiqui. I was, again, really thrilled to hear back. Thank you. You said you were going to do it by the end of June and you did it. It's a great report. and I really appreciated the reality check that while on page three, while all these approaches encourage residents to choose sustainable transportation as Thank you. Thank you. We need data collection and additional analysis to really figure out how best to move forward. And I think those are great I've been asking for that since I got on the council. I'm really thrilled that you've come to that place too. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it that way. I think it's great that we're going to do that because I think it's absolutely essential.

and I thought John Pitkin made some good points. Yeah, we need to understand the supply and the demand for street parking We need to be able to consider how long it takes to find a parking place because that's what really impacts people's lives. I'm so happy about that, and I look forward to further conversation. I co-sponsored the policy order with Councilor Azeem about... Restricting parking permits to those that live in transit-oriented developments. And I think it should be MBTA-related rather than bus-related if you look at the two maps on pages 7 and 8. If you're looking at bus stops, it would mean that basically almost nowhere in Cambridge, no transit-oriented developments would get parking permits.

But I feel as though the MBTA spots are, that's not all of the city. I feel like that would be the better And I had one question in the report. I just wasn't clear. You talked about, so people in affordable housing receive an exemption. But so did, on page three, you write, the policy included... As part of the zoning process, Harvard University, in their commitment letter, agreed not to oppose a city policy that makes residents in these special districts ineligible to receive resident... So does that mean that Harvard students do receive parking permits or not?

I'm confused. Sorry, the language on that one was probably not clear enough. Apologies. No, any resident in those areas in that, was it 12, 13, 14, which is all kind of... over near Memorial Drive between, I guess, west of River going down towards the Harvard campus. Harvard, it's primarily graduate students and they are not eligible for, for parking stickers. Every year we get people who come in and apply and they're flagged in our system that they are not eligible.

So it's only in that one district?

It's three districts, but it's really a small area. It's not a very large area.

Thank you.

Any other questions on this? We'll go to Councilor Nolan. You have the floor.

Thank you. Like my colleagues, very happy to see this response. It's been something we've been waiting for a little bit and eager to hear. I think the suggested changes and options are really good ones to consider with pros and cons laid out in a very summary fashion. I do look forward, I think it does make sense to forward this to the committee, to a committee report. I think transportation makes the most sense, and there we can discuss various options. I do hope that we can get to potential changes in our ordinance quite soon because projects are going up right now and particularly if we are considering in the transit rich places that people there are may not have access to automatic residential permit. I think it's really incumbent on us to ensure that we do this as soon as possible so that they understand that. I definitely am in favor of that and remind ourselves it's only new development, perhaps of a certain size,

and I would think we would want to have both Appendix A and B laid over on each other so it's either MBTA or BUS. There's no reason not to have both of them. While there's a lot of overlap already, there are a couple areas that then would be captured as well. The Harvard example is one to replicate because you move in, you know when you move in that this is the parking situation. So I think that's very important for us to communicate. And, of course, allow, just like we heard, and I think the policy order had with Somerville, the exemptions would be you could request an exemption from it. So I'm excited about this. again let's forward it soon let's try to develop ways I do have a question which is is this ordinance and so this is something that the council would move forward through ordinance or is there some other maybe I should have read this more carefully but I think that's My understanding is after Transportation Committee, where would it go and where would it land?

Through you, Madam Mayor. Before I answer that question, I'll just jump back and say I think that the two maps that we included were very much just for kind of exemplary Thank you. A bus to the red line or the green line in terms of accessibility. So those are just kind of as a starting point. In terms of next steps, I mean, I think we have to fully work out, look at what the final policy decision is, and then from there we'll know exactly what we need to do, but I think most likely it will be a combination of changes to the traffic regulations, which is done, you know, at the staff level, and then probably also zoning changes is what I imagine it would be.

Councilor Nolan?

Yep, thanks. Again, let's move forward as soon as we can. Projects are being proposed right now. Let's make sure if we are going to make changes that we get the word out. I support having all new developments above a certain size being in the similar position to Harvard so that we can get that out with exemptions for folks who need their cars as Councilor Flaherty and others have always mentioned. I use my car some as well, but I'm lucky enough to have a driveway. Thank you. I yield.

We will go to Vice Mayor. Well, first we'll go to Councilor McGovern, who we haven't heard from, and then we'll go back to Vice Mayor Azeem.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. I guess thank you also for this report. I think this is trying to be creative about how to balance all of this, right? And this is a way to look at that. I would just say two things. In terms of the public transit piece, and again, we have to talk about this more, but I think, no pun intended, sort of driving people more to using buses Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

I think sometimes the city's definition of how far a parking space can and should be from your home is different than how the individual feels a parking space should be from their home. And I think having some conversation about that. I mean, it's, you know, what's the radius we're looking at? If you live within a block, the number of something, you know, is one thing. I think most people feel like they own the space that's in front of their house. Which they don't. But for, you know, depending on mobility issues, depending on all kinds of things, you know, to say to me, you know, it's not a big deal to park a block away from my house is one thing to say. to somebody who has mobility issues or older to say that is different, right? The impact is different depending on the needs. But I do think we get into this sort of, you know, the city is kind of thinking, well, you know, we look at a,

Thank you very much. How we're thinking about those traffic, those parking studies and things like that would be helpful. Thanks. I yield.

Council Member Govan yields. We'll go to Vice Mayor Zee.

Thank you. And I just wanted to leave off with reminding people that you can't always just use your off-street parking if your building has one. If you're You're still welcome to use it. And hopefully this is even a little encouragement to build some if you need it. But I think that we've had a great conversation. Happy to take up the offer of forwarding this to the Transportation Committee and Councilor Flaherty and I can make sure that there's a meeting. and I think this is high priority as well so would love to move as fast as is reasonable.

Great. Seeing no other hands, we'll go ahead and move city manager agenda item number 17. We're going to forward this item, this communication to the Transportation and Public Utilities Committee. and we can go ahead on that motion by Vice Mayor Azeem and do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes, Councilor Simmons. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

That item number 17 has been forwarded to the Transportation and Public Utilities Committee. We'll move on to City Manager Agenda item number 18. This is a communication transmitted from Ian Huang, city manager, relative to a home rule petition that would increase the personal property tax exemption threshold to $30,000 in assessed value for fiscal year 2027 and onward. This was pulled by me and I know Councilor Nolan would like to speak on it. I wanted to pull it because I had been in conversations with The assessing department about this home rule as I was back in 21, which seems a long time ago, but that was when the first home rule petition had been forwarded to exempt people Personal Property Accounts under $20,000. And so I think this is, as the response outlines, really important given the volatile economic conditions and kind of

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. has been working on kind of looking at all the efforts to support local commerce and obviously through so much of the small business initiatives that we have and workshops. Thank you very much. to increase the exemption to $30,000. And so if you'd like to say anything further, please do, and then I can open it up to Councillor Nolan, but really glad that we hopefully will have this be forwarded to the Legislature.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think you summed it up beautifully. We're ready to take questions.

Councilor Nolan.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui, and through you to the staff. This is an important petition. I pulled it or wanted to talk about it because I wondered how the determination for 30,000 was made and why isn't it 40,000 or 50,000 because... If I'm reading the memo correctly, it would provide about $140 annually relief to the 2,574 personal property accounts. and it seems if we increased it then it might be another $100 relief. So it seems, I was just curious as to how $30,000 was made and if there's any reason why it wouldn't and shouldn't be higher.

Sure, through you, Madam Mayor. We did do an analysis, same as we did the last time, to look at the larger exemption amounts and Thank you very much. We're looking at helping businesses such as dentist's office, optometrist's office, yoga and pilates studios, beauty salons, barber shops, small restaurants, small coffee shops. and that's really our focus is for it to be the small local business and we're trying to keep it focused on that and to not include so many of the chain and Thank you.

The city manager's memo lays out that based on last year's tax rate the proposed $30,000 exemption would increase the business savings to $422.10. The other thing I think I would say is that This is a bill the businesses do not get. They do not see. It's something we're not even sending. And so for any business to have a bill they don't have to pay and a bill they don't even have to see is a win.

Right, no, thank you, and I really appreciate it, but it would be, say, $422. The current exemption saves $280. So what if we did it to $50,000? Or what if we did it to $40,000 instead of... Wouldn't that be another $120 savings to all of those businesses? It would still cover all the small businesses around.

It would be a greater savings but we'd be including more chains and more corporate entities, which is not really the focus for our department. Councilor Nolan? Councilor Nolan?

Yep, I can further this conversation later. I don't understand why it wouldn't be helping those small businesses more because, again, another $140 is significant, but it would be nice if it could be even higher.

Just through you quickly, Madam Mayor, that we do want to make clear that for those businesses that are being affected, it's wiping out their entire bill so that if you only had $25,000 in personal property. You can't save anymore because your whole bill is gone.

Councilor Nolan?

Right, and if it was raised to $40,000, you'd be wiping out that bill for anybody who has $40,000 more. I find it hard to believe a chain would... I'm just trying to save more money, more than the Thank you. Mayor Siddiqui, I yield.

Thank you, Councilor Nolan. I'll just kind of, just in case folks are wondering what personal property is, personal property is any tangible asset Thank you for watching. McGovern.

Yeah, real quickly, but just something to throw out there. I mean, just sort of following up on Councilor Nolan, and, you know, there are chains, but a lot of chains are franchised and owned by local people, right? So, you know, I know that Thank you very much. Thank you very much. A lot of times there are local people that own that franchise and they're not millionaires. Thank you.

Any other questions from the body on this? Matter? Hearing none, we can go ahead and do a roll call on adopting the home rule, the order for the home rule petition and placing this communication on file.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Simmons, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councilor Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

The order has been adopted. The communication has been placed on file for number 18. We'll move on to 19. This is a communication transmitted from Yanhuang City Manager relative to a waiting report. 26-04 regarding updates the short-term rental ordinance. Zusy, you have the floor. Thank you so much, Mayor Siddiqui.

This is another report back that we've been looking forward to receiving, and I'm just so grateful for it. I thank you for doing the survey with 928 responses. and then responding to the survey feedback and drawing up the ordinance. So based on what people have said, You have condominiums will need to approve, both for owners and tenants will be required. There'll be a set limit of the number of days for short-term rentals, and I think that's 90 days, right, if I'm not mistaken? that you'll be doing greater enforcements towards unauthorized short-term rentals including penalties for booking agencies. and that ISD will be making the process of how to report complaints.

and how to check on an existing rental registry more available. So I think those are all really, really great things. I wanted to ask in one of your charts, There's no page number, but it says number nine. Has a short-term rental in your neighborhood caused you any hardships? And more than half the people say no, 523. and 223 say yes, 182 aren't sure. But I wonder if people understood that the issue with the short-term rentals in part, I mean, you don't want to have a wild party in the condo next to you, but isn't the real concern here is that housing that could be used by Cambridge residents is instead being used for short-term rentals so that maybe that's not a hardship that people were anticipating but I think that's

The major reason that we want to better manage our short-term rental. So that's my question. And my other question was, I thought we were going to require like Boston doesn't Boston requires that all short-term rentals are registered with the city is is that built into this ordinance as well so those are my two questions thank you

Through you, Madam Mayor. As far as the, they all have to get registered, so that's been in there. We are requiring them to put their registration number in their listing so it's easier for us to And as far as your first question about the hardships, it was to make it easier to quantify the answers, we just wanted to make it multiple choice instead of a write-in option. So, It is kind of up to the person on what they consider it's a hardship to do, whether it's in some instances it could be that it's taking away from housing stock, but in some cases it could be, you know, somebody had a party and it was a hardship because the noise levels or something. But we just kind of wanted to more broadly put it into simpler categories.

Thank you so much. Anyway, I thank you for moving forward with this and I thank the law department for writing ordinance language. I think the sooner we can pass this the better because I think it will Again, open up more housing units for our residents. So I think this is very, very important legislation. Thank you, and I yield.

We'll go ahead to Councilor Nolan after Councilor Zizzi yields.

Thank you. Yes. Great to have this before us. We've been waiting this for a while. I know Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler and I have been What do I say? Nudging, nagging, really eagerly awaiting and really appreciate the commissioners here. I know the law office has been involved. Thanks for the language. There was extensive outreach conducted because we really said we will not pass this and cannot until we have this. And it was great that there was 900 responses overrepresented by condo owners, which I think was appropriate because there were some changes for condo owners that Thank you very much. Question about it changing, and I'm glad that the current language before us is that that is something we're going to continue to require.

I want a quick note before making the motion to forward to Ordinance Committee and Planning Board since this is a zoning petition that hopefully the committee will adopt. We had worked with staff on these changes based on feedback from the last time we discussed this in ordinance. And just to remind us all, part of the reason we're here and we want enforcement to be higher is that literally one-third, we believe, at a minimum of all short-term rentals in Cambridge are not even registered and are So let's make sure that as we move this forward that we do everything we can to prevent that. I support many of the amendments. I do want to fully disclose that I do not support the 90 day limit on all short term rentals, which is in the proposal. The idea is we're going to afford this to committee and discuss that. I would, the only one of the three categories, assuming we now have the new category, that I do think there should be a 90-day limit on would be owner-occupied whole-unit rentals.

There's two other categories, which is owner-occupied just individual room rentals and owner-occupied adjacent rentals. I'm fine with there are no limits in terms of number of days for those, but that the one should have 90 day limits would be the owner occupied whole unit with the idea that if you're renting out your whole unit and you're renting out for more than 90 days, do you really live there? I know my colleagues Sobrinho-Wheeler and some others may feel differently. I just wanted to be clear that while that's in the proposed language when we come to ordinance, I certainly will be advocating for I look forward to discussing and deliberating this in the details of this language when we get to ordinance. Look forward to the planning board. Susie said, and I know Mayor Siddiqui has been involved in this too. We've had a number of meetings with some of the residents who are concerned that some of the Those illegally operated short-term rentals are really a problem in many neighborhoods.

The sooner we can get to a place where we can enforce it better and we can have better limits and better definitions, the better. So thank you very much for your work on this and really psyched to move it forward.

We'll go to, we have a few hands on deck. We'll go to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler and then we'll go to Councilor Flaherty. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Through you, just briefly, I'm really excited to have this come forward and to go to the Ordinance Committee, as Councilor Nolan mentioned. She and I have been doing a bunch of work around this, having a bunch of conversations with the law department and ISD, and thank you for for all your work, city staff on this. I think we'll have a lot more conversation about this in the ordinance committee. I think that the broad goal of this is to try to make sure that housing is used as a place for residents to live in year round. you know short-term visitors there are exceptions if you have an extra room in your house but if there's a whole other unit that should be housing and visitors for the most part should stay in hotels and that I think is a view that most residents and Cambridge share that housing should be a place to live in year-round, and that's the goal of this ordinance. So look forward to discussion about some of the policy details and committee, but thank you to city staff for your work on this, because it is an important part of the housing. Flaherty.

Any question about enforcement?

So when we're talking about The number of apartments that, you know, the third that are not registered, about how many are we talking about? What would be the number, do you think?

Three, Madam Mayor. So as of earlier in this month, we had 216 registered units. We had probably the opposite. It was about 500 unregistered units. So that's kind of the number that we're looking at. It's Probably one-third registered, two-third unregistered. Okay.

So, Madam Mayor, and I look at the language in the enforcement section that gives ISD the right to conduct investigations, subpoenas, receive evidence, et cetera. Does ISD presently have the staff to handle the enforcement? Um, obligations of this ordinance as drafted or do you need additional staff?

Uh, through you, Madam Mayor. I think we have enough staff for that. Um, Just a matter of further enforcement. We're working with the law department, so I think we have enough staff for that.

Faraday, and through you, Madam Mayor. So I suppose when this moves to ordinance, that one of the important parts of this, obviously, because You'll need some teeth to the ordinance to make sure that it works. It will be to receive information about what the actual number is and what's the workload and what do we need. Additional investigators, do we need additional support staff to be able to do this? And is this a revolving basis? What's the time requirements? So that's the stuff that I might be interested in going forward. So I just mentioned that now. So I yield. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Flaherty. Anyone else who would like to speak on this before we act on Councillor Nolan's motion? Hearing none, on a motion before we do that, we'll go to a deputy city manager, a deputy city solicitor.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, I just wanted to remind the Councillors that as this is a zoning petition, just to the extent that there is any consideration for amending it. We just wanted to flag that if the changes are too drastic and impact the character of the petition, there may be issues relative to a zoning petition. Just wanted to flag it given that, Councilor Nolan, you indicated that there may be some discussion relative to potential amendment of the 90 days. So I just wanted to flag it for the body right now before there's any consideration of sending it to Ordinance Committee, and the Planning Board.

Any thoughts on that, Councilor Nolan, before we go on?

If it only applied to one instead of three, wouldn't that be fine? Because that's less restrictive.

I think it could be given that the current Thank you. After deliberation, there's a decision that 90 days won't apply to any category. I think an argument could be made that you're going back to the default status, which is there's no restrictions. Some consideration should be made of the fact that if you are parsing it, where instead of the 90 days applying to all the categories, it's only applying to one, there could be a potential concern that you're

Thank you very much. You know, it may pass muster.

Hearing no one else on this item, on a motion by Councilor Nolan to send city manager agenda item number 19 Al-Zubi.

Absinthe, Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

The proposed amended language has been adopted as a zoning petition and sent to the Planning Board and Ordinance Committee for review and consideration. We can go ahead and make sure that the communication is also forwarded to the ordinance committee and do a roll call on that.

Sure. Councilor Al-Zubi, Absinthe, Vice Mayor Azeem.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

That communication has been forwarded as well. So we're done with city manager agenda item 19. We're on to 20. This is a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, city manager, relative to a waiting report. 26-33 regarding a housing needs study. Councillor Zusy, you have the floor.

Thank you so much. Once again, this is another report that I'm absolutely thrilled to have. Thank you for your quick delivery. I am also happy to hear that the inclusionary study will be out this summer and that will include many, many things, but it will also include interviews with real estate professionals and housing market research. and great to know the incentive zoning nexus study will be out in the fall and that that will include interviews with commercial developers. So that's really great to know. So my one question is, or I have two questions, and I'm only allowed two questions, but one is, in thinking about a It makes sense to use what we're going to be learning from the consultant studies to inform this study.

But we really wanted the housing needs study to include information about unmet housing needs across income levels, age groups, household types. and unit sizes. So I guess I want reassurance that that will come out as part of these two other consultant studies. And then my other question is, what will the timeframe for this housing needs study be? You are all doing an awful lot, but this is very important. and it should have, I feel like, preceded our upzoning. So how soon do you think If this is going to be produced in-house but building on all these different building blocks, how soon can you publish some sort of report? And I'm also thrilled that you're going to be creating a dashboard to provide information. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Siddiqui. Thank you for the question, Councilor Zusy. So as you noted, a lot of the information that you would expect to find in a housing needs assessment we will have in the Inclusionary Housing Study and or the Incentive Zoning Study. We'll have the first one later this summer and the Incentive Zoning Study will be done in the fall. Thank you very much. Once we have those reports on hand so while we can begin to do some of the work over the coming months, I think we won't be looking at completing the work until sometime after the incentive zoning study is done in the fall.

I'd say that a lot of the information is available through a lot of Public Data, so there's a fair amount that we can get to work on as we begin to see those studies complete. And then we'll look to round that out. And to your point about looking at housing needs and unmet needs, I think we'll see some of that in both the studies that are underway. Thank you very much. That team has been working on surveying people that work in Cambridge and trying to get a sense as to when Cambridge-based workers are coming to work in Cambridge, how many of them are looking to

So that will give us some sense as to what those needs are looking forward from the employment sector as well.

Excellent. So does that mean maybe it'll be out by the end of the year?

I think it's early for us to say with a lot of complete clarity, I'd say that certainly will be well underway by the end of the year. I would say it's probably more realistic to think about it in early 27. just giving us some time to get through the studies and certainly the staff that would be involved with this. Many of them are going to be involved in the same discussions. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Other thoughts on this?

Comments on this? Anyone on the Zoom? No. We'll go ahead and place on a motion by Councilor Zusy to place City Manager Agenda Item 20 on file. Do a roll call.

Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

City Manager Agenda Item 20 is placed on file. We'll go to City Manager Agenda Item 21, a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative of the Massachusetts Avenue Active Use Zoning Petition. and Planning Board Report. This is pulled by Councilor Zusy.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. Great to see this. We discussed this at an Ordinance Committee meeting last week. So I guess my question is, I support the planning board's recommendations for Mass Ave. So what are the next steps?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I believe the ordinance committee will be coming back with an updated proposal, taking into account the planning board's recommendation as well as the initial feedback. Director Roberts is also online and may have more detailed information as well.

And I can update, too, as chair of that meeting.

Why don't you go ahead, Councilor McGovern?

Yeah, so we left both Bass Ave and Cambridge Street in committee, and we gave CDD some questions. and ask them to come back. So we will be scheduling additional ordinance committee meetings to certainly during this, you know, yeah, we're not going to let it rest until we come back in session. We'll meet before that over the summer, but we don't have dates yet.

Councilor Zusy? That sounds great. I yield.

So the action that we can take on this is to accept the report and place the CMA on file and refer to the petition.

So we can go ahead and do a roll call on that. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

So that's been referred to the petition. Item 21. We'll go to item 22. This is a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, city manager relative of the Cambridge Street... Active Use Zoning Petition Planning Board Report. Councilor Zusy.

Thanks once more, Chair Siddiqui. Thank you very much. Thank you. I yield.

Seeing no further hands on this, we can go ahead and also accept this report, place the CMA on file, and refer to the petition for City Manager Agenda Item 22. And do a roll call, please.

Al-Zubi, absent, Vice Mayor Azeem, yes, yes, Councilor Flaherty, yes, Councilor McGovern, yes, Councilor Nolan, yes, Councilor Simmons, yes, yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, yes, yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

So that was referred to the petition for item 22. We are now done with the non-consent city manager agenda items. I am going to move suspension. for the purposes of reconsideration and all appropriations on the agenda, hoping the same will not prevail. So we'll have two votes, one on the suspension and the other on the reconsideration. Clerk?

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

Now moving to the reconsideration vote.

Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? No. No. Councilor Flaherty? No. No. Councilor McGovern? No. No. Councilor Nolan? No. No. Councilor Simmons? No, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

No.

No, Councilor Zusy. No. No, Mayor Siddiqui.

No.

No, and you have eight members recorded in the negative and one recorded as absent.

All right, reconsideration fails. We are now moving on to the policy orders. Pleasure of the City Council. Councilor Flaherty. Flaherty, polls one and four. Councilor Simmons? You're all set. Councilor Zusy? Two, please. Number two.

Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes, Councilor Nolan. Number five for a very quick comment. Number five. And anyone else? We'll go ahead. On a motion, we'll go ahead and adopt policy number three and do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Absent. Vice Mayor Azeem.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

Policy order number three is adopted and just a little time check it's 8.09 right now we'll get to the first policy order that the city manager is requested to work with relevant city departments to develop a plan for inclusive and robust engagement on any proposed Licensing changes and to ensure that the city's licensing framework remains as efficient, accessible, and streamlined as the law allows without imposing unnecessary barriers or burdens on licensees. This was filed by Councilor Nolan, myself, Councilor McGovern, and Councilor Zusy. This was pulled by Councilor Flaherty. I will go to the lead sponsor.

Madam Mayor, should we pull 1-4 and the late order all at the same time?

We can definitely do that.

Yeah, I'd like to do that. Move suspension to bring up policy order 1, 4, and the late order.

McGovern would like to move suspension and bring forward the late order along with policy orders one and four. You said number four? One and four. Yeah, one and four. I'd already pulled one, so we'll pull four in the late order and do a roll call on that suspension.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Absent, Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

So we have all three before us. We should go piece by piece. So we'll go back to the first one, which was filed by Councilor Nolan, myself, Councilor McGovern, Councilor Zusy. Flaherty. I will go to the lead sponsor. Councilor Nolan, you have the floor.

Thank you. Yes, there's been a lot of interest. We have heard from the community. We've had public comment. We've heard in a lot of emails about this question that The license commission at an earlier meeting this year had drafted some proposed rules. There has since been some communication from the license commission that they are not in place now, that they were I do think it surprised a lot of members of the community as well as the city council that these rules were put forward even in draft form without a transparent, open, comprehensive process. A lot of We heard from a lot of small business people saying they didn't know about it. I know the License Commission indicated they had tried to send it out. I think it was in a form that was very difficult for people to absorb because The red line rules were sent out without the rationale for the changes and without some understanding about

if there were some that were required by state law then obviously we would need to bring our regulations in line with that but if others were not it was not something I think that the community and I know many of us on the council feel like we should be putting any additional burden on We should continue to use ways to ensure that there's public safety, but we don't have to have any kind of new onerous regulation. This policy order, which, as you noted, Mayor Siddiqui, Councilors McGovern and Zusy are on, requests that any... The changes that are to be contemplated work very closely with a wide range of stakeholders, that the plan is inclusive, that it's robust engagement is laid out in the policy order, There had been some folks within the community that had reached out to the License Commission and asked for a meeting. Those meetings, at least at the time a few days ago when I checked, had not yet happened. I hope and encourage that they do happen very soon.

and also note that the idea is some of the rules or proposed rules seem to make it way more difficult for people and as Councilman McGovern will note when we get to the other policy order, we're at a time when we're opening it up and having a way for people to enjoy this. Again, we all want people to be safe and yet we also recognize that some of the rules are pretty arcane Some of them we don't control. It's due to the state. The state makes the license commission alcohol and beverage. It puts a lot of restrictions on us that we must follow. I would love for the state to open it up and do more to enable a much wider range of activities. I personally don't understand why we wouldn't allow that but that's why the policy order also mentions that we would want the License Commission any changes to be accessible, streamlined, to not be onerous, to really instead of making it more difficult to make it easier for people to to engage their business. So the idea of this was to have the council go on public record. As we know, it's not in the council.

It's not an ordinance. It is in the regulations. But I also know the city is committed to hearing input from the council as well as the wider community. So that is something that I hope we can pass this to send the message that we stand with the process of being more transparent, open, inclusive, and also less onerous.

We'll go to Councilor Flaherty and then Councilor McGovern.

Well, through you, Madam Mayor, I want to give everybody an opportunity to speak about this. And like all of us here in this chamber, we've all received multiple calls, multiple emails, multiple text messages from our friends. In the service industry, bar owners, restaurant owners, I myself was a bartender in law school. I've had almost every job known to mankind and I was TIP certified and everybody is TIP certified. Chapter 138 has penalties for serving intoxicated persons. The City of Cambridge regulations do as well. In my professional life, I've represented bars and restaurants in disciplinary hearings here in the city and at the ABCC. And the regulations that have been proposed are, I think, to use Councilor Nolan's word, are somewhat onerous.

So it's my intention, and I think it's probably a good idea, to convene a hearing, and I'd like everybody to have an opportunity Thank you very much. to run a business in Central Square or Harvard Square or Kendall Square or Porter Square with the difficulties that are imposed in this climate, this economic climate and how hard it is each and every day to run a restaurant and how this impacts the bottom line. When you think of it and we don't have to do this now but when you think of what a limitation of Thank you very much.

Cost per drink with the overall cost of doing business, well, it's called cost of goods. Thank you very much. to speak about this. I don't want to cut anyone off because it is an important issue. I'd like to refer this to the Economic Development Committee.

Thank you, Councillor Flaherty. I'll go to Councillor McGovern and then Councillor Simmons.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. So first, I have a couple questions for the manager, but sort of where I stand on this, I think this is nuts. How about that's onerous, you know. I mean, I don't even understand how you would make this work. So, Councilor Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Nolan, and I all go out after this meeting and I get to the table at 9 o'clock and I order a drink and then Councilor Simmons shows up at 9.15 and then Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler shows up at 9.18 and Councilor Nolan at 9.20. We're all on different half-hour schedules at that point. And we expect a server to remember that when they have, you know, five tables. I mean, it's foolish. And as Councilor Flaherty pointed out, there's already mechanisms in place. If a bar or restaurant over-serves someone, there are mechanisms in place for them to be held accountable for that.

So I don't even understand what it's trying to solve. It's frustrating. This is not about anybody in particular. It's not about the chair of the License Commission or anything else. Over the years, this has been a sticking point where the council often wants to move in a certain direction or do something, and then the license commission, because the council has no oversight... over the License Commission and even the manager has little oversight over the License Commission. We kind of feel sometimes that we are, you know, butting our heads against the wall. You know, that's frustrating because people look to us and we don't have control over it. I would say there's also talk around the entertainment permits. And you would need a permit for...

every different type of entertainment that you want to provide so if on Monday you have trivia you need a permit on Tuesday you have karaoke you need a different permit On Wednesday, you have acoustic music. You need a different permit. On Thursday, you have a DJ. I mean, why are we making it harder and more expensive for these businesses to operate? I just don't, I don't get it. Councilor Nolan, I think, raised a good point about, you know, it's one thing to say, oh, we're just throwing these ideas out there to kind of see, to start a conversation. But when you issue a red line document, When we get a redline document in ordinance, that's what is being recommended. We're deleting this, this, and this, and we're adding these other things. So when you put it out there in a redline document, anybody who...

Thank you very much. I think if we want to refer it to committee, I'm fine. I don't think that's a bad idea, but I do want to, at least for my part, I want the License Commission to hear strongly from me that I think this is a bad idea. Thank you.

We'll go to Councilor Simmons and then Councilor Zusy and then Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Between my two colleagues, yes, I think it's a little bizarre. and Councilor Flaherty, you said a lot of what I was going to say, but I think it's worth repeating. So first of all, I just want to acknowledge the sponsors for bringing this order forward. And I'd like to be asked to be added as a co-sponsor. I want to be very clear that I take alcohol safety very seriously. So that example that my colleague said about every 15 minutes, we're just drinking water. None of us wants to see over-serving, unsafe behavior, impaired driving, or harm to residents, patrons, workers, or business owners. But I also believe very strongly that when we are considering significant changes to our licensing framework,

We need to make sure that the people most directly affected are fully included in that conversation before decisions are made. But in practice, it raises a number of serious operational questions. Are bartenders and servers expected to track every patron with a stopwatch? Would businesses need new systems or additional staff just to comply? How would this be enforced fairly and what kind of liability would businesses face if there were good faith mistakes? Those are not minor details. They go directly to whether a policy is actually workable. Our restaurants, bars, small businesses are already operating under tremendous pressure. Food costs are up, labor costs are up, utilities, rent, insurance, and deliveries are all up. Many restaurants are working with very slim margins and beverage service is one of the few areas that helps them stay viable. Now that does not mean we should not regulate.

Of course we should, but we need to regulate thoughtfully with clear evidence, with a full understanding of the impact, and with robust input from licensees, workers, residents, business association, neighborhood groups, and public health experts. And this is why I support this order. I did a very brief call around to some of the folks that I know that own restaurants in Cambridge and one, and I'm not gonna just, for their own confidentiality, not say their name, feel like in some ways they're over-regulated. And so I support this order. It does not say that we can never... Thank you. I yield the floor.

Thank you, Councilor Simmons. We'll come back to Adju momentarily after we've heard from everyone. We'll go to Councilor Zusy and then Vice Mayor Azeem.

Thank you. I just wanted to say I heard from my son in New York about this policy order. I think it made it around the country. And I heard from other friends from other places that asked what we were thinking. And I was surprised by it because we had a very interesting health and environment meeting a couple months ago about tobacco use. And it was a meeting we thought was going to be 15 minutes, and it ended up being an hour and a half or hour 40 minutes. We really were thinking hard about should tobacco be sold close to high schools? So and we thought it was okay. We were pretty flexible. So I don't know where this came from. And so I do think it's a good idea for this to be

Not all of this, but there should be more community process before we're writing an ordinance asking for... Alcohol used to be monitored in our bars at a 30-minute interval. I do think it's a good idea, as Councilor Flaherty mentioned, for us to talk about this at Economic Development and again talk about sort of find out, take a temperature on our bars, on our restaurants and see how they're doing and how we can provide them with greater support and maybe this is the This is what will inspire that conversation. So that's what I recommend. Thank you. I yield.

Vice Mayor Azeem.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, just wanted to say two things. One is that I think sending it to economic development is great. I would also Just make sure that whenever we have that committee hearing to invite the License Commission. I feel like it would be wonderful for them to hear the specific concerns as well. and I feel like having them at the table would be really really helpful and then I would just say the second um you know obviously when we're writing this we don't see exactly all the policy orders that are being filed and they can sometimes be slightly different. But I just think the late policy order, the only meaningful difference I can tell is just like explicit disapproval of the changes. Like for me personally, it's not just that these were a surprise, but I just also think that it's in the wrong direction. Like I think we should not be making things harder for our businesses and also like, you know, It's been really nice being around the city for the last few weeks and I feel like we should make things easier, not harder.

And so if people are interested, you know, I would be happy to reconcile the two and just, you know, maybe we can just add it, whereas the city council is not supportive of the changes. to the first or something like that. I haven't asked my co-sponsor, so apologies, but I just saw after everything was filed that there was a lot of overlap between the two.

Any other comments before I say a few words? Go ahead, Councilor Nolan.

I would just say I would take that as a friendly amendment if Vice Mayor Azeem wanted to take the first ordered in the late policy order is A little stronger and clearer about that the Cambridge City Council goes on record disapproving, so it might be we could add that to the other one if that made sense to the co-makers as a friendly amendment and then we could move forward.

So we'll get to that. I think I'll just say briefly that intent versus impact. I think the intent, as I had in many conversations, was that this These hadn't been reviewed or updated in Cambridge since 2016, and there's been a lot of changes to provisions in state law that affect some of the current rules, and there's been changes to the industry, the public need, and the board. I think, yes, they did come as a surprise to most of us, all of us. And so I do think there was a lot of some missing communication, particularly also at the same time the city is saying, you know, for the World Cup, Thank you for joining us.

We can be supportive of such as the stocking test strips for tampered drinks. There's other things in there that I think you know we need to I think consider and talk about and so I think having that further committee meeting and kind of going through them and what the council and particularly what our licensees are saying and hear from them directly. I want to appreciate Danielle who came from Zussman's Wine Bar in North Cambridge with a lot of her comments. She also had some suggestions. to the amendments, whether that was to the patio or to BYOB. Other things that we should maybe consider to be I think for me, my biggest question is,

Thank you for joining us. and I think we should have a conversation about how we ensure that especially when a body like this is charged with making decisions that they're informed by local needs and I hope this policy order and the Thank you so much for joining us. What does it look like to potentially add seats? to these commissions, right? Right now, it's the chair, it's the police commissioner, and it's the fire chief. I think, where's CDD, right?

I would understand that that would be a process to go through city manager to add folks to the seat, but that's maybe something we should have a conversation about, maybe in the committee hearing, because it's just three people who are on the license commission. who, you know, are proposing, you know, who are tasked with this. And I think the disconnect is whereas our, and again, these will go through, there's collaboration at some point with CDD. but I think there was this disconnect that people feel the council feels and so how do we what do we do about that so city manager if you have some quick thoughts on that around potentially adding seats Let me know.

Sure, I can. I think through you, Mayor Siddiqui, Deputy City Manager Watkins and I have actually had some conversations about this, so maybe I'll have her provide some of the context around I think especially some of the challenges for our three member commissions.

Yeah and I can just give a little bit of and I won't take too long but just in terms of you know the The rules that were submitted out publicly, you know, the intent, and again, this goes back to whoever talked about the intent versus the impact, and that is absolutely the case here. Because the intent was to get out very initial thinking to the licensees and get feedback even before they were talked out at the board and so that was the intent. I know that was not the impact because people got A very formal red line looking document that I don't think came with enough context in the documentations about where we are in the process that this was very early and it was really to get very initial feedback and already the License Commission has posted on the website sort of an annotated version that includes some of that initial feedback and I would say the two...

and so they've included that in the document It's not that, look, these are the rules and this is what we're looking to implement. It was really, look, there are concerns about overconsumption. Is this a workable option? And they've heard very clearly from restaurants and bars that those are not workable options. And so we've really have tried to make sure it's very clear to people where we are in this process. And also that we're also looking for feedback on the existing rules and regulations. So to some of the points about how do we make, are there things in here that are onerous that don't have the impact and the value that we're looking for. So I think that is really important. And I think there has been some miscommunication and sort of lack of communication. And so that is something that we are working on in terms of making sure that it is a much more of a collaborative process and that people know that. I'd say that was always the intent. That was definitely not how the message was received.

And so that is something that we're definitely working on. We have talked about there's a couple of these three-member boards that are very challenging in terms of operations because it means that you can't have a conversation with two of the members at the same time because you have an open meeting violation. And so it makes some of these conversations difficult. Very challenging. And so just from an operational perspective, we've talked about over the years, like would it be helpful to have more members? And then also in terms of having different perspectives. I think that is something that is worth exploring it is set up in state law and so it is not something that we can do like at the city level but it would be helpful to sort of think through what that process would be you know what would it look like to add two more members so that You maintain an odd number but have five members instead of three members because the three members are set by state law.

Thank you for that. I'll go back to, and then just to respond really quickly, I think now and between the summer meeting, I think it would be great to talk about what that could look like. It's not just this License Commission. I don't want to pick on them, but it's a number of them. But I do think something like this would have been really helpful here. So go ahead, Councilor.

So thank you, Madam Mayor, for you. I want to thank the Deputy Manager for mentioning that because I did go back exactly on this point, looked at the statue and see... who was the appointing authority and what the membership is made of and what the terms are. And to Vice Mayor Azeem's point, that's the whole point of having this. Thank you very much. All of these proposals, good, bad, and indifferent. So I think it's very, very important, especially in this time, to have a very collaborative... Thank you very much.

And I move to send this to committee.

First, you know that Councilor Simmons had wanted to be added to the first policy order, correct, Councilor Simmons? Yes.

Okay, so...

Yeah, I think we can do both of them at the same time to move the first policy order to the economic and development and university relations. and add Councilor Simmons and we can do a roll call on that. Point of order? Yes, Vice Mayor?

Would we be able to take up Councilor Nolan's amendment to combine the two POs?

Nolan, I didn't hear you say that. Do you want to combine the...

I think through you, if it's to Vice Mayor Azeem and his co-makers, that... The idea would be to take the first ordered from the late policy order and add it as an order to the policy order. I believe that effectively combines them because the rest of it is very similar. Is that through you, Mayor Siddiqui, what Vice Mayor Azeem believes is inappropriate?

Vice Mayor?

Yes.

No, this is, so we have a late policy order as well. Yes, we'll be making it to the policy order number one, exactly. We'll get to the middle policy order momentarily, but let's just dispose of these. So, clerk, do you have that?

So for clarification purposes, we would be taking paragraph number six, the first audit in the late policy order sponsored by The Vice Mayor, Councilor Sobrinho, and Councilor McGovern. And we would add that to the policy order number one. Correct?

Yes.

Yes. Yes, I have it.

And then we're also adding Councilor Simmons to the first policy order, and we're, I think, referring both to the Economic Development and University Relations Committee. Just the one? Yes, one and four. One in the late policy order.

I think the one kind of replaces the late policy order. Yes, yes. One further discussion on this, and I don't know if this requires an amendment, but Could we just have assurance that I do fully support this being forwarded, the amended policy order being forwarded? Would it be, make sense, or can we just have assurance that the License Commission and a representative from CDD Economic Development will be at that meeting? Because I think, okay.

Yes, Deputy City Manager is confirming that that will happen. Deputy Clerk, you can call the roll call. Yes.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Absinthe, Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded is absent. Now we're going to do a referral.

Yes, referral as amended.

Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded is absent.

Okay, so we've disposed of those items. We do have... That's the policy number two that's left. So that the city manager is required to confer with the relevant departments to explore the ability of the city to prohibit, restrict, or otherwise regulate the use of Algorithmic price fixing in its rental housing markets, including the potential drafting of ordinance language that would regulate algorithmic price fixing and report back to the city council in a timely manner. This was followed by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, myself, Councilor Al-Zubi, Councilor McGovern, and pulled by Councilor Zusy. So I'll go to the main motion maker, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler first.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Happy to provide some context on this briefly and thank you to the sponsors for being part of this. As I think most folks know, price fixing as a practice has been illegal for a long time due to antitrust laws that go back decades. But more recently, technology has become a way for companies to try to get around antitrust laws. Algorand price-mixing is one way that corporate rental companies are doing that. So where it would normally be illegal for two companies you know CEOs of two companies to get together and say hey we're both gonna charge a really high price for this and nobody will have a choice because we're both you know fixing it together that would be illegal corporate management companies for rental units are getting around that by using algorithmic pricing software to say, to turn over to a third party their rental data and say, hey, we're not talking to each other. We're just talking to this third company and sharing with them all of our data. And then that company is telling us both how to price our units and coincidentally pricing them quite high.

This is the way that rental management companies around the country have been using to try to do price fixing. A number of other cities have already established efforts to regulate and ban algorithmic price fixing, including Providence, Rhode Island, Jersey City, Minneapolis, Berkeley, California. This was actually brought to our attention locally from a state legislator who's been working on this and we met with the law department in Cambridge about this Last week, they're really excited to look into this, and so we're filing this policy order as a first step, which they said would be helpful. I'm happy to answer any other questions on it. I yield back.

We'll go to Councilor Zusy.

Thank you so much for explaining it more, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Mike, it sounds like a good idea, but my question is, how would you monitor and enforce this through you, Madam Mayor?

We talked with a legislator on that. The enforcement would be the key part. Providence, Rhode Island is actually in a lawsuit about this right now. They have found two companies that are using it. The key would be figuring out if two companies are pricing their units on the way. There are only a couple companies that do algorithmic price technology and so there are ways to see if certain landlords are both using the technology and and the state legislator we've been talking to and sort of walked through, which, you know, companies in Cambridge are using it and finding access that way. But it is a piece that we would want to be really intentional about as we design the ordinance so that it's a way it's functional. And I think a

Both success and also a challenge of that enforcement actually came up earlier tonight in the meeting about the short-term rental ordinance and regulating Airbnbs. It is both something we have done, we have a short-term rental ordinance, and there's a lot of Airbnbs that are getting around the short-term rental ordinance right now. It's not that we shouldn't do it. It's that enforcement is a challenge and that we have to keep getting better at it. But passing an ordinance to try to regulate it is a first step. We have to try to make sure the enforcement is good. Is it going to be 100% perfect? Maybe not. The short-term rental ordinance right now is not 100% perfect, but I think everybody agrees We should do a short-term rental ordinance and try to make sure the enforcement is as good as possible. And so this is sort of a first step in that direction.

Councilor Susi. One other question. Did you say, so do we know this is being done in Cambridge or we suspect it's being done in Cambridge? Sobrinho-Wheeler?

I think both. We know it's being used in Cambridge. I don't think we know exactly how many units are using the technology, but we know there are companies using this technology in Cambridge.

Thank you so much. I yield.

We will go ahead to Vice Mayor Azeem.

Thank you. I support the policy order. Apologies, I just had a point of order question in that before we previously brought policy order four before us, I think that was Councilor McGovern's motion. And then we never discussed it. I just wanted to make sure we properly disposed of it.

It's my understanding that we did. That policy order number four. We did one and four together.

One was amended.

Yeah. OK. Cool. All right. Thank you.

We'll go back to what were you saying, Vice Mayor, on this policy order? Did you have anything on that?

I support this policy order. I'm excited for it to be introduced. Thank you.

Anyone else on this particular policy order before us? Yes, Councilor Flaherty.

Just to you, Madam Mayor, it's sort of a seatbelt and suspended. because it's already an existing violation of federal law. So if there is evidence that it's happening in Cambridge, it just should simply be reported. And then there are mechanisms available to investigate it. Thank you very much. to satisfy the goal of this ordinance. So I would just suggest, you know, I don't disagree with it, but There's a way to deal with it already existing at law.

Can I respond to that briefly?

Flaherty, Yields. We'll go to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thank you, Councilor Flaherty. That's a great point. It actually came up in the discussion with the state legislator's office. If federal law was being enforced properly, this could already be banned nationwide. The reason that it hasn't is because antitrust law has been really gutted at the federal level by President Trump and the administration. There have been cases about this software federally already. Hasn't gone anywhere. We have not had robust antitrust enforcement. It's the reason cities across the country are working on ordinances on this. It's the reason the Massachusetts state legislature has a bill around algorithmic price fixing is because federal law is not being enforced. And so cities and states are having to take it into their own hands as we're seeing with Nolan.

Thank you. I support getting at this. And again, if it turns out that the state laws move forward or it's already being done through state-level legislation in response to the fact that the antitrust at the federal level, you know, has basically been shredded, then... I think our city would then come back to us and say this has been handled. So I look forward to that report. My only question is at some point through you to the city is, We've been piling a lot of various ordinance changes on the staff, so I'm not sure how quickly this can come, but I expect and hope that this is... Not going to be an elongated or very lengthy process because of the state-level work that's already been done on it. So it's really important we do this so that we prevent it. Since it's already illegal, let's make sure we can enforce it.

Seeing no one else on this policy order, we will go ahead on a motion by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. You're good to adopt. Do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

Policy number two is adopted. We're going to go to policy number five, that the city council support an act to protect Massachusetts public health from PFAS. Councilor Nolan filed this along with Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler and Vice Mayor Azeem. Councilor Nolan, you have the floor.

Yes, I just pulled this very quickly to say this is a really important issue. We've heard more and more about the health impacts of PFAS and the range of ways in which we need to address it. Thank you very much. Get Treated by Others. So we will be having that at some point, but this is a really important state-level bill that is hopefully moving forward and hopefully the whole council can support it.

Any comments on this policy order? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and adopt the motion by Councilor Nolan to adopt policy number five to a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Nolan, Councilor Simmons, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councilor Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

So we're done with the policy orders, and just as a recap, the policy order numbers number one and four were referred to the Economic Development and University Relations Committee.

Right. Thank you very much, Madam. I just wanted to clarify that one and four are being sent.

Yes, and you will hold a hearing and invite everyone. I hope that you come. Yes, I'll be there. Alright, so we're done with that. Now we move on to the calendar. We have taken care of item number two in the calendar. We still have item number one, and then we have a few tabled items. So we'll go to the charter right number one, that the City Manager has requested to confer with the Police Department, the Community Safety Department, the Emergency Communication Department, the Department of Human Service, programs, the Department of Public Works, the Law Department, and any other relevant city departments and community partners to develop a neighborhood safety additions plan for the areas of the city previously served by ShotSpotter Technology. The charter was exercised by Councilor Simmons. Councilor Simmons. Sorry, we can't hear you.

We can't hear you because there's folks on Zoom who won't be able to hear you That's your job

I had an opportunity through the Charter Right to review and talk to a few people about the proposed changes offered by my

Collins, Colleague, Councilor- Vice Mayor, sorry to interrupt Councilor Simmons. We'll pause your time. Can you hear Councilor Simmons through the mic? I can, thank you. Continue.

Thank you. I reviewed what was offered by Councilors Sobrinho-Wheeler and Zubi, and I'm fine with that. And in the spirit of collaboration, I'm prepared to move it forward as amended.

So the clerk is asking what the amendments are?

They're in the document. And when the trial to write was exercised, it was with those amendments. But I mean, I have to be, it's in my notes, but I don't have to give to you.

So what's before us in the packet is the amended policy order from the last meeting.

That's what I'm talking about. That's what I moved my charter right on.

Yes, so Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, other co-sponsors.

So Madam Chair, if I may, in the policy order, there was an amendment to the third policy order. There was a...

The third, whereas.

Whereas, thank you. And then ordered, the first ordered. And then in addition, the last ordered. One of those belonged to Councilor... McGovern, I can't tell you which.

Okay, so let's just make sure. It was a few weeks ago, so... I don't think, Naomi, you have what was previously adopted. And, Councillor, I think Sobrinho-Wheeler is just checking. The amendments were adopted, but we're just double-checking that they're in there. Okay, because I have it. I have to read it to you. I think we got them adopted, and then you exercised your charter right to have further discussion.

That's how I would call it.

Yeah, so I think if we're in this, as Councilor Simmons said, there were no further amendments tonight. We can go ahead and adopt the policy order as amended. Vice Mayor, did you want to say anything?

No.

Okay. Does anyone else want to say anything? We can go ahead and adopt this policy order as amended.

Yes.

And do a roll call, please.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty. Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

That policy order is adopted as amended. We'll go to the tabled items. There's three tabled items. We need a motion. to take all items out. Moved. On a motion by Councilor Nolan to take items 3, 4, and 5 off the table. We'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

The items are off the table. The first item, number three, is a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to proposed changes. City's Zero Waste Master Plan. This was tabled in Council June 1st, 2026. We'll go ahead also and take it out of order. Do we need a roll call to take it out of order? We have number five. I think we can just do it at this. We can just do five and three together right now. The five is the actual zero waste master plan ordinance changes. So that charter was exercised by Councilor Simmons at the... June 1st meeting and it was tabled in the council meeting June 8th. So we'll just have, we're doing those together and then we'll dispose of number four. Councilor Nolan, you have the floor.

Thank you. I do want to thank the council for tabling this so I would have a chance to talk about it. As I noted a little bit earlier, I was on perhaps a poorly timed but an incredible vacation in the middle of a A place where I literally had no internet access. The first council meeting I missed in six years and I was so bummed because the Zero Waste Master Plan is the culmination of two years of work by the city, by the community, and by the council. So I know we discussed this a little bit before, but I'm not sure how much we're going over this right now.

Yeah, Councilor Nolan, would you like to suspend the rules to bring forward your communication and reports from other city officers? Yes, I would.

Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Simmons? Absent. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

And that communication from other city officers number two is brought forward as the summary of public engagement and ordinance changes under discussion for the zero waste master plan update from Councilor Nolan. Councilor Nolan?

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. I know the staff is here, again, who have been working on this for a long time. These are every single one of the ordinance changes being presented. are exactly what in the short-term plan for the Zero Waste Master Plan 2.0 that was presented to the Council and voted unanimously one year ago in June of 2025, and then the staff took that plan and has changed it into ordinance language where appropriate. to remind all of us we have had some concerns raised by the community. Many of them have been addressed. I believe that the staff has been working quite hard to ensure that the people have raised questions and who can be assured of city support because while these are Most of these changes are completely sensible changes based on, again, work that has been done. And to remind people in the communication, thank you Mayor Siddiqui for reminding me to move it forward. We had the staff and I had reached out to understand particularly the small businesses who would be impacted by this and the testimonials

In this should really lead us all to want to adopt this as soon as possible. by Sam Hilbert from Forge Cambridge about how important it was, Adam Bing from the Dumpling House, Carl Fantasia from New Deal Fish Market, Valerie Shulock from Basil Tree Catering. Quite a lengthy statement from Kerry Kolzer of Grendel's Den Restaurant and Sea Hag talking about how it is that the changes that are already in place in their restaurants are actually helping them, helping with rodent control, helping control costs, helping them with their operations. Again, these changes, many of them are already in place in some parts of the city, but we are codifying them in, I think, really important ways. And there's also, in the Health and Environment Committee meetings that led to the discussion of these changes, For instance, skip the stuff. The last thing you want to do when you bring home your takeout from a restaurant is to say, oh my gosh, I have...

The 25th packet of the fork that has been dumped into this that I didn't even want and it just helps businesses save money and also Our residents send the message that we're going to try to do at least that little bit that we can for reducing plastic use. I will state for the record, I would have gone way further in this if I had a magic wand and could say, Yes, let's make these changes. So these changes to me are quite minimal compared to what I personally would have approved. I would go much further along, much faster along, but I understand that we are moving in a way that is and also to remind people if we pass these ordinances to a second reading tonight, which I very much hope we do, They could not be ordained until the summer meeting, so there'll be five weeks of time to absorb it. And they won't even take effect until six months after they have been ordained.

and the staff has been very clear about saying we are going to spend a lot of time over the next while ensuring that all businesses and residences who have questions about this, who want support, particularly for the businesses. Really what we're saying is you've got to have a solid waste plan for your building. We want that for our large buildings. But it's not onerous. It's not going to be duplicative. If you're already reporting on one Thank you for joining us. Many people understand the benefit to the city of this, and I very much hope that some of the concerns have been raised. Full complement of staff this year, I really salute Commissioner Nardone and Deputy Commissioner for working on this, and of course, DCM Watkins, who's always been there from day one. And again, I would have gone much further, but I think this is really important for us to move forward. We've gotten lots and lots of emails from the community members who've worked on this urging us to pass this.

So I will stop there and hope that my colleagues have been able to read the communications.

Pleasure of the City Council. Comments on zero waste plan? Anyone? Councilor Flaherty.

And through you, Madam Mayor, I'm not 100% sure that all of the members of the public Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. They're concerned about what their responsibility is and how they can enforce individuals who live Thank you very much. to conform their conduct to the ordinance. Are they responsible for those private individuals failing to do what's required of them? So I think there is maybe...

I don't know, an educational component that there's a disconnect there or maybe there's an enforcement issue or some gray area, maybe some additional time. I'm not certain that it's a... It's an ordinance that everybody understands and is willing to accept the responsibility of it initially. So whatever your thoughts are, I'm happy to listen to them. Thank you.

One of the big things here is getting zero waste master plans for our larger buildings. and that will allow us to actually talk with some of these large property owners which we haven't been able to in the past. When you get down to like the 13 family buildings, We actually have good relationships with that. And I know a lot of the questions that we've gotten are the same ones that you've gotten. It's like, this enforcement is going to kill us. I think as Councilor Nolan mentioned... Once this is adopted, it wouldn't take effect for another six months. And then we don't anticipate doing any enforcement for at least another six months. So that's a year's worth of really educating whoever needs to be educated on this. and then even after that year we have some really good inspectors at this point that are building relationships particularly with property owners that we can get in touch with and they're all about educating people.

It doesn't help us at all to just find people. We're trying to do the right thing environmentally. We're trying to do the right thing when it comes financially to making sure that solid waste is going in the right containers and that we can... Thank you for joining us. Is it ever going to get to enforcement? Yeah. If we have a large property that continues to just push back against us after everything that we give them and help them. to make this better for them, then it's gonna end up in enforcement. But I don't see that happening for a really long time after this gets hopefully ordained.

So, Madam Mayor, for you, I'm so happy to hear you say that, Commissioner. I continue to be impressed by you, and I just have... I hope that everybody hears you say that and that message is received in the way that it's meant to be received with dignity and grace and in a spirit of cooperation. So thank you for that.

Zusy. I just want to say that I fully support this. And again, it is about I feel like you're giving people time to adapt to it. It is you will be providing education and ultimately it'll save us money. It'll help us solve our rodent issue. It'll help us reduce our waste and it'll help us achieve our 2050 goals. So great work.

Thank you. I yield. Other comments on this? I'll just say I agree with everything that's been said and especially I think the education piece and then the timing piece and you know we have six months and then after that If there's hardships, you'll consider it. So I think those are important points. And so what Councilor Nolan, the communication was really helpful as a good reminder. And so... Nolan, I'll let you do the honors. Councilor Nolan?

Yes, I think the wording would be to move the ordinance proposed by the city manager to a second reading.

Exactly. Okay. So on that motion.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Yes, and you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

We move these changes to the second reading. Yes, Councilor Nolan.

And then do we just accept the communication? And is there any other votes to take?

We'll go ahead and... You know, adopt number five.

Yeah, we'll... Yeah, we adopted them and moved to a second reading. That was my understanding of the motion.

And now it would be to place the matter on file. Place all the matters on file.

Place number three on file.

Al-Zubi absent. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Zuzi, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

The table to item number four. This was a communication from Yi-An Huang, city manager, relative to awaiting report item number 26-25 regarding a report on how the decision to install artificial turf was made. If folks have questions on it they can ask, otherwise we can go ahead and place that communication on file. The city did communicate on this via an email to the city council and it was also published. widely around the decision, and as the students who came today, a card was made around the city's decision on this, to not install artificial turf.

I think there's some questions maybe I think just to people have asked okay that allocation that I'll be used for I think you said Dennehy Park?

Through you, Mayor. Yes, so we had the funding that was going to be used for some of the improvements at Ahern, particularly around the lighting. So the intent had been to do the turf field and athletic lighting, which would allow... More use of that field since it's not going to be turf field. We would use that funding and support additional lighting at Danahy and that would allow additional usage of some of the existing Turf Fields at Danahy without sort of any expansion of turf or any other significant construction, but with lighting could do additional use of those turf fields at Danahy.

Do folks have any comments?

And through you, Mayor, just I think would say appreciate everybody that came out. And I think this is a really robust conversation. And so I think we've had a lot of discussion in the aftermath of the decision, but just wanted to be grateful for the community that we have and all the participation that we saw over the last weeks.

We can go ahead and, hearing from no one else, place this communication on this report on file and do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Absent. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

Madam Chair?

Yes, Councilor Simmons?

Point of personal privilege.

Please go ahead.

I'd like to be recorded in the affirmative on the previous votes taken. I couldn't get online fast enough.

So, Councilor Simmons will be recorded as a yes on the prior votes. And do we need a roll call on that? Yes. And so we'll go ahead and do a roll call. Thank you.

Al-Zubi, Absinthe, Vice Mayor Azeem, Councilor Flaherty, Councilor McGovern, Councilor Nolan, Councilor Simmons, Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded is absent.

Thank you. So Councilor Simmons has been accorded. So all those items are moved off the table. And just to repeat the We had a communication that had their proposed changes to the zero waste master plan and that communication was placed on file. There was also a policy order with the actual Ordinance Changes, that was adopted and moved to the second reading. The order in which this appeared on our calendar, it was three, four, five, we took them out of order, but It's all been taken care of. So we'll move on. We have one application and petition, Pleasure of the City Council, on a motion by Councilor Nolan to adopt that application. We'll do a roll call.

Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative.

Application number one was adopted. We move on to the communications. There were about 176... Communications.

Move to place on file.

On a motion by Councilor Simmons to place all the communications on file, we'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

All of those communications have been placed on file. One resolution, I'll just briefly speak to it, and then I'll go to Councilor Nolan. This is for Suzanne Rasmussen, Deputy Climate Chief Officer in the Nolan will be reading this on behalf of everyone and just want to thank Suzanne for her many, many years of service to the city. She's done amazing work. She's spearheaded a lot of initiatives, so many to name. She's just recently got the Brian Murphy Leadership in the Workplace and Public Service Award. Last year and she's just done a lot of great work. So I want to just thank her and wish her an amazing retirement. It's amazing. Councilor Nolan.

Yes, I will speak more when I go to it, but amazing work, wonderful leader, and also understated. Quite sure that even when I was nagging or nudging her about things, sometimes she wouldn't necessarily say, oh, yes, she would come back with the data and the information to ensure that it was a thoughtful decision. I just wanted to be added as a co-sponsor for the resolution.

Definitely. Councilor Zusy.

Shouldn't we all be co-sponsors?

We'll be all unanimous upon adoption.

Yes, let's do that.

Yeah, Councilor McGovern.

Thank you. Yes, I'm hoping to be able to make... The event as well, but during my term as mayor, I got invited over to Belgium to the German Marshall Fund to speak about. They invited two mayors from around the world. Thank you. Suzanne came with me, and thank God. She drilled me. So when I got up to speak in front of all these folks, I didn't make a fool out of myself. I mean, I still may have, but it wasn't. She at least reduced that chance. We'll always have Belgium, Suzanne. Thank you.

That's special. Well, we'll go ahead and adopt this resolution, making it unanimous upon adoption. I'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty. Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Councilor Simmons.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

That resolution is adopted. We'll go on. There's no committee reports. We're on to communications and reports from other city officers. We'll dispose of two. I'm just going to briefly pull four. I'll pull five. and we'll go ahead and do a roll call on committee reports, communication reports from other city officers one and three. And do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes, Councilor McGovern. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Simmons. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded in the negative. It is absent. I'm sorry.

Those communications reports from other city officers are placed on file. We'll go to number four, which is a communication from me transmitting a memorandum regarding the Family Policy Council. This is a body that I chair, and they meet six times a year, and it includes the Youth Council. We work really closely with Youth Council, so I wanted to, and this also includes Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler as a member, so thank you. and includes just some updates on what the council has been working on and plans to work on. And so I just wanted to share that. Good year with the Youth Council and the Council as a whole, which is represented by various agencies, various organizations, the schools, our housing authorities. So it's a big group that comes together.

And I know some of you all have come. The biggest thing that happened this year was that there's a Cambridge Caring Adult 101 guide. which is being shared with departments, schools, and community partners. They can certainly send it to the city council. And it's really about how we ensure that young people have a consistent in carrying adult outside of their family who they can build trust with and so forth. So please do check that guide out if you haven't seen it and I will make sure you all get a copy. We can go ahead and do a roll call on placing this communication on file.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Zien?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor McGovern? Nolan, Councilor Simmons, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councilor Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

That's matter number four is placed on file. We're going on to pause the communication and report some other city officers. Number five from Councilor Flaherty relative to the council order. P.O. 2026-115, the discontinuation of shot spotter technology. Councilor Flaherty.

Through you, Madam Mayor, and this is not a substantive argument in support of Schatzbarter. We've heard the substantive arguments for and against Schatzbarter, and everybody knows where I am. I think it's a good law enforcement tool. But this is procedurally. This council is obligated to follow ordinances. And the ordinance in this case was not followed. That's why I've drafted this communication. That's why I want to be on record stating that in my view, this vote was invalid. The ordinance is clear, it's specific, it's unambiguous, and it has requirements. and the requirements are that there must be by the council a review of the annual surveillance report. There must be a

A determination made whether the benefits outweigh the costs of any surveillance technology, whether there are reasonable safeguards which exist, to alleviate any civil rights concerns and then there'd be three required options. recommending modifications, requesting a report, or voting to continue the use of the surveillance technology. just circumvented the ordinance. And Schatzpater was removed based upon a hypothetical theory that because of the federal agency's potential ability to access limited acoustic information, that that information could be used to endanger undocumented immigrants.

It's hypothetical. That's not what the ordinance requires. It's a law enforcement tool that serves a real basis, has a real function which is not hypothetical and we heard from Commissioner Wells. There were 11 instances of gunfire in Cambridge where 911 wasn't called. Just from the grace of God, nobody was injured and bleeding out, and the police were not summoned by an alert from shot spotter. So for all those reasons, and because the ordinance was not followed, I'm submitting this communication and it's a very simple fact of statutory construction. Plain and ordinary meaning of the language

Thank you very much. That's not going to be my goal in this. I'm certainly not going to sue myself as a member of the city council. So I'll just go on record saying that I believe this is invalid. So I yield. Thank you very much.

Flaherty yields. We'll go to Councilor Nolan and then Councilor McGovern.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui, and through you, I respect my colleagues' communication and am always in favor of folks laying out and discussing how it is that they see things. We'll note that I see it differently. I see the City Council having followed the requirements of the ordinance by making a specific determination. We had several meetings about it, so in my view, in... and the use of this very specific technology which had concerns raised by a number of people, notably the ACLU and some others. I said at the time I'm open to technology which we discussed earlier if there was one that did not raise those concerns that had benefits without the I'd certainly be open to it, but in my view, we followed the ordinance by having a deliberative process to discuss how it is that there are benefits or

and other concerns that were outweighed and so that is how I voted. I understand that is interpreted differently perhaps by my colleague but that is certainly how I voted in line with

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. and I'm not an attorney, but that's why we have a city solicitor and we asked the city solicitor if the vote was legal and the city solicitor said yes. So I appreciate my colleagues. Thank you very much. that the council did not ask for a legal opinion before taking this vote. We did, and our solicitor said the vote was legal. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Govern. Anyone else before we go ahead and place this on file? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and do a roll call and place communication from other city officers number five on file.

Vice Mayor Azeem.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty. Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Councilor Simmons. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy.

Yes.

Yes, Mayor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

That item was placed on file. We now go on to resolutions. We have two late resolutions. We need to suspend the rules. We'll do a roll call on suspending the rules to allow those two resolutions to come forward.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty. Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy.

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

So those two late resolutions, this is a congratulations to the Sierra Les Boys baseball team for a historic season, and this is celebrating the Cambridge-Arlington 7th, 8th grade boys Massachusetts youth lacrosse division two select championships. So one was filed, the first one was Flaherty, the second was Councilor Zusy. Would either of you like to speak to this? We'll go to the first one, which was Councilor Flaherty's, which was on the baseball team. Councilor Flaherty, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. First of all, I'd like to include Councilor Simmons as a co-sponsor on this, but we can do that at the end, so I'd like to speak about it. This was the best of the city of Cambridge. I congratulate this team not because of their play, which was exceptional, but because of their competitive nature, their camaraderie, their spirit and what they brought to the city of Cambridge. This was remarkable. This was the best season in the history of Cambridge baseball, which is quite a statement to make. And these boys who played on this team, They were 17-2 in the regular season, and I think 23-2 overall were remarkable.

I hope that everybody get a chance to see them play, but they, in the tournament, they beat Lincoln-Sudbury, and then they played Natick at St. Petersfield. It was a beautiful night, and it was a nail-biter. It was a tremendous... Stephen Alexandrov played an outstanding game Oliver Henke hit two home runs over the fence in St. Petersburg, which is remarkable. The first two home runs he hit all year. And they came from behind and beat Natick. with Ari Maslam getting a base hit in the top of the six and then scoring to tie the game and then Joe Rojas-Cruz hitting a two-run double to put them ahead. And then they, after winning that game, they advanced.

They were the number eight seed going in to the state tournament. They went to Monum Park. I named after Father Monan at BC High, my alma mater, to play the number one seed in the state. And I have to tell this story because it was remarkable. One of my very best friends in life, who played baseball at Harvard, Eddie Tolan at the beginning of the game and he said, I want you to wear this at the Cambridge City Council meeting on Monday after we win. And I said, hold the phone, Eddie. These guys from Cambridge are not going to flinch. and all of a hanky pitched the game of his life against the best team in the state. And they beat them 5-1. And then they went...

Thank you for joining us. They loved one another. They loved Cambridge. And they loved the game of baseball. And this was something to see. So I'll only make this one last comment. Before I leave you people, I ran into Linus Henke, who's Oliver's younger brother, at the Y before the meeting tonight. and I said, Linus, am I the only one who knows? And Linus says, knows what? I said, you're better than your brother, Oliver? and Linus said no there's one other person who knows and I said who's that and he said me so if you have a chance to watch this team going forward Don't miss the Cambridge and Latin baseball team next year and years hence because they are unbelievable.

So I yield, but I want to thank them so much for being the team that they were, and please include Councilor Simmons as a co-sponsor.

So we'll all be added as co-sponsors. Yes, Councilor Zusy, on your late resolution.

Yes, well, I wasn't at this game, but again, our Cambridge kids, Cambridge Arlington 7th and 8th grade boys. competed in the Mass Youth Lacrosse Division II Championship, and they won a decisive 10-4 victory. and again, I congratulate them and their coaches, their families and all the volunteers for their dedication, effort and community spirit. That made this achievement possible. And we need to tweak this policy order a little bit because the last two whereases should be resolved. But can we do that? Do we have to amend the policy order?

Yeah, we'll just friendly amendment.

Friendly amendment. So let's change this to resolved. And kudos to our home team. Thank you. Madam Mayor.

Two last need to just be changed to resolved. Yes, Councilor McGovern.

I'm going to try to squeeze this in because it's a little not quite on topic, but Also a congratulations to the Girls Varsity Ultimate Frisbee team who went out to... Not Washington, D.C. What's the other one up there? Where?

Oregon, Oregon.

And I ranked 13th in the country. Wow. Right here in the ring, so. Congratulations to them as well. I don't have a resolution for them.

So we'll go ahead and adopt these resolutions. And they're going to be unanimous upon adoption, so we're all co-sponsoring them. And so we'll do a roll call.

Excuse me, Madam Mayor. Yes. Quick question. We need to take the amendment up.

Which is, Councilor Simmons?

Councilor Zusy?

No, the amendment was adding Councilor Simmons.

And Councilor Zusy, the last two had to be resolved.

That's a typo. Do you want us to... So Councilor Simmons is saying that she wants to be added as a co-sponsor to the first one. And just to clarify... We all get on these resolutions, but if you ask to be added as a co-sponsor, you get to be number two, and that's why she's being asked to add it. So let's go ahead and do a roll call, because she wants to be the second person on the resolution. And then we'll go ahead and make it, you know, adopt the amended resolution.

Let's do a roll call. Councilor El Zubi. Absent. Vice Mayor Azeem.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor McGovern. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Simmons, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councilor Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

And now on the resolution as amended. making it unanimous upon adoption. We'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

That late resolution has been adopted. We have Councilor Zusy's resolution on Cambridge Youth for Cross, and there was just two typos that the clerk will fix. and we'll go ahead and adopt this resolution, make it unanimous upon adoption and do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. McGovern, Nolan, Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as present.

That late resolution has been adopted. We had that late policy order, but what we had done was take from it, and what we can do here is just for clarity purposes, we can withdraw the rest of it and do a roll call on that.

Al-Zubi, absent. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Councilor Simmons? Absent. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

That was withdrawn. We are now done with the meeting. We'll go ahead and adjourn on a motion by Councilor Zusy to adjourn. And it's 9.32, so we'll do a roll call.

Al-Zubi, Absinthe, Vice Mayor Azeem, yes, yes, Councilor Flaherty, yes, yes, Councilor McGovern, yes, Councilor Nolan, yes, Councilor Simmons, yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, yes, yes, Councilor Zusy, yes, Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

We are adjourned. Good night, everyone. We'll see you at the roundtable next week.