Regular City Council Meeting

A quorum being present, I call tonight's August 3rd, 2026, the regular meeting of the Cambridge City Council to order. The first order of business is a roll call of members present.

Councillor Al-Zubi? Present. Vice Mayor Azeem? Present McGovern, Nolan, Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, you have nine members recorded as present.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance and pause for a moment of silence.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. And Madam Mayor, if I may?

Please go ahead.

We usually, during the moment of silence, acknowledge and we acknowledge the fact that we recently lost Larry Aronson, teacher, longtime Cambridge resident.

And Chris Affleck. It's been a rough month. Thank you. For 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 set up Zoom teleconference for public comment. You can also view the meeting via the city's open meeting portal or on the city cable channel 22. To speak during public comment, you must sign up at www.cambridgema.gov slash public comment. You can also email written comments for the record to the city clerk We welcome your participation and you can sign up until 6pm.

Third parties may also be audio and video recording this meeting. Do we have any announcements before we move to public comment? Hearing none, we'll go ahead to public comment. Public comment may be made in accordance with the Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 20G and City Council Rules 23D and 37. Once you finish speaking, the next speaker will be called. Individuals are not permitted to allocate the remainder of their time to other speakers. I ask that you state your name and address for the record and the item on the agenda that you're speaking on. Right now we have 51 speakers who have signed up and each speaker will have two minutes.

Thank you. Our first speaker is Zaida Pignatori, followed by Jada Onaneme. Zaida, you have two minutes.

You can hit the button.

There you go. Okay, good evening. I'm speaking on item 14 and my name is Zaida Pingitore I'm a rising senior at CRLS, and for the last month I've been working with seven of my peers through the Mayor's Summer Employment Program to research Julia Child. Through our research, we have come to realize there is no historical marker in Cambridge to commemorate Julia Child and believe that the city should work to put one in place. For 40 years, Child made 103 Irving Street in mid-Cambridge her home as well as her office and the studio for many of her shows. Child cared deeply about public education, a value I believe this city shares with her. She hosted her shows on WGBH, a public network. She held free cooking demonstrations across the city and at the end of her life donated her belongings to Radcliffe's Schlesinger Library for students to study for generations to come. Growing up in Cambridge, I learned quickly that education happens everywhere, never just in the classroom.

I grew up watching PBS, exploring Fresh Pond and reading poems inscribed on the sidewalk outside the library. Since starting high school, I've walked down Irving Street almost daily on my way to school. Just blocks from child's home. A historical marker would not only honor the life of this generous, funny and inspiring woman I've come to know in the last month but serve as a reminder that history and opportunities to learn are all around us. I urge the City Council to honor child's life in Cambridge and uphold the shared value of education by instituting historical marker on or near her home. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Jada Onanime, followed by Mari McCauley, then Gideon Epstein. Jada, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

My name is Jadah Simmons-Onanime. I reside at 528 Franklin Street. I am here speaking on policy number 2026-150, item 14. On behalf of the Mayor's Summit Youth Employment Program site Bon Appetit from Cambridge Kitchen to Culinary Icon, Julia Child The civic designers believe that Julia Child spent a lot of time at 103 Irving Street, Cambridge is special. She lived there for 40 years. She filmed some of her shows in that house. Julia Child was a big part of the community and helped local businesses. She donated $17,000 to the RISTA program at Cambridge in gelatin. She is an American icon and helped shape the way of American cooking. Julia Child introduced French cooking to Americans and taught people how to cook from scratch.

The most notable part of her house was donated to the Smithsonian, her kitchen. That speaks volumes of her notability. We feel that if the residents that occupy the house don't want a marker put on their fence, then a marker should be placed on the sidewalk or somewhere where she resided. Thank you for listening the eight civic designers, Abel, Emmanuel, Neo, Nora, Gavin with a Y, Parvati, Clem and Zyda who you just heard from. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Mari Macelli, followed by Gideon Epstein, then Meg Stone. Mari, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hi. My name is Mary Macelly and I live at 47 Seville Street and I'm speaking on agenda item number 17. I am speaking on behalf of the Cambridge chapter of Mothers Out Front. We hope the City Council will go on record and vote yes on the important provisions in Policy Order 2026-153. The State Energy Affordability Bill is in the House Senate Conference Committee now. Strengthen Mass Save. Mass save should be strengthened, not cut. The House bill includes $1 billion in cuts which would kill efforts in 2027 to weatherize homes and support adoption of heat pumps statewide. Thank you for joining us. Sunset GSEP, the Gas System Enhancement Program, GSEP should be phased out.

GSEP began as a program to provide funding to utilities to repair gas leaks and only replace them when truly necessary. But GSEC has evolved into a boondoggle Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Regulatory barriers to municipal thermal networks. Establish a working group that would recommend legislative and regulatory changes to enable municipalities Thank you.

Our next speaker is Gideon Epstein, followed by Meg Stone, then Peter Crawley.

Good evening. My name is Gideon Epstein, and I'm a policy counsel with the ACLU of Massachusetts and a Cambridge resident. I understand and share the desire to be responsive to residents across Cambridge, and specifically in the Port who feel unheard. I want to take this opportunity to remind the Council and the public what Cambridge law says about surveillance technology because it's focused on evidence-based decision making is particularly helpful at a time like this. Under Cambridge's surveillance technology ordinance, the standard for deploying technologies like ShotSpotter is clear. Those legal guidelines should be the Council's starting point tonight. A cost-benefit analysis of how effective ShotSpotter has proven to be here in Cambridge and consideration of whether we have full control over ShotSpoter data.

The evidence on ShotSporter is not favorable to continued deployment, and it's not a close call. Thank you. that it helped Cambridge police solve serious crimes or help them to hold perpetrators of gun violence accountable. Based on these facts, ShotSpotter doesn't meet the surveillance technology ordinance's standard for approval. It's tempting to turn to surveillance technology in the wake of a tragedy because unlike programs that actually reduce gun violence, it's a switch we can flip on in seconds and feel gratifying emotionally and politically. But Cambridge ought to be better than that and focus now on investments in programs that we know uplift people and communities to stop violence before it happens.

For these reasons, the ACLU respectfully requests that the council vote no on the proposed policy order on ShotSpotter. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Meg Stone followed by Peter Cawley. Meg, you have two minutes.

Hi, my name is Meg Stone. I have been a Cambridge resident for 30 years and I'm executive director of Impact Boston, a violence prevention organization. Over the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to meet with several members of this Council to talk about ShotSpotter and violence prevention in Cambridge. The conversations varied widely in substance and tone But I walked away from each conversation grateful. that is apparent in the wide range of policy orders that are proposed by this council. The urgent needs of a traumatized community after a tragic shooting deserve attention and action. But so does the long-term strategy of changing the conditions that cause violence and supporting community safety.

The care team is skilled and committed, but the city's emergency communications staff is only sending them about half the 911 calls they are qualified to respond to. That needs to change. If this council is going to even consider reinstating an evidence-poor technology that even its supporters acknowledge to be ineffective, Thank you very much. I am grateful for the thought and care many of you have put into this issue, and I hope for a comprehensive response.

Thank you, our next speaker is Peter Crawley followed by Young Kim then Audrey Shulman. Peter you have two minutes please go ahead you have the floor

Thank you. My name is Peter Crawley and I live on Thorndyke Street in East Cambridge. I'm speaking tonight in support of policy order number 16 to explore the best way to mandate and implement residential energy audits at the time of property sale. This idea is not new. I spent over a decade on the city's climate committee and helped develop and update the Net Zero Action Plan. This idea has been advocated in the plan since its earliest versions well over 10 years ago, Thank you very much. like the mass safe, free energy audits and upgrade incentives.

We've learned that there needs to be a trigger and an incentive for homeowners to conduct energy audts and to follow through with the upgrades under this policy order the trigger is the process of the sale and the incentive is disclosure of the energy efficiency condition of the property The time of sale is an effective moment to require the seller and buyer to examine energy efficiency of a home and it's a moment in time when significant upgrades are typically made and can be financed by either or both the seller and the buyer. It works because the seller wants to market the most attractive product. The buyer wants to purchase an energy efficient home with low operating costs and minimal environmental health impacts.

I can easily see the seller sharing the energy audit results with the buyer and the parties agreeing on the timing and funding of key improvements. A similar process already occurs via a home inspection But structural pests and other issues. So adding energy efficiency...

Apologies, Peter. Your time has expired. Please email us the remainder of your comment. Our next speaker is Young Kim followed by Audrey Schulman, then Shannon Finley. Young, you have two minutes.

Young Kim, 17 Norris Street. I urge you to approve policy order number 12 on interdepartmental coordination with an amendment imposing a moratorium until the recommendation in policy order 12 and my July 30 letter have been implemented. The neighbor's guide has been published The Joint Housing and NLTP Committee have reported back. And the City Manager has reported the total housing production projections through 2030 including all AHO and MFH projects in the pipeline to the asbestos-related public health and environmental deficiency document in my letter are serious.

In just the first seven months, I documented three projects involving four properties where ISTs should stop work orders for various reasons and the Mass Department of Labor standards issued cease-and-desist orders for asbestos contamination. ISD and DSA should be on lockstep and on same page enforced the same standards. The ISD permitting process must be reviewed and prevent further violations. Finally, the Annual Cycle Safety Report Project's completion of 25 miles of separated bicycle lanes by November 30th.

Through you, would you please ask the city manager whether the city is on schedule to meet this November's deadline Thank you, Young.

Your time has expired. Please email the remainder. Our next speaker is Audrey Schulman followed by Shannon Finley then Rachel Cobb. Audrey, you have two minutes.

Thank you. I'm Audrey Schulman. I live on Hamilton Street. I've been a proud Cambridge resident for over 40 years, and I'm here to talk about Patty Nolan's policy order on home energy assessments at the time of sale. I've also helped to start HEAT, the energy efficiency thermal network non-profit and now I'm running Black Swan Labs. So energy efficiency and reducing emissions and helping people have Low affordable bills has been my driving goal for 20 years now. and this policy order of having a no-cost home energy assessment at the point of sale just makes sense, right? It does not cost money. It gives people information who are about to buy.

The only people who it maybe might put out is either the homeowner who wants to sell and potentially the realtor, who's about to make a lot of money on that sale. So I don't think it's very difficult The assessments are at no cost and they help give people information. And the city has mandates to reduce emissions. And you're currently paying for large financing assessments and other assessments of all kinds to try to figure out how you're going to meet your mandates. Thank you very much. That's it. It makes sense. Thank you so much.

My name is Shannon Findley, and I live at 10 Perry Street. I'd like to address policy order number nine regarding tree loss tracking and prevention. I ask the city extend the safeguards in value protecting public trees to privately owned trees Especially since trees on private property make a large share of our urban tree canopy. Since the passage of the new zoning with reduced setbacks, existing mature trees and Land encouraging tree growth is under threat. As part of the permitting process, site plans should require the inclusion of impacted trees on abutting properties as well as third-party report from a certified arborist stating what portion of roots need to be protected of the abutting trees to maintain the health of the tree. The area would be protected and not encroached on during construction or by new structure.

Undermining the roots and health of an abutter's tree may lead to its premature death, resulting in unstable dead trees as well as deflecting costs for the removal of the tree onto the abutter which may occur years after construction. Trees provide the most local benefit to more than just one property. Its removal harms many. A new tree planted elsewhere to offset its loss provides practically no benefit to those where it once stood. This would go a long way in furthering the tree protection ordinance and avoid contractors and developers from running afoul of Mass Law, Chapter 87, Section 11, and lawsuits of willful destruction of injury to a neighboring tree. The city in its attempt to discourage removal of healthy trees has fines in place which is hardly a deterrent to a developer. If the city is serious about encouraging and maintaining tree growth, then the rules to protect them need to be robust and equal.

Everyone here knows that we need trees for climate resiliency to mitigate heat island effect flooding and provide critical wildlife habitat. Thank you. Our next speaker is Rachel Cobb, followed by Chris M., then James Zoll.

Rachel?

Good evening. My name is Rachel Cobb. I live at 140 Lexington Ave, and I am here to support policy order number nine. I am so grateful for all of the hard work that so many here have done to support the creation of our robust urban forest master plan, our 33 consecutive years of being a Tree City USA, our shade of social justice and so many others. and I am proud of this progress but this progress is at risk. We need a powerful thing, a clear public tracking system recording our tree removals counting trees removed per permit and flagging impacts to critical root zones This is not bureaucracy, this is basic stewardship. You can't manage what you don't measure. You are the guardians of our trees and the future of our commitment to our children and our public safety It is your mission to have a full accounting of our infrastructure. And trees are critical infrastructure. They lower temperatures, cut stormwater costs and store carbon.

We map and fund roads and bridges because they are essential assets that need lifecycle care. Trees deserve no less, Especially in a city where 54% per our 2026 urban forest update of our canopy is on private property. A tree is doing this same work whether it stands in a yard, on a street or in a park. We face a future, we are living it in which the number of sweltering days over 100 degrees will increase. Trees, according to our own work, reduces surface temperatures which in turn helps us mitigate extreme heat and heat-related illness. Here we are along the Charles, the Alewife Brook, the Mystic, and next to the Atlantic. The massive Alewife sewer separation project was undertaken to reduce combined sewer water overflows and improve public health, water quality, and flood resilience in the Alewife watershed. The goal, separate stormwater and sanitary sewage.

I will just end with you can't manage what you don't measure.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Chris M., followed by James Zald and Abby Brown. Chris?

Hi, I'm Chris. I live on Royal Ave and I got charter right number one So a 2024 analysis of Boston ShotSpotter data collected between 2020 and 2022, analyzed by the ACLU of Massachusetts. found that 70% of shot spotter alerts were actually false positives. That is, the police found there was no evidence of gunfire and that includes over 10% of alerts that were flagged as fireworks So this is two years' worth of data. The distribution of how often fireworks go off is not evenly distributed throughout the year, And I'd once again like to send my deepest consolances to the family of Xavier Bautista, who was shot and killed on July 4th. Hopefully the temperature has come down enough that we can start to look at what real long-term solutions are. And so, we need social responses to social problems.

This includes things like youth employment, stable housing Mental health care, trauma support, conflict mediation, reentry support, education, community institutions and meaningful economic opportunities. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is James Zoll. James has not joined us, we will go to Abby Brown followed by Estelle Dish. Abby, you have two minutes please go ahead.

Good evening, my name is Abby Brown and I'm speaking in support of item 16 the time-of-sale energy audit requirement. I am a current student at Boston University. I support this order for a few reasons. It's a low burden, high value policy. It doesn't mandate any upgrades it just requires sellers to share information that buyers should already have How efficient the building is and how much energy it's likely to use. This kind of transparency is already expected in a home sale. Additionally, this policy is designed to minimize cost. Sellers can satisfy this requirement with a free mass save home energy assessment. This would not be a financial burden on residents. Having this requirement at the time of sale means buyers can factor efficiency upgrades into financing and renovation plans from day one. This is not a new idea for Cambridge, It builds directly on commitments the Council has already made in the Net Zero Action Plan and follows the lead of cities such as Austin, Berkeley, and Ann Arbor that have similar requirements.

Residential buildings are roughly 20% of Cambridge's total admissions, and homeowners have few direct levers to act on that. This policy gives people a way towards action at exactly the moment they're most likely to take it. I'd ask the council to keep moving towards a time, the timeline toward adoption of this policy. Thank you.

Thank You our next speaker is Estelle Dish Estelle, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm Estelle Dish. I live at 534 Franklin Street in Cambridge. trial period. I know it's been on before, but just to put it back. This will give the city a chance to talk with people who live in the neighborhoods most affected by gun violence in order to find out whether or not they want either it, or something similar, or not. It will also give the city time to explore how shot spotter data are used. We obviously live in a surveillance-ridden society, and I too am concerned about the level of surveillance that we're all subjected to. How much surveillance would ShotSpotter actually add in the bigger context? And how would their data be used beyond identifying shot-like noise? I see a positive aspect to the anonymity of ShotSpotter.

Many people are reluctant to call the police or get involved in public crises at all. I wonder whether anyone even walked by Xavier Bautista as he lay dying and just kept going. We know that happened to the man being strangled by his own clothing at the bottom of a subway escalator in Davis Square last winter. If technology can fill in where humans fail, I think it's worth a try. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Monestime, followed by Miles Mazota, then Jason Alves. Michael Monestime, you have the floor. Please go ahead.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the Council. Michael Monesteine, President of the Central Square Bid Committee A resident at Fort George. First, I'd like to congratulate Michelle Kincaid on her retirement and thank her for years of dedicated service to Cambridge. I'm here tonight to support policy order number one Exploring the Return of Central Square's World Fair. For those of you who remember it, the World Fair wasn't just an event. It was Cambridge at its best. John Clifford had the vision to create something that brought together neighborhoods, cultures... musicians, businesses and families. Mayor Reeves embraced that vision and helped make it a reality and together they created one of Cambridge's signature civic celebrations The dance party has really captured that same spirit. It shows us what's possible when we invest in partnerships and people, and public space at scale.

So I'd love to see us bring back the dance party at a time, especially when it often feels like we're focused on what divides us. We should invest in the experiences that bring us together I'd also like to support a citywide digital wayfinding kiosk program Cambridge welcomes people from around the world every day through our universities, businesses, transit systems, arts and more. The World Cup was a great reminder of that. Done well, kiosks would become much more than digital maps. They can help people discover small businesses, retailers promote arts and culture, and provide real-time transit information. They can strengthen tourism, support our networks and make it easier for residents and visitors to enjoy everything our city has to offer. Lastly, I'd like to appreciate the City Manager's work on streamlining permitting. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Miles Mazzotta, followed by Jason Alves, then Vishal Patel. Miles, you have two minutes.

Hello, everyone. My name is Miles Mazzotta. I live at 172 Lexington Ave., and it's great to be here, I would say, if it wasn't so humid. It's great As I'm sure some of you may imagine, I am also here to support POR 2026-145 or Policy Order No. 9 So personally, I'm a big fan of the types of initiatives that ensure that we get proper data so as to enact more substantive policy changes down the road. And I firmly believe that Order 9 is one of those – is exactly that. and let's please make sure that in this time of rapid growth and more housing and development, that these exact impacts are measured. Things like trees coming down, trees being rebuilt I think that would be really great. So in my lifetime in Cambridge, I've been very fortunate to grow up surrounded by trees. I have seen a lot of these trees go down and I've seen many new trees planted in their place and feel confident in the years to come

My area of Cambridge will extend that same luxury to my girlfriend, to my sister To future generations and many new people coming into Cambridge Transparently, I want to ensure that that same luxury may be extended to the rest of the city as well. And I consider policy order nine to be a critical step in that process. My street of Lexington Ave reaps the benefits Of the sewer separation project Every time I literally look out my window I can literally see patches of the street That were paved specifically to catch rainwater And drain it down and when we're taking steps as a city to approach these problems head on, I think that these things get demonstrably better as the sewer separation project has proven. Thank you for watching! I am very concerned by that. I hope it doesn't come back, thank you.

Thank you our next speaker is Jason Alves followed by Vishal Patel then Vinus Patel. Jason you have two minutes please go ahead

Hi, Jason Alves. I'm the executive director of the East Cambridge Business Association 544 Cambridge Street. I want to speak also in favor of the citywide kiosk and we finding I think this summer has demonstrated what tourism can mean to the city of Cambridge. I think it's a good time to kind of expand on that and capitalize on it. What are we doing to keep visitors in giving them options so that they don't immediately gravitate to head to the other side of the river. I think this can be a good program, so I'm glad to see that there's some movement done as it's been part of a number of economic development studies It's almost always called out as a way to move people around our business districts. And also on our business district, here to speak in favor of putting some protections in for the businesses on Cambridge Street and for the commercial

would love to see the council move on, you know, the option of requiring ground floor active space on new buildings over I've spoken about this at length, but I think Cambridge Street in the past couple of years and going forward we're being asked to do a lot of different things all at once. And I think that we deserve as the rules have changed underneath us Over and over again, I think that the folks on Cambridge Street deserve this kind of protection to make sure that we're continuing to be a place where small businesses can operate, sort of opportunities to get their businesses going and off the ground. This is not gonna impact housing, I think it's gonna be complimentary to it So I do hope that you can move forward and put these protections in place and kind of put this whole conversation at bed. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Vishal Patel followed by Vinus Patel, then Louise Venden. Vishal, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, my name is Vishal Patel. I'm here on behalf of Ferros Food Town at 336 Range Avenue, Cambridge, Mass. Faroes has been long established neighborhood grocery store and providing the quality products and friendly service and support for our local community. Today, independent supermarkets are facing increasing challenges from large national chains who have greater purchasing power and resources. So the proposed Home Rule Petition for Policy Order 140 Item 4 represents an opportunity to help strengthen the long-term Thank you for joining us. We are a grocery-first business, and alcohol sales will be limited to one aisle, and we are not seeking to sell nip bottles. We will continue to follow strict age verification and compliance requirements.

I requestfully ask for your support for the home will petition so Ferris Food Town can continue serving Cambridge families for many years to come. Thank you for your time, consideration and support.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Vinus Patel. Vinus, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Vinas Patel. We are doing the business as the Ferriswood Town located at the 336 Ridge Avenue. I am presenting the item number for 2026-140, policy order number 140. Requesting the off-premises full liquor license, Farrows Food Town is a neighborhood business providing the local residents easy access to everyday groceries items, beverages and their essential products. Many customers which are living at the three large affordable housing apartment at the first point rely on the store because it's close to their home and offers a friendly and personalized service. The addition of the liquor license will allow neighborhood residents, including seniors, families and those living in nearby affordable housing to serve for groceries and other household necessities in one convenient location.

This added convenience will save time, improve accessibility and better serve the daily needs of the community. We are committed to full compliance with all the state and local alcohol law responsible alcohol sales and maintaining a positive relationship with our neighbors. We respectfully request the board's approval of our legal license application so that we may better serve the needs of the community while continuing to be a trusted local business. Thank you, everyone.

Thank You. Our next speaker is Louise Venden followed by Sophie Gillard then Catherine Silvestri Louise, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Please go ahead. Louise Vanden, if you can unmute yourself, you

Can you hear me now?

We can. Please go ahead.

Okay, great. All right. Thank you very much. Louise Vendon, 10 Rogers Street. I am making a comment in support of policy order 148. This council has adopted ambitious policies To lower development costs, hoping these policies would result in lower rents, home sales prices and increased housing units. and thereby accelerating the pace of development without establishing ways to track and measure these changes. Supporters of these zoning changes, and those calling for changes often battle each other with exaggerated claims because there is no comprehensive complete data to evaluate housing projects inspired by these new, less restrictive zoning policies. Removing and lowering requirements and reviews has inflamed neighborhood activism and eroded public trust. Tracking project data from CDD, Planning, Public Works, and ISD requires time-consuming integration

of data in different formats, timeframes even addresses and leaves out key information about the pricing of proposed rental and ownership homes. activists and the broader public are confused about the process for approvals of MFH housing projects. How to access the status and notices of meetings regarding them. And obtain specific information about project size, properties to be replaced, tenants to be dislocated I urge the Council to approve PO 148 in order to enable accurate and reliable measures of their impacts on existing housing neighborhoods and the additional proposed housing, and help restore trust in these policies.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Sophie Gillard followed by Catherine Silvestri, then Jason Stockman. Sophie, two minutes.

Hi, my name is Sophie Gillard. I'm a resident of Porter Square and I'd like to talk about public safety today. We live in a world where surveillance tech companies are spying on private citizens to help ICE kidnap and imprison our neighbors. That is a public safety issue. For years, Cambridge residents have come before this body to plead with you Our city from this threat. Some Cambridge residents, most targeted by ICE were too afraid to come and speak publicly at these meetings in front of these cameras These residents recorded messages and wrote letters to share with their counselors a public comment about ShotSpotter, and members of this body literally silenced them when they were trying to explain why this technology made them feel so unsafe. and by the way, the cameras here today have the same effect of scaring away the voices that we need to hear the most. A week and a half ago, the city called a special meeting to discuss community safety

Our city needed space to process the grief and fear, as well as a space for residents to ask its leaders what's being done to prevent further gun violence in Cambridge. Instead of meeting that need, the community meeting and the special meeting were turned into referendums on ShotSpotter even though we've had no confirmation from city officials that ShotSpodder could have saved a life. Watching these meetings, it felt like this tragedy has been treated like a political weapon and not like a wake-up call. You should be using council time to focus on actually improving public safety by addressing gun violence, not by bringing back a technology that threatens the lives of our neighbors. This council listened to our city and did the right thing by ending the use of ShotSpotter. Don't bring it back, especially not without a thorough community input process. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Catherine Silvestri followed by Jason Stockman, then Rachel Bickelman. Catherine, two minutes.

My name is Catherine Sylvester, I live at 253 Norfolk Street. I live in the port just a block from where Xavier Batista was killed. I am horrified at his death. This does not change my opposition to shot spotter as an invasive form of surveillance in my neighborhood. At the community meeting following Bautista's death, there were unsubstantiated claims by the city manager and acting police commissioner that ShotSpotter might have been able to save his life. I feel that these comments were speculative at best and inflammatory at worst. I echo the previous commenter's comment that it feels like this tragic death has been turned into a political issue by people who want to reinstate ShotSpotter at all costs. ShotSpotter is demonstrably ineffective at responding to gunshots. It has a very high false positive rate, according to studies by the University of Chicago and the city's own data.

ShotSpotter is purely a responsive technology that does absolutely nothing to prevent gun violence. I want to feel safe where I live in the port. I want my neighbors to feel safe and at that community meeting following this tragedy, Xavier Bautista do not feel safe in the port and how many of them have been affected by gun violence. But I reject the assertion that we need to choose between safety and privacy and I believe the City Council should invest in violence response and prevention strategies like those listed in other policy orders that were chartered at last week's meeting. rather than reinstating surveillance technology with such a poor track record. Thank you

Thank you. Our next speaker is Jason Stockman followed by Rachel Bickelman, then Jacob Brown. Jason, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Jason Stockman, 7 Cornelius Way in Wellington Harrington Thanks very much for the opportunity to comment on Charter Right Number 1. I wanted to speak strongly in favor of reinstating Shotstopper. to test its effectiveness and try to improve its effectiveness. I wanted to say, we are a city full of brilliant data scientists Why can't we team up with the company to try to improve their algorithms, maybe leverage the latest in AI to improve its effectiveness? Maybe it's true that there are false positives. Thank you for joining us. I see that as extremely important for maintaining public safety.

I think the conflation of this device with violations of privacy or civil rights is largely illusory, it's anonymous and it only reports activities that should not be happening in public you should not are not a big deal. You should not be using those in public either, so either way the police are directed to an activity that requires their response. and I think we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I acknowledge this tool is not perfect but it's the best tool available Thank you for your time. And last thing I want to say is that removing this device will only harm underserved neighborhoods where people have expressed concern. It will not help them.

So thank you very much and I hope that you will vote in favor of restoring the use of Shotstopper and trying to improve it moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Rachel Bickelman followed by Jacob Brown, then James Rafferty. Rachel please go ahead

Hi, my name is Rachel Bickelman. I live on Trowbridge Street.

Rachel, if you can, sorry to interrupt, please pull the mic down so folks on Zoom will hear you as well.

Sure. Hi, my name is Rachel Bickelman. I live on Trowbridge Street. I'd just like to highlight some of the resources from the city manager's report that relate to ShotSpotter and public safety. Nowhere in the City of United's 306090 Rapid Day Response or in the NICJR National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform is additional surveillance recommended for the reduction of gun violence. They actually even recommend against over-policing, especially after a community tragedy. And we know what works, community engagement. They say how safety is defined by how residents feel safe But feeling or believing that you are more safe does not in reality make that true. and we know plenty of studies where an officer is primed with the knowledge that there may be a firearm even if they are significantly more likely to reach for their own. And this heightens the potential for more tragedy at the hands of the police and in our city here at Cambridge, which is something that I think we are all not

Thank you for joining us. I even saw a mock job posting for a similar position in this report too. I think as city councillors you have a responsibility to your constituents to make the right decisions, even when they seem like they go against what these presidents want. It's not easy, and I certainly don't envy you because it probably feels like you're letting some of your constituents down. But if the goal is to effectively reduce gun violence and increase public safety, ShotSpotter is not an effective answer So I urge you to listen to the experts and the use of ShotSpotter and actually focus on community engagement that will increase public safety and trust. Thanks for your time.

Thank you, our next speaker is Jacob Brown followed by James Rafferty then Andrew Kim. Jacob two minutes please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Jacob Brown. I live on Magazine here in Cambridge. I'm here again after the public safety meeting from Thursday before last because I remain heartbroken and shaken by the murder of Xavier Bautista and because I want to see long-term community based solutions to address gun violence here. First of all, I'd like to take a look at Shaw Squatter's actual track record I currently live in an apartment building with a shot spotter mic across the parking lot, which means that if I step outside the house and take out the trash and I'm calling my grandparents while I do it, it is listening. But this is something that has never made me feel more safe. For me, this isn't based on my hypothetical hopes or fears of what it will do but rather based on the results of rolling out shot spotter in cities across the country. I've seen city after city where it's ineffective. In Minneapolis Less than half a percent of its activations led to an arrest. In Chicago, 911 response times were four minutes faster after they dropped the technology. Furthermore, I've seen the ways that it can be dangerous by preparing police to respond to an active shooter situation where there is no threat

Chicago saw a case where a cop shot at a teenage boy who had been lighting fireworks and falsely jailed a 65-year old man for nearly a year after officers intentionally and improperly relied on a shot spotter alert. We don't even have to look outside the area. Boston Police Department's own records detail increased police stops and searches because people were in the wrong place at the wrong time due to a shot spot or alert, and Cambridge itself saw an 82% false positive rate in the city manager's own report. However, I'd also like to look at the organizations doing vital work in Cambridge to cut down on this cycle of violence The community safety department's care team, for example, was able to resolve 96% of emergency calls without sending police. Violence interruption programs do critical work to reach out to the people at highest risk of being impacted by gun violence However, Cambridge cut out the community safety department's grant funding for those programs by more than half. This is not right. If we're going to fight violence, we need to do it as a community and support the programs that work with people actually living in the city. Thank you. Our next speaker is James Rafferty, followed by Andrew Kim, then Mason Shepard. James?

James has not joined us. We will go to Andrew Kim, then Mason Shepard followed by Muhammad Shafim. Andrew you have two minutes please unmute yourself. You have the floor.

Thank you. Hello, my name is Andrew Kim and I'm a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and a deacon at Old Cambridge Baptist Church. I'm sick today so I can't be there in person to speak once again about ShotSpotter. Once again, I would advise the Council to not re-implement ShotSpotter due to its poor efficacy and its connections with Department of Homeland Security and ICE. Again, I would like to reiterate my deep condolences for the family of Xavier Bautista and say again that it is unacceptable that the people of Cambridgeport have to live under the threat of gun violence, let alone its reality. I will also say that the use of this tragedy to conduct a seeming referendum on ShotSpotter is a cruel placement of politics over the real governance and lives of Cambridge citizens. This attempt to bring back a widely unpopular surveillance system has made a circus of a tragedy and is a deeply shameful display from this council. That said, I admit that if the people of Cambridge Port collectively state that they want a surveillance system then they should have one.

This is a democracy. We shouldn't be in the business of denying the will of the people, but they deserve a system that actually works, that doesn't have an 82% false alarm rate in their city. They deserve a system that actually protects, that won't be used to target their neighbors for kidnapping and imprisonment. And they deserve a systems arrived at through the city government's collaboration with them not the one that was simply there before.

they deserve better than ShotSpotter thank you for your time thank you we're going to go back to James Rafferty James you have the floor you have two minutes please go ahead

Thank you. Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the City Council. For the record my name is Jim Rafferty I'm an attorney in Cambridge with offices located at 907 Massachusetts Avenue I'm speaking on item number one under petitions. It is a zoning petition filed by Alexander Real Estate Equities. It Results in the creation of over 30 affordable dwelling units at a location of 161 First Street. As you know, the petition will be referred this evening from here to both the ordinance committee and the planning board. I just wanted to alert City Council members that this issue, which we have spoken with many councilors about is now going to be coming before you. It does represent a creative and innovative opportunity for a 100% affordable housing development

right in the heart of Kendall Square, two blocks from Toomey Park with a family-friendly style unit mix influenced and informed by meetings we've had with the Cambridge Affordable Housing Department. In closing, I'd say that this represents not only an affordable housing opportunity but also a significant achievement under historical preservation. The building itself has been represents the industrial past of Kendall Square, The best of what Cambridge can do both through preservation and affordable housing. On behalf of Alexandria, we look forward to engaging fully with the City Council and members of the community on this exciting opportunity. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Mason Shepherd, followed by Mohammed Shafim, then Karen Bruschett. Mohamed Shafim

Hello, my name is Mohammed Shafim. I live on Dana Street and I'm speaking on charter right number one I'm also a member of the Democratic Socialist America. I grew up in Newtown Courts Public Housing, and I am a CLS 2019 alum. I witnessed the root causes of violence in this city grow as a wealth disparity widened with each new building in Kendall Square. I can assure the City Council what black and brown communities don't need is more surveillance systems like ShotSpotter. We have already had enough surveillance with the federal government's Patriot Act. I urge the City Council to spend its time and resources addressing the root causes of violence Solutions like social housing and youth engagement can prevent further harm to the city. So I implore the City Sorry.

So I implore the City Council to not bring back the ineffective and feckless shot spotter system. Thank you.

Thank you, our next speaker is Karen Burchette followed by Jim Bradford then Glenna Wyman. Karen, you have two minutes please go ahead Karen Burchette, if you can unmute yourself. We will come back to Karen. We're going to move on to Jim Bradford followed by Glenna Wyman. Jim, oh there you are. Jim you have the floor, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hi can you hear me?

Yes we can.

Oh alright thank you. Hello everybody. My name is Jim Bradford. I'm a steward and a member of the SEIU Union. I am an electrician for MIT First off, I want to thank you all for your time. I know you're busy so I'll just be quick. For months now we have been in negotiations with MIT for a fair contract for our members In this time, MIT has dragged their feet and slowed the progress for a reasonable agreement. Our union has worked closely with the grad students' union on campus who have received similar treatment in negotiations for a fair contract. MIT holds its students and graduates to the highest esteem. They commend and respect their students to the Members of the SEIU as well as members of the Grad Student Union feel that maybe it's time that MIT hold the members that keep the Institute operational to the same regard. With that,

We would like to respectfully request this body's support in our venture for MIT Union as well as the Grad Student Union for a fair contract. Thank you all again for your time. Have a good day.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Glenna Wyman. Glenna's not on the Zoom, we will go to John Horan followed by Lily Grob then Joanna Jimenez John, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Sorry, John has not joined the Zoom. We will go to Lily Grob. Lily has not joined either. We will go to Joanna Jimenez followed by Shawn Hope, then Gabrielle Robertson. Joanna? Sorry, Joanna was just here and seems to have stepped away. We will go to Sean Hope. Okay.

So Sean, sorry if you can hold on a sec. We're going to go to Joanna Jimenez then Sean Hope.

Good evening my name is Joanna Jiménez. A year and a half ago my son Angel was walking home through Cambridge when he was shot 15 times and killed. Many of you may not know his story because the news reported that he wasn't from Cambridge, but Angel was raised here. This city was his home. I raised him here alongside the rest of my children after his death There was only one public meeting. My family was never interviewed, and I have spent the last year and a half reaching out to news stations hoping someone would help bring attention to my son's case. We are still waiting for answers. The night my son was murdered, the ShotSpotter system did not alert police. I understand that the system has shown reliability issues and I know many of you have concerns about it. But it was created for one purpose, to help law enforcement respond more quickly to gunfire and potentially save lives. In my opinion the system should never have been removed

If it wasn't working well enough, then it should have been updated, improved and held to a higher standard not eliminated. We don't abandon public safety tools because they need improvement we make them better I will always wonder if an alert had gone out that night when my son's killers have had the opportunity to fire 15 rounds. Would officers have arrived sooner? I will never know those answers. I'm not asking you to believe that the Shot Spotters is perfect. I am asking you recognize that our city has a responsibility to use every reasonable tool available to help protect its residents No family should have to bury a loved one and spend the rest of their lives wondering if a faster response could make a difference.

Thank you. We're going to go back to earlier Skip's speaker, Karen Burchett, followed by Sean Hope, then Gabrielle Robertson. Karen, you have the floor if you can unmute yourself. Two minutes.

Good evening, Councilors. Karen Brushett, 51 Cushing Street. I'm here in support of Policy Order 148 for greater interdepartmental coordination and to address the City Manager's report on streamlining permitting. The most important item related to the City Manager's report is the need to quote, fix inconsistencies between zoning and building codes. However, calling these inconsistencies misses a crucial truth. These are direct conflicts with governing code that leave the city noncompliant and the residents vulnerable. When local rules conflict with mandatory state requirements, like MassDEP's separation rules for stormwater infrastructure, it creates legal and physical risk for neighbors. The city's priority must be upholding mandatory codes before streamlining this process.

We currently rely on singular department staff to catch these conflicts, but we cannot expect individuals to catch every detail. Look at 95 Cushing Street, a project under a microscope. The DPW approved a stormwater system seven and a half feet from an abutter's wall violating state separation rules and manufacturer specifications. In this same project, the fire department approved a single egress pathway directly over basement window wells creating a severe life safety trap. In ISD for the same project, a superficial asbestos study was approved until state intervention forced a redo and CDD counted green roof areas in permanent shade. towards the green factor standard score. If staff missed these details on a project under a microscope, what is slipping through on other developments? Before streamlining permits, we must enforce full code compliance and improving interdepartmental communications is a start.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Shawn Hope, followed by Gabrielle Robertson then Charles Franklin. Shawn, you have the floor for those waiting we have about 19 speakers to go. Shawn Hope two minutes please go ahead

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council, Sean Hope 350 Washington Street in Cambridge. I'm here tonight to speak in support of policy order number two This is an attempt to extend some of the successful policies, including the 3 a.m. closing and the to-go cups that were enacted by the state in the city during the World Cup. I have been a small business owner for the last 15 years, owning liquor licenses and retail venues. And This 3M licenses has really had on the different squares and neighboring businesses, in my business specifically in Harvard Square. Although experiences are more popular than ever it is extremely challenging with labor costs Renkost, all increasing. Cambridge was innovative when it decided to opt into this program and I think the success has been very clear not only

Financial Success, but I've seen activity in the square. At times they were dead. I've people walking around just patronizing other businesses and it really was a beautiful thing. and I would hate to see this end. We are working with community development, excuse me the economic development department to try to figure out the proper procedure but i would just want to give you one analogy that i think could help motivate the city council to pursue this order For the longest time in Central Square, it was really challenging to have outdoor seating. To get a permit, it took money and time. Often the sidewalks weren't ADA compliant. After COVID that all changed. Now Central Square feels like the East Village, and it really took a national pandemic for us to kind of get out of the way we used to do things. So I would implore the council to look at this as an opportunity for Cambridge to be innovative, to be thoughtful, and to promote small business. Lastly, I'd like to support what Michael Monestine said about the World's Fair.

I think that's a great idea and it's in keeping with building off of the successes over this summer. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Gabrielle Robertson, followed by Charles Franklin, then former Mayor Ken Reeves. Gabrielle?

Thank you. I'm Gabrielle, I live on Ware Street. I am a proud member of the Cambridge community though I only moved here nine years ago. and I've been volunteering at the Cambridge Community Learning Center since 2018. I'm invested in our community work with Cambridge for Palestine. I consider the Cambridge community a huge part of my life and I'm here to speak out against Charter Right One attempting to reinstate our use of ShotSpotter after our community came together to end Cambridge's investment in this form of ineffective over-policing. We all know budget cuts to our social safety net are having an effect on our neighbors right now, carrying out Trump's promises in 2024. At the same time, the Cambridge City Police budget proposed for this coming year is $57 million. A roughly $1.5 million increase from last year's budget Our neighbors are experiencing EBT cuts The Margaret Fuller House faces so much demand that it needed an extra push for donations a couple of months ago

Trump's threatened cuts to disability benefits and health care are kicking in now, erasing essential income streams for people that really need it. Families can't afford to pay rent in the city that has almost two times the national average of rent. And the community learning center where I invest my time every week and provide free adult basic education has had to cut operations and cut the number of classes we can offer. With all this need, we have 12 active surveillance systems in our neighborhood and we don't need a 13th. We need safety and well-being in our community, and we need the City Council to show up not by increasing spending on our police budget or leaning on Trump's DHS which for reasons of its own is helping fund Cambridge's use of ShotSpotter We need our city council to show up for neighbors in ways that work. If we have limited resources, we need to invest in what has been shown to work Community organizations and violence interrupters are already doing such vital and effective work Thank you, Gabrielle.

Your time has expired. Please email us the remainder. For anyone whose time expires, you can always email...

CityCouncil at CambridgeMA.gov Our next speaker is Charles Franklin followed by Ken Reeves then Lawrence Adkins. Charles, you have the floor two minutes

Charles Franklin, 162 Hampshire Street I'd like to address some of the surveillance items on the agenda tonight. I support the installation of the traffic and parking enforcement cameras. I used to be against them, but I'm tired of being nearly run down by drivers speeding and running red lights. They only record when an infraction has been detected and they are limited to this scope. On the other hand, I'm against to the installation of cameras on our public parks that indiscriminately record everything even if it's only at night. I won't say that I'm categorically against it but I don't think it's justified. And then there is ShotSpotter Unlike the park cameras, the purpose of ShotSpotter isn't surveillance for the sake of surveillance. It's to save lives. Despite this, because it records constantly it brings the same baggage and privacy concerns that other similar systems have.

It's been shown repeatedly that private security companies will share their data with governments or other bad actors such as Palantir despite having previously pledged not to. That's why we canceled the Flock contract. These concerns should not be dismissed, yet we also shouldn't discount the value that ShotSpotter has. So how do we address this? If possible, I think the city should negotiate with ShotSpotter's operator Sound Thinking to see if we can get a safer data retention policy. Ideally Thank you very much. Thank you.

Our next speaker is former Mayor Ken Reeves, followed by Lawrence Adkins, then Rachel Walton. Tan, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Good evening and I don't know what to do with two minutes, but I'll do my best. I'll simply say this, that the job what I learned sitting where you're sitting is that this job is to listen to the people. And I'm reminded of our Congresswoman, Ayanna Pressley who so eloquently tells us about how the policies that are made should be influenced by the people with the problem. So here we have mothers whose children have been murdered who believe that There was another way or a better possibility for them. And we don't seem to, we want to be ideological. We want to theoretical

One counselor is quoted in the paper saying, well you know it's not perfect. Well what in American society is perfect? Do you watch your television? So my point is this, If you don't have this problem and are unlikely to have the problem, listen to the people who do have the Don't know better than they know. Because you don't know, it's as simple as that. Now I would also like to say and I'm hoping this will never happen again I have never been to a public meeting when the people said, who voted for this policy? Who voted for it? And the voters for the policy are in the room and nobody stands up and says, I voted for

Please, please have more integrity than that. And I want to thank you Mayor Simmons and also Councilor Flaherty for leading on this issue because both of From your life's journey, know this issue. We need your leadership on this because we have to learn in this council chamber about listening. Lastly, I support the return of the World's Fair. You couldn't give the city a better gift. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker will be Lawrence Adkins, then we're going to circle back to Glenna Wyman followed by Rachel Walton. Lawrence, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Good evening. My name is Lawrence Atkins. I'm a resident of 45 Hayes Street. I am here because I'm hearing all these things that create disparity. Why are we not doing something throughout the city? You talk about data, how can data be on the money? And you're talking about Cambridge and it's only in certain sections. We are a city that all citizens... If you live here, you want protection as is. Not as a section because somebody tells you something's going on. There is something going on in every single neighborhood in this city. And if you think, you're telling a lie to yourself. These devices are in place as a deterrent Do you see anybody electronically jumping down from these telephone poles and arresting anybody? They're not.

They're there to encourage citizen involvement so that the tracking of information has an identity and the police can do a much better job. We need to emphasize Cambridge residents and protect all Cambridge residents. Don't have them sitting in their home and saying, that don't go on my neighborhood. While the others, unsuspecting that they believe their neighborhoods are just as good, have something going on and they don't know about it. Include them. Bring them to the meetings. Have all the data that you've got be exposed. Not limited to just a few, including where you're not doing it and why. And like my predecessor said, those councils who want to stand on that can stand up and say why they're in certain zones and why they are not in others. including the police commissioner because I know that this city is structured where the police commission runs this city's department.

You guys are their bosses and you only got one thing to do with them, yay or fire up. So with that being said, let you guys do the job that you're supposed to do for everybody.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Glenna Wyman followed by Rachel Walton and David Halperin. Glenna, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Can you hear me?

We can. Please go ahead.

OK, I want to say at the outset that it's really impossible to easily get in remotely. Thank you for joining us. I ask you to come through Gmail, which should not be the case. And to give your birthdate and all kinds of information it shouldn't ask. The city needs to make that simpler. I urge the City Council to stand firm on their decision made more than once in recent weeks and months to get rid of ShotSpotter. I think people have been, I'm surprised that our former mayor Ken Reeves has switched sides on this because I looked into the old Cambridge day archives

and he was opposed to this kind of surveillance in the past. And he hasn't been following the news if he has not We've seen the hearings we had on the major problems with ShotSpotter and its inability to do what it's promised. and its ability to survey our most vulnerable fellow citizens. And people have been bamboozled by the police in some of our... A small handful of our counselors into saying that this is the holy grail that's going to help. in terms of violence.

And I just urge our counselors to stand firm on keeping ShotSpotter off our- Thank you, Glenna for your public comment.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Rachel Walton followed by David Halperin, then Megan George. Rachel, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hi there, my name is Rachel Walton. I live at 15 Linnean Street. I would like to talk about shot spotter. I strongly believe that we should not invest any more time or money into shot spotters even if it is a temporary measure Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for joining us. Between police and community members, it also encourages police to perform invasive searches and unnecessary stop and frisk. The death of Xavier Bautista is a tragedy, but we cannot be driven by fear to readopt a technology that increases surveillance of our community members.

especially our black and brown community members, and also increases the risk of harm to those community members at the hands of police. We must trust that the previous decision to deactivate ShotSpotter in Cambridge was the correct one and instead invest initiatives that are proven to actually make our communities safer. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is David Halperin followed by Megan George, then former counselor Aisha Wilson. David, you have the floor. David, you have the floor if you can unmute yourself. Two minutes.

Hi, good evening. David Hopper in 14 Valentine Street Unit 3. I'm speaking tonight to express my strong opposition to this Doug Brown joining petition I'd like to thank the council for giving it a negative recommendation in committee. As our affordable housing developers have testified, this would really hurt the AHL and also make for inclusionary units in C1 districts as intended by multifamily zoning and feasible. We really can't, you know, root backwards on our affordable housing production. Please vote this down tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Megan George, followed by Aisha Wilson, then Jalen Bernard. Megan, two minutes.

Hi, Cambridge. My name is Megan George. I live at 25 High. I'm here to support Policy Order 148 and I urge you to go much further. I support affordable housing and multifamily zoning. What I did not realize was that these changes would also weaken and remove protections for neighborhood design, mature trees, stormwater management, historic preservation A Better Input, etc. When I first saw the proposed plans for 95 Cushing, I realized there were broader problems with our zoning that I hadn't understood Thank you for joining us. City staff said Cambridge has fantastic experts, but the city council does not listen to their experts. They said our experts are not shaping our zoning. Instead, they said they are left managing its consequences.

We have invested in plans like the Urban Forest Master Plan, Zero Waste Master Plan Resilient Cambridge Plan Yet these recommendations are sitting on a shelf and not guiding zoning decisions. Policy Order 148 is an important first step. But it is not enough. Keep major affordable housing projects moving forward and temporarily pause all new buy-right development. Speak with your experts. Bring our urban designers into the center where they belong and where they can show you how to create even more affordable housing. Repair our zoning. Show us this zoning code was written by our experts proved to us a project like 95 Cushing is safe and resilient, and then allow building to resume. Cambridge is nearly 400 years old and has solved extraordinary problems from shipping ice around the world to sequencing the human genome

Surely we can figure out how to build more affordable housing without chopping down our trees, sending historic buildings to landfills or eroding the character of the 13 neighborhoods that make Cambridge such a remarkable place. Thank you.

Thank you, our next speaker is Aisha Wilson followed by Jaylen Bernard then Julian Maul. Aisha, do you have the floor? Two minutes.

Great, thank you and good afternoon Mayor, City Councilors, and city leaders. I'm Aisha M. Wilson, former City Councilor in Kittsville-Cambridge. I appreciate the difficulty that you all have around the responsibility to balance public safety, civil liberties and the responsibility to use tax dollars. I know that the decision that you want me to remove ShotSpotter was not made lightly. However, and many others who have spoken this evening believe that it was the wrong decision. When someone fires a gun, the community expects an immediate response. The reality is that not every gunshot is reported to 911 as we all know. People may be frightened, unsure of what they heard and unwilling to get involved. A gunshot detection system

can help to provide first responders with the resource, with another resource or tool that we all know could be helpful and supportive to responding to people more quickly when someone needs help. As we know and as folks have talked about, our community are grieving the loss of Xavier Baptista, a kid from Cambridge and a dedicated employee of the Department of Public Works. His family, his friends... His co-workers and our entire community are mourning his life that was taken far too soon. While we cannot change what has happened, we can ask ourselves whether we are doing everything reasonably possible to prevent the future tragedies and to help first responders reach victims as quickly as possible. I understand that there were concerns about the accuracy, effectiveness and their potential for unnecessary police interactions. However, those concerns deserve careful oversight and transparent evaluation.

We need to do better. As a city, it is important that you all do better we have to focus on public safety we need to make sure our community has the tools they need to help all victims in case of Thank you so much for joining us. negatively impacted our community. Thank you.

Thank You. Our next speaker is Jaylen Bernard, followed by Julian Mould and Heather Hoffman. Jaylen, you have the floor. You have two minutes please go ahead.

Hello, thank you Mayor and City Council for having me today. And I hope Ken Reeves is still in the building. Ken, thankyou for your voice today and your leadership. I really appreciate it. Things change. People's opinions change. It's all good. But I'm calling in today, I guess in support of ShotSpotter, but really asking the city to evaluate the technology that we can use I don't think ShotSpotter is the only answer, but I think noise detection. I think video surveillance is good. I I think that we heavily rely on you know people's ring cameras to solve crimes. And it just makes more sense for us to have city cameras with policies and protections in place that we only use this for certain types of crimes.

and just really looking at the policies around these cameras and how we use them to survey people. So it's not like an active live feed that the police are watching, but hey if someone calls 911 and someone was shot that we could go use those cameras for live response to that situation. So I think we need to evaluate that seriously, but I think bringing back ShotSpotters is important Again, I'm from Washington Alms. I grew up on Harvard Street. I've heard gunshots. It's scary to be a part of that stuff, so I would just really urge the city to listen to the people that are from that area. And I think that for people to be talking about privacy in a public space... is crazy when we have people that are dying in these public spaces and we don't have any answers for these problems.

Again, thank you guys for your time. Have a great day.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Julian Maul followed by Heather Hoffman, then James Williamson. Julian? Two minutes please go ahead.

Hello, thank you. My name is Julian Moe. I'm an alum of Harvard College and an eight-year resident of Cambridge. I live at Norris Street. Can you hear me? I'm speaking against the reinstating of ShotSpotter. I want to express my deep condolences to the family of Xavier Bautista, However, I think it's immoral to use the tragedy of his death to increase surveillance and police funding These technologies support the... They're funded largely... Excuse me. Shot spotter contracts nationally are funded largely through the Department of Homeland Security. This is supporting the violence that ICE... Surveillance is not safety. Surveillance does not stop violence. It is non-effective deterrent.

Addressing the root causes of violence means addressing stable housing, food security mental health care Better schooling and opportunities for young people. There's no AI surveillance system that will replace the need for strong community relations and networks of mutual care that actually define safety. Thank you for watching. Have we forgotten the lessons of 2020? Police have murdered an increasing number of people every year since then We need less resources for police, not more As previously noted, ShotSpotter is notoriously unreliable. In New York City the comptroller's office found in an audit An audit of the NYPD that only 13% of shot spotter alerts were related to shootings.

Additionally, the audit stated that the NYPD substantially overstates the reduction in response times achieved using ShotSpotter. It's not an effective deterrent for shootings nor effective in addressing them.

Thank you, Julian. Your time has expired. Please email us the remainder of your comment. Our next speaker is Heather Hoffman, followed by James Williamson, Lee Ferris, then David Solette. Heather, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Hello, Heather Hoffman 213 Hurley Street. Once again litigation I'd love to hear the status of the challenge to inclusionary zoning and the employment discrimination I enjoy the huge mural of her in my neighborhood and yes, she should be memorialized. With respect to Cambridge Street I think Jason Alves pretty much said what I would like to say you say that you want, you need people for retail and then you say but if we require retail then there won't be enough people. Somehow you don't see that there's a problem there.

With respect to Chapter 40U liens, I've been wondering for years when the city was going to get around to this. With respect to the police review and advisory board, I was surprised to see that they do even less than I thought. and I didn't have a very high opinion you might want to think about why that might be with respect to all of the things that are attacking our tree canopy because we think that it is better for people to never see a tree and then we can pat ourselves on the back because we're so fabulous, we're speeding the curb cuts, we are speeding housing. Development of Housing for Rich People.

Stop and think about what you're doing this for, and then how to get there. It's not political.

Thank you, Heather. Please email the remainder. Our next speaker is James Williamson followed by Lee Ferris then David Sollet. James, you have the floor. You have two minutes. Please go ahead.

Can you hear me?

We can.

Thank you, so James Williamson first of all I'm kind of confused because it's confusing the policy order number four about an additional liquor license for Faroes Food Town, a place with which I'm very familiar. Why two liquor licenses? Why an additional liquor license? And why is it... crafted in a way that would allow them to take it somewhere else if displaced. I mean, are they going to be displaced by the new 10-story so-called 100% affordable housing high rise that's being proposed for that location? If I were a city councilor, I would want to know more about this. Chapter 138. I couldn't figure out, it's complicated. Most of it's about Boston. What's going on with this additional liquor license? Why not just...

replace the current one with another one if the current isn't sufficient for making more money. It's not 57 units at Jefferson Park. Those were the basement units that were closed down, and liquor is not a food last time I checked. Sorry? On the bicycle, so-called bicycle safety report. I think we need a bike spotter technology. I'm half a block from an intersection in North Cambridge at a bus stop There's a red light there. There's dedicated pedestrian phase Not a single bicyclist ever stops at that red light, and there are over 100 elderly and disabled people just half a block away who need to be able to cross safely and know they're safe when they cross. in that crosswalk. That's just one example where the pedestrians and pedestrian safety is completely ignored. There aren't any rules for bicyclists. If you want bicyclist to be safe,

How about having ruled the rules that we already have? How about enforcing them? Because if they obeyed them, they'd be...

Thank you, James. Apologies. Please email us the remainder. Your time expired. Our next speaker is Lee Ferris and our final speaker will be David Sollet. Lee, you have the floor. Two minutes. Please go ahead.

Good evening. I'm Lee Farris and I'm speaking on this matter for the Cambridge Residence Alliance. I am speaking with regard to, excuse me, the Cambridge Street zoning and I just want to remind Councilors that there was quite a uproar when the draft Cambridge Street zoning came out last year with very high heights in many parts of Cambridge Street and much higher than had been talked about in the I was dismayed to see that having passed six floors, now the council at the Ordinance Committee hearing said no.

Councilor Azeem said, no we need to have seven floors and I hope that there is a way that the council can vote on the original petition that CDD drafted with lots of community and council input. that calls for six floors and starting ground floor retail or active use at either three or four floors. I hope that that's what you will support tonight, and there's more in my email. I also wanted to speak just for myself on ShotSpotter. I live on Norfolk Street, a block from where Mr Batista was killed and despite the calls for restoring ShotSpotter. I hope that you will get community input first, go through a community process first and also that you have surveillance

review as per the surveillance ordinance before you take a vote on what to do. Thank you.

Thank You our final speaker for the evening will be David Sollet. David, you have two minutes please go ahead

Thank you. My name is David Sollett. I live on Lansdowne Street. From 2019 to 2025, I was the chief of the cold case homicide unit of the Middlesex District Attorney's Office. I was responsible in that position for investigating more than 300 unsolved homicides in Middlesex County, including many unsolved homicide in Cambridge. My job was to get justice for victims who had fallen through the cracks. In one of the cases that I investigated in a neighboring community, ShotSpotter was critical to solving that case. In 2015 in the city of Everett, a gunman fired a hail of bullets in a crowded nightclub parking lot. Thank you very much. Everett Police were on the scene within seconds and they identified witnesses and suspects who otherwise would never have been identified.

Because we had identified key witnesses I respect the concerns that people have raised and articulated about equity. Thank you very much. Thank you for watching. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

That is all that we're signed up to speak.

And thank you everyone who spoke. Councilor Nolan makes a motion to close public comment. We'll call the roll.

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

Public comment is now closed. We'll move on to the submission of the record. Sets of Minutes from the July, excuse me, January 26th, March 3rd, March 30th, April 13th, May 4th meetings.

Move to accept the minutes and place them on file.

On a motion by Councilor Simmons to accept the reports and paste them on file, we'll do a roll call.

Nolan, Simons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Those minutes have been placed on file. There are no reconsiderations before we move to the city manager's agenda. I just want to set the stage a little bit. We have a lot of ground to cover. I know that some of them we have to definitely dispose of tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you. As I mentioned, we have a lot to get through and we won't meet again until our first regular meeting after recess which is on September 14th. Thank you.

Rule 23F, which allows each city councillor to take the floor up to two times per agenda item and ask up to of City Staff each time. The timer will be used and you'll be allowed to hold the floor for up to five minutes, and I will ask you to wrap up when the buzzer buzzes. and I'd ask that you pose both your questions up front and turn the floor over to staff or make sure that you ask your second question by the five-minute mark after which staff will be permitted the time needed to respond within reason. So as I mentioned, there are items of course we have to take up on this city manager agenda item that we must vote on today. We will certainly get through everything in as timely manner as we can. With that pleasure of the City Council on items I'd like to poll.

22 and 23 are pulled by a councilor McGovern.

Mayor Siddiqui?

Councilor Nolan?

Number two, and has anyone pulled 21? Not yet.

So, Councilor Nolan, you're pulling two?

Yes. And 21? Yep. And 17... Has been pulled. And 18?

You'll pull 18. Okay, so Councilor Nolan you're pulling number two, you're putting number 18 and your pulling number 21. Pleasure of the City Council?

We'll call on the balance.

Hearing from no one else, just for the record we've pulled number two. We have pulled 17. We've pulled 18. We pull 21, 22 and 23. And so on the balance of the CM City Manager Agenda will do a roll call. Councilor Al-Zubi?

Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem? Flaherty, McGovern, Nolan, Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative

Balance of the City Manager Agenda items have been adopted. We'll go to City Manager agenda item number two. This is a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to a response to our waiting report 26-22 regarding election workers. Councilor Nolan, you have the floor.

Thanks for watching!

Thank you Mayor Siddiqui and thank you to the staff. I think for me this is a hallelujah moment since I started asking about this literally four years ago in 2022, August of 2022. I started emailing the city because I had heard from many of the election poll workers across the city that it was a challenging process to fill out all the paperwork. They had to set up an retirement account even though they were working one day a year, so Thank you very much. I think that will continue, but it'll be at least less. They won't have to fill out some of the retirement. So if someone could explain how much of this will make a difference in terms of the requirements for election poll workers and to

They will have less challenges and less barriers for them to sign up. I literally had election poll workers saying, I'm not going to even do it because it's too... Chief People Officer Ketchings.

Thank you. So what we accomplished over the last few months was really just taking a look at the current process Some of which is, most of which Is compliance based And there was some confusion around categories of poll workers, the warden versus the inspector and early voting. And so what we did is kind of clarify the categories. That's what we started with. who's likely to hit the threshold for tax collection, which is a form they have to complete. Tax collection also then leading into OBRA and so we just really kind of Untangled, the complicated process that you've outlined categorized it in a way and so as people initiate their interests

We've created somewhat of a script to identify is this a person who's going to be with us for multiple elections and they'll have a little bit more documentation to fill out. If someone's here as a poll worker for the day, It's less. To your point, which we were getting rid of OBRA, the documentation that have to be completed there as well as they can be tax exempt as well if they fall under a certain threshold. So there's two levers we pulled. and also clarify the process for people.

Councilor Mullen?

Thanks, yeah. I mean this was something initially was what we have to do it because of the IRS and it turns out the IRS lets you if you don't make $2,500 a year It was misinformation that has taken several years to correct, but I'm glad it's there. Again, elections are really important for us to have right people there, to pay people fairly, but also to make sure we can get enough people to run the elections and take the stress off the election workers. Anything we can do to streamline that, we'll be talking later on. This is in line with our goal as a city to streamline. It's too bad we're not I think doing it as just stipends which is even easier. A lot of cities do that and municipalities are allowed to do that But I understand that it's still going to be employee-based, but at least not the OBRA onerous where you have Thank you. Thank you.

I'll just quickly respond. It will be in place for this year, and there are a couple of orientations that are happening over the next month or so for which we'll talk about the process with folks who are working for us this year.

With that I yield. I'm really happy this is moving forward and anything we can do to even further streamline it or move towards even easier, then I'm with you.

Are there any questions on this item from the body? Hearing none, on a motion by Councilor Nolan to place City Manager Agenda Item Number 2 on file. We'll do a roll call.

Nolan, Simons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Siddiqui, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

City Manager Agenda Item 2 is placed on file. We'll move on to City Manager agenda item number 17. This is a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to potential alternative methods of curb cut review. This was pulled by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. You have the floor.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Through you, I am really, really excited to have this back before us. Thank you to city staff for all your work on this. At least in a year and a half, I think the council has been talking about it for many years before that. This comes from the city council passing a policy order unanimously last term asking the city to address two issues around our curb cut policy The first issue is that the City Council should not have to vote to approve or disapprove every single individual curb cut. Most of us, you know I can't speak for all of my colleagues on the City Council but I think most of us did not run for City Council in order to get the final say on whether every single person and business is allowed to have a new driveway or if they are not allowed to This policy is not how Boston does this. It's not how Somerville does this, it's not most cities do this and I think if we went out onto the street right now on Mass Ave and asked folks what powers they think the city council should have

I bet we could not find a single person who would say, yes, I think the city council should be able to block every new curb cut and they should vote on every single one. The City Council doesn't vote every time someone applies for a new ADU. We don't vote on every single new dormer. We should not be voting up or down on every curb cut We should have a say on the broader policy around city planning and transportation, and we should be involved on a policy level around curb cuts. We just should not be voting on every single individual one. The second issue is that curb cut approval should be based on objective criteria and not on the luck of the draw on who your abutters are, and whether they're really zoned into your property or whether they are not. If they're zoned out, you shouldn't be able to slide through and get a curb cut automatically. And if they're hypervigilant, they shouldn't block your curb cut. It should be on objective policy criteria not about who your particular abutters are. and the city council shouldn't be getting in the middle of that.

We shouldn't mitigating disputes between individual neighbors, these folks think you should get a curb cut, we shouldn't... The council shouldn' t be the final say on those disputes between individuals neighbors I think of one of the curb cuts we talked a lot about and spent hours and hours talking about individual curb cuts on the city council. I think one of them, there was a case about oh this These folks need a curb cut because one of their family members has a disability. And then other folks saying, no they don't actually have a disability, oh this isn't a real disability. The city council just shouldn't be the arbiters of how your disability is. There are experts around this, around transportation policies I'm really glad to have this report back that lays out a way for the city council to no longer be the final arbiter on curb cuts, to have a formalized policy on that. In the memo before us, the city staff lay out their primary proposal and an alternate proposal in the memo.

We talked with the transportation department asking for the City Council to weigh-in and move forward with one of these options either tonight or at a committee meeting The primary proposal that staff laid out is the one I think most clearly addresses both issues we were trying to address on not voting on every single curb cut and having it based on objective criteria rather than just on a butter. I'd be happy tonight to move forward with the primary proposal and would make that motion to send it to a second reading if there is support. If the council wants to have more conversation before moving something forward, we can send it to the Government Operations Committee. I'm the chair of that committee. I will work to get it scheduled as soon as possible. I know Councilor Nolan would prefer that option Interested to hear from other councillors on if you'd want to have more conversation in committee or move forward with the primary proposal tonight. And with that, I yield back.

Councilor Sreiner-Wheeler yields. I have Councillor Nolan next.

Thank you. Like Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler and I think all of us, we're very excited this is here. We've been waiting for this for a long time Join everyone, at least those of us who I think supported these policy orders, supportive of having clear guidelines for curb cuts and having it be not something that the city council in the end weighs in on. Instead of having the council approve every single one and also getting in the way. I do believe there should be criteria, just like Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler said. Currently the only part of the process that includes the community at all is the council. You know, historic just as historic. ISD says zoning. No one else says, is this something that the community wants? That element of neighbors input being included I think to me is very important and certainly for us to let the city know we are considering dramatically changing that. Right now it is in the council So I do think we should have a meeting of whether it's ordinance or neighborhood long-term planning or gov ops to say, okay, we're considering this. Here's a couple options here.

I believe we should pass some version of option two. Again, that does the same thing it takes a council totally out of it It just says there's going to be some kind of outreach to the neighbors I think the reason that's so critically important as we all know, curb cuts are hyper-local changes. They can seriously impact a small area and they can affect access to publicly accessible parking, traffic flow. The impacts of negative externalities of those decisions are often most acutely known by The people who live on that street and right nearby. So they should have at least some voice in this process. I think we can establish criteria to say, however it is that If they're included, here's the criteria to meet. And then if it met, it goes forward. So again, it doesn't have to be I also want to remind all of us, it's a transfer of public good. Curbspace which is currently right now city Thank you very much.

anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 when you compare a house without a curb cut to one with a curb I don't think we should approve any such gift without at least consulting with neighbors and letting people know what's going on. Again, not for the council to approve it, but for us to approve a process by which the city understands we'll be moving forward and here's the criteria that we could use. I do wish we could have a significant fee for curb cuts. Thank you for watching.

We do often process applications very quickly and without much discussion, but they can be significant changes for very small neighborhoods in our very real dispensing of the public right-of-way for exclusive use by one property owner. So I hope we can have just one more meeting on this. Refer it to committee. I'm open to any committee, whether it's GovOps or Neighborhood Long-Term Planning or Ordinance Committee. But I do think we owe it to ourselves. We always say we need to let the community know when we're talking about a change. This is a change. This is people rely on us to at least, if somebody's going to have a parking spot on the street and take a curb cut and it means it's going affect my parking I should at least know one right now. I don't think anyone knows that we're actually discussing possibly changing that here.

Nolan yields. I'll go to Councilor Zusy.

Hi there. I also support this new curb cut process and as chair of neighborhood and long-term planning, I'm happy to hold a meeting about this I support alternative number two because I do think neighbors need to be consulted, even if it's after ISD and DPW and DOT have made a determination. Again, neighbors are most impacted by the curb cuts so they need to be in the loop. Thank you. I yield.

To you, Madam Mayor. I'll just offer if the Transportation Committee is the right place to have a hearing on this, I'm happy to convene a meeting. But I think it's right to have some objective criteria to look at the curb cuts. So I yield.

Madam Mayor, if you can hold for one second. Sorry we just need to fix the audio in the chamber. All set thank you

Flaherty-Yields. We'll go to Vice Mayor Azeem.

Hello, my only suggestion was perhaps we want to send it to ordinance because it's a committee of the whole and it'll reflect what the final ordinance language is in all of our colleagues. And while it's not required for this sort of ordinance change, it might just be helpful.

Vice Mayor Yields, anyone who would like to speak who hasn't spoken before I go back to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Councilor Based on the discussion, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler is moving to send city manager agenda item number 17 to the ordinance committee. We'll do a roll call on that motion.

Al-Zubi, Vice Mayor Azeem, Councilor Flaherty, Councillor McGovern, Councillor Nolan. Simmons, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councilors Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

City Manager Agenda Item Number 17 is referred to the Ordinance Committee. We will now move on to City Manager regarding the 6th Annual Cycling Safety Ordinance Progress Report. Councilor Nolan, you have the floor. Sure, sure, I will slow down. We are going to City Manager Agenda Item Number 18. And this is the 6th Annual Cycle Safety Ordinance Progress Report. Councilor Nolan, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. And thank you staff. This is once again I love getting these annual reports glad it's on time and to see the progress and look forward to continuing this work and have it laid out very nicely. I pulled it partly because It would be good to have, unless I missed it, an update on the Grand Junction multi-use path. It's mentioned in two different places that I saw at least. as part of the connectivity of Section B of Cambridge Street and also that it's part of consideration for Waverly Street and Henry Street near the BU Bridge when that happens. But we did have in the Cycling Safety Ordinance the languages... does require a status report on the completion of the Grand Junction multi-use path. So I didn't see that in there and I think it would be helpful for the whole community to understand the status of that. And again, this is, it shouldn't take long but if this is a very long one then we can get that answer another time but

Commissioner? Through you, Madam Mayor. I can give a quick update. I would say that we're still For the path itself, we're still working through all of the kind of jurisdictional dimensional issues with MIT and with the MBTA. The section of PATH that is probably closest to being implemented is the Main Street and Cambridge Street. And we anticipate or I'm sorry, it's really little bitty in Cambridge Street Thank you very much. Work on the Cambridge Street section around Grand Junction, including the Cardinal Medeiros intersection. And then we'll just be working through all of those issues and moving forward.

Councillor Nolan?

Yeah, thanks. So just again since there was no update in the report and we actually amended the cycling safety ordinance to make sure there's an update it would be good to have that complete and maybe if it could be added to the report before it's I think that makes a lot of sense. So we got some questions about it, which is why I asked and I also went to look for it. So again there's a lot here which I look forward to reviewing more closely, but I don't think I need to do that right tonight. And if so, then I will communicate through the city staff about any other questions I have or comments. So I yield Mayor Siddiqui.

Councilor Nolan yields. Pleasure of the City Council, I have Councilor Flaherty.

Madam Mayor, I just have one question and that's on I think it's page 13 where the Huron Ave project is mentioned. When I look back at the cycling safety ordinance, it talks about connectivity, meaning... providing a permanent separated bicycle lane that reflects desired routes between all major origins and destinations in the city. Does that... include a major origin or destination in the city, that little section of Huron Ave past the golf course?

Thank you very much. The network as a whole was developed as part of the 2015 bike plan. and then updated in the 2020 bike plan. So we really go by the connections that are in that plan. That segment of Huron Ab is included for greater separation on the Bike Network Vision. which is really kind of the overarching source of truth for where we are putting the separated bike lanes that we're putting in. And I would say it's an important... Network, you have anyone coming in from the West. That's a really great connection to the existing Huron Ave two-way bike path over to Aberdeen where you can then get to either Brattle Street or to Mount Auburn. And so it is an important part of the network.

Councilor Flaherty? Okay, I guess tonight's not the time to have questions about it. We can talk more about it later, but thank you for your response.

I have Councilor McGovern and Councilor Zusy.

Excuse me. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, just a quick question on Mass Ave 4. Just looking at this design and was approved in April of 2022. The complete design was supposed to be done by mid-2023, begin construction in 2024 and finish construction mid- 2025. We're now mid- 2026. So I was curious on the status of that, and then I believe that the report says that the design needs to go back to the drawing board. I guess, obviously there are delays in construction and things that happen and that can delay projects.

But for a design that was approved in 2022-2023 to only now be saying in 2026 it has to go back to the beginning Just why did that happen and can you explain that?

Through you, Madam Mayor. I don't know if the language didn't come out clearly, but it's not that we have to go back to the drawing board now. So we've been working from the Cambridge Common end down towards Freshman Parkway. We did go back and revisit some value engineering on The fairly well-known and so forth. But that's getting ready to be bid out for construction. And construction has technically already began because they have been out there taking out the median and doing, you know... Preparatory Utility Work, and things like that.

So that's been ongoing for I think over more than the past year but we are close to ready to bid out that first section and then the value engineering that we did on that first section will inform the designs as we move from, you know kind of preliminary designs on the segments moving from Linnaean down towards Elwhifer Parkway. The value engineering we already did will inform those designs so they'll be able to move forward a little bit quicker. But we do, our goal is to be ready to move forward with construction on the next segment as soon as construction is done on the first section.

Councilor McGovern? Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, last question. Are we on target for... completion in our timeline or is this delayed things?

I don't think there were clear targets given for the completion of construction in the ordinance. With the larger construction projects, it's a little bit because most things are measured by when construction starts. But I would say that we're in a good place now in terms of having some momentum to move forward. Deputy Commissioner Watkins just pointed out to me I was focusing on the water house to Elwha Parkway, but there are also the two portions in Harvard Square that were called out for specific treatment because the desire was to have separation for the bikes and the buses at the two very large bus stops along Mass Ave in Harvard Square. So that's by Holyoke Gate and Johnson Gate. and the Johnson Gate area is in good shape and is moving forward. We've really tried very hard to make the section work

Long Holyoke Gate with separated bike lanes and floating bus stops. And we've We have realized that it is not possible from a dimensional perspective to have a cross-section there that works for Public Safety, and for just regular operations and people being able to get through the area. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. I yield, Madam Mayor.

McGovern-Yields. We will go to Councilor Zusy on the Zoom.

Thank you so much. I just wanted to say that I think rolling out 19.75% of the 25 Miles, that they've been installed or under construction is an extraordinary accomplishment. and I really appreciate the goals of the bicycle safety ordinance. I mean, nothing is accomplished without setting a goal and then following through At the same time, I just want to remind all of us that there has been a lot of pain inflicted by the rolling out of the lanes and that it's the role of the city to consider how to ease that pain and to accommodate the broad needs of residents of the city so On Broadway and Cambridge Street, I know there is a big issue with parking impact on businesses.

A North Mass Ave, not only do we have those concerns but also pedestrian safety. People are very concerned about sidewalk crosswalks that have been removed as the city has spent value engineering there so Again, we need these lanes. We need the network. I use a network. But we also need to be thinking more broadly and making sure that residents that have to drive, have places to park. and that pedestrians feel safe, and that again businesses have the parking they need to be solvent. Also building on what Councilor Flaherty suggested earlier, I remain really concerned about the rollout of the half mile on Lower Huron. That is like the city's great recreational hub. We have Fresh Pond there, we have the golf course there, where we have Russell Community Center there

We also have two baseball fields, a tennis court, the VFW Hall. So many people are coming to recreate in that area and I do question whether installing that half mile there makes any sense. I think it would be better to roll out a lane on Albany Street or Sydney Street in Cambridgeport. I'm just, I think we have to again consider the broader impacts of these lanes as we develop them. So with those reminders, I thank you Commissioner McKenna for all of your work but please keep in mind the broader interests of Cambridge residents because we can't just have the bike lanes separated by claims. Zusy Yields,

Would anyone else like to speak to this? Hearing none, on a motion by Councilor Nolan to place City Manager Agenda Item Number 18 on file. We'll do a roll call.

Al-Zubi, Vice Mayor Azeem, Councilor Flaherty, Councillor McGovern, Councillor Nolan, Councillor Simmons.

Yes, yes, yes.

Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilors Zusy? Yes Mayor Siddiqui? Yes It's nine members voting in the affirmative

City Manager Agenda Item number 18 is placed on file. We'll move on to City Manager agenda item 21. This is a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager relative to opportunities to streamline the permitting process. Councilor Nolan you have the floor

Thank you. I am so another thing, I'm totally excited and jazzed to have seen this and to have see the preview. I would love to just hear from the staff about how quickly this will unfold what can we expect from it Thank you very much. The community we got an email today, I don't know if it was forwarded to you by a condo development who said just because of a lack of communication the condo literally to put a solar panel in lost $5,000 in state funding because of Thank you very much. It's an example of we hear that time and time again, even if the intention is we're going to do this as well as we can. And I know the staff works really hard on it but the reality

Constantly, time and time again it fails. And I think that parallel processing will handle a lot of that which is outlined in the report but I do want to hear like how quickly will we see any And is there anything specific you need from the council in order to move forward?

Assistant City Manager.

Thank you, Councilor Nolan, through you, Mayor. We're also very excited about this update. So we've been working with an interdepartmental team, talking to developers, architects and others to really understand where kind of the pain points are in not only Thank you very much. Recommendations that are broken down into short, medium and long term action items.

Thank you through your mayor. We have broken things down into what we think we can get done in the next three months, six months and what will take nine plus months. We have a number of recommendations that require legislative action, so there are ordinance changes. So they will need to go through the normal process of planning board, ordinance committee, city council vote, etc., We've already started a lot of these efforts. We have multiple studies Undergoing currently the inclusionary zoning studies happening right now. We've started studying bike parking, doing an analysis of utilization as well as best practices on the actual design of the bike parking. We have been looking at green building. We think there's some immediate changes we can make there where we have redundancy with building code, fossil fuel free ordinance and then some longer term things that might require a little bit more analysis.

So the presentation breaks both the policy recommendations, the process and the communication all into short, medium and long term. So the short term is all underway. We hope to have communication materials up shortly, better process guides things like that. A more centralized place for information on the permitting We're looking at other communities for examples that do this well. And meanwhile, continuing to talk to people with experience in the permitting process. I do want to stay engaged with those we already spoke to, to get feedback as we move along, to do focus groups, particularly on some of the materials we're developing. and then I continue to have people that are referred to me that had some specific challenge or just wanted to speak in general on their experience. that I am scheduling times with.

So, I see this as ongoing work. This is building on work that has already been happening and improvements have already been made Regulation side and the process side. I know there was another big effort in 2024 in a report, so we're building on that and want to continue to improve and Councilor Nolan.

Thank you, and again as someone who put in I think three or four years ago a request to have all of our building permit applications online. I think it's on the list. I'm glad because that's something I've been waiting and dying for for a long time. Again, it just helps a lot of people across the city and saves staff time as well because instead of having to respond to those like we'll go Like everyone in my neighborhood says, well what's going on with that Formaggio's old place right here on Ave? And if I could just say go look online and any applications will be online it would be really easier. So that's part of the streamlining Again, anything we can do to make it easier to build. Obviously, we need to continue with safety. But we are not a role model in this area and I want us to be a role models of city in this and even if it's because there's been some glitches, let's get rid of those glitches. Thank you. I yield for now.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. Just a quick comment and a question. I did see the demo issue addressed in there and it seems like it's on the short-term list so I'm glad that hopefully we're moving forward more urgently on this and I know that This is connected to the question of saying, oh, well, is there a way for us to connect the demo permitting process with the building permitting It's not until a year later that we see a building actually go up. Is there a way to work on how we can actually reduce the time and that we don't just have a demolished building?

Thank you. Through you, Mayor. So what we have in our list is looking more at the historic process that we have been talking a lot about the demolition permits themselves so there's a couple of aspects to demolition Demolition Delay Ordinance, which is a historic review process. And that is looking at demolition of any building over 50 years old. We want to do a comprehensive review of that ordinance since it hasn't been updated in about 50 years. Simultaneously, we've been having conversations with inspectional services about the demolition permitting process The requirements that go along with a demolition permit. and how those are moving to building permit because I don't think anybody wants those sites sitting vacant or under construction longer than they need to be. So that is separate from this effort but conversations that are also happening

Thank you, that's helpful to know.

Councilor Al-Zubi yields. We will move to Councilor Zusy.

Thank you so much. I also had wondered what you were thinking about in terms of the demolition delays. Are you thinking about removing the demolitions delay? Can you talk to us a little bit more about that?

No. Just taking a look at that ordinance, it hasn't been updated in quite a while and it both sets the threshold for buildings that need to come through historic review for demolition delay and also the process for how that's done. So just taking another look to see if there are efficiencies that can be gained and whether we have the threshold calibrated at the right place.

Councilor Zusy?

Yeah, sounds great. I think it's really important that there be consideration of demolitions and I like Councilor Al-Zubi am also concerned about All the empty lots and we don't want to be like Seattle where there were a lot of buildings demolished, and now they're just empty lots throughout the city that are places where unhoused people camp. So we want to make sure that we're building if we're demolishing and that if we are demolishing it's done well, and we're doing it thoughtfully. I also wanted to ask about, you suggested that we need to make it more flexible with site plan requirements. So does that relate to open space and trees? What are you thinking about there?

Thank you. Through you, Mayor. I'm not talking about open space and trees. The open space is set as a dimensional control, and the trees are regulated through the tree protection ordinance In 19.50 of the zoning ordinance, there are some building and site plan more design requirements that we're working on updating One of the things we heard was that the way some of these are written, they are difficult to meet the letter of depending on certain site circumstances. They're also not necessarily resulting in the outcomes we want as we see more of the buy-right construction with multifamily zoning. We think there needs to be some flexibility where you have a menu of design options, and you're having to meet a certain number of those or a certain under each category. So we're looking at those changes Those potential changes right now.

We are finding that more projects need a special permit sometimes for something very small or technical. That wasn't a big deal when they needed a special permanent to build the housing, but it's a bigger deal now that they're otherwise

Susie?

I see. Thank you. Well, anyway, I'll look forward to hearing more. Overall, I think it's a great idea. I really thank you for your work to expedite permitting and I do think it's also really important, but what we don't want to lose is again a balanced approach. We wanna make sure that our stormwater Thank you for joining us today. So we don't want to fast track permitting at the expense of, again, a broader holistic approach to city planning. So I thank you for your work and I'll look forward to hearing more. Thank you so much.

Zusy Yields, Councilor Flaherty.

Through you Madam Mayor and just very quickly at the end of the report it says input from City Council's next steps so I'll jump the gun and give you my tiny bit of input with the buy right From multifamily, obviously there's been a lot of questions in the neighborhoods all around the city about what's happening on any individual project that is targeted. and I would just suggest to the extent that you can, to exert whatever effort expense necessary to make the public facing portion of Thank you. No end to the number of questions that I'm faced with, probably other councils are faced with that I don't have the answers to and people on the street don't So to the extent that that can be developed and made easily accessible and readily available to the public.

That might be the most important thing that you do in all of this. But I'm all in favor of efficiency. Let's just make sure that people understand what we're doing. So thank you, I yield.

Councilor Flaherty yields. Would anyone else like to speak to this? I'll just say briefly, I think this has been a council priority for quite some time and I think it's Great that we're moving forward and have timelines. And I like how we've separated council actions from non-council actions. and was curious about whether some of what's listed in the council actions, can any of that be folded into the multifamily zoning amendments we have coming up?

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, we're looking at what can be pulled into the multifamily zoning efforts. Like I said, we are working on the building and site plan design requirements in 19.50 simultaneously planning to present those as well Also looking at whether things like the green building changes that are ready could be folded in. So wherever there are opportunities to package things together that need to come to council and their timing aligns, we'd like to do so.

Great. Thank you for clarifying that. I think that would be important to be efficient and for the council to really know, working closely with the ordinance chairs on getting The meetings that need to happen. Streamlining the Permitting Process for Small Businesses and thinking about that work. And look forward to seeing the updates there as well. So hearing from no one else, we will go ahead and on a motion by Councilor Nolan to place city manager agenda item. 21 on file. We'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes, yes. Council of Flaherty? Yes yes. Counselor McGovern? Yes Yes. Counselors Nolan? Yes Counselor Simmons Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councillor Zusy? Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative

City Manager Agenda Item Number 21 is placed on file. We are going to City Manager agenda item number 22 This is a communication transmitted from Ian Huang, City Manager Relative to Edits to the Massachusetts Avenue Active Use Zoning Petition. I will go to Councilor McGovern.

Thank you Madam Mayor through you. As I think folks know and remember that we have been discussing We've had quite a few ordinance committee meetings about this. Thank you very much. to give folks a sense of schedule. Tonight, both of these petitions will expire September 16th? 14th? That's close. If we are going to pass these, then we need to move them to a second reading tonight. They will come back on the agenda at the next city council meeting for final approval so there will be more opportunity to discuss them.

at that meeting, but to move them forward and keep them alive for lack of a better term we will need to move on this tonight. So with that, Madam Mayor, there's a number of motions. I'll do one at a time. I'd like to make a motion to suspend the rules to bring forward Committee Report Number 5, 5A and 5B.

McGovern moves to suspend the rules.

Simmons, Councilor Simmons is absent. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?

Yes.

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

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, I would like to make a motion to amend the Mass Avenue petition by substitution with City Manager Agenda Item 2026-218.

McGovern moves to amend the Mass Avenue petition by substitution. We'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes, Council of Flaherty? Yes. Yes, Councilor McGovern?

Yes.

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

Madam Mayor, if there's no discussion or questions for the city I would move to pass to a second reading but I don't know if folks have Questions.

Any comments, questions on this? I don't see anyone on the Zoom. So on a motion by Councilor McGovern to pass the petition to a second treating as amended by substitution. We'll do a roll call.

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

Yes

Absinthe, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?

Yes.

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

The Mass Ave active use zoning petition is moved to a second reading as amended by substitution. Councilor McGovern?

Final motion to place city manager agenda item on file.

Councilor McGovern moves to place the CMA on file, we'll do a roll call.

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

Well, now we've disposed of City Manager Agenda item number 22. We will move to City Manager agenda item number 23. This is the communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager relative to edits. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Again, this is a zoning petition that we have been discussing for quite some time which will

As I mentioned, expire on September 14th. So if we want to not have to refile this petition, then we would need to move this to a second reading tonight. This one's a little more complicated, so if you bear with me just to kind of set a little bit of groundwork here. So just to remind folks, the current Cambridge Street zoning... So what's in place today does not have an active use requirement. And so that's what's Do we want to change that? And do we want make an active use requirement on Cambridge Street and then in what way would we do that? So, that's kind of how we got here.

I know there's been a lot of... We've received some emails today from folks who have said don't rush this like why are you doing this in summer Just to remind folks, we have been discussing this close to a year, over a year. It actually came up for a vote last December. We delayed the vote until the new Council was seated. So this is something that, you know, has been out in the public for a very long time and, you Thank you very much. AND THE CITY MANAGER AGENDA ITEM 2026-2019. JUST TO LET FOLKS KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS,

So if councilors want the ground floor active use requirement to only apply to Lechmere and the Windsor-Webster areas, then they would vote yes. to amend by substitution. If councilors want active ground floor use requirement to apply to Lechmere, Windsor, Webster and the rest of the Cambridge Street corridor. So basically all of Cambridge Street, you will vote no on substitution. So that would be the first vote we need to take Madam Mayor.

Discussion?

We've said before on this that if there were a way to do ground floor retail just on the spaces that have retail, it would be great to do that. There are a lot of spaces on Cambridge Street not currently being used for retail or being used as office spaces. And in those cases, we should prioritize housing Community Development is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong. There's no way to just preserve the retail there, so in this case I'm willing to vote yes for that substitution.

Councillor Norwood?

Thank you, because I do want to make sure I'm voting. Siddiqui or to Stafford, Councilor McGovern. It means from what I understand that I should vote no on substitution and then we will eventually have something before us that does include that language?

Councilor

Thank you very much. If that's what you want, you would vote yes. Does that active ground floor retail happen at three stories or four stories and all that other stuff? But this is the first order of business we have to take care of.

Thank you. Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, thank you too, Councilor McGovern.

And we'll go to Councilor Flaherty. I think my question was just asked, and I'm waiting for the answer from the city solicitor who I see at the table. Welcome.

Thank you, Councillor Flaherty. Through you, Madam Mayor. Councillor McGovern is correct.

He's correct. Thank you very much.

So I'm going to just be voting no on this because of some of what's been said and the whole purpose of these amendments was to protect ground floor retail. Does anyone else like to speak?

Madam Mayor?

Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem.

I will be voting yes. I'll just keep it brief, which is like, I just don't think it's going to work out as people expect in that first floor, Cambridge already has first floor retail and we don't require it. and I think that this will require with the amendments it will still require on the biggest parcels but it will not require on smallest parcels. And it's just very hard to fit everything in a small parcel Every time we've had this conversation, someone has come up and been like, well, actually it doesn't work for my parcel in Cambridge Street. And then we exempted that parcel and then in North Cambridge, and then we And I think that it's just like what de facto this is going to do is not produce any more first floor retail. Instead, it's going to mean on small parcels you just can't fit everything because you don't have enough space to and so small parcals will just be smaller. So I just wanted to say that, but thank you. I yield.

Councilor McGovern?

So I move... If everyone's clear on what they need to do, a motion to amend the Cambridge Street petition by substitution with CMA 2026-219.

We'll go ahead and do a roll call.

Al-Zubi.

No.

No, Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes, Councilor Flaherty? No. No. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilors Zusy?

No.

No. Mayor Siddiqui? No, and you have two members recorded in the affirmative and seven recorded in

The motion to amend the Cambridge Street petition by substitution with the CMA fails. Councilor Govan?

Okay, so thank you Madam Mayor through you we now move on to Thank you very much. Any building built above three stories. And so that is what's, if you want that, you would be voting yes. Is that through you, Madam Assistant Manager?

Yeah, that's correct. The current petition is any building above three stories. Whether in CAM 6, which is the majority of Cambridge Street, or CAM 10 or 12, Webster and Windsor and Lechmere would all require active ground for use.

Discussion? Questions on this and what procedurally we should do? So basically, the motion is... No one right now has made a motion to amend above the three stories.

So if we move on to, I'm sorry Madam Mayor, through you. If we move on to passing what's in front of us now to a second reading, it will be active ground floor retail will be required three stories or above. There was talk of four stories or about that would take an amendment I know some people had mentioned also at the end of the ordinance committee meeting, the vice mayor had talked about potentially going to seven stories on Cambridge Street just to be clear to folks. That's not in front of us, and that would require a refiling of the petition. So that's not on the table right now. It's just a question if someone wants to make an amendment to say four stories or above. Otherwise, I will move this to a second reading.

Further discussion on that motion?

Move to send to a second reading, Madam Mayor.

McGovern moves to pass the petition which is right now Three stories for ground story active use requirement. So we're moving that petition to a second reading as amended by substitution. Is that what you said, Councilor McGovern?

Yes, Madam Mayor.

Go ahead.

Yes to you, Madam Mayor. The motion to amend by substitution failed so it's just passed the original petition to a second reading.

So we'll just pass the original petition to a second reading. Yes, go ahead Assistant City Manager.

Just to clarify, the original at anything above three stories. So, three stories could be all residential. I think we might have said it a few different ways but just wanted to clarify.

Above three stories? Any questions on this before we move on? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? No. Flaherty, McGovern, Nolan, Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui. McGovern. Two more, Madam Mayor, to make a motion to place City Manager Agenda Item on file.

We'll do a roll call to place the CMA on file.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes, yes. Council of Flaherty? McGovern, Nolan, Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

The CMA is placed on file.

And finally, Madam Mayor, I would like to make a motion to accept Committee Report No.

5 and place on file Councilor McGovern moves to accept the Committee Report no.5 and place it on file We'll do a roll call

Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes Yes, Councilor McGovern? Yes Councilor Nolan? Yes Counselor Simmons? Yes, Counselor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

That committee report number five is placed on file. We are done with the city manager's agenda. I'll go ahead on a motion by Council Member Govern to suspend the rules to bring forward... Al-Zubi, Anderson, Azeem, Cohen, Sieniewicz, Simmons, Zern, Zusy, Cambridge, Councilor

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

So we are in suspension, and so we have all the four policy orders that counselors exercise their charter right before us. We will move to Charter Right Number 1. This was number one that the city manager is requested to take all necessary steps to temporary restore. and reactivate ShotSpotter within the areas of Cambridge previously covered by the system. The Charterite was exercised by Councilor Al-Zubi in the special city council meeting on July 23rd, 2026. I will go to Councilor Al-Zubi.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, I exercise my charter right in order to try and have a little bit more dialogue about the community engagement piece. My understanding is that Councilor McGovern has some sort of substitute policy order so I'll go ahead and defer to him.

So we have a policy order that you should have it with you. It's filed by myself and Councilman McGovern, so I'll just speak really briefly to it. and then we can also pull it up on the screen so I'll go to Councilor McGovern. So this is a substitute policy order that I worked with Councilor Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I've heard from many residents, particularly those in neighborhoods most affected by gun violence who have told us that they do not feel their voices were fully part of that decision

and this substitute reflects our attempt to reconcile those two realities. The substitute proposes a residential assembly, a process that brings together a representative group of Cambridge residents selected by a lottery to hear evidence from experts, stakeholders and community members and ask them to deliberate together and develop recommendations on a complex public policy question. This was one of the options we heard in our last special city council meeting when I asked the city manager to speak to what public engagement around this issue might look like. and I appreciate that since then we've had further conversations so I could get a better understanding how this would actually work. Policy order does temporarily restore ShotSpotter for 90 days

For me, this is not because I've reached a different conclusion about the technology but because I believe the community deserves the opportunity to participate in a thoughtful evidence-based process before we make a longer term decision. This substitute is not about reaching a predetermined outcome nor is it an endorsement of the technology. It's about making sure that whatever decision we ultimately make is informed by both evidence and the lived experiences of the people who are most affected. I hope that this process will build greater trust in whatever decision we ultimately make because our goal should not simply be to reach an answer but ensure the community has confidence in how we got there. With that, I'll turn to Councilor McGovern to speak more about the substitute and what it does and how it expands on the original. Councilor McGovern?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you and I just say that like you, Madame Mayor, I too was one of the votes to remove Shotspotter over concerns. Thank you very much. I hear and agree strongly with those who are saying that ShotSpotter does not prevent a crime from happening. And what we really Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

and we need to also realize that technology on some level can be useful in solving crimes but not necessarily preventing those crimes. So the question for us is how do we balance the usefulness of technology with the very valid concerns around privacy and surveillance, particularly in the climate that we are in today. So the substitute order Calls for the city to move forward with a resident assembly, which is something that was discussed during the charter review process. We did not include it in the charter. Thank you very much.

For the direct to city manager to create that process, start that process. Civic assemblies, resident assemblies would draw from the diverse and Thank you very much. We filed this because we think this is an important and productive way to move forward. The question I think that most people have is During these 90 days, do we turn ShotSpotter back on or do we leave it off? And I went back and forth on this. I settled on turning it back on for that time

because at that community meeting at the Senior Center, we heard from a lot of people that we hadn't heard from before who rightly or wrongly view this technology as a way to keep their community safer. I have real questions about that, I think this is why we're gonna do this process so that we can debate those questions But I think turning it back on for 90 days is not going to be extremely harmful. If the order was to turn it back permanently, I would feel differently and might have a different conclusion But turning it on for 90 days while we engage in this process would be a demonstration to those folks who felt unheard that we are hearing them now. And so that's what this policy order does. Madam Mayor, am I missing anything?

No, you got it.

All right, and then I will yield.

So we have Councilor Nolan?

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. I did want to – I had a few questions and wanted to talk about things but I really appreciate this substitute which I do think is something I could support more than the original language. I do have some questions, but also I'd want to amend that substitute. Should I wait until that substitute is voted before us and then propose an amendment?

I think that's the best way

Okay, so I then just in regards to the underlying policy order and the substitute. I am living like all of us are with this question of how best to protect the community and there has been no change whatsoever from anything I've seen and I've dug deep to see how it is that Thank you. So I really do not think we should turn it back on. I think we be following our ordinance to remind people, we never asked the community to deploy it. We didn't have a surveillance technology ordinance 12 years ago So there wasn't a reason to ask the community. I'm not saying we should have, but literally we didn't. So I just want to make it very clear that this council did not override the community that had reviewed this and said we want this.

We reviewed a lot of information over a year and this council made a decision. Some people are wondering whether to continue that, but it was a very deliberative process to make a decision following our own ordinance to not have the technology deployed as was pointed out in public testimony. Our ordinance requires that we base it on data and evidence, and for me personally I don't see that the benefits outweigh the costs. But I do think that the substitute is a better one, and if that passes and ends before us after that does then I will be proposing One amendment to that policy order, which I believe is for you Mayor Siddiqui. I should wait until that happens before.

Yes. Pleasure of the City Council. I have Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler and then Councilor Flaherty and then Councillor Simmons.

Thanks Madam Mayor, through you. I wanted to step back a bit and say there's been a lot of good discussion holistically about improving public safety including at our council meeting previously and I appreciated the framing of having the community safety department, Department of Human Services programs, Cambridge Police Department all at the table talking about how all our departments contribute to public safety is really key in this conversation. I did want to say I was disappointed on how some of the city council conversation went last week. I think there's a lot of good conversation about who we're listening to and who we are not listening to, and how we improve that One of the things I was disappointed about was when one city councilor, who I won't name but ignored sort of black and brown residents who have spoken out against ShotSpotter and said we were just hearing too much from white residents on this. On the one hand, this was ironic because the city councilor who said this was also white and had spent a lot of time speaking. It was also really surprising and disappointing for two reasons.

The first reason is that the same councilor said last year, end quote, we are canceling white educated outspoken residents because the city council was not agreeing with them about blocking more affordable housing. If you're going to bring race into this conversation, I think we need to do it really intentionally. And as a counselor can't argue that we're listening too much to white residents on this issue and then turn around and argue that aren't listening to white residence enough when they speak out against building more affordable housing. That makes no sense to me. The second reason, and I think what is the most important one? And I think the one we need to be aware of here is that black and brown residents have been leading this conversation and from the beginning about ending the use of ShotSpotter. The reason this ever came before the city council was that the black response has been advocating about this for years, these are folks who grew up in public housing in Cambridge who are at the core of these issues, who have talked to their neighbors about this, who organized. We cannot ignore their voices in this. Also, the majority of the city councilors who voted to end the use of SpotSpotter were councilors of color.

We are folks in this conversation Are we not going to listen to the folks? Are we gonna pretend they didn't speak on this? Are you gonna pretend that organizers from the Black Response have not been working on this issue literally for years. or our councillors saying that new black and brown residents, the low-income residents who have spoken up against ShotSpotter don't matter because they aren't the right ones. I don't think that's what councillor were trying to say last week but that's not what I heard at the council meeting last week. What I hope that counselors are trying to say is this, that we value all the residents who have weighed in on this. The black and brown residents and the white residents and everyone in between but what that we need to hear from more residents that we need to hear from people who don't always feel comfortable speaking up with that and who are most impacted. And I agree with that, that's why we need do community engagement before the city puts up surveillance technology. We shouldn't put it up first and then ask people what they think about it. Before we build affordable housing, before we build bike or bus lanes, before a new elementary school, before making changes to the city park, that's what we do.

We have a community meeting, put up flyers on light posts and resident doors to let them know and get their feedback And if there are lots of people against an affordable housing development, that doesn't mean it won't get built. But we do the engagement anyway and we incorporate the feedback into what gets built. Why don't we do that for surveillance technology? Why don't we do outreach to residents before we put up cameras and microphones in their neighborhood and ask them for input? I really appreciate the work that went into this amendment. I can tell there's thoughts that went in to it, and especially that includes resident assemblies. I believe I was the only city councilor who voted for the resident assembly process as part of the charter process. That's great! I wish we had included it then. If this amendment said, let's do the community outreach first. Let's do resident assembly process first before we turn on surveillance technology I would vote for that I just think this approach has it the wrong way around. And the thing that really doesn't sit right with me is how much community engagement we do before building affordable housing versus how much media engagement we'd do before putting up surveillance technology. Surveillance technology is mostly put up in neighborhoods that have more affordable housing.

West Cambridge has very little affordable housing, it's no surprise we're not talking about putting up cameras or microphones in West Cambridge tonight. When we build new affordable housing we do a lot of outreach to neighbors about it Is that something we do? We sure do. If there's affordable housing up the street from me, there have been lots of meetings about it and I've noticed them. When people move into that affordable housing, do they then get a say on whether the city is going to surveil them or not? Are they going to get a flyer or a mailer, an email asking for their input before we put up the surveillance technology? No. They won't. Why not? That's what I'm asking folks tonight. That's really disappointing. And I don't think we want to be a city that listens to the opinions of wealthy residents about affordable housing, but doesn't listen to poor residents who live in that affordable housing when it comes to if they get to be surveilled or not. I don t think that s who we want

Savannah-Wheeler, Yields. We'll go to Councilor Flaherty, Councilor Simmons and then Vice Mayor Azeem followed by Councilor Zusy. Councilor

Thank you very much. It is not used as a surveillance system. and we've been listening to hypothetical arguments that I think have had an impact on this council. And just quickly... Hypothetically, it's been argued that because the contract is Department of Homeland Security that therefore potentially ICE has access to some data that may be recorded. That's a hypothetical. And hypothetically, that data can then somehow be used to detain and deport undocumented immigrants. Again, a hypothetical

It's a hypothetical that this is somehow a racist police law enforcement tool. Also a hypothetical. The reality of this is there has not been one single instance of an abuse of civil liberties here in the city of Cambridge. Not one. There has not been one single instance of a claim of Over-policing. Not one. There has not been one single instance of a police officer responding to an alert of a shot spotter where a police officers overreacted, not one. That's in stark contrast to the reality. Thank you very much.

of Life in the City of Cambridge is that there is street crime, there is urban violence. There is an ongoing feud that involves gunfire. That's true, and it happens in the port. Thank you very much. Support for Schatzparter from the people who live in those neighborhoods was apparent. It was evident. It is expressed over and over again. This is not a racist law enforcement tool. It's a sound detection technology that allows us to save lives and solve crimes Now, would it have made a difference?

We don't know. Would it have make a difference in the young man's life and would there be a five-year old boy without a father? We do not know Would the three people who are alleged to be involved in this heinous act have been apprehended immediately? We don't know. But that uncertainty is in and of itself enough to turn ShotSpotter back on. If you investigate and are charged with the responsibility of prosecuting these major felonies, you would understand. It is a search for the truth. that's our justice system think of technological advancements that we've had in law enforcement over the last generation like DNA it helps both in the search for the truth for convictions and for acquittals. That's what Schatzbarter can be used for.

This is a very effective... Law enforcement technology that, and I'll say it again, it is not designed to deter crime. Simply isn't. This is an effort to allow police and emergency medical technicians to respond promptly to both save lives and solve crimes. and it's inconceivable to me in light of the recent developments here in Cambridge, in like of the tragedies that we're all very well aware that we can in good faith say that hypothetically This is something that will invade on people's civil liberties, and therefore we should not have shots water. I am in favor of shots water, I always have been, and if you disagree with me... then I'm very happy to tell you please don't vote for me.

Councilor Simmons?

Yes, thank you Madam Mayor. When this policy order the base policy order was introduced and very similar to the amendment that's before us now which is coming now but the original policy order that was introduced on the 23rd. I was very clear that there was going to be strong disagreement, and there still is. Even with this amendment, there is some strong disagreement. And I know some of the members of this council and many members of the public remain firmly opposed to Schatz's spot, and that's their right. Thank you very much. But I was at that meeting on July 8th and it was very clear that the members of my community came out in very strong force saying they wanted to see it reinstated because that's what made them feel safe. And that's what's important to me.

And I am certainly thinking or leaning towards supporting the amendment with the resident assembly, which I'm not there yet but maybe I can be wooed into it. As long as we put the neighborhood first. And that's all I've ever been asking. So, I was really not prepared to accept an accusation that was hurled. and I think wasn't kind at all because we're all trying to do our best. And for me, my best is representing the people that I live with and around. And that's what we have to do. We have Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley often says, the people that are closest to the pain should be closest to power.

The people that close to the incident should be closer to the solution and I think it's easy for us to get an understand So this is not publicizing a strategy, which I thought was a real poor Many of us rightly reject that argument when a terrible event exposes a possible weakness in public policy, examining that policy is not exploitation. It is our responsibility. Thank you very much. to we have this broader conversation because that says to me that we're saying to the people in the port, hurry up and wait. Hurry up and for your justice, the justice that we bandy about. Half this evening. Hurry up and wait.

And I'm saying we're not willing to wait. We want this council to defend all of us, all of our rights The unfortunate murder of Xavier Bautista was in our city and his death caused an enormous amount of grief, fear, and anger. I have a 12-year-old daughter that lives in this neighborhood, that lives listening to shots being heard. And when she has to ask me why we're not taking care of her, what do you want me to say? because we wanna have a process to see if it might be the right thing. That's just not fair, that's not polite. That is not what we're supposed to do. We're supposed speak for those that are least likely, that don't have the advantage of time to sit here for four hours? So for me...

When we raise these issues, we are raising or I am serious legitimate questions about the tools Cambridge uses to detect gunfire. Confused in the port? We understand that it's just a tool. But we want that tool. The people in the port want police. We don't feel over-surveilled. And what's so interesting, and the reason why I raise that is four members of our police force live and the Port, the Lowes, the Binos, the Millers to name a few. And that's why we're comfortable with surveillance, as they call it. We don't say surveillance. We call it safety.

Not that long ago, this council bent to the will of the neighborhood which was to put a cruiser in Clement Morgan Park because he wanted to interrupt the activity around drinking and drugging in the park. It took us months. The community stayed with it, we did it and things changed in that park. So I can really accuse those who have long sought to eliminate shots. I am asking us to vote temporarily to reinstate ShotSpot while we determine whether or not it is or can be effective in helping our first responders. I think that's the least we own our community.

We will go to Vice Mayor Azeem, and then I will go Councilor Zusy. And I will interrupt because we have a rule here about five minutes. Thank you.

I'm watching.

Thank You Madam Mayor. I'm not the biggest fan of this sort of discussion about process and community meetings and who is involved and who's not. I think fundamentally we have 120,000 people in the city and lots of different opinions. And I think that there's all different ways to hear from the community, from people who just have time to tell us personally or write us an email or show up and do a lengthy... I guess my question is we've never really done a citizen assembly like this before. To the staff, if they're there, do we think we can do this in 90 days?

City Manager?

Through you, Mayor. I can open a little bit and then maybe Jackson can come up and jump in a little. I would say thank you for the question, Vice Mayor. I think 90 days will be something we look into and report back on. Most of the models for resident assemblies have a much longer timeline Thank you so much for joining us. A lot of the idea behind civic assemblies as a more deliberative democratic model is rooted around Thank you so much for having me. Thank you very much.

The people, all of whom are part of our community who turn out are very different. And so we'll hear one voice in certain settings and other voices in other settings and how we actually navigate that conversation is both The role that the city council plays, but also one that we're asking when we go into the community and we say what do you think? So I think the idea behind a civic assembly is to try to have Thank you very much. selection that includes an overweighting of voices that we don't typically hear. And that's certainly some of the concern in the conversation that we're having So I kind of recognize this is a new method.

It's something that we think could have promise for how we do How we include voices from the community and also how people within our community can deliberate together in a setting that's guided where They can see the evidence and they can ultimately try and come together to find proof Thank you. are suggesting this as a potential way forward.

Thank you, City Manager and good evening everyone. Civic Assemblies, Resident Assembles. They're an exciting topic in deliberative democracy spaces. They really center more representative and inclusive participation best practices at the fold. and to all the points Eon mentioned, having a group of residents that are more representative of Cambridge but actually have time to learn about an issue, deliberate on the topic and weigh trade-offs. We're going to incorporate best practices from the examples we've seen across the U.S. and the world in the process, if that's the direction this council wants to move forward with. But yeah, I think you covered it well.

Thank you. Yeah, my concern is just that we're going to be back here in 90 days asking for an extension on ShotSpotter because we won't have a result yet. I think the city council kind of is a citizen assembly already. and I think that it's always great to hear but you'll always have selective hearing. My preferred outcome would be we've debated ShotSpotter, I'd be fine ShotSpotter listens everywhere. We talked about the efficiency, so I'd say having cameras in parks only at nighttime you can only access with a warrant are probably more effective and would have a higher impact so that would be my preferred solution but I think that there's a lot of momentum behind this and so if this is what the will of the council is I will vote for it but I just think that we're going to end up in the same place in 90 days back here. Thank you.

Vice Mayor Azeem Yields, we will go to Councilor Zusy and then I will go To everyone once again

I also am open to the will of the council, but I feel like this is a citizen's Assembly is like going on a detour. My mantra has always been to listen to the people impacted And so I don't know why we wouldn't go directly to talking with the people that live in the communities where violence is more prevalent. It seems like they're the ones most directly impacted. So I think we should be speaking directly to them rather than to A broader range of citizens. As I've said before, I'm not convinced that ShotSpotter is actually an effective tool

but we've heard from the residents that were at the city meeting to discuss Xavier Batista's death, that ShotSpotter made them feel safer. It was a matter of How it made them feel safer. There was more prompt police response and so I would rather support Councilor Simmons, and Councilor Flaherty's original policy order which just said reinstate ShotSpotter for 90 days. And during that period talk to the people most impacted by violence in this city and come back with a decision about what to do next and how we can make people feel safer. and actually make them safer.

I'm not convinced that ShotSpotter listens to conversations and reports residents to ICE, As Councilor Flaherty said, I think that's a hypothetical. So again... I wish we could vote on Councillor Simmons and Flaherty's policy order before considering this amended policy order? Because again, I think it sort of takes us one degree further from the people impacted. And this, again, it's not just about WeatherShotsButter actually makes people safer. It's about whether it makes people feel safer and so again like Why not talk to the people in the communities most impacted by crime and violence? Why not go to them first? Thank you. I yield.

Anyone who hasn't spoken on the substitute PO before us, and procedurally we do have to vote this up or down before we do anything else. So I have a few other hands up. I have Councilor McGovern and then Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, I appreciate everyone's comments. This is not an easy thing to do or conversation to have. Thank you very much. If we just say we're going to do, we're just going to have a community meeting at the Pisani Center or Fletcher Maynard or the Senior Center. We're going A bunch of people are going to turn out, people saying ShotSpotter. We should not have ShotSpoter. Other people will turn out and say we should have Shotspotter Everyone's gonna get up and sort of make their case Thank you very much.

And it's not just about ShotSpot. Vice Mayor Azeem and I have an order on about cameras. We have to have a community conversation that includes a lot of people, especially those most impacted by violence. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Oh, gee, I didn't know that. Maybe I don't agree anymore.

and having a community meeting where everyone's just kind of getting up and saying their one minute and talking at each other is not going to get us to a better place. So by doing this, and again as the manager said you can over I think that's really important. Thank you very much. pretty much are only being used in one neighborhood, a little bit in Riverside. There have been shootings in North Cambridge. Hotspotter doesn't exist in North Cambridges. We still have an unsolved murder of the man who died in Danahy Park Thank you for joining us.

is it focusing in on a wider range across the city? What do we do with the data, who controls the data? Who does the data get shared with, who has access to the data. I don't want any technology I don't want this funded through federal grants that tie our hands and have strings attached to it. And those are the kinds of conversations as to how we do that is not something you get in a typical community meeting where people just get up and say their piece for a minute. It's a deeper conversation. And so this would allow us to have that deeper conversation and I'll point out We've been doing the same thing around community outreach for so long. We have these community types of meetings all the time, and this council constantly yells at the city for not doing it well and not trying new things and not getting more people involved. Well, let's do it! Thank you very much.

Again, I think turning ShotSpotter on in that meantime is a way to say to the community that's not feeling heard that we're hearing them and it's again temporary. and this resident assembly will come back with recommendations that this council will then have to grapple with and adopt. So we're not getting off the hook, but we are getting some guidance from the broader community. And I think that that is a better use of Gov.

Hughes, we'll go to Councilor Serena Wheeler and then Councilor Simmons.

Thanks, Fennery. I'll be brief through you and to the Councilman McGovern's point about having these broader conversations about public safety. It was just note that what the two policy orders they have that were also chartered right after this are about how do we look at holistic public safety? And looking forward to talking about those next I agree with the counselors who say we need to be not talking about hypotheticals and we need grounding this in evidence. Talk about the flip side of that, is that those of us who have voted to end the use of SpotSpotter have gotten some pretty offensive emails from folks who are engaging in a lot of hypotheticals. And I hope folks will push back on those as well and that we need to actually be grounding this in evidence and facts Not, you know, based on the opinion pages from writers in The Boston Herald or The Globe or The Washington Post who don't live in Cambridge. They don't have anywhere near Cambridge. I wanted to share To that point about facts, a question I asked last week to the CPD, our police department. They didn't have an answer for it at that time. They went and looked at the answer and found it and got back to me.

And I appreciate them doing that work and coming back with answers so we can ground this in more fact Max, the question I asked last week was how many shot spotter alerts were there in 2025? And in how many instances was there actually any evidence that shots are fired? And the response, and I'll quote it to really give them the facts is quote. There were eight shot spotter alerts in 2025 three of which resulted in a location of evidence of shots fired So, and that's not quotes now, ShotSpotter told Cambridge police eight times in 2025 that there were gunshots in the port or Cambridge Port. The majority of those times, there was no evidence that there was a gunshot fired. The other fact here I think is really important because it hasn't come up tonight and I brought it up last week. It's important to say this out loud. Less than five years ago, Cambridge police officer killed Syed Faisal three blocks from the street just around a corner from here. Eight instances in 2025 where we told Cambridge police there was a gunshot and they needed to respond to that urgently. Five times, no evidence of a gun shot.

No one was injured there, no one was killed as Syed Faisal was killed This is the piece that worries me here. There's folks saying, those of us who have concerns about ShotSpotter we are privileging privacy and civil liberties over public safety That's not it, that's not at all. I'm not against technology. I am a co-sponsor tonight at this meeting on red light cameras, on the agenda. When there are technology probes of benefit I am all for that. I'm willing to have that conversation. Do not say I'm not for public safety There were four shootings where residents were injured in 2025. Fact. Four shootings where residence were injured and 2025. Shot spotter did not pick up a single one of those shootings But five times we told ShotSpotter there was a shot fired, they needed to respond to it. There's no evidence that a shot is fired there. The last time there was a shooting on July 4th, fact. ShotSpotter did not pick up that shooting. Shooting on July fourth, the last time ShotSpodder was activated, ShotSpoder did not issue an alert for that shooting on June 4th. That is a fact.

This conversation's about public safety I understand that my colleagues who support ShotSpotter, this is what it's about for them. I'm not questioning that. I am not denying that for them All I'm asking is that folks understand that this is also what that conversation is about for us who are worried about shot spot or is it about public safety and our concern that this technology makes us less safe, not more safe. I yield back.

I have Councilor Simmons and then I will go to Councilor Nolan

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't even know where to begin. For me there's two issues. One is listening to the community that came out on July 8th that says We disagree with the council. For us, this is what makes us safe. So I'm hoping this council will vote to extend ShotSpotter up until 90 days or 120 days later is important. For me, ShotSpotter is not a tool to prevent shots being shot. It's a tool that may help bring or aid to a gunshot victim. And it's very problematic when we, in my opinion, misidentify what it is and what it's supposed to do. Again, I'm going to say this. I've said this a million times.

For the people in my community where I live, so I think I have a little bit of expertise in this. We are saying we like this because we feel safe. My granddaughter feels safe. That's one thing. The resident assembly is a whole other thing that I would caution us not to characterize how people express themselves in the community meeting as anything other than expressing themselves even if it's in a way that's lively. I don't know this idea that Mr. Price has come up with. I don't know if that's the placebo. As one of my neighbors just sent to me, she feels as though she's being gaslighted because you want to try something that we don't know and if we're not careful in the way we have people come and participate, we're

Thank you very much. Mayor Siddiqui, and Mr. McGovern when they introduced this order to me earlier about this resident assembly my concerns are then as they are now that if we do the same thing the same way we're going to get what we already had and so we have to be different. We have to work with people where they are, we have make people feel valued and validated and when you talk about the way I speak or act or emote because it doesn't fit a certain paradigm, is dismissive. And I don't think that's what we're trying to do but that's how it comes off. If you want genuine community engagement you have to engage people genuinely So if we're going to do this resident assembly or any other community engagement, I'm speaking to you Mr. Price so I'd like you to look at me Thank you.

and ask people to participate when we don't even walk in their neighborhoods any other time. So we have a lot of work to do. So if you want me to sign on to this resident assembly, I want you to sign onto true authentic community engagement says I'm going to engage people on the basic level. Find them where they are and bring them to the table But to do this, a resident assembly that doesn't do that because it looks good, because it's a shiny marble, isn't going to be enough. As well intended as you may be. It has to be authentic and I haven't seen that yet. So for me, I am willing. I said this to my colleagues. The resident assembly may be one of many tools like ShotSpot that we use to reach our community. Please be respectful. That's all I ask.

Simmons-New, we'll go to Councilor Nolan.

Thank you Mayor Siddiqui I appreciate all of my colleagues remarks just like I appreciate everyone from the community regardless of where you are and I do agree with that our job is to think of everyone. The reality is the community is split including the community who lives right near where Shots were fired. This is not something where the entire community says one thing or the other, either we don't want ShotSpot at all or we do want it. It is not... Thank you. That may be, but we have zero evidence or proof of that happening in Cambridge in the 12 years it was deployed. And that's what I keep going back to. No evidence. There's no specific cases where it could have made a difference, and I believe in this instance we don't yet have any proof that it would have. Thank you very much.

And so I don't think it's fair to tell the community we can make you safe by bringing this technology, which is kind of the unstated element of this. Which I think gives people false hope that if we just do this, the community will be safe. But I know that's not our intent but I worry about that because that is just not the case and again it's been here for 12 years and we have the same violence that we had in the past so For me, I keep coming back to what our surveillance ordinance says which is we are supposed to in a new technology Decide, deliberate, discuss. Do the benefits outweigh the concerns? As Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler said, for me this isn't about surveillance per se, this is about safety. This is about whether this makes sense. This I do have some concerns about the resident assembly and how we're going to end up with A representative body.

In our community, what it means and through you I don't know if anyone can even answer this but we have 30% of our community is immigrants and there's a large percentage of those immigrants who are not English speaking and they are folks who are more subject and vulnerable to certain kinds of crimes. We need to make sure those are included as well. Would we have a plan for that? And I'm also with Vice Mayor Azeem I love democracy, the democratic process of assemblies. I've worked on a few. They can be very powerful. I'm not sure any with this specific issue can be set up from the beginning with never having done it before and be concluded within just a couple months. So, I think it's a great thing to move forward possibly for large issues in the future

is the intent here that no matter what happens, whether it's 90 days or 120 days this is just literally temporary authorization and it will expire which means everything if there's no action taken by the council would automatically be put back on if we were to do this. So I think the question is how are we going to make sure the true linguistic minorities in Cambridge are, because those are the people we never hear from. We don't have translators here for people to come in.

So on that note, I'll point you to one of the whereases which we've included here Thank you for joining us. to temporarily restore and reactivate ShotSpotter within the areas of Cambridge previously covered by the system, and that ShotSpodder remain in operation through the completion of the resident assembly process. Submission of the city manager's report to the City Council informal. consideration and disposition by the city council of any resulting recommendations. So that's what it says as to the other question around Let me finish, Councilor Nolan. I think the goal would be in talking to the city manager about this is he will have a report back.

There's some questions we can't answer right now The plan has to be developed. And I'll just go back to the original text which called for a robust and inclusive public process regarding shot spotter As we bring it back temporarily. And in our effort, Councilor McGovern and I said, well, civic assemblies, resident assemblies is an idea that's been brought up so we wanted to be more specific. That was the intent because Thank you very much.

I like it. I'm concerned about the timing that, you know, the completion of the resident assembly, if that means if it takes a year, we're going to have this for a year unless there's... We can come back.

What I've said before is this is before us now. It's about 9.07, we've been going back and forth I will hear from Councilor Al-Zubi who hasn't been heard I would recommend that we vote this up or down see where that lands so that we can move on as we also have many other policy orders to get to that a councilor has exercised their charter right on and we have our regular business meeting of a policy order. So, Councilor Al-Zubi.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, I definitely have heard and understood people's need to feel safe and I just want to acknowledge that We are doing that by Commissioner Wells' response.

Councilor Al-Zubi, we have to speak directly in there.

Yes.

Let's pull it up.

Apologies. I understand people's need to feel safe, and I do believe we're doing that in part, especially by Commissioner Wells' quick response. We got it in the updated memo. On a policing staff update that there are 19 new officers that have been assigned to patrol operations that have paired with experienced field training officers to support visible patrol, community engagement and structured field training. and that this staff also will coverage across day and evening shifts and the deployment will prioritize the port area, Central Square, Harvard Square and Donnelly Field. And on top of that, the memo actually goes further to talk about any additional shifts where it discusses that there was an additional shift deployment in the port beginning on June 8th. So for me, the question becomes do we really need ShotSpotter on when there has been measures taken to support people's need to feel safe? I do have one quick question for Director Price.

I'm curious like this resident assembly How does it differ from other approaches to engagement like we've seen traditionally? And are there ways to make sure that we can guarantee that it is representative of the voices of those who are most affected?

Thank you, Councilor Al-Zubi for the question and through you Mayor Siddiqui. One way this process would be different from a more traditional form of engagement It prioritizes depth over speed to weigh into the issues for residents to really learn about the topic they're deliberating over. and give them time to hear from a diversity of voices and experts to make more informed recommendations back to this body as to the will of the community. Another way it differs is that it's more representative of Cambridge's rich diversity. There was a comment about the importance of language access and our immigrant community there is I have heard the importance of weighing to ensure that there is substantial representation from neighborhoods that have the highest concentration of gun violence and experience with gun violence.

And that's incredibly important, and we'll work to incorporate that in the process as well. I've also seen in models that are successful they incorporate demographics regarding age, income level education attainment and geographic location there's so many ways to cut The diversity of Cambridge. What this model allows is a chance for that body that convenes if there's priorities set for who Zubi.

Thank you. That's super helpful to understand, especially considering there is room for us in these resident assemblies and correct me if I'm wrong to be able to seek more representation again for those that are most affected and I absolutely would want that to happen if we were to approach something like this. I, again, just want to acknowledge that we are moving on ways to help people feel safe. And I mentioned those based on the memo that we got and just hope that people recognize that it doesn't have to at the end of day fall on ShotSpotter like We have patrols happening day and night. So I'll go ahead and yield, but thanks.

Is there anyone on the Zoom? Okay, so we've already gone around twice. So I suggest that we vote the substitute PO up or down and then if it fails, we'll have the original. If it passes there may be a few More amendments. But I hope we can go ahead and just take the vote. We'll do a roll call, please.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes Yes. Council of Flaherty? Yes, I'll vote for the amendment. Zusy. On vacation. My mic went up.

Councilor Zusy, are you? Yeah.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

So the amended PO is before us now as we've adopted it. Pleasure of the City Council. Mayor Siddiqui? Councillor Nolan.

Yes, I had, as I indicated before and you indicated, I should wait to see if the substitute passes whether that's when I should propose an amendment which I have. I sent it to the clerk earlier. And just so people know, it's exactly what I think our ordinance anticipates which is let's follow our ordinance instead of right now doing this Yo-Yo back and forth. We had it, and then we took it away after a long process of deliberation. This would be saying the current policy order is well, we're going to just put it back on without any deliberation whatsoever which I don't actually think is in the spirit of our actual ordinance. Our ordinance requires that before any new technology's brought in, and right now this is a new technology because it is not being deployed right now We are supposed to take time, request from the city manager a STIR, a surveillance technology impact report. I don't think that has the strikeouts.

Is there a vision with the strikeouts for the amended PO?

Give me one second. It was in an email, so I need to pull it.

Yeah, should I send it to you in Word instead?

Hold on.

So it takes out the first ordered entirely because I don't think, I think what we should do is yes, get community feedback. We should have an assembly. and then we should decide whether to put ShotSpotter back in. That's what our ordinance asks us to do, that's the ordinary course of business which is right now it's not deployed We have heard from the community we really want voices at the table, so we should really have those voices at that table across the board. And to remind people this comes from the fact that we never once went out to the community 12 years ago or any time over the last 12 years and asked if people wanted this We did over the last year and a half have a discussion about, well it's in place. It was never discussed in the community should we keep it? And a majority voted not to and then it was taken away. So this actually, in my mind, simply follows the ordinance which says all right we should do the community process

And based on that process, we asked the city manager and the police department to prepare and present the STIR, the surveillance technology impact report in accordance with our ordinance. with the potential impacts of using soft spotter only after presenting the results of the resident assembly process. So it does it in the order that it should happen, which is we're not using a technology now Let's make sure we get community feedback and hear from our city staff. Get a recommendation, look at that recommendation, decide whether based on that recommendation if it is to deploy Shot Spider then we would vote on it. No, we don't need ShotSpotter then we wouldn't do it. So that's what this does. This keeps the rest of the policy order as is acknowledging that we want to be thoughtful about reaching out to the city. I hope that explains it and I think that is now yes, that is the correct formulation.

So Councilor Nolan has these amendments before us that are redlined. We will open it up to discussion. Council Member Govern.

Thank you Madam Mayor, just through you so this would be taking out The part of the order that keeps ShotSpotter on temporarily in the interim. So ShotSpoter would remain off?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui. Yeah, it's not on now so it says don't put it... It doesn't say put it back on.

Councilor McGovern? Further comments on this? Councilor Flaherty.

Well, the reason why I just voted for the amendment is because Shots Water is being turned on. So this is entirely inconsistent with that. Thank you very much. Frankly, that's what transpired. as the population was at the senior center on July 8th because that was a section of Cambridge that we don't see here in the council chambers, because their lives are busy. They're raising their families, trying to keep a roof over their heads. Trying to maintain one, two, three jobs to provide for their families

and to get their voices involved in this resident assembly are the voices that we should be listening to because they were there on July 8th, and they told us overwhelmingly that they demanded Schatzparter. So I won't be voting for this amendment, but I certainly hope that we'll move forward and turn Schatzwater back on to improve public safety, help solve crimes, and save lives.

We will go to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I will support the amendment. I just wanted to speak briefly on two things. The one was just to correct the record, and the city did follow the process in removing ShotSpotter. The law department is here, solicitor's here if she wants to say we didn't follow the She can, she has said many times we followed the process. It's just factually incorrect to say we didn't. The second piece is I think we should be really careful in saying that some residents' voices are not authentic and I want to be really clear to everyone who spoke tonight everyone who spoke to the meeting on July 8th, every resident whose weighed in one way or another on ShotSpotter your voice is valued. You are authentic. Every single Cambridge resident is authentic If we want to get more input from certain residents, from impacted communities I am all for that. But I just really disagree to say that some voices are not authentic and I yield back.

Pleasure of the council on the amendments. Is anyone on the Zoom?

No, madam.

Councilor Simmons, what did you say? Okay, Councilor Simmons is calling the question. So procedurally we have to vote on calling a question and that's a yes or no vote. And then we have go directly to the vote. Does that make sense? Clerk will do a roll.

Al-Zubi, yes. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes! Yes! Councilor McGovern? Yes Yes. Counselor Nolan? Yes Counselor Simmons? Yes Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

We've called the questions so we'll go ahead to voting the amendments by Councilor Nolan.

Councilor Al-Zubi? No. No, Councilor Flaherty. No. Councilor McGovern. No! No, Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councillor Simmons.

Absolutely not.

No...Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. No. No, Mayor Siddiqui?

No. So the amendment fails. So now we have a final vote before we move on to the next policy order, which is to adopt this policy order as amended. So I suggest we go ahead to that.

Councilor Al-Zubi. No, Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Councilor Flaherty. Yes! Yes, Councillor McGovern. Yes Yes, councillor Nolan. No! No, counsellor Simmons.

Yes?

Yes, counselor Sobrinho-Wheeler. No. No, councilor Zusy Zusy, yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

And you have six members recorded in the affirmative and three recorded in

So we have to do two votes. Madam Mayor, could I ask a question on this? Serena-Wheeler has a question?

I think we previously moved reconsideration the last time we voted on shot slaughter, and that did not prevail. So I'm just trying to understand didn't we already move reconsideration on this previously?

I'll have the solicitor come, but I think... and explain some of the Robert rules and the motion being in and out of order.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. So this is a new policy order that's before the council that the mayor has requested Put before the council, so as determined it's in order. And so now Councilor Simmons has moved to suspend the rules to move reconsideration on this present policy order.

So just to clarify, so we vote move reconsideration the last time when we ended ShotSpotter. Same did not prevail. That was final. We're doing it again but if circumstances change, we can vote on this again.

State Solicitor?

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, the mayor as chair of the body has had this policy order move forward so there has been a determination that this is a new Policy order a new question before the body because of changed circumstances.

Great, thanks for starting to clarify what these votes mean. Glad to go ahead.

There's two votes ahead of us on suspension and then on actual reconsideration.

Yes, Councilor Nolan? If we're doing reconsideration given that we had two zoning petitions that expire if we don't Ordain them by the next time. Shouldn't we move reconsideration if Councilor Simmons would say that those should be part of the reconsideration as well? Because I believe that we passed into a second reading, but they have to be passed at the

Al-Zubi.

Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Flaherty? Yes, yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes Yes, Counselor Nolan? Yes Counselor Simmons? Yes Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Now move on to the actual reconsideration vote.

Councilor Al-Zubi? No. Vice Mayor Azeem? No Flaherty, McGovern, Nolan, Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy. No, Mayor Siddiqui? No. And you have nine members recorded in the negative.

So reconsideration fails on this, and then we can go ahead, Councilor Nolan, do yours at a later point. So now we've disposed of Charter Right Number 1, we move on to 2. That the city manager is hereby requested to report on progress of the February 2026 reports, recommendations and plans for ensuring appropriate levels of support and staffing for the community safety department including continued expansion CST's Violence Prevention Program, the number and types of calls handled by the care team, and a timeline for more comprehensive staffing for the Care Team Emergency Response Program. Anne is requested to report back to the City Council in a timely manner. The charter right was exercised by Councillor Simmons and the Special City Council meeting July 23rd. Councillor Simmons, you have the floor.

Can you speak into the mic because the folks on Zoom can't hear you.

Full airing and discussion of this item. The meeting was quite contentious, given an opportunity to let cooler mounds prevail. Thank you very much. and because my concern is not about the policy orders themselves but because of the circumstances in which we find ourselves, the meeting had grown heated. We had just concluded several hours of public comment and the hour was late. Almost as late as right now. Some of which lends itself to the kind of thoughtful, respectful discussion sometimes will not happen because of the lateness of the hour and the intensity of the conversation. So I felt it was best to give us all a chance to pause, collect ourselves and return to these orders with fresh eyes.

And I have no specific questions about them. I'm glad to let the conversation move forward.

Simmons, Yields. We only have number two before us so we'll take them up one by one discussion on this. I support the intent, and so I'll be voting in favor. Councilor Sibena-Wheeler?

Thanks. I'll just speak briefly as the lead sponsor because I spoke on it last week before the charter rate. The goal is to lift up the violence prevention work that the community safety department is doing both on its own and in partnership with community organizations, including My Brother's Keeper, Inner City Weightlifting. Sister De Sifter, on the rise in Cambridge Heart and say we need to expand that violence prevention work. This recognizes the critical work that the care team and CSD do to promote public safety both in the immediate response when someone's in crisis and in the ongoing case management This is how we prevent violence, by doing in-depth case management work and connecting folks with resources. to make this around the clock work. It's not enough for it to just be Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., we have expanded it but we need to keep expanding it and make sure that it has the resources they need to do this critical violence prevention work. And so I hope we can move forward with this policy order tonight

I see Councilor Zusy.

Thank you, Chair Siddiqui. I think the community safety department does important work as does the care team but i do feel like The programs are underutilized and I don't know that throwing more money at them will get us better results. I do think it's a good idea to establish case management for individuals that are most likely to be involved in gun violence And I think better collaboration with the Cambridge Police Department is also a good idea. So again, I want to continue to support the care team and our community safety department and our violence prevention program. And we're on our way, I feel as though we're already doing tremendous work and we've got to remember that

in the case of Batista's death, and the case with the man with the assault rifle on Memorial Drive. Those were people from outside of Cambridge so I feel as though we're again I feel like what we really need to do is figure out how to better employ our care team and community safety department rather than I also wonder, I do think it's a good idea to maybe change their hours. Currently, everybody is working. I can't remember what the hours are but they're just during the day so maybe change the hours but I feel like we can work with what we have.

Commit more resources because we actually don't have a lot of more money to dedicate to additional items at this point but I think we can Be more thoughtful about how we're using existing resources. So again, I support this idea of supporting the care team and our community safety department. But I don't think that allocating more funds will necessarily get us better results. Thank you, I yield.

Councilor Zusy Yields, I will go back to a few of my colleagues. I'll just want to make sure everyone's been heard if they want to be heard. Councilor Nolan?

Thank you. Yes, I was happy to cosponsor this and to address some of the concerns. This doesn't necessarily require additional funding. Let's make really good use of the funds we have. If the recommendations come back to say, here's why we need more staffing, then we should look at that. But for me, I would say where else in the city do we Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And as I've said before, I really appreciate the care team. I see them and I also agree that they are underutilized and we need to make better use of them and we

to every single possible 911 call should be put off to that is possible and is appropriate should be on the care team. We should not be overloading Thank you. to meet the needs of that particular call and emergency. But I do think we need to really demand a little bit more accountability here, but also where is it that these recommendations are going? What is it and beef up and understand how it is that we can have the impact that we deserve from this multi-year, multimillion dollar investment.

I'll go to Councilor Flaherty.

And through you, Madam Mayor. I just have a quick question for staff and I'm not sure if you're able to answer it but from an operations standpoint When there's a 911 call, is there specific criteria used to determine whether a response is made? By the police or by care. And can you share that criteria? And if this isn't appropriate tonight, if this is a longer conversation, please feel free to let me know. I'm curious about how that decision is made because as we all know, circumstances change in an instant.

Through you, Madam Mayor. So our 911 dispatchers in emergency communications have specific protocols they have over 200 Call codes that they can categorize a particular 911 call. And so if it is determined that it is a call Call type that CARE is able to respond to, that is when we are dispatched. And so sometimes there may be a call that we are eligible for. However, there may some scene safety risks and so therefore either we are not deployed or were also deployed with police because of some safety risks that may exist on scene. So the dispatchers are really screening for Thank you for joining us.

then our team may not necessarily be deployed to those halls on our own so they may send police along with us.

Flaherty. And just a quick follow-up, just for my own information, operationally speaking, if there's a call say for domestic violence, household violence is that something where the police are sent with care team, or is it one or the other? Because as we know... These situations can change very quickly and abruptly. And we've probably all had some sort of experience, and I've had lots of experience with how Circumstances change immediately and they can get better or get worse. Is there ongoing communication at the call?

I would suggest you can briefly answer, but given the time, Councilor Flaherty, maybe a meeting with them to explain these details would be helpful. But at this point, I want to move the meeting along. Go ahead.

Currently, domestic violence calls are not a call that we are approved to respond Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you. That's our yield, thank you.

Anyone who hasn't spoken on this would like to be heard. I'll go back to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thanks, I just briefly wanted to correct a couple factual inaccuracies and try to make sure I understand this. One is that I think there's a point raised about Shooters coming from outside of Cambridge, and so this not being appropriate here. It's actually not true that the care team only responds to folks inside Cambridge. I've never seen a care team ask for someone's ID and make sure they're a Cambridge resident before providing assistance or case management. They do that indiscriminately the same way other emergency services do, so that doesn't make a lot of sense here just like the police and other orgs. The other piece about, as Councilor Nolan said there's nothing in this policy order that says more money for the community safety department. actually not even something we have the power to do as the city council. Under our charter, only the city manager can put more money into something. This asks for a review of appropriate staffing to do that review so no vote for this would not be A vote for no more money would be a vote to say, no this violence prevention work is not important.

We shouldn't look at appropriate staffing and I think that'd be really unfortunate. There's a lot of research that shows the importance violence prevention work that shows the effectiveness of it in cities across the country and disrupting these violence patterns, doing this support for folks. and I think it's really important in this moment to affirm the importance of this work, and to say yes we want to keep this critically and do that review. It's not a question about money so just wanted to dispel that rumor.

I see no hands up on this, so I suggest we go ahead and move to adopt the policy order.

Councilor Al-Zubi?

Yes.

I'm sorry, Councilor. I couldn't hear you.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes Councilor McGovern?

Yes

Absinthe, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes Mayor Siddiqui? Yes You have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent

Policy order is adopted. We go on to the third policy order under the charter right, that's a city manager is requested to provide a comprehensive evaluation of violence response and prevention strategies along with survivor support services across city departments including CPD, CSD, CHA and DHSP and come with recommendations before the City Council's Public Safety Committee and report back to the City This charter right was exercised by Councillor Simmons in the special council meeting. Do not see Councillor Simmons here. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler?

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Through you and thank you to the co-sponsors for this. A lot of this conversation tonight and at our previous meeting focused really narrowly on a couple technologies and the merits of those technologies and that's an important conversation but the goal of this policy order is to take a comprehensive look at the city's public safety work and the effects of our programming and resources on violence prevention and public safety. And obviously a huge part of that work is done by the Cambridge Police Department, and we should take stock of what is working and what's not. The Community Safety Department is newer but also critically important in that work. I think it's also important to recognize that other city departments, including DHSP, the Multi-Service Center, the Housing Department, the Public Health Department and the Cambridge Health Alliance all have really critical roles in public safety and we need to be including them in this conversation as well. We cannot leave that out and just talk about specific technologies or about policing, housing and healthcare and education and job training programs play a critical role in reducing violence and improving public safety and that came up at the meeting of July 8th.

And every conversation I've been about gun violence, it actually goes back eventually goes back to why don't more young people have jobs? Why don't they have caring adults in their life? Why do not they have education that they can get You go to any community around the country and see that violence goes hand in hand with poverty, lack of affordable housing, lack jobs, and lack mental health care. We can't say we support public safety and try to make it harder to build affordable housing. We cannot say that we support Public Safety and not fund job training programs or mental health care. Those things are at the core of Public Safety & Violence Prevention. We need to make sure that each of our departments has the resources and the tools they need to Make Cambridge Safe. The goal of this policy order is to do that comprehensive review in the Public Safety Committee And also it's just as important to talk about survivor support services, which was another key thing that came up on that meeting on July 8th. What are we doing to support survivors? This is something I did a bunch of work on in my first term with remembering our Cambridge kids and Ken who said There's the Lewis Brown Peace Institute over in Boston. Folks can get support there.

We need to make sure folks can get these services in Cambridge when it happens and know Systems exist here, there are folks plugged into them. We need to make sure that everyone knows about them and it's not just a thing that is hidden that you have to be part of this tiny community of gun violence survivors to be a part of. We should be out there open One question that I got from residents and working with them is, why don't we have a memorial garden? Why don't you have a public space where folks could be there for it. Is that something we could do? This needs to be a part of that conversation and to make sure that it is supported and integrated with the community as a whole so that survivors know that we are all here for them, and we lift them up. So I hope we can move forward this policy order tonight for both of those reasons.

Any thoughts on this policy order before we go ahead and move to adopt it? Hearing none, we can go ahead And do a roll call on adopting policy order number three

Al-Zubi, yes. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes Yes. Councillor McGovern? Yes Councillor Nolan? Yes Siddiqui, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

That policy order is adopted. We can go ahead to policy order number four under the calendar, that the city manager has requested to investigate directing the appropriate city departments to install security cameras overlooking Cambridge Public Parks I'm sorry? I will go to Vice Mayor Azeem and then Councilor McGovern.

I think that mostly this is now a discussion item for the citizen assembly. So I'm not sure exactly what the motion would be, but I would like to make a motion to just forward this to the citizen

So, Councilor... Excuse me. Vice Mayor Azeem is making a motion to refer this policy order to the resident assembly based on the prior discussion that has happened. Councilor McGovern?

That's fine.

Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I think I'm okay with that referral. I did have a couple questions for Councilor or Vice Mayor Azeem about this just to understand what we're referring. I just wanted to confirm... It says city parks. That's all city parks in Cambridge, not just ones in the port or something, but that includes like Larch Road Park and West Cambridge and Corcoran Playground and Observatory Hill. That is all the city parks?

Well, I wouldn't necessarily want cameras in every park but I was going to say I kept it intentionally broad and intentional. I thought it would be the beginning city manager or whoever would come back with ideas and suggestions would want it to be equitable, I think, to the point that you're getting towards. But I think that now these details would be for the resident assembly to discuss so if they wanted and if so how in all those sorts of cases.

That sort of gets to my second question, but it was on how much this would cost. I think unlike the previous one there would be a price tag with this. Cameras cost something and Depending on how many we're talking about and how many parks, it could be substantial. If we're taking about every city park there's more than 80 city parks, two to three hundred cameras. Just curious if you have a sense of how much this would cost or if that was also something that would need to be researched?

Vice Mayor?

Yeah, I mean, I think that if we were talking about keeping ShotSpotter data locally and not taking the national grant for them, that would also cost money. And so this was in that spirit of being a compromise. I think that certainly if we did every square inch of every park, that would be very expensive. That's not my intention and I think we would start off in a very small way and then see if we even like the program and then take it from there. But yes, I think we should be budget cautious.

Spinner-Weather. Yeah, one of my questions on this was around more community engagement. There wasn't a piece about community engagement in there but I'm glad to hear Vice Mayor Azeem suggesting referral to the resident assembly so I'm fine to go with that.

Councilor Flaherty? Thank you, Madam Mayor. And just for the record I'm happy to have cameras at large Park. My son plays basketball there, and I'd love the cameras there because I want him to be safe, and to be safe and put them at Range Park. Put them in every single park in the city. It makes sense. Put shot spotter all throughout the city, it makes sense And to the extent that improves public safety, I think we should do it. So I yield.

Anyone else want to speak to referring this? Yes, Councilor McGovern.

Yeah, I was actually just... I know it would be a little tangential to the order but it is about cameras. I was wondering if the manager could We already did give approval to expand cameras into squares, and we did that a long time ago. It hasn't happened as far as I know. Can you give us an update on that? Is that an appropriate question?

Yeah, I'll allow it.

Thank you, Madam.

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I think the Police Commissioner can give an update. Just to clarify, I Approval for a narrow use of public cameras in Central Square. So it wasn't sort of public camera writ large, but I think we can give an update about that program.

I believe we voted to allow the city to expand the central square camera program into other squares. Yes, I'm pretty sure we did.

Was there more that you'd like to say?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui.

Public safety cameras, obviously the ones in Central Square have been quite... The ones in central square this is by the way I've been sitting over there. This is a horrible system I can't hear anything when I'm just sitting right there but anyway sorry We just were notified that we have some money coming from UASI for public safety cameras. And we have put into... on paper some things that we could do with those cameras, either Harvard Square or Porter Square depending on the data. Looks like Porter Square is giving Harvard Square a run for its money but we have data surrounding that and also different parks as well.

Thank you. And through you, Madam Mayor, do you have to come back to us for approval of that under the surveillance ordinance? Or did we already, by allowing you to expand, give you permission?

You have, but I would love to have some collaboration around where they would be put and the data around that. For sure.

I'll yield, Madam Mayor.

So, yes, Councilor Nolan?

Can I just hop on that because that is something we've talked about. We did approve at least some extension. Did I not hear the timing of it?

Well, the timing can be any time now because we just got the money from UASI. But for about $12,000 apiece? and we got appropriated $120,000. So we have plans that we have put together for a small medium and upwards of that with more cameras if need be.

Thank you. And it sounds like you would like some council feedback on that, so there will be some communication from the city manager about anything that's needed.

So just for clarification and just going by the rules, the vice mayor had said let's refer to the resident assembly. Per the rules, Rule 7, all petitions, memorials, communications, any matter before the City Council may be referred to a standing committee of the City Counselor, to a consent agenda, to and then to any department or department head or any group, person, organization to whom referral is permitted, authorized or allowed under the provisions of the city charter. and under the provisions of the Master's General Laws. Based on this, I would just add a friendly amendment Vice Mayor to say to refer this to the City Manager.

Vice Mayor?

Okay, thank you. So we will refer this policy order to the city manager and we'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes

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

So that policy order number four has been referred. And now I will entertain a motion to suspend the rules to go to unfinished business number five which is the zero waste policy Plan Ordinance Amendment. This was passed through a second reading in Council on June 22nd. It's been eligible to be ordained on or after July 13th.

Thank you. As you know, this has been discussed a number of times. Oh, you know what?

I'm sorry. We have to vote on suspension. We'll do suspension and then we'll go talk about it.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes, yes. Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

That's now before us. Back to you, Councilor Nolan.

Thank you. Yes, this is another exciting moment that it's ordination as follows more than a year process that the staff has been working on updating the plan directed by the council to do this Again, there's the short-term, medium-term and long-term in these airways master plan. And that was passed almost a year ago. And then the ordinance changes that we're talking about were the ones in the short term plan. Thank you very much. Hopefully save us some money and also make it easier for us to achieve some of our goals. So I know we had some feedback from the community. And just to remind folks, the staff is working really hard on communication around this. And we got a lot of testimonies from many of the small businesses that their pilot programs were helping them a lot.

So I'm hopeful this will be another unanimous vote to move this to ordination.

Councilwoman is moving this zero waste plan to be ordained. That's her motion. Discussion on that before we do a roll call?

Hearing none, we'll proceed to the vote. Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes Yes.

Council of Flaherty? Yes Councilor McGovern? Yes, Councilor Nolan? Yes Counselor Simmons? Yes Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

The Zero Waste Plan Ordinance Amendment has been ordained. We will now go back to policy orders, pleasure of the City Council. It's 9-52 just as a reminder. Madam Mayor? Yes, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Poll number 14. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, pose number 14. Pleasure of the City Council.

Mayor Siddiqui?

I'll do Councilor Nolan, that's what I heard.

Yes, let's see. Number two, which will be short because I want to be added. Number ten... and Number 16.

So Councilor Nolan is pulling number 2, number 10 and number 16. Hearing from no one...

I would like to pull Councilor Zusy. Number four, nine, 12, 15, 19. Four, nine. Twelve.

15, 19. Yes.

Thank you.

There's no 19.

Where is the 19?

There's Okay, so we've pulled 2, 4, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15 and 16. We will do a roll call We will do a roll call on the balance.

Councilor Al-Zubi, yes. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Council of Flaherty? Yes Councilor McGovern? Yes Counselor Nolan? Yes Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes Yes Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative The balance of the POs has been adopted We're going to pause through order number two This is that the city managers requested to direct the Economic Development Division of the Community Development Department and the License Commission to jointly lead the City's evaluation of a licensed Pilot Program from Fall 2026 through Fall 2027, allowing certain eligible licensed establishments to serve alcohol until 3 a.m. This was pulled by Councilor Nolan but was filed by Councilors Simmons and Vice Mayor Azeem. I'll go to the lead sponsor, unless she yields. Councilor Simmons? I yield. Simmons, Yules.

Councilor Nolan? Thank you. This could be brief. I wanted to thank the sponsors, Councilor Simmons and Vice Mayor Azeem. This is something I think we're very excited about possibly doing. Just two questions. One, I'd like to be added if that was possible and secondly is there any sense that we would need a home rule in order to do this or do we have a sense that this might be something the state would allow us? Through you to the sponsors.

So the question is around the home rule and whether we need it. Councilor Simmons?

Thank you, Madam Chair. In consultation with some people from the business community... Councilor Nolan.

In other words, we'll get the report back about how it is that we do it. And then if I could be added, if that would be possible, that'd be great.

We'll go ahead and add Councilor Nolan to the PO and do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes, yes. Council McGovern? Council Mcgovern is absent. Councillor Nolan? Yes Yes. Councillor Simmons? Yes yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, Councilor McGovern. On the amended policy order on adoption we'll do a roll call. Al-Zubi, yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes Councilor McGovern? Yes, Councilor Nolan? Yes Counselor Simmons? Yes Yes. Counselor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

The amended PO number two passes. We're going to policy room number four. This is that the city manager be and hereby is requested to work with a city solicitor and the License Commission to draft and submit a home rule petition to authorize one additional Section 15 all alcoholic beverages license not to be drunk on the premises. This was filed by Councilor McGovern, Councilor Simmons and Vice Mayor Azeem. Pulled by Councilors Zusy, I will go to the lead sponsor first, Councilora McGoven.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, the reason we filed this, Farrow's Food Town has Thank you very much. Small Business. It's very important to that neighborhood, the only other place for folks Thank you very much. They have, although they have a liquor license currently, they would like to...

expand their liquor sales, which would require them to get an additional different type of license. In order to do that, it would require a home rule petition. This is narrowly focused, a narrowly-focused request. It would authorize one location specific license that can only be exercised at Faroes. It does not create a new class of license or open the door to additional licenses across Cambridge, Thank you very much.

Cambridge has no available Section 15 all-alcohol licenses and purchasing an existing transferable license can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, simply not a realistic option for a small independent neighborhood market. By supporting this home rule petition, I view it as a way of supporting this local business. and so on. You know, we don't want this store to close. We don't wanna lose the access to food that it provides a lot of food Thank you very much.

Do that is through this home rule and that's why it's filed.

I have visited Farrow's Food Town, and I think it's a wonderful grocery. And I recognize its importance to the residents that live on Rinjav and close by And I also was just amazed by the extraordinary assortment of tubers and flowers that were present there, providing so that people of different ethnic groups could cook their favorite meals. I do want to support the continuance of Pharaoh's Food Town at this location, but at the same time it seems like to ask for a home rule petition for a full liquor license, for an additional full liquor licence for this one entity Just doesn't seem appropriate to me.

I feel as though when we're asking the state legislature to support home rule petitions, it should be for things that are significant like truly significant and I don't understand why it seems like Pharaoh's already has I think it's an inappropriate use of a home rule petition to to be requesting an extra liquor license just for this one business so I will be voting no though I support I really marvel at the breadth of their offerings. I wish there was a I wish they had more room and could even offer a greater variety of goods.

I think there's a real need for a full grocery store in that neighborhood. Thank you, I yield.

I just wanted to say, I think that we are unique in that. We've had fairly lax rules that made it so this is not a frequent problem But it is my understanding that the vast, vast majority of home rule petitions are actually very, very narrow and that the fact that we pass ambitious bills option that require a is actually the rare thing and most home rules are very tiny specific changes like this. Thank you.

Thank you. I will probably support this, but I have to say it's ridiculous we have to do this in order to allow this to happen. I do have a question through you either to the city or to the sponsors Explain, are there limits of these licenses and is that something the state controls or is that Something the city controls? So the number of these Licenses.

I'm going to bring up the City Solicitor

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. Yes, so this is controlled by the state law chapter 138 section. This is considered a Section 15 license and Section 17 Thank you. Thank you very much. The city also has a total of 24 malton wine package store licenses. of which 23 have issued. So that type has one available, but this particular store already has one of the

Malt and Wine, and what they're seeking is the home rule legislation to increase our number of The All Alcohol to allow for this one particular location to have an all alcohol license.

How's it going? Thank you. And I guess then, does that mean if they got this, they would be able to give up their other one and then we'd have 20, we have two available?

Through UMAD America. I believe that's correct. If they get the all-alcohol, they'll no longer need the malt and wine, and then there would be two malt and wines still available in Cambridge.

Thank you. That's helpful. I will support it. I just keep coming back to why doesn't the state just let us have 57 or 72 or... 39, because this is not really something we should be deliberating in my view. It should be just up to the market to decide how many package stores there are in Cambridge but I recognize that's not where we're sitting now So given the answer, I will be supporting it and just wishing that we could figure out a way to have all the liquor laws at this state be updated. Thank you.

Councilor Nolan-Yields, picking up on just a question. I'm trying to kind of think about what the potential negative impact of this could be. Potentially, and so I'm doing some... I guess the question would be could those malt and wine licensee holders, could any of them now say to us hey we also want Do you all have concerns about some of that piece of this?

Thank you to you, Madam Mayor. I can't speak on the policy position so much if there's a concern but I do think that because this would be doing a home rule petition to allow one particular store to get an all alcohol license, there might be other stores that also have this interest that would come forward in a similar way to the council, whether they have currently a malt and wine license or no license but want the ability to be a full all-party. Alcohol Package Store.

Okay. Yeah, I'll just say I guess that's a little concerning just in that I don't want a bunch of folks to come to us. You know, the importance of keeping it there. But I think that's one thing I'm a little worried about. Councilor McGovern?

Yeah, thank you Madam Mayor through you. I mean I would just say I agree with Councilor Nolan and Councilor Zusy that maybe this isn't the best way to handle business but it is the way the state has set this up and I don't want to punish this business that's trying to survive because we don't like the process that the state has set up. And maybe if they got more of these and didn't want to deal with them, they would actually move on changing some of these laws and making it a little bit easier to do So again, I can understand the concern that is this a proper use of a home rule petition or not but this is what the process is set up. This is how it's set up so Thank you for watching.

Any further discussion on this before we go ahead and vote to adopt policy order number four?

Hearing none, we'll do a roll call. Councilor Al-Zubi. Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

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

Policy number four is adopted. We now move on to policy order number nine. This is that the City Manager is requested to report back to the City Council regarding improved tree loss accounting and reporting systems by October 1st, 2026. If this was filed by Councillor Zusy, Councillor McGovern, and Councillor Nolan, Councillor Zusi you have the floor.

Thank you so much. As we're all hearing from citizens across Cambridge about lots of trees coming down, I just heard What was it? A big oak coming down this morning. The goal of this policy order is to keep better track Thank you for joining us today. that are coming down on the property site. The trees impacted by, on a Butters' property and the trees impacted that are city trees in parks or along, along the streets. Currently

We often don't note how many significant trees we're taking down when development happens and the only way to I will tell you on Hamilton Street, on my street at 174 Hamilton There's a development which I think will impact two of Butters trees and possibly three, if not four city street trees because of the five foot setback rule. because even though there's a five foot setback rule, the developer is digging to the edges of the property line impacting trees. So ultimately I hope for greater protection of our trees overall, but I feel like this is the first step which is to really keep track

of what our current policies are, so that we can make better policy. Thank you.

Zusy-Yields. Would anyone else like to say anything before we go ahead and adopt this? Hearing none, we'll go ahead into a roll call on adopting policy number nine.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes Yes. Council of Flaherty? McGovern, Nolan, Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

We move on to policy number 12. This is about greater interdepartmental coordination and community information sharing related to development This was filed by Councilor Zusy, Councilor Azeem, and Councilor Flaherty. Councilor Dussey, you have the floor.

Thank you so much, Mayor Siddiqui. Again I was really impressed with the report on streamlining permitting that we heard earlier today This policy order would not only sort of build on that, encouraging that regular interdepartmental communication, but there's also a focus on communication because people are... I feel as though our Currently, we're sort of driving people crazy both developers and residents because it's so unclear what the process is with the time Lines are what the next steps should be, and this would require a clearer process that's communicated to all parties. So people would know if they had complaints, how to do that. They would understand what a demolition should require, what sort of notification they should get,

Regulations they should assume are standard practice. I think better process and better communication will just... Make life and the management of the city better for all parties. Thank you, I yield. I hope you'll support this.

Councilor Zusy yields. Does anyone like to say anything about this? Councilor McGovern?

Yes, Madam Mayor. Through you, just a question to Councilor Zusy. The way I read this, this sounds like it's just asking the internal... I read it one concern. I guess a couple of people had emailed me that a concern that this would also allow more public process to intervene at different steps in the permitting process, but I didn't quite read it that way. Can you just? clarify that? Is this to basically create a document that will be shared with people or is this creating a whole new public process opportunity?

Councilor Zusy.

Yeah, this doesn't create a new public process opportunity. I feel like, I'm sure the rest of you receive hundreds of emails from constituents that are they don't know what's going to happen next door. And so this would ensure that The process was clearer and better communicated so that they would know what to anticipate. A lot of people have asked whether so they'll get a notice that there's going to be a demolition happening next door in the next two weeks. They want to know like, so is that the last notice they'll What should they expect? This would require the city to provide that sort of communication. and it also would provide, I hope.

And this would have to be considered by the city departments but it just seems like one point of contact for developers at the city would be very, very useful if we could provide sort of a concierge service for development so that people know they can rely on Someone in the city to help guide them through the process with proper orientation and proper updates. And of course, the developers need to do their due diligence as well but the whole idea is that no, so the answer is Councilor McGovern this wouldn't require more public process. This would create a cleaner process and it would improve the process for all parties involved

Govern.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. Thank for that explanation. I agree not only folks in the community but we hear from developers too that the lack of predictability or getting different information and Not even developers. We think, remember that the daycare that opened next to Armando's took years to open because One department told them they had to do A, B and C. And so they did it. And then another department came in and said, oh no, you weren't supposed to do it that way. You're supposed to deal with this way. It cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of time because they were getting different Thank you very much. Thank you for your explanation. I'll support it.

Very quickly, exactly where Councilman McGovern is which has supported and I read this. This will build on the streamlining work that we just talked about earlier in past today to say once that's done Let's make sure that we have a... This is more about communication of what's already in place, not creating something new. For instance, I know I have referred often people to which we'll talk about maybe later the short-term rentals You know, we have a flow chart. Like are you this A or B? Are you this C or D? And it's really easy to follow and we have that very rarely in the rest of the city so I will definitely support tonight. It's all about communication. Thank you, IU.

I don't see anyone who else would like to speak on this, so we can go ahead and adopt policy number 12.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes Councilor Flaherty? Yes Nolan, Simons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Policy order number 12 is adopted. We're going to policy order 14 that the city manager has requested to confirm... With the Cambridge Historical Commission, the property owner and other appropriate parties regarding placing a historical marker on 103 Irving Street in recognition of Julia Child's life, work, and connection to Cambridge This was filed by Councilor Simmons and Councilor Flaherty. It was polled by Councilors Sobrinho-Wheeler. I'll go to Councilor Simons first, unless she yields. Councilor

As you heard the young lady this afternoon, this evening, whenever it was speak to the time she spent doing research on Julia Child Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you very much. Known internationally, and here we do not acknowledge her. You know, in her own hometown of sorts because she lived so many years. So she did the work. She visited the clerk's office so she could write this policy order. to present to the city council.

And I have to say, I'm most proud of a young lady that would come and she's just a rising senior I'm hoping that the council will unanimously support We want to, what they say, breathe what you need. You know, maybe one day she'll sit in one of these chairs and What launch that interest might have been, which he did this afternoon in front of all these people that were here earlier and the council. I yield.

Simmons-Niels, we'll go to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thanks, I love Julia Child and I look forward to seeing this marker up before too long. It did remind me that last time we voted unanimously to pause the historical marker process so that we could review the criteria for who we are honoring and who we're not, update the process to make sure not leaving folks out of that. The next step, I believe there was to have a discussion in the civic unity committee and or the government operations committee things come up and I don't think we had that committee meeting scheduled It's a good reminder that we need to have that committee meeting to review the process. I was planning to charter write this so that we could get that meeting scheduled as, you know, hopefully a joint... Councilor Sabino-Wheeler, are you exercising your charter right? Well, I was going to say it just occurred to me it would be helpful to have this before us. I was gonna suggest we could refer it to the civic unity committee and joint operation government operations committee and then wouldn't need to charter write it if that works we can refer it and then have that meeting

So let me just clarify. My understanding was the... I thought it was dedications. Right, right. Did it also include historical markers? That's what I'm not clear on. Naomi, do you have more on that?

The process that was paused by the council was the dedications, which are typically more related to folks' deaths. I believe this would fall under what was formerly memorials, monuments and markers which is a separate process, separate thing.

If I may Madam Mayor?

Yes go ahead Councilor Sands.

I see you did my colleague. Just recently, a couple of years ago, the Massachusetts – I'm going to say this wrong. The Massachusetts Historical Women Marker Group – that's not their name, but I'm just not remembering it right – did something very similar, and there is a marker in front of Mariah Baldwin's home. on Prospect Street. So what she's asking is, I know you're right. Thank you for bringing that up but we're not, she's not trying to do that. She's trying to something similar and asking the city to see if we can do this is to put a marker similar, but you have to talk to because it's in front of someone's house. You have to ask them if they're willing and if not work with them, but it's not the same.

Subana Wheeler.

In that case, I think I'm actually fine with moving forward to this if this isn't a dedication process. It is a good reminder we need to have that meeting but historical marker being separate than the dedication and thank you for clarifying that Ms. Stefan and Councilor Simmons. I think

It's a good reminder and we should do that. We can go ahead, hearing no one else on this PO, adopt the policy order.

Just in case she's watching, could we do a roll call?

Well, we are doing the roll call because people are online anyway. We'll do a role call.

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

Thank you. Information Kiosk Program on Public Property throughout Cambridge. This was filed by myself, Councilor McGovern, Councilors Simmons and Vice Mayor Azeem. This Zusy, I'll just say briefly this was submitted after conversations with members of the public including Mike Monestine and the Central Square Bid. and other community members. I think there are various benefits associated with digital wayfinding in informational kiosks including approved visitor experience, Supporting local businesses, strengthening commercial districts, activating public spaces. And importantly they help the city meet people where There's a lot of examples of this throughout various cities.

and many are self-sufficient and there's no cost really to the city or users. The cost is covered by ads. and requiring little or no municipal investment while generating revenue to support maintenance. So that's just a summary. I'll yield to Councilor Zusy, and then I'll go to my colleagues.

Thank you so much. So I attended a program about these kiosks when I was at the National League of Cities meeting in Washington and they're used in Beverly Hills, they are used in LA, they're using Atlanta. They're used St. Louis. They are used like much bigger cities that don't just have a strip and I think, I understand for Mike Monestime that there might be a need for a kiosk. I can imagine like one kiosket Kendall Square maybe two? I can image one at Central Square I can imagine maybe one or two Macs at Harvard Square, but these companies that are installing these kiosks want to have at least 10 kiosk. They're really for bigger cities not smaller cities I can imagine there being a kiosk program in Boston. It's a much bigger city than Cambridge, again like Atlanta is 134 square miles

St. Louis is 62 square miles, LA is 539 square miles I mean we're less than seven square miles so again i can appreciate the need for A few kiosks, maybe especially as we draw tourists from abroad. And I understand this policy order was in part inspired by all the World Cup visitors but I worry about clutter. I feel like we're already, I'd rather have a tree than a kiosk or too many kiosks at our city squares and I feel like we have a lot of competition for public space. I mean, we're putting in bike lanes. Again, we want trees. We want broad sidewalks. People want outdoor eating. There are already a lot of competing demands.

So I just think we're, again, I'm open to the idea of exploring a few kiosks but I think 10 would be way too many and I think we'd have to be really judicious about placement. And I also think they're sort of distracting because the screen is always changing so I'm hesitant I won't be supporting this policy order. I would support some sort of kiosk but I don't want 10 or 20 of these digital kiosks in our little city all over town. We're too little for this, but I think there are other ways that we can make sure that we have better wayfinding and that we better make our Amenities accessible and available to visitors.

Zusy Yields, I have Councilor Simmons. Did you want to say anything? Are you set? Councilor Flaherty?

Thank you very much. because of that algorithm that's paid for. And these are wayfindings, mechanisms that allow our residents to get where they want to go in a quick and our visitors in a A giant metropolis, but I think it's something that is very helpful for our visitors to find a way around Cambridge and to direct them to our local businesses. So I'll support it, I like it. It's all in the placement.

I have Councilor Nolan, Councilor Simmons and then Councilor McGovern.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui and the sponsor of this. I saw this sample at a street theory collaborative which seems great. Thank you. What was very clear and what was marketed there was this is something cities get revenue from, not that they have to pay for. So I certainly am not interested in wayfinding that we would have to Zuzi said 10 might be too much. I think 10 would be fine in Cambridge because we have Porter Square, we have Alewife, we that could certainly benefit from wayfinding. But I'm very supportive and I very much hope the request for proposals would be based partly on, well how much revenue do we think the city will go? Given that, that's part of why to let people know.

That's what we all heard and as the mayor noted in her remarks that was something that was known to already be deployed in other cities.

Thank you, Councilor Nolan. I'll just say the order calls for the feasibility. We're not saying do this. We are saying come back with some findings and recommendations I think there will be some more factual information coming back. As I've said, it is free and so that I think we can... I'll go to Councilor McGovern and Councilor Simmons.

Just real quick, I'm excited about this actually. I think these are really cool. In addition, I don't see Cambridge as a small city. I see us as we're the fourth largest city in the state. We are an international city. Obviously placement will be important but Thank you very much. If you're unhoused, you could have all the shelters in the area there that if you click on it, you can get a list. There's a million different uses for this in really creative ways So I'm excited about it.

For a city so based in technology and so many young people living here, I think this is great. It's about time we stepped into the future.

Councilor Simmons?

I'm very excited about the potential of this wayfinding. We are a little big city and people come here all the time. Just be here in May when everyone's graduating. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. and I look forward to its implementation. I yield.

Councilor Simmons yields. I think we've heard from everyone who'd wanted to speak on this, so we can go ahead and vote to adopt policy order number 15.

Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes, Councilor Flaherty? Yes Yes, Counselor McGovern? Yes Counselor Nolan? Yes, yes Counselor Simmons? Yes yes Counselors Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes counselor Zusy?

Yes

Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

The policy order is adopted. We move on to policy order number 16, that the city manager is requested to direct the appropriate staff to work with the Health and Environmental Committee to discuss a time-of-sale energy audit and review possible ordinance language for potential adoption after deliberation and refinement. This was filed by Councilor Nolan, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Counciler Al Zubi, and myself. Councilor

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. I just pulled this partly to make sure everyone understood while we could just call a health environment committee meeting the whole idea is to ensure that the community understood this would be something we would be discussing it doesn't say obviously we're not moving forward immediately but as we heard in public comment and I'm grateful to the advocates who reminded us all, we have been discussing doing something to advance our climate goals for the last 10 years and we have not really focused as much on Any kind of requirements on the residential side or any kind of deep incentives. We have electrify Cambridge, we've done so much work in that area and yet I think ramping it up some and moving forward with a possible program where we understand how we can address renters How we can address homeowners. Is this a tool that would really help us maybe meet our goals? So, this is something to have the Health Environment Committee meeting review the best practices from a range of other cities.

Austin is one of the highlights here for more than a decade as it has actually mandated energy audits not just for One to four families, but for every single property sold in the city. And those people in Austin have said it has really helped them accelerate sales and allow property owners in the city to understand what they can do to move forward. And again, this is something we would start if we did something like this. The idea would be to start just with those for whom a mass save audit is free and we would one of the concerns raised well if someone is selling their house but it's just going to be demolished what different you know would this make sense? Well We can also include that in the conversation as well. But I hope this is supported fully because it's something many folks in the city have been asking us to do much more around working with residents, and I think this is one way to do that. And I am grateful to co-sponsors as well

Councilor Nolan yields. Would anyone like to say anything about this? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and adopt this policy order.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes

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

We will go to applications. Pleasure of the City Council. On a motion by Councilor McGovern to adopt all three applications, we can do a roll call.

Al-Zubi, yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes Councilor McGovern? Yes, Councilor Nolan? No. Councilors Simmons? Yes Counselor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes Yes, Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded in

All three applications have been adopted. We now move on to petitions. There's one petition. This is a zoning petition received from Michelle Lauer of Alexandria Real Estate Equities. Transmitting a proposed zoning ordinance to amend the provisions of section 13.59.42 if the zoning amendment ordinance to allow For the transfer of 250,000 square feet of gross floor area from the PUD 4C zoning district on the Industry B zoning district in exchange for the conversion of the existing brick and beam structure at 161 First Street into affordable housing. This petition seeks to amend the zoning map by creating the Technology Square Transfer Receiving District. The only vote here is to refer to the ordinance committee and planning board for a hearing and report. Would anyone like to say anything before we go ahead on that? Al-Zubi,

Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Councilor Flaherty?

Yes. Yes.

Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes.

The petition is referred. We now move on to communications. There are 65 communications. Place on file. On a motion by Councilor Simmons to place all communications on file, we'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Councilor Flaherty. Yes! Yes, Councillor McGovern. Yes Yes, councillor Nolan. Yes Counselor Simmons. Yes yes. Counselor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes Yes, Mayor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Those communications are placed on file. We have 12 resolutions. Pleasure of the City Council. Councillor Simmons?

I'd like to pull 5, 10, and 12.

Simmons, polls 5, 10 and 12? Yes. Pleasure of the City Council. I'm going to quickly pull the number, where is it? Eight. So we've pulled 5, 8, 10 and 12. And we can go ahead do a roll call on adopting the balance of the resolutions making them unanimous Simmons. We'll do a roll call?

Councilor Al-Zubi, yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

The balance of the resolutions are adopted. We will go to resolution number five. This is a resolution on the death of Christopher Ann Affleck. This was filed by Councilor McGovern but pulled by... Simmons. Would you like to yield?

I will defer to my colleague. I just pulled it to ask to be added.

Councilor McGovern?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I do just want to acknowledge the passing of Chris Affleck. You know, I think to most people who know that name outside of Cambridge just know her as I know her as the mom of Ben and Casey Affleck, which I think she would say is probably her greatest job and most important thing that she accomplished in her life. But she was really so much more than that. and as a teacher in the Cambridge Public Schools for decades at the Tobin, really had an influence over so many young people. She was an activist in a number of different ways I'm going to remember her. You know, I spent as a teenager a lot of time hanging out with her boys in their basements Doing what kids in the 80s did, playing video games and fighting with each other and whatever.

And she was just always gave us enough space to be kids but watched over us enough to make sure we didn't do anything too stupid. and then that relationship grew. I did an internship in her fifth grade classroom at Tobin and then grew into my political life Chris was never one who was afraid to tell you how she felt. So my deepest condolences to Ben and Case, to everybody whose lives she touched. She was a remarkable, remarkable person and I'd be happy to add Councilor Simpson.

And I'll just say these are unanimous about adoption, but adding someone gets them right, puts them second as a sponsor. So we just want to clarify that. That's why... We'll go ahead and add Councilor Simmons as a co-sponsor and do a roll call.

Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes, yes. Council of McGovern? Yes yes. Counselor Nolan? Yes Counselor Simmons? Yes Yes. Counselors Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes Councilor Zusy? Yes Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

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

Councilor Al-Zubi? Flaherty, McGovern, Nolan, Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Resolution number five, as amended is adopted. We'll go to resolution number eight. This is that the Cambridge City Council go on record thanking Michelle Kincaid for her many years of service to the city of Cambridge and wishing her a happy... I pulled this just to say, I'm sure she's watching, but she worked for the city for 28 years. Has worked for Thank you so much for joining us. She's done great work for the city. There is a retirement party for her tomorrow morning that hopefully... is on your calendars and so hope to see you there, but wanted to acknowledge her 28 years. Yes, Councilor Simmons?

I just was curious, Madam Mayor.

Will she be going to retire to the credit union? We will have to ask her tomorrow. Okay. Yeah. I'll reserve that then. Maybe. Running out of room. Thank you, Michelle. We'll go ahead and adopt this resolution making unanimous upon adoption.

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

Resolution number 8 passes. We can go to resolution number 10. This is condolences to the family of Vincent Vince, Lawrence Dixon. This was filed by Councilor Flaherty, pulled by Councilors Simmons. Who would like to be added?

Simmons. Just to say a few words about Vince, but yes, I'd like to be added.

We'll go ahead and add Councilor Simmons first to the resolution and do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Now to speak on the amended resolution. Councilor Simmons?

Yes, thank you. Many of us may have known... A lot of us have known Vince Dixon. He was a unique gentleman. He grew up in Cambridge, lived here for a very, very long time, loved history more than anything. More than you, Mr. Winters are very close to it He was a walking Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

I yield the floor.

Flaherty.

I just second that he was a statesman.

We'll go ahead and adopt the resolution as amended and do a roll call.

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

So that resolution as amended is passed. We'll go to resolution number 12. This is condolences to the family of Corey J. Headley. This was filed by Councilor Flaherty, pulled by Councilors Simmons.

Again I would like to ask to be added to this Corrie was a unique young man, loved by his family. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us. He was a young man, died entirely too soon. This is a fitting way to acknowledge his living, not his death but his living. I yield the floor.

Councillor Flaherty? Corey Headley was a gentleman gone before his time I'm saddened by his loss as is his family and I hope that this passes. I yield.

We're going to add Councilor Simmons as a second co-sponsor for the resolution and do a roll call.

Al-Zubi, yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes! Yes. Counselor McGovern? Yes Counselor Nolan? Yes Councilor Simmons? Yes Yes Counselors Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

And now on the resolution as amended to a roll call.

Al-Zubi, yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes! Yes. Councillor McGovern? Yes Yes. Counselor Nolan? Yes Counselor Simmons? Yes yes. Counselors Sobrinho Wheeler? Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui. Yes and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

We are finished. That resolution as amended is adopted. We're finished with the resolutions. We will now move on to committee reports. We've disposed of a few already. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?

The Brown petition, it's either number six or number eight. It's number six and eight?

No, I think it's just, I The remainder of the committee reports and place them on file. Excuse me? Accept the report. Discussion? Councilor Flaherty? On the Brown petition? Yes, we're pulling that. We're talking about that right now. We have to take the committee reports first. One through four.

Madam Chair, the only thing I wanted to add because I wasn't sure and I wanted adopt any underlying orders. They may not be any. There aren't any. So I just wanted to be sure. Okay, very good.

So we'll go ahead and place one through four, accept these committee reports, and place them on file.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes Councilor Flaherty? Yes Nolan, Councilor Simmons, Councilors Sobrinho-Wheeler, and Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Those four committee reports are accepted and placed on file. We'll go to community report number six. Councilor Sieniewicz-Wheeler, you have the floor.

Thanks Madam Mayor. The Ordinance Committee met to hear the petition and at the ordinance committee meeting, the committee voted to move it forward to the full council with a negative recommendation by I believe that was 7-2 To dispose of the motion, we would need to make a vote to adopt the petition. If you do not want to move forward with the petition, you would vote no. That's how I'll be voting on this is no. We'd make a motion to adopt

So that motion is before us. Discussion? Councilor Flaherty.

I'm going to exercise my charter right on this.

I don't think you can exercise your charter right because it's not new business.

Well, I think I can exercise a charter of iconic on a pending committee report.

It's my understanding that we have not done that. So, I don't think it was a nine negative vote. I think Councilor Flaherty voted in favor of it. My understanding is that you can't exercise your charter right on this. It's not new business.

I'm not sure if that's...

The clerk is checking, but... I mean, I think... I think we don't, I don't think there's a, the vote was taken. It was a negative recommendation so I'm not sure what even exercising HR if it would be permissible what it would do.

Well, I can explain it. I think it's provided for under Robert's rules.

I think the solicitor is... and I are texting right now, so I think I will rule that you can't do it and that we proceed with the vote, Councilor Flaherty, given that it was a majority negative recommendation.

I don't think we can do a committee report based on what the solicitor has told me and what I've done in the past.

I would say we proceed to the vote

Posture, because CDD apparently is prepared to make recommendations that may or Thank you very much. The multifamily housing zoning ordinance so that we don't find ourselves in a position where we're faced with an argument that this is a repetitive petition. For instance, if the Brown petition is voted down and then CDD comes forward with a subsequent petition, is arguably, and I'm not saying that it is, but if it's arguably repetitive then we've boxed ourselves in.

So I think it's important to exercise that, and that's why I'm exercising my charter right on this petition at this moment.

So, Councilor Flaherty, I'm going to rule that this is not a new business so you can't exercise your charter rights. So I would say let's go ahead and proceed to the vote. It's not a

Flaherty, when we asked that question of the city solicitor at the time and she said it would not be a conflict.

And the solicitor has said via text that you cannot exercise your charter right on this.

Right, and with all due respect to the city solicitor, she's not the final word on this?

I am because I'm the chair, so I think for now we should go ahead and proceed to the vote that the motion that Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler made. So clerk can you do a roll call?

No, Vice Mayor Azeem.

No.

No, Councilor Flaherty. No! No, Councillor McGovern. No No, councillor Nolan Simmons, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have nine members recorded in the negative.

The petition is not adopted. Sobrinho-Wheeler moves to place committee report number six on file. To accept the report and place it on file, we'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes, yes. Councilman McGovern? Yes yes. Councillor Nolan? Yes Councillor Simmons? Yes Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Community Report Number 6 is placed on file. We're done with the community reports, so we can go ahead to the two sets of roundtable minutes. Place on file On a motion by Councilor Simmons to place Accept and place these on file from February 2nd and April 6th. We'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes, Councilor Flaherty. Yes. Yes, Councillor McGovern. Yes Yes, councillor Nolan. Yes councillors Simmons. Yes yes, counsellor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes councilor Zusy

Those two reports are accepted and placed on file. We'll move on to communications and reports from other city officers. Pleasure of the City Council. Mayor Siddiqui? Nolan. Number two? Number two, Councilor Nolan pulls number two. Pleasure of the City Council.

Place the other two on file.

We'll go ahead on a motion by Councilor Communications from other city officers, one and three on file. We'll do a roll call.

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

Yes.

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

Communication and reports from other city officers 1 and 3 are placed on file. We'll go to 2. This is a communication from Councilor Nolan submitting proposed amendments to the short-term rental zoning petition. Councilor

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. I did submit this to my colleagues because I will not be able to be at the ordinance committee meeting scheduled for Wednesday, August 19th. This is the short-term rental. The STR ordinance changes are something I've worked on. Thank you very much. One of the main goals is to clarify the situation, but also to have better enforcement. Because as we know more than half of the short-term rentals available in this city Thank you for joining us. One of the proposals, which at least I think one of our colleagues is supportive of, why don't we just have a 90-day... Thank you.

It's not something any operator of an adjacent, so that if you own a two-family and you want to have a short-term rental on the other half. Thank you for joining us. So the goal of the enforcement also is, in my view, if we can get those hundreds of units that are now illegal to not be able Use the short-term rentals. They would have to be returned to the long-term rental market, which would be a net positive for the city. I expect there to be hundreds. And I just wanted my colleagues to know – I did send this as well. I submitted it to the planning board. They are having their meeting on this ordinance change tomorrow. and at the meeting, I don't know how it would unfold but if any of the colleagues based on that want to submit this during the ordinance committee meeting, that's how I would be proposing to vote for it for future. If there's any questions, fine.

But I think it's explained in the communication from other city officers.

Councilor Nolan-Yields, any questions on this before we go ahead and place this on file? Sorry, Councilor Nolan, what was your motion? To refer this to the ordinance committee? Yes, to refer it to the audience committee. On August 19th. So that's the motion before us. We'll do a roll call on that.

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Flaherty? No. No. Councilor McGovern?

Yes.

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

That communication from other and report for other city officer number two has been referred to the ordinance committee on August 19th We are done with those communications. We'll go ahead and do a roll call on suspension to bring those forward.

Councilor Al-Zubi, yes. Vice Mayor Azeem, yes Yes. Council of Flaherty, yes Councilor McGovern, yes Counselor Nolan, yes Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councillor Zusy? Yeah. Yes Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

We are in suspension. There's three late resolutions. First one is a condolences to family of Dorothy, Torturici, you can correct me, Paolo, Councilor Flaherty. You filed it?

Yes.

Would you like to say anything?