City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you for watching!

Who's calling? Are we ready to roll? Do we have? Are we good?

Yep.

Good evening. According to being present, I'll call tonight's December 15, 2025 meeting, regular meeting of the Cambridge City Council to order. The first order of business is a roll call of the members present. Craig, would you please call the roll?

Councilor Azeem? Absent. Vice Mayor McGovern? and Audible. Present and Audible. Councillor Nolan. Present. Present. Councillor Siddiqui.

Present.

Present. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Present.

Present. Councillor Toner. Present. Present. Councillor Wilson.

Inaudible.

Present. Councilor Zusy.

Present.

Mayor Simmons. Present. You have eight members recorded as present and one recorded as absent. Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Stand if you can. Join me in the Pledge of Allegiance and please pause for a moment of silence remembering Roger O'Sullivan, former president of the Cambridge Educators Association, former teacher, longtime Cambridge resident. 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. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, adopted by the Massachusetts General Court and approved by the Governor, the City is authorized to use remote participation at meetings of the Cambridge City Council.

In addition to having members of the council participate remotely, we've also set up Zoom teleconference for the public and for public comment. You can also view the meeting via the city's open meeting portal or on city's cable channel 22. To speak during public comment, you must sign up and you can do that by going to www.cambridgema.gov backslash 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 the meetings and make it available to the public for future viewing. In addition, third parties may also be audio and video recording these meetings. The first item on our agenda is public comment.

Public comment may be made in accordance with Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 20G, and the City Council Rules 23D and 37. Once you have finished speaking, the next speaker will be called. Individuals are not permitted to allocate the remainder of their time to other speakers. Please state your name and address for the record and the item that you're speaking to. Given that we have 24 speakers, each individual signed up to speak has two minutes. With that, I will turn public comment over to Naomi Steffen. Ms. Steffen, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Our first speaker will be David Halperin, followed by Ruth Riles, then James Saul. David, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Good evening, David Halperin, 14 Valentine Street, Unit 3. I'd like to ask to preserve 12 stories on Northern Mass Ave. As has been discussed, 7 to 11 stories is generally a dead zone in the building code. I appreciate that we had a process. and the output of the working group should be respected, but that respect should be balanced with other concerns. Ultimately, for this process to help the city achieve its housing goals, we need to make the real economics work. The fact is from the public realm, an 11 and 12 story building, you know, no one's really going to notice the difference between those things. It's not like we've thrown out this process and said we're going to do, you know, 30 stories here. Stubbornly sticking to like the exact, you know, numbers from this process regardless of the outcomes that would produce is not good governance.

As for the AHO advantage, I would support going to, you know, 14 or 15 stories in places where, you know, say you can do 12 for market rate if you want to preserve a larger AHO height advantage. As we're already seeing six-story developments proceeding on this corridor, despite the zoning being in process, I don't think going to 12 is actually going to be massively profitable, and I don't think it will really change site acquisition costs that much. for affordable housing developers. It's also the case that a disproportionate share of ASHO projects, I think, are already along this corridor. We have 2072, Frost Terrace, all of these Leslie properties. If we're talking about equitable distribution of affordable housing within the city, We really want, you know, West Cambridge to do more of its share and I think Northern Mass Ave is already doing a lot there. I support all those projects and I support more there, but you know, nonetheless,

I don't think equitable distribution is a real concern in this particular case. Please keep Northern Mass Habit 12 stories. Thank you.

Thank you, our next speaker is Ruth Riles, followed by James Zoll, then Joe Adeletta. Ruth has not joined us, we will go to James Zoll. James, you have two minutes, please go ahead. James, you're unmuted, but we're not hearing you.

Thank you. This is James Zoll, 203 Pemberton Street. I've been looking through the letters that you've received, emails in your packets, and as you've no doubt noticed, there's a lot of the Same excuses for blocking housing that Cambridge badly needs. The alleged lack of process, nobody knows this is going on, and all that other stuff that has been proved false before. Rather than rebut those, I would like to mention a new twist to objections to bringing up housing, and that's the lawsuit brought by the Pioneer Institute. claiming that inclusionary zoning is unconstitutional.

And it's surprising to me how many people who say they want More affordable housing and inclusionary zoning say that we should simply give up on this lawsuit, not... Allow the city solicitor, the city law department to go ahead and contest this suit to just give up, assume they're right, not wait for adjudication. and rewrite our zoning laws as if Pioneer is correct in their judgments. They're claiming that... that inclusionary zoning is an illegal taking. And if you think about the other restrictions that we have, we for years, allowed only one family houses on some lots.

And in some cases, we take 30% for open space. It doesn't seem that we should give in on this particular point. Please continue your work to address the housing shortage here.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Joe Adeletta, followed by Federico Muchnik, then Helen Walker. Joe, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hi, Joe D'Aletta, 68 Walker Street. Tonight, since the City Council seems unmoved by generalist input relative to upzoning, I'd like to use a real-world example to illustrate the many and varied problems with upzoning on the corridors. Specifically, let's talk about 1740 Mass Ave. For those unaware of the current building housing, Walgreens, Kieser's, Simon's Coffee Shop is going to be raised in favor of a 71-unit multi-use six-story monstrosity building. This development's everything that's wrong with the council's current approach to urban planning, if you can kind of even call it that. Architecturally, when presented with an opportunity to beautify the city, Rather than seize it, the architect presents a contemporary neutered box. But you can help pick color, they say. Proverbial lipstick on the pig can be yours to apply. Some of you may recall a previous few minutes I spent reciting a classic, one box, two box, red box, blue box. If you'd like to populate the city with Ramada Inns, well, you've gotten your wish.

More concerningly, these 71 units are mostly sub-500 square foot studios that are going to rent for a whopping $3,200 plus per month. Let's be clear here, for anyone claiming the building will bring down prices, it will not. There's no evidence to support that, period, full stop. Equally as concerning is the elimination of any parking on site. Cambridge averages roughly half a car per person in the city. I'll let you be the judge as to how the surrounding area is going to uptake that many cars. But most concerning is the closing of a neighborhood necessity in Walgreens, a highly patronized retail establishment in Kiesers, and a beloved social gathering spot in Simons, none of which are guaranteed to return. and perhaps the most galling is the developers plea that they don't make a lot of money. My back of the envelope math says that 71 units at roughly 3K a piece plus retail rent on 20,000 square feet approaches half million dollars a month in rent. I don't know what the payback period is on six million in revenue, but at some point in the not so distant future, likely less than five years, the owner is going to be swimming in cash.

Please, until you've sorted out the unintended consequences, let the two proposals expire and come back with something more beneficial to our neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Federico Muchnik, followed by Helen Walker, then Noni Valentine. Federico, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Test 1, can you hear me?

We can. Hello? We can hear you. Please go ahead. Great.

Great. So Federico Muchnik, you know, again, nobody is on this council. is an urban planner. Nobody is an architect. You are effectively passing the buck to your departments, your city planning departments, and letting them follow your Your legislation. And in 2026, to be in this state where we are building up dense, fast, anywhere It's like a flashback to public housing and housing in general in the 70s or 60s or 50s. And it's just shocking to me that you guys aren't more creative with your zoning rules.

A whole bunch of people. Let's take Inman Square, for example. I hear that you want to go up to 10 stories in Inman Square. Inman Square. Now, for starters, you're going to Piss off a ton of people living in that part of the city. Second of all, you're gonna have a hard time getting federal, state, and local funds. for these buildings you want to put up. You have a much better chance of success if you go with seven stories or less or around that much. You won't alienate your neighbors and you'll put something up that is on a scale with the neighborhood. No, and instead out of, I don't know what fear you have You're putting the pedal to the metal. So I'm urging you to take another look at Inman Square. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Helen Walker, followed by Noni Valentine, then Marilee Meyer. Helen, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Can you hear me? We can, thank you. Helen Walker, 43 Linnean Street. Thank you for the chance to speak about the Mass Ave and Cambridge Street zoning petitions. You've heard me before on the urban design effects of these heights and the lack of open space. Just two points for today. First, please vote to reduce the maximum heights to 11 stories along Mass Island, Policy Order 2. and Eight Stories at Inman Square, Charter Right 1. Where there's a lengthy and expensive public process, the results should not be overturned lightly. Second, we need to correct last week's narrative that Inman Square is happy but Mass Avenue residents are fine with the heights. At the first Mass Ave community event, the overwhelming consensus was stop at six stories. When 18 stories were floated for Porter Square, there was strong negative pushback. Even the Harvard planning representative on the working group expressed his doubts.

The comeback was, so where on the site would you prefer the 18 stories? The August meeting of government operations revealed four levels of community engagement. From level one, we will keep you informed, to levels three and four, we will reflect your recommendations. The Mass Ave planning study was a level one operation. We will keep you informed as respect to the community. And in no way does it show a community mandate. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker will be Noni Valentine, followed by Marilee Meyer, then Tom Burke. Noni, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Noni Valentine at poor Washington Ave urging you to let current upzoning die a dignified death this year. CDD led Mass Ave meetings so skillfully. But people's impressive input, and I mean really impressive input on design, on green space, Planning on streetscape, on traffic circulation, on infrastructure, on parking, and especially on heights were not really taken on board. It was baffling to me at the time, but maybe I thought preordained, based on density and not quality, on quotas and not actual health of neighborhoods. It's too much like the communist country I had lived in where housing ideology led to crude buildings that people felt as an assault. A kind of up yours to history, to livability, beauty, neighborhood.

Human Scale and the green stuff around us that we need to be able to breathe and to absorb our stormwater. Now it's true that we get to say things in public comment, but there's no exchange. Last week, a councilor went right back to calling opponents NIMBYs. Cut that out, please. Caricatures don't help us trust city government. I want to be able to trust you and importantly to support you and you us as we face the daunting federal pressures coming. That's hard if proponents don't care what people like me think. And thank you to all the people who sort of Try to speak out each time for public comment on this issue. It takes work. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Marilee Meyer, followed by Tom Burke, then Henry H. Bortis. Marilee, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hi, Marilyn Meyer, 10 Dana Street. Are these last meetings concerning Cambridge Street and Mass Ave still open to public amendments, or are they just a patient formality? Residents originally pushed back on arbitrary heights wanting to emulate Central Square. There is lack of review or reference to affordable housing and true fear of small business and resident displacement. The six and seven stories of the Sheraton Commander and New Street would be good along Mass Ave. 11 stories from 12 stories is negligible and still too tall. Eight stories in Inman Square is supposed to be a compromise from 10. Incentives from AHO still diminished.

The council stated it is a right to change heights without informing the public because, quote, it would take too much time or these petitions can't expire because, quote, we did all the work. We own this. That indicates more ego than willingness to solve inequities and sustainability. You will still get more housing. You still have the votes. It is safe to let these expire in order to scrutinize the monolithic Developer Friendly Plans. That it's not black and white, this is a compromise. All this moving forward before a legal nexus study addressing inclusionary. Advisory and planning board reviews need to oversee smaller projects under 50,000 square feet.

Good building and urban design, not as of right, are crucial to urban quality of life, but no uninformed councilor seem oblivious to death by a thousand cuts as they exude the number crunching formulas, not neighborhoods. Six to eight stories is more affordable to build by most accounts. Please let these petitions expire and come back next term. We will be waiting. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tom Burke, followed by Henry H. Wardus. Tom has not joined us. We will go to Henry. Henry has not joined. We will go to James Monteverde, followed by Richard Krushnick, then Paul Brenneman. James. James, if you can just press the button to turn on the microphone.

Yes, thank you. Good evening. I'm Jim Monteverdi, 12 Oak Street in Inman Square. Tonight's Cambridge Street Amendment lowering Inman Square building heights from 10 to 8 stories is a welcome change. but it misses the point of the lack of an informed community process. The Cambridge Street proposal in total discussed at the December 7th council meeting was not vetted in public meetings like the Envision Plan and the Cambridge Street Study were. That proposal should be allowed to expire and undergo public meetings this coming year. The heights proposed are too tall, whether 8, 10, 12, or 15 stories. These increased heights require careful professional study to examine impacts like increased traffic, Utility demands, shadows, displacement of existing retail and commercial businesses. These concerns... require careful analysis and public vetting that has not occurred to date.

The proposal is not necessary as the four to six stories allowed currently is sufficient incentive for new housing development. The proposal for Cambridge Street in total is flawed and has significant constituent opposition, and there is no reason to rush and take action this term. I ask that you vote against moving it forward letting it expire and allow the issues raised to be addressed and resolved in a public process so the affected constituents can support it. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Richard Krushnick, followed by Paul Brenneman, then Margaret Ann Brady. Richard has not joined. We will go to Paul Brenneman. Paul, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Paul Brenneman, 77 Tremont Street. I oppose the Cambridge Street and Mass Avenue upzoning proposals for a number of reasons, many of which were just stated, actually. I think the proposed maximum heights for these new buildings are way out of scale with the adjacent neighborhoods. And there have not been sufficient studies and intention to the impacts of these proposals. such as how it would change the character of these areas and how it would impact the existing adjacent neighborhoods. The loss of small businesses and social gathering places that won't be able to afford new rents is a big concern. I think particularly of Inman Square, where I live, where we have a really nice assortment of those places. Also the various environmental impacts and the increased traffic congestion and loss of available parking needs to be studied more.

I think the city needs to do a much better job of outreach to residents through mailings about all the details of these proposals and solicit more community input. Prior to the last zoning ordinance that was enacted at the beginning of the year, abutters of developments were notified and went to zoning hearings and had input that often resulted in a compromise that took in the interest, accounted for the interest of the abutters as well as what the developers wanted to do. And this is a real loss of the democratic process to have building by right, which is just based more on the developer's profit than the interests of the neighborhood.

and I would say that with Patrick Barrett's lawsuit challenging the city's inclusionary zoning provision should alone be enough to let this These proposals be dismissed at this point because if they succeed... Paul, apologies, your time has expired.

Please email the remainder of your comment. Our next speaker will be Margaret Ann Brady. Margaret, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Thank you. So I'm Margaret Brady, I live at 7 Porter Park, and I'm urging the council to allow these zoning petitions for Mass Hab and Cambridge Street to expire and bring forward amended petitions in the next term. I'm very supportive of the city's efforts to increase housing supply, particularly affordable housing at all income levels. But there are very serious concerns here about both the process and the substance. Community participation has been insufficient, inconsistent. For example, the Inman Square heard very different height limits during consultation than what ultimately appeared and more importantly as currently written these zoning changes risk undermining the city's ability to build more affordable housing. By significantly increasing allowable density without safeguards, the petitions are likely to drive up land prices and make 100% affordable housing projects uncompetitive.

Affordable housing must retain a clear and sufficient height or density advantage in order to succeed. City staff should be directed to propose zoning that explicitly favors 100% affordable housing. This is an existential issue for Cambridge. These decisions are going to shape who is able to live and work here. It is not in the city's interest to price out everyone but investors and the wealthiest households. In addition, the recent lawsuit challenging the affordable housing overlay suggests that density bonuses for affordable housing might be a more legally resilient option. But finally, the proposed zoning could accelerate displacement of small businesses and tenants. Cambridge should adopt a comprehensive anti-displacement strategy, as Boston has. and prioritize enabling tools that will help the social housing pilot and community land trust, both of which would be weakened by the current proposals.

I do support the policy orders to reduce heights on Mass Ave from 12 to 11 and an Inman from 10 to 8 stories.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Young Kim, followed by Susan Markowitz, then Alex Van Praagh. Young, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Young Kim, 17 Norris Street, speaking against the Mass Avenue and Cambridge Street zoning petitions. Since 2022, the council has removed residential parking requirements and then adopted multiple zoning changes that allow taller desert housing as a right. Taken together, this action has created a serious and unintended accessibility gap. Under Massachusetts law, accessible parking is not required unless parking is required by municipality, a point the Commonwealth relied on in rejecting my complaint. At the federal level, the ADA requires accessibility only when parking is provided. As a result, the zoning already adopted and before you tonight allows high density development

Without any accessible parking or guaranteed accessible route of travel from the curb to their accessible units, and leave the accessibility to the discretion of the developers, which risks excluding residents with mobility disabilities from the new housing. I do not understand why all the proponents are not seeing this policy gap. I urge you to vote no on these two zone ordinances and allow them to expire. Furthermore, I ask the City Council to adopt policy order directing A FOCUS REVIEW OF ACCESSIBILITY IMPACTS AND TO PLACE A TEMPORARY MORATORIUM ON NEW DEVELOPMENTS OF FOUR STORIES OR MORE UNTIL THOSE ISSUES ARE ADDRESSED.

This approach would also allow the two newly elected Cambridge councillors to weigh in on these critical issues. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Susan Markowitz, followed by Alex Van Praagh, then Neil Miller. Susan, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Can you hear me? We can, thank you. Great, okay. Hi, my name's Susan Markowitz. I live at 20 Oak Street. I've spoken before in opposition to the current petition to upzone Cambridge Street, and I'm speaking again to recommend that it expire so that we have time to address so many outstanding concerns. The first one I want to mention tonight is about AHO 100% affordable housing. The petition reduces the incentive to build affordable housing by providing market rate housing height that competes with the AHO Heights. So zoning should be delayed until there's a mechanism to preserve the AHO Heights. The second one that I'm concerned about is the lack of a true community process. The Cambridge Street study was inclusive and recommended heights of six stories with development review not as of right.

This addressed good building design and good building design and good urban design are key to the quality In my opinion, it's not worth sacrificing special permit development review just to make it easier for private developers. The petition should be amended and require special permit project review on projects between 50,000 and 75,000 square feet. This leads to my third concern. I could support the Mass Ave hype being reduced from 12 to 10 stores because there was a Mass Ave study that agreed on 11 stores. But if we agree on the Mass Ave study results, Why not agree to the Cambridge Street study that was inclusive of six stories? This seems to be inconsistent to me. and finally my fourth concern is about local businesses. None of the businesses I've talked to are aware at all of these new heights. They definitely need to be part of this process because especially since they're going to be the ones potentially displaced.

They're going to be pushed out, and if there is no provision for them, then there will be no recourse.

Thank you, Susan. Please email the remainder of your comments. Our next speaker is Alex Van Praagh, followed by Neil Miller, Charles Hines, then Beryl Lipton. Alex, two minutes. Please go ahead.

Greetings, counselors. I hope everyone can hear me. The amendments on the table tonight are just not enough. And I urge you to have this zoning proposal expire. My understanding of the proposal is... 12 stories along Cambridge Street with 10 at Inman Square, 15 stories in the old Lechmere area, 12 stories around Webster and Windsor Street, 12 stories along all of Mass Ave and 18 stories in Porter Square. This is just way out of whack with the existing urban fabric and the existing infrastructure. I don't know what CDD is thinking when they forward these proposals. There hasn't been, I mean all you have to do is look next door to Somerville

and they've done some really smart rezoning. It's form-based design. It promotes smart growth. There is a model there that can be referenced. The community process for changing these heights, for removing special permit development and review, for doing projects as of right, that's all been lacking. The proposed zoning that doesn't sort of actively require active floors on the ground floor is going to have huge negative impacts to the community life and Everything that we enjoy along Mass Ave and Cambridge Street. Other people have already said these points. AHO is going to be undermined. Inclusionary housing needs to be safeguarded. Please, please, we urge you to listen.

Let these public comments actually make a difference. We need to revisit this next year and we need to do it in a smart way.

Our next speaker is Neil Miller, followed by Charles Hines, then Beryl Lipton. Neil, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hi, Neil Miller, 425 Mass Ave, calling in to support 12 Stories on Mass Ave. are due to oppose policy order number two. I emailed a little bit earlier, but 11 stories on Mass Ave has no basis in urban design. The comments in the Mass Ave planning study that supported 11 stories were that they don't want North Mass Ave to be another Kendall Square. I really don't see how 12 stories or 11 will make The Neighborhood, another Kendall Square. They're completely different parts of the city. Also that there will be an urban canyon at 12 stories versus 11. That same page in the planning study says that 11 stories will not get built. I haven't heard an active argument for 11 stories and this seems like a last minute backdoor attempt to limit it to six stories.

the policy order also doesn't mention the existing urban heat problems in the neighborhood on page 33 of this study it says that Mass Ave has been identified as one of the city's most intense Urban Heat Island Hotspots underscoring the need for targeted cooling strategies like increased greening, reflective materials, and shade. So building with green roofs as new buildings require will help the neighborhood and also provide shade. Lastly, it's hard to take the policy order's mention of 100% affordable housing in good faith, given the years of controversy around 2072 Mass Ave. Other comments have said that the proposals could die, call them an assault on the neighborhood. A two-third of the city is renters and it's always easy to delay someone else's housing. I hope that after

The hundreds of folks participated in these community processes that were able to get this done. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Charles Hines, followed by Beryl Lipton, then Phyllis Brethels. Charles, you have the mic.

Counselors, my name is Chuck Hines. I'm the current president of the East Cambridge Planning Team, and I'm here to speak on their behalf. Last Wednesday, we reviewed the current proposal for the rezoning of Cambridge Street you're now considering and find it wanting in many ways. We urge you to vote not to act on this proposal, but to let it expire. We believe the current proposal is inconsistent with the city goals, including encouraging more affordable housing. It's destructive to the fabric of neighborhoods. that Cambridge Street serves. It does not provide the council with real consequences of this proposal and its effects on the current residential population. of adjacent neighborhoods and the retail and public services that it will provide. I have limited time, so I can't go through all the reasons. You have all those in front of you.

But I did want to say one thing. The new proposal is threatening. The original study that Community Development did we thought was very good. You have the best and brightest people on the survey in Community Development, and they recommended six stories. The six stories, structures, and the whole report was excellent. And we don't understand why you just discarded all that hard work. Again, The height limit was limited to six stories, which results in buildings that would be built less expensive. to about 30% of the cost that a building would be for eight stories and allows more affordable housing to be built. It's very difficult to build affordable housing over six stories. The costs become prohibitive.

Again, we urge you to let this petition expire and take it up again at the next council. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Beryl Lipton, followed by Phyllis Bretholtz, then Zachary Yarrow. Beryl, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hello, good evening. Cheryl Lipton, Oak Street. I am also here to ask that you let these zoning proposals expire. I really believe that most of you are intelligent and capable, and if you're being honest with yourselves, you know two things. One, zoning choices are value judgments. And two, that there are a lot of flaws in this proposal. You've heard concerns from from the planning board, from small businesses, from community members, from your fellow council members. And the flaws include things like copy pasting from Mass Ave to Cambridge Street, to not informing employees, to dismissing legitimate neighborhood concerns. And I just want to remind you that you are all public servants. Your responsibility is to be thoughtful representatives of the people. who poo poo public comment and their feedback and feedback who don't work to meet people where they are, who don't realize that we actually still have a lot of working class folks in the city are really failing their responsibilities.

I was really struck by something Mayor Simmons said in another meeting this week about looking around the room and seeing who is not there and saying we are a city of advocates and advocacy, but we are not good at community engagement. and asking why didn't they have that particular meeting in the port. And I'm wondering similarly in this context how engagement is happening and where those meetings are happening. On Cambridge Street, which spans less than two miles, there's really been a failure to go those final two miles of engaging the people and closing the loop and reconciling views of people who already live here. if you walk down the street you will hear that there are many different languages spoken in this city and particularly on the street Portuguese, Spanish, Creole, French, Russian, an incredible variety of people And in fact, a third of people who live in Cambridge don't speak English at home. So I just really want to emphasize that the humans of Cambridge matter. The details really matter.

And I really think that you guys can get the details right. But this proposal is not it. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Phyllis Bretholtz, followed by Zachary Yarrow. Phyllis has not joined us. We will go to Zachary. Zachary, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hello, my name is Zachary Yarrow. I wanted to speak regarding the roadway safety audit update. I appreciate that the city is taking seriously the dangerous intersections that need safety improvements and the Suggestions like improving signal timing and ensuring pavement markings are in good condition. But I was disappointed to see the lack of recommendations for protected intersection designs. I think the improvements made at Mount Auburn and Wolfe and Hampshire and Portland following the deaths last year were much needed improvements, adding those protective islands, ensuring that the turning radius of motor vehicles gives them that extra space to see people in the bike lane and crosswalk.

and I was very disappointed to see that those weren't recommended for the top highlighted dangerous intersections Mass Ave in Albany and Mass Ave in Vassar I biked through on my way to work There's adequate space to add those protected corners and it's a very well established standard design. A few years ago, I would have said in other countries, but now just in Boston, in Somerville, they've been doing quick builds. protected corners as well as concrete with newer projects like Tremont Street in Boston that have really helped improve the condition for pedestrians and bike lane users. and I think it's really important that that be one of the tools in the toolbox as we're making these intersections safer in Cambridge. Thank you so much.

Thank you. We're going to go to Suzanne Blier, followed by Amy Waltz, then Lee Ferris. Suzanne, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Thank you. And let me begin by thanking Councilors Nolan, Wilson, and Zusy for their vote at the last meeting on the Ordinance Committee on the two upzonings. And I hope others will follow suit as well. I'm urging you to let the two upzonings expire. Last February, tense zoning had included many major mistakes, notably the Dover Amendment, which we're still trying to address and the lawsuit by Patrick Barrett. If we had done the three plus three instead that would not have had a lawsuit because You are giving developers key extra perks to add inclusionary. Let's adopt that for the citywide upzoning and keep six stories for the corridors. The federal circumstances have changed enormously what we are facing on the ground here in terms of housing. What is our real housing requirement and need now?

It is no longer what it even was a year ago with the loss of many, many graduate students, university staff, and Kendall Square empty offices. How many have left? How many residences do we need? Do the studies here locally. Do people want studios? Do they want modest condos or do they want expensive ones for three plus million? No one wants a more divisive... In terms of economic issues, a city where we've got more and more wealth and more and more poverty with no families and nothing in the middle. Use human scale. Think again to Buram Azeem's houseman's model in Paris with interior courtyards. Those are human scale. require design overview. Good design is no more expensive than bad design. Follow the AHO design guidelines, which are really great.

Boston is doing the right thing on many things, purchasing buildings, etc., Trickle-down housing proponents make no sense in a place like Cambridge. Do that study. Minneapolis, Houston, Chicago, New Zealand all have two- and three-story townhouses, not 8, 10, 12, 15, 18.

Thank you, Suzanne. Please email the remainder of your comments. Our next speaker is Amy Waltz, followed by Lee Ferris, then Heather Hoffman. Amy, two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hi, I'm Amy Walsh from Atoll Place, Lee Street.

Amy, your sound is a little bit garbled. If you can try again. You can unmute yourself now. Amy, Amy, if you can leave the Zoom, log back in, and we'll call you when you're back in. You can raise your hand when you come back in. We're going to go to Leigh Farris, followed by Heather Hoffman. Leigh, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Great, good evening, councillors. I'm speaking again to encourage you to let these two zoning petitions Laps, Expire, and the... My primary reason still is that I don't think we are going to get what we want out of this zoning. In other words... We want affordable housing as a top priority in Cambridge, and I think that this zoning is going to be not getting us there.

I also think it's, I am not convinced that the amendment that was passed last week will be adequate to protect inclusionary, but I'll write further about that later. and I want to say that despite the fact that I think that this zoning should expire, it would be better to pass the policy order to reduce the Inman Square height from 10 to 8. and the policy order to reduce the Mass Ave height from 12 to 11. in the event that the zoning does move forward. But overall, I ask you not to have it move forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Heather Hoffman. Heather, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hello, Heather Hoffman, 213 Hurley Street. I'd like to point out a typo in the city manager's first item, paragraph four. Is it F-O-U-R or numeral three, people of color? With respect to contract zoning, I said before, It sets up terrible incentives. Listen to people talking about it. They never, ever talk about whether The zoning change is a good idea. The only thing they ever talk about is we're getting these goodies and those goodies. We should really, really rethink I think this is just one more example of how little planning was done.

How little intelligence has been applied to what you're planning to do to linear parts, not for it. And you've had years. And what have you done with them? And then with respect to the upzoning, I keep hearing from people who aren't lawyers opining at great length that they know how the Constitution works. I support it. Inclusionary Zoning. I've supported it for years and the reason that I spoke over and over and over about Why you should not do what you've been doing is precisely because the changes that you are making have completely vitiated the legal requirements for inclusionary zoning not to be considered a taking.

I have had lengthy arguments with Chris Cotter and others about my desire that you get more units and I've been told no, no, can't do that because it will not provide sufficient benefits for the developer in return. So pay attention to your own city staff and do not do something stupid. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is going to be Jack Mulhern. Then we have all six people that we skipped are now in the Zoom, so we'll call on them in order after Jack. Jack, you have two minutes.

Good evening, Council. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to address everyone here. I'm just going to Improvisationally use my two minutes here. I'm the son of my father, John F. Mulhern, was the Commissioner of Real Property and General Counselor for the Boston Redevelopment Authority. So when I hear The citizens, the wise citizens of Cambridge. I have seven lords in my family, and my dad was the expert in this particular field of endeavor. So when people use the pronoun we and the insulting comments from the citizens towards the members of the council, I take great umbrage at that. I needn't quote Teddy Roosevelt from 1912 about slings and arrows and so forth, and the credit goes only to those in the arena. and it's not the critic who counts. So I appreciate people's opinions on every subject and matter discussed this evening and respect it.

That doesn't negate the fact that I may not always agree with them. So as far as this matter goes, and the kind of picky own insulting comments towards these fine council members, it sends my Irish right up the chimney. So I attend all these meetings regularly. I'm rather ubiquitous here. And some of these people calling in and so forth, why don't you come down and throw your hat in the ring and run for office? because some people make these claims and this and that and so forth and I understand 12 and 11 and people's own personal preference and so forth. but this, as I mentioned with my dad, Scully Square is not ancient Athens and I would have liked to have seen parts of Harvard Square like the Tasty and certain places remain but this is the 21st century and as Kevin White, my dad's best friend said, We're not going to have blue ribbon panels and discuss this stuff ad infinitum. We're just going to, God damn it, get it done.

And so I agree if you want to delay this for the new council, fine. But these people were elected to get things done, not to just push it aside for another decade or two. They're doing wonderful jobs here and they shouldn't be criticized.

Thank you, Jack. Your time has expired. Thank you. We're going to go back first to Amy Waltz. Amy, if you can try and unmute yourself, you have the floor.

Hi. This is Amy from 12 Blakeslee Street. Most everyone that spoke before me recommending further review and adjustments to the proposed zoning clearly expressed the numerous problems with the proposal. I echo their plea to make the badly needed adjustments and and get further review of this proposal before sending it through. I want to emphasize the dire need for individual site review of huge buildings The size of six floors or more in already densely built city. This kind of building requires individual review and approval. including environmental aspects, particularly embodied carbon considerations.

We have no consideration of embodied carbon, which is all of the emissions When buildings are demolished and built, these are huge emissions and we are at a time when it's really critical to be careful Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Tipping Points that we are approaching very rapidly so it's really important that if we're going to do all this expansive construction

that we pay attention to the emissions that it is costing us so that that doesn't completely derail all of the city's actions to address climate already. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker will be Ruth Riles followed by Tom Burke. Ruth, you have the floor, two minutes.

Thank you very much. Sorry I wasn't here earlier. I would argue that this A proposal needs to be set aside and wait for the new council to take it up again. I think it's got a number of faults, one of which is And I served on the working group. The heights that are being proposed were jacked up beyond what we discussed in the group. I think that we could live with certainly higher and need higher buildings on Mass Avenue and in Porter Square. but the heights that are being proposed 18 stories in Porter Square and 13 to 15, if you will, on the avenue, I think is where we would end up getting.

They don't work one because a lot of the lots are narrow or maybe it's more a matter of they're not very deep. Perhaps if somebody consolidated lots, you would end up with something that wasn't a pinpoint. You also have neighborhoods behind those in both directions that have historic housing. I think that there needs to be some recognition of that and bringing some of those heights down a couple of stories. Two, there is the suit and we can't ignore it, about 20% inclusionary requirements, which should be part of the building. on the Avenue, I think. And I think there's the discussion you heard from Lee Ferris is a very good one. There needs to be a way to match

What we're calling for and are allowing in market rate housing to not threaten affordable housing.

Thank you, Ruth. Next up, we have Tom Burke, followed by Henry Wardus, then Richard Krushnick. Tom, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I live at 11 Buena Vista Park on the lower slopes of Avon Hill. And every two years when the elections are rolling around, I go door to door talking about housing issues with my neighbors. Many of my neighbors are older homeowners. They're wonderful people. They love Cambridge the way it is. They don't want it to change. And I understand that. It is a lovely city. But I also see young families that are really struggling to see that they have any kind of future in Cambridge. So many of them are forced out. And when I get around in the city, I notice that the people who cut my hair, who serve my food, and who teach my daughter, They just have no chance of living in Cambridge, and that doesn't seem fair. No one voted to make Cambridge real estate outrageously expensive.

No one voted for the housing crisis that we're in now. But Cambridge voters have voted time and again to reform our exclusionary, unfair zoning rules and to build more housing. We've had three elections in a row like that. Let's not water this down, let's move forward. It took a long time for us in Cambridge and in the Boston area and in Massachusetts and in the United States To dig this hole we're in, this housing crisis we're in, it's time to start fixing things. And I urge you not to water this down and to move forward now.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Henry H. Wardis, followed by Richard Krushnick, then Phyllis Bretholz. Henry, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Right. So this is Henry Werdes of 106 Berkshire Street, and I want to speak on just one point with respect to the proposals to rezone. I think that the problem is that there is no assurance that any inclusionary units will result from this rezoning. The reason for that drastic statement is that our current requirement of 20% inclusionary has been put in question and the city needs a new nexus study to determine How many inclusionary units, what percent should be required?

We do not know what answer the NEXUS study will produce. It is however wrong and risky to have this rezoning Without knowing what the new inclusionary requirements will be, Therefore, this should be delayed until after the NEXUS study, otherwise we will displace too many people who have less than Maximum Income for the Cambridge area. So please delay this until after the NEXUS study so you know how many inclusionary units can be built. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Richard Krushnick, followed by Phyllis Bretholtz. Richard, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I would like to support passage of the amendment lowering residential height limit in Inman Square from 10 to 8 stories. in order to retain the unique independent shops, retail, restaurants, and public I also support the amendment lowering the height on Mass Ave. from 12 to 11 stories in conformance with the recommendation of the Mass Ave study. How about a compromise on heights? Since six stories residential as of right came in this past spring, you guys decided to raise the height on the corridors because you knew that you couldn't get anything extra there unless you offered an extra incentive okay that makes some sense

I guess in a way that that certainly provides some kind of a rationale for going to eight stories on Cambridge Street. But I don't think it provides any rationale for going to 10 stories in Inman or 12 at Windsor or 15 at Lechmere. No real justification for these heights has been offered. So why not some kind of a compromise? like a seven stories residential along Cambridge Street with an active ground floor required. Eight stories with the same ground floor but with a special permit review required. Eight stories in Inman with active ground floor required. 10 stories, not 12 at Windsor, 12 stories, not 15 at Lechmere. What's wrong with a compromise like that?

Thank you. Our final speaker will be Phyllis Bretholtz. Phyllis, you have three minutes. Please go ahead.

Can you hear me?

We can, thank you.

Okay. Having spoken more than once requesting that you allow the petition for upzoning of Cambridge Street to expire, I assumed there was little I could add to remarks I have already presented. and my support for each resident who has eloquently made the same request however there is now additional information that I hope will further support my request to allow the petition to expire In personal conversations over the past week, I have learned that there has been no direct communication with small business owners along Cambridge Street, informing them on the possible impact on their businesses if the upzoning petition is approved as it now exists. and at community meetings of residents primarily in East Cambridge who are not First English

Language speakers, they are also totally unaware of the possible impact on their neighborhoods if the present up zoning is approved. This omission of meeting with and informing both small business owners and residents who speak Portuguese, Spanish, and Haitian Creole is deeply troubling and contradicts statements that there has been and opportunity for community involvement. Where is your sense of and commitment to community and neighborhood? This has been a painful realization and flies in the face of comments by counselors who have said there have been opportunities for community information and input. With this latest information, I strongly request that you allow the upzoning of Cambridge Street to expire so there can be a much more inclusive community process.

Give us reason to believe that public comment will have an impact and not just be a pro forma exercise to make us feel good. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Madam Mayor, that is all that we're signed up to speak.

Thank you, Ms. Steffen. That concludes public comment. I would like to entertain a motion to close on a motion by Councilor Zusy to close public comment. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councilor Azeem.

absent. Vice Mayor McGovern?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Councilor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

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

And public comment is now closed on the affirmative vote of eight members, one being recorded as absent. The next item for the City Council to take up will be the City Manager's agenda, but I don't see the City Manager. Timing is everything. Please come to the table. Councilor Toner. I haven't gotten to that yet. Is your entire team here, Mr. City Manager, because someone seems to be conspicuously absent. So we'll do it at the end. Okay, on the city manager's agenda, I would like to pull number four, and Councilor Toner would like to pull number eight, did you say? Pleasure, the city council.

Madam Mayor, poll number 6 and 13.

6 and 13?

Madam Mayor, I'd like to poll 9 and 12, please.

Mayor Simmons. Councilor Nolan.

Number two.

I'm sorry?

Sorry. Number two and number eleven. Eleven.

Madam Mayor, Councilor Wilson, Number 10 and Number 12, if they haven't been pulled.

Wilson, you said Councilor 10 and 12?

Yes, please.

Thank you. Councilor Zusy has pulled number 12, but I've put you down for count number 10. Councilor Siddiqui.

I'll pull 13 if it hasn't been pulled.

Yes, 13 has been pulled by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Vice Mayor, do you want to pull any items? Councilor Azeem, would you like to pull any items? He's absent, okay.

No, Madam Mayor, sorry.

Okay, very good. I'm going to go over what I believe has been pulled. On the city manager's agenda, now moving to the non-consent agenda, is number two. Number, did I put number four? I know that was my intention. Number four. Number 6, Number 8, Number 9, Number 10, Number 11, Number 12, Number 13. Am I correct? Does that represent what people have a desire to pull? So much for leaving early this evening. We will then... Move adoption on number one, number three, or I should say move to place on file, one, three, I'm sorry? One, three, five. Seven, where's the adoptee order? And 14.

And on 14, it'll be on the appropriation and placing on file. So, I'll entertain a motion by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler to... placed on file 1-3-5-7. and appropriate and a vote for the appropriation and place on file on number 14. Is that, do I have it correct, Madam Clerk? That's correct. Very good. Any discussion?

Hearing none, roll call. Councilor Azeem. Absent. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson?

Yes.

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

and City Manager's Consent Agenda Items 1, 3, 5, 7, and 14 have been adopted by the affirmative vote of eight members, one being recorded as absent. We'll now go back to the non-consent agenda. Start with number two, pulled by Councilor Nolan, reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yan Wang, City Manager, relative to the appointment of the following People as members of the Butoh Review Board. Councilor Nolan, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mayor Simmons, and through you to the city staff. It's totally exciting. This is actually a really important step on the way to implementation of Butoh. As we know, we passed this groundbreaking legislation. and yet if it is not implemented well and we don't see the impact of it, it will mean that all of our, we have a number of forward thinking plans from the Net Suraction Plan to the Transportation Plan to lots of different, the Climate Resilience, and it will mean nothing if Butoh doesn't see the results it has. So this is, I know much of the staff has been working on regulations which do not appear on our agenda but have required hundreds if not More hours of collectively of work. So I'm going to focus on this established Butoh Review Board for a term of three years. It's the first time this is before us. I was very excited to see the range of

Experience represented, and I did have one question, which is, in the ordinance that established this review board, it does mention two shall be members of a climate advocacy organization, two represented with real estate or business, Five will be technical experts who, quote, understand the urgency of climate change, unquote. So I would love to hear through you, Mayor Simmons, to the city staff, either the city manager or director, Rasmussen. How it was that we determined that the experts who were vetted and are being proposed to be appointed to this board subject to the approval of the city council, how is it that it was determined that they did understand the urgency of climate change?

City Manager, do you want to lead off before we go to Ms. Rasmussen? No, Ms. Rasmussen, you have the floor.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. So we did a very extensive process to solicit people to apply to be on the board, and we're fortunate to get three times the number that we actually needed. and of course in the solicitation it was clearly described that we were looking for technical experts which is one of the three groups of applicants we were seeking should have in a background understanding of climate issues. In people's applications, many of them provided their resumes and they provided justifications for why they were applying and to a large extent it was clear that people either through volunteer activities or in many instances through current jobs or past positions have worked on climate-related issues directly.

and we then subsequently interviewed a pool of 15 people that met the qualifications for applying and had like half-hour conversations with all of them. both about their motivations for applying, how they thought they could contribute, and what skills they brought, and it was very clear that Everyone has a background regardless of what their current position is. We had business applicants who are on the side running a solar company, etc. It was very evident that there's both a very clear understanding and commitment to the issues of climate as well as applying fairness and really trying to understand if applicants do have a clear hardship in one of the categories that's allowed. So that's, of course, also we were balancing

in interviewing people and subsequently recommending them that they were both a strong commitment to climate, a strong technical background in building Science, as well as a strong commitment to really truly understanding and applying fairness across applications.

Thank you. Through you, thank you for that response. I will be voting to approve these. I did ask partly because, as we know, as much as we love our institutional players, and I was very happy to see one of the represented here, The fact is there was a time not so distant in the future when MIT almost stymied some of our attempts to ensure that the I'm transparent and open about that, so I wanted to make sure that the message is very clear to all of these technical experts that we want that balance. and we also want to ensure that we trust but verify when there are applications before the board that we don't put unnecessary barriers in our attempt to ensure that we remain climate leaders. So I'm going to be quite upfront about that. I know that was in the public domain before, but that is the kind of thing that I know you are all wrestling with, and I'm again grateful for

Thank you with that I yield and Again, I will be voting to approve this recommendation.

Councilor Nolan yields the floor for the discussion on this item. Vice Mayor, do you want to be heard on this? No. Councilor Wilson, do you want to be heard on this item?

No, thank you.

And anyone from the floor? Hearing none. Just one question, Ms. Vasmussen. First of all, it's a wonderful... A list of individuals. The only question that I have that I couldn't glean from the description was economic diversity and someone who sort of came from the grassroots climate organization. So some years ago, There was the Urban Mass Climate Committee. We had members from Boston, from Cambridge, and some of the surrounding cities. Van Jones, I think you may be familiar with him. came into the city a number of times to work with the group. I was on it. And my interest... is developing the kind of leadership we want. We want it to be diverse in all its aspects. Now, I'm certain, and I could be wrong, that you didn't ask economic information, but just from looking at some of the background,

It doesn't feel like we have people that would have come from those ranks. And so wherever you fulfill the number of people that you need, I guess I'm concerned that We don't have those voices. And what's good about voices that come from sort of grassroots organizations is they, take that message back into the community. So I can't tell if anyone here lives in the port, is a long time Cambridge port resident or from Riverside. Some of the people that I think will really I hope, if they're not priced out the neighborhood because of the increase to live here because of the changes that we're requiring. So that's my concern. And just saying going forward, if a vacancy comes up because there's someone I would have thought of but didn't see the request to add someone.

I tend to look at Robert Winter's site because it's a one-stop shopping when you're trying to see who we're looking for. to attend, but I would really like to see, and maybe you can add this to your list of to-do things, the methodology that you'll be using to have that broader diversity on some advisory committee as important as this one. This is extraordinarily important. Councilor Nolan gave her blood, sweat, tears late at night, early in the morning working on this. I'm sure she's proud of the credibility of work that she brought here. But it doesn't feel representative. I'm not blaming you, Councilor Nolan. I know you had nothing to do with that. But what I'm saying is, I'm looking for the representation of people from all walks of life. I don't want this to be a sort of

organizations that don't hear from people that just come from a more grassroots approach. So I will rest and deal the floor with that. At some point it would be good to see if we can get a report. from you and the Office of Community Engagement on how you're going to get that representation on this particular commission or advisory. With that, if there's no further discussion, I will call for a motion. Councilor Siddiqui moves that, moves to vote. So, to place on file.

To prove and place on file. Councilor Azeem, absent. Vice-Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson?

Yes.

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

And the item number two is adopted by the affirmative vote of eight members. One being recorded as absent. We'll now go to number four. This was pulled by the mayor. Excuse me, reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yanhuang City Manager relative to awaiting report item 2566 regarding a dedicated position of function. focused on triaging and directing senior residents to appropriate services and supports. This was pulled by the mayor, I will speak, oh, there she is. Thank you for joining us. Let me just give you some brief remarks and then I can hear from you, Deputy City Manager Seminoff. First of all, I just want to acknowledge the City Manager for his thoughtful and thorough response. and I want to begin by acknowledging the professionalism experience and the dedication of the Council on Aging staff.

I spend a great deal of time working with that particular department and I do know that they put their time in. It's very clear from the memo that Cambridge is fortunate to have a highly skilled team of providing critical support to our older residents and nothing in my original policy order was intended to question that work or suggest that there was any lack of capacity or commitment. The issue I'm raising is different is really a different one. And it's really about the visibility and clarity and the lived experiences of seniors who walk into a building, our building, or pick up the phone and may not know who to ask for and what questions to ask or even what services exist in place. The senior policy board that meets monthly has spoken about this a number of times.

I said, when I pick up the phone and make a call, I don't know who exactly to talk to. And often my office, and I'm sure some of my colleagues may have been in the same place, where they start doing the triaging to find that right person. So many seniors, for that many, many people, period don't know what they don't know in terms of information. Having clearly identified highly vis-a-visible can't miss point person. Someone explicitly framed and advertised as the first stop for all questions. I think that could make a meaningful difference. And again, hearing from a number, I would say half of the 15 policy advisors, they said they love the senior center, they love going to the North Cambridge, gentleman's name Mick Laughlin in North Cambridge? Who's the liaison? It's not important. You guys know who he is.

He is assigned to North Cambridge. And of course, we have Ms. Pacheco that's in Central Square. So no one believes that the Agency is not working hard. It's just difficult to navigate where they should end or end up. The role might not require, I'm not saying it requires a new staff, but rather rethinking how existing staff are positioned, titled, or physically located so that that path is to help is obvious and intuitive. I see this as a structural and communication challenge more than a staffing critique. and I believe it is something that next council should take up with more depth as a part of a broader discussion about access, navigation, aging in place. So for now, I appreciate the report. I'll vote to place it on file. But I will be participating and have an expectation that this conversation will continue into the next term.

I want to see if any of my other colleagues want to speak to this. So, Councilor Zusy, the floor is yours.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor Simmons. I just wanted to support what you've stated. Again, we are so thankful for all of The elder services that the city provides. And it's fabulous that we've got three full-time client services staff with a master's level or advanced degree credentials in social work or psychology. and then we've got a full-time person trained as a SHINE counselor. And it's great that we're providing case management for 1,300 Older Residents, and then providing referrals for another 4,700 surveys. And I think, you know, I guess one of the things that I've been learning from the Somerville Cambridge Alder Services is that We've got like 12 to 16,000 people, 60 or over, in Cambridge now.

And I think we started meeting about this with Civic Unity, the mayor and I, and elder service providers, because We became aware that there will be this tsunami of need, especially over the next five years as we all get older. So more people will be between the ages of 60 and 105 in the next five years. But for me, I'm thankful for this. I'm so thankful for your work and all the work of the different service providers. But to me, there was a disconnect because we had had three meetings with elder service providers all saying that we needed more and maybe we just need to do more better. And I understand that

Thank you very much. Sometimes a person in subsidized housing is evicted because they might have early dementia and forget to pay their rent. and then they're evicted because they haven't been paying their rent so we just want to maybe we need to do more engagement at in housing um and actually elder housing So I look forward to continuing the conversation with you. I'm so grateful for your work. But I was hearing loud and clear from, what did we hear from? Like 12 to 14 senior providers. that we still have to do better. We always have to do better.

So thank you for your work and so maybe there are ways to do better. I know that there are Somerville, Cambridge, Alders Service, people to help at Manning Apartments. I know, I think on Franklin Street, maybe at LBJ, I'm not sure. but it just seemed as though those people actually serve an extraordinarily important function in those buildings because they They can help elders, they can sort of evaluate where they are, and also they can help them with paperwork, because there's so much paperwork. And now that they have to apply for housing more often, it's even a more important... So I don't know if there's a way we can expand that or do more with less. I'd love to hear back from you. Thank you.

Councilor Zusy, are you yielding the floor or are you looking for a response?

I'm looking for a response, and then I'm happy to yield the floor. And again, I commend you. But how can we do better, especially in senior housing?

Thank you, Councilor Zusy. Mr. City Manager, do you want to lead off? Do you want to go to the Deputy City Manager and then to Ms. Pacheco?

Through you, Madam Mayor, a couple of different things. There'll be opportunity I think in the new term to talk more about it. One thing I would say is that I think maybe we buried the lead here a little bit about communication because we don't disagree with you that seniors Don't necessarily know where they should go. I think in the new year we might hope to persuade you that the And it didn't sound like that was so far off, Madam Mayor, from what you were saying, that we need to communicate better about Where do you call? What's the one number to call? And I think that we can work together in the new year to make sure that there is a one number and that when someone calls that one number,

They either get immediate assistance or they get a call back right away to assist them because I think actually the service that you want may be available but I I deeply understand what you're saying that people don't necessarily know. In response to what Councilor Zusy was saying, I would imagine That there may be somebody who got evicted from senior housing for forgetting to pay their rent sometime in history. That would never happen now. What I want to say is we work so closely both through the Multi-Service Center and through the Council on Aging, that if you just forgot to pay your rent, we would be working with them because actually the city

budget includes funding to pay back rent in situations. So I'm not saying it couldn't ever have happened. But actually, the Housing Authority, HRI, just to start all of the affordable housing providers, the last thing they want to do is evict somebody for nonpayment of rent. And so the likelihood that once somebody falls behind in rent, they both get a notice and ultimately the housing managers bring it to our attention before They would actually be moving to evict someone. So I think that That concern is probably, I think the bigger concern may be when people's behavior is such that they are deeply disturbing the peace of people around them. I think that can end up being a much more challenging issue.

And I do think you're right that when we have funded appropriate staff who are able to address the mental health and other needs of residents. It does work well, and I think you're right in identifying what happens at Manning as being support. So I think there's opportunity in the new year to engage more around how do we make sure that you all know that every Senior knows that there's both signage and communication about where can you call.

Deputy City Manager yields the floor. Ms. Pacheco, did you want to add anything?

Through you, Madam Mayor, I apologize for my delay in entering the hearing. I just wanted to just reiterate what Ms. Semenov has just stated. A scenario such as what Councillor Zusy just explained is very rare because there is such a support system in place. We do clearly work very closely with all of the service providers that would have a situation such as an elder living in a senior housing building who would be facing eviction due to nonpayment. We are part of a service provider network. This is definitely one of the things that Cambridge is so resource rich in where we are collaboratively working with such an important part of the system, healthcare, social services, the legal services team. We work very closely with our own human services team as well as our city colleagues when it comes to something like that. I always want to stress something.

First of all, in housing, Cambridge Housing Authority having the contract with a group of clinical social workers that are currently in not only 11 of the senior housing buildings, but also in the family housing developments. These resident service coordinators have incredible relationships with the residents in those buildings. It also is important to just stress that when managers, building managers have more of the eyes sometimes on the residents. So if there's something happening with a resident, if there's non-payment, If there is a lease violation, they most definitely will be communicating with the resident service coordinator in that building and hoping to bridge those referrals. Then we have the situation, as Ms. Semenov has stated, where there is a significant mental health issue. I can tell you about a scenario that I was just out there this afternoon in one of our buildings.

A senior that works with one of our outreach case managers at the Council on Aging came to us. and stated that she was worried about her disabled son who is 62 years old as well, so also an older adult, who is squatting in her apartment. That is a significant, significant issue. First of all, as a parent, how do you not take in your son who is having substance misuse issues as well as health issues. We contacted the Cambridge Police Department, worked in order to be able to do a wellness visit. because it was past the care team hours. And we've worked very closely with the care team on this scenario as well. We arrived on scene, myself and Mary Ellen McElhenney, our outreach case manager, SHINE counselor, we arrived on scene to be with the senior because the senior was worried, significant concern about how her son would react to this situation. Now, unfortunately, the situation didn't pan out how we wanted.

The older adult who's 62 years old, the son who we were concerned about, who was intoxicated at the time, police assessed and EMS assessed He was cognitively aware. He was able to clearly give every information that he wanted and was clear, was adamant that he did not want to be transferred to the hospital. Thank you very much. So we always have to work with an exercise caution. We always have to work with the impasses that are often there with us. And we look for all the services that we can possibly provide. But at the end of the day, we have to remember that every older adult has the right to choose and decide what they want as a service plan.

And that goes very much with all the individuals that are in are housing buildings or living on their own in their own homes that they need to decide what services they want. We can be able to tell them what is available, What the services are, but at the end of the day, we have to respect the person's autonomy. That is critical and that is the base of our work. But as Ms. Semenov stated, we are working very hard and we will work very hard in the new year to make sure that we communicate what our services are. and at the end of the day we are out there and we're saying what we do but until someone needs us they're not necessarily going to call us and that's what we have to remember. But even last week we were meeting with Jackson Price and his community outreach squad. I love it. And we are working on postcards and we are working on a whole canvassing of the West Cambridge area, which was really

to be able to promote the Russell Youth and Community Center programming, but it's really opening up more outreach as far as what the COA does. and we will continue to do that through our media posts, through our communications department. We'll make sure that we continue to do media posts through our social media. outlets, and we are also going to make sure that each month in our monthly newsletter that we are going to focus on something very specific about our client services.

Ms. Chico yields the floor. Ms. Councilor, you're yielding.

Very impressive. I thank you for your work. I yield.

Thank you, Council Susi. Council Wilson.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And through you to our panel, I want to appreciate the work, as my colleagues have already stated, I also want to just state the importance, I kind of want to pick up on something that you had mentioned Ms. Pacheco in regards to our community engagement and your recent conversations with Mr. Price. and really thinking about how to expand on community engagement and thinking about how to reach our neighbors where they're at. I appreciate postcards and I think postcards are great, but I do wonder what more of like door-to-door intentional contact might look like for neighbors and residents and making sure that they know that resources are available to them. Additionally, as we are in these colder months, and I remember when I visited over at the North Cambridge Senior Center,

and had a beautiful visit and conversations more came up around transportation to the center. And we talked about how Transportation, like there's one van, right, that has to go around the city and do these pickups. And I can only imagine that that would be taxing and trying on that one van. Driver, basically. What would it look like to have a second, right? I think especially in these colder months here, what I am curious about what does engagement across the board look like and how do our members get to our location. So I'm sure many of them may be set up with the ride or set up with other services but

I wouldn't like to hear that there might be a decline in engagement because it's colder and folks can't actually get to our locations. So can we just talk a little bit about that? What the needs may be right now in these colder months and especially around engagement.

Director Pacheco?

Through you, Madam Mayor. So yes, I do remember this was the Ethiopian social group that Mayor Simmons also attended at our North Cambridge Senior Center. and the concern from the group was definitely transportation during the winter to get to the group on Tuesday mornings. That has all been coordinated. Transportation is coordinated through our Director of Client Services, Vincent McCarthy. He met with Yemi from CEOC, who assists in the coordination of the Ethiopian group to work on which of our seniors who are part of that group who need a transportation and where they lived and at this point we are picking those individuals up. They don't need a ride home. they only need a ride to the center because it is a 9 30 9 30 ish start time so we pick them up in the morning but they are not requesting They are able to take the public transportation home.

So we are picking them up and bringing them to the North Cambridge Senior Centre so they are able to participate in the Ethiopian Social Hour followed by the ESOL class that they participate in as well. In regards to further questions about individuals who may Suspend their time coming to the center because of inclement weather. That is always something that we state to our participants as well as other interested individuals coming to the center. If they need transportation, we ask them to meet with us so we can be able to assess where they live, what interests they have at the center, so we can be able to provide transportation. At this point, I can tell you we do not have any unaccounted, we have everything that has been granted.

and we will always entertain any request that comes our way, whether it is through our bus driver or finding other ways of transportation either through Somerville-Cambridge Elder Services or through the ride, et cetera. Because we always say transportation, there is not just one particular transportation mode. We always have to patchwork it with different services, and that's how we can get people to and from our programs and other events throughout the city. I yield.

Director Pacheco yields the floor. Council Wilson?

Thank you. Thank you, Director Pacheco, for that response and definitely just for creating space for members of our community to be able to be engaged fully in hearing what their needs are and trying to best trying to meet it as best you can. I truly appreciate it. And again, just want to echo that the work that you and your team are doing is really Powerful again around how we look at sustainability and quality of life for our elders and making sure that they're able to access the beautiful resources that are available at our senior centers across the city So thank you so much. I yield the floor.

Council Wilson yields the floor. Vice Mayor, do you want to be heard on this item?

No, Madam Mayor.

Further discussion from the floor? Councilor Nolan.

Thank you. Through you, Mayor, just a quick question and really appreciate all my colleagues' remarks in the discussion of this. Just wanted to suggest that in addition to ensuring that the communication is that this is a resource and the Council of Aging is a resource for It's also a resource for people who recognize that there's an older citizen that may be in need. I know many of us have reached out, but to make sure that the community also knows that whether it's a relative or a neighbor or a friend, to ensure that Folks who may not be of that age but see that there's someone in need that they understand the full range of services available because it is Yet again, one of the things that Cambridge can be proud of, and I know a couple times people have asked me, well, who do I call? And I think I have called Azeem Seminoff or Director Pacheco, but again, that's important for us to recognize that in the communication, the rest of the city knows that this is a resource. Thank you. And just with that, Mayor Simmons, I yield.

Councilor Nolan yields the floor. There's no further discussion. on placing this on file.

Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? Councillor Azeem. Absent. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson?

Yes.

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

Mr. Chico? and the matter is placed on file by the affirmative vote of eight members. One is being recorded as absent. We will move now to number six. This was pulled by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. It reads as follows. A communication transmit from Yan Wang to the manager relative to a waiting report item number 2557 regarding body-worn cameras. This is pulled by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, the floor is yours. Thanks for this report back. I just had a couple of questions around this. We had passed this policy order asking for More specifics around the policy around when body-worn camera footage would be released after a couple incidents over the summer, one on Broadway and one on Harvard Square. I was glad to see this report back, sort of answering that. One question I had was that in the report back, it said the department would withhold footage if it's released could compromise an active criminal investigation. I just wanted a little more detail around that because I think that was also the answer given for why the body cam footage from those incidents wasn't released. So I was just wondering if we need more... Specifics around that policy, if you could speak to it. And also, I guess a follow-up question from that was, has the body camera footage from either of those incidents been released, or are there plans to release that?

And you'd like that from commissions? You want to lead off and then assign it to the appropriate individual? I was going to give it to the solicitor and I'll back up after her. Madam Solicitor, the floor is yours.

Thank you, through you, Madam Mayor. And I'll start off, and then the commissioner can jump in. And I'm also joined by Kate Klimola from my office, who might jump in. Yes, so under the public records law, there is an exemption from public records if... something that revealing something would jeopardize an ongoing investigation and jeopardize effective law enforcement. and that isn't a blanket exception that automatically means anytime there's criminal activity or anytime there's a complaint of officer conduct or just generally anytime there's an investigation that everything gets withheld. That's not the case. Instead there has to be some analysis of whether It will impact and negatively impact an ongoing investigation in effective law enforcement.

for written police reports. That might mean redacting portions of a report. And so similarly with body-worn camera footage, it might mean that While we're at a certain stage of investigation, there might be some portions of body-worn camera footage that can't be produced publicly yet. For some... More serious incidents where police respond? There are presumably going to be multiple officers, so we're talking multiple cameras and footage, and there'll have to be some analysis of all those cameras were any portions of what those cameras caught information that at this time can't be produced.

But the larger the incident is, the more officers involved, it's likely there will be some portions that can be produced, but there'll have to be some review and consideration of Is this going to jeopardize effective law enforcement? I don't expect it to mean that there won't be anything that can be produced when these types of incidents occur but there may be portions that will be redacted until Council. Councilor?

Thank you. That's helpful. And then just on the question of the two incidents this summer, has the footage from those incidents been released?

Do you, Madam Mayor? No, it has not been released yet. The incident from 243 Broadway, I know we are still, it is still being prosecuted and we've been working with the district attorney on when we can release that information.

Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Okay, thank you. I'll yield and let my colleagues ask questions. Thanks.

Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler yields the floor. Councilor Wilson, Vice Mayor, do you want to be heard on this? No, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just have a quick follow up, please.

The floor is yours.

Thank you, and through you to our panel, I appreciate you all for answering my colleagues' questions, but in respect of this ongoing I think, again, as we considered, and this was prior to my tenure, I think, yeah, the body-worn cameras being approved by the city council, and that was a two-year process. That was two years of work, right? Trying to get to that place, if my memory serves me correct. And this was really... Thank you so much for being here. You know, paint the picture and make sure that the community, that the police, everyone is aware, all stakeholders understand kind of what went down in a situation.

And I know that as we look at Body camera footage nationally, like when incidents do arise, somehow body camera footage is like shared. And again, I know each incident is very different. and I respect what Madam Solicitor stated in regards to our rules. I also am just like, this is now several months in, and I am curious about how we may be able to tell a better story of what actually went down the night of August versus second there and during this 18-hour standoff so that, you know, just so that the community could just know that the police did what they could and or you know paint whatever picture that they want but they at least had

I am just curious about as we move forward, and again I respect the work of the DA's office and of everyone, and respectfully, these body cam footage, these body worn cameras was a huge investment that was made. And it was an investment that's also there to protect Thank you so much for joining us. You know, wherever the needs for changes and improvements need to happen, then that's able to happen as well. But I just feel like this is a little bit conflicting with this footage being tied up and

You know, in evidence right now Or while the investigation is ongoing Just being tied up and can't be released So I don't know if there's anything that could be redacted Or anything to that point, but Anything that you could share, Madam Commissioner, I would really greatly appreciate it because, again, this has been several months and I believe the community would like to Thank you so much for joining us. and many more.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, I agree 100%. We are interested in getting footage out there also. It's complex. We have to work with our district attorney's office. We have to abide by the law, and we're trying to do everything we can to... Paint a picture for our community. We're working hard to make sure we can release footage when we can, as we can. And we want to be as responsive as we possibly can.

I wish I could say something more solid than that. Sorry. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner, EOLU yields the floor. Councilor Wilson, is there any follow-up? Thank you.

I just needed to be on record just stating that. This is probably my last opportunity to state this on record. And so, again, as... Chair of Public Safety it was important for me to be able to lead in this work and be able to bring this conversation to to a committee meeting, but also recognizing as we move forward with body-worn cameras that the community is going to be pushing on the Cambridge Police Department to... engage a little bit faster and whatever faster could be and look like, respecting that there's ongoing investigations, etc., and some of this I wish maybe the council maybe knew beforehand. I wonder if that would have made a difference in what the outcome would have been. All right, I yield. Thank you.

Council Wilson yields the floor. Council Nolan, then Council Siddiqui. Council Nolan.

Thank you. Through you, Mayor Simmons, thanks for this report. Glad we're moving forward. I did want to follow up on the timing which the commissioner... referenced here, the suggested 30-day policy. It would be good to understand how that came about. Is it a recommendation from PERF or some other national body? Is it best practice from other cities and towns? I note that New Orleans has a policy that seven days after a critical incident that footage may be released. There's no request needed. It's just proactive for critical incidents. The ACLU model statute is five days from receipt of request. A request is required, but for transparency, it seems it would be prudent to have a shorter timeline whenever we can. Colorado does require footage to be released to the public within 21 days after a complaint is received. It could be increased to 45 days if footage could compromise an investigation, but it seems like there's other places that even when there's an investigation

that the timing is such that it is released within 45 days. So I'm just curious, again, how it is that we came up with the 30 days. I know that was Part of the report, but particularly with the ACLU model statute and others, there's a shorter timeline. And as we just heard from the commissioner that in public interest, it's prudent for us to be as transparent and as quick as possible because we know If it's a ring camera from someone else, it's going to be out there within about an hour if it belongs to someone else and we don't control it. So I'm curious about the timing. Thank you. Through you, Mayor Simmons, too. whoever wants to take that question on.

Yep. Through you, Madam Mayor, it's within 30 days so if we can get it out before, we will. It's within.

Any other questions, counsel?

Yeah, I encourage us then to look at the ACLU model statute and say that, in fact, it will be much less than 30 days, you know, that it'll be... As soon as possible, as opposed to within 30 days, especially because we already know there's some footage that has happened with instances that is still not released months later. I would certainly be in favor of a policy that is more in line with New Orleans of seven days or the ASLU of five days as quickly as we can get it out there. So I encourage us to keep working on this with that perspective. Thank you. I yield with that.

Councilor Nolan yields the floor. Councilor Siddiqui, the floor is yours.

Thank you, through you, Madam Mayor, and I agree with Councilor Nolan and Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. I think there are incidents already with other cities, Worcester, for example, and with the ice. Arrest that happened, you know, within, I think it was a May 8th event. By May 16th, I think. They had released the footage. Of course there were redactions around personal privacy and a minor's identities related to A lot of the footage, some of the footage, but I think to that point, I think we have to, if we can be more specific in certain areas, particularly around kind of... Incidents that really do, I think, demand transparency and folks will have questions.

I think it is in the public interest to do so. And so looking at that research that Councilor Nolan has done and kind of thinking around what I think that could be helpful as we think about rolling out this policy and procedure and to that end I'm wondering I think You'll begin to work with the partners to establish this. Are you looking for this policy to come back to us in the winter? What's the actual timeline? Thanks.

Commissioner?

I would say as soon as possible. We are actively negotiating it, so we're looking to get this finalized as soon as possible.

Councilor? Solicitor? I was looking at a colleague.

Megan?

Madam Solicitor, excuse me.

Through you, Madam Mayor. Just to quickly address Councilor Siddiqui's first point, I hear you on the timeline. I will say that Worcester doesn't have a policy, and in fact, no other municipality in Massachusetts has a policy that requires the release. All the other policies that are in place say that they'll provide camera footage in response to public records requests, but they don't go beyond that and give themselves, the municipality, some type of affirmative requirement to do it. and so but you know obviously following Worcester some have chosen in some instances that there is a public interest and have provided video so my my only concern about if

The city were to give itself too short of a timeline is what if there's hundreds of hours of footage to review or at the moment we can't predict Some of it at least can't be produced because of an ongoing investigation, but in a few days it might be able to. Just all sorts of contingencies, probably things I can't even think of now. So I'm not sure if 30 days is the right amount of time, but whatever it is to... to have the goal to the commissioner's point of producing sooner but not being in a position where then the city finds that it's not following its own policy because of these other issues that we can't control. So I would just say that as to that. And then just for timeline, just as the commissioner said, we do have to

Solicitor Beall yields the floor, Councilor.

Any further follow-up?

I yield to City Manager.

Mr. Wong?

Through you, Mayor Simmons, I think maybe just to build on some of what City Solicitor-Bayer is sharing, I do think having the policy is helpful. So creating a little bit of structure for expectations. When I think about how Worcester navigated what was An incident of incredible public scrutiny and a desire to understand what actually happened I think we can see there's a little more of an art than a science sometimes to this. Ultimately, what we're trying to do is create greater trust and transparency in the incidents that people really want to know more about. Even as I looked at how Worcester navigated that, they had a lot of officers on the field. I believe they ended up releasing footage from maybe three officers over a period of time where the incident happened.

So it wasn't a blanket release of every officer's full footage over the course of a 30 or 45 minute encounter. And so in many ways, what they were really trying to do is say, we know there was a specific incident that people are saying what happened. and these are the best angles to understand that. And I think that did build trust versus saying, okay, we have to actually release every officer who is on scene and then it kind of ends up being really hard to navigate. they ended up releasing I think it was like 30 or 45 minutes of footage versus hours and hours and I think They navigated some really difficult issues in terms of how to treat a minor and to think about how much footage to ultimately release. I think this is partly to say there's a bit of a framework for how we would think of navigating this, but obviously in certain cases where there's really intense scrutiny, we would try to move a lot faster.

There would have to be some discretion as you're moving faster on how much you're releasing and how to navigate these issues that are both legal and I think ethical ultimately. Just the other dynamic I would call out a little bit here, and I think part of where the framework is also more of an art than a science, What counts as something the public is interested in is also something we're navigating. And so as much as there are a lot of encounters that ultimately get resolved and so forth. And so I think part of the framework The department is looking to do this voluntarily, not necessarily waiting for a request, but ultimately, I think we're also gonna be navigating that piece where not every encounter are we looking to

do a lot of extra work, release video, post it on a website when actually nobody's gonna even click on it or look through it. So I think we are gonna have to like feel this out a little bit. These are sort of new tools for us. and I think the hope is that we're both finding some efficiency in terms of not wanting to staff up a whole department that's going to be releasing all of this footage that's out there. but also ensuring that when something does happen, we can get something out. And I do think Broadway is probably right. It's worth us continuing to talk about because I think that was both an incident where there was a lot of scrutiny. It was also an incident where I think for the most part there wasn't a lot of debate about what happened but the footage could have been helpful and I think we're still navigating some of Some of these issues in terms of how much footage to release, how it interacts with an active investigation, and how we get that out there. So I appreciate, I think, the conversation, and I think these have been a lot of really good points.

City Manager Yields of Floor Councilor. Any further follow-up?

No, I'll just say that I appreciate that aspect of it and I totally hear the operational constraints that Megan you alluded to and kind of the balance that we're in. Going back to the goals of why we wanted this policy, we want to be able to follow something that outlines I think the only point that I think I made my point around you know how do we distinguish and I think it will be hard but You know, I think transparency on especially some of these, you know, what you've outlined here is important. I look forward to seeing the full policy and then going from there. Thank you.

Councilor Siddiqui yields the floor for further discussion. Hearing none, I just wanted to just a little bit of a follow-up. I thank you to the city manager and to Solicitor Beer outlining what we're trying to do around public safety. I know we do want transparency, certainly a word that's overworked. Thank you. But what's important is who's looking for that information because as someone who was on the site, at the scene, stayed for over two hours, the commissioner was there, everyone was working overtime all the time making sure everybody was treated respectfully and safe. There was a place where residents can go off-site if they wanted to. They could shelter in place. There were a few individuals, I don't know where they were from, that brought food and water. I was a little concerned about that because they were offering food and things to people who didn't know anything.

If they had any food allergies, we could have had another event because you're trying to do the right thing and you give something to someone they shouldn't have. But that aside, I was there when the gentleman left the building and for some of the renditions of what happened was contrary to what I heard and saw I wasn't going to put a phone up in his face and say, let me tape this so that people know that we didn't beat this guy up or anything. He said, well, thank you, thank you, you guys are so nice, you're so nice. And one would think, here's someone that's running through the streets with a... Dangerous Weapon that finally is gotten to be reasonable and would allow to be taken for services as he's leaving says, you treated me well. And so I think we need to kind of keep that in context.

I know people do want to hear information and information should be given to those that need it. But we also want to know, we want to be able to at least tell the story as it actually happened in real time. And I think some people may have overreacted, and I understand that some people sometimes do. So we want to be careful how we retell. I think that the Public Safety Department did an extraordinary job of maintaining order and making sure people felt safe. And so I appreciate, Madam Commissioner, that you brought forward For us to follow up with, and I certainly appreciate the work that you try to do on behalf of the city and Solicitor Beer, I think it's important to lay out

that some things, no matter how fast we might light them, there's other forces that are involved that don't allow us to go as quickly as we can. and I know the city of Worcester is a wonderful place and I think they did a good job. But as we often say, they're not Cambridge and we really try to do the best all the time, every time and each time. and I think as long as we sort of work together in the spirit of collaboration, we'll get there. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for on a motion by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Did you mind? On motion by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, roll call to place this matter in file.

Azeem, absent. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson? Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

And the matter is placed on file by the affirmative vote of eight members, one being recorded as absent. We'll move now to number eight. This is a poll by Councilor Toner. It reads as follows. Communication transmitted from Yanwang City Manager relative awaiting report item 2549 regarding development of a policy for future private development. Councilor Toner, you pull this, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. First of all, I apologize that I didn't pull the original policy order that I filed several months ago regarding this to make sure I have it clear what I asked for. I appreciate what's here and the information. It's very useful. But the way I recall it in the policy order, I was really asking for not just knowing that CDD provides all sorts of supports for the property owner, the developer, that you can provide the council with information, You know, this was in direct reaction to the Biomed situation, and I was looking for actually whoever, the city manager or whoever the appropriate personnel is to step in very early and lead and facilitate

The process, because at least the way I remember it, and my colleagues can correct me if I'm wrong, and this is no criticism of the Vice Mayor, but what we had was a situation where Biomed did what they thought they were supposed to do, reached out to individual counselors in the community. They actually had several community meetings with the immediate neighborhood. came to the table, said, we want to give this much money to the community in East Cambridge. Oh, my God. I'm forgetting the... East Cambridge Neighborhouse as part of the benefit to development. And then... It became a bit of a free-for-all, and people saying, well, what do I get out of this? And people from other parts of the city saying, hey, this is supposed to be community benefits.

it shouldn't all be going to one organization and forgive me city manager if I'm misremembering this but I think kind of late in the process or at least late to my knowledge you and others were concerned that maybe East End House should not be the sole beneficiary of this, etc. But the train was way, way, way, way, way, way down the track. And I feel like Again, I'm not going to be here. That was the first and only time I went through this process while on my four years on the council. But I feel like someone... and the city staff, city manager's chair needs to be the one leading the process because what I experienced was all nine councilors having individual meetings talking to BioMed about what they were hoping to accomplish. My number one question was, well, do the people in the neighborhood, do they approve? And, you know, after several community meetings and promises of benefits to the East End House, they did.

and then it got opened up to a citywide discussion. Well, what does it do for the rest of the city? And I felt like we were in a lousy position. I know I felt I was in a lousy position. I stuck with the original I know my colleagues felt that there needed to be some sharing of the benefit and I just would not want to see the city in future Councils in this situation. And I'm not suggesting anybody did this, but when I read on page two under contract zoning, It specifically says, in the report, says case law has established some legal constraints around this type of zoning. In general, they are considered lawful as long as they follow the required public process, which is fine. and are adopted based on planning and policy considerations, which they should, and not to benefit the property owner or to extract concessions. And I'm not saying anybody here did that,

But I'm pretty sure I've heard during our conversations about zoning and ordinance changes, actual citizens saying, well, why are we giving up our ability to extract community benefits from people by making these things as of right? I really want there to be a very clear understanding among the citizenry, among the council, among developers, about what the rules are and who the first point of contact should be in the city to help steer them through the process and not leave it to, and again, no criticism, Vice Mayor McGovern on Zoom, But it was kind of left to the vice mayor at the tail end of the process to start engaging with other groups and organizations and working out what would be the compromise, and I personally feel that should be something someone on staff is leading. So I realize that in the memo it says it's ultimately up to the council, and that's great.

It is ultimately up to the council to vote to approve it. and certainly they should be brought along. I just don't think that we should be as directly involved in negotiating what the benefit is or is going to be and it should be something that the city staff has some set guidelines and parameters for because, again, I don't think anybody did it here, but it always feels a little like we're trying to extort things from people so they can build something. and it was uncomfortable for me. So with that, I'll yield Madam Mayor for other comments.

Councilor Toner yields the floor. Before we open the floor to Assistant City Manager, Peters, and Mr. Carter. Is there anyone else that wants to be heard on this, Councilor Siddiqui?

Thank you. Through you. I had a thought. I'm wondering, you know, I know there's a section around the conclusion and kind of suggestions. And, you know, I think... Have we explored the feasibility of a process through which the merits of voluntary benefits could be evaluated? Not to say that it's mandatory for the developer, but we have CBAC and they represent the city, they play a role. Maybe the needs assessment can be shared with these petitioners prior to whoever the petitioners are or CBAC is notified when a petition is filed. with a voluntary contribution. I don't know. I think what happened was the...

folks in the the advisory committee also weren't really aware that was happening even though there was postings process had started so I think there's like a communication gap there's like a process gap So I want us to think through kind of how we can provide some clearer guidelines for community engagement and how we proactively... I work with petitioners on voluntary contributions before it's filed. So I know it's laid out here, I guess. How do we accomplish digging into doing this?

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor.

Manager Peters and Jeff Roberts. I do know who you are, even though I called you by the wrong name. Ms. Peters, the floor is yours.

Thank you. So notwithstanding the legal framework, which These are voluntary contributions, and we do want to judge the merit of the zoning petition based on the planning and design principles first and foremost. There certainly are things that we can do to provide guidance to developers. One being, how do we think about best practices for community engagement? And we could do a better job of outlining Best practices around that, particularly as I've often described that engagement varies based on the type of community benefits. So if the community benefit is something that is taking is an infrastructure that's happening on the site that would require different engagement to a butters and something that's, for instance, a check to a community on profit that you don't have wider community engagement.

But more specifically, we certainly can more proactively engage with the petitioners to not only talk about our planning documents, but our community benefits needs assessment, Talk to other departments about larger citywide issues and start talking at the citywide level, city leadership level, of what are those priorities. I think we do still want to be aware that it's a city council decision and so we can certainly provide a framework and ideas but ultimately a city council has the opportunity to make the final vote.

Thank you. Did you want to say something in addition? Councilor Toner?

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you to Assistant City Manager Peters and the City Manager. Again, I appreciate all the tools, et cetera, but and I appreciate it's finally the city council's decision but I think the point of contact on these things should be city staff whether it's they come in and meet the city manager first and then he assigns it to you or whether it's direct it's Always CDD that's dealing with it because I just feel that it got very political, very personal, very quickly. And I know it's our decision. It's the council's decision. but I would have preferred it if it came through CDD and they said we've had these conversations with Biomed and we know the needs of East End House and oh we also think that there's a certain amount that should go to the community benefits plan and we're recommending this to the council for your approval. The council still is voting yes or no,

but now we're not getting into the messiness of trying to extract things for one group or another and it's less political and I think more objective. So that's what I was looking for, ultimately. I hope that can come to fruition. I won't be here to experience it, but I hope that we could see something like that going forward. I think the policy would have passed unanimously, so I don't know if that's what other people thought I was proposing, but I look forward to hearing any comments from my fellow Councilors or response from the City Manager.

Councilor Tan, are you yielding?

I will yield while the city manager responds.

Mr. City Manager, please respond.

Thank you. Through you, Mayor Simmons. I think these are many of the concerns that I think we did hear during the process and at the conclusion of it. I think this memo does walk through some of the underlying dynamics, which I would say are somewhat less firm than the process that plays out. I think there is actually a pretty light structure for what community engagement counts as. And yet ultimately, when I think about what it means for there to be voluntary contributions as part of New Zoning. In these developments, it ultimately does come to this city council body I would agree, Councilor Toner, and I think the Council has expressed this more broadly, that there was a desire to have had staff engaged earlier

and to have had some of these conversations to structure out what we may have thought about as options. And I think that would have helped us get ahead of some of the issues that ended up emerging later. And so I think that is a part of what is in this memo that we would engage earlier. I do think the conversation, Councilor Siddiqui, to pull in the Community Benefit Advisory Council and some of the needs assessments both that they've identified and more broadly that we're thinking about both within the community more broadly but also specifically around that development in that neighborhood. I think there have been voluntary contributions that have that have done a better job, partly because there's been infrastructure directly in that neighborhood that we've known we needed to work on and then became part of the development process.

and I'll also just acknowledge, and I think we had some of this conversation over the summer, but it does also show that cash contributions are somewhat more difficult to sort of wrap our heads around than when some of that voluntary contribution is part of the development. And so when we think about and other projects when the developer is actually just delivering something within the neighborhood that is a physical part of the development. It ends up being a little easier for us to understand than a significant cash contribution that could kind of go in any direction or to any organization. I feel like those are some of the lessons learned that I kind of came away with. But I feel like the underlying commitment is both to know that There are actually a certain number of rules underneath how this process works. But beyond that, the ability for us to get in early to do a deeper set of community engagement.

I would say city council engagement is going to be really important and then to try to land this in a place where I think We all have a little more heads up of what the options were and how we landed on what that contribution might look like. I think that feels like the big learnings that came out of the process and I think that are mostly captured in the memo. Does that sound right? Jeff, and Melissa.

Does it sound right to everybody? Councilor Toner, Councilor Siddiqui, all on the floor, because I will go to the Vice Mayor. Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Madam. Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. I apologize for not being there, but I think you can probably tell I'm not in great shape. So just a couple things. We did have a human services meeting last week with the community benefits folks. to talk about sort of this issue. And I think it was a productive conversation and one that we all want to sort of move forward continuing to talk about how to set up a structure that would reduce the possibility of us ending up where we did on the Biomed project. One of the things I said at that meeting is I think there are some

There's some terminology that we use that can be confusing and I think we need to sort of do a better job of clarifying that. There are neighborhood mitigation Things that come along with the development. Are you going to plant more trees? Are you going to have more open space? You know, things like that. And then... A conversation about broader community benefits and we tend to use community benefits as a catch-all for everything. And I think that led to some of the confusion in this conversation. And so better defining what we mean, setting up better expectations and protocols so that there aren't different sets of expectations. I think all of that is gonna be important and we are on the road to figuring that out. Excuse me. In terms of

In terms of the city taking the lead and trying to keep the politics and the council out of it, that was part of the reason why the community benefits package and fund was set up in the first place. typically what would happen for you know until that time was kind of what you know a developer would come in and as Councilor Toner said meet with all nine city councilors and all nine city councilors would say gee You know, this nonprofit could sure use a new roof. And gee, you know, this area could sure use whatever. And that's not a good way. Transparent Way to do business and it shouldn't be that way and part of the reason we tried to set up some parameters around that was to kind of take that out of the conversation and I think for the most part, we have done that.

I would say in terms of the, I don't wanna sort of go over the BioMed project again. I mean, I will point out that what ended up happening was, you know, I don't think it was an extortion of Biomed. I mean, the end result, I mean, Biomed didn't, their benefits package was the same as, What they went into it offering, it was divided up slightly differently and East End House still came out doing extremely well. So I think we ended up in a good place. It was certainly messy and anything we can do to mitigate that messiness, we should. And So I think we're going in that direction, and I think this report will be part of those ongoing discussions.

But we do need to be clear about There are certain benefits that are going to be specific to a neighborhood and there are benefits that could impact the whole city and how do we Distinguish those and define those and figure out what the right split of that is. That's going to be an ongoing conversation because even if the city gets involved early, but they don't have a clear... Thank you for joining us. So we've got to just set up some more clear rules around this. We'll be digging into this a lot next term. So I guess I'll end there, Madam Mayor, before I... Hackup-Along. Thank you.

Thanks, Vice Mayor, and feel better. We're going to go to Councilor Zusy and then Councilor Nolan.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I wanted to thank Community Development again for this report because I thought you clearly sort of laid out the process, and so I feel like that will be really, really useful. I think 230 Charles Street in the Biomed project was a little bit different because Biomed Realty had had a long relationship with the East End House, so I feel as though The petitioner should have some role also in dedicating if If the community benefits are going to be in a gift to a nonprofit, I feel like it was actually appropriate that they have some say in where the money would go. I guess this is a continuing conversation because I guess my big takeaway from reading your report

and Assistant City Manager Peters was that I do think Maybe community benefit should be determined by CDD working with the petitioner and the council. and I think it would just be much cleaner if in most cases money for our nonprofits and the community benefits fund are an allocation, a direct allocation from the city budget. And I know city manager, Huang. I know that means like finding three million in our budget, but I just I feel as though things got really murky when Clearly, there's a great demand. Our nonprofits are doing fabulous work, and they need funds to do that work, especially right now.

But it just got too messy as... More and more hands wanted to be engaged in the determination of the community benefits at this one site. So I think it's just cleaner. I think sometimes maybe some funds from Construction Mitigation will go to the Community Benefits Fund, but I would think maybe not always because as you pointed out, sometimes what you really need is a pedestrian You need a footbridge across a train line, or you need a cultural space, or you need open space, you need a square in a place that there's no green space at all. So I think different situations will demand different solutions. And I just feel like the cleanest way to make sure

Nonprofits are provided for in that there is constantly funding in that community benefits fund is by making an annual appropriation fund. so that they can know that they will be receiving funding and they're not completely dependent on the whims of the council or the whims of developers or the whims of construction. I think that will make it much cleaner and more dependable. for our nonprofits. And I think we'll end up with better solutions for the greater benefit of the city. So with that, I yield. Councilor Nolan?

Thank you through you, Chair Siddiqui, and thanks to my colleagues. Thanks for this report. I will just reaffirm a lot of what we've heard, which is These processes get messy partly because communication is not clear. The definitions are not clear. There's not as much transparency. I think also we have to acknowledge that the amount of money matters. If this whole thing had been $2 million, I don't think we would have ended up in it. It was when it became known more widely that it was over $20 million. So I think we have to factor that into much of our discussion. and reading this, I still understand and I think it would be really helpful as Councilor Zusy said for the community to know and have it be outlined. And yet, when is it contract zoning and when is it mitigation for neighborhood? Those are both in here.

if it's very directly tied to the neighborhood then that neighborhood will feel just like with extensive extensive discussions for a zoning petition that did not pass, which was one of the first I was involved in with Cabot Cabot and Fords and Alewife. It was all about that specific neighborhood and never any mention about anything else. If it had been $50 million worth, I just understand this is a really helpful step, and yet I think we still need some more clarity and definition about when the various rules apply. When is it contract zoning, which is different than some other kind of zoning? Azeem, Cohen, Wilson, Zern, Zusy, Cambridge, Councilor Anytime you do something in Kendall Square, guess what? Alewife is affected because cars are coming into the city there.

So I love that this is on the table, and I also hope that the council wrestles with this next term, and perhaps as Councilor Toner said, looking to the CDD in particular to make sure that the people who should know about these projects know about it early enough on. Because I think, let's not forget, that was a big part of what happened here. Even though we can say, hey, it was known, we all had meetings, clearly it wasn't until several months into what could have been just a several month process that some people found out that this was going on. So this is a great way for us to continue that work, but we still I think need some more work to be done about specifying how is it that we do communicate. What is the specific definition of these varieties in here so that the clarity is there? Because I think that's how we get out of ensuring that we don't end up with the, to use the technical term, the ickiness of what happened earlier this year.

So I don't think there's answers to that, Chair Siddiqui, but I wanted to make sure that we all acknowledge some of those elements of this. Thank you and I yield.

Thanks, Councilor Nolan. We'll go to Councilor Wilson.

Thank you Chance Siddiqui and I'll be very brief because a lot of my colleagues have already said it. I just want to name it and I guess be on record just appreciating the messiness because I think through the process of it all we were able to Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. I don't think anyone really is like, oh yes, I got 100% of what I was looking for. I think the process in and of itself was one that

Definitely, it kind of like divided the community and in some cases may have brought parts of the community together again. I know that there's a lot more work to be done and I appreciated the... The very robust committee meeting that we had, was that just last week? Yeah, last week on this topic. And while there is more work to do in the new term, and ongoing, there's, is a place where people want to be and I think want to be healthy and respectfully on this topic. So I'll be an outsider looking in, but I'm really grateful to have participated in this process and have pushed on us to be, I'm sorry?

No, please continue.

I just want to appreciate the process and just say that as we continue on You know, I think there's a lot to be said around what we learn early on in the process and where might the council, if there is need for council to have greater say or whatever because it is coming down to a vote that we can be just more in the loop and more informed sooner versus later. With that, I'll yield. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Wilson. Does anyone else like to be heard? To the CDD, I know the action here is to place this matter on file. I'm just wondering, As far as continuing this bucket of work, would you recommend this going to a committee or just coming back to us in the future around what this policy looks like?

Thank you, Chair Siddiqui. We're happy to continue talking about this in committee. It sounds like May benefit from additional information on the different types of public benefits and the different types of zoning petitions. So certainly if that's helpful, we also recognize that as these When petitions come forward, again, we commit to doing a better job engaging with the council and the petitioners and city leadership across departments, understand the full range of community benefits. So happy to do it on an as needed basis as well.

Okay, well, we can go ahead on Councilor Zusy's motion to place it on file for now and then the new council can decide how they want to follow up on the work. So on that, we can do a roll call.

Azeem, absent. Vice Mayor McGovern?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson?

Yes.

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

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Can't find my notes, so. Number nine. The next item is number nine. This is pulled by Councilor Zusy. Can't see because I have my glasses on. Hold on. reads as follows, that communication transmit for Yanwang City Manager relative to awaiting report item number 2540 regarding updates to the community benefits ordinance. Is that the same one we just finished? Okay, regarding updates to the community benefits ordinance. Councilor Susie, you pull this?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. So I guess we're going to be discussing this more next term. But I was a little, maybe a, what is it, point of, I don't know what it is. So we have some ordinance language here that you've altered some, but it sounds like maybe we'll be discussing it more next term. This isn't something we'll be voting on. Tonight, right? Because there's still a lot of things to figure out. And you know that we need to understand better that you want the council's help in considering the parameters of capital expenses, right? So maybe that discussion will be part of... So when sometimes we would... The Community Benefits Fund would be giving out operating funds, but sometimes...

If the council deems it appropriate, it may be funding for capital expenses, like to replace a roof or to remove mold or something like that. So is that conversation... are going to take later and happen later. Yeah, I guess that's my question. Thank you. Solicitor Beyer?

Through you, Madam Mayor, and Assistant City Manager Semenov is also here to answer questions. So... The policy order asked whether the community benefits ordinance could be expanded to include using community benefit funds for programs. As outlined in the ordinance, but also for capital and operating expenses because the current ordinance prohibits using funds for those purposes. And then it asked that The Law Department work on language to make that change if it is possible to use funds for capital and operating expenses and consult with the Community Benefits Advisory Committee. So I did that work. I met with the Community Benefits Advisory Committee. to hear their thoughts on amending the ordinance.

I provided a legal opinion to them which is included in this packet. And then what that legal opinion outlines is that it would be permissible to use community benefits funds for operating and capital expenses. I do think they should be tied to a public purpose, a purpose that benefits the community. But the way the amendment is drafted I think does that by saying that they would have to be used to, excuse me, let me just get the language. when they're related to and necessary for community benefits organizations, which are the nonprofits, to provide the programs and services outlined in the ordinance. So I provided that opinion to the Community Benefits Advisory Committee.

They sat with that and then they made some proposed amendments to the ordinance beyond just allowing capital and operating expenses to be covered. There were other areas where they've identified if we're looking at the ordinance, they would like to see some other changes incorporated. And so then I worked with them to come up with this version that's before the council today. So from, I think I'm speaking accurately, but from the perspective of the Community Benefits Advisory Committee and from the law department's perspective, The council has before it language that it could go ahead and amend the ordinance with these changes. The only thing is because we're at the end of this council's term, there isn't enough time to do that. because the normal process under the municipal code is to refer it to the ordinance committee.

Then after it comes back to the full council, as you know, pass it to a second reading. and then ordain and so we don't have time in these last couple weeks to do that so my suggestion was if it is the will of the next committee that the chairs of the ordinance committee next term could take this up on their own. and call an ordinance committee meeting, have this discussion, send it back to council and move it from there. And of course, the council can make other amendments if there are other areas where the council wants to change it. But I think what you have before you now accomplishes what was requested in the policy order.

Yeah, thank you very much, Solicitor Bear. So to me, I think... Yeah, it seems like we should be... I think we need to resolve the discussion of the mitigation process and contract zoning before we adopt zoning... and ordinance relating to community benefits because if, as I would imagine it, it seems as though The benefits to the community that would be impacted by development might be that may be accounted for in CDD's recommendation, right? So that the community benefit funds, and again, if we make an annual appropriation,

to the Community Benefits Fund, then the distribution of those funds would be less contingent upon where the development occurred, but they would be using the community needs assessment as their guiding star for, and maybe... nonprofits proposals for projects to define where the funds would go. But anyway, it seems like these two things should be discussed together. So I'm glad we can't adopt the ordinance until next term, because I think it should be that these two things need to be discussed together. And so that would be my recommendation. Thank you. I yield.

Councilor Susi yields the floor. Pleasure, City Council. Councilor Wilson, do you want to be heard on this? No? Vice Mayor? No, thank you. Thank you. Very good. Councilor Nolan?

Thank you. Yes, I agree. Given the prior item that we just did, I think we do have to define what even constitutes a community benefit in order to be refer to this and ensure there's a range of projects. Do all of them end up in community benefits and therefore allocate to the fund? You know, the allocation is... That section is changed a little bit here. I do have a procedural question, which is obviously we don't have, if this is referred to the ordinance committee, as the memo said, and there's a term coming up, however, the ordinance committee is a committee of the whole. So it automatically is going to be referred to a committee of the whole. Does it make sense to refer this memo to the next term or how is it that we ensure that this conversation continues in the new year?

If, Council, if you want to make a motion that places it on file and refer it to the ordinance committee and the votes prevail, that can happen.

Yeah, I think if the ordinance committee is the appropriate committee for it, I think since it is a committee of the whole and it does involve numbers, I think that's the motion I would like to make.

So Councilor Nolan wants to propose that not only do we place it on the file, but she wants to make a motion to refer this to the ordinance committee. Is there any discussion? Councilor Wilson, Vice Mayor, any discussion? If you're hearing none on the motion by Councilor Nolan to refer to and place on file. Could we do both actions at the same time? Okay.

I'm placing on file and referring to ordinance. Azeem, absent. Vice Mayor McGovern?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

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

City Manager's Agenda Item Number 9 is... placed on file and referred to the ordinance committee by the affirmative vote of eight members, one being recorded as absent. We'll move now to number 10. City Manager's Agenda is pulled by Councilor Wilson, reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yanwang City Manager relative to awaiting report item number 2565 regarding connectivity north of Ridge Avenue. Council Wilson, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and through you to Commissioner McKenna. I pulled this because one, I wanted to, we have received a few Thank you so much for joining us. were implemented based on this reconstruction project and so specifically speaking of the Dudley Street and Shay Road. So Commissioner, if you could, through you, Madam Mayor, Commissioner, could just speak to some of what's laid out in this memo in regards to like the thinking and the process around Why, one, Dudley Street was changed in terms of the directional. And then for Shea Street, the

Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for joining us. And again, if there's any feedback that we're already gathering through this process, we'd love to hear that as well. Commissioner McKenna?

Three, Madam Mayor. I think the process of developing the detour for the linear path was a challenging one because we need to make sure that we are providing a safe detour for folks who would typically be walking or biking along the linear path. We need to give them a detour while construction is going on. and yet at the same time we're trying to balance the community impacts of those detours and it was quite challenging to do so. Assistant Commissioner for Transportation Planning Stephanie Grohl is here with us and she can walk through some of the details.

Ms. Grohl. Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you, to Councillor Wilson. We... We know that the closures can be very difficult for the people living in the neighborhood through the time that it's closed, and we took a lot of time to think through what the detours would be. We engaged with stakeholders, the city of Somerville, abutters, and walked the sites and really, really considered what would be the least impactful Thank you. Thank you. where they would normally go without being able to use the linear park.

while it's closed. So in addition to doing a number of things in order to get the word out about the new direction that people would be going in, we looked at We did end up temporarily reversing motor vehicle traffic on one block of Dudley from Cedar to Mass Ave for a bicyclist detour and We also, as you said, we did temporarily restrict one side of Shea. And this was to make sure that we could do a safer... Contra Flow Space to make sure that bicyclists could get along Shea without being squeezed by two sides of parking. We did consider other alternatives that would have included removing both sides of parking, and we decided that that was just far too impactful.

We are hoping to open up, Shay as soon as possible. So we are only having these detours in place as long as we need to in order to get the to get the construction done. But we do understand that it is a difficult change to live with while it's happening.

Did you want to add something, Commissioner?

Three, Madam Mayor, yes. The other element of the decision on Shea Road was in order to make sure that we had a safe route for the cyclists who were going contraflow. because the pedestrian detour also goes down that block and we wanted to avoid having cyclists feel very unsafe on the street and therefore mixing too much with pedestrians on the sidewalk. So that was part of what drove that decision as well.

Thank you. Council Wilson.

Thank you. So in terms of the The lack of parking now on Shea Road, what have we done to help to mitigate some, you know, identifying some parking in alternative areas for these neighbors?

Commissioner.

Through you, Madam Mayor, to Councilor Wilson, I think there is the parking meters along Mass Ave in that section are available overnight, and hopefully that will help to mitigate. It's difficult to provide additional or impossible to provide additional new parking. But I think that in that area, a long Mass Ave overnight, hopefully that will be a good release point for The Neighbors on Shea Road if needed.

Council Wilson.

Okay, and so as you all went through this robust process of a community engagement, did you all have that kind of conversation with these neighbors in regards to parking being taken from their street? because you discussed that and then the way you're making it seem, Madam Commissioner, through you, Madam Mayor, as if This is like this wasn't necessarily discussed and talked about with them. It's more like this is what you all have access to. So kind of like figure it out. Was there an actual discussion with neighbors about the loss of parking on their street and for however amount of time this parking is going to be impacted for.

Commissioner.

This seems very significant. So I'm trying to elevate it as a level of urgency that I want you all to recognize. So I would love to hear your response. Thank you.

Commissioner.

Through you, Madam Mayor, we did try to, I don't think that there were one-on-one or small group conversations with the Shea Road residents. But there was an effort across the entire detour route to make the community aware of the changes that were coming in advance of the implementation of the detour route.

Council Wilson.

Through you, Madam Mayor, I'm just going to speak to how insufficient that is and just how personally I just feel like that's a little negligent, like to, you know, just have blanket Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. specifically door to door talking to each and every neighbor about what this impact is going to be. My mother lives in the neighborhood, so I'm on that area quite often, like several times a week. and you know especially the Dudley Street change was huge and I personally have seen some um near Collisions happen on that road.

And so, again, as I even talked to the retail shops, whether it's the Friendly Corner or the Wonderful Mart, you know, around How this has impacted their business, their drop-offs of food deliveries and other goods. I'm just curious, again, the level of conversation and detail outside of just the postcards that were placed, the big posters that were placed that if you're driving a car, you wouldn't actually see it. to know, or even if the change on Dudley Street, you wouldn't have actually known that it was changed into the Do Not Enter because many people have gone down that road and actually had to figure it out in the middle of the street, which was very dangerous to do. So again, I'm really trying to ask what specifically have you all done in these neighborhoods

to talk to neighbors directly around the impacts that are impacting their streets and are going to be impacted for months.

Commissioner?

Through you, Madam Mayor, I think the change on Dudley Street is especially challenging when the change first happens, but I think it's something that people adjust to relatively quickly. Someone may go the first time they're trying to go to Greek Corner and try to make the left that they typically make and find that they have to go around the block instead and then moving forward they adjust and move forward. Again, we have not heard a lot of complaints coming to us about the Dudley Street changes, so I'm hopeful that people have made that adjustment. And again, I think that we tried to make sure that we got the word out in advance to the entire neighborhood about the changes that were coming so that we could give people that advance notice.

Ms. Squirrel, did you want to add something?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you to Councilor Wilson, we also are We are really hoping to be responsive in this process and it's been helpful to think through what we do now after implementing the initial changes on the street and now we are always open to hearing more feedback. And one of the things that we're doing differently now is we've requested additional enforcement by the police department at the pedestrian crossing at Mass Ave. where the flashing crosswalk is happening at Dudley Street, and with that new police presence, that also helps us understand It also helps manage the traffic in the area so that there are less dangerous movements happening. Yeah, I think that's it.

Ms. Grohl yields the floor. Council Wilson, did you follow up?

Madam Mayor, I will yield. I just want to yield saying that this was a little insufficient. I will follow up and I get it, you all may not be getting phone calls or whatever directly, but members of, I guess we are then. and maybe if there was a better way for folks to communicate directly to you if they knew how to do so, I'm sure that they would. I yield.

Wilson deals the floor. Just a follow-up on Councilor Wilson's queries, and maybe this is more directed at the city manager. Does our community engagement office, when we're doing these kinds of neighborhood changes, do they engage with the department with a community engagement plan? That's number one. Well, let me just start with the number one. So, Ms. Grohl, you're looking up, so I'm assuming that you want to answer this. Do you work with the community engagement team when you're rolling out any... and I'm going to call it just initiatives or neighborhood changes. And you don't have to go and elaborate. It's like a yes or no.

To you, Madam Mayor, I think that we did not for this project, but I absolutely take that feedback, and I think that we are all learning what an amazing asset Jackson's team is. We will take that into account moving forward.

So my follow-up is this. It's by way of recommendation. Two models that I thought. One is on the city side, which is Deputy City Manager Seminoff, I knew, was a part of a team with the police department and they would go out, I called the The D&P Show, and they would knock on doors and just say, this is the services that we use. And I think that's an effective method. Most of my colleagues here... In order to get elected, we knock on the doors to get our message out, you know, vote for me because we're, you know, all that and a tic-tac. And so if you don't... For certain neighborhoods, and you still don't get everybody, but for certain neighborhoods, that makes the critical difference. And what I think I heard, not that I ever try to speak for my colleagues, but Councilor Wilson was saying, Sometimes you have to make that direct. You have to be very intentional. Because I hear what you're saying, Commissioner. Well, I didn't get the calls.

But they may not know to call you. They call... Maybe they call the city manager. They call the mayor's office. But you may not be the point of contact, so that's why they would not call you. So I would love to see, maybe this is something that we're going to have to take up in the next... A term is three points of contact for everything that we're going to do in the neighborhood, particularly those things, I want to say initiatives for lack of a better word, that are going to disrupt the neighborhood in a major way. When you go to bed on Saturday and come back on Monday and the parking space is gone, that's pretty startling. So how do we mitigate the... information void, for lack of a better word. So I would really like to see us be a little bit more proactive and focused.

I can't recall the street that Councilor Wilson's talking about, but assuming it's not an avenue that goes five miles, What would it take to deploy the community engagement team to knock on doors? One of the things that we do, and I'll let this go, we've gotten much better, but it was because of community pressure. that when we do road races, and I've seen this in the Riverside, they go by every house and put it on their door. You can't not get past it if you go in and out of your unit or your home. And maybe that's a model, you know, people need to use until they get saturated with that and then you move to something else. So I just would ask as we move forward, and again, maybe something we have to pick up in the next term, that the community engagement not only has to be intentional, it has to be documented. I walked down A Street, B Street, C Street,

On these streets, we knocked on every door and we left a message tape to the front door for anyone that was coming in. I'm not saying putting it on cars, that's not a good idea, but certainly put it on, and not on mailboxes, of course, but putting it on the doors. Any further discussion on this? Hearing none, on a motion by Councilor Wilson to place this agenda item on file, roll call.

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

And the item is placed on file. by the affirmative vote of eight members. One being recorded as absent. We'll move now to number 11. This was pulled by Councilor Nolan Beetz as follows. Communication Transmitter for Yuen Wong, City Manager, regarding proposed parking fine increases. Councilor Nolan, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mayor Simmons. It's a very short discussion or memo on increasing it, and I just wanted to I want to confirm again, because several people have asked about why we would do this, and that this brings us in line with surrounding communities, that this is something, according to this member of the Price Increase Committee, will bring us in line with those for violations in Boston, and we're also below the fine amounts in Somerville. I also want to note, and would be good through you, Mayor Simmons, to hear from We have also expanded the ways for people can pay for meters, which I think is an important thing to remember, as much as I still keep a few quarters in the car that I do drive sometimes when I'm not biking, like on days today. Many other ways to paint, and I think it's really important that we understand that we continue to increase that to make it easier so people don't get the tickets. So am I right in that, that there's a number?

Commissioner? Yes, we recently added a second vendor that allows you to pay using your cell phone. So we've had passport parking for quite a number of years, and now we've added, and it's a little bit confusing, pay by phone as a second vendor. and the real benefit to this is different municipalities, different parts of the country, people have different apps on their phone, so this makes it easier if someone comes to Cambridge and they already have the pay by phone app on their phone, they can just, Nolan.

Thank you. I think that's really good news as someone who does park sometimes and you're fiddling around and figuring out what to do. So again, it is a lot. We did get some concern that this is now, if you overstay, it will go up to $40. However, given that it's in line with other surrounding communities, I don't even know if it's our role to approve this because I believe this may just be within the realm of the city administration but it's certainly something that I think makes sense. And as I'm on the record of saying, we should have increased some of the other fees around, like the resident parking permit fees, but I look forward to that discussion very soon, I hope. Thank you. I yield.

Councilor Nolan yields the floor. Councilor Wilson?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll be brief on this. I just want to be heard in respect to what my colleague just said. I will be just voting no on this, but I also... While I recognize that other municipalities, our neighbors or whoever may be going up in fees, like they also, when we talk about having more accessibility, their parking meters also have Credit card features so that you can actually pay with a card if you don't want to download another app or whatever. There's an accessibility to that process. And I've heard from neighbors that if they don't have space on their phones where they can't add another app Then that definitely becomes an equity issue to have to have an app or try to bounce in and out of stores to try to find a couple of quarters to put in.

Where could we be on actually getting meters that allow for credit cards or debit cards to be received as a form of payment right on the spot? Commissioner? Madam Mayor, through you. Thank you. Commissioner?

Through you, Madam Mayor. You know, some years ago, we had... We had thought a lot about adding credit card functionality to our meters or to replace all of our meters with meters that take credit cards. When the apps came onto the scene, We brought those on board. It was at basically no cost to the city to add that as a payment option, whereas adding completely replacing all of the parking meters and playing the communication fees that you have to pay on a monthly basis. It seemed like the app option was a much more economical way for us to go, and we've had really good adoption. and then we do continue to accept quarters and that is 100% as an equity, making sure that people who might not be banked or may not have,

Willson,

Further questions?

No other questions. I just want to report that I'll be a no on this. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Wilson yields the floor. Further discussion on this item? Just briefly, I appreciate the report. I believe I understand the rationale. I'm not crazy about increasing the fees. Recently, a little over a year, although we have not come back to assess it, at least in my memory, we stopped towing. And part of the reason why we didn't want to tow for street cleaning was because that When we get a ticket and then they would get towed and the tow was pretty high. We did not want to put that on people The sort of adding insult to injury. So I'm not hogwomping crazy about this. God bless you. I'm not particularly wed to being in line with some of them.

I think it's going to have the same kind of impact on Those that can pay and those that cannot pay as well. And so they don't pay by five. It's a five and then you get that big orange thing that decorates your wheel on your car. So the action here is just to place on file, so I'll vote to place it on file. Please let the record show that I'm not crazy about the idea of increasing the fees. I think if we need to have derived revenue, maybe find another way. If there's no further discussion on a motion by Councilor Nolan, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilor Azeem, absent. Vice-Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes, Councilor Wilson? No. No. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have seven members recorded in the affirmative, one recorded in the negative, and one recorded as absent.

In the item is adopted by the affirmative vote of seven members, one voting in the negative and one absent. We move now to number 12. This is pulled by Councilor Zusy, reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yanwang City Manager relative to an update on the roadway safety audit program. Councilor Susie, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to congratulate you. I don't know when we requested this, but it's a really fabulous report that teaches us about a lot of scary intersections, right? So I'm just impressed with how thorough and thoughtful you were looking at 350 intersections, then ranking the worst 75. really focusing on looking at 10 years of data from 2014 to 2024, working collaboratively across departments. Looking, you know, concerned about accidents with bikes, pedestrians, drivers, fatal crashes, other people. that are hurt. I think this is exactly the sort of study that we've needed. And I also love that you've looked at the top 10

Thank you so much. I was a little concerned about, do you remember when we were all in high school and we learned about Desiderata? and you know you learn that you're supposed to focus on the things you can control because you can't control everything. On page 84 you say that a lot of the worst Intersections are state-owned intersections. They have among the highest crash locations within our borders. And we will work closely with state agencies as a parallel effort to address safety on state I know how hard that is having worked with some state agencies.

But it seems as though in the same way that you really focus on those 10 city intersections, You gotta really focus on the state-owned intersections, especially if they're the most dangerous ones. And I want to thank... Jeff Parenti for helping with an intersection at Museum Way near across from the Museum of Science where A pedestrian was almost hit twice over the last week and you engaged and reached out to our state partners. So I guess my questions are, what is the time frame for focusing on the 10 top most horrible City intersections. And what do you think the time frame will be for focusing on the horrible top 10 state intersections?

You're asking that of Mr. Parenti or the commissioner?

I am asking either Mr. Parenti or Ms. McKenna.

Mr. Parenti, the floor is yours.

Good evening. Through you, Madam Mayor. Good evening. Let's start with the state-owned locations, and you're exactly right, Councillor Zusi, that working with the state With the state agencies, and as many of you know, I used to work for a state agency, so I've seen it from both sides. It is difficult, and I think you started by saying we want to focus on what we can control, and because these assets don't belong to us. Even the good ideas that we have, we wouldn't be able to implement without a permit from those agencies which they would grant, but again, they don't belong to us. The strategy there is to maintain excellent relationships with both MassDOT and DCR, which as a department, I think we certainly intend to do and continue conversations. about things that we can do together, including some of the capital projects. So for one example is the re-overpass.

which MassDOT is having a public meeting in early January, which we're looking forward to. And that of course involves the BU Rotary, which is underneath the overpass. All projects like that we track very closely. We want to make sure that the state engages us in those projects at every stage. because obviously we do have a very keen interest in everything that happens within our borders, whether we own it or not.

Commissioner?

and so the second half of your question was about timeline on the top highest crash locations that we identified. So in the report you'll see we did outline some of the actions that we intend to take. And so over the next few months, the staff has already started on some of them and you saw the work that is marked complete in those tables. You've already begun, so we didn't want to wait to roll the program out to you tonight to wait to begin doing work, so we already have started. and some of our on-site work in the short term. And so through the winter months, whether appropriate, we'll be able to continue to do work and then come spring we'll be able to do pavement markings again when it's warm enough. but in the winter we can start doing the safety studies and capacity studies that we talk about and report and then spring summer we'll be ready to do a lot of the medium-term implementations which were I will say that this is a staff intensive effort.

Almost every one of my office staff have been involved in the creation of the program and also in this report. Staff did a great job and worked really hard to make this deadline. And so I'm excited to work through the timeline that we do have and the schedule that we have in front of us. And as the report says, we'll also be reporting our progress to the website, which we intend to launch soon, so that everyone can see progress as we move ahead.

Mayor, I commend you. I commend your department. I know I'm one of the worst offenders. You know, I keep all these constituents write me and I forge you their concerns. So I don't mean to be hard on you guys. You're just doing really important work that dramatically impacts our lives. So I really appreciate the work you do. really appreciate the incredibly high caliber of this report and your focus on improving these dangerous intersections, both within, you know, both city-owned and state-owned. So I just... Thank you. I appreciate you and your work. Thank you.

Councilor Sousa, use the floor. Councilor Nolan, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Yes, it's another hallelujah moment. We've been waiting for this report for a while. It's been totally exciting that we finally have it, right? I know that it's... Maybe it... took a little longer than we had hoped, but it's critically important because as we know, intersections are where most crashes happen, most injuries happen. We can do everything we want on a lot of Various road improvements and yet if we're not addressing the dangerous issues. So thank you very much. I recognize it's been quite a lift. I did have a couple of questions. One is when you calculate, which is the HCL, the higher crash location, there's a few different ways to look at it, and this is absolute numbers and looking at the extent of injury. There might be another way, and I just wonder if this was at all considered, would be the ratio of dangerous accidents to the volume of traffic so that if you have a street where

500 cyclists are going through an intersection and 3,000 cars and you have three crashes. and you have another one where literally 50 bicycles go through and 10 cars and you have three crashes, you might argue that that latter intersection is far more dangerous because the percentage of folks using it is much higher propensity to damage. So was that factored in at all or is it something that we want to consider and just do a quick review to make sure that we're capturing the high propensity intersections in addition to just the sheer volume? is somewhat correlated.

Mr. Parenti, did you want to respond or Commissioner?

Through you, Madam Mayor, and Councilor Nolan, you're speaking my language. This is something that's been a dream of mine since... What you're talking about is a rate of crashes, and that tries to get at the exposure to risk at each location. We have, and that's a ratio when you have a, to get into the weeds of the math, you have a numerator which is the crashes information that we have. and the denominator of your ratio is the exposure to risk or how many users there are at the intersection. MassDOT has a well-established formula for calculating a rate Smith, but it's for entering vehicles or million entering vehicles. And there's a spreadsheet that you can use. But that only gets to vehicle use. Smith. What's missing, and we can do that, we can do a traffic count and use their formula and calculate it for vehicle use, but that doesn't get to the pedestrian and bicycle use. So what we need to have to calculate rates is much better information about how many people are walking and biking in an intersection.

We have some data on that, and this department has worked very hard over the years to get counts. Johnson, occasionally spot counts, and we do a very robust count of bicycles every two years, for example. And we do capture pedestrian and bicycle counts, and we do traffic counts for other reasons, but we don't have a single A location or a data source for the 350 locations that we evaluated as part of the study. We do have some decent numbers for say the top 25 or the top 30 that we can pull together and use, but they're from different years. So one of the next steps that we'll be taking over the next, and so forth. The next step in the next one to three years is to build a network of count stations for bicycles. That'll be next on our work plan. And then after that we'll have to build in the same thing for

So we do want to get to a place where we're calculating crash rates so this program will take another step up in terms of getting at where the most dangerous are, which you're exactly right. That is the ultimate way. to find where the most dangerous locations are is to calculate rates.

Councilor?

Thank you. Yes, which is why, oh, I believe the commissioner might have wanted to add to that, Mayor Simmons.

Commissioner?

Through you, Mayor, I think the one thing I would add is that in the absence of having that data right now, There is a level of anecdotal understanding of how busy certain intersections are that does inform our decision-making. It's just not the data-driven decision that we would be moving towards.

Yeah right because if you don't have the data you can't do it and yet it's critically important for us all to understand that so I'm glad it's in process and hopefully we will get there and and that even just anecdotally to bring that into a sense if it turns out in the next 10 most dangerous one of them might not be This particular level of incidents, but it's highly dangerous. And I think we've seen it all over town. There's some intersections where it just seems like it's a higher rate. The other question I had, I noticed in the The report, it does mention whether a cyclist, a vulnerable road user cyclist or pedestrian, although the level of injury was not distinguished between the two. There are some intersections where it's a much higher percentage of pedestrians, you know, 10 pedestrian versus three cyclists. Another one, it might be a higher preponderance of...

I'm just wondering, given that, does that factor into what then the solution is? Clearly, again, to use the extreme, if there's one intersection where it's almost always pedestrians and another intersection where it's almost always pedestrians. Cyclists, we may then have a solution that is different based on the vulnerable user that is involved in the crashes. So is that something that we're looking at and that is factored into the decisions about how to address the dangerous intersections?

Mr. Parenti?

Smith. Through you, Madam Mayor, I would say that every intersection is unique and has its own crash profile, if you will. So, for example, in Appendix D Smith, our co-op student created a crash diagram in color which distinguishes between pedestrians, pedestrian crashes and bicycle crashes. We can use that as one of our Thank you very much. Williams at that location. There are ways that we can change and improve the way that the pedestrian signals are operating with regard or in relation to the other vehicle signals. We can do the same thing with bicycle signals as well. We can do that with pavement markings.

And so when we go through each of these 10, staff do exactly that. We collect the data first, and then we meet on each one individually and we discuss what we found. So, perspectives from six, eight, ten different staff people bringing something unique to the table and then we generate a list of potential improvements. and then we call them down to the ones that are most feasible and the most effective. And then that's what moves ahead in terms of the medium and long-term improvements. So I do, in summary, I do think that we have different approaches to different locations. In other words, one set of solutions that may be effective for one location wouldn't necessarily be the same for the one number six in the list and so on. Smith. We do certainly treat each one individually and with a good amount of attention.

Thank you. I look forward to seeing this all move forward. I believe some of my other colleagues will raise a couple questions that have been raised about community involvement in some of this and how we're moving this forward. This really is important work and we also know we have to make sure that we are doing every day. Education around the city for all users to ensure that as we put this infrastructure in it keeps us safe, but also the safety is for drivers to follow. We know drivers of all sorts of vehicles and users of cyclists and pedestrians wandering across in the middle of the block with their cell phone is also something of a problem. We have work to do on that and yet this address is a critically important part of the infrastructure which is to provide as much as we can the safe transit. So with that, Mayor Simmons, I yield.

Councilor Nolan, your floor. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, floor is yours.

Thanks, Madam Mayor, through you. Thanks for this report back, which stems from last year when we saw two fatalities at intersections in Cambridge and really saw increased urgency to... look at proactively dangerous intersections across the city. The report back is a really helpful prioritization of the intersections and appreciated the ranking and the different Dix, and so on. So there's a lot of data that went into that. I think, as others have mentioned, it would be, you know, important to see a timeline built out around improvements for these and recognize that some improvements have already been made. More daylighting, more median separation, more turn hardening at intersections throughout the city and sort of a timeline for these most dangerous 10. and then just had one question which was around the Grand Junction project type timeline which was called out in relation to I think two the two most dangerous intersections Mass Ave at Albany

and Mass Abbott Vassar being coordinated with that Grand Junction project, which I know we continue to have some uncertainty and delays. So I just wanted to take the opportunity to ask where that's at, and I guess also if we've thought about doing these improvements, regardless of that, like we're doing at the Cambridge Street, Cardinal Medeiros intersection, so I guess that's sort of two questions, where that's at, and if we've considered doing it separately.

Commissioner? Through you, Madam Mayor. So the Grand Junction Path project is significant. and takes a lot of coordination and we continue to work on that. There have been some delays because of the large Eversource projects that will hold us up a little bit more So when we're looking at Albany, specifically at Albany and Vassar, we're looking to make quick build improvements there rather than waiting for the for the Grand Junction project to come through and do the capital improvements. I think with Cardinal Medeiros and In Cambridge Street, it's a little bit different because we're confident that we can pull this piece of work out of the larger Grand Junction work. So even though the signalization of that intersection will technically be part of the Grand Junction project, it can be done upfront as a standalone project. I don't think we feel that same way about the Vassar and Albany intersections.

So we are going to be looking for quick build improvements there.

Sobrinho-Wheeler.

And then just to follow up, in terms of when the capital projects would be done around the Grand Junction, we still don't have a target date or time frame there.

At this point, I feel like we're really in the midst of some real collaboration that makes it a little difficult to say exactly when we can expect that to happen. But we continue to work on it very actively.

Great. Thank you. I go back.

Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler yields the floor for the discussion. Councilor Siddiqui, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Councilor Nolan, Madam Mayor, and thank you to all my colleagues who've raised great points, and I echo the great work on this and thorough work on this. I had reached out to you, Brooke, about the question around Windsor Street in particular. I think a few of us had received some questions around outreach and so could you just speak to you know I think that location in particular there's going to be a It's going to be treated as a pilot. And I think the concern had been around Residents who live in that area, Roosevelt Towers, and so forth, and making sure that they are aware that this was going to happen. And working with CHA Commissioner

Through you, Madam Mayor. I think we often run into a chicken and egg problem when we're talking about our projects because we have to talk about them for the first time at some point. And when people first hear about them, then they're upset that they haven't heard about them before. So all that is to say we have not started outreach on that pilot that we're planning and we plan to do that over the winter and I think that some of what Mayor Simmons was mentioning earlier we will really take to heart for that project in terms of really making sure that the outreach is thorough. That said, I think there are, especially when we're dealing with very safety-specific projects, there can be times when That type of work cannot be done necessarily by consensus, so a lot of our outreach needs to be around informing and making projects as as beneficial for the neighborhood as we can while still addressing the fundamental safety issues that we're getting at.

But we'll be starting in the new year on the outreach around that pilot.

Council Siddiqui.

Great, thank you for that. That makes sense to me.

All right, that's all I have. Councilor Siddiqui, you have the floor. Any further discussion? Councilor Wilson? Madam Mayor? Yes. Floor is yours.

Thank you. Thank you. And thank you to my colleague, Councilor Siddiqui, for just bringing up the Winter Street. Just for the record, through you, Madam Mayor, to the Commissioner, If you could just please speak to exactly what is being proposed for the design, the change at Windsor Street.

Commissioner. Through you, Madam Mayor. So in looking at the high number of crashes at the Cambridge Street and Windsor intersection, the one solution that that seems to address many of the factors that are causing the crashes would be to make Windsor Street heading, towards Cambridge Street, kind of towards Somerville to make that a right only exiting the street. So you wouldn't be able to either take a left onto Cambridge Street or go straight across onto Windsor continuing towards Somerville. and that would really eliminate a lot of the dangerous exposures that are happening with the crashes that are happening from turns. So it's a very significant intervention. It's easy to do, but very impactful, and that's why we're proposing it as a pilot project.

where we would do a lot of outreach in the community, implement it really with significant evaluation on a variety of factors to see whether it's accomplishing what we're looking for from a safety perspective at that exact location and then just really trying to dig in and see what impacts might be happening elsewhere because of that change. And that's why it is proposed as a pilot.

Council Wilson.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And as you're piloting this, how long do we see this pilot actually being implemented for and what is the measurements of either success or feedback that we will Adjust? Mr. Parenti?

Through you, Madam Mayor. We are just starting to talk about the structure of what a pilot would be. We don't do very many pilot projects. We have to be very careful about how they're Dixon, how they're made. Because once you put a change in the street, it can be difficult to remove what you've placed. You have to be very careful about to it. So we have been talking about a pilot program for approximately six months. That's what we started off talking about. But that is pending what we hear from the community. And so what we're looking for is a decrease in crashes at the subject location, of course. and we're also taking a look at we would also measure the volume both before of the street and surrounding streets both before and after the pilot begins to see how Williams, volumes are being redistributed amongst other streets in the neighbourhood. We don't want to put a burden on another street.

So, if you are using Windsor Street to go through, as the commissioner said, as part of your commute and you can't do After the pilot begins, then you'll probably choose another street. We don't want to put an undue burden on other streets, so we want to find out where that volume ends up going. and we'll know that by measuring that. And we'll also keep watching other intersections along Cambridge Street to see if we reduce the crashes at the subject intersection. We have a new safety problem at Others, then we want to know that too. So all that information we'll be collecting and the neighbourhood will be involved in that conversation. Once we get toward the end of the pilot, Smith, whether it be six months or a different time period. We'll have a summary and we'll be able to explain the results and then we'll have a discussion. There will be certainly, we've seen this before with other projects that we've done, there'll be opinions on both sides.

People will want to retain the pilot permanently. Some people want to sunset and go back to the way it was, but we'll have a full discussion and then we'll make a decision on whether what the project was a success and then make a final decision. Council Wilson.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and through you. Yeah, I appreciate the thought that's going into this process. And as well, I wanna just highlight and emphasize the need for a robust community engagement process. So while we're thinking about individuals that live at Roosevelt Towers, the Hartwell Homes, different communities within that area. So I wanna, I think we've heard, especially from this department earlier tonight, just like maybe a lack of engagement with the community engagement team. So I wanna see that there's a more robust engagement with them. for this because that's gonna be very necessary. And I know while we may not get to 100% of the people, I wanna make sure that we're putting in 100% of the effort.

because that's going to be critically important as this is going to impact individuals who are in some of our most lowest of incomes housing in up and down Willow Street or whatever the case is. And so I just want to make sure that we're doing that. I also am thinking about the timing in which you're choosing to pilot, which is the winter or at least choosing to do the engagement. and you could correct me in terms of like, are we actually looking to engage with community members during the winter time, which will probably yield low engagement?

Mr. Parenti or Commissioner? Through you, Madam Mayor, it would be, I think our intense internal planning will happen in the dead of winter and as we move towards spring would be when we would do the more community engagement portion, get started with the community engagement.

Councilor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and through you, I just, I really hope that this is something where we're putting a lot of work and intentionality in terms of what the engagement looks like and the feedback that we receive while this is a pilot and may have to proceed as well as the business associations. I do want to recognize that we should be engaging with East Cambridge Business Association as well as others from the Disability Commission and et cetera. and our businesses and small businesses in that area too because this is going to impact on A height and level. And while I recognize you all may not be, you know, I don't know your frequencies around the city and stuff. So I'm not here to judge. I'm just here to name that. I am a direct abutter.

I live in this neighborhood, so I understand the use of this community and how I use the streets, but also recognizing the neighbors and how they use it as well and or visitors. and how they're coming into our city and using it. So I do just wanna really emphasize that this is a major, massive change that is happening to this one particular community. And when we think about what is happening at, say, Cardinal Medeiros in Cambridge, it looks slightly different. and I'm just curious like why is it so different for Cardinal Medeiros and not so different like and not maybe a similar approach for like could we not install a traffic light? in this area at this intersection versus having to do the no turns or no cut through.

Yeah, actually, I'll yield, Madam Mayor, just for that to be answered. I'm curious, could we not put a traffic light or some kind of stop sign? Well, I know there's already a stop sign there, but could we not put a traffic light in that area? And then how long is it for the Cardinal Madero's Cambridge Street traffic light to be installed?

Commissioner or Mr. Parenti, whoever would like to take that.

Through you, Madam Mayor, I think looking at whether a signal is appropriate at an intersection is part of our repertoire, and I'll leave it to Jeff to respond to the specifics of why it's not a good choice here. As to Cardinal Medeiros, we're looking to start construction in fiscal 27. We have relatively advanced design plans now that we need to bring to 100% and put out to bid. So that's our next step is to get those design plans up to 100% and then be able to move forward with construction. Mr. Parenti?

Through you, Madam Mayor, on the question of the traffic signal at Cambridge Street and Windsor Street, on page seven of the report in the table, you'll see the first item is perform signal warrant analysis. Federal engineering guidelines have a A minimum set of criterion that we use before we consider using a traffic signal, which is a good idea because if we didn't have any standards or minimums, then cities and towns would build traffic signals everywhere that they had a safety issue. and that has happened in places over history. So we want to be careful when we use traffic signals and we will go through this step as Commissioner McKenna said. Just to give you a little bit of a preview, in my experience, looking at this intersection, it probably will not meet those warrants, but we will find out in our analysis, and if it does not, then we will move on to other improvements and other remedies that we deem appropriate.

Councilor Wilson, you have the floor. Thank you for your response.

Madam, may I just have one more follow-up, please?

Very good, Council Wilson.

Thank you. In respect to this project and the conversations that we're having here, I just have a question, just a last minute question. I know that we've been doing a lot of work here regarding the We've already been in some levels of communication with folks on this. How are we engaging on this level of the intersections? in this conversation as well. And then I wanna be very clear and specific around prescribing, have we engaged with Cambridge Housing Authority, in this conversation about these next steps.

Commissioner McKenna, Mr. Parenti.

Through you, Mayor. I believe that our staff on the Cambridge Street Project have tried unsuccessfully to reach out to CHA, so those conversations are ongoing. We have to figure out the right way to make the right connections there. But that was more for the entire project rather than at this particular location. So what we're thinking because of the significance of the of this intervention at at Windsor is that we will do a separate standalone outreach because it is sometimes hard to to engage people, especially if they don't live exactly right on the corridor. They may not take part in those bike lane conversations, but if we reach out, so we're going to do a different type of more hyper-local outreach around this particular intervention at Winsor.

Mr. Parenta, do you want to add anything?

Thank you. Yeah, I just want to emphasize the importance of reaching out and making sure that there's a direct communication, outreach, and partnership with CHA around those next steps in, you know, Through you, Madam Mayor, to the City Manager, you know, whatever needs to happen in order for that to be successful, however we want to measure success, those are the efforts that we need to be employing to make that happen. With that, I'll yield. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Wilson yields the floor. Just one brief question. I actually meant to raise it earlier, so I'll use this opportunity. When you're doing these street reconstruction modifications, do you engage public safety and the fire department?

Through you, Madam Mayor, yes, we do. We reach out to, we coordinate with the police department and with the fire department.

And in reaching out, are you trying to solicit from them their opinion on... If we do this, can you safely make this turn? If we do this, can you safely get to your site? Because my concern, and this was something that came up a long time ago and as I'm looking at all these street Modifications, I'm just curious that we're not making it while we're trying to fix one thing, we set up another problem for ourselves. And so I'm just curious to know if we are making sure that we are not making it difficult for public safety and fire. to navigate our streets.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Especially with the fire department, I mean, we work very closely when we roll out new projects with the police department, but with the fire department, it's a very, they do a plan review to make sure that the designs before they go in the street will work and they look at things like the turning radiuses and the lane width and things like that so that they are looking at our plans before they're finalized.

Very good. Thank you. If there's no further discussion, we'll do... Oh, sorry, Councilor Nolan, please.

Thank you. I'll be quick. I just did a couple of follow-ups. I really just want to reiterate what you had indicated, Mayor Simmons, about public safety and also Councilor Wilson about making sure we're reaching out and doing everything we can. Nothing like having an entire very large apartment or residents who say they haven't heard about this. So let's make sure we do a better job of that as well as what my other colleagues said. I did want to note in terms of timing and ensuring people know about it, if my count is correct, of the top 30 intersections on this list 24 of them are on the east half of the city. So as these get addressed, we're already putting in bike lanes, we have construction, we have so many different things going on, but if 24 of the top 30 are on the eastern half of the city, it makes it even more important that we ensure that the residents themselves know when we're doing these, if it is at all disruptive, that it is coming and it's gonna be something that, one, obviously improves safety, but also is something that will require

in a number of areas, some kind of changes to their usual modes of transit, which is going to be something that will take some adjustment. I look forward to these changes moving forward and also look forward to improved and timely engagement which I also hope is will then be taken into account. And, of course, we don't have to compromise safety, but it may well be some people may be willing to, if the choice is one or the other, they may choose one versus the other, and I hope we listen to them. Thank you. With that, I yield to Mayor Simmons.

Councilor Nolan-Nielsen, no response needed? Or did you want to respond in some way? Okay, very good. All right, then we have one more item on the non-consent agenda, after which we're going to suspend the rules for a brief presentation, so please... Do not leave immediately. Thank you so much. The last item is number 13. I'm sorry. Can we do number 13 and then vote on it? On placing this item on file. Councilor Azeem. Councilor Zusy moves.

Councilor Zusy. Councilor Azeem is absent. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

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

The city manager's agenda item is approved by the affirmative of eight members, one being recorded as absent. We move now to number 13. This was pulled by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. It reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yanwang City Manager transmitting an update on federal grant funding. Councilor, the floor is yours.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Through you, to the City Manager, thanks for this report. There's been a lot of questions about federal funding changes, lawsuit impact on the funding that has been withheld or hasn't been So glad to see this report and detailing different sources of funding and where they're at. I just wanted to give you some time to talk through highlights on it.

Mr. City Manager.

Through you, Mayor Simmons. Thank you, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. I think especially as we finish up 2025, I would note I think as we finish up 2025, it feels important to provide the council an update. We had talked about the total amount of federal grants that we receive on an annual basis, but obviously a lot has happened since the first quarter. and we're also tracking not just where there's risk for fiscal year 26, so the existing grants, many of which have been threatened through various grant conditions, the federal government saying that they're going to claw back Grants. As we're noting, some of these are inactive litigation and we have temporary restraining orders in place. But we also wanted to look ahead to FY27

Since as we've had some further conversations about specific grants, the risk level as we think about the next federal budget is much higher. and I think as we enter January, there's a number of continuing resolutions at the federal level that we're also concerned about. and I think we will hopefully have more clarity about where the federal government is going to pass permanent funding for 27. by end of January, early February, assuming we don't have another government shutdown. So I think this provides just a framework for saying, What is our current assessment of how much risk we're seeing in each of these grants? I would call out I think the lows really just show that we feel pretty confident. We've essentially moved this through the grant process. We don't have indications that the federal government is trying to claw back those grants.

The mediums in particular, the HUD grants are the ones where I think those are actually moving through for 26, the grant making process. but it's all essentially contingent on the ongoing litigation where we have court orders in place that specifically say the federal government has to proceed and isn't allowed to change the grant conditions on the fly. So those are sort of a medium with an asterisk at this point in time. And then 27, we really don't have a ton of visibility into. The high risk is really for these two HUD programs where we have sort of known risks that the federal government is trying to change what's going to happen in 27. and then a lot of mediums as we wait to better understand what's going to get passed through Congress. So what our intention is is that we'll actually

provide an update for this as we get into January and February and that will help us understand what the condition is on federal grants as we enter the FY27 budget process and we can be having clear conversations about whether there are holes specifically in the federal budget for the city. And then obviously as we've been doing, will also keep the council apprised if there are federal funding cuts that we're seeing or aware of that are going to hit community organizations or individuals in our community. So I think that that's sort of the overall framework and looking forward to keeping this updated and having a regular conversation with the council about this.

Councillor? That's helpful. Thank you. I yield back.

Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler yields the floor.

Is there any further discussion on this item? I'm sorry, just through you, Mayor Simmons, just wanted to call out and thank the staff for a lot of the work to put this together. There has been a lot of following These different grants. We do have really valued people within these federal agencies that we've been communicating with who, you know, the ones who are still there and I think We have really over the last nine months drilled down to really understand both what the status is of each of these grants and track what's happening and what we're hearing from the federal level. So a lot of work went into this just to make sure that were able to plan ahead. So, sorry, just wanted to call that out.

Thank you. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, you'll lean the floor. Does anyone else want to be heard on this? Let me just go to the people that are on. Vice Mayor, do you want to speak on this? No, thank you. Councilor Wilson?

No, thank you.

Councilor Nolan.

Thank you, Mayor Simmons. Very quickly through you to the city manager. Is there any... Have we had communication with our federal delegation to make sure if there's anything else we can do to... Raise to lower these risk levels, the low to nothing, the medium to low, and particularly next year. I know we recognize the political state that we're in. figuratively and literally, but I'm just curious as to whether we have heard anything or communication with the federal level officials who would be responsible for these grants.

Through you, Mayor Simmons. Yes, go ahead. I think the benefit is that we are very aligned with our federal delegation on all of these. I think short term, and we sort of said this before, the most effective action we've been able to take is actually challenging Some of these actions in court. And so that's been the primary strategy working with other cities. And then some of these partners at a bunch of the new legal advocacy organizations have been very much on the field. I wish there was more our federal delegation could do while being in the minority. I know that there have been efforts to, for instance, on the HUD continuum of care, get language into

The new continuing resolution that would freeze levels at the prior commitment, it is just tough since I feel like we are ultimately very aligned on the policy and on what we want to see. in these federal grants, but ultimately a lot of this will play out with whatever Republicans want to do in Congress.

Councilor Nolan yields the floor. Thank you very much, Mr. City Manager. I'm placing this on file on a motion by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler to place this on file.

Azeem, absent. Vice Mayor McGovern?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Absent. Councilor Toner?

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Wilson.

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons.

Yes.

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

and the matters placed on file by the affirmative orders of members to being recorded as absent. If Councilor Siddiqui would mind not suspending the... the rules for a special presentation on suspending the rules.

Councilor Azeem, absent. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler is absent. Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson.

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes, and you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

And the rules are in suspension. I'm having a short presentation. A motion by Councilor Zusy for a short presentation. Roll call, please.

Councilor Azeem. Absent. Vice Mayor McGovern.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Absent. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

and we'll be able to proceed with a special presentation on the affirmative vote of seven members, two is being recorded as absent. So thank you. So at our last meeting, we adopted a proposal I wanted to make sure that while we had The current council with us, there are two members that will not be returning to the council and I think it's important and I think we all agree to be able to give a just acknowledgement to this individual that most of us have had an opportunity to serve with for a number of years. So with that, I'm going to ask Ms. Seminoff to come forward because if you're going to be embarrassed, you might as well be embarrassed so people can see you. So come up here where I am. Please. Come on up, come on up.

So. I've had the distinct pleasure of serving with you for a very long time. I think about putting together the agenda for children. I was still on the school committee. That was a wonderful, horrible process. No, it was just long and very... Engage, and you know how that goes. And then we went to that monumental trip to the Harlem Children's Zone where Rich Rossi complained. He says, the room has raunches. which was very funny. But we got some very good work done because out of that came Baby U, came Office of College Success, the Dad Academy, I think I'm calling that wrong. Then there was The long conversations around how having, what ends up being universal pre-K, which is wonderful. There's just so many things that I can't even begin to enumerate that I've had the opportunity to serve with you.

and doing and again I just wanted to be had the opportunity with my colleagues that have had the opportunity of serving with you and I hope you've enjoyed it some of the time to have a chance to say Nice things. They worked. I had them practice. They all had an assignment. Go home, write something nice, read it today. Just recently, as I said earlier, at the last meeting, we had this policy order. You may have seen it. And then by the time we got to it, you had left, and he wouldn't call you. He was protecting me. He was protecting you. See, he never protects me from anything. But anyway, so I would like to read this. Policy Resolution, and then open the floor to my colleagues if they would like to speak. And then you would like to speak, you may, as long as you keep it to three minutes. Okay, very good. So in the City Council, it reads as follows.

Whereas, Assistant City Manager for Human Services Ellen Siminoff has recently announced her upcoming retirement from the city, which shall cap off a long and distinguished career of public service. and whereas Ellen began her career in public service at the highest level, clerking for the United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and serving as special assistant to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Joseph A. Califano, Jr., experiences that shaped her lifelong commitment to social justice and human dignity. And whereas Ellen brought this wealth of knowledge and dedication to the Cambridge Municipal Government where she held several positions before ascending to Assistant City Manager in 2024, 2004, excuse me, building the foundation for a transformative leadership.

And whereas under Ellen's direction, the Department of Human Service program has grown to serve as the city's principal vehicle for supporting residents across every stage of life, managing more than 600 employees and a budget exceeding 40 million. And whereas Ellen has championed innovation programs that have been models for other municipalities, including universal pre-K, Steem, Educational Initiatives, Comprehensive Child Care Family Support Services, Youth and Community Programs, Homeless Services, Workforce Development, Adult Basic Education, Recreation Programs, Fuel Assistant, Summer Nutrition Programs, and Services for Seniors and Residents with Disabilities, and

Whereas Ellen's leadership extends beyond Cambridge, having served on the Cambridge Health Alliance Board of Trustees and earning an appointment by President Barack Obama to a federal advisory group on prevention, treatment, and recovery policy, and Whereas. Ellen has approached each challenge with wisdom, compassion, and an unwavering belief that every Cambridge resident deserves the opportunity to be supported, Her legacy will endure in the countless lives touched, the programs she's built, the staff she has mentored, and the community partnerships she's fostered. And her good work shall continue to ripple throughout our community for many, many years to come now therefore it be resolved that the Cambridge City Council go on record extending its deepest gratitude to Ellen Semenoff for extraordinary service to the residents of Cambridge.

and wishing her health, happiness and fulfillment in her well-earned retirement and be it further ordered that she cannot go to the credit union. Sorry. Therefore, be it resolved that the city clerk be and hereby is requested to forward a suitably engrossed copy of this proclamation on our behalf. Congratulations and thank you for all your service. So with that, I would like to ask my colleagues if they would like to make a statement or two. I'm going to go to the people online first because we can't. Council Wilson, would you like to make some remarks?

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and I appreciate being first here. I didn't think I would be. But, oh, Miss Ellen. We go way back. Again, my mother used to work in the Office of Workforce Development as the secretary back in the day. I was, you know, frequent Department of Human Services from when before I was a teenager. And when I was Thank you so much for joining us. cultivate my relationship with Ellen from there and moved forward into other positions. I've worked with the city in a number of different positions and Ellen and I always have had a beautiful, pleasant relationship

relationship, dialogue, and, you know, side chatter, which I've always loved. And, but our ability to, to really hone in on the work. And I think once I became an elected official and being able to kind of see things from the other side if you would, but being able to have that that lens of this is the work and I've always appreciated Ellen for appreciating that I was in these seats whether on the school committee or on the council to be somewhat of a representative, but also gently push our department in a way that I think will be better for our community, our neighbors, our most vulnerable. and I just always appreciate you Ellen for your level of support continuously and often

continuing to motivate me and encourage me to continue to do the work, but also to just to stay in it, right? And you've always just been that breath of fresh air. and many moments where I've needed it and I really just wish you so much love and Peace and rest within your next chapter in retirement. I'm sorry, it's getting late, so I'm stumbling over my words, but I do just wish you the very best. I know you're not going... You're not going far. You're not going to the credit union, but you're not going far. But we will be in touch, and I do look forward. Hopefully, you'll continue to. Be the place where the Department of Human Services could still have their annual summer parties, at least for the next couple of years. And I will show up. But I love you.

I appreciate you. Thank you for all the hard work, your dedication and commitment to children, families, and employees, not only of the Department of Human Services, but for the city of Cambridge. Thank you for your work and I wish you all the best. I yield.

Thank you, Council Wilson yields the floor. Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. Ellen, I wish I was there. I'm going to rally for this next few minutes here. You know, I too have known you for a really long time going back to and others to make sure that Our Cambridge programs were protected. I can go on and on about all the big initiatives that we know about. But it's the stuff that the public doesn't know about. It's the Me calling you or someone else calling you at 8 o'clock at night on a Saturday saying, I just got a call about a homeless person who needs a shelter. Where do we have openings? What can we do?

and you always taking that call and always finding a way to help that person. That's the stuff, you know, and this is true of all of our city staff, but you've been doing it really well and for a really long time. This is the stuff that people don't see. And when they talk about, oh, the people in the city don't do this or don't do that or don't know this or don't know that, they don't see the commitment that you all have. to the individuals of the city. And nobody exemplifies that more than you, Alan. And that is a hard thing to ask people to do, to be available. essentially around the clock sometimes. And you retiring is gonna be a huge void because that commitment and that willingness is not found in everybody.

And when you think of the work that you've done over the years, I can't think of anyone who has had an impact and touched the lives of so many people in Cambridge. From newborns all the way through seniors, folks who pass away, I mean, you have improved the lives of countless, countless people in this city. And I hope you take that with you. I hope you know that you're not the kind of person that likes to Get the glory or get the applause and you're probably sweating bullets up there. But you deserve every accolade that we can give you. And I'm gonna miss you. I'm still gonna be calling you. Sorry.

Or I'll stop by City Hall in the basement if you do end up in the credit union. And I know that we'll be seeing a lot of each other's. I need your guidance. I've always appreciated it and wanted it and needed it. and that's going to continue. So I wish I was there in person to give you a hug, but I would make you sick and that would be a terrible thing too. So congratulations. I'll see you soon and enjoy it.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilor Nolan, and we're just going to go right down the aisle.

I could just say ditto to everything Councilor Wilson and Vice Mayor McGovern said, and I will say ditto. Then I'll also say... That we will miss you. I will. Council is appreciated. And your tact is really important. You are able to ask questions and push when I ask questions that then get me to unknowingly go in a different direction and think about it differently, which is really awesome. Very unusual trait. And when I think on the initiatives throughout this city that you helped form, create, develop, It just goes across a myriad of areas. Which I keep finding out. I'll say something. It's, oh, well, Ellen was involved in that 15 years ago, and you still have a mind and a knowledge of it. I remember that came up when we were talking about the health department.

Who knew that 20 years ago, and you... We're crystal clear about so many different things that many other people might have forgotten. So I will congratulate you on making what was really a tough decision. and actually just thank you and appreciate you for spending so much of your professional life in this incredible city and benefiting all of us who are part of it and work here and live here.

Thank you, Councilor Nolan. Councilor Nolan yields the floor. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thank you. I'm grateful to have gotten to overlap with you for a few years while I was on the council. I'm always so impressed by your engagement on all of the different issues that are under human services. I think there are other departments that are broad and encompass quite a bit, but in human services I think literally you work with people from the day they're born almost to very elderly from Pre-K, through nutrition programs, through job training when folks graduate, to parenting, Senior Services, and I'm always just impressed by how you seem so engaged and so enthusiastic on all of those different pieces. It's really a gift. I would say goodbye or good luck, but I have a feeling we're going to keep seeing you around at so many pieces in Cambridge, so it really doesn't feel like that big of a departure, but thank you for all your work for the city. I'll be back.

Thank you. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler yields the floor. Councilor Turner.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Seminoff, I think I've known you for about 30 years. I haven't had the chance to work as In depth with you as my colleagues, but I remember first meeting you back in my days as a teacher at the high school with the Jobs for Bay State graduates program and then later at the Harrington Elementary School as a middle school teacher and planning out the expanded learning, the original expanded learning time program almost 30 years ago at this point. And then we didn't really see too much of each other for quite some time. But since I've been on the council, you've been extremely Thank you for being knowledgeable and helpful and helping me understand all the issues that we face as a city and all the programs and opportunities we have for our residents. And I wish you the best and I really do hope you retire, and by that I mean go do some fun stuff and travel and do things like that.

But I know we'll see you around the city at many events, and I'm sure you'll stay involved in many aspects of city life. So thank you for all of your work.

Toner yields the floor. Councilor Zusy, the floor is yours.

I met Ellen Seminoff years ago. When you came to present to the Cambridge Port Neighborhood Association, Bill August had you come to actually talk about elderly services. And at that time, I was a very young person. but I was really happy to hear about your work and I really appreciated as you were orienting me like 14 months ago In the work of Human Services, I was so impressed with the scope, the depth, the breadth of what Cambridge offers. We offer an extraordinary safety net, and I have realized over time that you're responsible in having crafted much of that safety net. I thank you and I think one of the things that really distinguishes Cambridge is I feel as though we actually have had great

Thank you for your work. And again, I don't think you're going to be able to escape. I look forward to continuing to encounter you in the city. Thank you so much and enjoy your retirement.

Zusy yields the floor. Councilor Siddiqui, floor is yours.

Yeah, I echo what's been said. Why do I always get so emotional?

I don't know.

I don't know, right? I'm going to try not to cry. Goodbyes are hard. I've known you since I was in high school, and I think your career has just been defined by such impact. and you've brought such a genuine care to this work. And you've showed up every day with this deep sense of responsibility to to everyone here and to the people who've relied on you doing the work. And I think... I've learned so much from you. You've had a huge impact on the city, as what my colleagues have said. And I think...

Having public servants like you here means so much and knowing how you've dedicated your career to the people is really, really amazing. And so I was able to serve with you as a commissioner before, On the Human Services Commission before, you know, I was a part of the city council and, you know, I think, you know, there's just there's just been so much I've learned from you and Yeah, I'll miss you and, you know, I want to just thank you for all that you've done and it's really been an honor. So, thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Siddiqui yields the floor. Mr. City Manager, I know that you're going to probably have a big party. Well, I hope you have a big party because we're looking for a big party. But those that are here that might want to say something now, City Manager, the clerk's office, Matt, please take an opportunity to say something. So I'm going to put the floor over to you, city manager.

Oh, there's so much to say, and I think what is nice is this is the first of what I think will be a bit of a long goodbye, and I think we'll actually have a lot of time. to celebrate Ellen over the coming weeks. Ellen, I think you've had such an impact on this community. I think one of the things that really stands out is Just how deeply committed and passionate and dedicated you are to this community and that you've stayed so long because It continues to just, I think I can really see it like this work feeds your soul, the work of being with people, being in relationship with people.

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for having me. You know, 20, 30 years of people that have come through and been helped or benefited or been part of or contributed to that incredible work. The other thing I really appreciate, and I don't think I have known you as long as some of the counselors, But I bet in the last three years I have received more feedback from you than most of them. And I think it is actually something that...

that is maybe not appreciated how much feedback we actually get within the city. And that is something that you have been tremendous at. And I really appreciated it that You are someone who has kept me honest and told me what you think and that has made my journey in the city better and richer. It has taught me Thank you so much and I know that we'll continue to be talking and that's just one of your amazing qualities that has made you such and I'm betting I'm not the first city manager that you've given feedback to, but I certainly have appreciated it maybe the most. and there's so much more I could say I know we are getting late so I will perhaps you know the sort of traditions we have are the credit union and the long goodbye so maybe I'll move to pass

Thank you, Mr. City Manager.

I wanted to say Ms. Crane, Ms. Irwin, did you want to say anything? Mr. Nelson.

I would like to just say one thing. I've said it to Ellen already by myself, but I've been so impressed for so many years. at the knowledge that you have for all the programs that you run, how amazing your staff speaks of you, how highly they speak of you, and I just want you to know that I really admire you. You've been a mentor. Thank you.

Ms. Nicole, did you want to say anything right now? You're looking a little tentative. Matt, there's a mic right here.

DHSP going to after school and then working at Brazzoli. I didn't work directly with you, but seeing all the work that goes into that and all the training for staff, and like many others, Councilor Wilson, coming in and working with the city full time. You guys mold us to be the people we are. Thank you, Nicole.

Matt, thank you, Nicole. That's what you get to say. You've known me since I was six.

I was going to say, I'm also like Councilor Siddiqui and my... My cousin from Ireland has a line that he says me water bags are too close to me eyes. So when I start talking, I do get choked up as well. but I will say that I've always thought of myself as a human services department employee especially since I started in the manager's office with A week before the COVID shutdown and I've been with Ellen ever since it seems like and I'm just so proud to be a A teammate of hers and someone who's looked up to her as just such an amazing leader in the city. And can't wait to keep calling you for advice and for our walks and all of that. And thank you for everything.

I run a couple of events with partners here in the city and working with your staff on Danny Heapark Family Day, I can see why everyone adores you so much and works so hard on your behalf for the department because you are such a amazing leader in the city. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Matt. And so to the people in the gallery, if you want to say something, if you don't, I... You'll have another opportunity. So it's going, going, going is your chance to say something. No? Yes? I could call on you, make it really difficult for you not to. No worries, because you're going to have another opportunity at this big palatial party she's going to have sometime in January and will be able to ooze all over you again. So as we close out this small testimonial, again, I thought it was very important that the counsel that you've served with probably for the long time not to send. You know, because you will have the new council seated by the time you actually retire, and they'll be able to give you your flowers. I just want to close by sharing with you an African proverb, and it says, God gives nothing to those with their arms crossed. And you've never had your arms crossed.

You always kept them open to engage people no matter who they were, where you found them. So to that, you will continue to be blessed. Congratulations.

It has been an amazing journey. I know I'll get another chance to speak and then I'll cry and so I won't be able to speak but I came to this city Actually, some of you might remember, chaired rent control for five years. So the day that Bob Healy announced to the city council that he had hired me, which was his 10th anniversary, There was a huge kerfuffle because at least one of the city councilors was outraged. that he would hire me. And another city council came to my defense, but it actually didn't matter. They didn't actually have a choice. and I thought I was coming for maybe two years. It never occurred to me that I would spend my career here.

and there's just something about this place and the people and the commitment and the opportunities that I had which were amazing and I just want to say I so deeply respect The work that you all do and the work that all of my colleagues do because it is the work that we ultimately do together that makes Cambridge the place that it is and that I think All of us hold something that we can be really proud of. And then we still keep trying to figure out how to make it better. And I have great confidence that that's what you will all do. Thank you.

Now, because Ellen's a very modest woman, she would not ask this of the council, but what she would, so I'll say it for her, that can we leave in 20 minutes? That'd be nice. I'd appreciate it. All right, so let's continue with our agenda. The next item is policy orders. What is the pleasure of the city council? Move to adopt. on a motion by Council Wilson to adopt the policy orders. Madam Mayor. I wanted a poll. Then you have to ask her to. I tried. I tried. Number two. Okay. All right. So policy order number two. Let me get to that. I can't find my policy orders. There they go. There's only two of them. So, and you want the other one? Council Wilson pulled number two. Did you want... Council Nolan? I thought it was Council Wilson.

She pulled it. It's fine.

I thought it was Council... Anyways. Councilor Wilson, did you say number two or no?

No, ma'am. I said move to adopt all. Okay. I'll yield to my colleagues. Okay.

I would rather adopt. I'm with you, Councilor Wilson.

And number one is self-explanatory now. If someone wants to object and meet on December 29th, I will. entertain a motion to adopt. So on a motion by Councilor Wilson to adopt policy order number one, roll call.

Councilor Azeem is absent. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recording the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

Thank you. We move now to number two. This is pulled by Councilor Nolan. It reads as follows. That the city managers requested to instruct the community development department to reduce the recommendation To reduce the recommendations of the Massachusetts Avenue sub-district, Mass 12, from the maximum of 12 stories to 11 stories with ground floor active use retail. as consistent with the recommendations of the Mass Ave Planning Study. Councilor Nolan, pull this, and she's the lead sponsor. The floor is yours.

Thank you. You're welcome. Yes, this is a policy order that in my view would be great to adopt. because what it does is recognize the community process that led to the zoning petition before us that is on the calendar for possible future action. If we were to do this, it aligns the actual zoning ordinance with the community process in MAPS, the Mass App Planning Study, and CDD recommended zoning language, which was then increased. based on some requests from the council and some developers. It defers more to AHO, makes the differential two stories instead of one. but really why I am proposing it and we had talked about it before and I know some people said, well, that can't happen because nothing will get built. It really is a willingness to compromise a little bit to pass important changes.

We say that we also really do defer to community process, that we pass what that group that fought very hard, that worked for many, many months and did not initially want even this height and then agreed on a compromise height of 11 stories. Many people on that group who have reached out to us I think that it is higher and they agreed to the 11 because they thought that that is the maximum that we've passed. And I also want to note that the document that came out of the Mass App Planning Study clearly says On page 81, quote, emerging building typologies such as modular construction and mass timber are making mid-rise buildings in 9 to 10 stories increasingly viable, expanding the range of feasible development options. and that is why while many people are saying we can't possibly build anything unless you give us 12 stories, well, either we're right in that those different methods are bringing the cost down

Thank you very much. to make this one change to the Mass App Planning Study zoning petition, which then I would happily support even though there's other elements of it that I might in another world not want to support, but I could support it with this change because I think it is true to the spirit of all the work that was done by the many people who were working on this. Wilson, and I are proposing this because we believe it is a good, important change to be made to the current zoning petition.

Are you yielding? Councilor Nolan yields the floor. Councilor Wilson, do you want to be heard on this? Hearing nothing.

All right, I will yield to my colleagues. I definitely appreciate everything that Councilor Nolan just stated, but I'll yield for now. Thank you.

Council Wilson yields the floor for now. Councilor Zusy and then Councilor Siddiqui.

So I am supporting this policy order because I think it's 11 stories is better than 12. I think I've been clear that I still feel as though the base height is too high because if we want to get things in exchange for... I think especially when we don't know what's going to happen with inclusionary zoning, when we don't know what the Nexus study will recommend and we don't know what's going to happen with the pending lawsuit. I think a lower base height makes more sense, but we may not get there. So I think 11 stories is better than 12 stories, and I will support this policy order. Thank you.

I yield. Vice Mayor, do you want to speak on this?

Sorry, Madam Mayor. I'll yield for now. Councilor Siddiqui.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor. One of my colleagues is absent tonight, and he wanted to be heard on this, so I'm going to exercise my charter right.

Can you? Okay, very good. Under the rules of Charter Right, closes discussion will have to be brought up at the next meeting. We move now to, I think that exhausts policy orders, We go to the calendar. There's an item on the calendar. It's a charter right. Charter right was exercised by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. It reads as follows, that the city managers requested to instruct the community development department to reduce the recommendation for the Inman Square zoning sub-district from a maximum of 10 stories to 8 stories with ground floor active use retail as consistent with the majority of the Cambridge Street corridor. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, the floor is yours.

Thanks, Madam Mayor, through you. I appreciate the intent here. I think I, you know, thinking about this a bunch, having some conversations, I have a hard time with this because anyone Any additional units above 10 units mean that 20% of those units will be affordable. So at this height, the buildings are all going to be more than 10 units. So every additional floor we're removing means less affordable housing, ultimately. And that's true. Whether we do this as inclusionary zoning or whether it's a density bonus, so not affected by the lawsuit here. Also, I guess I haven't I heard many folks in the community saying, you know, I'm against this at 10 stories, but I would support it at 8 stories. Most of the concerns seem to be more around process. I'm not against compromises. I would be down to to support this amendment if it meant a lot more support from the community. It just doesn't seem like we're going to get that here by going down a couple stories and we'll get less affordable housing. So I think I'm going to be a no on this. I don't think whether it passes or not, I don't think it affects

ultimately on the underlying petition, though, but will be no on the amendment. I yield back.

Councilor Sobrini-Wheeler yields the floor. Pleasure. Before I go back to you, I just want to see if anyone else wants to be heard that hasn't been heard. I'm going to come back to you because I think I heard from you. So I will hear from Councilor Toner and Councilor Siddiqui. I think I've lost my... Never mind, take it back.

Actually, Madam Mayor, we had a full debate about this last week until it got chartered and I'd actually like just to move to the vote on this.

Does anyone? Then Councilor Toner moves adoption. Roll call.

Councilor Azeem.

Absent.

Absent. Vice-Mayor McGovern.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?

No.

No. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy.

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have seven members recorded in the affirmative, one recorded in the negative, and one recorded as absent.

Thank you. whatever it was, passes on this affirmative vote of, was it seven members? One absent and one recorded as no. Thank you. The next item before us, I think we will pass over.

Mayor Simmons? Yes, Councilor. Yes, I'd like to remove number three on the table. It's moot at this point. It's been sitting on our agenda for a long time, so I'd like to... Take it off the table and just, I don't know what we would do. It's moot, so we could refer.

I'll withdraw it. So on, we need to vote to take it off the table. I believe it takes six votes. So. On a motion to remove on the table, on a motion to remove number three from the table, roll call. I'm sorry, can you repeat that one more time? Which one is it? It's number three on the table. It's the city manager's request to explore with the government operations committee whether the function of the police commission may be improved and enhanced by bringing them within Another City Commissioner, departments such as Human Rights Commission report back in a timely manner. So the motion is to remove it and let it, just remove it.

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

On another item that's on the table, I believe this was taken up. I'm going to... go to our clerk. I think this was amended and voted on another time so that we could take this off. So I would move that we remove this particular, it's number four. There's no discussion. We'll do a roll call.

And what's the roll call on?

Removing the item. The under item number four, yes.

Azeem, absent. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

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

Thank you. And the other item's been disposed of. We now move to applications and petitions. What is the pleasure of the City Council? Madam Mayor. Vice Mayor.

Just before you do this, I'm going to take my leave. I have full intention of chairing the Economic Development Committee tomorrow, but I think I need to retire tonight. Very good. Just letting you know. Thank you. Please feel better.

On applications and petitions. Mayor Simmons?

Yes.

We took these off the table. Was there any further action to take?

I just voted that we just remove them, no action was taken, so they just... Right, so they disappear.

I mean, number three is moot and number four I think has already been disposed of. I just wanted to be clear that that was the action. Thank you very much. Very welcome.

Now, applications and petitions. What is the pleasure of the city council? Move to adopt the order.

On a motion. Am I not hearing anybody?

I know, because everyone wanted to go home. So on a motion by Council Wilson to adopt application and petition item number one, roll call.

Councilor Azeem is absent. Vice Mayor McGovern, absent. Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councilor Wilson.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

And the... Petition is adopted by the affirmative vote of seven members. Two being recorded as absent. The next item before us is communications. There are 151. on a motion by Councilor Nolan to place 151 communications on file.

Roll call, please. Councilor Azeem, absent. Vice Mayor McGovern, absent. Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councilor Wilson.

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

Thank you, and the communications are placed on file. The next is consent resolutions. There are several. What is the pleasure of the City Council?

Move to adopt, making them unanimous upon adoption.

On a motion by Council Wilson to adopt the resolutions making them unanimous upon adoption, roll call.

Councilor Azeem is absent. Vice Mayor McGovern absent. Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councilor Wilson.

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

The 11 resolutions are adopted by the seven members. Affirmative vote of seven members, two being recorded as absent. We move now to... Community reports, there are none. We move now to communications and reports from other city offices. With just one, what is the pleasure? on a motion by Councilor Nolan to place the one communication on file roll call.

Councilor Azeem is absent. Vice Mayor McGovern absent. Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councilor Wilson.

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Zusy.

Yes.

Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

And the matter is adopted by the... for the vote of seven members, two being recorded as absent. We move now to late resolutions. I'll suspend the rules to take up the light to two late resolutions. A motion by Councilor Toner to suspend the rules. Roll call.

Azeem, absent, Vice Mayor McGovern, absent, Councilor Nolan, no, Councilor Siddiqui, yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, yes, Councilor Toner, yes, Councilor Wilson,

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Zusy.

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have six members recorded in the affirmative, one recorded in the negative, and two recorded as absent.

We are now in suspension. There are two resolutions. I would vote that we bring them forward together and dispose of them together. There's no objections on a motion by Councilor Toner. Roll call.

Councilor Azeem. absent, Vice Mayor McGovern absent, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson.

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

And the resolutions are before us on the affirmative vote of seven members, two being recorded as absent. The resolutions, the first one is Venter Fluta-Smith used to be in the Cambridge-Boston area for years, moved to New Hampshire and has won a seat. on the New Hampshire City Board of Aldermen, I think they call it, and this is just congratulating her for her continued service. The second one, I'm gonna pause for a moment. Many of you may know, you may not know Councilor Nolan, but many people may know Roger O'Sullivan. He was a member of the Cambridge Educators Association, a teacher, Long-time Cambridge resident, class of 1960. Just a bright light in Cambridge. Went to Boston State College.

widely known as a gentle and thoughtful presence, was nice to my kids, fed them candy and pizza at school committee meetings so they'd be wired when they got home. He's just a wonderful person and unfortunately died just recently. I was... Just very shaken by it, knowing how much he really enjoyed the city, how much he gave of himself for the city. And so I thought it might be fitting. if we would acknowledge his life, not so much his passing, but his life. So I will yield the floor to Councilor Toner, the co-maker, and then if anyone wants to, I mean, many of you, again, may not know him, because he's, you know, More of my age. And so... I don't mind, you know, listen, being old is better than being dead. So there you go. Sorry about that.

It's like, he's pretty well for me.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to say that I've known Roger for many, many years. In fact, when I was first teaching at the Harrington School and got involved with Teachers Union, Roger was the president of the Cambridge Teachers Association. And I served as secretary and then later vice president. and Roger was just a really wonderful guy. And I'm gonna tell you why he was such a wonderful guy. I actually ran against Roger and became the president of the Cambridge Teachers Association. and Roger was such a classy person that after the initial shock of me running and becoming president for the next 30 years, Roger was a key supporter of mine in every election I had through the MTA and through my runs for Cambridge City Council. And I consider him a very good friend. He did a lot of good for a lot of teachers and a lot of people around the city. and he'll be sorely missed.

I spoke to him just two weeks ago by phone. I thought he had a fighting chance but unfortunately he did not. The one good thing is that his daughter and granddaughter were by his side at his passing. So with that, I'll yield. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Councilor Tony yields the floor. Does anyone else want to speak to this resolution? Councilor Wilson? No?

Okay. No, thank you. He sounds like a remarkable man. Sorry for the loss. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Wilson. Hearing no further discussion, we will entertain a roll call. Toner.

Councilor Azeem, absent. Vice Mayor McGovern, absent. Councilor Nolan, yes. Councilor Siddiqui, yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, yes. Yes. Councilor Toner, yes. Councilor Wilson, yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes, and you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

And the resolutions are adopted by the affirmative vote of seven members, two being recorded as absent. We move now to communications and reports from other city officers. There's just one. We already did that. I thought we did the communications. We did that, you're right. We did that. All right, so we're at announcements. Any announcements? So let me just remind my colleagues the deadline for requests for carryovers is December 16th, which is tomorrow at 12 noon. So use it or lose it. Also, on Thursday, there will be an opening reception of Good Trouble, a focus on the life and work of Caroline Hunter. It's an exhibit that was curated by Sophie G. Young. It's an open reception from December 18th, which is tomorrow, from 5 to 7. Thursday. Well, it'll be tomorrow because we'll be here much longer.

Thursday, December 18th, from 5 to 7, light refreshments will be served. It's free and open to the public. Good Trouble is an exhibition of photographs focusing on the life and work of Caroline Hunter, including her role in leading the global anti-apartheid advocacy of the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement in the 1970s. It's free and please, if you're free, please attend. She will be giving some remarks about the work she did during that period. Council Wilson, do you have any, can you hear me?