Regular City Council Meeting

Good evening, everyone. A quorum of the city council being present. I wanted to call tonight's March 2nd, 2026 regular meeting of the Cambridge City Council to order. The first order of business is a roll call of members present.

Al-Zubi, present. Vice Mayor Azeem, present. Councilor Flaherty, absent. Councilor McGovern, present. Councilor Nolan, Simmons, absent. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Present. Present. Councilor Zusy? Present. Mayor Siddiqui? Present. You have seven members recorded as present and two recorded as absent.

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

Councilor Flaherty.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Per Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, adopted by 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's 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 at cityclerk at cambridgema.gov. We welcome your participation and you can sign up until 6pm.

Please note that the City of Cambridge audio and video records this meeting and makes it available to the public for future viewing. In addition, third parties may also be audio and video recording this meeting. We'll now go to Councilor Simmons.

Present. Present.

Well, we'll now go to public comment. Public comment may be made in accordance with the Massachusetts general laws. Chapter 38, Section 20G in the 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. Given that we have We have 29 speakers who have signed up. Each speaker will have two minutes. So we'll go ahead and start with public comment.

Our first speaker is Arlene Jackson.

Hello? Yes. Good evening. My name is Arlene Jackson. I live at 369 Franklin Street. I am speaking on Charter Right Number 1. I want the City of Cambridge to keep the senior exemption on parking permits. The elimination of the senior exemption is disrespectful to seniors and inconsiderate of the many challenges senior residents face today. In the current economic climate, seniors are dealing with rising costs in several areas, including healthcare, food, and energy costs. For seniors, a vehicle is a lifeline for medical appointments, groceries, caregiving, and maintaining independence and social interactions. An increase from no fee to $75 is a significant budget increase for those on fixed incomes.

I urge the City Council to reconsider the decision to eliminate the senior exemption. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Valerie Bonds.

Thank you. Valerie Barnes, 812 Memorial Drive, Cambridge Port. Removing the senior parking fee exemption impacts many seniors in a bunch of concrete downstream ways that go beyond people are upset. Removing the senior parking fee exemption functions as a mobility tax on fixed income residents with the least flexibility. Seniors have reduced transit elasticity. We cannot simply substitute walking, cycling, or long bus transfers when health fluctuates. This is not about parking convenience. It is about whether Cambridge charges seniors to age in place. Financial harm is real, not symbolic. Many seniors live on fixed incomes with limited ability to absorb new recurring fees. Seniors delay car maintenance, prescriptions, utility costs. Even seniors who can use transit can't often rely on its consistency due to the problems that are affecting our transit system today.

The elimination of the senior parking fee exemption has implications for all senior adults, including those with higher incomes. because the primary adverse effects are related to mobility, safety, and increased administrative burden, not merely the financial costs. our seniors have contributed to the fiscal purse and taxes for a lifetime of 65 years or more let us be clear about what this means this is not a parking adjustment It is a mobility decision affecting roughly 10,000 voting seniors who live in our city. The data shows that only 32% of households already have no vehicles. This is not a car dependent city. Seniors do not keep cars for luxury use. We keep them because of the need. When seniors cannot be expected to navigate annual documentation hurdles to preserve what already has. Because when complexity increases, citations increase.

When citations increase, trust decreases. And when trust decreases, civic participation declines.

Thank you, Valerie. Your time has expired. Please email the remainder of your comments. Our next speaker is Adam Manisher.

You just have to press the button.

Adam Maneker, Dana Street. This is in regards to the parking and also to the policy order redevelopment process. The City Council has three mandates that in implementation create, at least currently, a community-wide conflict. The three mandates, need for housing, improve bike safety, and net zero goals. I support the need to improve all three of these challenges. However, I find the City Council seemingly oblivious or perhaps ideologically driven to the impending reality of parking Armageddon that our community faces in the current plans. We will need places to park cars. Where some of you may live, you may not be subjected to these pressures with the housing that you're allowing to increase in various neighborhoods.

Where I live in mid Cambridge, and I'm fortunate one with off street parking, most of my neighbors will be crushed by the planned sudden increase in housing units without any possibility of parking. The City Council should be embarrassed at this irresponsible and illogical city planning. The City Council should pause all permitting and current slated projects until it implements realistic plans for increased vehicle parking. And I believe this absolutely doesn't need to be as an insurmountable delay in our planning to achieve and meet the three mandates that we all support. Thank you.

Thank you, Adam. Our next speaker is Paula Garvin, followed by Young Kim.

Hello?

Go ahead.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Paula Garving. I reside at Walden Square, 12 Walden Square in the North Cambridge area. I'm here to speak on Charter One regarding parking permits. Councilors, I ask that you please reconsider the proposal of raising the parking permit from 25 to 75 dollars across the board. For everyone, including senior citizens. Hence, totally removing, or should I say, taking away our exemption. I am here today to kindly ask that you please keep the senior exemption in place. Cambridge is rich in many ways, I would say, but there are a lot of wealthy individuals here. However, not everyone residing here is financially capable to absorb this added cost.

Many of us are on a fixed income. This will become very difficult and overwhelming for many of us. Some may question why having a car if you cannot afford the $75. However, this... allows us to maintain our independence. We can take ourselves to the doctor, grocery shopping. We can even take other seniors around. So family members are not always here to help us. So again, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I ask that you please reconsider removing the exemption and take time to think of all your constituents. including senior citizens. Thank you very much and have a pleasant evening.

Thank you, Paula. Our next speaker is Young Kim.

Young Kim, 17 Norris Street, speaking on policy order one, policy order two, and calendar item number one. First, thank you to Councilor Simmons and Councilors Flaherty, Sobrinho-Wheeler, and Zusy for bringing forward Policy Order 1 and 2 to strengthen transparency and fiscal accountability. And thank you to Councilor Simmons and Councilor Aya for introducing amendments to strike the elimination of the senior exemption and for allowing additional time to review. Across all three items, the principle is the same. A governance trifecta if there ever was one. Transparency before action, accountability before appropriation, impact review before implementation. On Policy Order 1, modernization of one meeting should improve usability and compliance.

Last year's open government findings on CAHT posting were a lesson learned. Modernization should mean best practices, not migrating inconsistencies. Policy Order No. 2, the capital budget reconciliation requested is essential. votes authorized spending and borrowing. That requires a consolidated view of what has been authorized, bonded, spent, and committed, not just five-year projection. Finally, on calendar item number one, this is about sequencing before implementing fee increase, permit reductions, or elimination of exemption There should be a published resident-facing impact analysis.

I support asking the city manager to report back on comprehensive parking permit revision options. including impact and service workers coming into the city. Parking scarcity following reason of zoning without... Thank you for your comments. Thank you, Young.

Your time has expired. Our next speaker is Janine Turner-Troring, followed by Donald Summerfield.

Hi, good evening. My name is Janine Turner Trowering. I live at 139 Oxford Street. I'm calling to speak in support of policy order four for the city to look into sidewalk snow removal. In particular, I want to talk about curb cuts. If the city just started with curb cuts, that alone would provide tremendous benefit to pedestrians, especially those with disabilities and people with children and strollers. To be clear, I support doing the sidewalks as well, but while sidewalks can be hit or miss, curb cuts are almost universally terrible. Many properties don't clear them at all, leaving a mountain to climb or forcing people to walk in the street at some intersections. Those that do clear them often don't clear them at the ramp, which means able-bodied pedestrians benefit but not the disabled or those with strollers. Those that do clear them at the ramp often do so before the last pass of plowing when plows pile snow that quickly turns to ice onto the ramps, and often the properties don't or can't revisit the clearing. And even when they are cleared well to the street, the plows might still pile the snow up on the street itself. It's not even clear whose responsibility this would be when it is in the street.

The conscientious residents clear this as well, but it's certainly not universal. The city already does clear some curb cuts on busier thoroughfares like Mass Ave. And thank you to the city workers for this past snowstorm. It makes a big difference to my child walking to school. but the ones that aren't the city's responsibility, those snow piles at curbs will probably also be there for several more weeks. So while curb cuts are not enough on their own, I very much support the city looking into clearing the sidewalks in general but I would encourage you to pay particular attention to the curb cuts. Thank you.

Thank you, Janine. Our next speaker is Donald Summerfield. Donald is not in the Zoom. Our next speaker is Jesse Baer.

Hi, I'm Jesse Baer, 10 Poplar Road. I'm here mostly to talk about policy order number three. I joined Twitter in 2016, almost made it two decades, and I have been off of it for a couple years, but as comms lead at If Not Now Boston, We made the decision last year to discontinue our account there because what we found was that based in our replies we're getting the most heinous anti-semitic I hate that, and we would report it and nothing would happen. Basically, I think that, I refuse to call it Twitter anymore. Some people think that they're pulling something over on Musk by calling it X, but it is not Twitter. It is a toxic dump. And the reason people continue to call it Twitter is because During prior to Musk's purchase, it got a reputation as almost a quasi-public utility.

And by continuing to engage on that platform, which is really no different from Truth Social, we continue to legitimize that and promote the idea that it is what it was. And I think that Cambridge as a city should take a stand and have nothing to do with that. and also cities including Copenhagen, I believe Dublin, Annapolis, Maryland have already done this. I think the National Federation of Teachers has also done it. both of our NPR news stations, NPR news itself, PBS. We're in good company, and I just think it's time. Also, in terms of policy order number four, had a great time shuffling with Councilor Al-Zubi. I also saw the photos of Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. I think it's really great to we need to improve our snow shoveling capacity obviously and it would be great to not have to be relying on people self-organizing, but actually make that official.

So yes, vote on both of those. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Matthew Schreiner. followed by Charles Franklin and Audrey Cunningham.

I'm Matthew Schreiner of 26 Crozer Road. I was part of the crew that was shoveling out crosswalks as well this past weekend. It was a lovely group, including our wonderful two city councilors. If this policy order is about generating some kind of community-volunteered shoveling, I'll be happy to participate. I guess I would briefly speak to Charter Right One and say that I'm also on a fixed income and I, although it's fairly generous, I'm happy to spend the $75 or the $25 if it were reduced or apparently even today if it is reduced to zero. So let me encourage that the price generally go up. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Charles Franklin. Charles is not in the Zoom.

He's in person. Charles Franklin, 162 Hampshire Street. Good evening, council. This is three feet. This is how wide a sidewalk is supposed to be so that people with wheelchairs and other mobility-sensitive devices can use them. You know how many sidewalks I've seen shoveled to three feet after these snowstorms this year from block to block? Zero. We've got to do better. And that's why I support PO number four. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Audrey Cunningham.

Hello. My name is Audrey Cunningham. I live at 49 Gore Street. I'm speaking on Audrey.

Audrey, you have noise in the background. If you have two of the Zooms on, you need to mute one. You can try and unmute yourself and try again.

Can you hear me?

Yes. Can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead. Okay. I'm getting a backlash here. I think many of you probably already got my emails, but even considering a proposal like This shows you have lost all consideration for seniors who live in Cambridge, many all their lives. You have taken away our parking and used millions of our tax dollars to install endless bike lanes to benefit only a select group. many of whom do not even live in Cambridge but just travel through. Where is the fairness? And knowing that seniors have already contributed our tax dollars to selective projects in the city, to use as one of your whereas items Senior residents have previously been exempted at the expense of all Cambridge taxpayers including non-drivers as one of your reasons is outrageous.

and additionally to include as one of your whereases that $75 of the nominal fee for unlimited on-street parking shows further that the basis for your argument is groundless and defies logic as you have already removed so much parking which negatively affects seniors and others. You never considered that drivers, not bikers, are paying excise tax. I and many seniors do not ride a bicycle Yet we've got no discount on our property tax or our excise tax for helping fund those bike lanes. It seems you are blind to the fairness of how certain expenses are shared by Cambridge residents, particularly seniors. I urge you to reconsider this callous proposal. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Paul Stark, followed by Ed Henley.

Good evening. My name is Paul Stark. I reside at 97 Pemberton Street, and I'm here tonight to speak in support of policy order number four. It should be the responsibility of the City of Cambridge to clear all sidewalks in front of residential buildings, not just the sidewalks in front of parks and public buildings. This is both an issue of safety and equity. Many homeowners are not physically able to shovel snow, and the cost of paying for this service can be significant. Those individuals are forced to choose between risking injury or making an unexpected significant payment. and often when homeowners do shovel, the clearing is not wide enough to safely pass. We see un-shoveled or under shoveled sidewalks can be incredibly challenging to navigate, especially for those with strollers or the mobility impaired. The city has the equipment and expertise to best clear the sidewalks. My house abuts a public park.

I have seen the city's bobcat plow the sidewalk in front of the park in under a minute while I'm out there shoveling for over an hour. The bobcat often uses the curb cut on the other side of my house to get off the sidewalk and cross the street. Occasionally, the driver will leave the plow blade down and plow our sidewalk. But more often than not, the driver will lift the blade up and drive over the snow in front of my house, making it even harder for us to shovel. It would actually be less work for the driver to plow the sidewalk in front of our house. The sidewalks belong to the city, not the homeowners. The city is responsible for all other sidewalk maintenance. If the bricks in the sidewalk were coming up, I would not be asked to repair them. Heck, I wouldn't even be allowed to. So why should the homeowner be responsible for shoveling public property? During the last two snowstorms, school was closed for two days each, not because it was snowing on the second day, but partially because of the fact that many sidewalks were impassable.

Thus, poorly shoveled sidewalks are impacting our students' education. I actually submitted the idea as a participatory budget item a few years ago, but it did not advance the ballot because I was told that C-Click fix could be used to report. But that doesn't magically make this happen. Thank you, Paul.

Your time has expired. Please email the remainder of your comments. Our next speaker is Ed Henley followed by Jacob Brown and Evan McKay.

Hi, my name is Ed Henley. I live at 237 Franklin Street in Manning Apartments Senior Housing and belong to Mass Senior Action and Council of Simmons Senior Advisory Committee, speaking in Charter Right Number 1. As a 50-year resident of Cambridge, I came to Cambridge with my spouse when my landlord-boss transferred me from his Somerville building to one of his Cambridge buildings. Maria and I both eventually moved on to other jobs in Cambridge and raised our family here. We had three children and adopted a fourth. Via work in raising a family, we became very involved in what proved to be the great caring and supportive community in Cambridge that was always working to help each other through life's challenges and to bring up children to do the same things. My wife and I were fortunate to be able to remain in Cambridge and continue to be involved in good causes as our children moved to other places. Some have located northward and some southward, but within driving distance, driving being the only real workable way to visit them and the grandchildren. They are busy as parents are and getting them to visit here happens much less often.

My wife passed away a few years ago and I have involved myself in local organizations. I need my car for obvious things. It is ironic that I go out and protest for corporate fair share. for not lowering the state tax rate as pushed by the Mass High Tech Council, thus the lowering of which will result in cutting services for many people retired are working in the many low-wage jobs that are so essential to the community's everyday life, and yet the City Council considers proposals that contribute to making our lives more challenging fiscally. I have a bicycle and almost never use it and probably shouldn't as well I have no idea what the rules around cycling on the roads in Cambridge If the City Council is addressing permits, I would gladly purchase one for my bicycle if they were an accompanying requirement to understand guidelines for proper usage on Cambridge streets. But please don't eliminate my senior exemption for a permit. Added expenses are always a challenge for seniors and the many with similar levels of income.

I thank you for taking into consideration the needs of many Canterbridgeans as you make decisions for the community as a whole.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jacob Brown.

Hello.

Go ahead.

Hi, my name is Jacob Brown, and I live on Magazine Street here in Cambridge. I'm here to talk about two policy orders. First of all, policy order number four would request the city manager to take the first steps to explore a potential Cambridge snow core program. I believe this would be tremendously helpful for the city. It goes a long way having the resources available to clear curb cuts and bus stops after a snowstorm, and I believe prioritizing this would be a huge boost for the city's accessibility during the winter. After last week's snowstorm, as well as the first absolutely massive one this winter, I consistently saw my neighbors struggle with the dilemma of walking in the street and being at risk or fighting through blocked off intersections with strollers, bags, or mobility aids. Prioritizing this would make it easier for our disabled neighbors and our families to navigate the city during all months of the year. Furthermore, creating a Cambridge Snow Corps program would be an investment in Cambridge residents. both by paying workers that would reinvest the money in Cambridge and by supporting the rights of our residents to travel through the city.

Next, policy order number three proposes to direct city departments to discontinue official use of eggs. I used to use that app a lot and one of the key factors that pushed me off of the app was seeing how easily it can be manipulated and viewing that in the overall context of the right-wing takeover of the information environment. Grok, the site's AI client, is transparently manipulated by Elon Musk to remove responses that may appear too progressive to results that are as horrifying as they are ham-fisted. For example, when it unleashed a tirade of racist and anti-Semitic posts, are when it redirected questions about completely unrelated topics to right-wing conspiracy theories about white genocide in South Africa. If Grok can be manipulated so out in the open, what does that say about the priorities of those running the website and what they want to do to the algorithm behind closed doors? This fits into a larger pattern of billionaires using their wealth and influence to alter the information environment. Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post and dramatically reduced its op-ed desk.

David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount, has warped CBS into a Trump mouthpiece and has vowed to do the same for CNN. Leaving X would let Cambridge exercise whatever power it has to fight Elon Musk and the other billionaires.

Thank you, Jacob. Your time has expired. Please email the remainder of your comments. Our next speaker is Evan Mackay.

Hello, hello. Evan MacKay, they, them, theirs. I live on Garden and Linnean in between Porter and Harvard Square. Happy to be here tonight and grateful for the many people in the community, the municipal workers, the neighbors who come together during snow and other weather events. and just want to give public comment in support of accessibility during these times. And this policy order number four is to know what's working well in these moments and where is there more room for improvement. So with gratitude to the work that's already going well, I'm gonna talk about a few places for improvement. and I was out there shoveling snow with some neighbors as we were talking about this together. The first is about the crosswalks and sidewalks. There are many instances where the sidewalk itself is accessible but there's no way to get Thank you for watching. And so this is an important thing.

Additionally, there are a lot of people who use their cars more in the winter and there's a lot of people who use their cars less in the winter because they're worried about losing their parking space at home or they're worried that there won't be parking for them in their destination. and so it's really important that our public transportation and other methods of getting around are also safe and accessible during winter and snow events so the first is on Bus stops and trying to make sure that there is a safe and accessible way to get from where folks are waiting for the bus to where they are boarding or deboarding from the bus itself and sometimes again there are these mountains of snow that people can't traverse over safely and then for folks who are on the bicycles there are these disappearing bike lanes where the bike lane itself will be cleared for a period of time and then all of a sudden it comes to a mountain of snow and it sort of shoots people out Thank you for watching.

and then additionally we need to make sure that there is parking for the bicycles as well. Sometimes not everybody is able to hoist their bike onto the mountain of snow in order to lock up. So just thankful for the policy order and for the small improvements that make a big difference.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Siobhan McDonough, followed by Richard Krushnick.

Shubham McDonough, I live on Walden Street. I am a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and the National Organization of Legal Services Workers, and I'm here to speak in support of Policy Orders 3 and 4. So first on policy order four regarding snow removal, I think it's really fantastic that so many community members were out trying to Thank you for joining us today. need to look beyond what individuals can sort of do on an ad hoc basis. I think the work by Jeevan and Aya and Evan and Jesse and all the other folks who are out there is commendable, but it's That sort of pales in comparison to a city budget and the city's capacity to get these things done. So I think

I fully support this policy order and I hope it results in a real project of municipal snow removal. One way that this has really affected the members of my union So I think this is a relatively common experience. We don't get snow days anymore. For many, many years, if there was bad snow for a day, we'd get a snow day, and we wouldn't have to go to work. We would have some time to shovel things out. and that wouldn't be a huge burden on us. Now we get work from home base. Now we still have to do just as much work. A lot of my colleagues have to watch their kids. And trying to get out and shovel out multiple feet of snow in the middle of that is a really difficult challenge so I think There's a lot of work the city could do around municipal snow removal that would make so many people's lives easier. And then briefly on Policy Order 3 regarding X, I think the stuff that you heard earlier from Jesse and...

the everything around how toxic X is is really important but the other thing I would just mention that hasn't been brought up yet is that like you don't get any traffic there uh X is largely dead for municipalities progressive organizations kind of a useless place too thanks

Thank you. Our next speaker is Richard Krishnick. Richard is not in the Zoom. Our next speaker is Estelle Dish. Estelle, you're unmuted, go ahead.

Hi, okay, I'm here to talk about charter right number one and also policy order four. I support the raising in parking permit fees, but not for seniors. because of fixed income. I suggest wording that encourages those who can comfortably pay the fee to pay it and let the others pay what they can. And as for the shoveling, it would be fabulous if the city could take over some of the sidewalks or all of them. It's to try and walk in the city in this situation for A week or so I was really careful about where I went because you walk a few blocks and you're okay and then suddenly you're in a dangerous situation. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Virginia Fisher. Virginia, you're unmuted. Go ahead.

Hi, thank you. And thanks to the council for taking this comment. My name is Virginia Fisher. I live on Clinton Street and I'm speaking today in favor of policy order four with the sidewalk clearing program. I have been living car-free since I moved to Cambridge in 2004 and have definitely felt the impacts of inconsistent snow removal on the sidewalks, including from the time I had two children. and preschool. A stroller was our primary vehicle to get around town. And really, we lived on Norfolk Street at the time, experienced how much, you know, The sidewalks are the difference between being stuck inside with small kids going stir crazy or being able to go out and do the things you need to do. So I think this is really an important piece of living up to the city's commitment to safe streets by making the streets safe for people with disabilities.

all kinds of vehicles and mobility needs all year round. And I'd also encourage you to consider Policy Order 3 and getting off of the former Twitter. I think that would be an important step. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Jan Donderville, followed by Michelle Malvesti.

Hi. Hi, everyone. My name is Jan Dardenville, and I live at 359 Columbia Street in Cambridge. I'm speaking on policy orders three and four. First, I'd like to voice my support for moving the Cambridge city government off of X. X's lack of proper guardrails, especially around its AI chatbot rock, has made the platform the world's largest producer of non-consensual sexual imagery. and child sexual abuse material. Do we really want Cambridge's official communications to coexist with heinous imagery and reward a billionaire who has done more to harm the Boston metropolitan area's economy than anyone else through his involvement with Doge? I'll just leave that for you. Second, I'm in favor of policy order four, which asks the city manager to explore a potential Cambridge Snow Corps program. I'm a member of Boston Democratic Socialists of America, and during the past blizzard, Our members joined forces to clear sidewalks and bus stops.

What became clear to us is that when there's significant snowfall, we lack the capacity to clear sidewalks as quickly as we need. For instance, near me on Hampshire Street in Columbia, The snow is piled on the curb cuts and forces pedestrians to walk into the bike lanes. I've heard of many people with mobility needs or strollers who can't properly navigate the city. The city should look at models pioneered by New York, Chicago, and Baltimore, among others, to boost our snow removal capacities. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Michelle Malvesti, followed by Susan Markowitz.

Good evening, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Michelle Malvesti. I'm a native of Cambridge, and I just wanted to say I'm Trying to stay in this city. I live in affordable and, you know, water goes up, sewer goes up. There were changes to different types of programs and, you know, what I want to speak on is to remove the senior exemption for residential parking permit program. You know, being a senior and being a member of Alliance of Cambridge Tenants and also, you know, Mass Senior Action, The council has come out of everywhere to get into our tenant council meetings, to show up in our other meetings, knocking on our door. to get our votes because there's no secret that seniors get out and vote and we make a difference.

To make a cut to something when we're on fixed incomes that we have no power, where are we supposed to pluck 50 bucks out of? When everything goes up with shrinkflation and inflation and healthcare and all these other cuts that are taking place from this big bogus bill, How do you expect this? What about the people that are on the streets with these poorly designed bike lanes that are costing lives? Is anyone here? Please raise your hand if you took the time to speak to EMS. The fire department, the police department, the ambulances. Do you know what it's like to sit in traffic and you got your lights on and sirens going on everywhere? And you can't go anywhere to get to that call and you know every second counts. because of these poor designed bike lanes.

It's to the point now people are driving down the street with looks like the front of a locomotive and they got kids in there and it's all lit up and they're taking up the sidewalks and they're taking up the so-called bike lanes and bus lanes. You know, we're all trying to coincide here. But to take away something from senior citizens at a time like this, the way things are and people are trying to survive, it's disgusting.

Our next speaker is Susan Markowitz followed by Mark Truant.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead.

Okay, great. Hi, I'm Susan Markowitz at 20 Oak Street. I'm here to support policy order number 13 to discuss changes to the Cambridge Street zoning at the upcoming ordinance committee about active ground floor use. I really believe that the city should not be writing or passing zoning regulations without resident and business discussion and input. Policy Order 13 is not passed, and I definitely would like to see the Council at least be able to discuss the issues mentioned in the Policy Order at the Ordinance Committee Meeting on Active Ground Floor Use. This seems to me like a repeat of what happened in January when the Cambridge Street petition that was recently passed. Beyond the building heights, we had several other quality of life concerns that we felt had not been discussed.

This policy order includes many of those same concerns that we still have today and we would still like them to be reviewed and discussed and hopefully included in the upcoming petition. We're not saying that they have to be approved at this point. We're just saying that we would like to see them discussed. Thank you. And my husband was unable to talk. Is it possible for him to talk now? He didn't know how to unmute. Hold one second, please.

He was signed up, so I think we can go to him. Okay.

Okay, Richard, go ahead and talk.

Thank you. The option to unmute did not pop up on my computer, so I was unable to unmute. A number of Cambridge Street residents raised the issues listed in this PO during the discussions in December and January about the Cambridge Street zoning. But we were basically ignored completely. There was no discussion essentially about anything except heights. But a lot of residents think these issues are important and should be discussed. Just two examples. Step back at four stories instead of six stories on a street as narrow as Cambridge Street is very important. Labs, as of right, is an issue that a lot of residents are very uncomfortable with. We don't think labs should be as of right.

Two or three other issues we think are important. And we want to use the opportunity of the first floor active use Thank you very much. The opportunity. Very few people even know about this PO. I'm sure there would be more people speaking about it if they knew about it. But as you know, there are a lot of people who are concerned about these issues and would like to have the council at least give some of these issues some discussion. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Mark Truant, followed by O. Robert Sima.

Hi, good evening. Mark Truant, Warren Street in Cambridge. There was a famous modernist architect who said, God is in the details. And then, of course, all the rest of us know that the devil is in the details. So my point here is just to implore you to wisely Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

I know you have lots of things, urgent considerations, but these types of The nuanced details in zoning have really great impact. Our city is one of the oldest cities in the US and it's one of the things that makes it such a wonderful place to live. and what you decide here will have an impact 250 years from now. So please choose wisely. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. Our next speaker is O. Robert Seema, followed by Helen Walker.

Good evening. I'm speaking on... I'm Robert Simha. I live at 303 3rd Street in East Cambridge. I'm speaking this evening on behalf of the East Cambridge Planning Team, the East Cambridge Neighborhood Association, in support of Policy Order 13. At our meeting on February 25th, the Association voted to support the inclusion of additions to the Cambridge Street zoning to reflect the additional provisions proposed in the Policy Order 13. to ensure a healthier and more resilient Cambridge Street. We have worked with the Community Development Department on this matter. and we hope that you'll give us the opportunity to shape the important additional considerations that will make the street continue to make the street a success. We hope you'll support our joint community efforts. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Helen Walker.

Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Helen Walker, 43 Linnian Street. Thank you for the chance to speak in favor of Policy Water 13. When Cambridge Street Zoning becomes before ordinance to discuss promised amendments to incentivize ground floor uses, we ask that the items in the policy order be discussed. The fall-winter discussion of Cambridge street zoning focused mostly on heights to the exclusion of other priorities. It's reasonable that there be a forum for neighborhood concerns. Let's remember that other neighborhood priorities that were included in our Cambridge Street have somehow gotten lost. Our Cambridge Street specifically said there would be a change from no open space to open space required. It said there would be a change from no rear setbacks to rear setbacks required. On laboratories near housing, it said, limit certain types of land use on Cambridge Street. Distinguish types of land to mitigate impacts on Cambridge Street.

On street trees, it said, adding more trees to the street is one of the most common requests from participants. Implementation, adding more seeding trees shade. On front setbacks it said, the planning study recommends a small building setback to create a sidewalk that's at least 12 feet wide. Did this happen? Please ensure that at least some of these promises to the community have thoughtful consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Helen. Our next speaker is Alan Casasa.

Good evening, everyone. Alan Casasa, 97 Chestnut Street, part of the Hastings Square, Lindstrom Field, Moore School area. Born and raised homeowner. Recently fortunate enough to have an opportunity to park off street, but It's been a difficult time trying to park in our own neighborhood. It's just become a place where Too many people are coming in, parking and heading over the bridge, whether it's to work, to school, whatever. and I think that somehow or other there's a great disservice to the city in the way that that is all handled or ignored because we almost never see anybody who'll come by to look at parking passes And I think there's a great deal of revenue that's being lost simply because of it.

How it is some people get some kind of a pass or a permit to put on their dash for a part of a day when they walk across the river and have nothing to do with our neighborhood except convenience. I don't even know that they're contributing anything. They don't even shovel their cars. But I think the harder piece for many of us seniors Our age, obviously, fixed income, obviously, all these things have been spoken about. This is a tough time for people. And to have a consideration of going from zero to $75 is, For many of us who do own a car, we're paying upwards of over $1,000 on insurance and up to or around $1,000 on excise tax just to have the privilege to own a car. And sometimes we can't even get out.

Last week, I think some of you may know, I wrote an email regarding taking a trip up to Main Street towards the Kendall Square area and found it was very difficult to cross the street, but God love him, the bike paths were as clear as day. Perfect. That's just not right. I object to the proposal to raise the fees.

Thank you, Alan. Our next speaker is Dan Totten, followed by Glenna Wyman and James Zoll.

Yes, hi, Dan Totten, 54, Bishop Allen Drive. And I wanted to talk about the voucher program. I was really glad to see the update on the agenda. I'm really thankful that Councilor Al-Zubi and Councilor McGovern shook it loose because a lot of us were under the impression that vouchers had been handed out last September, as was promised, and so It's a little disappointing to see that they didn't actually get going until January, but nonetheless, we're here. And I'm just wondering if there's a little bit more flexibility on... Some of the requirements around it, given that this is not federal money, for example, can we be more flexible with CORI requests or CORI checks? I know that the... The update says that, oh, CHA is administering the program, and so they're doing quarry checks just like they do for everything else.

But I think that the municipal voucher program is an opportunity to be a little bit more flexible Let's say somebody has a low-level drug offense from many years ago, should they be denied housing when we're talking about local dollars that don't have that restriction tied to them? I think maybe not. And so I'm curious... to hear whether that's been thought about at all and whether there's room to do that as we move forward. Also, just a note on the parking permit stuff, there's no bigger of an advocate for raising the parking permit fees overall than me. In fact, witnessed probably three or four different attempts from various city councils to do just that. Most of the previous attempts completely exempted low-income people. I don't think people necessarily realize how painful it can be to have to come up with $25 or $75 when you're living at the poverty level in a city that is so rich.

You can barely put food on the table and then all of a sudden the city comes and says, hey, give me 25 bucks, give me 75 bucks. You can accomplish the goals of this policy order without nickeling and diming the most vulnerable people in our city. Thank you.

Thank you, Dan. Our next speaker is Glenna Wyman followed by James Zoll and Gary Mello.

Thank you, Dan, for your comments too. I am speaking on the parking permit issue as well. I support Councilor Al Zubi's proposal. that would target this for people who are low income. There's many seniors in Cambridge who are wealthy, who are extremely wealthy, and there are ways to accommodate seniors. I have a friend who said I can't believe I get this for free and I get the reduced parking for free just being a senior. She's not anywhere near poor.

The other thing is I support the reduction from four to two individual residents. I do support that. And that is being misrepresented as two per household. It's too... I think that's more than reasonable when you have like a four person household and they could each have two cars. But I really feel it's important to have this subsidy, if you want to call it a subsidy, A lot of us support the schools when we don't have kids. So it's the same thing. We are a commonwealth. So for low-income folks, It's a very big difference to not have to pay something for that.

And I'll submit written comments as well.

Thank you, Glenna. Our next speaker is James Zoll. James is not in the Zoom. Our next speaker is Gary Mello followed by Heather Hoffman.

Good evening, folks. My name is Gary Mello, and I live on Franklin Street. Tonight, I want to comment on Charter Right Number 1. Let's start on a sour note. Boston residents pay nothing for the resident parking permits. The sticker is good till you move or get rid of your car. Previously, two-year no-cost renewals were required, but the city determined that the whole program was a waste of time and money all around. Council proponents for higher fees allege that the administrative costs of the program exceed revenues. So let's focus on the costs. Just how inept an administrator can run a department which spends more than $75 to deliver this to me? I'll answer that. The same inept administrator who sends me not just one, Not just two, but three notices to renew my sticker instead of just putting the damn thing in an envelope saving the city and me huge time and money. The renewal requirement is no more than a make work then make work generating hassle and expense for helpless resident victims.

And what about the resident violation revenue? Where's that money going? I'm tired of hearing the nonsense that carless residents are somehow subsidizing people who must drive. Non-owners are entitled to a visitor's pass bearing the same privileges, cost, and baloney. Now I ask the bike Nazis to chime in. Stop putting the stickers where they obstruct your vision. They belong on the quarter or rear windows for safety, just like Boston. Looking forward to seeing all of you on March 31st at the McCusker Center lobby. Maybe you've got nothing better to do, but all the people in line certainly do.

Thank you, Gary. Our final speaker is Heather Hoffman.

Hello, Heather Hoffman, 213 Hurley Street. Thank Dan Totten for saying more than I possibly could about supportive housing vouchers. Now I don't have to say anything more. With respect to my perennial concern, litigation, I look so forward to hearing about local things like the Ahern case that you had your executive session on and inclusionary zoning. Are you making plans for when you lose? With respect to free expression, I am a huge fan of free expression, as you can imagine. And I hope that counselors will think about whether their bullying of people affects free expression. You've been better recently, but it's still not gone.

With respect to Cambridge Street, you always tell us that public input is so very important, perhaps because you care about public input about as much as those folks in Washington do, which is not at all. So what people before me have said, let us talk about these things that are truly Quality of life issues about Cambridge Street and the people who live around it, including trees and whether they can survive, which are really important. And then finally, transparency. I look so forward to Cambridge's getting agenda material out in a timely fashion and actually looking at the numbers and what it all means

When you are spending ungodly amounts of money, such a contrast between the nickel and dime things on the one hand and the multimillion dollar things on the other.

Thank you. Thank you, Heather. Madam Mayor, that's all who've signed up.

Thank you. That concludes public comment on a motion by Councilor Zuzi to close public comment. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say nay. The ayes have it. Since we're all physically present, we'll do voice votes when possible and not... For appropriations, we'll do roll call still, but for majority, we can do voice votes. So we'll go on to the submission of the record. There are four submissions. the City Council Minutes of October 20, 2025, the Tax Rate Classification Public Meeting of October 20, 2025. There's a city council minutes of October 27, 2025. And there are the city council minutes of November 17, 2025 on a motion by Councilor Simmons. to accept the records and place them on file. All those in favor say aye.

Aye. Those against say nay. The ayes have it. Those minutes are placed on file. There are no reconsiderations. We'll move on to the city manager's agenda. There are nine city manager agenda items. Pleasure of the city council. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Thank you. Number one. Number one. Councilor Nolan pulls number one. Pleasure of the City Council. On any other items? Councilor Zusy. Zuzi is pulling eight and nine. Hearing no one else, we'll do a roll call. Oh, go ahead, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. We've polled number one, eight, and nine.

I think it was just nine that I was trying to pull. Yeah, that's pulled.

So on the balance of two, three, four, five, six, seven, we'll do a roll call.

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

Bounds has adopted. We'll go to city manager agenda item number one. This is transmitting a communication from city manager Yi-An Huang relative to a federal update, including an update on relevant court cases. This was pulled by Councilor Nolan. Councilor Nolan?

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. Unfortunately, every week it seems like we do need an update on some of the federal cases. I pulled this partly because many of these cases have to do with and we have taken some actions in the city to ensure that Our residents are safe and there's been some court cases that we have joined to make sure that federal immigration officials and others are acting within the bounds of our laws. One of the, through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I'd be very interested in hearing and understanding how it is that we are also working with our universities, especially in light of the incident that happened last week where a student at Columbia was through deception taken out of their room. And I know I have communicated some, and I understand with both Harvard and MIT and our universities that There are policies in place to ensure that the kind of strength that we have done with our welcoming cities is also in place there, that we are doing everything we can to protect

I'm not sure if there's any update. from the city on those conversations and making sure that we are doing everything we can and working in conjunction with those institutions to offer our support for them to do everything they can to strengthen their protections. and there may be others they want to talk about, but that was the one I really wanted to hear.

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I thank you for the question, Councilor Nolan, and I certainly feel like what we've seen Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think this case was especially disturbing in terms of the use of explicit deception, federal agents not identifying themselves as federal agents. I think that really speaks to a lot of the breakdown in trust that's happening in local communities, why a lot of these actions are not helping us be safe. And in that case, thankfully, the person was released pretty quickly. We're obviously in close conversation with universities.

One of the tough parts about that incident is if federal agents are willing to use such deception I'm not quite sure how we are meant to proactively respond to that, but I think certainly we are very much wanting people to be in touch with If they hear about those kinds of incidents so that we can follow up and so that we can connect to legal resources, especially because we have seen other people getting whisked away, being pulled out of state. A lot of what we have learned is that getting a habeas petition into a court is really important to happen as quickly as possible. And so we just continue to encourage our community to Stay safe, to be connected, to speak out, and certainly be in contact with the city, with the Cambridge Police Department if they see anything, and then we can help try and respond and connect people with resources.

Nolan. Thanks and are we working directly to ensure that you know the institutions particularly of higher education which are a huge percent of our understand that that is what we expect them to do and to have a strong policy as possible?

through you Mayor Siddiqui, yes.

I'll go to Councilor Al-Zubi and we're going to start with kind of two questions if you have to and then go from there. I'll go to Councilor Al-Zubi and then Vice Mayor Azeem.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for the updates on the federal cases. It's definitely good to have those. And I recognize that Cambridge is a plaintiff in the case with HUD, specifically for the continuum of care. And I saw that we filed an emergency motion on the 17th to dissolve the injunction that is protecting that funding. And it seems like that injunction is the only thing keeping it alive still right now. So if it dissolves before the judgment, the... We have about 250 to 300 households that are going to lose their vouchers later this year. So what's the city's contingency plan if that injunction falls?

City Manager? Go ahead, Deputy City Solicitor.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, to the Councilor, the case you are referring to is NAEH v. HUD. Just to clarify, in that case on February 17, 2026, it was the federal government that filed an emergency motion to dissolve the preliminary injunction. Just by way of background, the city, who was among the plaintiffs in that case, sought the preliminary injunction to ensure that the continuum of care grants would be preserved. And it was the federal government. that filed the emergency motion to dissolve those preliminary injunctions on an emergency expedited basis. On February 23rd, 2026, the plaintiffs filed in opposition.

and in we just learned actually on February 27th that the federal court has denied the federal government's motion to dissolve the preliminary injunctions finding that the plaintiffs continue at which of which the city is a plaintiff continue to face imminent irreparable harm from the upheaval and service gaps caused by the federal government's actions, as well as demonstrating a strong likelihood of success on the merits should the plaintiff's case move forward. So as of right now, the preliminary injunction remains in effect, and the continuum of care grants as of this stage remain secure on the part of the city.

Councilor Al-Zubi? So in the case, I appreciate the responses that you have there and the information. My question is more so towards the city's contingency plan. If we're to see that threat happen, especially considering I have mentioned at a previous budget hearing that topics like this, specifically when the federal administration's doing these kind of things, shouldn't be up for discussion and we need to find ways to support our most vulnerable residents.

Is there a response, city manager?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, you know, I think Councilor Al-Zubi, we've sort of had some of this back and forth. I would say... Well, certainly it's important that we understand we have some level of ability to fill in for federal grants to get pulled. We are one of the plaintiffs in this case and a big part of what we are arguing in court is that A lot of these federal programs are not actually possible to be fully backfilled by state or local resources. And I think that's certainly true when you look at across I think it is really important for us to let the litigation play out and I think some of the harms that we are being clear about in court is that these are vulnerable people in our communities who are being successfully housed right now.

We need the resources the federal government has provided, and we are arguing that they should be continued. So I think at the end of the day, we are prepared to look at all of the different federal grants that are coming in, and if something does end up happening, if a program does end up changing, then we'll certainly be in discussion with the city council about how we might respond. I think it would be premature while we're in litigation to go too far in terms of Zubi.

Yeah, I appreciate the response there. I think that we've seen in these federal cases, especially when it came to SNAP, for example, that the federal administration doesn't really care for some of Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. that the federal government's just deciding to just punish them and our city should be there in support of that. So we'll be looking forward to those conversations. If that's the case, I'll yield.

Vice Mayor Azeem.

Thank you. I just wanted to ask about the Harvard case with Harvard contesting the federal government's revocation of Harvard's ability to enroll foreign students and otherwise prevent foreign students from enrolling at Harvard. I saw that Cambridge's brief in support was filed on January 16th. I was wondering if we could just get a general update on that case?

Deputy City Solicitor?

Thank you. Through you to the counselor. My understanding is that briefing concludes in late April, early May. So we're still sort of in the period where briefing I think briefs are being submitted both in terms of the parties and amici. So I think at this stage, until the briefing period has closed and all briefs in the case have been submitted, We are monitoring that case among other federal cases. To the extent that there are developments, we will certainly update the litigation tracker and update this council on that.

Vice Mayor? Thank you. And then just following up on a point I think Councilor Nolan made earlier, I want to say I was only recently made aware, I think as well, of how detailed immigration enforcement ruses can go in terms of being able to make up a case and scenario of what they're there for and lie about all of that. but also even lie about having a warrant or exactly the type of warrant that would give them access. And so I wonder, this is less about the cases, but just wanted to put up an idea out there of like just sending some of that information perhaps in our quarterly mailer or some other sort of platform just so everyone gets that in case they have any interactions to know that they shouldn't necessarily believe everything that is said by an officer.

Through you Mayor Siddiqui, I think that makes a lot of sense. We can, you know, I think we haven't anticipated that these kinds of tactics would be would be carried out. And so as we're thinking about planning additional Know Your Rights trainings or different ways that we're spreading information, I think that makes a lot of sense that we would provide more guidance to the community in terms of what federal agents can or can't do, the extent to which they can use deception. I think that makes sense. We can have some conversations both between the law department and Sirk, the Commission on Immigrant Rights and Citizenship, and think about how we incorporate that into some of the information we're putting out there.

City Solicitor?

And just to add, the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office have released as well on their end documents Know Your Rights information of their own to the citizens of the Commonwealth. And I believe the Attorney General's guidance also provides examples of To your question, Councilor, that can also be a resource that our residents can look to as provided by the State's Attorney General's Office.

My office will be working with CERC on some upcoming Know Your Rights training, so it's a good suggestion, and so we'll make sure that that's noted. Any other questions from city council on this item? Hearing none, all those in favor of placing city manager agenda item number one on file, say aye.

Aye.

Those against say no. The ayes have it. City Manager agenda item number is placed on file. We'll move on to City Manager agenda item number eight. Transmitting communication from City Manager Ian Huang relative to awaiting report item number 26-13 regarding an update on the establishment of a municipal supportive housing voucher program. Councilor Zusy, you have the floor.

Thank you so much, Chair Siddiqui. I just wanted to say excellent work. So with this funding, we were able to give out $20,000. Vouchers, I think we're investing a million dollars into this, so that's $50,000 per person for the vouchers. I'm thrilled that we've been able to provide these vouchers. I just wanted to remind everyone that I think this came about because of the closing of the Transition Wellness Center. It couldn't be correlated directly, but we wanted to provide more vouchers for people that had been formerly on the street. and the ultimate goal of the program is again to help people transition out of homelessness. So I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for your work.

I think this is a great program. and I think it will be very important to track its success and see how these residents do over time as they've got the comfort of home thank you for your work thank you

Questions? We'll go to Councillor Al-Zubi.

Through you Madam Mayor, I really want to thank you all in the departments for this update on the housing voucher program. I know this is exactly the type of locally funded housing infrastructure that we need. especially as we're seeing federal housing support continue to erode. Just have a few quick questions. Can you speak to how the voucher program uses quarry checks in its screening criteria and specifically Are there opportunities to adopt more limited or targeted standards than federal housing programs require, given that we're not bound by HUD guidelines when spending local dollars?

Sure, through you, Mayor Siddiqui. We, CHA, we have, we are using a lot of what, CHA protocols to begin with, but CHA, and we do run a quarry, however, Something that's a little bit different is that if a CORI is noted then the housing navigator is informed ahead of time so it's a little bit more proactive. There's always been a pretty robust appeal process for anyone in any of CHA's programs if a query does come up. and this makes it just a little bit more, again, proactive and so the housing navigator can work to mitigate the situation.

Al-Zubi. And are we, similarly to that kind of line of reasoning, are we considering easing documentation requirements for what is required during the Section 8 process?

I think it's a little less complicated than the Section 8 process. I think we've really looked at what's needed to get people through as quickly as possible. and so some of the documents that you'd see in a Section 8 process are more complicated than the one we are in now. Councilor Al-Zubi?

Yeah, I appreciate some of this information, because I know that some of these things can be significant barriers for the exact kind of people that we are trying to serve through these kind of programs, and especially those with Longer histories of things like homelessness in our city. So thank you for this update. I yield.

Other questions about this item? Yes, Councilor Flaherty.

Thank you very much for your work and through you, Madam Mayor. I noted in the well-written summary that there was a... a geographic I guess identification of whether or not there are units available in Cambridge but then that the vultures could be used in the contiguous communities of Arlington, Belmont, Boston, Summerville, Watertown. Is there a community network or some sort of group that assists in identifying units available for Section 8 vouchers and housing?

Sure, through you, Madam Siddiqui. The navigators, so each person that receives a voucher is teamed up with one-on-one housing navigator, and they have a lot of contacts. You know, expertise in finding housing for folks. And we really want folks to be able to stay in the Cambridge community because it's, you know, They have a lot of their resources here and their support here. The reason why it is restricted to those five contiguous communities is a typical CHA voucher, a federal voucher, you can use anywhere. And so we can't be supporting folks if they move to California. and also how do we kind of justify that we are paying for someone to move out of state. So that's why we restricted it to those communities. So the navigator would follow folks.

prefer to live in one of those communities or they really can't find something in Cambridge, they would do the same thing that they're doing here. And we do have counterparts in other communities where we can connect to.

Got it.

Thank you.

Council Flaherty?

I do not see any other city councillors who would like to speak on this, so we can go ahead and on a motion by Councillor Flaherty to place city manager agenda item number eight On file, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. City Manager Agenda Item Number 8 is placed on file. We'll move on to City Manager Agenda Item Number 9, transmitting a communication from City Solicitor Megan Baer regarding amendments to the Transfer Fee Home Rule Petition. Zusy, you have the floor, and then I will go to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thank you, Chair Siddiqui. I just wanted to share a question that I'd had that I actually shared with Councilor Flaherty earlier that I'm hoping he'll respond to. My immediate response was, so originally this home rule petition was written so that the seller would pay the transfer fee. which made some sense to me because I figured it was the seller that actually was making a profit from the real estate values that have increased dramatically. And I worried a little bit about the purchaser, the transfer fee being paid by the purchaser, because I questioned whether it would Add to the city's unaffordability. Anyway, but then I talked to Councilor

Flaherty, who I hope will provide his argument for why this makes sense. So I just wanted to introduce that line of thinking because I think it's important that we all have clarity about it.

Flaherty?

Thank you, through you. My position on this, and I would move that we amend the proposed home rule petition which puts the liability for the transfer fee on the buyer for a number of reasons. One, we're already an unaffordable city. We all know that. And if this creates any sort of an obstacle to further reduction of our housing stock, which would result in my view, of two family and three family and even single family homes being sold to developers that would then under the recently enacted multi-family housing zoning ordinance be incentivized to demolish those homes for the sake of constructing four-story apartment buildings with zero affordability.

creating condos which are far beyond what is now overly I think that this may, in some very small way, operate as a bar. and if it serves as a bar to developers buying homes and for the purpose of demolishing them and constructing apartment buildings with zero affordability requirements, then I'm in favor of it. But moreover, If a developer does choose to do that, then the seller shouldn't bear the burden of the liability of the transfer fee, and that can be negotiated between the parties, but it should...

It should rest on the first instance with the buyer, not the seller in my view. I yield.

Deputy City Solicitor, I think it would just be helpful because it's in our packet and you've provided the communication to quickly just walk over Certainly, um,

So the first amendment that was changed was from the first section of Section 1. So the original language that was changed was, there is hereby imposed a real estate transfer fee Equal to 2% of the portion of the purchase price exceeding a million. That language has been amended to there is hereby imposed a real estate transfer fee up to 2% of the portion of the purchase price exceeding $1 million. And that amendment was done to allow flexibility relative to what the transfer fee could be imposed from again in the prior language to a hard requirement of equal to 2% to up to 2% in the amendment to again allow for greater flexibility as to what that fee could be depending on The property in question and other factors.

Additionally in the packet we provided a red line and per the proposed suggested amendment from Councilor Flaherty All references in the proposed home rule petition that reference the seller has been amended in the red line to now reflect the purchaser. You can see through the red line that is included with the packet where the reference to seller has been crossed out and purchaser has been put in place. So those are the amendments that have been included in the packet.

Thank you. I think now what we'll do is entertain a motion to suspend the rules to bring forward the calendar item. And then if it's the will of the body, to take a vote on taking the tabled matter off the table so that we can proceed and dispose of the amendments and then ideally vote to move this forward. So on a motion by Councilor Srebrenia-Wheeler to suspend the rules to bring over the calendar to item number three. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. We haven't done voice votes in a while, so I'm getting the hang of it. Apologies. So we are in suspension. And so right now, is there a motion to take the tabled item off the table?

So on a motion by Councilor Nolan to take the item off the table, we'll just do a roll call so that we know for sure.

Yes.

Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

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

The item is off the table. So now we have everything before us. We have the amendments that were worked on and Councilor Flaherty spoke to and Deputy City Solicitor reviewed with us. So what is the pleasure of the City Council Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I make a motion to ordain the home rule petition. I'd also like to speak to it briefly, if that's all right. This is something I care a lot about as a renter, an advocate for affordable housing, and also someone who worked at a land policy non-profit in Cambridge. A transfer fee is one of the best land policy measures we have around value return, which is the idea that returning a cost, part of the cost of increased property values to everyone who participated in their increase, not just the private property owners, makes sense. Property values in Cambridge have increased dramatically over the past 20, 30, 40 years. I've talked to so many folks when I've knocked doors who bought their house for something like $40,000, $50,000 and and so on.

and so it just makes sense to return a very small portion of that property increase in value to all of us. and it is a very small portion. It is just 2%, two cents on the dollar, only applies to a portion of the property above a million dollars. So this would not apply to any properties below a million dollars. And even for a property that is one million and one dollar, you would just pay two cents on that. Two cents on one million, one dollars. But altogether, this would raise millions more dollars for affordable housing in Cambridge. This home rule petition is important. And just note for any councillors, including discussion about the details, I'm happy to move forward with this version. But the way this ultimately passes, I think, is not our home rule petition getting passed by the legislature. It's by enabling legislation getting passed.

The language of the home rule petition is a little less important here. So with that, I would like to make a motion to ordain. And just a question to the clerk. Do we also need to place calendar three on file?

So what we actually yeah so there are we need to there's a question of the amendments that Councillor Flaherty has on the table so I think He had originally said he had wanted to move these amendments so we have to decide on his amendments first and vote that up or down and then go ahead to the motion to ordain. So does that make sense to folks? Do folks want to speak to the amendments themselves? Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, you said the language doesn't really... Matter. Is that all you'd like to say?

That's fine. I'm happy to move over with the amendments if it allows a more unanimous vote on the underlying home rule.

I have Councilor Al-Zubi and then Councilor Nolan.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I don't necessarily agree with changing the language so that it's on the buyer completely. And I believe that because the seller should hold this cost because oftentimes they're the ones who will be gaining the profit. I think if the buyer piece stays, we would seriously need to consider first time homeowners as an exemption. and my understanding is that Somerville opted to do 1% for the buyer and 1% on the seller and we could explore that. As of right now though, I will be voting no on the amendments because I can't support the up to 2% language change and would want to stay with the full 2% because this is an opportunity for us to help fund more affordable housing opportunities for our residents.

Go to Councilor Nolan and then I'll go to Vice Mayor Azeem.

I'm only talking on the amendment, right? Okay. So I'm happy to support the amendment. The reality is it will be factored into the purchase price. So before I do that, I mean, when you go to buy it, if you're having to, Pay that as a purchaser or as a seller. Essentially, I believe, will just be a factor in the purchase price. But if I'm missing something, Through you if anyone sitting at the staff if the deputy city solicitor city manager or director Cotter have any reason to suggest that we should not make this change and I mean, I'm happy to support it because I do think it'll just end up being reflected in the price. But if I'm not thinking of anything, I would just like to know if there's a counterargument.

Director Cotter?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I agree. I think it would get worked out between the buyer and the seller as part of the transaction. I think the one thing that might be a factor for purchasers in this is how they're funding the closing if they have to finance that amount. in addition to the mortgage to purchase that in down payment. So it may have an impact from that standpoint, you know, from the purchaser standpoint that differ from the seller.

Councilor Nolan.

Yeah, thank you with that. I'm happy to support Councilor Flaherty's motion because I think we need to move this forward. And then after that, I'll have just one quick comment on the underlying petition. Thank you, I yield.

Vice Mayor Azeem.

I think Councilor Nolan stole all my comments, so I'll yield. Thank you.

Other comments? Director Cotter, is there any opinion you have on Councilor Al-Zubi's point around the up to and the equal to?

No, I think through you, Madam Mayor, I think I'd say that that's a policy choice of the council either way. It would be an impact and it would create revenue for the Affordable Housing Trust. So I think that's the question.

Other questions on this? I think I hear Councilor Nolan in that ultimately the legislature will decide what to do, but I do think, to me, I agree with Councilor Al-Zubi in that it would be important to do the equal to versus the up to because it is a difference. Ultimately, the legislature... besides but I think in all the conversations that have come up in the work that's been done on the transfer fee it's I think been it's been that two percent so I'm gonna I think Yes, go ahead.

Councilor Zusy? Yeah, Chair Siddiqui. Maybe this is back to Councilor Nolan, but weren't you recommending changing the language because you thought it was more likely to actually pass as a home rule petition if we change to up to? Thank you.

I'm happy to talk about it, but I thought we have a different amendment before us, which is only about purchaser and seller. We don't have any other amendment before us. We already passed the other amendment at the last meeting. Yes. We passed at the last meeting, which is why we're sitting here.

Just give me a moment. Yeah that's right. Okay, so I think I was reading this incorrectly. So the only amendments that we're voting on today from Flaherty are the ones in the packet around changing from seller to purchaser. I think I've heard everyone once on these, at least whoever wanted to speak. So with that, I would do a roll call on the amendments before us.

Councilor Al-Zubi.

Present.

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

Yes.

SIMMONS, SOBRINO-WHEELER, ZUSY, MAYOR SIDDIKI, AND YOU HAVE EIGHT MEMBERS RECORDED IN THE AFFIRMATIVE AND ONE RECORDED AS PRESENT.

The amendments pass, so we have an amended ordinance before us, a home rule petition, so pleasure of the city council. Yes, Councilor Nolan.

I think I've made comments before. I'm totally thrilled this is before us and to remind us all this is to generate income. The overwhelming bulk when we did analyses in the past of this will come from commercial property transfer, which is in the tens and 50 millions of dollars. So that's for us all to remember that the sooner we get this now, we also know it may be It may be a little bit longer for the state legislature to pass it, but we really should keep trying because it could substantially improve our ability and particularly, again, In this city, it ends up being those larger properties in the commercial that will generate the most income. So I'm happy to talk more about the other, but I think we should happily move forward.

I don't see any other hands up, so what we can do is on Councilor Nolan's motion, actually it was Councilor Zabrino-Wheeler's motion to vote the amended home rule, ordain the home rule, transfer free home rule petition, so we'll do a roll call.

Al-Zubi.

Yes.

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

The amended transfer fee home rule petition is adopted. We will now move to place this agenda item number nine on file on Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler's Motion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say nay. The ayes have it. City Manager Agenda Item Number 9 is placed on file. We're done with the city manager's agenda. We'll now move on to policy orders. Madam Chair. Pleasure of the city councilor, Councilor Simmons.

I'd like to pull policy order number one and two.

Simmons, Polls Policy Number 1 and 2. Pleasure of the City Council.

Mayor Siddiqui.

Yes. Councilor Nolan.

Let's see. number three, and number 13.

We have poll, Councilor Nolan polls number three and number 13. Madam May. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Poll number four. Number four. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler polls number four. Pleasure of the City Council Madam Mayor Yes, Councilor Al-Zubi Policy Order Number 5 Councilor Al-Zubi pulls Policy Order Number 5 And Number 11, please Zusy. And Councilor Zusy pulls number 11.

11.

11. Councilor Flaherty.

I was going to pull number 12, but I don't want to belabor.

Oh, why not?

Yeah.

Would you like to pull it?

Go ahead.

Pull it.

Okay. Please.

So we've pulled number one, two, three, four, five. 11, 12, and 13. And so we'll do a roll call on the balance of 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Councilor Al-Zubi.

Yes.

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

Okay, so we have a lot of policy orders to talk about. It's 7.10 right now, just as a time check. So we'll go to policy order number one.

I'm going to speak slowly and deliberately.

Simmons, you have the floor. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

First, let me just acknowledge my colleagues that co-sponsored this policy order, Councilor Zusy and Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. I'll be very brief. This is actually a reintroduction of a policy order that was adopted toward the end of the last Council term, but for procedural reasons was not carried forward. I believe the underlying goal remains just as important today. As the city has recently transitioned to a new software platform, for managing agendas and remote meeting access. This feels like an especially appropriate moment to revisit this effort. The intent is simple. To improve consistency, transparency, and ease of access, so that residents can more fully understand what is coming before us and meaningfully participate in the decisions we make. This is not about criticism. It's about continuous improvement. Many departments already do this well and this order asks that we build on those strengths and create clearer, more standardized practices across the board.

I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this effort to strengthen public trust and civic engagement. And with that, Madam Chair, I yield the floor.

Would any of the co-sponsors like to speak on this? Hearing none, on a motion by Councilor Simmons to adopt policy order number one. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those against? Say no. The ayes have it. Policy order number one is adopted. We'll move on to policy order number two. This is an order regarding capital budget life cycle reconciliation prior to FY27 approval. Simmons. This was filed by Councilor Simmons, Councilor Zusy, and Councilor Flaherty. I'll go to Councilor Simmons, and I know that there's an amendment for this to be discussed. So, Councilor Simmons.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, I'd like to acknowledge and thank my colleagues, Councilor Susie and Councilor Flaherty for co-sponsoring this policy order with me. Just very briefly, this order is really about one simple idea. Before we take on a new capital project, we should have a clean, consolidated picture of what we're really committed to already. Right now, large projects can stretch over multiple years, appear under different program names, and can be funded in different places. That makes it difficult. It makes it difficult but not impossible, but very difficult to see. to see the financial life cycle of a project in one place. How much have we approved? How much have we borrowed? How much has been spent? How much is still left to go? So as we enter the fiscal 25 capital budget in a tighter fiscal environment, I think it's only responsible that we have the clarity in front of us so that every layer, before we layer on additional commitments.

This is not about slowing projects down or second guessing past decisions, but rather about good stewardship. departments are being asked to find savings and operate carefully. The council should hold itself to the same standard when it comes to major capital investments. All this order asks is for the consolidated reconciliation of our major projects in one place and in plain terms. And that will help us make fully informed decisions. I hope my colleagues will support this effort to strengthen transparency and fiscal responsibility. And with that, Madam Chair, are you on the floor?

We will go to Councilor Zusy. Madam Chair, I just wanted to thank Councilor Simmons for drafting this policy order, and I want to thank Young Kim, who's in the audience, for inspiring this. It's essential that we have an overall sense for how much projects cost. With less revenue, this is more important than ever. We have to know what we're getting into financially and where our resources are going so that we can make better decisions. So it'll be great having this information as we Nolan.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui, and thank you, Councilor Simmons, Zusy, and Flaherty for bringing this forward. As all of us who have gone through a bunch of budget cycles know, there's been continuous improvement given from the community and from the council and the budget. If you read the budget from 10 years ago, and certainly 15 years ago, it would not nearly have the robust, comprehensive information that does. Largely because this council has said we really need more to be done. and there's been improvement in the budget including a huge change in the capital area of the budget. And the intent and spirit of this policy order speaks to much of what I and many others have advocated over the years so I fully support it. We want a full, clear, comprehensive accounting for the large projects, totals as well as year-to-year allocations, appropriations, and changes. The budget book, it does have a capital section which has a lot of information. It includes a list of bonds. There's about 40 pages in the back of the budget book that lays out a range of capital projects.

and yet it is true there's not always a clear accounting that one can point to. So when you go to look up a project, it's like what did it cost? And it's a little hard to discern sometimes from reviewing the budget book. However, there are some amendments that I propose we make to clarify intent, provide some time boundaries, and also give staff the ability to respond with information they view as responsive to the request without being overly strict and restrictive. I have a chance to speak with CFO Spinner this afternoon who very much hopes that the council considers these amendments since I thought it might make it stronger and also be able to get us in a timely manner the information we seek. So the amendments... Should I go through them, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes, please go ahead. Instead of replacing a very specific consolidated capital lifecycle reconciliation, since that's not even defined, so it's not clear what

That would involve, the idea is to have a report for all major capital, so just replace that specific title with a report on all major capital expenditures at or above 15 million, so it keeps all of that in place. It presents the different outlines what it is that would be expected. It is important, I think, to put a timeline in here because it's not clear if this was for the last 20, 30, or time immemorial, you know, from... So the idea was, well, let's go back five years since that would really cover pretty much what it is that I think we're looking at and what we're continuing to do. So that's why it says for the period of FY21 to FY26. and then the ordered also instead of said reconciliation replaces that with report. And the reason also I'm proposing to take out and prior to any vote on additional capital appropriations is that the charter actually requires that the city present a capital budget to the council as part of budget deliberations.

So that needs to be presented by charter requirement that we all passed and then was voted on by the city council. and is now in place. And a vote will have to take place during those discussions. So if this is saying we can't even have a vote without that, I think it would run the danger of contravening the charter. And of course, if the information is not adequate or anyone on this council feels like they cannot support that budget there would that the vote will be here and it could be voted down or it could be voted with an unfavorable recommendation we could do whatever we want but I think these are hopefully my colleagues will see that these are appropriate changes that continue the intent and spirit of this policy order and yet I think can move us forward in a way that the city staff will Nolan Yields.

These amendments are before us. Discussion? I think it's a great policy order. I'm fine with the amendments. I don't think anyone else has anything they'd like to add, so I would say we can go ahead. Nolan, to approve the amendments. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against? So you know the ayes have it. The amendments are before us. We have an amended policy order before us on a motion by Councilor Simmons to adopt The amended policy order. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. The amended policy order is adopted. We now move on to policy order number three.

That the city manager be and hereby is requested to instruct all city departments, boards, commissions, and offices to discontinue All official posting and engagement on X within 60 days and to include an explanation of why the city will no longer use X. This was filed by Councilor Al-Zubi. Nolan. I'll go to Councilor Al-Zubi and then Councilor Nolan.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I am supportive of this specific policy order and excited to co-sponsor with Councilor Nolan and just want to I just want to inform that this came directly from our constituents over the last few weeks. We've been in active conversation with residents about whether the city should take this step and the response has been that people want And our city has had a history of making principled decisions about who we do and don't do business with based on our values. X, under its current ownership right now, has become a platform that actively endangers the people we serve. from immigrants, people of color, people of faith, and queer residents to name a few communities. Its owner has used it to spread disinformation, attack the programs working families depend on, and amplify the voices that we want and Amplify voices that want to see our most vulnerable neighbors harmed.

So I'm excited to co-sponsor this with Councilor Nolan and happy to respond to Jeevan's amendments as well.

Nolan, and then Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, who has amendments.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui, and thank you, Councilor Al-Zubi, for putting this forward. You know, this is always tricky, and before We finalized this language. I know that counselors will be reached out to city staff because what we also want to make sure is that we're not taking away a communication means that a lot of folks use. The whole idea is not to restrict that communication, but to ensure That with the other range of communication we have at our disposal, whether it's emails or other forms of social media, that our residents can continue to be informed. That was important for me. to support this. And I do think at some point we should be establishing a policy as Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler's Zubi said that's been engaged in not only allowing hate speech and content with no guardrails but rampant AI manipulation that has never ever been have all been challenged or monitored.

I will say, having spent an evening at Central Square Theatre, at the amazing Central Square Theatre, the play was The Moderate, and it was about social content, content moderation on social media platforms. and it was so thought provoking and so astonishing to realize how important it was given that play and what it raised in terms of the need for content moderation and the fact that there is no content moderation right now on Twitter. And the emotional impact, not just on the users, but on those content moderators, it was pretty astonishing. And it definitely reaffirmed for me that we should be taking this step in moving forward. and I also appreciate Councilor Al-Zubi and Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler for working together and I support those amendments.

Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Through you, I have a small amendment that I hope is understood to be friendly, and then I'm happy to move forward with the policy order. As the PO notes, Elon Musk has been responsible for some truly terrible things, including his dismantling of federal agencies like USAID, WalletDoge, and welcoming extremists on his platform. I am more than ready for the city to stop using X and frankly, any other product owned by Elon Musk. So I'm supportive of the policy order and come at it from a slightly different angle and want to thank co-sponsors, Councilor Al-Zubi and Councilor Nolan for talking with me about it because it helped clarify my thinking around it. I'm glad to support the policy order and the small amendment I'm introducing is to try to make sure the city's social media policies include clear criteria and metrics for which platforms we choose to engage on. Besides X, there may be other platforms we should stop using. Just for one example, personally, I find Facebook has become pretty much unusable and full of a lot of really racist and awful content. But I'm not really the target demographic for Facebook.

There may be folks who find it a really useful way for engaging with the city. It's not calling for it right now, but that is something we should review, all of our social media platforms. and then on the flip side, the metrics on other social media platforms might indicate we should have accounts on those platforms where we currently do not. Does the city have an official Mastodon account or a Reddit account? Maybe we should. Maybe we already do. And I don't know about it. Really interested to hear this report back from the communications department. And as much as I wish it weren't true, unfortunately, I think most social media platforms are owned and controlled by Super wealthy people who have been willing to open them up for some terrible things. I don't want residents to think we're giving a stamp of approval to Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat and all their Oligarch owners. I think of Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, who after Trump got elected the second time, basically rolled over and said, you know, we're going to stop doing content moderation. We're going to go back to anybody who

wants to post on Facebook, all the racists, all the extremists, you're welcome here. I mean, I'm paraphrasing obviously, but this is what he said. so just don't want to you know by stamp of approval sort of saying like we're continuing to use them those are great platforms because they're not they're also also really uh some problematic folks. But we do need to reach people, even when the platforms they use are owned by pretty awful people. I don't post on X, mostly on Blue Sky these days. I was... Just talking with someone about this, though, over the weekend, and we were both saying, you know, we were mostly posting on Blue Sky, but there's specific things, ironically, like... DSA politics and like specific local election results that for whatever reason the Twitter X algorithm is much better at and there may be other folks right who don't like Facebook and all the terrible racist things that's on a lot of it but find it really helpful for specific things and so we'd having a policy around this just may be helpful. I think also this argument that happened a lot of times

Blue areas like Cambridge reminds me of the time when Bernie Sanders went on Joe Rogan and there were a lot of Democrats who criticized him saying, you know, why are you giving a platform to this this Terrible guy. He said terrible things. He's had really terrible things on his platform. And Senator Sanders went on there because there are a big audience of alienated people who are angry about things. Thank you. Thank you. NPR and Michelle Wu have chosen to leave X. DSA and Zoran Mandani have chosen to keep using X. Respect those decisions, and there's sort of different reasons that go into it. I'm down for the city of Cambridge to stop using X, but just to clarify that I want to stop using it and any other social media platforms that fit our criteria because they're pretty useless and terrible platforms and not just because they're owned by

but Elon Musk just to make sure that we don't let the other awful billionaires off the hook because unfortunately I think a lot of social media platforms are owned by terrible billionaires and just want to be clear about that. As much as I would love to stop doing anything that generates money for all those people as well, the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, I do want to keep engaging with people on social media. There's a phrase that another organizer said to me once. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism. I think you could say that about social media. There's no ethical social media companies under capitalism. Thank you to the co-sponsors and I hope we move forward with these amendments and the underlying policy order. I yield back.

discussion? Councilor Zusy? I appreciate the sentiment of this policy order but I But I wonder if we've engaged Lee Gianetti, the head of our communications team, in the discussion of the policy orders. So maybe... I'll just keep going for a minute and then I'll send this back to Councilor Al-Zubi, but I think it's really important to have a conversation with him because he's an expert in this regard. I'd like to know more about what social media platforms the city is using, which ones he thinks we should be using, because ultimately We've got to figure out the best ways to get information out to the larger population. And I was researching and it sounds like Facebook and YouTube are the most popular social media platforms. So I would hate to...

I would hate not to be able to I just think it would be a good idea to talk with him about this before we decide on how to proceed. So I guess my question back through you, Mayor Siddiqui, to Councilor Al-Zubi, have you had a chance, did you confer with Lee Giannetti about this? Zubi.

Yeah, through you, Madam Mayor. Yes, I've gotten the chance to communicate with Director Lee and he is okay with the policy order. I delivered the policy order directly to him to better understand how he's thinking through communications for the city. and they think that this is also an opportunity to help with how we navigate our communications as a city And on Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler's point, I want to be clear, I don't think we should let other billionaires and their social media platforms slide. I know X has been really explicitly and aggressively working against a lot of different communities and Populations, and especially with what Councilor Nolan talked about, even with Grok, and just the amount of I myself don't use

and I don't really believe that we should be using it and so I hope that my colleagues support this and I will be supporting Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler's amendment as the original decision on X still stands and I think the framing around future criteria helps make it more durable and appreciate that framing.

Other folks who haven't spoken before I go back to Councilor Zusy. Council Flaherty.

Well, through you, Madam Mayor, I applaud the efforts to restrict the use of social media Really, in almost every context, being the father of a 15-year-old, there is damage associated with the content on social media, whether it be X, whether it be Reddit, whether it be Instagram. So I applaud this and I think we should go further than this and it may be something that we take up in a committee hearing and fully vet it and fully discuss it and fully flush it out. So I yield. Thank you.

So we have amendments. Thank you, Councilor Flaherty. We have amendments before us from Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. We'll have to dispose of them before we vote on the policy order. So anyone else would like to speak to? Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem.

Thank you. I'll be supportive of the policy order and the amendment. I think I'm open to trying this out and seeing, and I certainly understand how access has become a worse platform since Elon Musk bought it and just become less useful overall. I will say it's also just a hard time in that, you know, TikTok was recently bought by Larry Ellison and part of that agreement was like Trump posted, now TikTok will be a more conservative platform that Larry Ellison had promised me, right? and so on for Facebook and Instagram. And Mark Zuckerberg has made more of a conservative term as well. And that's just to say that I'm not sure that there's really a great social media platform that is like, led by someone who is left of center in any way and shape and form. And I think that's just the world that we live in. And that doesn't mean that we have to leave every platform because it is a big way to engage.

I think especially the alerts that people post can be really helpful in that if the T isn't working or if there's a fire, just being able to check that really quickly is a very valuable service. At the same time, I think that if we want to try and single out X in particular for a little while and see how that goes, I'm very open to it and we can try it out and see how we feel about it.

Others who haven't spoken before I go back to Councilor Zusy? Councilor Zusy?

I was just going to say that I like Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler's amendment, and part of what I like is providing an update to the City Council on the rationale for which Social media is used to disseminate city information. So I think it would just be nice to get an update from the communications department on how they're communicating with the city, including their use of social media. Thank you.

I think everyone who's spoken has stated something. I'm supportive. I got rid of X a while back. And I'm open to getting more. information about criteria and metrics. So what we'll do is on the amendments from Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler before us, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. The amendments are Adopted. We'll now go on to the adopted policy order. Hearing no one else on this amended policy order on a motion by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler to adopt the policy order, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. The amended policy order is adopted. We'll go on to policy order number four.

that the city manager is requested to confer with the relevant city staff and report back with information as the first step in the exploration of a potential Cambridge Snow Corps program. This is followed by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councilor Nolan, myself, and Councilor Al-Zubi. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, you have the floor.

Thanks Madam Mayor. This year for the first time in a few years we've had multiple snowstorms including one the weekend before last that dropped more than 30 inches of snow on the city. I want to start by really giving a shout out to the Department of Public Works staff who and all the contractors and Cambridge residents who put a ton of time and energy into clearing all this. It was really an all hands on deck experience. Just to talk more about how the city currently operates, the city is responsible for clearing snow from city-owned streets and the sidewalks next to parks, schools, and municipal buildings, as well as curb cuts and crosswalks. With other sidewalks, no clearance is the responsibility of The property owners. And while a lot of these mini sidewalks, bus stops, crosswalks are well cleared 12 hours after the snow stops, some are not. And the patchwork really creates a lot of challenges for Cambridge residents, especially people who use

Thank you for watching. Walk, Massachusetts had a good report on this recently. There was a, including on February 1st, there was a woman in Wareham, Massachusetts, not far from now, who had to go into the road because the sidewalk wasn't clear and she was using a walker and she was struck by a car in the street and was killed. These are life and death issues for folks. Because of that, some cities have been exploring an expansion of their sidewalk snow clearing programs. Boston has proposed the creation of a snow core program which would recruit folks to and many more.

The current city snow programs, the snow exemption program for low-income elderly and disabled homeowners, the student shoveler program, data on a cyclic fix around icy and unsolvable sidewalks, and having that report back as the first step in the exploration of a potential Cambridge snow core program. So I'll yield if anybody else wants to speak and then hope we can move forward this policy order. And I have, I should mention, spoke with the Department of Public Works on this and they had no sort of questions, concerns with moving forward with it and look forward to following up with them about it. You're back.

Councilor Nolan. Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. First, I really think we all can give a shout out to the city. I know it's been challenging. However, I also know directly from seeing other cities' situation with snow the last week Our city was pretty amazing by comparison having been to a number of other places and hearing from friends and even more. And even though some of us were woken up at 2 a.m., myself included, by snow removal efforts at those crosswalks, and we got some folks in the city saying what is going on? How come I'm being woken up? It's because two days after our plows went back and actually removed the sidewalk, the snow, it was a really, And I also know it still was a challenge. There are a lot of people who are on streets where they were not cleared very early. And the reason for this policy order also is for the sidewalks and the crosswalks it's been a challenge. So I recognize both of those. I do think the snow policy removal that we have creates and builds community.

There are neighbors one only sees during snow shoveling season. The Boston program, as I understand it, is not necessary to say the city is going to expand what they commit to cover for free, but to recruit volunteers or to figure out if there's a way to get more people out there. So I think that would be terrific if we did that more systematically here. I also was out shoveling out a couple different neighbors who were in a situation where they were not in a physical position to be able to shovel out their cars. So I support the policy order and note that one of the things we ask for is what is the enforcement then because what some people feel like is they report on C-Click-Fix and then they're supposed to get some somebody's supposed to pay a fine we're not even sure if a fine has ever been collected so that's part of this information request is to understand is the city limited in collecting fines or not I think that's a really important part of this I love the idea of continuing to have property owners responsible for shoveling since I see it as part of civic responsibility and also part of our city responsibilities to make sure those areas we're supposed to be covering do get covered.

and it's also a way for folks if they wanted to to contribute to the public good. So I look forward to the report back on this and for us to all discuss how it is that we can in these intense events really help each other out.

Al-Zubi before I go to... Okay. Councilor McGovern.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you to the sponsors. I I agree with Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler in terms of the difficulty that having unshoveled sidewalks can cause people especially Zubi and I will be chairing a Human Services Committee meeting next week about supports for folks with disabilities in the city and how we take into account how they move around the city and what they need to be successful in the city when we think about housing and infrastructure Playgrounds. And so this is kind of related to that. And then I think certainly for folks who are in wheelchairs or are older, walkers, having untroubled sidewalks pose a significant problem. and that many cities have tried to sort of figure this out.

I don't think anyone's quite figured out a perfect way to do it. From what I can tell, Minneapolis has a system where if someone doesn't shovel their sidewalk and there's a complaint issued with the city, the city will go out and shovel it but then bill the property owner. for the cost. That's interesting. There are issues around... It's certainly around corners when you have these big piles of snow that are difficult for people to maneuver. To shovel that, are you shoveling that into trucks so they can haul it away? You can't just shovel it and disperse it. There's a lot of things to it, but I really appreciate that in this order, this order is asking for data. I'm still not totally convinced about the city taking on all sidewalk shoveling and

you know the price tag that would come to that given you know the situation we're in but I think getting this data back and starting to look at different ways in which we can try and address this We'll go to Vice Mayor Azeem.

Thank you. I was going to say, I think that one of the exciting parts about this potentially as well is that New York was actually able to get back to work a day before us. because everything was settled and plowed faster than it was here. And so I think there's also a trade-off when we're thinking about costs, like there's also a cost to keeping schools closed. You know, people have to taking a day off of work, not being able to get to, and so in some ways I think it'd be interesting to see if there's a way that we can just speed up the process such that it's like a net economic benefit even if the city ends up paying more overall.

Councilor Flaherty.

I want to also, through you, Madam Mayor, congratulate the sponsors on this policy order. Unlike a lot of people, I look forward to the snow, and I hate to say that, but echoing Nolan's comments, it's really the one day that lots of neighbors are out in the street and they see one another and they shovel together and there's a community effort and it builds neighborhoods. I've got a fellow who lives a couple doors down from me his name is Jim McGovern and he looks forward to the snow even more than I do and it's actually It's a relationship-building experience. And I didn't make it all the way up here on Ave to Councilor Nolan's house, but I spent a lot of time shoveling neighbors out and crosswalks and Watts as the fire department came and shoveled out fire hydrants. And it really is... and I know people don't want to hear this but it's one of the greatest things about the city of Cambridge.

We get out in the street and we shovel and we help one another. and we shovel out our neighbors' cars and our neighbors' sidewalks and look after our elderly. And if this policy order incentivizes and encourages young people to get back to walking around the neighborhood with a shovel on their shoulder and shoveling out their neighbors' sidewalks and crosswalks. I'm all for it. I think this is tremendous. and and I think that it goes it takes a step both forward and backwards in time and makes us a better city in a city of of real neighborhoods and real families and we'll all be impacted by this. So I congratulate you and I fully support it.

I was waiting for you, Councilor Flaherty.

What's that?

I was waiting for you that day. Well, had I known, I would have been there.

If you ever want to see something, go out on a snowstorm and see Councilor Flaherty and my father battle who's going to shovel more snow on their neighbor's sidewalks. It's quite the sight to see.

Simmons.

I just wanted to say to Councilor Flynn, I think that was great what you just said. I'll take my camaraderie with coffee in a warm store. Okay, that's it. I yield the floor.

Councilor Zuzi.

I'll just say, I'll support this policy order too. I will say in the good old days, we all were out there on the street. We were all shoveling each other out. I've seen as the city has become more gentrified as people, as couples, both members of the couple have big jobs and don't have time to shovel. I think we've lost something because we used to all be out there. We didn't need to be organized. We just did it. We were digging out the storm drains. We were digging out the fire hydrants. We were digging out the crosswalks. It was just something we did. So if we need to do this in a different way to inspire everybody to work together, I am all for it. Thank you.

Yes, Councilor Nolan, briefly.

Very briefly, to remind everyone, there is, Apollo, you can sign up online for adopting a fire hydrant to shovel it out. It's really, really important because otherwise the fire department goes around the city and really shovels them all out. Go online. And the storm drains as well.

Thank you. So I am happy to be a co-sponsor in this. I do think there are some points made in public comment around how schools would have been open faster. I was involved in some of these Snow calls and the reality is I think we did want to open schools, but the vendors for the buses were like, we can't even get you the buses for the next morning. There's so much snow across the state. So there are a lot of... and other reasons for some of this. But I think this will be helpful data and we'll see where we can go. So I don't see any other hands. We can go ahead and Adopt on a motion by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, policy order number four. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. Policy order number four is adopted.

We'll go on to policy order number five, that the Cambridge City Council supports House Bill H-3754 and Senate Bill 2344, an act relative to traffic regulation using road safety cameras, and that the city manager be in hereby is requested to work with relevant departments to review the state bill's reference as well. as the previously filed home rule petitions and prepare a new home rule petition that would allow Cambridge to install and operate cameras to enforce Redlight, Speeding, and other moving violations as outlined in House bills and the prior home rule. This was filed by Councilor Nolan, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, myself, and Councilor McGovern. Before I go to Councilor Al-Zubi, who pulled it, I'll go to the lead sponsor, Councilor Nolan.

Thank you Mayor Siddiqui and thank you to all the co-sponsors and also to the folks at the state who are working on this and folks throughout the city. This really is about allowing us to use our cameras on traffic lights this is something also so folks who don't know we have passed as is listed in the policy order a number of policy orders supporting this this is something the ACLU has reviewed and has said that They do support these now because we have a really strong surveillance ordinance. And what it does is would take the police out of some of the traffic stops. There is a state law that passed that allowed very narrow exceptions that right now I think buses can issue those tickets, but we are not allowed to use cameras to issue traffic violations in the city as of now. And this home rule would allow us to do that. It helps the officers on the streets also not have to be involved in those traffic stops, which we know sometimes those traffic stops then lead to further altercations.

which are not healthy for the city so that's what this does is there is a state bill in place where if that passes our home rule will become moot but I did talk to the chief sponsor representative Owens who says it's always helpful to have We've done this a number of times, and I hope that we can move forward on this, support the state legislation, as well as ask our law department to just update

Al-Zubi.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I believe the ACLU specifically is neutral about this specific bill, and I will support it with careful engagement on what this bill could mean. I know that traffic harm falls hard on working class residents as cyclists and pedestrians and we need those tools to address it. However, I do want to note that this specific bill gives cities the option to use automated enforcement and we in the city of Cambridge would require a separate process under our surveillance ordinance. with the full council review, and I think that matters in this conversation. I would ask that the city manager, as this moves forward, that if we pursue implementation that the administrating agency should be the transportation department and not the police department,

because it'll change the character of the program entirely and I think that component addresses the legitimate concerns that have been raised about this potentially becoming a surveillance tool that invades privacy, especially considering the current federal administration use of data. to harm residents rather than a safety tool.

I also have concerns about surveillance in the city and that residents may see this as another assault on their freedoms. I agree that cars go too fast and that we tolerate too much bad traffic. Car driving and bicycling behavior and that it's very dangerous, but I think I'll be voting present tonight just because I'm also concerned about surveillance in the city. Thank you. Anyone who hasn't spoken on this?

Hearing none, I'll go ahead, we'll do a roll call on this one on adopting policy order number five on a motion by Councilor Nolan.

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

Policy order number five is adopted. We will move on and just time check. It's 7.49. So we'll go to policy order number 11, which is recognizing May 14th. At 2026, as MERF2C Awareness Day in the City of Cambridge and directing the City Manager to illuminate City Hall on May 14th, Zusy, you pulled it?

I did, just because I had never heard of MEF2C before. And I guess I wondered, someone must have reached out and encouraged you to submit this policy order. But anyway, it was an opportunity to learn. I learned that, according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders, There are 120 to 150 confirmed cases in the world, or there were in 2024. I understand that there's this organization that advocates for people and families with this rare, rare disease, say there could be as many as 400 people in the world. Anyway, then I was just going down a rabbit hole and apparently there are over 7,000 rare diseases in the world and 80% have a genetic origin.

Anyway, so I appreciate constituents wanting us to have an awareness day for MEF2C, but I understand that research is being done on this disease at Children's Hospital. But anyway, I wondered more about what inspired this. I mean, there are many, many rare diseases We have a lot of special days, so I'd love to just hear from you more about the origins of this policy order.

Sure, sure. So, you know, as you said, I'm no scientist, but this is, you know, around neurodevelopmental disorders. Just like for all building illumination requests, we get you know we get a handful and so as is always practice you put them forward to approve through a vote and so essentially that's just been the practice and we sometimes get you know We get various requests and it's under my discretion and whoever is co-sponsoring to kind of say this is something that we want to signal or point out to. You know, I think that you're right. There are so many different. And, you know, but we actually, there's only, I think, There's specific organizations who specifically do reach out. Some definitely don't.

And so that's kind of how the illumination requests work. Thank you. Any questions on this? We can go ahead on a motion to adopt. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say nay. The ayes have it. This policy order number 11 is adopted. We'll move on to policy order number 12. This is the City Council supporting Senate and House bill and act relative to school libraries. This was filed by Councilor McGovern, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councilor Nolan, and Councilor Azeubi and then pulled by Councilor Flaherty. We'll go to Councilor McGovern first. If he would like to say anything or he can yield.

Yeah, I could yield to Councilor Flaherty. Just real quick, I want to give a thanks to my social work intern, Nathan, A number of us went to the legislative breakfast at the library where these bills were talked about. as ways to protect libraries, free expression, books in general, not just books. that really have come under attack under this presidential administration with a great deal of censorship. And so these are Steve Owens and Representative Steve Owens from Cambridge and other I think we all spoke in support. Madam Mayor, you were there, but you had a school committee retreat, I think, and had to take off. So if you want to join this too, happy to have you.

I think we all heard the urgency in terms of you know standing up for our libraries and and so we filed these in support and we'll send these along hopefully if they pass to our delegation to vote in favor.

Thank you Councillor McGovern, Councillor Flaherty.

Thank you. Through you, I was asking that it be pulled just to be added to this. Libraries are special places. I'm sure everyone in this room knows this. As a child, it was very important for me to have that time A quiet time in a library where I could transport myself around the world by reading. And the more the people read, the more the young people read, the better off we'll be. So I think anything we can do to support and encourage libraries, we should be doing. Thank you. I yield.

We can go ahead and add Councilor Flaherty to the policy order. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say nay. The ayes have it. So we've added Councilor Flaherty. Anyone else who would like to speak on this? Hearing none, on a roll call on a motion by Councilor McGovern to support this policy order, As amended, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. Policy order number 12 as amended is adopted. We'll move on to policy order number 13. This is the discussion of other changes to the Cambridge Street zoning at an upcoming ordinance committee meeting about active ground floor use. This was filed by Councilor Zusy and Councilor Nolan. Councilor Zusy, you have the floor.

Thank you so much, Chair Siddiqui. So we are having a meeting I understand in the next week or two to talk about preserving or creating, ensuring that we have active ground floor use on Cambridge Street, which is a discussion that we committed to when we passed the zoning January 26th. There are many... We've had pre-meetings about... That, how best to ensure that we have active ground floor use. So I feel like that will be a short discussion when we do meet. So I'm hoping we can use that time that we're together to talk about some other things that I really wish had been discussed before we passed the Cambridge Street zoning. I realize that there was a rush.

It was delayed until January so that the new councilors could be part of the vote. and because there was such an outpouring of concern about the zoning from neighbors around Inman and the general neighborhood, But anyway, I just want to make sure it seems like most efficient for us to be discussing some other things that the neighbors have been concerned with at the same time that we're meeting to talk about the active ground floor use. I don't anticipate that there will be support for all of these things on this list. I think there certainly should be discussion within the chamber of the idea of setbacks so that we have sidewalks that can support tree life. Step back so that we don't have shadows on this east-west road and that the road doesn't become a canyon. The whole idea of wet labs.

Neighbors were very concerned about having chemical, biological labs on Cambridge Street. They're really eager for more pocket parks. They want there to be more open space. So I don't think that this will require more work from CDD. I just think discussing these things actually should have in the best of all possible worlds happened before we passed the Cambridge Street zoning. So anyway, so I am encouraging us to discuss them when we meet in the next week or two so that at least there will be discussion of them on the floor. I understand the need and the eagerness for all of us to amend the zoning to ensure that we'll continue to have active ground floor uses on Cambridge Street.

I want that to happen, and I don't want to stymie that happening. but I think there will be plenty of time in a two-hour meeting for us to be discussing some of these other issues as well and I think it will make for a better Cambridge Street. Thank you.

Nolan, then Councilor McGovern.

Thank you. I just want to make a few points about this policy order. One, I fully support the compromise we recently passed on Cambridge Street zoning. In my understanding, this policy order is not to relitigate that per se, but rather to include new ideas in the conversation being scheduled in ordinance regarding the first floor retail on Cambridge Street. So I know there's been some question about that. And as I told Councilor Zusy when she asked if I would consider supporting this, I don't support every idea in this policy order, and I will not support changes that might restrict development over current zoning. I do support my colleagues intent to discuss these issues because some of them have not been fully discussed about related to Cambridge Street development and issues like wet labs which were really never discussed as part of the last zoning petition. So that is why I thought I'm always in favor of some open discussion and also to let the public know we're aware of these issues because they have been raised. Just by putting it out there means, okay, we know some people have asked questions. It doesn't mean we're going to do anything that some people will like, but at least we know that we have been listening.

And by submitting the order now, it does give some community notice and councillors time to prepare for that discussion. And also I will note and build on what Councillor Zusy said is I certainly don't expect the staff to have to do any additional work to prepare. The staff could provide context or recommendations on items just with what they already know and hopefully we could move through each point relatively quickly to determine if the ideas have merit and support on the council. So I just thought it was really important to set the record on this policy order. Thank you. Mayor Siddiqui, I yield.

We'll go to Councilor McGovern.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I want to include my co-chair of the Ordinance Committee because we did meet on this. There is a meeting coming up. The meeting is specifically, the call of the meeting is specifically about ground floor retail. It's about Mass Ave. as well as about Cambridge Street. CDD, and Assistant Manager Melissa Peters is on Zoom and I'd like her to be part of this conversation. There are different options to address ground floor retail with different levels of implication as to what that would do with zoning. It is not a simple conversation. That is the call of that meeting. to have a policy order with seven bullet points including that CDD produce an annual report of the impact of new zoning and dealing and detailing how many housing units. I mean, this... This is going to create a great deal of work for CDD to do this by a meeting that we're hoping to have next week.

You know, I view it as yet these are a lot of things that, you know, this is kind of like reopening the zoning that we already passed. I mean, this passed three weeks ago, a month ago. I have some questions about relitigating Cambridge Street after we just voted for it, but I just want to say, as co-chairs who are trying to schedule this meeting in ordinance, We had a long meeting with CDD. We went through a presentation with CDD. I think the meeting that is coming up needs to remain specifically about ground floor retail and the implications of that. At that meeting, they're going to make, and Assistant Manager Peters can clarify, they're going to present us with a couple different options that we may We may support one of those options at that meeting and move them forward. We may have to have a second meeting if there are further questions.

So I don't think adding to that meeting you know that we're that we're having next week is really appropriate I wish I It was asked about that before the policy order was filed so that as the co-chairs who schedule these meetings and set the agenda, it would have been nice to know that this was coming. But I think we're going to... I think for next week it's going to be a pretty full agenda anyway so I don't think this is appropriate for that meeting but I'd like to hear from Ms. Peters.

We'll go to Assistant City Manager Peters.

Great. Thanks to you, Mayor Siddiqui. Just to confirm, we are always happy to revisit policy of the will of the council, but I just wanted to make a clarification that All of these items have been discussed or they may not have been explicitly discussed at the recent council zoning process. They were discussed at length in our Cambridge Street planning study and for various reasons, different policy trade-offs were made. If there are things that the council wants to discuss again, we're happy to bring that up. I do think Some of these will be more time intensive and we'll have to discuss what else on our housing and zoning work plan. We'll have to get shifted if this were to become a priority.

and I do think that the active ground floor use discussion is probably gonna take much longer than a half hour. It's more complicated than just a yes or no.

We have a few people who would like to talk. Councilor Al-Zubi, Vice Mayor Azeem, and then I have Councilor Flaherty, and then Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Councilor Al-Zubi.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would love to check back in on this next week after more understanding from the community on what this would mean for them. So I will go ahead and exercise my charter rights.

Councilor Al-Zubi exercises her charter right on the policy order. We are done with policy orders. We will now move on to the calendar. We have two items under the charter right. So we can go ahead to the first item. This is that the city managers requested to work with relevant city departments to raise the fee of the parking permit program for all residents. to $75. Consider how to include a self-identified check of option as to not increase administrative costs for a subsidized fee of $25 for residents who live in affordable housing are enrolled in a program such as SNAP and or are low income, remove the senior exemption. for the residential parking permit program and lower the number of cars that an individual residents are allowed to get a residential parking permit for from four to two.

Charter right was exercised by Councilor Simmons on February 9th. And so I will first go to the lead sponsor and then we'll go to Councilor Simmons. There's a lot of, that's the practice. Is it in the rules? There's a lot of... I think folks have amendments, but... And I want to on this topic, I'm sure there's a lot to say, but be mindful if you can keep your comments under five minutes, it's 8.06, that would be appreciated. So, Councilor Nolan.

I have to speed talk. Madam Chair, very quickly, I just want to please register my, I question the ruling of the chair on this one.

Okay. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Thank you. Yes. The goal of this policy order to remind people is to cover our costs. This is We are not by law allowed to have a tax. A tax would mean we're charging fees above and beyond what it actually costs us. Some people said, That's what the city has told us it costs. So I just want to be really clear that every single resident who's a car owner who pays less than $75 is being subsidized. That money the city has to pay means there's less money for other uses within the city. And I want to note this PO is not about bike lanes or cyclists. Most cyclists own cars, and this would affect them as well. So I know there's some concern. They don't pay those taxes. This is really just about the cost it costs us to issue parking permits, which is $75. If about 30,000 of the 40,000 permits pay their full cost, $50 more per permit, that would be about $1.5 million per year that we are currently subsidizing.

No change is mentioned and anticipated for the exemption of handicap placard or the visitor permit for households without a car. Money is very tight for many residents. That is why the proposal is to keep the amount for low income at $25. For low-income seniors, that would be an increase of $2 a month. My sense is that we should not subsidize any car owner fully, and that if you own a car, $2 a month is a reasonable amount to pay for an annual permit if you are low-income. I'd also say that about fiscal responsibility, one to two million dollars every single year, I believe would be better used to subsidize a free city-wide shuttle instead of car owners. and remember every car owner is being subsidized by low-income people in the city and other people in the city who don't own cars. Including, you know, Look, full disclosure, I'm over 65. I paid zero for renewing my car permit this year. That's ridiculous. I should be paying $75. So I hope we do pass this in some form.

I will say what's really great is we got no one saying we shouldn't reduce the number of cars per individual from four to two. There was one person who said, well, what about if I have a college kid? Well, fine, if you have a college kid, You can have a car for you and a car for your college kid. I know my colleagues have some real concerns about how this affects people. I just keep coming back to, I just don't think it's fair or equitable. for people throughout the city, everyone to have to subsidize car owners. And that's what we're currently doing with $75. For me, I would even just vote for 75 for everybody, but I understand that compromise of the $25 for anyone who's low income. making it as easy as possible for people to just do a check off. So I look forward to the conversation and hope that we will be moving this forward. And to remind people, we've had this discussion for many, many years. The council's asked for this, begged for this. voted for this and the city staff hasn't been able to yet do it. I really hope it happens soon.

Nolan-Yields. We'll go to Councilor Simmons.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to offer a few amendments, but before I do that, keeping with my usual standard, As I was thinking about the policy order over the last couple of weeks, one thing that came to my mind, something that was said by the 38th Vice President of the United States, then again by President Carter, and then an iteration of that by Pope Francis, and it reads as follows, the quality of a society, I mean of a civilization, is also judged by how it treats elderly people and by the place it gives them in the community's life. Well, I think I understand the thinking behind the order. I must be direct with my colleagues or colleague about what we're actually doing here. We're being asked to believe that a $75 fee would not be a burden on seniors in particular.

But the seniors that we as a council represent are not abstractions in a budget line. There are people who have lived in the city for decades, who have stayed through every wave of development and displacement and rising cost. And now we are asking them or telling them that one small accommodation this city has made for you is gone. $75 is nominal to some of us. And I think if anybody wants, there's nothing ever stopping anyone from paying more. And in fact, I want to say during Councilor Toomey's tenure, He offered a motion, and I thought we voted on it, that said if you want to pay more, you can. So I wouldn't wear it as a badge saying, oh, I'll pay more, because that was always an option for us to pay more. A higher amount and the fee was $25 at the time. But $75 is nominal to some of us.

It is not nominal to a senior on a fixed income. For them, $75 might be a heating bill, It might be a week of groceries. It might be a copay that they've been putting off. Just recently, I was in Star Market, and the gentleman says, I'm falling behind in my rent because I don't know if I should pay my rent or buy my medication. and here's what troubles me most. We spent two years trying to build a tiered fee structure to protect lower income residents. We couldn't get it done. So instead of solving that problem, we're now simply removing the protection altogether. We couldn't build a system that protects the vulnerable so we decided the vulnerable should go unprotected and what's worse We're being asked to remove this protection without even talking to our seniors. For those of you that have served with me for a while, you'll often hear me say we should talk to the people and not about them. So without running this

by the Council on Aging, without taking this to the folks at the Senior Center, without, you know, during elections, we go to almost every senior building. We didn't do our due diligence on this. We didn't send it to committee to even vet. So I'm sorry, this is simply not good enough. If we genuinely believe, as this order suggests, that most seniors would be happy to pay $75, then let's put that to the test. Don't remove the exemption. and make seniors prove that they deserve it, flip it. Let the seniors who wish to voluntary contribute the $75 opt in. Check a box. I suspect many would step up. At least I'm told that. But the default should not be to strip away a protection and force people to ask for it back. The burden of proof should not fall on our seniors. It should fall on us. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

And let me just, I believe I don't, because Naomi's not here, so she's the person that usually brings this stuff up onto the camera. Do we have it? Would you mind bringing it forward?

Yes, we'll bring it forward.

Thank you. What I'm offering is to amend by removal the fourth whereas, whereas senior residents have previously been exempted for paying the minimum fee for the cost of a parking permit. I'm asking to remove that. I'm also asking in the first ordered second bullet to amend by removal remove the senior exemption for the residential parking program and and then the placing or submitting an ordered So it's an additional, amend by addition order that the city mayor Zubi is hereby requested to work with the relevant city departments to ensure that senior residents remain exempt from being charged for the parking permit fee by default unless they voluntarily self-identified by checking a box on their permit application attesting that the $75 fee would not constitute a financial hardship in which

I think putting the onus on those that can pay more should be put on those that can pay more. I find it Thank you very much. Discounts on housing, proving they're worthy for food stamps, proving that they're worried for reduction in child care, proving they're worthy. And sometimes they just don't want to do that. So I would respectfully ask. that my colleagues support these modest amendments. It's not saying you shouldn't have raised the fee. It's just who you raised the fee on. With that, I yield the floor.

So we will have the discussion before us on these amendments. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, I see Councilor Flaherty.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'll try to be brief. We need to think about this parking permit cost in terms of the subsidy the city is currently giving to residents who own a car. that it's not giving to residents who don't own a car. I talked a little bit about this last time. To rent any private parking space in the city, well over $1,000 a year, at least $100 a month. We're giving that cost to Cambridge residents right now for $25. That's a subsidy of hundreds of dollars, probably thousands of dollars we're giving only to residents who have a car. There are lots of residents who don't have a car who would like us to give them a thousand dollars. We're not doing that. We're only giving it to the car residents. and this proposal would include a self-identified low-income hardship option that would keep the cost at $25 for anyone who identified they could not afford more than that. As Councilor Nolan said, this is not about trying to get people to give up their cars. It's about fairness for low-income residents who do not have cars.

The Transportation Department has said the cost of running the resident program is more than $25 per car. That increase in the cost of permits for residents who afford it is about putting the cost of the car parking in line with the cost of running the program so that other residents don't have to pay for it. We have 44,000 vehicles being stored on Cambridge streets 365 days a year. That is wear and tear on those streets. That is dirt from street cleaning. That is all of those things that those parking spots cause. And we're asking all residents to pay for that right now. I think it's fair to ask the residents who own a car and who can't afford it to pay the actual cost of it. I want to be really clear that with the self-identified hardship option, this would not increase the cost for residents who can afford an additional $50 by one cent. It's not means testing because it's not even asking anyone to prove their means.

Our lowest income residents, especially those residents who do not have cars, should not be footing the bill for the city to maintain tens of thousands of parking spots. because that's what they're doing right now. Everyone is paying for the cost of maintaining those parking spots through their tax dollars whether or not they own a car. That's not economic justice, it's not fair, and fixing that is what this policy order is about. And just briefly on the amendments, I think that the exemption should be based on income and not age. That's the way we do most other programs in the city. Heating program, taxes, tax liens, all based on income, not on age. Example I think about here is the president of Harvard, Alan Garber, who's 71. We're saying he shouldn't have to pay $75 instead of $25? I think that's a clear case where the default should be Alan Garber, who's making millions of dollars each year, should pay $75. This would not raise the cost for low-income seniors at all, and they wouldn't have to provide any more documentation.

The idea that folks would have to prove this, that it would be an additional barrier, it's just not true. Everyone every single year has to reapply for the parking permit, and it would be a box they check. No additional documentation, no additional proof. It's what their folks are doing anyway. It's not any additional steps, not one single one, except checking that box. In terms of the elements, the vast majority of seniors are on Medicare, and it's easier to prove your age than your Medicare status if we were talking about proving things at all. So if we're going to do one of those, I think it would make more sense to do the senior exemption than the Medicare exemption, just because that would be easier to prove. I appreciate the intent behind lowering the cost to $0 for some residents. But while there are some things that I support being free and universal, like public libraries, public schools, public transit, because they are a public good, I'm not advocating for universal or free parking, because parking is not one of those public goods. It is a private good. for private residents who own cars, not for all residents.

The principle in public policy is that when something costs money and is given to folks for free, that cost is actually being passed on to all the residents in the city. In some cases, that's a good thing. Free public school should be paid by everybody, whether or not they have kids. I don't have kids. I am very happy to pay for public school, but I'm not in favor of passing the cost of parking on to all residents because there are Many low-income residents who do not have cars, and those people should not have to pay a cent for those of us who have cars. Cars cost thousands of dollars, in some cases tens of thousands of dollars, and we shouldn't be shifting the cost of parking away from residents who can afford them to residents who do not. So I'm going to support this. I will not be supporting the amendments and yield back. Thank you.

So just so we're all on the same page, we have Councilor Simmons' amendments and then We did get these proposed amendments by Councilor Al-Zubi before. She hasn't formally introduced them, but they were on our desks. I will first go to Councilor Flaherty and then I'll go to Councilor Al-Zubi to speak to her amendments. The way this works is we'll have to dispose of We kind of have to go backwards, and so we'll have to dispose of Councilor Al-Zubi's amendments first, and then go to Councilor Simmons' amendments. But first, I'll go to Councilor Flaherty, and anyone else who'd like to speak.

Madam Mayor, I move to refer the entire matter to committee, the Transportation Committee that I chair with Vice Mayor Azeem for a full hearing of the issues.

So this is another floor motion that's before us to refer the matter to We will have to vote on that first and then go backwards. Does anyone else have a motion to make at this time?

Adjourn?

No, Adjourn, yeah. We're almost there. It's 8.21. Do you want to speak to these?

I had a preference on the order. My suggestion was to dispose of Councilor Simmons' motion first because it would impact how I think we talk about the second motion, understanding how many people are affected by the price change. It was just my

We have to dispose on the order and Councilor Flaherty's motion is the most recent. That was brought to the fore, so we have to dispose of that. That could be yes or no. If it's no, then we go back to the other amendments. So does anyone want to speak to Councilor Flaherty's motion?

Yes. Go ahead, Councilor Simmons. If my colleague moves to send it to committee does not necessarily mean it would stop. It means the final outcome would be, at least under my understanding, and I would defer to the clerk, it does not necessarily cut off debate with my colleague, and I'm not going to speak for him, but I'm speaking for him. Is he saying, I think this should be vetted in committee, which I certainly agree. Now, it certainly could go to committee vetted as amended, but I will yield. to the Clerk, or Robert Winters. I don't think, not my colleagues saying, asking the committee to take the matter to committee, even amended or not amended. It's still in order regardless of where it happens. That's what I believe, but I could be wrong.

So conferring with the clerk, what we could do is go back to Councillor Flaherty and say it probably makes the most sense to figure out what we want referred and to you to What's the word I'm looking for?

He could reserve the right to move it to committee until after the conversation.

Yes. So wait to...

The balance of the conversation. Yes.

Flaherty.

I'm moving to refer to the entire question to the committee. So the balance of the original policy order and amendments for a full hearing and full vetting of all the issues associated with the original policy order. So not that the discussion ends, but the discussion begins as it's fully vetted. That's the intent of my motion to refer it to committee.

Yes, Councilor McGovern.

I was... I would rather do that before voting on any of the amendments and discuss all of these things at a committee meeting because I'm really... First of all, everybody offering amendment, and I got some I could offer too, where trying to do this on the floor and on the fly is probably not the best way to do it. Horne about this, and I agree with my colleague, Councilor Simmons, about seniors, anybody actually, not just seniors, but anyone who is on a fixed income, anyone who is you know, struggling to pay their bills, I do not want to see the fee increase for them. But I also understand that we have a lot of people in our city who

including seniors who could pay, don't need the exemption, right, and get it. For me, this isn't about You know, people who don't drive subsidizing drivers. That's how taxes work, right? That's how things work, right? I pay taxes. I pay federal taxes. I pay taxes. A lot of the money I pay for go to things that I never use, I never personally benefit from. A lot of it goes to things I really disagree with them going towards. You know, look at the war that's going on now. But that's kind of how taxes work. There are people that pay taxes and it goes to bike lanes and they don't ride bikes. There are people who pay taxes that go to support early childhood education and they don't have kids that are in preschool. There are people who pay... Taxes that go to support cars and they don't drive. I mean, that's kind of the ballgame, right?

But for me, this is really about, we are in a tough fiscal time right now. We keep talking about it, and we are running a program that runs about a $2 million deficit. It doesn't even pay for itself. This isn't about making money. This is about just covering costs. And that's where the $75 comes from. But I don't want that $75 to be balanced on the backs of low-income people, including seniors. So I struggle with, I think the wording in this policy order, even as a co-sponsor, I think we messed up a little bit on, I think we could have worked this out differently by saying remove the senior exemption. I think that that got a lot of people thinking that's for all seniors, right? And in the bullet point above where we talked about folks who live in affordable housing, enrolled in programs, we didn't include seniors on a fixed income or

If you're supported by SSI or SSDI. So if I'm a senior looking at this, I don't see myself listed necessarily in the list of exemptions. And then the next bullet says you're going to take my exemption away. Of course people are going to think that it applies to them and I don't think that's really what we meant. So I would, my position was one of two things. Either send this to committee where we can debate all of these amendments and all of these things and have a further discussion. I was even going to suggest just put it back on the table and then let a few people get together and try to reword it in a way. I talked to a bunch of seniors who testified tonight outside. They all agreed. They all said, well, They were talking about seniors on low income, and when we were able to have the conversation, they all said, yeah, seniors who make a million dollars should pay more money. So I just think there's a lot of confusion around this. I don't think we're going to solve it tonight. So either send it to committee and have those discussions or let's table it and let's...

So I think what we should do hearing all of this, what's easiest to do, and this doesn't mean committee hearing can't happen, but... I will take the suggestion on I will make a motion to table this so that and we need to table it it's a non-negotiable non-debatable non-debatable So we have to go straight to the vote and we need five votes to do that. And I'll just say I agree with a lot of what Councillor McGovern has said. I agree with a lot of the intent. and I think but the impact this has had that it's created some questions that I do think we can clarify and do a better job of communicating and making sure that we're all on the same page. So on that, we have to do a roll call.

So you were saying, I was just helping you, I was going to help forward your motion to lay it on the table.

We're going to go ahead and do a roll call on laying this on the table. Yes.

Al-Zubi.

Present.

Present. Vice Mayor Azeem.

Yes.

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

The policy order is laid on the table. We were going to the policy order number two under the charter right, which is that the city manager is requested to work with the city council and relevant city departments on the process by which Cambridge can expand free early childcare offerings, including models for means-tested programming and exploration of non-city funding sources from the state or foundations. The charter right was exercised by Councilor Simmons on that February 9th meeting and is as past practice. We'll go to the lead motion maker, Councilor Nolan. If she yields, we'll go to Councilor Simmons.

Point of order, Madam Chair. Yes, Councilor Simmons, can you state your point? Please be recorded that I object to the ruling of the chair. I yield.

Councilor Nolan. Thank you. So this policy order really is about building on lots of work that we've done over the last Thank you. Thank you. We also control it. We can't control all of poverty, but we can produce and hopefully provide an expansion of our economy. The CPP, the Cambridge Preschool Program, also referred to as UPK, Universal Pre-K. This is a really exciting idea. I know all of us have been really thrilled with some of the rollout. of the Universal. Right now we're serving all four-year-olds and all low-income three-year-olds, and yet we also know eventually we want to get down to zero to three. It's a huge challenge. All this does is say, instead of waiting for a long time, just We're not sure whether we could afford it in the next few years, but the idea is let's get the city started to say this is something we know we want to do.

How is it that we can possibly fit it in the budget? And it just asks the city manager to start working on that. And I know all of us have been wanting to do something very specific and clear to move this forward. So that's the intent of this. I'm grateful for the co-sponsors of Councilor McGovern and you, Mayor Siddiqui. I really hope we can move forward I know there's an amendment on the table I can talk some about that that could be part of the ask I don't think we should I assume that that's the way to do it, to ensure that families remain eligible. I'm not crazy about the language for it, but I can certainly support it because it does provide some information that there's a voluntary self-identification We would always do that. If we're doing means testing, it would be a sliding fee scale. So I think that's already implicit in the policy order, but if we want to make it more explicit, we can. I'm just really excited about the idea of us moving this forward, again, as the policy order lays out.

One of the most exciting things in the whole country was that when New Mexico significantly expanded their childcare services, first through ARPA funding and now through their state budget, tens of thousands of families were moved. out of poverty. So I would really love Cambridge to be a leader, even more of a leader than we are now. Thank you.

Simmons, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I just want to be clear. Again, I'm going to offer a couple of, no, not a couple, just one modest change to this policy order, and I Thank the folks for their thoughtfulness at trying to run a program that is certainly needed, wanted, but does cost quite a bit of money. So I want to just be clear. I support the goal of this order wholeheartedly expanding access to universal free quality child care is one of the most meaningful investments the city can make. but I do have a few fundamental concerns with how the means testing component of this order is structured and I think it matters enormously. The original order opens the door to means testing programming as a way to expand access within a constrained budget. And I understand the fiscal reasoning.

But if we're going to have means testing, we need to be very careful about who bears the burden of navigating it. because in my experience and the experience of countless families that I've spoken with, means testing often becomes a barrier in practice, even when it isn't intended to be one. Families miss deadlines. They don't have the documentation. They feel stigmatized. And the families who need help the most are often the ones least equipped to fight the bureaucratic process to get it. So my amendment just flips the default. Rather than requiring families to prove their quality for free child care, families are enrolled at no cost by default. If a family can genuinely afford to pay, if the cost of the care for child care would not constitute Thank you for watching.

It's a commonsense approach to program design that puts the interests of the people who serve ahead of the administrative convenience. It says, we trust our families. We assume need rather than assuming ability to pay and making people prove otherwise. We have worked for 20 years to get to this moment. Let's not build a program that works beautifully on paper but puts up invisible walls for families who need it most. And I hope my colleagues will support my amendment. The amendment is before you and it says order that in implementing any means test the component of expanded early childhood programming that the city manager be in a hereby is requested to ensure that families remain eligible for the early childhood Child Care by default unless they voluntarily self-identify by checking a box on their application attesting that the cost of child care would not constitute a financial hardship, in which case they shall be charged the applicable fee. I yield.

Simmons has an amendment before us. Discussion? Councilor McGovern.

Thanks, Madam Mayor, through you. I'll support the amendment. I'm not sure I... I agree that this is the best way to go. But I think as we're going to continue this conversation, if we want to throw this into the mix to talk about, we should.

Zusy.

I understand the intention of the amendment, Councilor Simmons, but I don't know that it's necessary since the policy order asks the city manager and his staff to evaluate different models for means testing programming. So I think this policy order would lead to an exploration of Thank you very much. Thank you. It says that the city manager hereby is requested to work with the city council and relevant city departments on the process by which Cambridge can expand Shouldn't it be early childcare offerings? Shouldn't we delete the free?

Because if there's going to be a tiered system, it wouldn't be free for everyone. And then there's another free. Then it says, including models for means-tested programming and exploration of non-city funding Sources from the state or foundations towards the goal of universal. Again, I wonder if free shouldn't be deleted because it would no longer be free for everyone. Quality Child Care for Every Family, and be it further. So I wonder if those two frees should be eliminated. And my larger question is, I think this is a good idea to have the city manager and his staff explore this. I am concerned. I don't know if anybody's talked to Cheryl Olson about this or our early

are leaders in developing the UPK program, but I do worry if we have a tiered system, but I'm assuming that the... Staff and the city manager would report back on this that it could in some way like break the program because the reason that it works is that kids of all income levels participate in the program if there is a If all of a sudden it costs $25,000 or $30,000 to participate in the program, some parents may choose to withdraw from the program. And isn't the success of the program sort of guaranteed by having a great mix of income levels all the kids learning together. So I'm assuming that that would be part of the report back of the city manager and his departments. So again, I...

I understand and appreciate the intention of Councilor Simmons' amendment, but I don't think it's necessary, and I do think we should probably delete those two frees because If we're thinking about a tiered funding system it may not be free for all.

Thank you.

So I know, Councilor Simmons, you'd like to respond to Councilor Zusy.

Just a quick response.

And then anyone who hasn't spoken, I'd like them to speak. Councilor Simmons.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I threw you to my colleague, Councilor Zusy. Means testing often in In the milieu here means, you know, what is your ability to pay? We don't think about, oh, sorry. We don't often think about Flipping it. So if you don't sometimes be very specific, I want you to look at not only can you pay and stratify the cost, Thinking about asking people, I know you can pay and say that you can. So I'm trying to make sure that we don't look through the same lens we always look through. I yield.

Before we go back to Council Member Govan, anyone who hasn't spoken, would they like to speak on Councilor Simmons' amendments? Council Member Govan, go ahead.

It's been a few weeks since we talked about this, but the last time we spoke about it, I mentioned that Those of us who were part of the task force and have been working on this did meet with The early childhood department and with DHSP to talk about The program in general and where the program is going, one of the things that came up was this question of Should it be a means-tested program? Again, it's a similar question. No one is against subsidizing and paying and making the program free. for people who can't afford it. The question is, if someone who earns $5 million a year lives in Cambridge,

should they be getting free preschool when we're talking about wanting to expand it to three-year-olds but we don't have the tax dollars to do that? Is that a way to maybe supplement expanding the program? But issues came up too about, as Councilor Zusy mentioned, was do you then lose certain people, right? You know, one thing that I find is that no matter how much, not that I have a lot of money, but from listening to people, you know, no matter how much money you have, you always think you're strapped, right? So if you're gonna say to somebody, hey, You make $400,000 a year. Do you want free preschool or do you want to pay $40,000? I bet you nobody checks that box that they want to pay $40,000. They'd rather have that money for something else. And so do they drop out? You know, but these are all, no one is suggesting that this is what we're doing or this is where, this was one of a number of things we were talking about.

You know, when you choose a certain preschool, it gives you an upper hand in the lottery for kindergarten for that school when you enter the Cambridge public. Is that fair? There's a lot of things that we're talking about around this program. whether or not we should be charging people who can afford it, and we can set that limit at whatever we want. If you make under a million dollars, you get it for free. Those are all things that are sort of being talked about but before this train gets too far down the track, like this is something we're doing, I just want to remind people that this was just something that was talked about as a possibility. Nobody is saying that this is the way it's going to happen. And it would mean that we have moved away from universal pre-K. We would no longer be a universal pre-K program. We would be a tiered program because it wouldn't be available to everybody regardless of income. We may decide that that makes most sense. But I just wanted to put it in some sort of context.

This is all stuff that's being discussed, but no decisions have been made, and there's problems and benefits to all of it. Thank you, Ben.

And I think to Councilor McGovern's point, just a reminder around, we've talked about expanding, funding expansion sooner, and I think the You know, what we've seen in budget hearings. We have to strategize about financial commitment in the years to come. And so how do we expand and Potentially make that happen and so that's kind of I think the ordered gets to trying to figure out, okay, what are the trade-offs here if we do do that? So I just wanted to get that on the record as well. Yes, Councillor. I will go to Vice Mayor Azeem, if you haven't heard from him, then anyone else before I go back to Councillor Nolan. Vice Mayor?

I will support both the amendment and the policy order underlying it regardless of what happens. I just want to say I totally agree with Councilor McGovern. in that there's a lot of different options that will come before us. We'll have a long discussion. I will say I'm still very skeptical of this tiered approach in that like there's all sorts of other effects as well. Like imagine a family that's making, let's say the cutoff for a free program is 150,000, right? We're being very generous, that's a lot of money. then maybe a family is making 160,000 and they actually feel like because the program is worth $40,000 a year, they would actually be better off if they were instead making $130,000, right? There's all these sorts of complicated effects that come and I really like that there's a lot of buy-in and to try to make this program work because it's standard and simple and everyone can participate in it.

I understand the desire to expand it to everyone and I think that having a slow tax base increase where we can kind of get there feels like to me a more sustainable easy simple reliable approach But we'll have those conversations when we have them. Just wanted to explain why I'm voting the way I am tonight.

Anyone else on the amendments? Councilor Nolan?

Thank you. Just quickly, I will say through you to Councilor Zuzi's point, yes, and there's been meetings happening. to ACM, Seminoff, and also the city manager about this a while ago. We've all mentioned it. Councilor Wilson, when she was here, this has been talked about for a long time. And this doesn't say anything other than It's the only way we can make this happen is means testing. Great. But so I don't want to take out the word free because I think that continues to be a goal. But the answer may be we can't do it for free if you want to expand it quickly, as Mayor Siddiqui said, that this is partly about timing as well. and the whole point of this policy order is to see how we can get to that goal and what the trade-offs might be. Because there's another trade-off to it. Maybe if we make it all free, families will come into the city, flood into the city with preschoolers and then leave

you know take advantage of it and then go somewhere else when their kids are older so it could go both ways that maybe we don't want it to be free for all so those are the kinds of discussions need to happen plus there's the the challenge just administratively how we would do a means testing but I'm really hopeful those address some of the concerns.

Anyone who hasn't spoken before we move on vote on the amendment. No. So we can go ahead. The amendment is before us. We can do a roll call on the amendment.

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

No.

No. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

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

We can now go on to the policy order as amended. Hearing no one on this, on a motion by Councilor Simmons to adopt. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. Zusy is recorded as present. The policy order is adopted as amended. We are done with the Charter Right. It's 846. And we've now moved on to applications and petitions. There's one application. Move to adopt. On a motion by Councillor Simmons to adopt the application. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Folks, you gotta still say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. The application is adopted. We now move on to communications. There are 41 communications on a motion by Councillor Simmons to place these communications all on file.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those against? Say no. The ayes have it. The communications are placed on file. We now move on to resolutions. What is the pleasure of the City Council?

Move the adoption, making them unanimous upon an option.

on Councilor Simmons' motion to adopt all of the 12 resolutions, making them unanimous upon adoption. I'm in the middle of the vote. I'm sorry. So I have to proceed. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Did everyone say aye? Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. The resolutions are adopted making them unanimous upon adoption. We now move on to committee reports.

Madam Mayor.

Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Poll number six.

Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, poll six.

I make a motion to accept and place the, accept the report and place it on file.

We will go ahead and place committee reports one, two, three, four, and five on file. And I know that we have to fix one of those. That's why Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler pulled Number six, so on the balance of placing these committee reports on file, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against? Say no, the ayes have it. The committee reports of the balance are placed on file. We'll go to committee report number six. This was the hearing on the proposed changes to Section 4.50 of the Cambridge Zoning Ordinance to allow as of right in all zoning districts religious and educational uses and childcare uses. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thanks. I want to note that Committee Report 7 is actually part of Committee Report 6 as 6A, but due to the new system, it was given its own number. The city clerk's office is working to fix this problem for the future and make a motion to pass 6A to a second reading.

All those in favor say aye to pass this to a second reading. Aye. What about this side? Aye. Those against say no, the ayes have it. The motion is adopted. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

I think that's it. That's it. Yep.

We have to accept the report.

Okay. Then to accept the report and place on file.

So accepting the report and placing the community report on file. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. The community report is placed on file. There are no roundtable minutes, so we move on to communication from other city officers. And a motion by Councilor Simmons to place Communications from other city officers on file. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. The communications from other city officers are placed on file. Okay, there are no late policy orders. We do have one late resolution, so we can go ahead and... Do a roll call on suspension. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. We are in suspension. There's one late resolution. Councilor Simmons, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to bring forward for consideration and adoption, actually for adoption, one late resolution Acknowledging the passing of Carl Edwards Brown Jr., Deacon Carl Edwards Brown Jr. Many of you may not know him. He grew up in Cambridge, right there on 10 Suffolk Street, went to Cambridge schools. went to the high school, played basketball, went on to the service, served this country, came back and started a family. Many of you know his children, two in particular, Melissa Brown and Todd. Tanya Benzien. I raise this in that we send our sincerest condolences to his wife, Reverend Brenda Ann Brown, Pastor of the Mass Avenue Baptist Church and member of the Black Ministerial Alliance. It was very sad. He became sick and fought the good fight.

But transitioned not that long ago. His funeral will be coming up this weekend. And so I think it very appropriate for this man of Cambridge to be acknowledged. And it's not in his passing, but in his living.

I yield the floor. Flaherty, did you want to say anything?

I'd just like to mention that I share in the condolences to the family, especially his daughter, Tanya. I know how much She loved him and how proud he was of her with every good reason. And this is a devastating loss for the entire family. He was a giant. So I yield.

We can go ahead and do a voice vote. All those in favor of adopting the late resolution say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. The late resolution is adopted. Are there any announcements from the body? Yes, Councilor Zusy.

On tomorrow night at the Lowell School, there will be a love letter to the Lowell School at 6.30. There's also the Central Square demonstration project at 541 Mass Ave tomorrow from 4 to 7 p.m. And then on Saturday, at the Community Arts Center, there will be the Chai Eta Zeta Chapter Fifth Annual Finer Symposium from 9 to 4 p.m., which will include a kids' art workshop. Oh, there'll be a kids' art workshop at Gallery 263. That same day.

Councilor Flaherty.

Could I just ask for unanimous consent to add me to the previously resolution too that was voted upon unanimously?

Angela Perry.

Angela Perry, my next door neighbor. Could I just be added to the resolution?

The vote that we took, because it's unanimous upon adoption, you're already on it.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. We're all on it.

Well, if I wasn't, it would be a big problem in my neighborhood.

No, you are on it, definitely. Any other announcements?

Yes, Councilor Nolan? Super minor, and it's a minor holiday, but it's a joyful one, which is hard in these times. It is Purim tonight, so grager for anybody who's celebrating.

Other announcements? No. We did reschedule the roundtable because of the snow day to Wednesday. So... It's going to be completely virtual, so thank you for those who are able to, can join. And I think that's it for hearings this week. So we'll go ahead on a motion by Councilor Simmons to adjourn. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those against say no. The ayes have it. We are adjourned before 9 o'clock. Thanks, everyone.