Cambridge City Council: Continuity or Change?

With the insistent focus on political controversy in Washington, it is easy to forget Cantabrigian Tip O’Neill’s observation that “all politics is local.” Yet if the 22 candidates for Cambridge City Council this year are any indication, civic engagement may be making a comeback. Although 2017 saw an even greater number of candidates, 26, which might be partially attributable to frustration with the polarization in national politics, another explanation is the popular strength behind progressive causes in this city, and continued efforts to make government more responsive to the community.

On November 5^th voters will decide how well the current council is addressing their needs and concerns, and which of the new candidates are best suited to fill the gap. Of the nine current councilors, only Vice Mayor Jan Devereux will not be seeking re-election, for reasons “personal, not political” according to jandevereux.org. The councilwoman states, “I am very proud of my policy work and my record, and of the positive contributions I’ve made to civic engagement and civil discourse.” Of the remaining eight incumbents, three are currently serving their first term, having won their seats in part due to the call for change that is behind many of this year’s new candidates.

            Perhaps the biggest concern on the agenda, and the one that will have a tremendous impact on who continues to live and vote in the city, is housing. Although of the City Council’s Stated Goals, Goal 1 is to “increase access to affordable housing for all income groups”, many residents, and many of the new candidates, seem to feel that we could, and indeed should, be doing better. Some are long-time Cambridge residents. Others have seen the effects of gentrification elsewhere and are part of a growing national consciousness of the need for social reform, which they seek to bring to the city legislature. Nicola Williams, a new candidate for the council, is specific about the discrepancy between the city’s stated values and actions. “When I say housing that is affordable for all, it is intentional”, Williams told me. “We don’t have a comprehensive housing plan that takes into consideration the range and needs of low and middle income residents.”

            Candidate Ben Simon experienced displacement as a child when his family was forced to move out of Cambridge as a consequence of the end of rent control in the 90’s. This has shaped his determination to be an advocate for the families and communities that are affected by the rising cost of living in Cambridge, which he says is rooted in the profit motive of real estate developers and the cozy relationship they enjoy with some current councilmembers. “Development isn’t just about housing,” Simon told me. When commercial rent-increases drive out local businesses, community space evaporates. Even those whose rent may be subsidized don’t have an affordable grocery store in their neighborhood. “We lose services. Many people are unaware of the social cost.”

            Yet developers are a critical source of revenue for the city, and some who criticize the council’s eagerness to work with developers may not have a concrete agenda for reducing this dependency. Both Simon and Williams, however, told us that Harvard and MIT, along with big tech companies like Microsoft and Google, are not contributing their fair share, while they continue to make tremendous profits in Cambridge. “Harvard and MIT should be contributing $20 million dollars each for housing over the next 5 years”, Williams says, and “Corporations like Google, Phillips, Novartis, Microsoft and Takeda” collectively “should be contributing at least $20 million a year”. This is one of Williams’ proposals to draw revenue, along with a transfer tax for real estate sales over $2 million, a tax on vacant property, and “an option for residents to contribute through a municipal bond that would be invested in housing”.

           

            While not always stated explicitly in their campaign literature, part of the appeal for some of the candidates is the growing concern for representative diversity. Only three out of nine councilors are persons of color, two of which are serving their first term. While Cambridge is two-thirds white, a binary view of diversity fails to address the fact that many ethnic and religious communities are not reflected on the Council. There have been few Hispanic or Asian councilors in recent years. The only Muslim councilor, Sumbul Siddiqui, is currently serving her first term.

Williams, a Cambridge resident and activist for the past 30 years, was born in Jamaica and tells how “the lack of affordable housing, the rampant unaffordability of our city, and the lack of representation and pathways to economic empowerment are negatively impacting communities of color in Cambridge. The African American community has been displaced by 17% within the past decade. Having people in positions of leadership and authority who have and value the lived experiences of people facing racism, sexism, homophobia, and other such oppressive realities, absolutely makes a difference in the way that the city is governed. In Cambridge, there is a leadership vacuum of black, Caribbean and Latinx residents.”

            E. Denise Simmons, currently serving her ninth term on the council, became the nation’s first openly lesbian African-American mayor in 2008. A lifelong Cambridge resident, Simmons has been an advocate for LGBTQ issues, including early advocacy for marriage equality that was well ahead of the trend.

           

            Other issues that do get some mention are traffic safety, which is a growing concern due to the general congestion, dramatic increase in bicycle use and ongoing implementation of new protected or raised bicycle lanes; preservation of small businesses and employment opportunities for residents; environmental impact and a growing concern towards protecting the city’s trees; and municipal or competitive broadband services for residents in a market in which Comcast has a monopoly.

            Voters will decide on the 5^th whose vision will best represent their own needs values, and in another two years we will see who has put their words into legislative results. 

            Good luck to the candidates.  

Elegy for Newbury Comics

            I miss Newbury Comics in Harvard Square. It’s still there; but, I miss how it used to be. As a high school student at Cambridge Rindge & Latin, Newbury Comics was an integral part of my developing identity, what the Germans used to call Bildung. From ’99-’01 the browsing and shopping I did there opened my virgin mind to a wealth of culture and entertainment I may otherwise not have known.

            Back then there was also Tower Records, where you could listen to new CDs before purchase, or sort through the bin of audio cassettes 3/$10; HMV, with their vast selection, including the classical section, in a room behind glass doors where the old maestri could be heard in peace while you sorted through the incredible collection, incomprehensible to an impulsive teenage metalhead; used record shops like Second Coming…

            but Newbury Comics was cool. Even then you could tell it was not-as-cool as it used to be, as the vestigial punk and goth scenes in Harvard Square had already become atavistic, but N.C. still had spiked gauntlets and other miscellania targeted to that leather-and-clothespin crowd. Before I started smoking pot I could invest the earnings from my part-time library job in Pink Floyd posters and Metallica t-shirts. And then of course there was the music.

            I recently tried to do some Christmas shopping there, but literally couldn’t find anything I was searching for. I even had an employee try to look up the CDs I wanted in their database, but absolutely Ø were available in any of their locations in the whole Boston area.

                        Helloween – Keeper of the Seven Keys, pt. 1?

                                    No.

King Crimson – Lizard? (The 2^nd year in a row I tried to find

this for my Dad.)

                                    Nope.

                        Kurtis Blow;

                        Blind Willie McTell – anything?

                                    Nada.

                                    (They did have several other blues musicians whose

name started with Blind. Not helpful.)

            Granted my tastes are not Top 40, or even Top 400. But that’s the point – half of these were albums I first saw in this very store twenty years ago. The kids now can stream anything, of course – but nothing can replace the look and smell of those lyric booklets indicating who played each guitar solo, enumerating the countless thank-you’s and shout-outs that were all basically meaningless except Trey Azagthoth’s thanks to Jimi Hendrix and Beethoven on Morbid Angel’s Domination.

            Then there were the books I bought there – Hell’s Angels, still the best Hunter S. Thompson I’ve ever read, about his time hanging out with the biker gang and the time Allen Ginsberg stopped them from fighting a bunch of hippies, and how they finally beat the shit out of Thompson at the end of the book – Acid Dreams, about MK-Ultra and other horrible CIA experiments that were a waste of perfectly fine drugs. And all the videos; the 2-packs of classical cassette tapes for $1.99 that introduced me to composers like Bach, Mozart, Chopin and Gershwin…but even then they had the bobbing-heads, action figures and Kiss dolls that, along with pot-leaf socks, seem to account for more of their sales than CDs nowadays. They do have lots of records now, as well, one positive change – and I think it’s great that vinyl is coming back, but all these newly-pressed LPs run $20-$30 when you used to be able to find great used records in Harvard Square for eight bucks.

            I guess they still sell a lot of the stuff I mentioned nostalgically. But now as an adult with far less free time than I had then, when I take a moment, reading the Holy Bible, contemplating what this new generation needs, along with my prayers to Jesus & Mary that we all find peace and enlightenment, I can’t help also hoping that at least a few of Cambridge’s kids today will experience something like the wonder I did on purchasing my first Deicide album.

            The more things remain the same, the more they change.

Save Vellucci Plaza

For the past five years I have been thinking, talking and writing about my new community in Inman Square. Two of my chief interests have been the issue of traffic safety and the cultural significance of Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci Community Plaza. I am currently set to wondering whether these priorities are mutually antagonistic, or rather represent a shared goal.

A while ago I heard about the City’s plans to “renovate” the Plaza. Obviously, then, I wasn’t the only one concerned with local traffic safety. There has been at least one bicycle fatality in the recent past, on Cambridge Street, right beside the Plaza’s sidewalk. Without trying to explain away this heart-rending tragedy, it is plain that many drivers are unaware or inconsiderate of cyclists, while at the same time bikers often disregard their own safety and that of pedestrians.

Any solution to these systemic patterns of danger, aggression and uncivility should at least be thoroughly considered. That is the ostensible reasoning behind this Vellucci project. If the end result is in fact a safer neighborhood and a more seamless commute, then the sacrifices incurred may indeed be justifiable. That is my hope, anyway, since the project is already underway and seems most likely to proceed apace.

A considerable group of residents and a small but mostly deep-rooted collection of local businesses are strongly opposed to the plan. A major part of their objection, for some at least, has focused on the removal of the trees providing the Plaza with shade, oxygen and beauty. They have claimed that the removal of trees is not only unethical and ecologically damaging, but is proceeding without concern for the community, democratic principles, legal due process and zoning regulations. A few weeks ago I saw a flier asking people to come to City Hall to support their “moratorium” to halt the tree-cutting. It was scheduled for Noon that day so I went and met some of the people involved in this movement, held signs protesting the tree removal, and learned about the legal case to halt the chainsaws at least for now.

A week or two later the advocates for the trees and the Plaza met with the City Council, and while I was unable to make it, from what I heard it sounded like we had at least bought some time.

Two days later I read my email early in the morning and saw a message from the tree-advocates sent the night before, saying tree cutting was going to take place after all, this very morning! A protest was planned 20 minutes from when I read this so I rushed out to join and hold signs etc…

It was cold and early but their was a comforting solidarity and, if not optimism, at least a sense of stubborn purposefulness as we did our best to get our message across to pedestrians cyclists and drivers en route to work or school. Some of the protestors were excited that the landscapers were not there as scheduled: maybe we had won after all. But the cynic in me suggested they might just be waiting till most of us left after the hour-long protest. I myself had other things to do that morning and left after half an hour. When I made my way home around lunchtime I stopped to take a look and, indeed, they were already cutting trees.

I stayed for a while again, holding signs and talking while breathing in the sawdust. Someone said,

            “We’re living in a fascist city”

Another replied,

                        “If that wasn’t plainly obvious before, it sure is now.”

            These views may seem extreme, but the heart of it to me seems to be the question begged, how can such a purportedly liberal and democratic city so brazenly violate the will of the community without recourse to due process?

            I spoke a little with City Councilor Quinton Zondervan, who voted with the (two-thirds) majority of the Council to approve the project, yet also advocates for the City’s trees, or so he claims. My main question to him was whether he honestly believes the end result will be a safer intersection for all. He said he did. I am inclined to take him at his word, and his reasoning, if not enough to fully convince me, still made sense and appealed to my rational side that this was thought-out and at least had a chance of making the neighborhood safer. If that is the case, I would personally say it will be worth it. Some disagree with my prioritization, to be sure, but also many raise good questions whether this will in fact make the roads safer and not, perhaps, even worse. For his part, Councilor Zondervan told me it was the hardest decision he had had to make so far on the Council, in this his first term. I spoke briefly about other local issues and wished him good luck on his re-election campaign this Fall.

           

            To anyone who would like to learn more, there will be an informational meeting Wednesday (2/13) at 7pm at the First United Presbyterian Church on Cambridge Street, right across from what’s left of Vellucci Plaza. See you there.