Regular City Council

Good evening, everyone. A quorum of the council being present, I call tonight's March 30th, 2026 regular meeting of the Cambridge City Council meeting to order. The first order of business is a roll call of members present.

Al-Zubi, present. Vice Mayor Azeem, absent. Councilor Flaherty, absent. Councilor McGovern, present. Councilor Nolan, present. Councilor Simmons, Absent. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Present. Councilor Zusy? Present. Mayor Siddiqui? Present. And you have six members recorded in the affirmative and three recorded as absent.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance and 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. Per Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, adopted by the Master's 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. You can also view the 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 go to public comment. Public comment may be made in accordance with 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're speaking on. We have about 14 speakers who have signed up. Each speaker will have three minutes.

Our first speaker is Willa Norvell, followed by Kit Lilly, then Lawrence Atkins. Willa, you have three minutes. Please go ahead.

Hello. Thank you for allowing me to speak, and thank you for your continued attention to climate-oriented issues. My name is Willa Norvell, and I am a policy intern with Councilwoman Nolan through the nonprofit Run on Climate, as well as an undergraduate student. at Boston University. I am here to urge the council support on policy order number five, an initiative that will proactively regulate the rapid expansion of data centers in Cambridge. The gravity and time-sensitive nature of this initiative cannot be overstated. The data center industry is growing at an exponential rate as AI now accounts for a third of the US market value. Factors such as a stable electric grid, abundant power supply, and proximity to technological industries make Cambridge an appealing city for future construction. If Cambridge continues without ordinance around data centers, our city will likely face the many challenges that countless other host communities are already experiencing.

Some of the repercussions observed by targeted cities across the United States include the depletion and contamination of their local water supply, unsafe noise levels disrupting the quality of life, Thank you for joining us. In Massachusetts already, the City of Lowell has had to battle hard to prevent the expansion of the Markley Group Data Center due to the lack of their city ordinance. Communities in Lowell were not only affected by this project in the ways I previously described, but also faced a lack of energy rate transparency, misaligned subsidies, and the general undermining of their climate goals. In order to avoid encountering this preventable issue, it is the utmost importance that we focus our efforts on getting ahead of the issue that many communities around the country are already grappling with.

I urge the committee to adopt policy order number five which opens the conversation to early regulation on new data center construction in Cambridge. Thank you for the opportunity to speak and I look forward to seeing the council's decision on this matter.

Our next speaker is Kit Lilly, followed by Lawrence Atkins. We're just going to call the roll. Kit Lilly, please go ahead. You have the floor. Three minutes. Kit, you're unmuted, but we can't hear you. Kit, we're going to come back to you. We can't hear you. Can you hear me now? Yes, please go ahead.

Perfect. Thank you. My name is Kit Lilly. I've been a Cambridge resident for over 30 years. I'm also the co-founder of I should say I'm speaking on S-2721 and H-5217, the act restricting Rodenticides. And I'd like to first thank Councilor McGovern for bringing this policy ordinance forward and for your leadership on animal issues. We really, really appreciate that and it does not go unnoticed. So this policy order supports legislation that would help protect local wildlife and pets and kids as well. The anticoagulant rodenticides. are pretty nasty things. They prevent the clotting of blood and any animal who ingests these rodenticides basically internally bleed to death.

animal control officers who we work with all the time in our other job and veterinarians across the Commonwealth have seen birds of prey literally fall out of the trees from muscle weaknesses and choke on their own blood from internal bleeding. from having ingested this rodenticide. And pets who ingest this poison can need transfusions of plasma or blood. And we all know the cost of veterinary care these days those transfusions can cost more than two thousand dollars and take weeks and weeks of supportive care and medication which obviously is a big financial and emotional strain on their families I will note that Cambridge as a leader has already banned these poisons on city property. So we are just asking to make the next step to restrict these rodenticides.

Our next speaker is Lawrence Adkins, followed by Barbara Goodchild, then Nikki Jordan. Lawrence, you have three minutes. Please go ahead. Mr. Atkins, if you can unmute yourself. Yep, there you go.

Wonderful. Good evening. I'm here tonight to speak on the miraculous increasing of parking permits in the city. I'm trying to figure out why we need to go to $75. I actually hope that the details of this are shared with Cambridge residents. For one, I have witnessed the most recent activity of our street cleaning and zigzagging on the street. No ticketing, I mean vast blocks of area. Not having anything ticketed in any fashion. I mean, it's outrageous. And then to see that the city manager

has already received message from MWWRA that they're going to increase the price of the city for the sewer processing because since we don't No ticket, nor tow. Debris are down into the sewer system. So I mean, if we correctly have done in the past what we usually did, it would cover the cost much rather than putting this $75. But I urge you to put in great details why we need to go to $75, including to increase on seniors and this vagueness about handicap. I'm unsettled with this because, again, this takes away from what this city is, a town for everybody. Just not those who have deep pockets, because you're on the plane now.

of placing a vehicle out of the means for everybody, no matter what their class or what their occupation is, At one point, and I've been in places where people just say that they can't afford a car because of the fees that are applied to them. I think it would be devastating for that to happen here. and transit or not. We need a much clearer defined explanation for before you even move this policy order anywhere near four. So I do urge you to do that first and to put this whole thing on until all information is made plain and transparent for us all to see. Because I can't see how the city has failed to do the practice which kept this thing at the level

and productive and financial thing to the city to bringing it now that you've got to double the price, double the fee to cover what's going on. Thank you. I hope that you'll be hearing from me more in the future. Goodbye.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Barbara Goodchild, followed by Nikki Jordan, then Jason Alves. Barbara, you have three minutes. Please go ahead.

Good evening. My name is Barbara Goodchild. My address is 41 Bowdoin Street. I'm a longtime resident of this city, and this is being addressed to the meeting chair. It's about policy order number four that supports the Massachusetts House and Senate bills restricting the use of rodenticides. Just tell you a little about my background. I am a birder, member of Mass Audubon, as well as several bird groups. and have a particular interest in raptors, specifically hawks, owls and eagles. This interest began in 2010 when a famous pair of red-tailed hawks were nesting on an office ledge at 185 Alewife Brook Parkway across from Whole Foods. You may remember seeing a group of birders and onlookers as well as photographers with telephoto Zoom lenses gathered in front of the building most mornings. They were featured in the local news and in a children's book, Buzz, Ruby, and Their City Chicks.

A group of us followed them for several more years as they raised their chicks near busy city traffic. And then one year Ruby died from rodenticide poisoning, as confirmed by a necropsy at Tufts Grafton. The reason I am speaking here today is that it infuriates me that we are poisoning the food that raptors eat. How would we like it? Also, it is counter to the way the situation should be handled. Raptors are natural predators that kill rats. I continue to see black boxes containing rodenticide poison all over Cambridge, in shopping centers, front of restaurants and grocery stores. Sometimes they are disguised as rocks as outside a Whole Foods. In summary, I do think that more people are becoming aware of this issue, and I was pleased to hear that the City of Cambridge took local action to address the issue by banning the use of eschars.

And lastly, I was happy to read that the city allotted $110,000 for electric smart box rat traps after the project was voted for in the recent participatory voting. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nikki Jordan, followed by Jason Alves, then Michael Monasty. Nikki, you have three minutes. Please go ahead.

Is it on? I'm Nikki Jordan. I live on Ware Street. And it's about a housing stability thing, obliquely, except what I want to speak on is more to do with my own housing stability. I've been trying for 10 years now, working with City Hall, through City Hall with the landlord and the property management in the building, 20 Ware Street. and nothing gets resolved. It's a non-smoking building. I'm there for health reasons. They have multiple letters from my doctor about that, and yet they do not ensure that the building is smoke-free. They're also the... Well, sort of new management company, Wingate, does not properly screen incoming tenants. There are people living in the building who are dangerous.

I know of two people who moved because they don't feel safe in the building and also because they don't trust Wingate. The staff people aren't honest. They habitually lie. They try to technically violate housing code, not on safety issues but things that they think people might not complain about, especially if they're maybe immigrants and don't speak English as their first language. I've worked through Councilor Simmons' office with her assistant, her aide, rather. Dealing with Joe at HRI. Joe has indicated that they will not compromise in any way. What they term a reasonable accommodation is that I move. I'm not violating the lease. There are now more people smoking in the building than when I first moved in in 2016. And that was before it was even technically a non-smoking building.

and it's just outrageous and I know they claim that they can't stop it but the maintenance staff say they know exactly who's smoking in the units because of the condition of the filters in the HVAC system. that anyone who smokes indoors, the filters are disgusting. I've asked to see a contract. Everyone I've talked to who works in housing in the area says that they can't compel the landlord and the property management people to Abide by the things they agree to. They seem to think that the lease is a contract that only goes in one direction. That is that I have to pay my rent on time. I can't damage the property, I can't do anything that harms other people and yet the things that they've legally contracted to do they don't feel any Obligation to Honor. And again, I've asked to see the contract, which I would believe would be a public document since it's with the city of Cambridge. That was a few years ago.

I never heard back from anyone.

and then there are people... Nikki, thank you. Your time has actually expired. The big screen is frozen, but the screen here was keeping time, so your time has expired. Please email the remainder. Our next speaker... You can email the remainder of your comments to the City Council. Thank you. Should I shut this off? You can leave it. Our next speaker is Jason Alves, followed by Michael Monassim, then Marilee Meyer. Jason, three minutes. Please go ahead.

Hi, Jason Alves. I'm the executive director of the East Cambridge Business Association, 544 Cambridge Street. Just wanted to come and say thanks to the manager. for putting together the proposal for starting the pilot program to help support the festivals by providing some city services. I think that this would go a very long way in helping us do the work that time and time again, city surveys and citizen surveys say that We want to see more activity in our business districts. I think a lot of that work ends up falling on the shoulders of the business associations who do a great job activating these spaces. And I think what's before you tonight is Some great work. It covers a lot of bases, and I'm just asking that you all also support it. I'd also add, last week I had the opportunity to go to the Governor's Tourism Conference

and you go to this conference just the same way that you all go to the League of Cities conferences and you sit with people in other cities and towns who talk about and what tourism means to their individual cities and towns and how people are creating tourism activities out of essentially thin air, out of nothing. They're building things to promote their neighborhoods because Tourism and visitation is such an economic driver and I think that's what these festivals are that we put on. I think there's a definite return on those. people come in, they spend their money in the neighborhoods. Hopefully they return when they return to the restaurants. We're collecting meals tax, right? Meals tax goes right back into the city coffers. So I think that this proposal before you Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jason. Our next speaker is Michael Monestime, followed by Marilee Meyer, then Rob Vandenbiel. Sorry, Rob. Michael, you have three minutes. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Madam Mayor and City Councilors. Michael Monestine, resident at 4 George Street and also president of the Central Square Business Improvement District. I want to speak briefly in support of the tourism conversation and the proposed direction around supporting events in the city manager's agenda items 76 and 77. First on tourism. Tourism is not separate from our neighborhoods. It's part of the ecosystem that sustains them and it supports our small businesses, our venues, our restaurants, and the cultural identity that makes Cambridge what it is. I also want to acknowledge Candace and the tourism team. I've had a chance to meet with them, learn more, and I'm genuinely encouraged by what I see, especially with World Cup on the horizon.

There's a stronger focus on marketing, analytics, audience engagement that reflects real strategic thinking about how we capture visitors and keep them connected to Cambridge's neighborhoods and districts. In the past, tourism at times has operated in its own lane. What I'm seeing now feels different, and I see a team that wants to be more active and engaged partner across the districts. and that's exactly what we need because this only works if we're all aligned. Central, Harvard, Kendall, East Cambridge, we all benefit when we're rowing in the same direction. Second on events, I want to commend the City Manager's Office for advancing the more formal, transparent approach to supporting nonprofit-led events. This matters. As outlined in the report, the city is already absorbing a significant portion of event-related costs, roughly $800,000 annually. with a large share supporting Cambridge nonprofits.

That reflects something real. Events are not extras. They are core civic infrastructure. In Central Square, Harvard, East Cambridge, we all produce major events that drive foot traffic, economic activity, and genuine community connection. Creating a clear process to weigh fees for Cambridge-based nonprofits is not just helpful, it's necessary. It creates predictability, it creates equity, and it allows organizations to focus on delivering impact Thank you. Thank you. Tourism, Events, Business Districts, The City. We all have a role to play in creating a vibrant, welcoming Cambridge. I am encouraged by the direction we're heading. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Marilee Meyer. Marilee, you have three minutes. Please go ahead.

Hi, Marilee Meyer, 10 Dana Street. While it is a pleasant surprise to see Harvard Square pedestrianization, tourism, and the 400th anniversary of Cambridge on the same docket, I also find it incredibly ironic considering how housing legislation is directly affecting city identity. Streetscapes and vintage housing are amazingly still standing. But recent upzoning begins to diminish character and basically ignores embedded consequences. With the flurry of upzoning, one of the concerns voiced was the direct effect on the Harvard Square tourist destination. 12 and 15 story buildings in the heart of internationally recognized square changes its importance as a destination. The potential pedestrian-friendly blocks begin to lose its context.

and yes, tourism is a core component of Cambridge's economic infrastructure. The 400th anniversary and an advisory board is to consider stories, quote, across neighborhoods and communities reflecting the city's full historic narrative expanded cultural tourism and institutions. Yet material culture, the buildings and sites which help us tell the story are being systematically torn down. Just look at Ellery Street. The board's function is tantamount to just posting a picture of historical sites while we gentrify. A single developer is allowed to demolish multiple historic homes where most of the affordable housing is As of right, anywhere with the same unit count, now luxury. Some counselors refuse to commit to any practical changes, constraints, or amendments.

but units are being added while repurposing historical houses. So where is the compromise in telling the story of Cambridge One of the most innovative and important cities in America, or do we continue to silo related projects and goals without looking at integrated effects lacking a total vision. Cambridge as destination is being homogenized by gentrification and we are losing the very golden egg bringing tourists and innovators to Cambridge. and Counselors, who do have pride in the historical city need to find that sweet spot of compromise before we lose it all. And just to follow up, I too am against road assistance, Rat poison and I use electrical traps.

I often see rats on the sidewalks with bleeding noses so I know exactly what's going on. It's horrible. So please look into that as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Rob Van Denneville, followed by Denise Haynes, then Suzanne Blier. Rob, you have three minutes. Please go ahead. Rob, if you can turn on the mic.

Rob Van Dennebiel, 40 Inman Street, Unit 3, right here in mid-Cambridge. I'm also the co-founder or one of the co-founders of Cambridge Loves Wildlife, a volunteer group of citizens that has been raising awareness on the harm that rodenticides cause here in Cambridge and actively promoting the statewide effort to restrict rodenticides in Massachusetts. I'd like to voice my support for Policy Order 4 to show support for the State Senate Bills and the State House Bill, an act restricting the use of rodenticides in the environment. As a trustee for the condo association that oversees our building that I live in, and the caretaker of a sizable yard that our property has the fortune of possessing, I have experienced the misfortune of finding dead wildlife from time to time, including the occasional dead rat. As the owner of a beloved pet dog, with the luxury of having a fenced-in yard that he can roam unleashed,

and who never met a dead carcass he didn't find appetizing, it's always a scary moment for me when I do find a dead rat. As has been explained by both wildlife rehabilitators and pest management professionals alike, integrated pest management, or PMI, excluding rodents with physical barriers, Starving rodents through responsible sanitation, including the disposing of food waste in the city's rodent-proof food waste bins. and targeting rodents with non-poison methods that don't harm non-targeted wildlife or even pets is the most effective and responsible way to decrease the rat population. I'm also a member of Dark Sky Massachusetts which advocates for dark skies as part of a healthy environment through the throughout the Commonwealth. And I'd like to voice my support for Policy Order 7 that would proclaim April 13th to 20th International Dark Sky Week in Cambridge.

which could help raise awareness of the importance of preserving and restoring the natural nighttime environment. Among the reasons to promote the benefits of responsible lighting and highlight the growing issue of light pollution are things such as wasting energy on responsible outdoor lighting, which wastes money and increases greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, excessive artificial light at night or night pollution negatively impacts human health, has adverse effects on nocturnal wildlife, inhibits scientific research, and robs us of our night sky heritage. I'd like to also point out that poorly executed outdoor lighting actually decreases the safety and security. and that there is no clear scientific evidence that increased lighting actually deters crime. In fact, glare from unshielded lights can cause glare that decreases safety, for example, by contributing to vehicle accidents.

For these reasons, I urge the Council to vote in favor of joining hundreds of municipalities worldwide in declaring April 13-20 International Dark Sky Week here in Cambridge. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Denise Haynes, followed by Suzanne Blier. Denise, you have three minutes. Please go ahead. Denise, if you can unmute yourself, you have the floor.

Hello. Thank you. Sorry. Thanks. Denise Haines from 561 Putnam Avenue. I'll be really quick. I would like to say I am in support of Policy Order 69 of reviewing the legal regulations to I'd like to speak to the tourism for CMA 76 in understanding what is the approval process for the city in hosting events, whether they're nonprofit or for-profit, in terms of understanding how these approvals happen, If there's an area for community input, when there are events that actually have an impact on the neighborhood, i.e. the road races, I know that we just recently had one in the neighborhood, Cambridgeport neighborhood,

But I must say I thought that we were finished with them and that they would be held in other areas of the city where there is less residential impact. would like to also know what is the community reinvestment process for events, if there is any. Next, I'd like to understand the rationale for the raising of Thank you. Thank you. Those who are Toro or rideshare owners, how has there been any review of increasing their rates so that maybe there can be an offset for those who are lower income? Seniors or maybe physically challenged but can still operate a motor vehicle. And finally,

Yeah, is there a discount? There doesn't seem to be any clarity for the reason why and whether or not there's a discount for the increase in prices. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Suzanne Blier, followed by Edward Zhu, then Gary Mello. Suzanne, you have the floor. You have three minutes. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Suzanne Blier, Five Fuller Place. And I thank you for so many aspects of today's agenda. First of all, I really, really strongly support Mayor Siddiqui's policy order number two, for the Cambridge 400 Advisory. I think this is just, the timing is perfect and this is really essential and hope that we'll recognize the indigenous. In my classroom, we signed the petition to recognize the Massachusetts, for example. Think about a new city seal and among other things just celebrate the incredible work that the Historical Commission has done. This is where one of the oldest Planned Cities, even our streets around Winthrop Park are landmarked and it's such an important time and occasion. On Harvard Square pedestrianization, I strongly support this, particularly on Lower Bow Street, which I've long advocated. I'm speaking here for the

myself and the Harvard Square Neighborhood Association. It could easily be a year-round farmers and crafts market, even tents and some heaters. Plus performances and other events by students, so a kind of public-private institutional engagement. I'm thinking comparatively of Quebec City and elsewhere. I strongly support festivals and nonprofit events. They're critical and let's bring in some of the neighborhood groups, but also think about even doing more of this and more citywide thinking of this. Much more on the arts, cuisines, film. Cambridge has been a critical center for the arts. We always think of science, and yes, we're there, but the arts have been central as well. Harvard Square tourism, but also tourism elsewhere in the city. I would like to see us utilize the kiosk far more. I almost see nobody in there.

And in addition to tourism, we could have a local Harvard Square business like Cardulo's or something else serving coffee, snacks, drinks, and then sit out on that wonderful plaza. and get more Harvard, Rindge, Lesley, MIT students involved in what's actually happening there. On historic sites and landscapes, I want to join Marilee Meyer in saying, yes, we have to really realize what's happening and how important this history is. And it's critical citywide for businesses, hotels, restaurants, and others. On table number four, parking, I agree with Lawrence Atkins. Seniors, handicapped, and sewage. The fact that we're not cleaning the streets is really terrible. I can see it in my own neighborhood. I would simply point out that West Cambridge people have driveways and there's plenty of parking space so this the increase in fees has really hit seniors but also the former blue-collar neighborhoods.

and on rat poison I want to shout out thanks to the city they brought carbon monoxide I think it was we had a tree stump slash Rat Motel in our adjoining backyards because we're very dense and the city took care of it. So thank you for that and yes to ending rat poison.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Edward Zhu, followed by Gary Mello, then Heather Hoffman.

Destin. Hi, my name is Edward Teju, a resident of 795 Great Pond Road, North Andover. I'm also a former Cambridge city resident and I also organize astronomy outreach events in the city of Cambridge with Popscope and Dark Sky Massachusetts. In our outreach, we've set up telescopes in Cambridge Common Park and Brattle Square and engaged with hundreds of Cambridge City residents in observing and admiring the Beauty of Our Night Sky. I'm speaking on policy order number seven in support of the proclamation of April 13th to the 20th as International Dark Sky Week. which is being celebrated by hundreds of communities worldwide. Essentially, we're promoting awareness and responsible outdoor lighting

in terms of the color temperature, the direction of the lighting, dimming and controlling of the time usage of the lights with motion detectors. If these responsible outdoor lighting practices can be followed, then there are numerous benefits to human health. Our wildlife ecosystems as well as reducing our energy usage. And finally, we also have improved views of our nighttime sky. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Gary Mello, followed by Heather Hoffman, then Charles Franklin. Gary, three minutes. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. My name is Gary Mello, and I live on Franklin Street. I'm very, very upset about the submission of this late order. It's sleazy, it's disingenuous, and I knew you'd do it. I'll bet you all know why I'm here. Yes, it's still on the table. Anyone watching television or reading the paper has seen the hours-long TSA lines at airports. It's so bad that the agency needs a sign holder to tell people where the line begins. The annual idiocy, particularly tomorrow, March 31st, is just as bad. Victims circle the lobby, go up the stairs, roundabout and back, frequently waiting over an hour and paying for, well, nothing. When does the idiocy stop? At 3.30 today, there were a mere 20 people in line, way before peak, being served by just two windows. Just for yucks, I went there at 5.10. I just came back.

There were 32 in line, and I learned for the first time that if people pay by credit card, they're also subject to a $2.25 fee. Crunch time comes tomorrow afternoon. I expect all counselors and Ms. McKenna to spend the whole day at 344. You counselors can get number one votes by lying. to the crowd about an order to end the annual nonsense. Conversely, you can end your political career by telling the truth about tripling the cost.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Heather Hoffman, followed by Charles Franklin, then Glenna Wyman. Heather, you have the floor. You have three minutes. Please go ahead.

Hello, Heather Hoffman, 213 Hurley Street. Let me start out by renewing my comment on the litigation tables. How about we hear about some of the lawsuits against the city instead of seeing you pat yourselves on the back for being so fabulous in fighting the folks in Washington, which I support. With respect to a whole bunch of things on this agenda, We get to see again how the city touts one thing and then in the real world does everything it can to get rid of it. For example, tourism, as was mentioned before. A huge part of the tourism industry in Cambridge has to do with our older buildings and how beautiful this city is.

So the city is doing everything it can to get rid of that. probably because there are enough people around who are loud enough about the idea that history began with them and anything before that including old people is gross and disgusting and could be replaced by giant soulless boxes instead. And I remember Cambridge 350. That was when I first moved back here. And it was a delightful thing. I hope that you can do as well on Cambridge 400 and on Cambridge 350. with respect to poison. Yes, I would definitely agree with what people said earlier about the dangers of rat poison. And I would say that once again, The city talks out of both sides of its mouth because it's perfectly cool with the poison that is asbestos.

They're happy to have that sprinkled on playing fields and parks and such. They certainly didn't mind having it sprinkled on my neighborhood. They did nothing to stop that nor to tell us when it happened. Data Centers. Since East Cambridge is the home to the giant substation that was made necessary by all of the development in Kendall Square, That is why this city has money. I'm just so amazed that all of a sudden you're discovering energy usage and oh my God. and then light pollution. How long have citizens tried to get this city to deal with light pollution? It has terrible effect on all

Thank you for joining us. We have to keep putting up weighted signs. Thanks.

Thanks, Heather. Our next speaker is Charles Franklin, followed by Glenna Wyman. Charles, three minutes. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Council. Charles Franklin, 162 Hampshire Street. I was hoping that the city would further pursue the pedestrianization of the heart of Harvard Square. However, it seems that they're not interested. To not pursue this is to continue the failed policies of the 20th century that turned over our streets to the auto manufacturers. Other cities across the state and the world pedestrianize their squares as they have the political will to make it happen. I think the council should force the city's hand by passing an ordinance requiring them to continue research into pedestrianizing the heart I would also like to challenge the narrative that seniors on a fixed income cannot afford a $50 increase in the yearly parking permit fee. The source of someone's income should have no bearing on whether they should pay to store what is their private property on a public street.

Ability to pay should be the sole decider regardless of age, which this policy order does consider. And as for the rationale, apparently this program cost $3 million to run, and we only collect $1 million. I think it's just good governance to charge an additional fee, to raise the fee to simply cover the cost of the program. I want to make sure that we do protect our wildlife, especially our raptors who have only kind of just recovered from the DDT use last century. So we definitely want to support The banning of the poisons that we use for rats.

And this might not be a terribly popular opinion, but honestly, I don't think that we can tell one group that they're allowed to smoke weed and another group that they can't smoke tobacco. We are adults. We are now well informed of the risks of tobacco. And if somebody understands the risks and wishes to engage in their privacy and the privacy of their own home, they should be able to do that. It's very paternalistic to just say, sorry, we're born after this year. You can't buy tobacco anymore. I just, I don't think that's right. Thank you.

Thank you. Our final speaker is Glenna Wyman. Glenna has not joined the Zoom. I do not see Glenna in the room. Madam Mayor.

Thank you, and thank you to everyone who came to public comment. On a motion by Councilor Zusy to close public comment. We'll do a voice vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. Public comment is now closed. We'll move on to the submission of the record. We have one set of minutes. of the joint roundtable working meeting of the Cambridge City Council and the school committee held on Wednesday, March 4th, 2026 on a motion by Councilor Nolan. to accept the report and place it on file. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. The submission of the record is placed on file. We will now, there's no reconsideration, so we'll now move on to the city manager's agenda. Pleasure of the city council on items that they'd like to pull. Councilor Nolan? Thank you.

Three, four, and five. Councilor Nolan is pulling three, four, and five. Pleasure of the City Council. Councilor Zuzi? Six and seven. 6 and 7. We'll call number one as it's a federal update. Councilor Al-Zubi? I'll pull eight. An eight. So we've pulled one, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. On city manager agenda item number two, we will do a roll call as we have to approve an order.

Al-Zubi. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Councilor Flaherty. Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan.

Yes.

Simmons, Yes, Councilor Simmons, Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Yes, Yes, Councilor Zusy, Yes, Yes, Mayor Siddiqui, Yes, Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Congratulations Will MacArthur, who's in the audience.

Congratulations.

So that has been approved and the communications place been placed on file. We'll move on to city manager Agenda item number one, a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, city manager, relative to a federal update, including an update on relevant court cases. City manager?

Thank you. Through you, Mayor Siddiqui. We have continued to update the federal litigation tracker and happy to entertain any questions. We don't have any material updates on federal grants at this time, and obviously there's a lot happening internationally that we are all very deeply concerned about, but open to the city council's questions on any updates that we've provided.

Pleasure of the City Council. Any questions for City Manager on federal court cases? I don't think there are any questions. Yes, Councilor Nolan?

I just have to ask if there's any upcoming we need to know about this is just so distressing to feel like every single week there's a new one either against the city or against MIT or against Harvard or against The entire scientific community. Is there any that we have heard of that are in process?

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, there is one new case that we will be including on the tracker going forward. We're just still reviewing right now, but it's a case where the state, the Commonwealth, is a plaintiff and relief would flow to the city. And it has to do with... Hudd, and it will impact or could impact our Fair Housing Ordinance and our Human Rights Ordinance. Not really ready to talk about it yet. It was just filed last week. But we are reviewing that and working with Carolina Almonte from the Human Rights Commission to see how that might impact us. And then also that we've been approached

Just in the last few days with a couple of new amicus briefs that my office is reviewing and will be in communication with the city manager about whether we're going to sign on to those, including The online system that all applicants for federal grants use is in the comment period right now where they're planning on making changes. to the way that online system operates and so interested parties can submit comments. And the changes are that they're going to include some of these conditions that we have objected to and challenged in specific grants are now going to become part of just using that online SAM.gov system, grant system. So we have joined

A couple of comments that are being submitted in response to that potential rule change and we'll be following that closely.

Nolan. Yeah, thank you. I had heard of some of this and I know there's a threat nationwide to every single student in this country who gets financial aid to try to have a backdoor around not allowing that unless really truly Reprehensible conditions are attached to every single student who gets it. So I'm really hoping that doesn't go forward. But it sounds like there's more of that coming for the city. Thank you. I just wanted to understand because I had heard something. Thank you. I yield. Flaherty.

Yeah, through you, Madam Mayor. I just had a question about the Watson case. That's the election law case that was in front of the United States Supreme Court. It's about the provisional ballots, absentee ballots being received and whether or not They'd be counted. And I confess I haven't watched it closely, but I'm wondering if anybody from the law department paid attention to the arguments and how they went and what was the... What were the arguments presented to the Supreme Court and how were they received, if anybody did?

Thank you. Through you, Madam Chair. So neither Assistant City Solicitor Lepianco or myself did. I do know, though, that Deputy City Solicitor Elliott Veloso was recently in a meeting with the Public Rights Project, who we've been partnering with on a lot of this work about election challenges. We can follow up with him and reach back out to you.

Seeing no one else with questions, we'll go ahead on a motion by Councilor Flaherty to place city manager agenda item number one on file. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. City Manager Agenda Item 1 is placed on file. We'll move to City Manager Agenda Item 3. This is a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative the plans for replacement of the city's legacy enterprise resource planning software system. Councilor Nolan, you have the floor.

Thank you, through you, Mayor Siddiqui. Really excited to see this explanation of what will happen. I just pulled it for just a couple questions. One of the most telling signs that people have come up to me and to the city about, and I know I did have a chance to meet with our new CTO, Mr. Fusco, Thank you very much. I know this is a several year process and I know you're telling us already it's going to be several million dollars a year for the next few years. How quickly will some of those really important elements that show that we can make progress and are the banes of many people's existence, but also just something that is not appropriate for a

21st Century City, never mind one already a quarter of the way through this. I just wanted to understand what can we look forward to relatively quickly, understanding The full thing may not be for a few years. And my second question, which I'll just say now is, is this then the expectation that there may be able to be a reallocation of staff to be able to do different More forward-thinking work instead of this kind of drudgery of work that is now happening as a result of us being really 40 years behind many others.

I think I'll take a stab at that one. Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, to you, Councilor Nolan. So thank you for the question. As we've tried to outline that undertaking The implementation of a new ERP is a very complicated and lengthy and resource intensive both from the perspective of cost as well as staff time. I think the good news is, I think as we tried to highlight, we're doing an early step towards financial modernization right now. even before we move off of PeopleSoft on the financial side with an AP workflow add-on that we're putting in and our city auditor, Joe McCann, is sort of the executive sponsor in collaboration with the IT department and obviously with all of our departments. to implement that.

And we hope to start to see some of our first departments rolling that out on the city side beginning at the first of the fiscal year. I will say that the schools actually implemented it several years ago. while we were still there and I myself saw the incredible transformation of when staff no longer had to fill out paperwork and send it over to the auditing department to be further data entered into the system. We now have that integrated. As far as like paper time sheets, so one of the reasons why we are approaching this as a phased project is because it is so complicated. and we do have to keep our normal business going so we will have to continue to do our normal work using PeopleSoft. Phase one will be the HR side and I believe that if you have any specific questions Our chief people officer is also online today.

So that will probably take us once we get underway and we estimate that we will probably begin that implementation. Maybe nine months or so from now by the time we go through all of the selection process. And then from the moment we actually begin implementation, we are anticipating it may take about 18 months for us to actually Fully implement the HR side and that will absolutely include the automated timesheets. It will include things like employee self-service so they can come on and update their Their addresses directly in the system versus filling out a piece of paper, sending it to the HR department, and then the HR department having to type it in to PeopleSoft. So hopefully, let's just say two years from now, hope to see a big change Nolan, on the HR side, maybe two and a half years when we're fully implemented there, and then moving on to finance side.

Councilor Nolan? Yeah, thanks. Obviously, it would be nice if it was even sooner. There's just so many people who have lived with this. Do we expect then over time there will be able to be basically an uplifting of the staff? to reallocate them to other because there's always more work to be done, but some of it has to be taken up by this.

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui. Absolutely. I'm sorry. I missed that. That was in my head to say. I think even with this workflow automation for AP... will immediately be able to see, you know, the ability to redeploy some staff to higher level types of tasks because, you know, These invoices will be machine read, will be matched to POs automatically versus somebody having to sort of have a PO match it to a... I mean, have an invoice, match it to a PO, type it into a piece of paper, send it off. So I think it will be fairly remarkable pretty quickly as we begin to implement some of these workflow automations.

Nolan.

Thank you, hallelujah, and I yield. We'll go to Councilor Al-Zubi.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, I actually have some more hesitancy around this because it seems like a large commitment and it doesn't seem the most strategic. I'm just considering the context of the age of AI and tech that we're in, that there will most likely be a cheaper and more efficient solution on the horizon. with the way things are moving so it seems like it would be unwise to spend 15 to 20 millions at this point in the near future. I'll be open to learning more about the appropriation ask but considering The conversations around even things like ChatGPT and Claude and the way that within a year we're seeing these advancements, I'm feeling pretty hesitant about a large expenditure considering the pace. No questions, but I'll yield.

Zuzi. Thank you. Through the chair, my question was, so I think it's great we're proceeding with this. Was this an anticipated expense? Has this been on our List, and is it likely that we'll be buying? I know you've engaged an independent advisory firm to advise us, but do you think this might be an off-the-shelf product that would be customized or a custom product? Do you have any? Zusy. Any thoughts to share about that?

Great. Thanks for the question. Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, to Councilor Zusy. I know that our CIO is online as well. So, I mean, we are assuming that it is, you know, quote, unquote, off the shelf, but highly configurable to really align to our business processes. So we have been thinking about this I think for a number of years. The city implemented PeopleSoft more than 25 years ago. and at the time it was actually a pretty, you know, out there kind of progressive implementation of a pretty complicated system. But it's 25 years old and so there are many aspects that are really available. in modern ERP, some of which we sort of have outlined in the memo and I mentioned around automated workflows, et cetera, better reporting, better analytics.

That we need to move forward with. Although, you know, when I first started, and I think our Chief People Officer Catchings has been here for maybe six months, We together embarked on a sort of a discovery mission with the IT department to understand whether there were just things we could do in PeopleSoft, right? Projects that would actually help us to modernize. And so with our staff and with IT staff, we went through about a six-month process with a consultant to go through understanding what our needs were in terms of additional capacity and functionality in our ERP particularly on the HR side where we really have a lot of paper-based systems. We realized that it would take

It would be fairly expensive to add modules to PeopleSoft. It would be very labor intensive. And in the end, PeopleSoft is an aging technology. And so despite investment in PeopleSoft, we would not actually have a modern system. We would still be working in sort of a clunky system. that would continue to involve a lot of work around. So we went down that path first, thinking that it might be the less expensive path. But in the end we decided that did not really serve us, that we would do a lot of work, we would spend money, and ultimately we would still need to move. to a more modern technology platform. So after doing that we've now moved on to begin this process of thinking More broadly about how we can really make this, I think, very strategic investment in our organization.

I think as we've said here that Technology is just the underpinnings of how we do our work today, and we have to continue to invest in that technology infrastructure in the same way we have to invest in building infrastructures. We have to continue to make those investments and make sure that our systems are Modern, and actually serve us well.

Councilor Zusy. Yes, thank you for that explanation. So that suggests to me, so Originally you thought you were going down a different road, and then you decided that this was the proper path. So maybe it wasn't an anticipated expense, or maybe it wasn't as big an anticipated expense.

I would say that because I think if you look at our last two years budget, our FY25 budget and our FY26 budget, each of those budgets actually has a capital allocation to move this process forward. I think maybe approximately a million and a half between the two years. to begin the work of the analysis and perhaps making some investments before we actually had a better idea of what the full scope would be. I would say that yes, it's bigger than we actually thought from a cost perspective because we have determined that doing some tweaks and additional investments and PeopleSoft is really not the wisest investment for us.

Al-Zubi.

Thank you.

And just through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I think some of the work that we were doing was considering, to Councilor Al-Zubi's point, are there cheaper, more incremental opportunities for us to I would acknowledge this is a pretty big capital investment. And one of the challenges we're seeing is as we were exploring our Thank you very much. Thank you.

that many of these older systems are being maintained and kept together and the business processes that we're using to hire onboard pay maintain benefits for all of our employees. It's really the expertise of staff that came in with those systems and they're able to keep everything together with sort of the sort of digital duct tape and glue and as they retire, it creates more and more accumulated risk on us because we don't have people who understand the guts of these very old and outdated systems. The other dynamic I think at play here is it's a little bit like when you look at your iPhone, we have so much more functionality, we're able to do so much more on our phones, but it's a lot more expensive than the landline that some of us grew up with.

And that's a little bit of the trade off that we're also seeing, that the way that we can actually run and support employees and maintain the operations of the city. These are things that I think these more modern platforms are able to do much, much better and there's better service and accessibility that we can provide. and I think as we sort of bring forward this proposal, we'll be able to walk through more of those benefits for the council because this is a pretty big investment. will end up paying more to bring ourselves into the modern age. We'll also have more functionality. And I think this is an important conversation. So we wanted to, just give a heads up that this is part of where we are and how we're thinking about it and then there's obviously a lot more information that we want to share as we start moving through this.

I just had a plug for a very narrow use case, but I just wanted to say as we're looking to revamp our software, One thing that I think doesn't affect our city employees as much but affects when we're hiring is the hiring process in general. I think people apply. They have no idea what's going on. They hear back either two months or two years later that they didn't get the job. And I think that that's just a place as we're getting new software and revamping it, sending those automated emails just so they know where they are in the process. I think that that's something small, but I think is a common frustration I hear when people are applying for city jobs. Thank you.

Anyone else with questions? I wanted to just follow up on one of them. I know that you said in response to Councilor Nolan's question that some of this is already being implemented but the rest won't happen. Well, phase one human capital management for six months or so. I guess it's March 30th now. I think about some departments using paper sheets. Timesheets and other things. I guess I just echo the expediency and the The timeline there. And so from your end, if we were looking out, it's 26 now. 27 will be here before you know it, but what are the kind of the increments of time? Six months from now, Eight months.

Do you have any more specific details?

Thank you for that question, Mayor Siddiqui. So, you know, it's one of those things you've got to go slow to go fast, right? We really are in a planning stage at this point. And, you know, we have been using paper time seats for at least 40 years, I guess, you know. and so I would say that by this time next year, we will be getting ready to go out. We will have identified all of our needs. We will have been pretty close to being able to write a specification and go out to bid. And so I don't see us signing a contract with the new vendor platform probably until July of 2027. and then or maybe even August. And so then it will, from that point on, probably take us 18 months to implement and go live.

As I say, these are really complicated, massive things. automated timesheets will be completely integrated with core HR and payroll right so it's it's not even as though we will put one piece on or other piece on right an automated timesheet Someone is, you know, one, it has to be a person who's working for us. We need to know what their schedule is, et cetera. You're putting your time sheet in. It needs to go directly to the payroll side, and the payroll will be implemented as part of the entire HR. I.S. New System. So it is a long, it's a long road ahead, but so that is, you know, that's why we say it's about five years. and this next 12 months is very much a planning period. It's an organizational readiness, getting ourselves ready, doing the change management work.

doing a lot of data cleanup and making sure that we're ready from the data side and really doing a lot of deep dive into our process and our needs because one of the reasons why this is So that will take a lot of work on our part, on our IT department's part, and our consultant's part to help us understand our process and workflow. Yeah, it's a long process. And here we have our CIO, so he may be able to add even more context to what I've just said.

Thank you, Claire. I do agree that, well, I could say that we can set this up with our advisory firm and then with our solution implementer to implement certain modules before others and prioritize So that throughout that five-year period, different pieces of the ERP journey come to life earlier than others. However, the extent of this type of undertaking and the significance of the complexity is real. And the average time to implement a brand new ERP platform, which we are looking to do It is approximately five years to do both HR and finance. And we have been collaborating with other local cities. Worcester has just completed or is just now completing their

We can prioritize different modules with different functionality earlier than others, and that'll be something we can discuss. However, the full implementation declares point would likely take between four and five years. Thank you.

A lot to digest. Yes, go ahead, Councilor Simmons.

Just very quickly, I hope I'm on the right number, number three. Just curious through you to the city manager, I'm just curious for this particular process, how many RFPs did We send out for the new ERP system and how many for the AP system? Because the memo mentions Nimbello. Is that just for AP? That's my first two questions and the last one. If the city wanted to opt out of the project in the future, has the vendor of choice provided the information on how data would be extracted for purposes of migration?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui. So for our larger ERP, we have not actually done the RFP process yet for that. We're in our planning process of identifying our Thank you, Mr. Chairman. and the HR side of the ERP. From Nimbello, which is the AP workflow software that we're now implementing as sort of an add-on We used a sole source procurement methodology because that is the software that the school district went through a procurement process three or four years ago. and implemented it.

And we just recently finished the final step in that, which was to then integrate it into PeopleSoft so that our staff on the city side no longer have to actually do any data input. and so the decision was made that staying with one software platform for the entire city was a better solution for us rather than the city going out to bid and perhaps using a completely different software for the AP automation.

Simmons.

Okay, for now. I'll yield the floor.

All I'll say is I think whatever you can prioritize after this planning phase, and I wish the planning phase wasn't a year. I'm sure there's reasons why, but it just feels like some of these things Al-Zubi's point, five years just seems like a long time. I appreciate that there's a lot of work involved and that you're doing it. I look forward to a day when there's no paper. Timesheets. So we'll go ahead on a motion by Councilor Nolan to place city manager agenda item number three on file. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no, the ayes have it. City Manager agenda item number three is placed on file. We move on to City Manager agenda item four. The communication transmitted from Ian Huang, City Manager relative to an overview of the city's initial artificial intelligence efforts.

Councilor Nolan, you have the floor. Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui, and through you, thank you to the staff, to the city manager, and team ACM, Spinner, and CIO, Fusco. Is that pronounced correctly, Fusco or Fusco? I'm not sure, but...

It's possible, but that's okay. Thank you.

Very happy and glad to see that this is moving forward, that we are looking at AI. I do have two questions. One is, as I have said many, many times, and I shared with CIO Fusco in our meeting last week, Love to see AI tool be used for public facing to offload from the staff so that we can give our residents and anyone looking at our website accurate information by ensuring that the AI bot can look just through Citi. I think it's high time to do that. I'd love us to be a leader on that. But the other question is we need policies that is in here about AI responsible use by the city, which I fully endorse and know that they may take a little time to be thoughtful and come up with.

I didn't see any element of this that referenced the policies for AI use should ensure that energy is also conserved because you can certainly, my understanding is I can use AI for something and it would In order of magnitude, more energy would be used to generate that as opposed to if I just used a regular query. And obviously later tonight we'll be talking about how it is that the city can ensure that In the city, we are responsible with our use of regulating data centers. But for the city itself, is that part of the conversation here as we move forward with understanding how it is that we're rolling out AI across the city?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I'm going to ask our CIO to speak to that. I know that we have an AI working group. We did roll out a set of guidelines, but we've been very clear that these are sort of an evolving set of guidelines. And so, Jay, if you want to speak to some of the conversations around energy use.

We can? I can. And thank you, Councilor Nolan. It was an excellent meeting that we had last week. I really enjoyed it. Within our guidelines that have already been published, there is not a lot on sustainability, however, but it's been a topic of conversation in the AI Working Group since its evolution, which is only about three or four months ago. I think at this point, and to your point, Councilor Nolan, what's happening behind the scenes when you enter a simple AI prompt in Copilot or ChatGPT, is in order of magnitude more expensive from a compute perspective, i.e. energy. And we have to take that into consideration. And I think that goes back to one of our main tenants, if not the main tenant of our AI guidelines, which is responsible use.

And that goes for really understanding exactly what's happening on the backend so that we could tailor our guidelines around that such that we are recommending a sustainable use of AI, understanding that AI is not going to go away. It's only going to become more ubiquitous whether it's within a tool specifically like ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini or integrated within the platforms that we use. But we can then tailor our usage and how we use these large language models and these AI assistance in a better way such that we understand, okay, what we should and should not do for responsible use of artificial intelligence as it pertains to sustainability. Another thing that I've been looking into just recently, the group has been

Fantastic at working with me is that we want to use the large language models and the AI assistance that do recognize sustainability as a main tenant and a value that they They value as much as we do here in the city. So that's going to be something that we take into consideration as the guidelines evolve and as we make selections in software moving forward. So you will see it As the guidelines evolve, you will see sustainability and responsible use from an energy perspective and water perspective more, I'm saying a lot more highlighted within the guidelines and Such that we are really giving it the attention that it deserves. Thank you.

Councilor Miller. Thank you. That's great. First of all, I think it's the first time you've appeared before us, CIO Fusco, so welcome to the chamber remotely. It would be really, I view myself as someone who wants to do sustainability. I have no idea when I put something in how to do it responsible from an energy perspective. So I imagine that's It's something all of us want to do, and we think responsibility. We don't always think of the energy cost, but as our CIO was just explaining, it could have a tremendous impact on our energy use as a city. So again, very glad to see this working group is set up. Hope that the work moves forward and that we continue to include this really critical element of sustainability in guidelines for users so they understand we're asking you to do this for a range of reasons. It doesn't mean that you won't get the benefit of AI, but it also means it's incumbent on us to ensure that we don't end up using it in a way that is irresponsible from a number of perspective, whether it's ethical, whether it's how it's being used.

We know AI has been used irresponsibly, unethically, and in fact quite dangerously in many situations, but also from a sustainability perspective. So that was my question, thank you. Mayor Siddiqui, I yield.

Any other questions on this? I'll just say thank you for the update on this. This is an evolving area. I'm very interested in it. I think there's a lot of interesting things happening with AI around the world or in cities, but we also have to be cautious. I think one thing I'm thinking about is how we've The City Council, we have a surveillance ordinance. We've approved certain technology. I think eventually, it's already happening, there will be a lot of overlap between Tech and AI and I think thinking ahead about those applications as we develop more guidelines develop kind of our more of our values and thinking around that I think there's a lot of Thank you.

I know that we're doing the co-pilot. I think it's Great. I know that there's a lot of other things that we want to maybe explore. I think how we integrate and I think get a sense of how our departments are actually using it will be really helpful. So look forward to the conversation and getting involved in that. So on a motion by, oh, sorry, go ahead, Vice Mayor, are you set? Okay, on a motion by the Vice Mayor to accept this report and place it on file for city manager agenda item number four, we'll do a roll call.

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

Yes.

Simmons, Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

We go on to city manager agenda item number five. This is a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, city manager, relative to a waiting report item number 26-12 regarding Harvard Square P pedestrianization. That was a mouthful. Probably said it wrong. But Councilor Nolan.

Thank you. It's a mouthful, but it's really exciting. So thank you so much. Really, I think, excited. This is a long time coming for at least one more block of Harvard Square to be open, not closed. And as noted in the memo, it was actually I did have a couple hopefully quick questions. One is, it says later this spring that Bow Street will be activated. We are in spring, so does later this spring mean next week or maybe next, well actually next month starts tomorrow, so just some a little bit clearer about the timing. and I will note it says then a decision was made about trying for winter, whether to keep it in that configuration winter. I really hope we do. I know those of us who've been in other cities know they manage to keep their pedestrianization and their streetscape open during winter, even during snow and weather like we have. So I really hope that ends up being

I'll start with that and then one other question about the final paragraph. But if there's anything to add about the timing and expectation for Bow Street. And again, thank you very much for working with the range of I know all the property owners are excited. I'm very excited to go out and be with all my colleagues there for a drink as soon as it opens.

I don't think we have an exact date yet on when the closure or opening will be. we're working very closely with the work going on around getting the outdoor dining set up finalized and set up and then you know I'm hoping for as early as possible so hoping for May I would say

Councilor Nolan. Thank you and I hope in line with all the other council priorities that were making it really really easy not just in this space but throughout the city to have those dining permits done really quickly Cheaply, just get them done so we're a lead city there. In the last paragraph you address, and at the beginning, the question of the Other analysis of the idea of having additional pedestrianization in Harvard Square while having it open for deliveries and for emergency vehicles where the idea is to have JFK Street revert to two-way and then ensure that trucks can get around. I just want to reiterate again, I'm really glad that that will be moving forward with some kind of more contained, smaller analysis to see as it How feasible it is, at least on a more limited basis. And also, once again, we'll say I endorse what several of us, including Councilor Zusy and others said,

if we can use MIT or Harvard or other graduate students to accelerate that process and contribute in a way that makes it easier for the staff to do. I recognize sometimes there's issues with that, but sometimes we make it easier. I'm fully supportive of that.

We can go ahead to Councilor Flaherty and Councilor Al-Zubi.

Thank you and through you, Madam Mayor. I'm just wondering if impacts on St. Paul's Catholic Church down there on Bow Street are considered with the shutdown. because as we know they have the Saturday and Sunday Masses there and it's an active parish. And like everyone, I'm sure we're all looking forward to outdoor dining. and further pedestrianization of whatever streets. But I want to keep in mind that that's a very active parish there. and there is a need for parking, there is a need for access, there is a need, it's an older congregate that goes there and I'm wondering if that's factored into our analysis of closing the streets.

Through you, Madam Mayor. Yes, so the section of Bow Street that will be closed down is not closest to the church, so that's absolutely something that we look at. This is the same area that's been closed for the last few years and I haven't heard any complaints. So the immediate adjacent neighbors are all kind of taking part in the planning process. but we won't be impacting the area directly in front of the church or directly around the corner from the church.

And through you, Madam Mayor, have we reached out to the church or the school because they've got the the boys choir there and there is a very active congregation there and I'm not a person that goes to mass there a lot myself but I have been there and it is competitive sometimes parking around there. And I recognize the area of Bow Street is being shut down, but just keeping in mind that this is a shared use and that portion of Harvard Square is very important, I think, to St. Paul's. So have we reached out to them and seen that made sure that our plans don't conflict with their use of the church?

Not for this particular project. We've spoken to them on projects before, but we can certainly do that.

Okay, I hope we do because I think that's very important. And if we need any help doing that, I'm happy to assist. All right, thank you. I yield.

We'll go to Councilor Al-Zubi.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, I just want to make a quick comment here, too, because I do think we need real pedestrianization in the square. I know Bow Street is a step forward, and I really appreciate the work that you guys are doing. that you guys are doing on that. And I really think that we can do a lot more if we really just position ourselves to how much vitality we can bring to that area for our local businesses, as an example, as we've seen turnover in the square. If we give people, especially in one of the world's Favorite destinations, a place to hang out and explore, then we're giving an opportunity for more community, we're giving an opportunity for more vibrancy and mobility, And I know we can do this thoughtfully because I know it's complicated and I acknowledge it with you that it's not an easy task and it wouldn't be. considering streets like JFK and Brattle and just want to say that I'm at least looking forward to learning more about that analysis.

Any further comments on this piece?

Hearing none, on a motion by Councilor Flaherty to place This city manager agenda item number five on file. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say nay. The ayes have it. City Manager Agenda Item Number 5 is placed on file. We'll move on to City Manager Agenda Item Number 6. A communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to Awaiting Report Item Number 26. 06-03 regarding establishing a formal policy that clearly defines the city's role and financial responsibilities in supporting large-scale public events hosted by Cambridge-based nonprofit and not-for-profit organizations, including criteria for fee waivers. This is pulled by Councilor Nolan. I'm sorry, Councilor Zusy, as I look right at you.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. I just wanted to say thank you to the city for this very thoughtful response. and I think it's great that we're going to institute a community event support pilot program so we can really understand better what the costs are and what the benefits are of these festivals which I think are a very important investment in our small businesses, culture and community life. The business community plays a major role in funding these events, but they're hosted by the city, local businesses, and the broader community, and they bring the vitality to the city that draws tourism. and are to the benefit of the broader community. So I thank you for the report and I look forward to

saying what we learned from the community event support pilot program and great if it's going to help our nonprofit event organizers save $100,000 a year annually. Thank you, and I yield. Simmons.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to take a moment to thank the city manager and staff, at least acknowledge them for bringing this forward in response to the policy order I sponsored last year. I'm very pleased. to see this work moving ahead in such a thoughtful and comprehensive way. For a long time, you've known that our nonprofit partners are doing incredible work to bring people together through events that build community, celebrate diversity, and make Cambridge the vibrant place that it is. At the same time, we know that the costs associated with hosting these events have continued to grow. often in ways that are difficult for organizations to predict or to absorb. What this pilot program does is it brings clarity, consistency, and a fairness to the city's role. It creates a structure that supports our nonprofits well, giving the city a more transparent and sustainable way to manage these costs. So it appears, and I hope it will be, a win on both sides.

A win for the organizations that are putting in the time, the energy, and the heart to make these events happen. And it's a win for the city as we continue to grow and invest in community life in a responsible and intentional way. So I'm very supportive of this effort and look forward to seeing how the pilot unfolds over the coming year. I yield the floor.

We'll go to Councilor Al-Zubi.

Through you, Madam Mayor, also echoing thank you for your work on this and appreciate my colleagues' comments on the significance of these events and supporting our nonprofits. Two questions. Are you able to give a breakdown on the unbudgeted costs, the one around 800K and then the roughly 180K? of the costs that the organizers paid to better help us understand what that is being spent on because I understand from a recent hearing that The police department's overtime budget is significantly different than what is expended, so are there any comments on what those costs relate to?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, to Councilor Azzubi, yes. So the $100,000, the cost that we pass on to our organizers, a lot of that goes to police and fire details, which are assigned based on the special events data. Sobrinho-Wheeler, Tan, Watkins, Zern, Zusy, Cambridge, Councilor as the council has stated, these have been resources that we've been passing on to nonprofits who have then been activating our streets for free and open public events. And so we are, the pilot program will be waiving and covering those fees. and then in addition there's the 800 or so thousand dollars which consists of a few different lines but a big chunk of that is

The public works and transportation have been waiving fees for special events since COVID and also have been and many more. in regards to when there's a situation where backfill is needed because the details are optional. And then if details aren't filled, the police and fire department will need to make a Determination on what kind of security and safety is needed and fill those using overtime.

And through you, Mayor, the one thing I would just also add is, you know, Matt mentioned the DPW and the Department of Transportation fees. So that's like when you look at events and we're doing the truck blocking and we're doing the setup. So it's really about how to successfully manage those events. So those are fees, like Matt said, that those departments have been really absorbing since COVID. We really believe that by having this as one bucket and really looking at it, we can do a better job understanding what those full costs are and then managing them over time. We've seen a significant increase in those kinds of costs, again, that those departments have been absorbing just in terms of how to operate and manage those events. Allen-Zubi.

Thank you. It's helpful to better understand that. I think it would be helpful to also just get a more concrete breakdown of what those costs are to better understand from the public works side, fire side, Where are those costs going on the permitting side? What's changing across the board? I think it would be helpful to know that. I think a quick follow up. because I believe you mentioned 100K from the cost to the organizer side, we're going to details. I'm imagining that's in addition to the police and fire department costs, from the city's end or, yeah, okay, I'll yield.

Do folks have any comments, questions on this? I will just echo the importance of doing this. I'm looking forward to seeing the formal policy when it's released after the pilot. I did have a quick question. I know the response mentions that in the FY27 budget the city is going to include a proposal to support this. I'm just curious where in the budget should we expect to see this?

Through you Mayor Siddiqui, I think we're still figuring out exactly where to put this and just to call this out and we'll have this conversation when the budget comes out. We're also trying to figure out how to budget this more formally since much of these costs were flowing through not in the budget. And so we were incurring a bunch of expenses, but they weren't actually incorporated into the formal budget process. So we're also trying to figure out how to build that in. and I would say that's actually part of what will help us I think in the pilot and then beyond by actually formally budgeting some of these items. It also helps us understand more clearly how we're planning for especially events that we know are going to happen again. And that'll also help us think about whether there are things we can do to manage some of those costs.

Simmons. Thank you. Councilor Simmons, did you have an additional question or are you set?

I'll be brief because I know we've had a lot of discussion so far. I just wanted to say that I appreciate the work that went into this memo and I've been Genuine Respect for Community Development in the Office of Tourism. The TDMD numbers are encouraging.

And the return on the investment... Councilor Simmons, we're still on the same... We're not there yet.

You haven't moved on... Can we move on then? That's my way of saying I'm ready to move on. Tell you how I really feel?

I really want us to move on. To accept this communication... and place it on file from city manager agenda item number six. We'll do a voice vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. City Manager agenda item number six is placed on file. We'll move on to seven. This is the communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager relative to a waiting report item number 26-09. regarding a report back to the City Council on legal parameters related to city funding and tourism destination marketing district restrictions and oversight and accountability related to the operation of the visitor information kiosk, and related governance expectations including alignment with city priorities. Councilor Zusy? You pulled this?

Yes, I did. Thank you, Chair Siddiqui. I just wanted to say again, more great work from the Community Development Department and from the Department of Tourism It's fabulous that we have that TDMD funding amounting to about $1.2 million this year. I think it would be, it's good that of the TDMD funds that 690,000 have been I would encourage the Department of Tourism to even send more money to our businesses and our non-profits. I think that would be beneficial for the city because our business districts are organizing so many events that again make our squares vital.

I'm thrilled that the plaza at Harvard Square will be completed in the fall of 26. A question I had is still, I feel like in time, we really have to figure out the mission of the kiosk. I feel as the Culture House has been doing a good job, especially as we are in this holding zone waiting for the kiosk to be completed. Once it's completed, we've really got to go into high gear and make sure that the programming reflects Cambridge or ideas emanating from Cambridge. I've been concerned like others about art for sale in the kiosk, especially of non-Cambridge artists. And ultimately, I believe that whatever happens in the chaos must be transcendent. Cambridge is a place of ideas.

with extraordinary richness and the kiosk must reflect this and transport visitors to a higher plane. So we can't just have something Thank you so much. I yield.

We have a few people. Hold your horses. All the fun. We'll go to Councilor Flaherty.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, I just have a comment about the kiosk. It's a great place. It looks great. But it doesn't seem active to me at all. and I don't want to be a critique, but I guess I will be a critic about this. I think that it's It's a massive investment for the city of Cambridge for the work that we've done there, and we're not getting a return on our investment. Like probably many of you, I've spent many years in and around Harvard Square. And it's not as active a space as I would expect it to be. Some of us probably remember hanging around in the pit and spending more time there than we should have spent. But I think it needs to be energized. I'm not sure what the answer to that is.

But whatever it is, I think right now we're seeing a vacuum there. and I mean there's lots of things that could happen there. Lots and lots of things beyond just a visitor information center because it is a dynamic place. It's a, in my view, A world recognized tourist destination. I mean, it's not Fenway Park, but it's close. Everybody around the world knows what that is. And that space should be utilized and give it the dignity that it deserves. Whatever it is to take that, I would hope that we encourage culture hosts, whoever inhabits it, to activate that space. So I yield.

We will go to Councilor McGovern, Councilor Simmons, and Councilor Nolan.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. And yes, way too much of my time spent in the pit. And I look forward for when that is finished. and I think obviously when that construction is finished it will help a lot right but you know and this isn't and I went and I visited and sat down with the folks at Culture House and and You know, this is not shade on them, and I think there are folks that are trying to do something there, and I still remain... I still remain a little confused as to when you look at the Harvard Square Business Association and all of the events that they curate in Harvard Square that draws. I mean, I don't know if anybody saw the Chocolate Festival, but that line went to Arlington practically. of all the things that they do.

They have obviously a vested interest in making sure that the square as a whole is thriving and bringing people in. I still remain confused as to why they're not in charge of this. And they've proven to do a good job. has proven to have the square and Cambridge as their center and their focus. And so I do, there's even rules, just to Councilor Flaherty's point about It used to be a vibrant place. There are rules in there now that you can't talk above a whisper during certain times. That's not a vibrant... I don't want a library in that location. I want something that's gonna draw people in, that's gonna excite people. We talked earlier about Harvard Square at the pedestrianization.

Harvard Square is that. The business association has raised this. They are at this disadvantage in some ways. There's a lot more destiny-type places that have popped up over the last few years, Arsenal Mall, Assembly Square, et cetera, where people can... Park, and walk around. So they have a lot more competition. And they're not going to be able to compete with that in some ways. We're not going to build 3,000 parking spaces in Harvard Square. So they have to offer something different. It has to be a different type of draw, right? And that's where the excitement, the street performers, the energy, That's where they're going to make a difference. And so even to Councilor Al-Zubi's point before, that pedestrianization of offering people something different where they can walk around and experience something different is really important to them. You know, I just, I think we can do a better job.

And look, if it's determined, if we have this contract with Culture House and they have to be the provider for the foreseeable future, Then let's work with them to make it something better. It's just not working the way it is now. But I still think the Harvard Square Business Association is really the ones who should be You know, running that site. Thank you. I yield.

We'll go to Councilor Simmons.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Worth reiterating, so thank you for the opportunity to be able to say it twice. I want to appreciate the work that went into this memo, and I have a genuine respect for the staff at CDD and the Office of Tourism. The TDMD numbers are encouraging and the return on our investment we're seeing from those marketing campaigns is the kind of thing we should be celebrating. I do want to speak candidly about the kiosk. because I do, and you've heard it before, but so it's not just me that feels this way, because I do have some real concerns. The Harvard Square Kiosk went through an extraordinary thorough community process. Years of workshops, surveys, Working Groups, Public Input. And what the community said consistently was they wanted a space that reflected Cambridge. I went on the Cultural House board. There may be someone that lives in Cambridge that's here, but it doesn't look like it. because they don't speak to that.

So some organization with maybe some Cambridge residents on it impacting what happens in a cultural space like Harvard Square is, for me, disconcerting. The community said consistently they wanted the space to reflect Cambridge. And as my colleague, Councilor McGovern, just said, You know, in particular, Harvard HSBA reflects that. They've been doing the work on the ground. So how we got someone that lives on the other side of the sky, I don't understand, but a space that feels like the heart of Harvard Square, and that's what the kiosk is. It's a place that reflects Harvard Square. So I'm going to be very honest. When I learned that the organization selected to operate the spaces based outside of Cambridge again, I was disappointed and I remain disappointed. We would never expect a Cambridge organization to be the right fit to run a landmark in downtown Boston or Somerville.

So the same logic applies here. There is something fundamentally counterintuitive about the Gateway to Harvard Square, one of the most storied places or spaces in the city being stewarded by an organization that isn't rooted in the community. I'm not here to condemn the process of the people that are involved. Again, my colleague, Councilor Zusy, remarked about the art that is being sold in the kiosks for a hefty sum. that's in conflict with a community-based store. So I trust the RFP was conducted in good faith, but I do think we have to ask ourselves whether the outcome truly serves the vision that residents and businesses spent years articulating. What I would like to see going forward is a more active role for the city in shaping the programming at the kiosk.

I want to understand what levers we have through the kiosk advisory committee, through our contract with the operator and through whatever mechanisms are available to ensure that what happens in this space reflects Cambridge's history, Cambridge's culture, and Cambridge's people. So I look forward to continuing this conversation. But I am interested. I know you're putting together this kiosk advisory. Is that going to be some of both people too? I'm just curious, so I would like to hear a little bit of your thoughts about the advisory committee and what impact it's going to have on programming in the kiosk. With that, I will yield the floor.

Assistant City Manager. Great. Thank you. Through you, Mayor. So appreciate all your comments and certainly take the feedback and will incorporate it into for continued operation regarding your question around the kiosk advisory group. That is a working group that's comprised of Cambridge residents and stakeholders work in the arts and cultural field and have experience in that world of curating public spaces and placemaking. They certainly are are in charge of coming up with evaluation criteria and metrics to understand the impact of programming to make sure it's having the intent that we want it to have. I imagine that feedback will come out of their work as well as reviewing past programming and then helping advise future programming.

So we appreciate your feedback and we'll continue to work with the current operator as we move forward.

Simmons, we do have to move on.

Real quick, what you said, when I think of advisory, sometimes it doesn't mean it has the full impact of making an impression on the organizing The people that hold the contract. And so I'm just saying to you out loud for the record that I want an advisory committee that's going to have some impact on the programming to the benefit of the citizens of Cambridge. With that, I yield the floor.

It's about 7.22 right now. We have Councilor Nolan and then Councilor Al-Zubi.

Thank you. Thank you to the staff for working on this, for this response to the really important policy order and all my colleagues who have said much. I will say I think we have to acknowledge it's really tough with the construction there to understand what the actual impact is. So that is definitely something I appreciate and understand. That being said, it should not have taken several years to get here. I know some of that is not in the control of the city, it's also the state. And even with that, there's been this grand gala opening we were all at. I look forward to a change in the kiosk. It is not working. It is not attracting people. I also think it would be phenomenal to say, hey, we just put it out there and every month we'll have someone different come in and we don't pay anyone anyone. They either pay us or they just get it for free for a month. There are just so many other creative ways to use that space. and we should not be paying anyone to occupy it.

It's a city asset that we should instead, again, if they're not paying us to occupy it, at a minimum, we should not be paying them to occupy it. And I will note that I understand at least from what Director Gilson actually said to me is that the reason the Harvard School of Business Association isn't running it is because they chose not to respond to the RFP. I will say that if that's the case, fine. But then I would have asked, well, why aren't you responding to the RFP? It seems like it's a RFP that maybe should be reconsidered and changed. If the primary organization who's central to the square, who runs tons of events, feels like it's not an appropriate thing that they could do. So I hope we revisit that decision. We understand why it is. That's just good feedback. It was appropriate for the RFP to be considered the way it is, but there's also another option, which is maybe we're a little too rigid in defining it in a way that ensured that a key partner was not even going to want to do it.

I do hope and look forward to us moving forward and changing how it is that we approach the kiosk because I agree it's a central part of the square. It should not be as used the way it is. It's not working. I've been by there a bunch. I do appreciate part of it is the construction, but it's not just that. I think we need a new approach. Let's maybe get a bunch of high school students to come in and say what would enliven it for you. Just really let's use the community creative juices to understand how it is that we can better use that space. Councilor Al-Zubi.

Thank you. Through you, Chair. I want to also just acknowledge, just based on how we navigate this too, that the level of intentionality that a person brings into the work matters, because I know For example, they put on an Arabic calligraphy event during the month of Ramadan. They're trying to bring in Cambridge residents and businesses, also artists that engage with our space as well. just by talking to them. I think the attempt is there. I think some of the concerns that my colleagues have raised are definitely worthwhile exploring because we definitely want to bring more people in. Contextually, there's Something to be said, like Councilor McGovern said about pedestrianization, how that can impact the construction around the area. And I do think a piece that is critical to note about Harvard Square is, It is a very transient space. It does bring a lot of people with a lot of different backgrounds. And I think how we define what Cambridge means in Harvard Square is critical, and also how we navigate what we think about the Harvard kiosk.

because there are a lot of Somerville folks that come in to engage with Harvard Square. And in that way, I think how we look at that is probably going to be really important with how we look at the future of the space I'll yield.

Thank you. Would anyone who hasn't spoken on the kiosk like to speak? Well, certainly there's a lot of feedback there. I think my suggestion would probably be to do something with cats. You know, maybe a cat cafe. Anyway, there's a lot of room. I know Councilor Simmons really wants that. So anyway, on a motion by Councilor Zusy. Yes, please. On a motion by Councilor Zusy to place this on file. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say nay. The ayes have it. The... City Manager agenda item number 7 is placed on file. We'll move to 8. This is a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to awaiting report item number 26-17 regarding proposed amendments.

Al-Zubi, you have the floor.

Thank you. Through you, Chair, I just wanted to comment that this is a necessary step and I really want to thank you for your work because it's so urgent for us to be prepared. and also just want to note for the record generally that I have questions about this and through the executive order around how Our police department will be navigating protesters and federal agents if such situations were to occur, as we've seen across the US. and I will be noting that we'll be having that discussion in the Public Safety Committee on April 7th at 11 as part of our discussion. I'll yield.

Any other comments on these amendments? I want to just echo and say that appreciate the updates and also that internal training that was held last month. that I think a lot of city employees working in these spaces really, I think, It was important to inform and have their questions be answered. And so I think the ongoing work here and with our regional partners is really important. I'm sure there will be a lot more coming, so thank you for that. Yeah, before I finish, I'll just go to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

No, I was just going to make a motion.

Okay, yeah, I had a question just before you do that. I was looking at... requirements under D and it refers to subsection J for exceptions to the CPD participation and immigration enforcement. And I just want to, my reading of it was that that should be L now.

Thank you. Yes, through you, Madam Mayor, we updated the letters of these subsections since we added additional subsections and I didn't catch that. So that should be updated. And so for the clerk, oh yeah, and I'm seeing, Yeah, so in section D, it was the old J, so that's now L. I can tell you that later. And I can also reach out to the clerk on that to make sure she has the correct version.

Great. Hearing no one else on any of these, on a motion by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler to refer these to Go ahead.

Oh, I was actually going to just ask if we could have the motion be to pass it to a second reading rather than to Ordinance Committee.

So, sir?

To you, Madam Mayor, so that's at the discretion of the Council. The Council rules do contemplate that amendments or new ordinances will go to Ordinance Committee for discussion, but the Council could choose to pass something to a second reading without taking that step if it wishes.

If anyone feels the need for further discussion in ordinance, happy to have that conversation. I feel like we've had a lot of discussion about this at the council. We also just made amendments to this a few months ago last term, so I'm happy to make the motion to send it straight to a second reading unless there's any objections.

So that's the motion before us. Any discussion on that or questions before we move to vote on it? Councilor Flaherty?

Yes, just through you, Madam Mayor, and to the city solicitor, is there anything in there that conflicts I know there's conflict of law issues all over the place with federal and state jurisdiction. Is there anything there that conflicts with state law enforcement officers' obligations to to the federal authorities under the supremacy clause. For instance, I think there's something in there about not detaining on, maybe I'm using the wrong word, on not placing custody on civil detainers, immigration detainers? I'm not sure what the answer to this is, but does that conflict With state law and with the CPD policy regarding detentions on civil orders from the federal government, I just don't know what the answer is to that.

Thank you, through Madam Mayor. No, that's actually consistent with state law. So in the, I believe it was, Lund versus Commonwealth case, or Commonwealth versus Lund case, excuse me, that the courts in Massachusetts upheld that there is no obligation for and so forth. The State of the Law here in Massachusetts. And all of the direction here is to our own local police department, not directing state authorities to take any action. And it is also consistent with CPD's policies.

So I guess through you again, Madam Mayor, just through the mayor, As long as there's no inconsistency with state law or CPD internal policies which would otherwise put a cop in a bad situation. I don't have any reason why this shouldn't go for a second reading at this time.

So we'll go ahead on a motion by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler to move this to a second reading. We'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Yes, 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, that's all nine members voting yes.

that's been passed to a second reading and to place the communication from city manager agenda item number eight on file all those in favor say aye aye those against Say nay, the ayes have it. That is placed on file. We are done with the city manager's agenda. We'll move on to policy orders. Pleasure of the city council. Councillor Nolan. Nolan. Number one and number five. Councilor Nolan polls number one and number five. Madam Mayor. Councilor McGovern.

Four.

Councilor McGovern polls four. Zusy. Sorry, two and three. Two and three. Hearing no one else, we'll do a roll call on adopting six and seven.

Al-Zubi? Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Councilor Flaherty? 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 nine members recorded in the affirmative.

We are on to the balances adopted. We'll move to policy order number one. This is that the city manager is requested to direct law department to work with the Cambridge Public Health Department to amend and update language in chapter 8.28. of the Cambridge Municipal Code. This was filed by Councilor Nolan, Councilor McGovern, Councilor Nolan.

Thank you. I wanted to explain, I think there are a couple questions about this since usually we have this kind of policy order which came from the Health and Environment Committee meeting. with the minutes of the meeting, but the clerk staff was great about making sure that the policy order got on. We just had the meeting just a few days ago and they couldn't get the minutes in time. and the reason we wanted it on is the staff has wanted to work on the ordinance language. To be clear for those of you who weren't present at the meeting, the committee, This policy order directs the city staff to move forward on ordinance updating related to ways products are sold. The changes will not be for a nicotine-free generation or any further restriction on sales. We got a memo from and the City Manager about it, about two different kinds of ordinance changes. One was to update it and the other were a bunch of other changes to consider.

The consensus at the meeting was to allow the City Council, while we retain broad authority over the most important policies impacting the public purchase and use of tobacco and nicotine, and these changes would allow effective enforcement of such policies. The city staff, the city solicitor and the public health director Lipson asked us to move this forward so that they could get working on it. Again, the city proposes the current ordinance be updated to conform to widely adopted municipal policies, new state laws, and court decisions. Do a little bit more, but it really is covered in the memo that the entire council received from the city manager, which referred to the Health Environment Committee meeting. So if there's any other further questions I can answer it, otherwise I think we can move this forward.

I don't see any other questions on this. So on a motion by Councilor Nolan to adopt policy order number one, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. Policy order number one is adopted. We'll move on to policy number two, that the city manager is requested to initiate the planning process for Cambridge 400 and as part of this to convene a Cambridge 400 advisory committee comprised of members representing the range of stakeholders whose participation is needed to guide this work. This was pulled by Councilor Zusy, and it was filed by Councilor Simmons and myself. Simmons, would you like to say anything or just yield to Councilor Zuzi? No, I yield to my colleague. Councilor Zuzi.

I just wanted to say I think this is a great policy order and I'd like to be added as a co-sponsor.

on that motion by Councilor Zuzi to add herself to the policy order. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. The policy order has been amended with Councilor Zusy as a co-sponsor. I don't see anyone else on this. We'll go ahead on a motion by Councilor Simmons to adopt the policy order as amended. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. Policy order number two as amended is adopted. We'll move on to policy order number three. This is going on for city council support of an act promoting housing stability for older adults across the Commonwealth. Simmons, and Councilor McGovern. This was polled by Councilor Zusy. Councilor Simmons, would you like to say anything or yield? Great. We'll go to Councilor Zusy.

Again, it's another great policy order. Councilor Simmons and Nolan and I were all at the legislative breakfast of the Somerville Cambridge Elder Services. Last week, which is always a sobering event because we were learning about how Trump administration cuts will to Medicaid and SNAP benefits will have horrible impacts on our elders and will make it harder to fund home care. which makes no sense because apparently it costs about, it's less than $8,000 a year to provide a senior with home care services while If you need to put them in a nursing facility because they can't get to home care facilities, it costs almost $93,000. So it's penny wise and pound foolish.

I commend you on this policy order and I would love to be added as a co-sponsor.

We'll go ahead on that motion by Councilor Zusy to add herself to the policy order number three. And Councilor Nolan and Councilor Flaherty. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. We have an amended policy order number three before us. We'll go ahead and adopt that policy order as amended. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. Policy number three is adopted. We're going to move on to policy number four. This is the City Council go on supporting Senate Bill 2721, House Bill 5217, an act restricting the use of rodenticides in the environment. This was filed by Councilor McGovern and Councilor Nolan. McGovern.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, this is in some ways a follow-up to a policy order that we passed Last June, where we directed the city to change their policies so that we would stop using these types of rodenticides on city property. There are now two bills, a Senate bill and a House bill up on Beacon Hill. basically to restrict this statewide. There are a number of cities that have filed home rule petitions. That was sort of going to be the next step, but if this could pass statewide, we won't need to file a home rule petition, so I hope that the state does take this action. I'm not going to go into a long... talk about the dangers of this and what it does to animals.

But just recently, I'll just say a couple weeks ago, a female bald eagle that had been living in Mystic Lakes A few years was found dead at the bottom of the tree where her nest was. At this point, I don't think people can say that it was from poison. I haven't seen a report that that certainly wasn't hit by a car or wasn't killed by another animal. And in those couple years that she was there, she had six eaglets. And so it's not only the death of that particular animal, it's the chain, right? That female bald eagle is not going to have any more babies, which means fewer bald eagles in our environment and in our community. Not to mention, if a dog gets a hold of one of these rats, it eats this.

So there are, for some folks who have raised concerns about the rodent population and we have so many rats around, there are lots of other ways that we can take care of that. and there are actually other poisons that don't have the secondary effects that these types of poisons have. It's a specific type that can get transmitted to other animals. I hope that we will continue our support for this and support this motion and hopefully we won't have to do a home rule, but that may be coming too if they don't do this on a state level. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor McGovern. I don't see anyone else who would like to speak on this, so we'll go ahead on a motion by Councillor McGovern to adopt policy order number four. All those in favour say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. Policy number four is adopted. We're going on to policy number five. that the city manager is requested to work with the relevant departments to review the current legal landscape and provide recommendations for how to regulate construction of large data centers in Cambridge. This was filed by Councilor Nolan, myself, Councilor McGovern, and Councilor Zusy. Nolan, you have a floor.

Thank you. Mayor Siddiqui, yes, this I think is a really important policy order that will move us forward and put us at the edge of cities who are looking at this. I think a couple things. I also sent an amendment to the Clark, it's simply to take out in the order the word large because this really should be about all data centers and we have to define what large or not large means. and some people on seeing this said, well, there's no way Cambridge would have a data center. We will never have a hyper center. Hyper center take over acres of land and are very, very large. We don't have the land for that. This came about partly because having talked to someone in Memphis who did have a, at the National League of Cities convention, there was so much discussion about data centers and the importance of cities getting in front of it. Someone from Memphis talked about their struggle with a large data center, but also when I said, well, it's not going to apply to Cambridge, their response was, well, no, St. Jude's Hospital has a data center on one floor of their hospital. There's already data centers in Cambridge, right? They're operating somewhere.

The point of this policy order is to ask the city to start to think about how is it that we can regulate them In the future because they are coming there's a statewide initiative to try to attract data centers to the to the state and it's critically important if we do that that our city does not bear the brunt of The extra energy use that happens, we know our grid is coming to the point where it's already being tested. The center in Kendall Square that is being proposed now only has enough energy for the anticipated build-out of Kendall Square. If there's a bunch of data centers that come in, it's going to be really problematic. We're going through a drought right now. There's water use in data centers. So anyway, the whole point of this is to have us get in front of it right now. Any of us on the city council came to the city with a data center. There's literally no way we can regulate it because I checked with the city staff before they said, yes, this is an important thing because we need to be defining them.

There's no separate use in our use tables. and I also want to let my colleagues know as our CAO Fusco mentioned, I did review this with him and he does think it's a good idea to go forward and they'll be ready to move forward if we pass it.

Vice Mayor Azeem and then Councilor Al-Zubi.

Thank you Madam Mayor. So I support the policy order. I did just want to add a little bit of different perspective to the policy order, which is that I think that there's the very large AI data centers that have been built out in the rest of the country, and that is fundamentally different than what we will see in Cambridge. If you want to do large-scale AI data model training, you want to have really large databases that are built on land that is very cheap. And so then the question is, well, why would you build a data center in Cambridge where land is really expensive, right? And the reason that you do that is because we're in an urban environment and you want low ping, right? You want that to be close to where the users are. And the number one uses for data centers in urban spaces, especially in prime real estate like Cambridge, are emergency response coordination,

air quality management, 5G cell service, remote surgeries that you might wanna do where it really matters every millisecond versus AI data training. And I say that because there's a link in the policy order that says there's 51 data centers proposed in Massachusetts, right? And it links to one, the LightPath data center that is proposed in Kendall. And it says like, oh, this is like the thing that we should keep an eye on. But those are private data centers. There's actually two data centers in construction in Cambridge. The second is in the firehouse that we are building as a city. and the reason we are building that data center is for emergency response coordination, for 911 calls. And I just say that to say that I support the policy order, I think we should be thinking about regulations, but also A data center is just a bunch of computers in a room, and there's a lot of different sorts of uses for that technology. And there are trade-offs, right?

They definitely use more water and electricity than an office. They also use less water than a lab. They cause less traffic impact in an office because people don't go to as many, there's not as many jobs in that center, but they create less jobs. They have more property tax per square foot. And right now in Binney Street in particular, we have a lot of vacancies. And so it's also a question of like, what do we do to get that space when we have higher office and lab vacancies? would we prefer to wait till those fill up with more offices and labs or do we want data centers to fill in there or not? I think that this policy order, the order is fundamentally right, which is just an investigation. And so I plan to vote for the policy order as is, but just wanted to add some of that, Zubi.

Through you, Chair, I was just going to request co-sponsorship regardless of the amendment passing or not. I'll yield.

We'll go ahead. There's no amendment before us. Which one is it? Just to take out the large. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That felt like a friendly amendment. Do you want to vote on that, clerk? It's a friendly amendment, so we'll take care of it. So we'll add Councilor Al-Zubi to the policy order. All those in favour say aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. Now on the amended policy order. We'll go ahead and all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. We have adopted the policy order. and number five as amended. We're done with our policy orders. It's about 7.49. We now move on to the calendar. Pleasure of the City Council. Pleasure to have the City Council on the calendar.

Passover.

I'd like to pull number one off the table.

So Councilor Nolan is moving that we pull number, pull the item off the calendar. We need five votes to do that. Discussion? So we'll go ahead and do a roll call.

Discussion? Is there a discussion before we take the vote?

Sure. There's a discussion on that motion to take it off the table. Yes. Councilor Simmons.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will be voting no to take this off the table at this time, although I appreciate the work and the and the policy order in that it reflects a activity or an initiative that my colleagues have put forward. I think it's still a little early. Let me explain why. There's a few things. We had at the last meeting, part of the reason why it's on the table was that it was my hope that my colleague, Councilor Flaherty, would be able to have a meeting where we'd have a conversation about what's implied. And so I can't talk about the policy order because it's not in front of us just yet. But my concern is that we haven't done our due diligence on that. So because we've not had an opportunity to have a public conversation about something

I would rather this either be placed on the calendar, whatever you want to do with it. I just don't want to go forward until we've had a chance to have a Al-Zubi.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my colleague, Councillor Flaherty, I know you had said that you wanted to hold a hearing on this. Do you have a sense of a timeline or an idea of when you're trying to make that happen?

Flaherty?

Yes, and through you, Madam Mayor, I can do it any time. My co-chair, Councilor Azeem, and I have talked about it. and we're prepared to do it. There are an awful lot of points that are brought up. Some data is included in here and I'd like to verify it and validate it. and make an examination and explore this. There's a number of different points. We don't have to talk about all of them now, but I think we can do it in short order. Depending upon Councilor Azeem's schedule and city staff, we could probably do it in the next two weeks to 21 days.

I have Council Member Govern.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. Nolan, that cleaned up some of the language. that was causing some of the, some concern. And included in that, it does say to, it's not in front of it. So we have an order that, I'm going to vote to take it off the table so that we can get the substitute in front of us. We then can decide if we want to send that substitute to the Transportation Committee instead of the city manager, we could do that. We just have to get it in front of us to talk about it. So just procedurally, I'll vote to take this off the table so we can get the substitute in front of us and what we do with it then is another matter.

So I'll hear from you, Councilor Nolan, but we have to do a vote to take this off the table. It needs to pass. Five people need to vote yes. If that happens, then we can go ahead and vote to substitute. I don't see anyone on that. Let's go ahead and vote on the motion. to take this off the table and do a roll call.

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

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. And you have six members recorded in the affirmative, one recorded in the negative, and two recorded as present.

So this has been moved off the calendar. As was mentioned, we have a substitute before us. And there's a motion to... vote on the substitute.

Madam Mayor, I move to refer to committee.

We have to substitute this first. We haven't substituted it yet. So we have to vote to substitute. So I'll give this to Councilor Nolan to go over the substitute and then we'll go from there.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui, and I'm appreciative of Councilor Zusy, Sobrinho-Wheeler, and McGovern for working on this. As Councilor McGovern said, while it's a substitute, it builds on what had been before us. It takes away a lot of the concerning language that was, I think, somewhat confusing to people. And it then Cleans it up and clarifies a couple things too. It was not clear, for instance, although the original motion didn't mention that the visitor permit fee and the handicap would not change. We made sure that was explicit. What overall this does is suggest that there will still be a $25 option for anyone who self-identifies. That has been cleared with the city solicitor. Commissioner McKenna saw this policy order and also said it is implementable. Instead of having some kind of requirement for people to upload even anything, it could be a checkoff saying this is a financial hardship. I attest this is a financial hardship for me. I want to pay 25.

The big change is that it takes it away from an age-based automatic exemption for people, including many who can afford it. to not reflect the true cost. I want to remind us all, and I'm happy to my colleagues weigh in, that while I would not vote to send this to committee because We have been discussing this literally for about two and a half or three years to remind us all, as the policy order talks about, In 2023, the city council started talking about it. It had even been talked about before that, but there was a joint health and environment transportation committee. There was a policy order which requested recommendations. In May of 2024, so almost two years ago, Commissioner McKenna, in a communication to the city manager Huang, which was sent to the city council, included recommendations for adjusting parking permit fees to better align with associated costs. So I really don't see the point of continuing this discussion.

It's been actually in the public domain for a number of years. It is true that the idea of transferring it from being a more equitable system so that it's based on a self-identified income limit instead of an automatic age is something that, while had been discussed in the community, was not discussed extensively two years ago. It has been around for a couple months. We've heard from a number of people in the public Some are not in favor of it. I will say every single person I've talked to and I explain, including many, many seniors, they totally love the exemption. And when I explained that the city staff has said it costs $75, they say, well, I love it, but I should be paying the $75. Or they're concerned about income and say, I'm in limited income. I think I should pay less. And when I explained that the proposal is for 25, They say that is something that is totally handleable. So I am in favor of us passing it and getting it behind us. This has been on the agenda already for a month.

We've been talking about it for a long time. We've been talking about it literally for two years to finally get some more equitable way that we adjust our fees for resident parking permits. and the substitute basically does that and happy for any of the other co-sponsors to weigh in.

So you think procedurally the best thing to do is substitute this and then the council can decide if they want to move it back to the calendar or they want to refer it? This is edited language, which I think as a whole is better language and clarifies some of the things that came up. So that's the motion before us. Do you want to speak to the motion, Councilor Al-Zubi? had a quick point of information.

Does the substitute mean that any of the previous amendments are also off the table and this just completely substitutes everything we've discussed in the past? Okay, thanks. Vice Mayor Azeem?

I was going to say, I think that taking entirely on the motion of the substitution and not of whether there should be a committee hearing, I think that it's more or less the original sponsors changing how they wanted to frame and word and figure out what the proposal was so I don't see a reason not to vote for the substitution and that like the actual proposal that we're debating Simmons.

I'm pretty much in the same place. I will not be voting for the substitute because the biggest thing that I object to is it says that the city manager is hereby requested to work with the relevant two. So it's not, think about it, it's not research, it's to do it. And that's where I struggle. I yield the floor.

Any other questions on this motion to substitute? We'll go ahead and do a roll call. Yes, Councilor McGovern.

Yeah, again, I just want to point out that the substitute does say that the city manager be hereby requested to report back to the Transportation Committee by June. So any recommendations or even if this passes, it doesn't mean it's gonna happen. Any report back will go directly to the Transportation Committee before June. And then that gives the Transportation Committee something to debate and to discuss and could further amend at that point. Yes. I will support this and are we going to have, we're going to take a roll call to bring it in front of us? Are we then going to have an opportunity to state a position? Yes.

Flaherty.

Yes, Councilor. Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. And so I take issues with the substituted language for a couple of reasons. One, some of the language was taken off from the original Thank you very much. to the Transportation Committee of the City Council before June to ensure that changes are communicated prior to the next cycle of permit issuance. So it sounds as if Amending or ordaining this is almost as if it's a done deal, whether it's referred to committee or not. So the language, in my view, is final, not to investigate and report back.

I'll be voting against this, but I think that it should be referred to committee nonetheless. I can discuss that on the next vote, the reasons why.

I will be supporting the substitution, but I do want to acknowledge that I've been really surprised by the pushback that this proposal has had. And I think it comes from residents' frustrations overall with the removal of parking while we're adding to the cost. I mean, that's what's driving people crazy. So the only thing that I wonder about is whether It would be better to have a broader conversation with the Transportation Committee sooner to talk more about the broader issue of parking. because we all know with the bike lanes, we're losing parking spaces with the removal of the parking minimum. There are all these developments that are about that will be happening in the next year.

We can definitely do that.

Yeah.

I would say let's just go and get the substitute before us and then we can figure out what we want to do. So let's go ahead and do a roll call on substitution.

Al-Zubi, yes, Vice Mayor Azeem, yes, Councilor Flaherty, no, no, Councilor McGovern, yes, Councilor Nolan, yes, Simmons, No, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Yes, Councilor Zusy, Yes, Mayor Siddiqui, Yes, and you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded in the negative.

So we have this before us, pleasure of the city council. Councilor Flaherty?

I would move to refer to committee.

So there's a motion by Councilor Flaherty to refer this to the committee discussion. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thanks Madam Mayor. I would prefer to pass this and then we can have the committee discussion. We talked about having a committee a few weeks ago. In the meantime, it's still taking up space on our agenda and at meetings. As others have said, this change isn't going into implementation this cycle. The parking permits were just We have another year before it goes into implementation. If we have this committee meeting and there is, you know, Information that comes out, big discussion that leads us to want to change it. We have plenty of time to do that. This is something, as Councilor Nolan and others have said, that I've been talking about for a couple years now, it's about. paying for the part of the program itself. The cost of parking in Cambridge if you were to rent a private spot would be more than $1,000 a year. This is still giving an enormous subsidy to only people with cars.

This is asking for a small increase in what would be the cost otherwise from 25 to 75 to better reflect the cost of maintaining tens of thousands of parking spots on the street, all of the maintenance and wear and tear and all of the staff costs that go into that. We can adopt this policy order tonight, have a conversation in the Transportation Committee, have that full discussion, but move this off our agenda tonight where it's been for the past few weeks, the Transportation Committee, I think we should go ahead and pass this and then have that conversation and see if there is anything that leads us to pass additional policies around parking at that meeting.

We'll go to Council Member Govan and then Councilor Simmons.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. So just a couple things on this. For me, this isn't about parking. I don't think this is going to... and many more. I don't think $75 would necessarily do that. I will point out again that You know, a self-identified, if you check a box at $75, there's a hardship for you. No documentation, right? You just check a box. This is going to be too hard for me. You would pay $25. Where I struggle with this, a couple things. It is hard, and I do understand the pushback because seniors have gotten an exemption, blanket, and we would be taking that blanket exemption away.

And so that's a loss and people feel that. And so I'm respectful of that. And even if you check the box for a lower income senior, you are talking about going from zero to $25. So that is an increase of $25. So I don't want to... belittle that or say that folks shouldn't be worried about that. That is asking them to do more than what they're being asked to do now. So I respect that. The reason I support it is really for two things. One is this is a program and we can quibble about the amount of money. It may not be exactly 2 million dollars it might be you know 1.7 that but this is a program that loses money and we're having all these Finance meetings about how we have to make tough decisions. We might have to cut programs.

We might have to do all these things so that we can have money to really support the most vulnerable people in our community. Losing 1.5 or 2 million dollars out of the general fund that could be used to we could use that money to support seniors in a different way if we want to put that money towards one of the priorities on the The list we got was for senior, you know, food programs and outreach, you know, we could save that money from that and put it towards that. That would be a much better use of that money than funding a residential parking sticker program. So I think there's just better uses. But the other issue I struggle with is You know, the way the system works now by using age as a determining factor, you have seniors in this community, quite honestly, who could afford the $75 or more.

who get an exemption, but if you're a 30-year-old single mother living in Newtown Court, you have to pay? How does that, I don't, you know, I'm not sure how that makes sense. I want the people who can't afford it to get a break and get a subsidy whether they're 65 years old or 30 years old. I don't want anybody who is struggling to put food on the table to pay $75, regardless of their age. And I want the people who can afford it to pay it. so that we can free up some money to use in another way. So, but I do respect, I mean, I do understand, I mean, I thought the last order was, I thought it was just confusing and poorly written My name was on it, so I will take my share of responsibility for that. I think this is cleaner. But again, this will all go to the Transportation Committee. I'm not the main sponsor, but

To Councilor Flaherty's point, in that last ordered, After June, it says to ensure that changes are communicated prior to the next cycle of permanent issuance. I'd be fine with deleting that and just say come back to the Transportation Committee before June. I mean the reason is because it's going to take time to make decisions and you want it all done before January when people are getting their stickers. If that is language that folks are opposed to because it makes it sound like it's a done deal, fine. I'd be happy with getting rid of that if someone wants to offer that, if that would make a difference.

but I do understand why this is difficult for a lot of folks but I just, again, I think it's important to reiterate because I think there's a, most of the emails and calls that I got from people who were opposed to this are people who would not have to pay the $75. And I think that was a mistake on our part. I think we worded it poorly and confused a lot of people. But I want to make sure that's clear. So I'll yield for now, Madam Mayor.

So the motion before us is to, I'm just repeating where we are because it's already 8.10. The motion is to refer this to the Transportation Committee. I'll hear from whoever hasn't spoken, and then we need to move on. If that passes, it passes. If it fails, then the Council can decide what to do next. Councilor Simmons.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Are you speaking to the mic? Sorry. I am. It's light. I'm sorry, please? That's good.

Okay. I'll try. I'm not going to promise. Again, we are being asked to believe that a $75 fee would not be a burden for seniors. This is my quiet. I'm about to have a minor eruption voice. That's why I'm trying to keep it down. But the seniors I represent are not abstractions in a budget line. They are people who have lived in the city for decades, who have stayed through every wave of development, displacement, and rising cost, and now we are being asked to tell them that one small accommodation the city has made for you, that's being taken away from you. And I hear this argument about what we talked about this before, We're in 2026 and things are quite different now. $75 or 25 in this case is nominal to some of us. It's not nominal. It is not nominal. It is not nominal. to a senior on a fixed income. For them, $75 might be a heating bill. It might be a week of groceries. It might be a co-pay that they're already putting off.

And this is what really troubles me most. I call it the gagging at a net, swallow a camel rule. We spent two years trying to build a tiered fee structure to protect lower income residents Couldn't get it done, so instead of solving that problem, we're now simply removing the protection altogether. We couldn't build a system that protects the vulnerable, so we decided that vulnerable should go unprotected. And what's worse, We're asking to remove the protection without even talking to seniors. So if there are seniors that think this is the greatest thing since sliced bread and jam, please bring them to the council to speak to us because I want to hear from them. Without running this by the Council on Aging, without talking to the folks at the Senior Center, I don't understand where the rush is that we cannot take these steps. And someone, I think one of my colleagues says, you know, that we get, or maybe I misunderstood, could be used in other ways. But it's clearly what I hear the proponents or the main motion makers say, so it pays for itself. So maybe there's some confusion amongst the four.

So if my colleagues genuinely believe, as this order suggests, that most seniors would be happy to pay $75, or that they could pay the fee, then I again urge, let the burden not be placed on low income residents to provide their low, you know, let me prove that I'm poor. Flip the script for once. Let the seniors who wish to voluntary contribute to pay the $75 or the $25 to opt in. I cannot think of anything more demeaning than asking people that are already struggling, please prove to me that you're worthy. That's how I call it. Please prove to me that you are worthy of paying less. to me. Come to the department or put in a letter. Show us that you're worthy. Show us that you're worthy to have low income housing. Show us you're worthy to have food stamps. Show us that you're willing to have free and reduced lunch.

Why is the burden on poor people? If you wanna do this check a box thing for once and then let the seniors who wish to voluntarily contribute the $75, let them check a box to opt in. I suspect many would step up, and that's great. But the default should not be to strip away a protection and force people to ask for it back. The burden of proof should not fall on our seniors. It shouldn't fall on low-income people. It should fall on us. And I urge my colleagues not to support this order. I have brought in some substitute language that says, let people opt in to pay more. Let people opt, which I think is more fair. And so I would say yes, I certainly have this go to the Transportation Committee before it's sent to the City Manager in any iteration. I yield the floor.

I have Councilor Al-Zubi.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, I think some of my understanding is that this substitution actually seemed to be responsive to some of your concerns, Councilor Simmons, in terms of the self-identified checkoff option. And I appreciate your sentiment because similar to what Councilor McGovern said, there is a case where this would increase the cost for people from zero to 25 in some cases, which poses a question on whether that's equitable. I voted present to take this off the table out of the integrity that we voted to refer this to the transfer The Transportation Committee, and I will vote again in favor to move it to the Transportation Committee. I will, though, ask that, you know, we get a move on that so that we can have that discussion so that we can be able to move through on this.

So there's a motion to refer this. Anyone who wants to add anything new? Councilor Flaherty.

Just as two reasons why, through you, Madam Mayor, I think it should be referred to the Transportation Committee for a full Full exploration of the issues. And those two reasons are number one, the argument that somehow the residential parking permit program is being subsidized by non-automobile drivers. I take exception with that point because I think the argument follows that because It operates in a deficit that the general fund pays for this. So if that argument is true, then anyone who doesn't commute by bicycle is subsidizing separated bike lanes. Anyone whose child doesn't attend the public school in Cambridge is subsidizing public education. That's not the way the The budget of the city of Cambridge works. That's not the way the tax base operates.

So I take exception with that. And secondly, what I take exception with is the notion that the $75 increase is commensurate with the cost of the program. I have the memo that was written by Ms. McKenna back in 2024, and that's not what it says. It doesn't say that the cost of the program is $3 million, and therefore it should be raised to $75. It cites the Emerson College test, and it talks about the use of the city public ways for residential parking. and therefore it's not unconstitutional to do this, to raise the fee. But it doesn't put any data in the memo suggesting that the cost is $3 million and therefore we're losing some $2 million on the program. So I think we need an exploration, a verification, a validation of the costs of the programs to see whether or not that's actually true or not.

And that's one of the reasons why it should be referred to committee. for an exploration of that. What is the actual cost of this program? Is it a moneymaker for the city? Is it not a moneymaker for the city? because I don't see any data for that one way or the other. And then finally, I'll just say this. Overall, this city has changed a lot in my lifetime. and this maybe is a small benefit for our seniors and people can have different opinions about it one way or the other but I think in this environment to take away a small benefit in a city that has rapidly changed maybe over the lifetime of many of these citizens who are now of age to enjoy a tiny benefit, almost a thank you from the city, I think is both unfair and equitable, so I yield. And I would ask that it be referred to committee.

McGovern, and then Councilor Zusy.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, to you. Look, I can understand and I do understand and appreciate the strong feelings around this. You know, the people may not want to do this and may vote against this, and that's fine. You know, this is not an easy thing. But the record, we can't keep misstating things. There's going to be no proof. No one is going to have to provide proof that they are low income. If you go to apply for fuel assistance or any other government assistance, you have to show something. That is not what's happening here. And folks may say, and I said this in my original comments, it is going from $0 to $25 for folks on a fixed income. So it is a $25 increase.

So if you want to argue that a $25 increase shouldn't be there, that's fine. But it's not to $75. And what worries me is a lot of the seniors who I spoke with in senior housing With the last one, we're all under the impression that they were going to have to pay the $75 because that's what people were saying. And when I said to them, no, you have to check a box now that you're a senior. You would just check a box that you can't pay the $75. And they said, oh, okay. So I don't want to mislead anybody who's already anxious and nervous into thinking that they're going to be on the hook for the $75 if they're not. You know, maybe check, I mean, again, people can have different opinions on whether people should check a box, and I do appreciate that, I mean, Councilor Simmons' point that

you know when you are a lower income person or you're someone who is getting some kind of subsidy from somebody you do have to jump through a lot of hoops and you do have a lot to prove and it's a bureaucracy and it is degrading at times and it can feel like you're exposing yourself. But just to be clear, this is just asking you to check a box. that already has to be checked. To Councilor Flaherty's point about the whereas that said that non-drivers are paying for this, I didn't like that either and we took it out. It's not in here anymore. So let's talk about the ordinance that's in front of us and not about the ordinance. We placed it on the table so that people could talk about it and come back with something to clear up some of the things that people raise concerns about. So let's not talk about the former one, because that's not here. That's not in front of us.

Anyway, look, either way, it's going to come back to the Transportation Committee. We'll hear something from the manager and Ms. McKenna on what we can or can't do. All those questions can be answered about the actual cost of the program. I mean, as long as it gets back to the Transportation Committee before June, I'm happy.

Councillor Zusy.

Thank you, Chair Siddiqui. I just wanted to clarify that in the policy order it says keep the fee for visitor permits for residents without cars. and handicap permits unchanged. I just wanted to clarify. So that would mean $25 for residents without cars. And it's free for residents with handicapped permits. And I also just wanted to share an email from our Transportation Commissioner, Brooke McKenna, because I had asked her After a constituent had written me saying, how could it cost $3 million? I'd asked her, how does that break down? And she wrote... In response, back in 2024, we did an exercise to determine how much it costs us to actually administer the resident parking program. This analysis included looking at all costs associated with the program, including direct costs such as printing stickers, visitor passes, brochures, envelopes.

A portion of relevant staff costs allocating a percentage of the cost of each person's time based on what percentage of their job relates to the RPP program. and a portion of the costs of the parking management information system. This analysis led us to the $75 cost. Since 2024, costs have escalated, and if we were to rerun the analysis with updates, costs will have grown since then. So I do agree with Councilor McGovern here. Again, we're talking about $25. for elders where it would be a hardship to pay 75. And again, they just check off a box. And again, it would be free for residents that have handicapped permits.

And residents that don't have cars that want a visitor permit would pay $25. I will be supporting this. I think, again, we could be talking about this until the cows come down. I do think we do need to have a broader conversation about parking at some time because I think that's what really is driving people crazy. but I do feel like we've been discussing this for not only years but weeks and weeks and weeks. Thank you, I yield.

So the motion that we have is to refer this to Transportation Committee McGovern. If that fails, the council can decide what they want to do. As what Councilor McGovern says, whatever the request is, it's going to go back before any changes are made. It's the prerogative of the Transportation Committee can have, even if the referral fails, you can have as many committees on this topic with different questions that you want answers to. So I'll just say that. I think we should go ahead. We haven't heard from the Vice Mayor on this, so then after that we've heard from everyone, we'll go to the vote.

I'll just take five seconds to say also the Transportation Committee is three of the co-sponsors of this. And so I think we're going to end up in the same place regardless.

Let's go to a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Councilor Flaherty. Yes. Yes, Councilor McGovern. No. No, Councilor Nolan. No. No, Councilor Simmons.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. No. No. Councilor Zusy.

No.

No. Mayor Siddiqui.

No.

No, and you have four members recorded in the affirmative and five recorded in the negative. So it does not get referred.

It's not going to get referred. It's before us.

Move adoption.

Nolan has moved to adopt the policy order. Discussion? Councilor McGovern? The adoption of the substitute policy order. Discussion? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and do a roll call.

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

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. And you have seven members recording the affirmative and two recorded in the negative.

We're done with the calendar. There's no unfinished business. There's no applications. There are five communications on a motion by Vice Mayor Azeem. to place all communications on file. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. Those five communications are placed on file. We do not have any resolutions. We don't have any committee reports. We don't have any communications and reports from other city officers. Actually, we do. We have three communications and reports from other city officers. Pleasure of the City Council on a motion by Councillor Nolan to accept them and place them on file. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. Those three communications from other city offices are placed on file. Are there any late resolutions? No. Are there any late policy orders? No. Any announcements from the body? Yes.

Councilor Nolan? Thank you. The announcement from the body is a couple things. There's a meeting tomorrow of the Health and Environment Committee. where the climate committee will be, a couple of representatives will be in the chamber to talk about the net zero action plan update. and the Finance Committee, Naomi Steffen had sent out a memo about prioritization of finance with the deadline is I believe tomorrow. I'm looking at my co-chair. So we really hope that members have all had a chance to review it. It's due so that we can have a really productive Finance Committee meeting in the future. I'm just highlighting that, that responses to that are due very soon. Other announcements?

Councilor Flaherty. This week on April 1st, street cleaning and yard waste pickup begins, so you can check the city website. and the DPW is launching a couple of pop-up recycling events for batteries and recycling materials. You don't have to worry about being towed. on street cleaning since we don't tow cars parked on the streets anymore. Maybe we should. but apparently we don't do that anymore in the city of Cambridge and maybe we should reconsider that because as we all know, people park in residential parking for much too long.

Al-Zubi.

Through you, Madam Chair, just a quick clarification on my colleague, Councilor Nolan's point on the Finance Committee hearing. That's due by Wednesday at noon.

Other announcements? Hearing none, on a motion by Councilor McGovern to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. We're adjourned. It's 8-29.