City Council - Regular Meeting

AI Generated Transcript

AI Disclaimer: Summaries and transcripts above were created by various AI tools. By their nature, these tools will produce mistakes and inaccuraies. Links to the official meeting recordings are provided for verification. If you find an error, please report it to somervillecivicpulse at gmail dot com.

Meeting Title: City Council - Regular Meeting
City: Cambridge, MA
Date Published: 2025-09-15

Back to all meetings
View Official Recording
View Summary

AI Disclaimer: Summaries and transcripts above were created by various AI tools. By their nature, these tools will produce mistakes and inaccuraies. Links to the official meeting recordings are provided for verification. If you find an error, please report it to somervillecivicpulse at gmail dot com.

Time & Speaker	Transcript
Denise Simmons	Good evening. According to being present, I'll call tonight, September 15th, 2025, regular meeting of the city council to order. The first order of business is a roll call. The member's present. I will turn it over to deputy or interim clerks, Paula Crane.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Azeem. Present. Present. Vice Mayor McGovern. Present. Present. Councillor Nolan. Present. Present. Councillor Siddiqui. Present. Present. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Present. Present. Councillor Toner. Absent. Councilor Wilson? Present. Present. Councilor Zusy?
Catherine Zusy	Present.
SPEAKER_33	Present. Mayor Simmons? Present. Present. You have eight members recorded as present and one recorded as absent. Thank you, Madam Clerk.
Denise Simmons	Please join me and stand if you can in the Pledge of Allegiance and pause for a moment of silence remembering long-term Cambridge resident Joan Whitaker. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Pursuant to chapter two in the acts of 2025 adopted by the Massachusetts General Court and approved by the governor, the city is authorized to use remote participation at meetings of the Cambridge City Council. In addition to having members of this council participate remotely, we have set up a Zoom teleconference for public comment. You can also view the meeting via the city open meeting portal or on the city cable channel 22. To speak during public comment, you must sign up at www.cambridgema.gov backslash public comment. You may also email written comments for the clerk to the city clerk at cityclerk at cambridgema.gov. We welcome your participation, and you can sign up for public comment until 6 p.m. Please note that the City of Cambridge audio and video records the meetings and makes it available for public comment for the public for future viewing. In addition, third parties may be audio and video recording these meetings. We move now to public comment. Public comment may be made in accordance with Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 20G, and City Council Rules 23D and 37. Once you have finished speaking, the next speaker will be called. Individuals are not permitted to allocate the remainder of their time to other speakers. Please state your name and address for the record and the item that you're speaking to. Given that we have 20... 20 speakers who have signed up, each speaker will be given two minutes. With that, I will turn public comment over to Ms. Stephan. Ms. Stephan, the floor is yours.
SPEAKER_28	Thank you. Our first speaker is Julia Schlossman, followed by Michael Grill, then Denise Gilson. Julia, you have two minutes. Please go ahead. Julia, if you can turn the mic on.
Denise Simmons	It's a button at the base, green.
SPEAKER_42	Good evening. My name is Julia Schlossman, and I live at 41 Walker Street. I'm here tonight to speak on policy order three regarding the ICE hotline. I so deeply appreciate the city's commitment to serving its immigrant residents at this awful time. Regarding the order itself, I would request that the council amend it to include the Cambridge public schools. We can't talk about family separation without talking about kids. Ideally, the hotline should complement rather than duplicate existing hotlines and rapid response efforts such as Lucy. Of course, city staff are uniquely positioned to know what municipal services exist to support families in crisis. Obviously, off-hours hotlines are intended to triage, but I hope that the city manager and all stakeholders take this as an opportunity not just to figure out how to address emergent needs like locating a loved one in the ice system, but to think through its response during the day and to think comprehensively about downstream effects such as housing instability or food insecurity caused by the loss of a breadwinner. When the effort is rolled out, I hope that the city will communicate clearly and set expectations realistically about what the hotline does and does not do, for example, whether it's primarily for city staff or for the general public, and what services it does and does not provide. ICE enforcement is a moving target, and the city may need to readjust. I'd be delighted to put the city council and the city manager in touch with advocates who understand the immediate and longer term needs of families affected by ICE arrests better than I do myself. I'm happy to follow up. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_28	Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Grill. Michael has not joined. We will go to Denise Gilson, followed by John DiGiovanni, then Young Kim. Denise, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_05	Thank you. Good evening. My name is Denise Gilson. I'm the executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association. I am here to reaffirm my support for policy order number 117, which was chartered last week. This policy order addresses the need to review a three decades old policy that provides public funding to a private not for profit. It is about redirecting those funds, optimizing resources, and effectively serving our community. I first learned of TDMD funds in November of 23. They are derived from a special assessment agreed upon by Cambridge Hotels. In hoping to understand how the funds could be used, I reached out to the COT, some of its board members, various city councilors, and Mayor Simmons. There were no clear answers. In April of 24, still looking for clarification, Mayor Simmons and I met with Martha Sheridan, the ED of Meet Boston, who is the recipient of the funds. We learned from her that there are clear guidelines and restrictions. As we have now come to understand, the COT's TDMD funding is separate and apart from the City of Cambridge taxpayer funds. In September of 24, I asked city manager for a grant application or guidelines that the HSBA could use to obtain similar funding. I was informed there is no such application and that funding from the COT was created some 30 years ago by a city council agreement. That answer prompted policy order number 117. With TDMD monies flowing into the Cambridge Office for Tourism, the time has come for the city to judiciously allocate taxpayer dollars among the organizations who are doing the good work of welcoming visitors and neighbors into our business districts while stewarding public space and organizing events that bring our community together. Thank you.
SPEAKER_28	Thank you. Our next speaker is John DiGiovanni, followed by Young Kim, then Caitlin Johnson. John, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_20	Good evening, Mayor Simmons and counselors. My name is John DiGiovanni, 50 Church Street. I'm here to address the communication with the city manager regarding funding to repurpose the tunnel. It seems the primary concern is that the full cost of a feasibility study could require an investment to the range of a half a million to a million dollars, and that viable funding for sources for that phase has yet to be identified. I think that's a reasonable concern, but until the RFP is written and bids are received, it is only an estimate. Additionally, the RFP process itself will likely take over a year, giving the city and others time to identify additional funding sources. One potential source is the remaining funds of the $300,000 that was appropriated for Harvard Square Consulting Services. Additionally, it was stated it's prudent to await further engagement from MassDOT and the MBTA before proceeding with any formal steps. The reason we have MassDOT and the MBTA at the table is because of State Representative Marjorie Decker. Representative Decker and the mayor here, Mayor Simmons, the Secretary of Transportation, and leaders of the MBTA met with the city manager on July 1st. Shortly thereafter, on July 28th, those same officials along with Councilor Wilson conducted a walk through the tunnel. This is not the time to await, it's a time for the city to lead. The DOT and the MET have indicated they are prepared to assist by way of access and working with the city's efforts to draft the RFP. Additional reasons to proceed, urban districts, how they're currently working is over. Entertainment is the anchor and we're late. Other neighboring cities are developing their mixed use districts and have entertainment and they have theaters. The tunnel also, it's an asset that's been abandoned for 45 years right below a city street. This study will allow us to determine its current condition. This is about investing in the future of Harvard Square. I respectfully ask the city council to encourage the city manager to hire a firm and begin a long but worthwhile effort to repurpose this underutilized asset. Thank you for your time.
SPEAKER_28	Our next speaker is Young Kim, followed by Caitlin Johnson, then David Oshima. Young, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_45	Young Kim, 17 Norris Street. I urge you tonight to reject the two adjoining petitions in CMA number 11 and number 12 until full transparent data driven housing strategy is presented. This is the leadership Cambridge deserves and this is the leadership that we vote you in. In these two petitions, CDD recommends you vote on them separately, yet both memos present only zoning text, no data, no context. I reviewed past city council meetings to see how this came about. There was only one joint housing committee and NLTP committee public hearing to discuss draft zoning recommendation for these two segments. As an earlier seen joint committee discussion on the zoning priorities, CDD shows 3050 dwelling units built since 2019. That is fewer than the 3181 units based on 23 affordable housing stock update and even far shorter than 3457 based on 24 data. I have been pointing this out for the past year. Why hasn't CDD been asked to do their job and provide complete and accurate data? By now, CDD should have the Q2 housing log and then updated 2025 affordable housing stock report. Please demand CDD to provide accurate projection to 2030, taking into account the 2,400 units at Cambridge Crossing and Volpe PUDs, 2,000-plus units in newly announced Cambridge Point, plus a fully primed AHL pipeline now producing homes. Even the four-acre BBN athletic field potential should be included. With so much developed in the pipeline, why keep repeating the critical housing crisis while washing fragmented amendments without a full picture?
SPEAKER_28	Mr. Kim, your time has expired. Please email the remainder of your comments. Thank you. Our next speaker is Caitlin Johnson, followed by David Oshima, then Oren Richkin. Caitlin, you have two minutes. Hold on one second.
Denise Simmons	I just want the clerk just to acknowledge that Councilor Toner has joined us.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Toner. Present.
Denise Simmons	Present. Thank you.
SPEAKER_28	Caitlin, please go ahead. You have the floor, two minutes.
SPEAKER_41	All right, thank you. Good evening, my name is Caitlin Johnson. I live at 24 Alberta Terrace. My comments address policy order number 127, the proposal by Mayor Simmons and Vice Mayor Govan to create resources that can help city workers support those in Cambridge affected by ICE activities. I am here to highlight the fact that there's an existing immigration support hotline that's available statewide. This is the Luce hotline, Luce, which has been operating since March of this year across the state, including in Cambridge. Luce provides immediate response, and when I say immediate, that's five to 20 minutes, to immigration emergencies in Cambridge. That includes Know Your Rights support, documentation, and legal observation of ICE in Cambridge. I want to note that the legal resources and the interpretation services that y'all are proposing as part of this hotline would be amazing. That's something that there's a huge need for. We see it with a lot of the folks that we work with. So really, thank you for including that. Interpretation especially is a really big need, as is legal aid. I hope that any efforts to set up a separate immigration response hotline that's Cambridge City specific will make sure that it supports, rather than duplicating or muddling, the existing work being done by LUSA in Cambridge. It's really essential that we avoid duplicating efforts in this time. There's such a demand for resources. We don't need to be working in separate directions. We need to work together to tackle this really important and often tragic issue in our city. Luce representatives from Cambridge are available to meet with the city council. We have already reached out about this matter. So I just urge you to work with Luce and make sure that we can tackle this as best as possible. Thank you.
SPEAKER_28	Thank you. Our next speaker is David Oshima, followed by Oren Richkin, then Tina Alou. David, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_08	Can everyone hear me?
SPEAKER_28	Yes, we can.
SPEAKER_08	Okay. My name is David Oshima. I'm the owner of Charlie's Kitchen Harvard Square. I'm here today just to express my support for the renovation of the abandoned tunnel in Harvard Square. We've all faced a hard journey after COVID trying to pick up business in the square as well as attract more people and new people to Harvard Square. I remember being younger and it was always full and full of life over here and I think this this tunnel project would really be a great step forward and revival of the square and good for all businesses and all people in Cambridge. So I'll end it there. I just wanted to express my support for the renovation of that tunnel.
SPEAKER_28	Thank you. Our next speaker is Oren Richkin, followed by Tina Liu, then Elaine DeRosa. Oren, if you can unmute yourself, you have the floor.
SPEAKER_44	All right. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER_28	Yes, we can. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_44	All right, perfect. My name is Oren Richkin. Tonight, I am speaking on behalf of the Cambridge Housing Authority at 362 Green Street on agenda item one, the CPA funding. About a month ago, the CHA brought over 80 signatures before the CPA committee in support of allocating 80% of the CPA funding towards affordable housing initiatives. The CHA has long been a staunch supporter of CPA funding as it helps support an extensive portfolio housing around 8,000 Cambridge residents. As we all know, the waiting list for housing in Cambridge, like nearly all neighboring communities, stretches into the tens of thousands. With over 20,000 people on the CHA's wait list and roughly 16,000 applications in 2025 alone, the need for more affordable housing is greater now than it has ever been. CPA funding serves as a critical financing tool for CHA. Since 100% of CHA's units are affordable, we rely heavily on subsidy sources to fill financing gaps. Over the past year, 116 Norfolk, 16 Wendell, and Jefferson Park have used collectively 50 million of funding to bring 300 deeply affordable units online. 116 is a prime example of a property having a positive impact on the Cambridge community. while collecting signatures for the petition. I heard from residents who a little less than a year ago had been sleeping in shelters or on the sidewalk. Juan expressed just sort of this unusual feeling of having to shop and cook for himself. But without a home and without the apartment that we were able to furnish for them at 116, getting those things and achieving sort of a stable daily life would not be possible. The current Funding that we have, well, a lot is not nearly enough. And we encourage the council to continue to allocate 80% of the CPA funding to affordable housing. Thank you.
SPEAKER_28	Thank you. Our next speaker is Tina Alou, followed by Elaine DeRosa, then Andy Nash. Tina, you have the floor, two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_10	Hi, my name is Tina Alou and I live at 113 and a half Pleasant Street. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of CEOC and its participants to encourage the City Council to accept the Community Preservation Act Committee's recommendation on how to utilize the fiscal year 26 CPA fund. The CPA Committee on September 3rd voted unanimously for an allocation of 80% for affordable housing, 10% for historic preservation projects, and 10% for open space projects. Every year it's critical to have every dollar of CPA funds available to devote to any new opportunities that may arise to create additional affordable units, and this year is no different. We know how almost impossible it is to purchase land and build affordable housing. I encourage you to vote to maintain the 80-10-10 formula so that Cambridge will be ready with the needed resources to preserve current buildings and pursue new opportunity to expand its affordable housing stock for all residents who are waiting for an affordable and secure home. Thank you.
SPEAKER_28	Thank you, our next speaker will be speaker number 10 of 21 speakers, Elaine DeRosa, followed by Andy Nash, then Zion Shearing. Elaine, you have two minutes.
SPEAKER_26	Thank you. Good evening, my name is Elaine DeRose and I live at Fort Pleasant Place. And I'm a member of the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust and the Community Preservation Act Committee. I'm testifying in support of CPA's unanimous recommendation for the distribution of CPA funding at 80% affordable housing, 10% historic preservation, and 10% open space. We know that the crisis for the lack of affordable housing continues and the cost of housing to rent and build continues to increase astronomically. Cambridge Housing Authority's wait list has at least 7,000 households indicating they currently live or work in Cambridge or are a veteran. The housing department's rental pool has more than 4,300 applicants for rental housing, including 2,000 Cambridge residents, and the home ownership resale pool has almost 800 applicants, 580 who are Cambridge residents. At acknowledgment of this need, the committee received hundreds of written comments in support of affordable housing. And at the public hearing, all testimony was in support of 80% affordable housing, 10% historical preservation, and 10% open space. In addition, this year, as a result of staff providing extensive community outreach about CPA, the committee received, in addition to affordable housing recommendations and support, several community project recommendations in the areas of open space and historical preservation that have all been included in the funding for this CPA FY 2026 financial recommendation before you. i urge you to support the recommendation uh the cpa recommendation i also speak in support of policy order number three uh that would set up a coordinated response to ice actions in cambridge thank you thank you our next speaker is andy nash followed by zion sharing then michelle song andy you have two minutes please go ahead
SPEAKER_07	Good evening, I'm Andy Nash, 18 Worcester Street. I'm speaking to Policy Order 127 related to creating resources that help city workers support ICE-detained residents. As I think you know, there are already community-led initiatives such as Luce's work to verify ICE activity and educate the community and the Boston Immigration Justice and Accompaniment Network's work to provide court accompaniment and bond funds to our detained neighbors. Both efforts I'm sure would benefit from some of the supports listed in this order, especially interpreter services and a legal directory. I'd suggest, though, that the first order of business be to find out what community-based, immigrant-led services are already being provided and then to work with those community groups so that whatever is developed is informed by the people closest to the crisis. Those groups are getting upwards of 50 calls a day and are finding out where the resource pockets and gaps exist. Lucy is a network of immigrant led organizations and their allies. It is very active in Cambridge and would be happy to meet with city counselors and staff to both support current efforts and compliment them with new resources that the city can provide at this frightening time. Thank you.
SPEAKER_28	Thank you. Our next speaker is Zion Sharon followed by Michelle song. Then David Halperin Zion, you have two minutes.
SPEAKER_23	Zion Sharon, 401 Washington Street. I'm here. I would like to speak on CMA 11 and 12. When it comes to zoning as a whole, I've talked to a lot of residents about the zoning of the city. And a lot of people feel that we want growth inside of the neighborhoods. We don't want the neighborhoods to be destroyed. When it comes to corridors, a lot of people would like to see up zoning. They would like to see growth in these locations. However, they want to see it with the neighborhoods being more preserved. I want to ask the council, what considerations are being held when you are considering zoning changes? Are we considering the fact that we already have sewage overflow? Are we considering what the neighborhoods want, what the actual residents that live right by these projects are feeling? I also would like to speak in support of resolution, I believe it's 127, no, policy order, the one related to rats. Sorry, that I don't see it right now.
SPEAKER_28	You just turned your mic off.
SPEAKER_23	Sorry. Thank you. When it comes to construction, that's something that a lot of people are worried about. We already have a ton of rats in the area. A lot of people are talking about how they're concerned about public health, the diseases that are spread by these rodents. We need to make sure that we're mitigating these issues, that we're addressing how big we want Cambridge to get, because we want increase of housing, but we want to be able to keep some of the charm that makes Cambridge Cambridge. Thank you very much.
	Bye.
SPEAKER_28	Our next speaker is Michelle Song, followed by David Halperin, then Jessica Scully. Michelle, you have two minutes, please go ahead.
SPEAKER_01	Hi, I'm Michelle. I live right by Central Square. I have some thoughts that I wanted to share with the council to keep in mind when considering decisions about zoning going forward. I've heard from so many neighbors who feel that the recent zoning changes were pushed through without truly listening to the people who live here. Growth is important, but it has to work for everyone. And that means development should fit the character of our neighborhoods, protect families from displacement, and keep housing truly affordable. I believe City Hall needs to recenter residents in the process. Zoning should be fine-grained, street by street, and shaped by real input from the people most affected. Cambridge can grow in a way that's sustainable and fair, but only if we put neighborhoods first. That's why I urge the Council to pause any additional by-right height increases until we fully evaluate the February changes and incorporate real neighborhood feedback into the process. Thank you.
SPEAKER_28	Our next speaker is David Halperin, followed by Jessica Scully, then O. Robert Simha. David, you have the floor, two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_34	Good evening, David Halfrin, 14 Valentine Street, Unit 3. First and foremost, I'd like to express my strong support for policy order number three, all the resources put towards protecting our immigrant communities. I really feel proud to live in a city that is really walking the walk and willing to stand up and do that in these difficult times. Secondly, I wanted to express my excitement about the zoning for Northern Mass Ave and Cambridge Street finally moving forward. We've been saying forever that most of our housing growth should go on our corridors. This is just gonna be the beginning of the process, the real rezoning process. I'm hoping that we can go bigger in some places, but I hope we can move this forward tonight. And finally, I want to support the pedestrianization of Lower Bow Street. I think this will be a good experiment. I hope we can create some more pedestrianized places and create some really vibrant areas in our city as a new way to activate some places. It's really nice whenever we can pedestrianize streets temporarily for events. We've seen permanent pedestrianization. Montreal does this a lot. Lots of European cities do this. And yeah, excited for Cambridge to get some experience trying this out. Thank you.
SPEAKER_28	Our next speaker is Jessica Scully. And for those waiting, we are at speaker number 15. Jessica Scully, followed by O. Robert Simha, then Lee Ferris. Jessica, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_18	Good evening, Mayor Simmons and members of the Council. My name is Jessica Scully for Humboldt Street. I also have a small business, Commonwealth Wine School in Harvard Square, and I'm the chair of the board of the HSBA. I want to reaffirm my support for Policy Order 117 and to emphasize that I believe this is a both and proposal. Cambridge succeeds when citywide destination marketing and neighborhood activation work hand in hand. Of course, I value the Cambridge Office for Tourism. The HSBA and the COT collaborate on calendars, messaging, and wayfinding, and their marketing can help amplify what's happening in our squares. At the same time, it's the neighborhood districts, the Central Square Bid, East Cambridge Business Association, Harvard Square Business Association, and Kendall Square Association that translate the interests into real impact on the ground. These are the teams that are programming and staffing the neighborhood events, coordinating safety and cleanliness, supporting the merchants, partnering with our local guest service agencies and our regular service agencies, welcoming students, visitors, and residents week in and week out. These block-by-block services run on very lean budgets. even as expectations, real needs, and costs keep growing. Policy Order 117 simply aligns city dollars with that day-to-day work so every commercial district is not only promoted but supported and activated and maintained throughout the year. The policy order also asks all of us to keep coordinating and to share transparent common sense metrics so the public can clearly see the results. If Cambridge is going to thrive now and in the years ahead, our business districts need steady city support to do the everyday work that gets people to show up, programming streets, supporting merchants, welcoming residents and visitors. I believe if you make this investment, you will see it on the sidewalk. I respectfully ask you to adopt this policy order and move forward now. Thank you.
SPEAKER_28	Our next speaker is O. Robert Simha, followed by Lee Ferris, then Nicola Williams. O. Robert, you have the floor. Two minutes.
SPEAKER_02	Thank you very much. I'm speaking this evening about the Cambridge Street rezoning proposal. on behalf of the East Cambridge Neighborhood Association and the East Cambridge Open Space Trust. In January of 2023, we engaged with the Community Development Department on its proposed study of the Cambridge Street rezoning. We laid out a number of questions that we believe were essential to prepare and propose a reasonable rezoning for the street along Cambridge Street. That included the historical perspective of how the street is operated and who lives there. It required a needs assessment for what was really required for the city in this part of Cambridge, what the expected population would be as a result of changing the density along the street. what characteristics were the retail growth expectations for making this a, or continue to make it an interesting street? How many families would be displaced by proposed developments that would occur under this development? We ask that they calculate what the utility needs and the Cambridge City investment requirements for public facilities would be associated with the zoning change. and resources would come available as a result of this increase in density. We asked that the community development department coordinate with the redevelopment authority for things that they were doing in the immediate area. We asked for the zoning impacts that would occur as a result of the changes that were being proposed. Sadly, we did not receive any response.
SPEAKER_28	Sir, your time has expired. If you can, please email the remainder of your comments. Our next speaker is Lee Ferris, followed by Nicola Williams, then Heather Hoffman. Lee, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_04	Good evening, I'm Leigh Farris from Norfolk Street in the Port. I am speaking regarding two policy orders, policy order number two. In addition to supporting adding access at all hours to a social worker for crisis situations, which could be possibly someone from care, I asked the city develop a protocol for interacting with residents in a building where someone has barricaded themselves. As I observed the handling of the crisis situation at Windsor and Broadway in early August, I felt there was not nearly enough attention to the residents in the building. I want us to be better prepared when similar events occur in the future. I'd like this crisis protocol to cover criteria on when to evacuate residents or shelter in place, what aid should be given to residents, hotel, food, water, who is in charge of making these decisions, who carries them out, who decides how to modify decisions at a situation changes, and who can provide social services for the residents during and after the crisis. Regarding policy order number three on assisting immigrants who are dealing with ICE, I encourage the city to talk with people in the immigrant-led Luce Network and Beyond Network to become familiar with what they already offer. Luce and Beyond are ready to help people dealing with ICE right now, whereas the city hotline would take some time to start. I SUGGEST THAT THE CITY WORK WITH THE SCHOOL STAFF TO MAKE SURE THAT CPS STUDENTS AND STAFF HAVE A WALLET CARD WITH THE LUCY AND BEYOND CONTACT INFO. I ENCOURAGE THE CITY TO PROVIDE SERVICES THAT LUCY AND BEYOND DO NOT CURRENTLY PROVIDE SUCH AS INTERPRETATION. THANK YOU.
SPEAKER_28	Thank you. Our next speaker is Nicola Williams, followed by Heather Hoffman, then James Williamson. Nicola, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_24	Good evening, everyone. Nicola Williams, 8 Brewer Street. I just want to talk on a number of policy orders. I support the renovation of the abandoned tunnel and would love to see that moving forward. Regarding policy number 127, I'm an immigrant myself. I know how fearful this can be and any efforts that the city can offer would be helpful. I don't quite understand policy number 117. I would love to know how much funding we're talking about and how it affects the other tourism events in the city. Regarding policy number 128, My main reason for commenting today, we have a major rat problem in the city and it has encroached upon our neighborhood. I happen to live in Harvard Square and it's just, I can tell you I run into eight to 10 rats per day walking down the street or in my backyard. I think due to a lot of the construction in the area, post COVID, a lot of the rats came to neighborhoods and in our neighborhood, it never left. In fact, keeps multiplying. I appreciate Councilor Nolan for putting this on the agenda. Some of the buildings and the commercial areas need a little bit support beyond the four units. And I just ask for some attention and relief. I'm glad that there's a process for notifying the city with the 311 or the systems in place. But I just wanted to call out that we have a major public health issue. And it really does need to be addressed. So thank you for bringing this to attention. And I'm speaking on behalf of dozens of my neighbors who really feel inundated with the rat problem in our neighborhood.
SPEAKER_28	Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Heather Hoffman, followed by James Williamson. Heather, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_25	Hello, Heather Hoffman, 213 Hurley Street. I echo everything that people said about ICE before me. And I would suggest that we do things like take the already existing cards for Luce and put them in places where people go like laundromats and convenience stores and things like that. With respect to rats, I'm not sure we're ever going to solve that. Rats have been learning to live in human cities for centuries and they're really good at it. With respect to bike parking, I hope that we will come up with some way of dealing with the people who have e-bikes especially because those are much harder to take into wherever you live and come up with a good way for people who either do or don't have off street parking to keep them from being stored in the public way. With respect to zoning, one of the things that I have learned is that a lot of this city is built on fill and was a marsh. and other things like that. And if we even thought about whether the soil underneath these places that we want to put giant buildings can even support them. With respect to language preservation, I applaud any efforts to do that. Languages are some of the greatest things that humans have created, and it's so easy to lose them. So I applaud anything that we do to preserve the many languages we have here and the ones that are elsewhere as well. Thank you.
SPEAKER_28	Thank you. Our next speaker is James Williamson. James, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_48	Can you hear me?
SPEAKER_28	We can.
SPEAKER_48	Thank you. James Williamson, North Cambridge, over 50 year resident of the People's Republic. On the proposal to shift, to change the funding of the Office of Tourism, there's so much that isn't, I mean, we heard somebody earlier talk about transparent metrics, but nobody's talking about any of the numbers. How much does the Office of Tourism actually get? Not just the sort of vague number of a million and a half from this joint entity between Cambridge and Boston, which has a governing body, evidently, that allocates funds. What is that money used for? And how much is there? And why shift it to business organizations the business improvement district in central square, it gets a surcharge on the property taxes of the businesses in central square. How much is that money? How much money does do do any of these entities already get in municipal in they say municipal, in other words, our money, public money, how much public money goes to the business improvement district, the Harvard square business association. And, uh, You know wouldn't it be better to spend the money reopening the homeless shelter wouldn't that do a lot to make people feel more comfortable visiting Cambridge central square and Harvard score in particular. What about spending money reopening the mezzanine level. of the Harvard Square T Station so that people can buy concert tickets as we used to be able to and Charlie cards. I mean, that's a disgrace. We should be spending money on that rather before we do something with the tunnel, let's reopen the mezzanine level of the Harvard Square T Station. Thank you.
SPEAKER_28	Madam Mayor, that is all who are signed up to speak.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, Ms. Stephan. That concludes public comment. It was the pleasure of the City Council.
SPEAKER_33	On a motion to close public comment, Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And public comment is closed on the affirmative vote of nine members. We move now to the city manager. No. Let me just say there's no record, no submission of the record for this evening. There's no reconsiderations. We will now move the city manager's agenda. Madam Mayor. Vice Mayor.
	Yes.
Marc McGovern	Five, six, 11, 12, and 13.
Denise Simmons	Five.
Marc McGovern	Six. What was the other ones? 11, 12, and 13. 11. Please.
Denise Simmons	12 and 13? Yes. Thank you. Pleasure, the City Council.
Catherine Zusy	Madam Mayor, seven, please.
Denise Simmons	Pleasure of the City Council.
Patricia Nolan	Mayor Simmons?
Denise Simmons	Yes, Councilor.
Patricia Nolan	Number nine.
Denise Simmons	Pleasure of the City Council. Is that all? Then I will go over. I will be pulling one and two. One, two, and, well, ten's already been pulled. Thank you. So one, two, and ten. That remains with three, four, Eight, three, four, and eight. So on a motion by the vice mayor, we'll just, I think some of them have required roll calls. We'll do a roll call on all of them.
Ayesha Wilson	I thought no one, just to point out a question, no one pulled eight. I'll pull eight, please. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	So on the balance, which is two, three, and four. That's right, I sure did.
SPEAKER_33	Three and four. We'll take a roll call on those. Madam Clerk? Councillor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson?
	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative. Thank you, Madam Clerk.
Denise Simmons	We're going to go back now to number one. This was a poll by the mayor. It reads as follows. The communication transmitted from Yan Wang, City Manager, relative to the recommendation of the Community Preservation Act, CPAC, for fiscal 26. I will turn this over to the Director of... What is your department? You know where you work. I'll turn it over to Taha Jennings, and then we'll hear from the city manager, Ms. Walkins, if they're so inclined.
SPEAKER_47	Thank you, Madam Mayor. So before you, we have recommendations from the Community Preservation Act Committee for FY26 CPA funds. I do want to thank the committee for volunteering their time and work over the past several months. I also want to thank Daniel List from the Budget Office for coordinating the process this year, as well as staff from Housing Department, Historical Commission, the Open Space Committee. for spending a lot of time and resources and providing the committee with their expertise. CPA funding or Community Preservation Act funding has been an important source of funding for city projects, especially related to affordable housing over the past several years. It was established through state law in 2000. and adopted by Cambridge in 2001. And it allows for a 3% property tax surcharge locally with state matching funds for the funding. And the funding helps cities and towns preserve the character that communities by dedicating funds to affordable housing, historic preservation, and open space. And the caveat is that at least 10% has to go into each category. The recommendations for FY26 include $18 million to the Affordable Housing Trust, $2.25 million for historic preservation projects, and $2.25 million for open space projects. In a lot of cases, CPA funds leverage other funding, especially for housing projects. That's been very helpful to the city. The process included a hearing on project recommendations, a hearing on the allocation percentages between the categories. We also received public comment at meetings and through emails. And I think there's a total of five votes to take for the funding. And it's basically because we break down the sources of funding between the categories and projects. So happy to answer any questions. I'll turn it over to the city manager or deputy city manager if they have anything to add.
Denise Simmons	Manager Wong, do you have anything that you'd like to add?
Yi-An Huang	uh through your mayor simmons i think just two quick thoughts and i know we do this every year but i do think the cpa is a really beautiful partnership between the city council which took a really important step almost 25 years ago to establish this and the city and the community to really put dollars into these important categories and the commitment to affordable housing especially over the last years has been incredible and turned into really significant projects that are benefiting people in the city. And the second comment is just that we are actually pretty unique in not just participating in CPA, but participating at 3%. And so very few other communities are at that level. And in particular, the commitment to affordable housing at 80% year after year is really notable. And so this is actually a very exciting piece of the overall budget and creates a lot of the resources for the Affordable Housing Trust and our commitment to affordable housing development and maintenance across the city.
Denise Simmons	City Manager yields the floor. As Director Jennings has mentioned, there are five votes. I want to see if there's any discussion, any questions of Director Jennings or the City Manager before we go to the vote. Floor is open. Councilor Toner, do you have any questions relative to City Manager's agenda number one?
Paul Toner	I do not, Madam Mayor, thank you.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	I just want to add to this through you, thanks to the city staff for working and also let folks know that the report which accompanies this of 20 pages outlines every single project that is applied for funding. The affordable housing just goes directly to the affordable housing trust. And the other projects have, I think there's 10 to 15, but they're very specific on what the allocations are. And I'm sure it took a lot of work to get to those allocations. But for folks who are watching, yes. I think only 78 of the 195 communities eligible for CPA do the 3% surcharge. Cambridge is one of the 78.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Nolan yields the floor. Councilor Zusy.
Catherine Zusy	Thank You madam chair I just wanted to say again I think this is an extraordinary opportunity for funding city projects and I feel as I've gone after these funds in every in two categories actually in three categories for magazine Beach and I feel as though it's to me it's realer than the participatory budget I know people like participatory budget but you're really able to make substantial capital improvements to the city with it and wonderful things happen as a result of community preservation fund seeding projects. So thank you for leading this and I love this. I love the CPA funds. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Zusy yields the floor for the discussion. Hearing none, then we will proceed to the vote. The first vote is a motion to adopt fiscal year 2026, CPA local funds 19,700,000 as follows. A, 80% of the fiscal 26 CPA local fund revenues, 15,760,000 allocated to affordable housing and appropriated to the affordable housing trust. B, 10% of the fiscal year CPA local fund revenue, 1,970,000 allocated to historic preservation project as follows. 100,000 appropriated to the Municipal Multicultural Arts Center Backstage Theatrical Accessibility Improvement Project. 60,000 appropriated to canning carriage replacements. I'd like to know what that is, but 72,000 appropriated to the City Hall Vestibule Improvements, 20,000 appropriated to the Declaration of Independence Document Conservation. I hope everyone has had a chance to see that document. It's extraordinary, and we have it. 393,000 appropriated to the Fresh Pond Golf Clubhouse Foundation and Envelope. Six, 100,000 appropriated to historic markers project manager. Seven, 170,000 appropriated to the legislative records preservation. Eight, 850,000 appropriated to preservation grants. Nine, 12,500 appropriated to recorded media preservation. 10, 37,500 appropriated to slide archive preservation. 11, 45,000 appropriated to Stony Brook Reservoir Barn. 12, 100,000 appropriate to Sullivan Chamber Improvement, and 13, 10,000 appropriate to Washington Elm Marker. Roll call, please. Keep going. Let me go through all. See. 10% of the fiscal 2026 CPA local fund revenues, $1,970,000 allocated to open space projects as follows. Number one, $71,000 appropriated to outwife trail design and signage planning. Two, $889,000 appropriated to Dandy Park improvement plan. Three, $250,000 appropriated to the fresh pond golf course environmental work. Four, 50,000 appropriated to the Lynch Family Skate Park Improvement. Five, 150,000 appropriated to the Ma Community Garden Fence Rehabilitation. Six, 270,000 appropriated to the Rafferty Park Construction. Seven, 40,000 appropriated to the Re-establishing Native Species in Supporting Tree Care at Hell's Half Acre. And eight, 250,000 appropriated to the Wilder Lee Park.
SPEAKER_33	Do you want me to read all five of them or just take this one first? Yes, one at a time. Very good, roll call. Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative. And vote two is approved on the affirmative vote of nine members.
Denise Simmons	We move to vote two. Motion to adopt fiscal year 2025 state matching funds received in fiscal 2026, $2,800,000 allocated as follows. A, 80% of the fiscal 2025 state match revenues, $2,240,000 allocated to the affordable housing fund. and appropriated to the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust, B, 10% of the 2025 state match revenues, 280,000 allocated to historic preservation and appropriated to the Golf Clubhouse Foundation and Envelope, and C, 10% of the fiscal 2025 state match revenues, 280,000 allocated to the open space and appropriated to the Danny Park Improvement Plan.
SPEAKER_33	Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councillor Zin. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?
SPEAKER_16	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the appropriation is adopted by the affirmative vote of nine members. We move to vote three. CPA Fund Balance Administration, $15,000 as follows. Motion to adopt the appropriation order of $15,000 appropriated to the administrative costs for the Community Preservation Coalition membership dues.
SPEAKER_33	Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councillor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councillor Sabrina Whaler? Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner?
	Yes.
SPEAKER_39	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the motion is adopted by the affirmative vote of nine members. We move now to vote for historic preservation reserve 113,000. As follows, motion to adopt the appropriation order of 113,000 of historic preservation reserve funding to City Hall Vestaville improvement. VOTE.
SPEAKER_33	VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. Councilor Zusy?
SPEAKER_16	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And vote number four, historic preservation reserve is adopted on the affirmative vote of nine members. We move now to vote five. This is open space reserve 331,000 as follows. Motion to adopt the appropriation order of 331,000 of open space reserve funding to Danny Heapock improvement plan. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes, Councillor Nolan? Yes. Yes, Councillor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes, Councillor Toner? Yes. Yes, Councillor Wilson? Yes. Yes, Councillor Zusy? Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the open space reserved for 331,000 is adopted by the affirmative vote of nine members. On a motion by the Vice Mayor to place City Manager's Agenda Item Number 1 on file, please call the roll.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Azeem?
	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes, Councillor Nolan? Yes. Yes, Councillor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes, Councillor Toner?
SPEAKER_39	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes, Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy?
SPEAKER_16	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes, Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the matter is placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We move now to city manager's agenda item number two. It reads as follows. A communication transmit from Yi-An Huang City Manager relative to a waiting report item number 25-50 regarding a deadline for the charter change. I pull this and I would like to turn it over to the city manager, to our solicitor, and I believe our election commissioner to give us an update. Who wants to go first? Solicitor Behr, are you? The floor is yours.
SPEAKER_43	Thank you to you, Madam Mayor. So the Election Commission Department has continued to... Actually, I'm sorry, let me backtrack. So last week, the House and the Senate both adopted the Home Rule petition and sent it to the governor's desk for signing. The Election Commission has continued to prepare... under the assumption that this will be signed from the governor shortly and able to Proceed to be on the ballot in November and Tanya Ford can speak more to that, but they have gotten the proofs of what the ballot will look like approved and are preparing for printing of the ballot and then also the guide that goes to voters that explains the ballot question. And we understand that the bill that was approved by the House and Senate is on the governor's desk. And we anticipate that it will be signed by the governor sometime this week. And the city manager might have more to say on any of this. Manager Wong, the floor is yours.
Yi-An Huang	through Mayor Simmons. I would say just again, a big thank you to our state delegation, Senator Sal DiDomenico's office and Representative Marjorie Decker, both have done a lot of work to help get this through the State House and Senate. And so we really appreciate their partnership. and especially in these last weeks to really get this done. We do believe that the governor's office is actively reviewing and will sign so we don't think that there is any risk here and we're just waiting for official confirmation from the governor's office that this has been signed. There are a couple of other municipal charters that are also going up and so we've gotten really positive indications and I think we are all green lights right now.
Denise Simmons	Thank you. Director Flord, are you available? I don't hear her. I don't know if I can get unmuted.
SPEAKER_31	Here I am, yes.
Denise Simmons	Excellent. I wanted to give you an opportunity to give any updates that you might want to share with the council before we open the floor for discussion. Do you have anything else you want to add?
SPEAKER_31	No, I think everything has been said. We are just waiting for the official news notification that it has been signed, and then we can go ahead and print the ballot question mailing and the ballot for the ballot question. The others are in the process of being printed right now. We did get final proofs on Friday, but we're holding off on the ballot question ballot and mailer for right now. So we're ready to go.
Denise Simmons	Okay. I don't have the same confidence as everyone else does, but okay. I mean, I think at our last meeting, we had talked about there being a date that's sort of like in terms of the governor signing, that is the point of no return if it's not signed yet. And that date was and still is what, Director Ford?
SPEAKER_31	I believe that was the 19th. We were hoping that the governor signed by the 19th. That did not happen. We did hear that it would happen, but she has until the 21st to sign the petition, but I did get in contact with the vendor on the 19th and started working on the printing of the ballot. So at least we'll have the City Council School Committee and our specimens and everything else prepared. It's just those two items that we would be waiting on, the signature.
Denise Simmons	And is there a date in your mind, having been in touch with the vendor, of I have to have it by this day, because I believe our conversation last week was we wanted to have it signed by the 15th. Today's the 15th, and that has come and gone, or that's here, so about to leave. So I'm just curious. If we want to do this, we certainly want to do it right, and I'm just concerned that the clock is ticking.
SPEAKER_31	I'm a little concerned myself, but I think that we'll be fine because we've gotten ahead of the game on the other ballots. Mm-hmm. The vendor is feeling a little anxious, but has confirmed that if we receive the official notification, hopefully by the middle of the week, that we can get all of these things out and printed and delivered to this office and get out the ballot question mailing to the voters by the 29th. But it is a push, so...
Denise Simmons	Very good. Thank you, Director Ford. Thank you. Discussion? Councilor Nolan?
Patricia Nolan	Thank you, Mayor Simmons, and through you, I really appreciate all the work that's gone into this. I know it's stressful coming up on here, and what I heard is that we know that at our last meeting we approved the pro-argument. I heard the Election Commission approved a con-argument. Thank you. whoever staff worked on it. And then the ballot itself will include, I think, the pro and the con in the summary. Presumably that's been prepared already. Thank you so much. And then the information ballot will include the full text of the entire charter, correct? And that's ready to just hit print once it passes.
Denise Simmons	Any further discussion? Councilor Wilson and then Councilor Siddiqui. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry? Councilor, did you want to say something before they spoke?
SPEAKER_43	Through you, Madam Mayor, just to a point that Councilor Nolan just raised, that the ballot question doesn't include the full text of the new charter. So the home rule petition that the Council approved set out that the ballot question itself would just say, and I don't remember the exact wording, but do you, the voter, approve of the new charter and then have the summary of what the new charter accomplishes? But it doesn't actually have the 30-something pages that it would be if it was the full text of the new charter.
Patricia Nolan	Councilman Dolan? The ballot won't, but the information to voters will.
Denise Simmons	Madam Solicitor, are you directing that to the Solicitor or to the Director forward?
Patricia Nolan	I think the Solicitor probably would understand that.
Denise Simmons	I think the Director would understand it as well, but we'll go to the Solicitor.
SPEAKER_43	THANK YOU, THROUGH YOU, MADAM MAYOR AND DIRECTOR FORD CAN CONFIRM, BUT THE BALLOT INFORMATION THAT GETS MAILED OUT JUST HAS TO INCLUDE THE QUESTION THAT IS GOING TO ACTUALLY BE ON THE BALLOT, THE SUMMARY, AND THE PRO AND CON ARGUMENT. SO IT ALSO DOES NOT INCLUDE THE FULL TEXT, I BELIEVE, AND I DON'T THINK IT WOULD BE FEASIBLE TO INCLUDE THE FULL TEXT.
SPEAKER_31	Director Ford, do you want to add anything? No, that is correct. The mailer does not include the full text of the ballot question.
Denise Simmons	Very good, Councilor. No one yields the floor. Council Wilson? You don't?
Patricia Nolan	No, because- What else do you want to ask? I just want to know where the full text will be available and to make sure that it's available, because if we're having people vote on it, we need to understand how the voters will access the full text.
Denise Simmons	So if Director Ford or the solicitor- Director Ford, did you hear the question?
SPEAKER_31	Yes, right now we're working with an interpreter, with the city interpreter to get the ballot question itself interpreted. But I don't know, city solicitor, maybe you know where we can have that. Maybe we can put it online on our website, the full text of the charter or someplace on the city's website.
SPEAKER_43	Solicitor bear yes through you madam mayor So the full text of the Charter is available in the open meeting portal from when the council approved the home rule petition it's available on the state's website because it's Was the bill that was pending and then it will the state website will have the special legislation when signed by the governor but for the voters Ease of reference, I'm sure there's some place we can find, whether it's on the specific page for the Election Commission or somewhere else on the city's web page, but to post that document so that the full text of the proposed new charter is available.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you. That is critically important that we have it. And I think as much as we love our minutes, I'm not sure most voters will know how to access the open meeting portal for the minutes of that text. And even the state website is the state. So through you, as the solicitor and director Ford said, in terms of just getting it online on obviously the election commission website is one and maybe on the city website as well and disseminate it out to. Also, on the day of the election, at least one copy at each polling place so people can read it if they need to. That would be critically important. This is our city's governing document, so people need to have access to the document they're actually approving. So I do yield now, Mayor Simmons.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, Councilman Nolan yields the floor. Council Wilson?
Ayesha Wilson	Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you. I just want to give a lot of praise and gratitude to everybody who had to work hard on this. There's just a lot of work to be done. But additionally, I want to agree that having some access to the text would be important. So if things have not been quite printed yet, even if it's like to learn more, go to the Election Commission website, if that can just be entered, not to give anybody any... significant major tasks, but if it hasn't been printed yet and off to them, if that's something that can just be added, that would just be, I think, really helpful. And in addition to that, as we work on the translations, et cetera, directed forward, I appreciate the efforts that are going there as well. It's important that people are able to read it. The summary is great for those who actually get it. It's going to be really important for those who don't and just may be learning about this for the first time. But I really just wanted to take the microphone and just to say thank you to everybody and especially our state delegation, Rep. Decker, Senator Sal DiDomenico for their I don't even know what to label the efforts that they put into this to make sure that this can get across the table and obviously the push for the governor to sign. I also feel confident. I thought we were going to have this all done from last week, so curious as to the delay, but don't need to waste any more time on that. I yield. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Council Wilson yields the floor. I believe we're waiting for the governor. We can't move forward until she... Well... Yes, I think Deputy City Manager Watkins has the governor on speed dial. We'll just give her a call.
Yi-An Huang	Through you, Mayor Simmons. I would just say I think we're not worried. We believe that signing is imminent. It's more just a question of making sure that we get official confirmation, but I think we're in good shape.
Denise Simmons	City Manager yields the floor. Councilor Siddiqui.
Sumbul Siddiqui	Thank you. Through you, Mayor Simmons. echo the sentiments from my colleagues since we do not have a meeting next Monday if the city manager can send us an email keep us informed about what exactly happens that would be great so that we all know officially that things are moving forward and especially with the updated information and the full text and so forth and where that's going to live. So that's all I wanted to add. Appreciate everyone's efforts in this. It's been a long journey and more to come, but thank you. Councillor Siddiqui yields the floor.
Denise Simmons	Councillor Susie.
Catherine Zusy	Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to reiterate Councillor Wilson's point that if there's any way to include a link in the guide, I realize it might be too late. It would be fabulous to have a link in the voter's guide. And it should certainly, there should be a link to it in the city update. I'm sure everybody's gonna wanna go to that 35-page document or to know how to access it. So that'll be a great way to get the word out about it as well. Also, thanks to everybody. You've moved mountains. This has been an extraordinary effort and accomplishment. So thank you, thank you all.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Zusy yields the floor. Councilor Toner, do you wanna speak to this at all? I do not, Madam Mayor. Any further discussion? Well, before we take a vote on this item, I do put a lot of faith in our director of the Election Commission. I think this put on a lot on her, on her department. We can overtime all the time and every time. And thank you, Council Wilson, for acknowledging the hard work of everyone. I want to specifically acknowledge Director Ford, because while we were working on this, we were giving her work to do. And I know that we are confident, more than I am, that everything will go on time, but this is a great deal of work. And so I just want to acknowledge anytime any one of our department heads work on such a broad scope of work as this ballot is going to require one more school committee members, which was a bit of a challenge, but the ballot initiatives which was our doing, and I think that's certainly the correct thing to do, and I wanna thank the city councilors that worked on this, particularly Council Toner, because I know he spent a lot of time making sure meetings happened. At the end of the day, it's an incredible amount of work. And I don't think that should be understated. The other thing I just want to mention is we talked about putting things on the website. And I don't know who is in charge of that. But if the information is going to be on the website, perhaps, is there a way that when you open the website, it pops up as opposed to having to click direct, redirect, click again to find it? Because I sometimes find... the website not the easiest to follow when it comes to information. So Mr. City Manager, if we make the timelines and the deadlines that it is that we feel that we're going to make that someone from who's in charge of the website put this information on the website in a way that it jumps out at you. I think there's a very nice picture. Maybe we can change that picture to a check mark or a one or whatever to just say ballot, election, important. Because some folks, as much as they're involved in elections, are not going to know about those ballot initiatives. And I can hear that. And we just don't have a lot of time to advertise it in that way. We can use the website, and if we can put some cheat sheet at the libraries in other places, it might be helpful in the days leading up to the election. So with that, on this item, I'm going to ask- Mayor Simmons?
Sumbul Siddiqui	Yeah, I just wanted to add, I did want to thank the Charter Review Committee because we wouldn't be here without all their work and that process that had started terms ago. And so, you know, I definitely want to, we should be in communication with them with this final stage. And they're the reason kind of we're here. And it was the first time we were doing it. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	You're very welcome. Thank you. Madam Mayor. Councilor Siddiqui yields the floor. Council Wilson.
Ayesha Wilson	Thank you. I too wanted to echo that in regards to the Charter Review Committee for their 18 months of dedicated work to this process, but also to our solicitor's office and department, again, to call out departments in their work. Our solicitor's office had to really turn things around right and really get us on the right page and also with our pro response and our no response and all that stuff so thank you to um as solicitor and to her team for to working for working diligently now i yield and hopefully we can move on and vote cause the vote could we do that council wilson calls for the vote madam clerk would you please call the roll
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_39	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes, Councillor Wilson. Yes, Councillor Zusy. Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	City Manager's agenda item on the charter change is placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We'll move now to number five. This is pulled by the Vice Mayor. Communication transmitted from Yuen Wong, City Manager, relative to awaiting report item 24-45 regarding the sitting, the citing, excuse me, of needle drop boxes and knock, Nala Zone? Is it called Nala Zone? Boxes in high priority locations throughout the city. Vice Mayor, the floor is yours.
Marc McGovern	Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, thank you, Mr. Manager, and your staff for the report. So we're obviously getting a lot of emails from folks who find needles throughout the city, parks and playgrounds and on the sidewalk. And I appreciate that we're trying to get out there. City staff, whether it's DPW or the fire department, the police department, the care team are all out there. The bid in Central Square is out there. Even with all of those services, the number of needles we're finding is just yet another indication of how prevalent this problem is. So I just wanted to clarify a couple quick things in the report. So if I read it correctly, we have seven needle drop boxes throughout the city currently, and we're gonna be adding four more at specific locations. So I guess sort of my, In terms of the drop boxes, my question would be, you must think that's sufficient, otherwise you would have said five or six or seven. I know I've talked to some people who have asked, why can't they be at every fire station and in other places? Is it a cost issue? Is it just somebody has to pick them up at some point? What would be the obstacle to getting more than four and putting them in additional places?
Kathy Watkins	Mr. City Manager? um through you mayor simmons um so we looked at this report and really looked at um spreading locations across the city and one of the things that was clear is that you know the boxes are used for by a lot of different folks right so we're focusing a lot and there's a lot in this report about needles associated with drug use that are disposed on the street in other ways where we don't want to see them. They're also used by a lot of other folks for medical needles and other sharp disposals. And so when we looked at the locations, they were all very much in the eastern part of the city. And so there was a real commitment to say and there's a lot of logic to sort of expanding them across the city and having them more evenly distributed at the city We did not specifically look at all fire stations We do have some at fire stations and others where we think make logical sense But I think there is a commitment to continue to look at those I would say the cost is about twenty thousand dollars for the additional four that we're looking at so there is a cost boast in terms of purchasing the box and then also the monthly pickup. I don't think the cost was necessarily an insurmountable hurdle, but we're really looking at sort of getting a good distribution. One of the things that's in the report that we are also looking at at fire stations is there's sort of, I can't remember exactly, I have some public health friends here as well, but looking at sort of a public health vending machine that would have a number of different it could have narcan products in it and other products that needs to be refrigerated and so looking at sort of this public health vending machine and that might be a nice thing to also pair with needle boxes so i think that's something we can continue to look at depending on how that program rolls out as well thank you thank you through you madam mayor and that was going to be my um so okay so
Marc McGovern	Well, $5,000 a needle box, right? So that's not, you know, I know where times are tight, but we could probably swing a couple more if we needed to. And then the vending machines, again, I guess my question, similar one, is I know we're looking at one as a pilot. What's the cost of those? And would we consider piloting, you know, a couple more? I can envision something in, you know, central. I know, I think you said Harvard in the report is where it's going. Maybe I'm wrong with that.
Kathy Watkins	Yeah, I think, is Public Health on? I think they'd probably be the best folks to really talk through the vending machine, because it's something that's going through them in terms of what the cost is, and really just sort of seeing, is it feasible, and does it work? And so it is something that needs power, so we've talked about pairing that at one of the fire stations as a trial, and then if it's successful, continue to roll that out.
Denise Simmons	Do you know who might be on from the?
SPEAKER_29	I'm here. Perfect. I'm the director for community engagement at the health department. So I don't have the cost breakdown in front of me for the vending machine. But I will say that as Deputy just mentioned, we plan to have Narcan in there and it would be available 24 hours, seven days a week. And that is also in addition to the drop boxes. So we're just trying to make sure that people have, like, continuous access to the resources that they need in that way. And then I do just want to, like, briefly mention that the needle program where folks could come and exchange their dirty needles managed to collect 3,000 needles. 363 needles just in the month of August. And so we're really trying to look at all of the options that we have available to us in order to really get a handle on the issue.
Marc McGovern	Through you, Madam Mayor, thank you. And I know we've done a ton of work on getting Narcan out there in a lot of different ways. You know, our police officers now carry it. Obviously, we're doing a lot of trainings. Public health has done a really, we have in city buildings, public health has done a really fantastic job with that. And I think one of the things that we often get this question of the actual statewide, certainly the, but even here in Cambridge, the number of deaths, have slightly decreased, but I just want to remind people that we can't confuse that with the usage decreasing. The deaths are going down because we are doing a better job with harm reduction and training people and getting Narcan and things out there that are preventing people, once they overdose, sort of bringing them back where previously they may not have been. Mayor Mrakas, it's it's that's great and harm reduction has to be a piece of this puzzle, so I just want to thank you for this, I hope, as we continue to look at this, that we can also look at expanding in and making as available as possible for folks i'll yield that in there by Samir yields the floor comes easy.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you, Madam Mayor. I also am really grateful that we're putting some more boxes out, and I know we used to find needles all the time at Magazine Beach, and we would gather them in peanut butter jars, and sometimes there are these plastic little boxes, and I would just turn them, you can turn them into any fire station. So I think you don't need a box at every fire station. It's good for people to know that they can turn in needles there. Anyway, I think that's a great program. It'll be interesting to see how the Narcan or the naloxone It's great we're making that freely available and we're training citizens to administer the Narcan. I had some questions about that. I just wondered, is it just regular citizens that are training or is it the police department, EMT people? Is it the Central Square bid ambassadors? Who are the people that are volunteering to administer the Narcan? I guess that's a question for Tikia Brown.
SPEAKER_29	Yes, yes. So it's all of those folks and regular residents can come and get these trainings. They've been carried out at the library by my team and we really try to make those accessible so that, you know, I know this is an issue for people and it's worrisome and people can really feel empowered when they know that they have a resource on hand um with them so anyone um can can get the training and more specifically um my staff has really been concerned with making sure that other city um agencies and partners um have access to the training as well this is public health i just want to add that many of the businesses have taken
SPEAKER_11	sort of advantage of the opportunity to train their entire staff and our staff at the health department is willing to go physically in person to do that or do a virtual training if businesses reach out to us.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you. Again, through you, Madam Mayor, I think that's a great program. And I'm so happy again that boxes are going to be more in West Cambridge closer to Alewife because there's been a concentration of needles found there. I met with a constituent at the Russell Field this weekend and Apparently they're found under the bleachers, all sorts of places kids are playing, so we really want them out of that area. I'm a little concerned about the needle reimbursement pilot program because I wonder if we're funding drug use. I mean, I'm always for pilots, but is there any concern that people are going to use the money that they're gaining from turning in the needles to buy more drugs?
SPEAKER_29	I will just say that folks are able to get 20 cents per syringe and with the daily cap of $10. So it's really not something where people could like get a lot a lot of money. And I also will just note that that program has also been able to refer folks to services. So people are coming, they're turning in their needles, they're, you know, getting enough money to maybe get a meal for the day, and also be connected with resources.
Catherine Zusy	Anyway, I think all these programs are great. I wish some of them were actually solutions. I wish there were solutions. And I was looking online, and I know Oregon and San Francisco and Louisiana have been trying all sorts of different things. I know we're always... using best practices but I wish I wish we could just find a way to discourage drug use and I and I because it's it's a horrible It's a horrible thing to be addicted to drugs, right? And it's also a public health issue for the whole city. So I wish there were better solutions, and I'm sure we are continuing to seek them. It seems to me as though drug use is increasing. Do we think drug use is increasing or not?
Denise Simmons	And you're asking that of?
Catherine Zusy	Yeah, I'm asking that of the Public Health Department, please.
Denise Simmons	Ms. Takiyah or someone from Public Health, do you want to speak to that? Is drug use increasing?
SPEAKER_29	You know, I don't have like specific numbers on the usage in Cambridge. And usually what we're going by are some of our service providers that are seeing people come in and or looking at the numbers of ninoxone or narcan as how i refer to it because it's easier words to pronounce um how many um folks are getting not um narcan um distributed to them or the deaths and we are seeing that go down i know that we can't like draw direct causation but that is a good indicator a little bit of a pulse of what's going on in the community and it's always nice when we're able to see those numbers decrease. And it's nice when we're able to see people really take advantage of the needle drop boxes. And when we see them come in and do a program like that syringe program and get 3,000 needles in just a month and get connected to services more broadly, that really gives us an indication of where folks are at and what the need is that's outside of how many people per se are using within the Cambridge city limits.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you so much to all of you for all your work. I just can't wait for this epidemic to be in the rear view mirror. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, Council Zusy. Council Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you, Mayor Simmons, and I just want to say thanks to all the folks in the city and the public health department working on this issue. And especially as noted, the outreach that accompanies the needle exchange, I think that is the kind of thing we need to be doing every single second. It's very challenging for folks, but the more point of contact we can have with people is the only way that this Can be um solved I did have a couple questions that the needle pickup calls. Um, obviously increased It looks like in 2024 compared to 2023 And on 2025 it might be on a similar pace There's a shift over from the fire department to the care team Doing the pickups which in some ways is good Although I don't want the care team to just be doing needle pickups. They need to be doing mental health support and other INTERVENTIONS THAT THEY'RE HIGHLY TRAINED FOR. THERE'S ALSO A SIGNIFICANT HUGE PERCENTAGE OF THE NEEDLE PICKUP LOCATIONS HALF ARE IN EITHER PORTER SQUARE OR NORTH CAMBRIDGE WHICH IS QUITE STUNNING WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT THE USE. COUNCILOR ZUZI, COUNCILOR WILSON AND I DID GO AROUND RUSSELL FIELD AND SAW EVIDENCE OF QUITE A BIT. ALTHOUGH MOST OF THE NEEDLES HAVE PROBABLY BEEN TURNED INTO THE ACTUAL EXCHANGE PROGRAM. evidence because there were hundreds of just the orange tips for the needle. So the good news is the needles are being picked up. The bad news is, of course, there's evidence of more. I'm just curious, the significant increase in the pounds of material collected, it sounds like it's just based on weight. Do we have any evidence that all of that is actually needles, or are there sometimes when other things get mixed up with it? Because it's pretty stunning to see the Very large increase in the central square location and I'm just curious if it's just based on weight Do we have any sense of whether that's actually directly tied to needle pickup in exchange or if there's some other?
Kathy Watkins	element that we should be looking at Through mayor Simmons We went back and forth a lot about the data and I know like in some places we talked about the number of calls for service and you know those can end up with zero to 10 needles per call. So you can't really look at a number of calls and say what is exactly the number of needles. Similarly with the drop off boxes I was like oh can we do you know math and figure out how many needles it is. I think, you know, to Councillor Susi's point, you know, a number of people are sort of collecting them in a container at home and then dropping them off there. And so even if they're not like contamination, because I'm not hearing a lot of concerns about contamination in the boxes, but there are a lot of the needles that are coming within other containers. So it's not just, oh, here's the number of pounds of needles. So it's both the needles as well as containers if they're dropped off in containers. Central Square, some of the Central Square, and all of the data can be a little bouncy because it can vary month to month depending on when they pick it up. So they generally pick it up approximately once a month, but then it can vary somewhat in there. And then you'll also see, we added in March, the yellow in that chart is the Porter Square Firehouse, and so you see a fair number of pounds coming in at that location as well. So there is a fair amount of variability between the locations. Certainly Central Square, we do see those boxes heavily used. One of the things that was helpful about going back through this is that, you know, looking at all the data about the existing boxes, because we wanted to make sure that the existing boxes were getting used and that those were in good locations. So with the data, we were able to confirm that the locations that we have now are good locations, and it made sense to expand to the west.
Denise Simmons	Also, Nolan?
Patricia Nolan	Thanks. Right. The variability is pretty surprising because there's a couple months where there's literally zero in Central Square and then another month where it's very significant. So, you know, that variation is explained partly by when they're picked up and also the fact that it may, if I bring my my jar with needles in it, the jar itself is included as well. So that explains that. Another question is the needle exchange program that began in Alewife, which we wouldn't have the data for because this, particularly the pounds of material and some of the other goes through July. Do we have any sense of whether this initiative has affected needle pickup calls? Meaning you would expect the number of perhaps needle pick up calls to go down because what we're trying to do is incentivize people to collect their own needles to bring them to be traded in. And with over 3,300 being collected in four weeks, that suggests that it's doing what it should do, which is we want those needles off the ground and being put into a safer environment to be traded in.
Denise Simmons	Deputy Manager?
Kathy Watkins	um through chair simmons um i would say it's too early to tell so um you know this the data that we looked at was going back to august because that's when we started pulling the data and then that the needle um program just really started sort of overlapping with that i think you know, in six months, nine months, we'd have a better answer to that. I also would say that the other thing that, you know, we talk in here about, you know, needle pickups that are calls, you know, get dispersed either to the fire department or to the CARES team. The CARES team is also doing some proactive needle pickup in Alewife, one when they don't have other calls and then two it can be a way to have a touch point with various residents and so trying to combine it with both outreach efforts and needle pickup and so they're also just because we have really seen that spike particularly an alewife trying to prioritize proactive pickups through there as well so that may also help to drop the calls of the needles but it doesn't necessarily mean there's less needles so I think we need some time to really sort of see how that data plays out
Denise Simmons	Councilman Nolan. Oh, Suzanne. Great, thank you. I think the city manager wanted to add.
Yi-An Huang	City manager. Thank you, through you, Mayor Simmons. I think maybe one thing just to emphasize is we are, I think we are trying a lot of different things. I would say that the calls in to either calling 911 or the non-emergency line are probably the most important encouragement that we would make to the community. just to say if there are sharps needles that are lying around, whether that's on a sidewalk or in a park or along a path, we really do wanna know so that we can go get out there and pick it up. I think at this point, in terms of the calls between the community safety team and the fire department, we feel okay about keeping up with the volume of calls. I think ultimately we are using ECC and first responders because these really are public health issues and we don't wanna see somebody who's walking around in sandals get stuck or something else horrible happening. So we really are encouraging people to make those calls. We'll go out and get them. And I think from our perspective, if the volume of calls ends up being too high, will work out something else. And we can always adapt and evolve our programming. I would say we recognize that the care team is not primarily responsible for needle pickups, neither is the fire department. And in both cases, we have responders who are dealing with volume that comes in a little bit randomly. And so when they have downtime, we really want them to get out there quickly and pick up these needles. but I think we're holding a little steady right now and we're okay, but we are willing to make adjustments if the volume of calls goes up and if we don't feel like we're meeting those service expectations.
Patricia Nolan	Thanks. Yeah, it's important we address it as a public health issue. It's also something which we'll probably talk about in the next one on the opioids, how we're spending those funds. But again, thanks to the public health department in the city, but also the training that was mentioned by the public health department and Ms. Baxter about that there are employers training there. employees to be able to do either Narcan or Naloxone. It's really important that we also have that throughout the city as something that addresses this dire public health need. Thank you, I yield to Mayor Simmons.
Ayesha Wilson	Council Nolan yields the floor. Council Wilson. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I was wondering if maybe we can be taking up the city manager agenda six along with this. So you want to move that? Just because it overlaps. So can we have a suspension of the rules just to bring six forward?
Denise Simmons	So Council Wilson moves suspension of the rules to bring forward city manager's agenda item number six. Any discussion? Hearing none, on suspension, roll call.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Vice-Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?
SPEAKER_16	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	The rules are suspended on the affirmative vote of nine members. I'm bringing City Manager's Agenda Item Number 6, which is on the Opioid Settlement Stabilization Fund. Roll call.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Zinn. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner?
SPEAKER_39	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And number six is in front of the city council. It reads as follows. Transformating communication from Yi-An Huang, city manager, relative to a transfer in the amount of $1,703,731.64 from the Opioid Settlement Stabilization Fund to the Opioid Settlements Special Review Fund. The item is now before us.
Ayesha Wilson	thank you madam mayor and i should have thought to have us done a little bit sooner while we've been talking about money and um and and the needle exchange program as well hello welcome to the table friends um so through you madam mayor i just have a question in terms of just a couple of questions but one thus far how many dollars how much dollars have we um spent in the four weeks of actually operating this needle exchange program because at When we did the walkthrough, Councilor Nolan and myself, you know, we had to do some math that was taking us a little bit longer because we were like, okay, well, you have a cap of $10, 20 cents per needle, so that's 50 needles per person. How do we get to, you know, say, you know, doing the math of, at that time, we were thinking like... Over 3,000 needles. We're saying, okay, that's roughly 100 and some odd people coming in line each and every week. How many dollars are we up to right now?
Denise Simmons	Deputy City Manager Simonoff, everyone's sort of chomping there. Who feels best to respond?
Yi-An Huang	You wanna launch it? Through you, Mayor Simmons. I think, Councilor Wilson, were you asking specifically about the syringe redemption pilot then? Yes. Okay, and happy, Takiyah, if you wanna jump in. I believe that the budget was $100,000 a year, and so for fiscal year, so I think that was the budget for the annual operations, and I think the primary amount of that funding is the operations of the program, but Takiyah, did you wanna,
Ayesha Wilson	provide any additional context or did i get that number right you did you got it right so in addition to so through you madam mayor and thank you so a thousand dollars a hundred thousand dollars has been budgeted for the year but thus far how much has we you know in the in this last month again i can probably do some math but i'm just curious as we're going through this program will we actually exceed $100,000? I mean, if we're at this rate, I'm really curious as to how the dollars that are being expended to this. The other question, just to piggyback on that, is are we collecting any data on who are the people who are turning them in? So again, are they Cambridge residents, whether unhoused or whatever? Are they Cambridge folks? Are they repeat people that are coming in each and every week? And if they are folks who may be, say, unfortunately users, folks who have addictions, et cetera, what are the follow-up services and care that we are providing to them to make sure that there is that continuity of care? Because for me, I think as a social worker, it's important that we're thinking about, okay, we've seen this face for the last four weeks. They're coming in with the needles, but how what's the next step for them versus just seeing them again the following week?
Denise Simmons	Who would like to answer?
SPEAKER_29	Thank you for the question, Councilor Wilson. The program that run the van, they do collect all of that demographic data that you just spoke about. So they know who are Cambridge residents, they know who are repeat and who are new, and they also track all what services they connected them to, whether that's, you know, Cambridge, like substance use program, or like another with like with CHA or something like that, or if it's another type of standalone service provider, they're able to know who they're sending where. Because that is very important for us in our own evaluation as well to know whether or not this is something that we should continue to do to have strong information about where people are going and what people are looking for. They have questions about housing. What are they able to provide to them? The other thing is we're also able to, if the van operators tell us people do have questions about housing, we're able to give them information that they can then say, we're getting a lot of questions about this. We'll keep this in the van with us so that way we can give that to folks when they come to the van. So we do work in close collaboration with them around that. And they are able to give us information. full report outs on the evaluation of their time piloting the program. And we'd be more than happy to share that with city council so that you guys can see, you know, exactly the things that we're seeing. So we know whether or not this is something we want to continue to do.
Ayesha Wilson	Thank you, Madam Mayor. And through you, Deputy City Manager, did you have...
Kathy Watkins	City Manager or Deputy City Manager? Just two things I would add to what Takiyah was saying. So one is that I think this connection is really important, and that is something that every time we've had meetings about it, that is sort of the basis. I mean, one is that, like, we're getting needles back and you can give people money and incentivize it. But the underlying goal and intent is exactly that. It's not only about the needles. It's really about what's the bigger benefit of the program. And so they are making those connections. And they sent around the data. And I feel like it was over 85% were Cambridge residents that were served. many unhoused, but genuinely residing in Cambridge. And so it was predominantly local folks in terms of who was using it. And then just in terms of the math, I would say that I also understand that once or twice they've had people come in with a lot of needles. And so they may have come in and only gotten the $10, even though they had more needles than that. it's not necessarily that every one of these needles cost us 20 cents, because if somebody comes in with a larger supply, they still only get the $10 maximum.
Ayesha Wilson	Council Wilson. Thank you so much, and thank you for that clarification. Really helpful. I think my follow-up question in regards to this is, so now, I guess just what are the expectations, right? I think when we started this program, we had maybe a goal in mind right an idea around how we're going to be using this program not only to have have a safe space for people to turn needles in and have the incentive of maybe receiving some dollars as well but just really thinking about like what you know you talked about the other interventions that are maybe there from housing to um you know supports around drug use etc but just When do we feel like maybe the work we have done, so again, we're probably going to assess this in a year or maybe in the next six, nine months or whatever, When are we going to say, okay, we're in a good spot, maybe we can pull back something or reduce or we need to rev it up, right? And we need to actually increase the services that we're providing out here. I know I was looking through and realized, because I was like, oh, I want to check this place out. It is on a Wednesday at 4.30 in the morning to 6 a.m. I don't think I'll be able to check this place out, just given child care. But, you know, it's very, it is a really time-sensitive moment, and I'm just curious, like, what that space actually looks like, but then again, just the interventions that we're putting in place. So I just want us to be intentional. I want us to really think about how we're doing it, how do we know that Again, people, I think about, I went through IVF, so I've had needles and I had to turn. So just thinking, it's not all just drug use, right? It's other things and stuff, diabetics and everything like that. So just thinking about how do we equate drugs, substance, all that kind of stuff, but then to the other piece of there's folks out there who have chronic conditions that they need support and stuff around too. So just making sure that our services that we're providing to people are not just one way or the other. So yeah, I think that was all. I feel like there was one more thing that I had, but it's not coming to me, but I may jump back in. I see the time is, I was hoping this was a quick meeting, but apologies. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	We will now turn it over to the Vice Mayor. Vice Mayor, the floor is yours.
Marc McGovern	Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. Just something more generally on this subject, and then more specifically the number six. I think we know how complicated an issue this is for people, right? And when we think about, I don't think there's any city that has really figured this out. This is a national crisis. But three of the big areas, and there's more, but three of the big areas are the prevention piece, the harm reduction piece, and then the recovery piece, right? And so, and they're all linked, right? But, you know, 80% of the people who are using heroin got started through prescription medication that then expired, couldn't get refilled, or addicted, and then turned to street drugs. So that's a prevention piece. How do we deal with the pharmaceutical companies? How do we educate people? How do we teach people, you know, after seven days, you can become addicted to or any of those other opioids, right? And then the harm reduction piece is kind of what we're talking about, the needle exchange, right? And, you know, so people aren't using dirty needles and it's not, you know, it's HIV and Hep C and all those statistics go, you know, decrease when people are not sharing needles and turning needles in and overdose prevention centers, those, you know, those kinds of things that keep people alive, right? So that you hope that they can, when they're ready get into recovery and that's the that's the bigger the harder part is short and long-term recovery beds and those wraparound services are incredibly expensive and it's those are much harder for cambridge to kind of solve on on their own that's a the system is is really broken in that regard so i just think when people look at this and they say because i had i did get a few emails when i filed this that said needle drop boxes that's not going to you know solve anybody from being addicted and that's not what it is, right? This is one piece of a very complicated puzzle to try and address how can we decrease so many needles being found in parks and playgrounds. It's not gonna stop anybody from using, it's not gonna encourage anybody to use either. Nobody's gonna say, oh, I can get 20 cents for a needle. I think I'm gonna start doing drugs. So it's just one piece of this. So I think that's important to keep in mind. And then in terms of the, so we've received basically $6 million in the opioid money, settlement money. We've spent about $2 million of it, according to the report. Are we gonna get, I know, Mr. Manager, you and I had talked at some point about that the Opioid Task Force was going to issue an updated report. Are there things on the table around that additional $4 million? We may not want to spend it down to zero, because you always want to have some money in the bank, so to speak. But that is still a significant amount of money that's We haven't used and you know, obviously there's a lot of things we could be doing. So are we going to get an update at some point as to what are the plans for those? Because these funds, I think we're getting them for like 20 years or something. So I mean, it's not, you know, we're going to be getting a million plus or so. Every year. So, you know, we're going to it's going to be we're going to get more money in the in the fund every year. So it's not like, oh, let's save that four million because we need to spend that over the next 20 years. We're going to be getting money consistently. So any thoughts, any conversation around when we might get some ideas on that additional four million?
Denise Simmons	Assistant City Manager Seminoff.
SPEAKER_03	Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. Just so you know, we've actually already allocated $4.1 million, and I totally understand why you would be, it's because of which fund it is. And let me, I know we don't want to end up with a large conversation tonight, so let me just give you the very quick rundown and then- So you might remember this. We spent $200,000 roughly on buying the van for medical services. We did a contract for a million dollars, which provides the medical services on that van for healthcare for the homeless. We have a primary care doc from the Cambridge Health Alliance, which does ride-alongs on that van who can provide prescribed substance abuse treatment. And so we've got about a million dollars that is spent on that through June of 2026. In addition to that, and this information was presented but not discussed, at the April Human Services Committee. We may recall that we spent most of our time on the Transitional Wellness Center, but there was a document presented that day which indicated how some of that other money was being allocated, and some of that addresses some of the things, Vice Mayor, that you were referencing. Right now, the city did a grant agreement with the Cambridge Health Alliance for about $650,000. That included this needle program that we were discussing. It also includes the vending machine. It includes recovery coaches and there's a grant agreement with North Suffolk and North Suffolk is in the process of hiring recovery coaches which will be placed in Cambridge-based organizations in order to be able to support people both on the street and who are seeking services through those organizations. There's some money for youth prevention and there's money for a community advisory board made up of people with lived experience or family members with lived experience that can provide advice to the substance use advisory committee. That substance use advisory committee is currently chaired by, it was previously chaired, you may remember, by the police commissioner and Asad Sayah, the head of the Cambridge Health Alliance. They're both still members, but it's now chaired by Dana, who is director of prevention for Fenway and oversees the access site in Cambridge, along with Ellie Grossman, Dr. Ellie Grossman, who is in charge of addiction training for the Cambridge Health Alliance and The other members of that group are people who have a variety of different experiences with substance abuse. So I just want to say we've spent about $4 million. We will continue to get a little over $1 million a year. So some of these things we will want to refund so that the medical van, for example, and depending on what we learn from this needle program, is it a program we want to continue to fund? And I think it would be wonderful to have an opportunity to come back and present to the Human Services Committee where we are, what we've learned, and what's planned.
Marc McGovern	Vice Mayor? Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I think with the recovery coaches, too, which is great, I don't know if this is going to be part of their job description as well, but also... Thank you. You know, what happens a lot is somebody goes into a program, they're there for 30 days, 45 days, they're in Plymouth and they're in Sharon and they're in all these places that are not necessarily, you know, Cambridge and Boston, and then when the 30 days is over, here's your bus ticket, go back to Cambridge, and they come back to Cambridge to start all over again, right? So I hope those recovery coaches are also, part of their job will be to be in touch with the places where, the recovery places where these folks are gonna be so that when they come back, we can pick up the services for them. And then lastly, Madam Mayor, and I know this is a long time, thank you for the patience. and I'm certainly not suggesting that everyone who is unhoused has a substance use issue or everyone who has a substance use issue is unhoused, but I think of these two things similarly in the sense that we help a lot of individual people, whether it's getting them housing or getting them treatment, but the numbers don't ever look different because there's always more coming, right? And so I know if you look around, you'll say, oh my gosh, we're doing nothing. But we're doing a lot that help individual people. I mean, the sad part is that there's always somebody else who's struggling with addiction or struggling with being unhoused. And so it doesn't look to the naked eye maybe that we're helping people that are doing anything, but we are, even though the numbers don't always reflect that. So I just want people to kind of keep that in their head. So thank you, everybody. I'll yield now.
Denise Simmons	Vice Mayor yields the floor. Anyone else want to be heard on this?
Patricia Nolan	Councilor Nolan? Thank you. I had spoken to the earlier policy order and then when Councilor Wilson brought the other one forward, that's what I wanted to just quickly say here that my colleagues have raised the questions and concerns and talked about all the issues related to this. The question is following on that and building on it is, as Vice Mayor McGovern said, there will always be more people in need. And yet we also want to make sure that the funds we're spending are effective and that we are using them as intended for treatment. So do we have a sense of what is the best practice and most effective use of the funds? And are we seeing that treatment has actually enabled folks to get out of this type of addiction that these settlement funds are meant to address. We'd like to add to that.
Denise Simmons	You want to try that, City Manager?
Yi-An Huang	Through you, Mayor Simmons. Happy to have Takiyah jump in, but I do know that a lot of the work that the Substance Use Advisory Committee did was to look at best practices and a lot of the research that went into the program design and what was chosen to be funded. So I would say We're doing it on both ends. On the front end, ensuring that we're following best practices and looking at what's worked, we're looking at what's happening in other communities. And then on the back end, I think really measuring results and being able to understand whether or not these programs are working well. But Takiyah, anything to add in terms of some of the case studies we looked at or the programs that kind of came up?
Denise Simmons	Takiyah? Maybe not. Do you wanna see, Takiyah? So she's on, but maybe she can't hear. Councilor Nolan, back to you.
Patricia Nolan	So thank you for that. Do we have any sense of success stories? And again, it may be anecdotal, but it's really important to know that these millions of dollars have actually brought some people along, and sadly, it may just mean that there's making more room then for future people, but that's certainly an improvement than not.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Nolan, Sam Lipson is on if you'd like to go back to your earlier question. Mr. Lipson, did you hear the earlier question from Councilor Nolan, and can you speak to it?
SPEAKER_21	Sorry, I just stepped away. What was the question?
Denise Simmons	Councilor?
Patricia Nolan	Yes, I think we're all really grateful for these funds and we're also really frustrated and upset and angry that we have these funds because we have them because there was a deliberate effort to get people addicted. And sadly, that's why these funds were approved by the court. And the question which builds on what many of my colleagues have also asked is, the expected results of these funds. As the city manager said, the programs are building on best practice. So then the question is, what are the expected results from the spending of these funds in terms of effective treatment for drug users?
SPEAKER_21	I would defer to Takiya because my role in this particular item is really about the management of the hazard, the sharps, the kiosks, and not really these direct intervention programs. So yeah, I'm sure Takiya has some thoughts on that.
Denise Simmons	I don't know if Takiya is on the phone. Takiya? And I'm sorry, I don't know her last name.
SPEAKER_21	Brown. Oh, Brown.
Denise Simmons	Ms. Brown?
SPEAKER_21	We may have, I think she may have thought we were done with item five.
Denise Simmons	No worries, we should be done, but we're not. I'm so sorry about that. To the city manager, do you want to follow up?
Yi-An Huang	I think through you, Mayor Simmons, we could follow up if, I know that there are a lot of really great stories coming out of the work that the medical outreach van is doing. I'm not the best person to tell those stories, but we could follow up and provide some of those anecdotes.
Denise Simmons	Perhaps you can respond in the email through Ms. Brown or someone else. Okay, you yield? Councilor Nolan yields. Floor, Councilor Zutty. Floor is yours.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, I think it would be a great committee. I think there should be a committee meeting of human services, please, because it would be just great to hear those success stories and to talk more about best practices. Again, we want people—I'm reading The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese, and I know addiction is just a horrible, horrible thing. It's very hard to spring loose of an addiction. But we've got to work towards achieving that goal, right? Or that's what we're striving for for our larger community. So I look forward to other discussions. I thank you and I yield.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Zusy yields the floor. Any further discussion? We've not heard. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, did you want to speak on this? Councilor Azeem? Councilor Siddiqui? Do you want to be heard? Councilor Wilson, do you want to be heard again? No? Very good. Having had a thorough and thoughtful conversation about this, I would like to call for a vote. So in the first one, which is placing on file, Vice Mayor moves that we place this matter on file.
SPEAKER_33	Roll call, please. Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	City Manager's agenda item number five is placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We move now to vote on roll call on number six. Madam Clerk.
SPEAKER_33	On adopting the order?
Denise Simmons	On adopting the order and placing on file.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	City Manager's agenda on item number six has been Placed on file and the appropriation approved by the affirmative vote of nine members. We'll move now to number seven. This was pulled by Councilor Zusy and reads as follows. Communication transmitted from Yanwang City Manager relative to the waiting report item number 25-38, 25-39, and 25-41 regarding issues related to the parking and the area surrounding the eastern end of Broadway. Councilor Zusy, this was pulled by you. This floor is yours.
Catherine Zusy	Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor. I am thrilled that the Commercial Parking Control Committee is up and running. That's fantastic, and that you are expecting in the next couple of months to have meetings with people that want to create commercial parking lots. Again, do you have any update on level of interest? This is for Commissioner McKenna.
Denise Simmons	Commissioner McKenna?
SPEAKER_37	Through you, Madam Mayor. As of a few weeks ago, we had six parties that we were talking to who had already expressed interest. Since during those discussions, some of them may actually end up not going down the route that needs a commercial parking permit. So they may be doing other types of shared parking. But I think we have at least two or three that will be putting in applications right away and are quite eager to get permits.
Catherine Zusy	uh council susie yeah again through you madam mayor that is just fantastic news because i i just think um with opening up some of the metered places i think this will really help to alleviate some of the parking scarcity along the broadway corridor and i do feel very compassionate for the people that live along that corridor So my aide and I were studying the Broadway corridor and just seeing that there were actually, though, very few options as the corridor is currently defined. So again, so would it require a policy order then or a change of zoning to broaden the corridor? I just wish we could broaden the corridor so we could find more off street parking for residents.
SPEAKER_37	Through you, Madam Mayor, I do want to clarify that the interest that was shown in the commercial parking permits are citywide, not necessarily on the Broadway corridor. I do think that the flexible parking corridors, that work was done through zoning, so it would be another zoning change to expand that.
Denise Simmons	Council Zusy.
Catherine Zusy	Okay. Thank you. And then just do we have any? When will we receive the data about how employees get to work? Will that be coming soon?
SPEAKER_37	Commissioner? Through you, Madam Mayor. We are working on that. There are some, I know that you're very, you're specifically very interested in 344 Broadway, and there are some challenges to how the data is aggravated, aggravated, see how I feel about it, aggregated, that we're trying to work out, and I'm not sure if we're going to be able to get you exactly the numbers that would just represent 344 Broadway because of the way that departments operate and and things are separated out in the numbers, but we are working on getting that to you.
Catherine Zusy	Yeah, through you, Madam Mayor. Yes, I think it's so important, and I am thinking, because a lot of city workers are working at 344 Broadway, or close to the Broadway corridor, and I think they're adding to the scarcity of parking in the region. And also, I just think, again, I think we need broader transportation planning, and we really need to be We have 3,700 city employees, so we've really got to, it would be good if we were overt, if we were transparent about how they're getting into the city and if they're taking street parking. It's important for us to realize that they are one of the stressors for street parking. So again, it's essential to have that information to understand the fuller picture of street parking in Cambridge. Thank you so much for your work and I yield.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Zusy yields the floor.
Ayesha Wilson	Councilor Wilson? Thank you, Madam Mayor, and through you to Commissioner. I just had a question in regards to, so not only is it 344 Broadway, we do have four schools along Broadway. We do have our main public library is along Broadway, also 51 Inman Street. So out of the 37 some odd hundred workers that we have, that strip alone consists of many of city staff and employees. And recognizing there's probably, I think, 12%, Well, at least that was when I was on the school committee side. 12% of school staff live in the city. I don't know citywide staff, how many actually live in the city of Cambridge to have like say a parking permit to park their cars legally on the street. But some of them actually get tags to park wherever because they have to visit multiple schools, right? Or they work at one location but have to go to several others. So I think as we're talking about this conversation in the more broader sense is to really be mindful of how many of those passes do we also issue to individuals who have to get across different schools across our city, recognizing that Broadway is a main hub for many of our staff to come to. in addition to our residents, right? And I think the push for not only the delay or taking out and removing Broadway was to help to alleviate the pain and the stress that's already going to be placed on residents, but also, you know, on our staff to make sure that they can get to work and be... productive right because i can imagine that if you are driving to your place of employment and have to either leave much earlier and or have to stay later and have to fight through or travel around the city several times over just to find a parking spot that can really impact how you show up to work in your productivity So I just want to name that as somebody who has, you know, been challenged with that and hearing, you know, having to kind of filter through some of the challenges that many of our people are sharing with that, that that is real. And we are going to feel that times a thousand when that comes up. So it's great to be able to put numbers on who we know comes into our city and how. who takes public transportation, who's biking, who's driving, who our residents are, meaning Cambridge city staff who are residents, and really helping to mitigate some of those efforts because we're going to feel the sting, and it's going to be more so on those neighbors who live there each and every day who are gonna feel the sting heavier than our employees, thank you.
Denise Simmons	Council Wilson gives the floor. Did someone want to speak to that at all? Hearing none, Council Siddiqui and then Council Turner. Council Siddiqui, the floor is yours.
Sumbul Siddiqui	thank you through you i wanted to just say i appreciate that there were 17 spaces that were found i um i think the request had been 25 or up to 25 but i understand the different conversations with the businesses and the broadway improvement group and that the regulation changes and signage will be in place by the end of september so I was glad to hear that. On the permit fees, one question that I had, I think the recommendation here is not to make any changes to the free structure and that already residents who have multiple providers visiting at different times, they're charged a single fee. This is not urgent, but just from my understanding, would it be possible to know, similar to your question, how many non-resident parking permits are requested? by residents, because I just wanna know the, it's important that we have this, and obviously it's being utilized, but I'm just curious about the usage on that front. And I understand that the recommendation is based on the fact that we don't wanna just do this for one area, We would not make changes to our programs for one geographical area that would not apply equally across the city. I understand that logic. I think, yeah, so I do understand that logic, but I think there was a big concern around folks who have providers and would need parking. So that's why I kind of want to understand the usage. Anyway, I think I'm glad that there's been a lot of work on getting that mailer out to the businesses as well and understanding what folks are actually saying and how the response has been because I think that's a big, I think a lot of people have that on their minds, how our folks, what will actually happen with these new zoning changes. Anyway, wanted to just make those remarks. I'm glad that there were some spots, there were 17 spots that were identified. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Siddiqui yields the floor. Commissioner McKenna, did you want to speak to any of the things that Councilor Siddiqui brought up?
SPEAKER_37	Through you, Madam Mayor, I can get the usage numbers to you for the non-resident permits.
Denise Simmons	Thank you.
Paul Toner	Councilor Toner? Thank you, Madam Mayor. I don't know if you would have this information, Commissioner McKenna, but just the comments that Council Zusy made about 3,700 city employees driving into the city. One, I too would love to know how many actually do drive into the city, but when we look at our schools, a number of them have parking lots. I don't know about other departments. I know some other departments do have places to park, but I mean, I'm assuming most city employees, if they don't have some special permit, which I'm also assuming most don't, that if they are parking on the streets, they're at risk of getting a ticket. And I assume that they probably don't take that risk on a daily basis. Am I correct about that?
Denise Simmons	Commissioner McKenna?
SPEAKER_37	Through you, Madam Mayor. So our survey does give us information about how city employees move around, so we can certainly share that. I would say that I don't think, I do think that our enforcement efforts are strong and it is not a good idea for people to park on the street illegally. Generally speaking, and I think that most employees feel that way and look for other opportunities. The city does offer parking for a fee in the Green Street Garage, and that's available to folks who work in this area. The same with people who are close to the First Street Garage. But yes, I don't think that most employees try to park illegally on a regular basis. I think it's probably not a feasible option. day-to-day thing for folks to do.
Paul Toner	Councilor Turner. Yeah, thank you very much. I just wanted to clarify that because I know as the former teacher's union president, getting a permit for teachers that ought to travel was pretty few and far between. And, you know, unless you got a parking spot in the parking lot early in the morning, you might have some difficulty. So I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. I yield.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Turner yields the floor for the discussion. Councilor Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you. I'm grateful for this report. I'm really glad all three policy orders were joined together and I appreciate my colleagues, Councillor Siddiqui and Azeem and the Vice Mayor who I think all came forward with this. And one of mine was the lead on the three policy orders identifying ideas that led to this response, addressing issues raised in the POs. As Councillor Siddiqui mentioned, adding the 17 spots for resident parking is really important. The meters in effect, I think for that timing from the report, the meters during the day and then resident at night with some bridge time so that the small businesses can, it was done in consultation, which makes sense because then those small businesses will be able to have folks stay at the meters until 10 p.m. Glad that it was chosen in consultation with the working group and local businesses. My question on that was, was there any outreach to the residents as well? And is this something that was done in coordination with all the different stakeholder groups?
SPEAKER_37	Through you, Madam Mayor. I think primarily we consulted with the working group as the proxy for the neighborhood. And I think the thinking behind the later start time is that it gives, you know, if people don't leave for work really early in the morning, they don't have to get out to move their car. And then the same on the flip side for access for people visiting the businesses on the later end. Great.
Patricia Nolan	Yeah, I think that sounds like a great fix for that part of the city. The mailer on the commercial parking applications, it would be great to just continue to get reports on that, because I know we've all been eagerly waiting for the committee to be started. It finally is in order, and hopefully by, I think it was October or November, the expectation is that the very first applications be approved. There's also, I want to point out this list of initiatives, which is also really important for us to communicate to people. I think it's page two, no, page four of the report of the range of ways that we have existing programs to reduce car dependency, many of which are available for city staff, but also available to residents across the state. ACROSS THE CITY IS SOMETHING THAT'S GOING TO BE VERY IMPORTANT WHERE, AS WE'LL TALK LATER ON THE AGENDA, WE'RE HOPING THAT THE TRANSPORTATION PLAN WILL BE DISCUSSED IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS. BUT AGAIN, IS THIS LIST THAT'S ON HERE, WHICH INCLUDES A RANGE OF WAYS THAT WE work to both ensure that people have information, and also there are challenges for those residents who do rely on cars out of mobility or health issues, that those concerns were heard by the city, and that's why we have this report. So I think it's really important to uplift that and let people know that, yes, we are moving forward with changes that will make it more difficult for some people in certain ways, and yet we're very aware of that and are also moving forward with ways that we can mitigate that impact on Is this list readily available in different forms for folks across the city?
Denise Simmons	Commissioner McKenna?
SPEAKER_37	Through you, Madam Mayor, I'll let Assistant Commissioner Grohl answer this one.
Denise Simmons	Assistant Commissioner?
SPEAKER_27	Thank you, Mayor Simmons, through you. To Councilman Nolan, hello. We have all of this information is available on our website. We are continually sharing this information through the city daily update, our social media, all of our communication channels, and we are working now on what our engagement will look like for the next year to make sure that we get the word out. Councilor Nolan?
Patricia Nolan	Great, thank you. I'm glad there was an opportunity for you to talk. So you've been waiting for a while, so I'm glad there's an end. Those are my questions and comments, Mayor Simmons, on this response to the three different policy orders, and I yield.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Nolan yields the floor. Councilor Zima, Councilor Subina, do either of you want to speak on this? Anyone who has not been heard? Hearing no further discussion, on a motion by Council Susi to place this matter on file, roll call please.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councillor Toner.
SPEAKER_39	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Councilor Wilson. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the matter is placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We move now to number eight. This is pulled by Council Wilson reads as follows. Communication transmitted from Yanwang City Manager relative to waiting report item three. 25-27 regarding the city managers invest assist investigate bike pod storage options to be placed in suitable areas in the city to provide residents and visitors safe storage options this is pulled by council wilson councilman thank you madam mayor and through you i actually want to apologize i didn't actually mean to pull this one it was a different one that was actually pulled but since it is on the floor happy to since you all have
Ayesha Wilson	stayed around um well commissioner you were going to be here but uh stephanie if you have anything that you want to um just share about the report and what you shared out it's basically like not feasible but if you have anything that you want to just add so that the public can be um aware thank you assistant commissioner roll floors yours
SPEAKER_27	Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you, to Councillor Wilson. We appreciated the opportunity to look at this as a solution and thought pretty long and hard about what it would mean to implement this on city streets, and we found a number of difficulties. which we talked about in the report. First of all, finding space for it. We have very constrained streets in the city. And so other potential locations could be used by other things that people want in the city. Also, there will be costs associated with it, both operational costs and capital costs. And then there are operational considerations, so how would we decide who parks there, and what happens if someone leaves their bike there too long, and several other things to think about as far as security and access goes. So what we ultimately decided is that if the goal is to help people have more access to bikes and as you know to support their lives both how they get to work and how they live the rest of their lives there are other ways that we can do that in the city and really looking at how we support blue bikes as an option for people who don't have great home storage options for their bicycles. So we have some areas to pursue that will help people have access to bikes that don't necessarily take the space and cost and operational concerns that the particular pod solution that was recommended.
Ayesha Wilson	Councillor? Thank you. And in addition, in the report, now you're like jogging my memory on something, and I actually shared an email in regards to just even more bike racks, right? And so just wanting to know if there's any update in regards to the request for more bike racks at CRLS.
Denise Simmons	Commissioner Grohl.
SPEAKER_27	through you, Madam Mayor. We do have an opportunity, well, sorry, let me go back. There is a location near CRLS that we could add a couple more corrals, bike corrals, which are temporary during better weather, which is when the bike parking is in higher demand anyway. That would allow us to add, I believe, 28 spaces. very close to the entrance to the high school. And that's where most of the bike parking is desired. We do have some bike parking available around the high school that is less used, but that is located farther from the entrance. So we have found a location near the entrance that could work, and we're now coordinating with other city organizations that would need to say yes to this.
Ayesha Wilson	Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. So in terms of just timeline, we would see that probably not anytime soon, but maybe into the spring?
SPEAKER_27	Well, if we could, through you, Madam Mayor, if we could coordinate with the right groups of people, then we could put that out quite soon on our current bike parking contract. And it's a very nimble solution. We have it. We could just put it out, but we just need to make sure that the location that we're looking at is acceptable to the library.
Ayesha Wilson	Okay, great. I'm happy to be of support if you need me. Thank you. I yield.
Denise Simmons	Council Wilson, use the floor. Just one question up on the bicycle parking near or around the high school. I hope you respectfully would certainly engage the school department if it's gonna be around the high school. I know it's something that's been asked for and needed. We just wanna make sure we engage the full group of people that this may have an impact to and for. So thank you. Is there any other discussion on this item? Hearing none, Council Wilson moves to place this on file. Roll call, please.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner.
SPEAKER_39	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	On the communication number eight of city managers relative to bike... storage, et cetera, has been placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We move now to number nine. This was pulled by Councilor Nolan, reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yanwang City Manager relative to a waiting report, item number 25-42, regarding pedestrianization of Lower Bow Street. Councilor Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you. I'm totally excited by this response. It's a little bit of a hallelujah moment, although it would have been even nicer to have this have been in place already. But I really appreciate that the staff took this idea that came out of a policy order from the council. And I've been working on this for a while with all the people who live there, who operate businesses there. are in favor of it, and I recognize there may be some need for additional planning, but it's very exciting that this is the location's excellent opportunity for pedestrianization. As it was noted, it's already been closed for two years, so we've already done the traffic study, and obviously we would make sure that it would be open for deliveries. And as was also noted, COVID provided a robust pilot, and it was highly successful. So the intent of starting pedestrianization in the spring as soon as possible is what I would hope would happen. And I know that some of the owners of restaurants there need to get some various permits in place. The only question I had is, so there was a note that there's reservations about a possibility of something that we've The council has also said would be something to pilot at some point, which is the automatic retractable bollard. So the question is whether that's still at least under consideration. Why would there be hesitation to at least try it in one place? This seems to be also an ideal way to try it because it's such a small, very specific facility. And I recognize that it may be other things could be used, but it would be really exciting to know if we could do a pilot with that kind of thing. So is that at least something we will be considering?
Denise Simmons	Who would like to take that? Assistant City Manager?
Kathy Watkins	Hi, through you, Mayor Simmons. So, Councilor Nolan, when we've looked at the retractable bollards, they are a very fussy detail in a public way. So you think about the base, and if they get material in there, it's extremely hard for them to go up and down. Even the removable ones we have almost always tend to get removed and not put back. And also the complexity of installing them matters greatly in terms of what the utilities are underneath So just when we've looked at them given the cost and I would say really the long-term maintenance in the public way has always tended to really be much more significant than It just is a very complex solution to the problem And so we have not felt like those have been great Models for a public way and I'm not saying it's completely impossible but just when you look at the fussiness of them and the idea of maintaining them year-round It just is a significant maintenance issue that we feel like there are better solutions that don't require that level of maintenance and that level of complexity
Patricia Nolan	Thank you. I appreciate that. And I encourage us to see if there's other cities. I mean, cities all across Europe have been using this in snow, in rain. I mean, there's lots of cities that have managed to use this and have decided that from a cost-effective point of view, it actually makes more sense because you don't have to pay people to go have things go back and forth right now. On Palmer Street, you have to have someone every single day, twice a day, go out and remove things and with an automatic bollard you don't. You also would have any delivery person could just have the code to put them up and down. So I appreciate there's complexity and there's concerns and I also want to push back a little bit and hope that we are reaching out to cities in this country and elsewhere that have managed to do this because it ends up on the long term it could actually be a cost savings and less maintenance than going back and forth with others. So I hope that we And if you've already done that, do diligence and just provide us with that background. So that was my question, but again, I'm very excited about this and look forward to all of us being able to go out and sit in Bow Street as early as next spring together in the outdoors and to have it be really activated, not with programming necessarily, but just be able to be used and reallocated as a public way. I yield.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Nolan yields the floor for the discussion. Councilor Toner, do you want to be heard on this?
Paul Toner	No. No, thank you.
Denise Simmons	So on a motion by Councilor Nolan to place on file, roll call, please.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Zinn. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.
SPEAKER_00	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner.
	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	Thank you. We'll move now to number 10. This was pulled by the mayor. It reads as follows. A communication transmit from Yanwang City Manager relative to a waiting report item number 25-32 regarding a request that the city engage in discussions with leadership from the MassBay Transit Authority and the Harvard Square Business Association regarding a proposal to explore the feasibility of repurposing the long abandoned MBTA tunnel in Harvard Square into a commercial or cultural space. I pulled this and so let me just start by saying and then I'll open the floor to others that want to weigh in. I want to just acknowledge and thanks the city manager for this response. And while I certainly appreciate the work that has gone into engaging with our partners, the HSBA and the state agencies, I must express my real disappointment. I'm disappointed that the office seems very unwilling to take even this modest first step to invest in and explore the future of one of our most important commercial districts. Sometimes, as city leaders, we must be willing to begin taking the first steps even when we don't see the entire staircase. Visions and willingness to explore both bold ideas have always been what it was allowed in Cambridge to continually reinvent ourselves and attract the people and businesses that make our city thrive. The Harvard Square Business Association has brought us a creative proposal that deserves more than cautious hesitation. At a time when our commercial districts face unprecedented challenges, we should be embracing innovation, not waiting for perfect certainty. With that in mind, I'm sending this report back to the city manager, urging him to come back to this council with a response that reflects the bold, forward-thinking leadership Cambridge is known for. I might just also say this is something that the council voted to do. Disappointment is actually a mild way of saying, I want more than this, than to say, well, let's think about it and et cetera and so forth when the council was very clear in their vote. So I will yield to see if anyone else wants to speak on this. Otherwise, I'm going to make a motion just to send it back. Any discussion? Councilor Zusy, Councilor Toney, do you want to speak on this? I'm okay. Okay. Councilor Zizzi?
Catherine Zusy	Okay. I think you all know I've been both ways on this project. I did talk to John Giovanni this morning about it, and what I understand is that the city must present the RFP if So the Harvard Business Association can't be the one that pays for the RFP for whatever reason. It's the city that would have to initiate the RFP. And I understand that the T is open to collaboration that you've met like twice at the site or met twice with the T. So it seems like a real possibility to me. I agree $72,000 is a lot of money for an RFP and as I think you know by now, I'm pretty frugal. But I do feel as though it might be useful for the city to have had this study done just so we have some sense for what could be done with that tunnel under harvard square that's been empty for 45 years i and i think it's i'm not sure this is the way to revitalize harvard square but it seems like it needs a little something and i i actually think this i think this is worth investing in thank you i yield councils yields the floor council zine floor is yours
Burhan Azeem	Thank you. I'd love to have the time to have a conversation with everyone and see if there's a way that we can have a productive end to this rather than it becoming hostile today. So I would like to exercise my charter right.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Azeem has exercised his charter right. That ceases discussion. We'll move on to the next matter. The next matter is number 11, was pulled by the Vice Mayor. It reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yan Wang, City Manager, relative to the transmission of the Cambridge Street zoning petition. Vice Mayor, the floor is yours.
Marc McGovern	Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd like to move suspension to bring forward number 12 as well, please.
Denise Simmons	Vice Mayor request put forward a motion to suspend the rules to bring forward city manager's agenda item number 12. On suspension of the rules, Madam Clerk.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	The rules are now suspended. The motion by the Vice Mayor is to bring number 12 forward. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councillor Azeem.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councillor Toner.
SPEAKER_39	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes, Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes, Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	City Manager's Agenda Item Number 12 is before us and reads as follows. A communication transmission from Yan Wang, City Manager, relative to the transmission of the Massachusetts Avenue zoning petition. Vice Mayor, the floor is yours.
Marc McGovern	Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you. So just so folks know, all we're being asked to do tonight is whether or not we want to forward these on to the ordinance committee. We are not passing these tonight. We are not... There's gonna be a lot more discussion in ordinance if these go forward. More of a public process if it goes forward. As the chair of the ordinance committee, there's a number of things we're trying to get on, the meetings that we have coming up and some others that we're still trying to schedule. So I would really like these to go forward tonight so that we can get them on the docket and start figuring out when we're going to have these meetings. I don't really want to get into a huge long discussion about this tonight because that would be in the ordinance committee. So on policy orders 11 and 12, Madam Mayor, I'd like to call the question.
Denise Simmons	The Vice Mayor has called the question on 11 and 12. That requires a two-thirds vote. I have to ask the clerk to call the roll.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler.
SPEAKER_22	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy.
SPEAKER_22	No.
SPEAKER_33	No. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as in the negative.
Denise Simmons	The question has been called. I will read the appropriate language for the vote. On 11, it's vote to adopt the proposed amendment as a zoning petition and refer to the ordinance committee and planning board for hearing and report. Roll call, please.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner?
SPEAKER_39	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?
SPEAKER_22	No.
SPEAKER_33	No. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded in the negative.
Denise Simmons	And the matter is adopted. We are adopting the proposed amendment as a zoning petition and referring to the ordinance committee and planning board for hearing and report. And that has been done on the affirmative vote of eight members, one voting in the negative. We move now to number 12. I will read the vote. Vote to adopt the proposed amendment as a zoning petition and refer to the ordinance committee and planning board for hearing and report. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy?
SPEAKER_22	No.
SPEAKER_33	No. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.
Denise Simmons	And the item has been adopted as a proposed amendment as a zoning petition and referred to the Ordinance Committee and Planning Board for hearing and report on the affirmative vote of eight members, one voting in the negative. We move now to number 13. This was pulled by the Vice Mayor, Rita, as follows. A communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to awaiting report item number 25-43. Regarding a request for an interim report on demolition and building permit applications received during the six-month period following the City Council's adoption of the multifamily zoning amendment on February 10th, 2025. Vice Mayor, the floor is yours. Thank you. Excuse me.
Marc McGovern	Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. Thank you very much for this report. There's obviously been a whole lot of discussion in the community since the multifamily housing ordinance passed, and a lot of information out there with folks concerned about demolition permits and whatnot, and it was good to just get the real numbers in front of us so that people know the accurate information. If I'm reading this correctly, if you look at the number of demolition permits from February 11, 24 to August 10, 24, compared to that same time period this year, that we have seen an increase of 14. And there have been 17 demolition permits filed since the multifamily housing has passed. Am I reading that correctly?
SPEAKER_46	Through the mayor, to Vice-Mayor McGovern, that last piece you mentioned, the 17, are you looking at the line for residential uses? Is that where they're getting the 17?
Denise Simmons	Vice-Mayor?
SPEAKER_46	Or are you reading the seven issues to date, seven permits issued to date?
Marc McGovern	Seven permits are issued. Yes.
SPEAKER_46	Seven, yeah.
Marc McGovern	Yeah, but there have been, seven have been issued, but there have been 17 filed, and only seven have been issued.
SPEAKER_46	Through the mayor, this is Jeff Roberts. The information we received is that there were, during that time period, during the six months following adoption of the multifamily zoning, there have been 46 applications submitted and of those, 13 issued to date. And then within that category for residential uses, just kind of slicing that figure to look at which have existing residential uses, the number applied for is 31 and issued to date, seven.
Marc McGovern	so thank you madam mayor through you um and then you do have a um you know you do have a line underneath the the the demolition permit applications include full and partial demolition do we know and again maybe i'm just not getting the titles right but um how many of those permits have been partial demolitions versus full demolitions. I think trying to get to the concern that people have that developers are buying properties and applying to just do total demolitions and build new bigger buildings, but sometimes people apply for demolition permits because they're doing an add-on to their own house, right? That's a different, I think that's a different kind of thing in this conversation. So do we know sort of the breakdown of how many of these applications are kind of somebody just kind of renovating their own home versus sort of a developer who's coming in to knock a building down and build a new structure.
SPEAKER_47	Mr. Roberts?
SPEAKER_46	Through the Mayor, this is Jeff Roberts. I don't have the numbers right in front of me. I could try to pull them up. I believe there's a further slicing of the data. I want to say my recollection is it's somewhere around like half, plus or minus, but I can find that number and get back to you in a couple minutes.
Marc McGovern	Okay, that's fine. But at the end of the day, what we're talking about is at the same time period from February to August last year there were 32 now there's 46 so I just want to get to this you know I know as you go further down in the report you say that there have been 137 calls to the Historical Commission with inquiries but you know again this I want people to have the right information this is all anxiety provoking enough for a lot of people but when people are reading that the Historical Commission has received several hundred you know, calls out demolition permits, they tend to think that that means there's several hundred demolition permits being applied for, which is clearly not the case. And given that we just passed a very significant zoning petition that sort of changed the, it's not surprising that the historical commission is getting calls for people looking for information to better understand what they can and cannot do. But at the end of the day, we're talking about 14 more permits than last year in that time period. And so I just hope Cambridge Day or Harvard Crimson or some of the media outlets are hearing this and can get that information out there to the public accurately. I hope the organizations that are saying that there's been hundreds and hundreds will post this report and get the accurate information out there. Because again, we don't need to add to people's anxiety. They are anxious enough. They are concerned enough. They should have the proper information and then decide for themselves how they feel about it. So I really appreciate getting this report and getting it clear. There have not been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of application demolition permits filed since the multifamily housing zoning has passed. So thank you. I yield.
Denise Simmons	Vice Mayor yields the floor. Mr. Roberts, did you wanna say something more?
SPEAKER_46	Through the mayor, I did locate those numbers. So of those 46 demolition permit applications in the six months following multifamily zoning, 20 of those are partial demolitions. So it'd be 20 partial, 26 full. And then on the residential side of those 31 applications, 11 are partial. So 11 partial, 20 full.
Marc McGovern	SO THAT NUMBER IS EVEN LOWER WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT TOTAL DEMOLITIONS. THANK YOU.
Denise Simmons	THANK YOU.
Patricia Nolan	WELL, I REALLY APPRECIATE THE REPORT. I KNOW THE SUMMARY OF IT IS WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME YET FOR SURE BECAUSE IT'S STILL RELATIVELY EARLY. And yet, I'm really glad we have this because it's really important data for us to look at, even if it's six months in. There's a number of questions that have been raised, and as the Vice Mayor said, and as the report says, for instance, on the historical commission inquiries, it's a incredibly dramatic increase from 29 last year in the same period to 137 this year. And we don't know what that leads to. So that's a huge increase, and yet it may be people are just saying, oh, it passed. I want to know. So we just don't know what that will translate into. I will say on the applications, the existing residential uses doubled in the time period from fourteen to thirty one and the number of applications for full demolition the applications is way higher than it was last year because it's twenty full and eleven partial we just heard so i think there's information here that We all need to Understand as we move forward to see if this continues What does it mean for for the city and it may be what we wanted, right? It may be we expected this or it may be wow. This is far more dramatic than we expected because a doubling of the actual application submitted is Is Quite It's quite important for us to understand. The permits issued to date, however, is far less. Is that simply because we don't know that they're not, and it may be, what the report says is one case is this may simply be the staff is so overwhelmed with the new applications they haven't had time to issue the permits. Or is it a case that the applications were received but no permits were issued because someone withdrew the application? Or is that just something that will be coming in the future and we would expect that to be pretty high?
SPEAKER_13	Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. So it's not uncommon for applications to be submitted and for those not to continue on in the process. So it's, you know, it's a little too early to tell. But I think the indication is that, you know, look, looking at permit issued is maybe more telling at this point than applications submitted. Councilwoman?
Patricia Nolan	Do we have any information on why? Because last year, 14 applications happened and 12 permits issued. I mean, again, is it because people withdrew or is it because the staff hasn't had time to review them? Or do we not know? Ms. Peters? Because only seven were actually issued, but 31 were applied.
SPEAKER_13	Yeah, I'm going to ask Jacob Lozaro, the Assistant Commissioner of Inspectional Services, to come up.
Denise Simmons	Mr. Lozaro, the floor is yours.
SPEAKER_06	THROUGH YOU, MAYOR SIMMONS. THERE'S A NUMBER OF REASONS WHY YOU CAN SEE SOME APPLICATIONS STALL FOR A LITTLE BIT IN THERE. WE'VE SEEN LAGS IN FINANCING, CHANGING OF PLANS HAS BEEN ESPECIALLY COMMON SINCE MULTIFAMILY ZONING. there there have been a number of projects that have expanded in scope or changed hands and a new contractor comes in there's also a few applications in that grouping that were possibly misfiled that makes up a smaller percentage sometimes you have someone apply for a demolition permit when really they're just doing interior demolition so you know i i can't give you specifics on percentage of which one was misfiled or which one was held up because of financing. But certainly since the passing of multifamily, there have been a number of reasons why something would not be issued in a couple month span.
Patricia Nolan	Great, so it sounds like we don't know yet, and it could be a few months from now of these 31, only 10 of them have permits issued, or it could be 29 of them do. So, in other words, we don't. So I want to make sure we're all clear that we don't know, and that some of it, maybe people now apply for the demolition realize they can do more, so they're going to go bigger, or some of them are, oh, I thought I wanted to do it, but I'm not going to do it. I mean, so it's... Again, it's really good information, but we don't know for sure. I did want to ask about, there's some data in here about the number of demolition permits has not substantially increased. Do we have any information about whether there's been a change from the prior six month period of the number of demolition permits that resulted in an issued permit? Meaning, as you just said, it's sometimes common for it to be filed incorrectly or the wrong type of application. Do we have any sense of whether that's different this year?
SPEAKER_06	I'm sorry, can you repeat the first part of that?
Patricia Nolan	Yeah, that under housing permit trends, do we know if there's been a change in, for instance, last year when there were 14 demolition permits, were they the same level of people changing their, the kind of reasons that you said now are reasons for applications not to be filed. Last year, or at least at the same time period, only two of the demolition permits were not ultimately issued. Is there any reason to think that's different this year? or is that too confusing a question?
SPEAKER_06	Through you, Mayor Simmons. I think to give you a well-informed answer, we'd have to really sift through more of the data and take a closer look.
Patricia Nolan	Okay, thanks. Yep, on the, so moving on to a little bit, the Cambridge Historical Commission staff inquiry, we know that, about the requests, there's been an uptick in inquiries and only three demolition ordinance projects required review. How many of the last year of the 29 that were received required a review? So we have information on the number of inquiries, but we don't have information from 2024 about how many of the ordinance projects in the Historical Commission were In other words, we don't have comparative data for the actual demolition ordinance projects requiring a review by the Historical Commission, unless I missed that, from last year. There were three, and they were all approved.
Denise Simmons	Who would like to take a stab and answer that, Ms. Peter?
SPEAKER_13	That's correct, Councilor Nolan, through you, Madam Mayor, we do not have that information.
Denise Simmons	Thank you.
Patricia Nolan	It would just be interesting to know because we only have three of these projects but it may be there were three last year and so there's no change or it may be, gee, there weren't any last year and there were three this year and that would, while small numbers, it would be significant. It's mentioned in the report that there were three projects requiring a review by the Historical Commission in the last six months, three other projects reviewed by NCDs. Are those separate and distinct projects? Are there a total of six, or were the three NCDs different than the three Cambridge Historical Commission? Which is how I'm interpreting that, but I wanted to make sure. They're just distinct projects, so six total. And then of the nine projects that had notices for residential neighborhood notification meetings, are any of those the NCD and the CH, or is it nine totally different ones, or all of them or some of them?
SPEAKER_13	Yes, through you, Madam Mayor. Yes, there is some overlap there. I don't know the exact percentage.
Patricia Nolan	So we know some, but not all. Okay, so the other, the question, I'm particularly interested in some of the residential neighborhood notification. Those are only for projects that go above three stories and a certain height, so there could be a bunch of people doing other projects that don't require that, right? For me, the interest in here is eventually, and I think this is previewing the next report on this, so I'll let you know that the question that I think we're all interested in answering and getting answered is, like on the residential review, how many units are expected to be built in the new proposal? Because that has to be part of it, right? So that if I'm doing a residential review, I have some sense of what I'm doing. What I'm asking is, so someone buys a two-family or three-family, and if they're going to tear it down and build three new townhouses that are twice the size, we're going to get less affordable housing and no new units. On the other hand, if they're going to tear down a three-story and build six or seven or eight new units, they're likely to be a similar cost of rent or a condo as the existing, but we're getting more units. So I think that's a really important question because that's What we all want to see is more units and more affordability, and if instead for many of the residential projects we see less affordability and not even more units, it's something that we need to really keep an eye on. Does that make sense as a question?
SPEAKER_13	Yes, that's clear, what you're asking for the future reports.
Patricia Nolan	Right, and again, I think it's something we've talked about a lot here, that that's what we expect and hope to see, and we know that some of the projects that had the historical review are adding units, but we've also, I've certainly heard of a couple projects that that's not the case, that it will be the opposite. It'll be no new units and less affordability because it's going to be just much bigger units for a much bigger space, and And I really look forward to having that information as we review this so that we understand if we're not seeing the types of projects that we all hope to see. We've seen some that we did hope to see, and then we have heard we don't have the specific data on here, but other projects that may not be contributing to what it is that we wanna see in the city as we move forward. So, right, more units, more affordability, not compromising green space. So those were, Those are the questions. I think I look forward to the updating report and understanding if the actual permits are proceeding at pace with what the applications are. Because if they're not, then we won't have seen a lot more demolitions. But if they are on pace to be as a ratio of the applications, then we're gonna see a lot more demolitions. Thank you, Mayor Simmons, I yield.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Nolan yields the floor, Councilor Zusy, and then Councilor Azeem. Councilor Zusy, please.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would think, and Mr. Lazarus, I would think that a reason why we haven't received, there aren't as many petitions is because developers are waiting to see if we provide if we lower our inclusionary rate, right? Because there is some chance, I mean, in your reports that CDD presented about our thinking about lowering the inclusionary rate, you noted that it actually may delay the production of units or delay projects because if I was a developer and going to do a big project, I certainly, if there was any chance that the city council was gonna lower the inclusionary rate, I certainly would wait to file for a permit until the rate had been lowered, right? Because you would make a lot more money if you lowered the inclusionary rate. So I think that must be one of the reasons why There haven't been as many permits, I don't know. Again, through you, Madam Mayor, Mr. Lazarus, do you think that's a possible reason why people haven't been filing for permits?
Denise Simmons	Mr. Lazarus?
SPEAKER_06	Through the Mayor, we're not exactly polling people on their reasoning between stalling on a permit that might be issued or not providing a document requested for an application. Frankly, I'm not sure.
Catherine Zusy	Okay. Okay, again, through you, Madam Mayor. I mean, some of the questions that I hope, I wish you were doing some polling. i wish you were asking uh or that you could ask whether people are changing their projects due to the zoning changes i don't know if we can ask these questions and it would be good to know how many affordable housing units um projects will yield and and i agree with counselor nolan i think it's a really good idea to keep track of how many additional units projects will yield. So if our goal is to create more housing, it seems like we should be tracking that sort of information. The other bit of information I really wish we were tracking is do we, is there a way to track any way, is there any way to track whether foreign investors are purchasing properties? Is that anything we keep track of as a city?
Denise Simmons	Mr. Lazar?
Catherine Zusy	Through you, Madam Mayor.
Denise Simmons	If you don't know, just say you don't know.
SPEAKER_06	Through you, Madam Mayor, that's not a question we're asking on the permit application. It's not a data point that I could readily run a report for, but your point is noted.
Catherine Zusy	Yeah, again, through you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, I mean, I guess any foreign investor would be maybe noting a local person, but I do think it's important. I mean, we don't want our houses to all be investment vehicles. Our goal for them is to provide housing for residents, right? So if there's any way to sort of track whether... um housing is being purchased and developed for by local people for housing local people or as investments it would be good to know so again through you madam mayor so do we have any uh do you have any numbers for how many units are in the pipeline and how many inclusionary units through you madam mayor thank you through you madam mayor um
SPEAKER_13	I think I can answer several of your questions. The data here is still very early in the development cycle. So when it's talking about a demolition application, they may have a very conceptual idea of the project. So it's not really until the building permit that we have an understanding of the number of units and what percentage that is affordable when we would do our inclusionary zoning check. So at this stage, it's very likely that designs continue to evolve and change so it is something that we're not looking at this particular point in time yeah so again through you madam mayor so we'll have this information at the year mark well we'll have more data at the year mark
Catherine Zusy	And so we don't know how many examples, how many more luxury units have been added without inclusionary units. That too, we'll have more data about that at the year mark. And how many smaller projects maxing out multifamily housing entitlements have been created without creating inclusionary units. So I guess, I'll look forward to the year mark too, but I just wanted to remind us though, so there's little movement, there's little We can't say exactly what's going on to date, but at the same time, there certainly has been impact. I mean, at Ellery Street, I mean, two different places on Ellery Street and on Western Ave, the neighbors are really traumatized. And I think... I think they feel, you know, this ordinance, again, it's so well-intentioned to create more housing and to provide more inclusionary units, but I just feel that it's just so very, very brutal. And so I look forward to future reports, and I certainly hope it'll be amended going forward. I thank you.
Denise Simmons	Council Susi yields the floor. Councilor Azeem, and then we'll hear from Councilor Toner. Councilor Azeem, the floor is yours.
Burhan Azeem	Thank you, Madam Mayor. I was going to say, I think for any developers that are waiting, we're probably not going to lower inclusionary, so you guys should feel good to continue. And also, they could be waiting. I think one of the predictions by Councilor Susi was that rents would fall this fall, and so that could be also another thing that they're waiting to see if that happens with Harvard and everything. I was going to say I had a fairly simple point that I just wanted to make, which is that like I think permitting data is misleading, and I just hope that in the future we can also see what construction data looks like as well, right? Like we talk all the time about 2400, they have the permit, it's not happening, right? The project in Alewife, they could get the permit, it's not happening, right? Permits are often the first step in the process, right? You could have demolition permit, you can get a permit to just make sure you have the right to develop, but then you go and find the financing. And so everyone is exploring if they can get the financing right now, but in order to get to that step, you have to get the permit. And in fact, even the projects we talk on Ellery Street and Western Ave, most of them don't financially pencil at this moment. And so they're just hoping that like something happens to interest rates and all of that. But just to say the actual number of developments and units that will be built will be probably far less and far smaller than the numbers that we're seeing here. And I just wanted to provide that little bit of context that, you know, as we go further, like this is the data we have right now. But if we look at it in a year, what actually happened in terms of construction, it's probably going to be much smaller than what's here.
Denise Simmons	Are you yielding the floor, Councilor Azeem? Councilor Azeem yields the floor. Councilor Turner?
Paul Toner	Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to say that I appreciate Councilor Zusy raising her questions and concerns. These are many questions and concerns that have been raised in the public, but I don't think it's fair for us to expect the staff to be able to make these predictions, much of what Councilor Azeem just said. You know, people... are buying properties some are just buying properties and living in them and some are buying properties because yes they want to make a profit and turn it into you know multi-family housing but we're not going to know the true results of it for quite some time and uh you know just to the point of inclusionary i do hope we have a serious discussion about reducing 20 inclusionary because i think that's been the biggest roadblock to being able to build multi-family housing at this point. So I hope that we have a free and open discussion about that and other ideas that I know the CDD and the city manager are contemplating to present to us at some point. And I'll also just say, we can't control who people sell property to. A perfect example is the Spears family. They've done wonderful work in our city for decades, and they're ready to move on. And they should have the right to be able to sell the property to someone who wants to develop it or to somebody who wants to keep it a home. But we as counselors cannot continue to try to dictate who people can and can't sell their property to and what they can and can't do with it. And with that, I'll yield. Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Toney yields the floor. Is there any further discussion on this? Hearing none, on the motion by the Vice Mayor to place the City Manager's Agenda Item 013 on file, roll call please.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councillor Toner.
SPEAKER_39	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	This concludes the city manager's agenda items and we'll now move to policy orders. I'd like to pull one in three. What is the pleasure of the city council?
Patricia Nolan	Mayor Simmons? Councilor Nolan? What numbers did you pull? I'm sorry.
Denise Simmons	One in three.
Patricia Nolan	Number four.
Denise Simmons	Pleasure, the City Council.
Ayesha Wilson	Council Wilson? I'll just pull number two, please. I'm sorry, two? Yes, thank you.
Denise Simmons	There's two others. There's one other, so I would entertain if there's no one that wants to pull it. Well, no, no, no. I'll pull for number five.
Ayesha Wilson	Oh, thank you. I thought we were going to leave. Sorry, Madam Mayor. I will rescind on number two. No need to pull it. Thank you. Number two.
Denise Simmons	Okay, so just number two. So on the policy order and resolution list, it's only number two on a roll call by Council Wilson to adopt the order.
SPEAKER_33	Roll call, please. Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui.
Denise Simmons	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes.
Denise Simmons	And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative. Thank you, Madam Clerk. We'll now go back to what we call the non-consent agenda. Number one is the first item. Poll this, it reads as follows, that the City Manager is requested to provide an update to the City Council at the September 29th, 2025 City Council meeting regarding the status of discussions with the MBTA and HSBA, the potential allocations of funds for the tunnel, feasibility RFP, and any anticipated next steps in the process. I had offered this policy order with my colleagues, the Vice Mayor and Councilor Toner, and at the time we had not received, I didn't see the agenda and did not know the city manager was offering a response. As we know, we just looked at that and that was sent back to the city manager, which makes this still very prudent. And I just want to say, well, I think I'm mixing my things. But anyways, for me, I think it's important that we see the allocation of funds that we requested go forward. And I don't need to belabor it. I know it's late. I really wanted to see this tunnel RFP go forward. I certainly know I do. And so I want to yield the floor to see if I want to hear from the Vice Mayor or Councilor Toner on this. But I'm hoping that my colleagues will support this.
Marc McGovern	Vice Mayor, did you want to speak to this at all? Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, I would just agree that I want to see this move forward as well. I think it's a relatively small investment. And I believe that the, going back to our budget conversations, but I believe the 70 plus thousand that was coming out of this was already part of something else. So this isn't additional money that we're spending. So for folks who are, You know, we're talking, we're all well aware that we're in sort of tighter fiscal times. This isn't a new $72,000. Exactly. And I think that it, you know, doing this kind of smaller feasibility study, before we enter into a whole lot of conversations with the MBTA, which, by the way, we have to talk to the MBTA about a whole lot of things, our wife, the bridge, lots of things we're going to be working with the MBTA about. free buses, whatever it is. We may find from this RFP that an engineer comes in and says, yeah, this is never going to work. You can't do it. In which case, we don't have to go through a whole lengthy process and do all that work. So let's just get a preliminary, see if it's even feasible. And if it is, then we have a discussion about the bigger price tag and how that happens. But this could just be a, you know, This might not lead to anything, but we should at least find that out before we go too far down the road and spend a lot more money when we may not even need to spend that money. So I think this should move forward. Vice Mayor yields the floor.
Denise Simmons	Council Tony, do you want to speak on this?
Paul Toner	No, I'm fine. You've said everything, you and the Vice Mayor. Further discussion? Council Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Yeah, so we're gonna be discussing this at the next meeting because of Councilor Azeem charter writing this report on it. So passing this will do what?
Denise Simmons	Add to the conversation what we're saying or reaffirming the way I look at it. But just reaffirming, we do want to hear something on this. So by, in my opinion, adopting this order, we can take the two in tandem next meeting, which will be in two weeks.
Patricia Nolan	Yeah, I'm happy to discuss this. I am pretty convinced that the city manager's agenda item is correct because if the owners of the property aren't really interested in moving forward, then I think we have to be very aware of that, that it would not make sense and we should continue the discussions. But I can certainly pass this with the idea that we'll be discussing it.
Denise Simmons	Any further discussion?
SPEAKER_33	Hearing none, on adoption, roll call. Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern.
Marc McGovern	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes, Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler.
Marc McGovern	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes, Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councillor Wilson. Yes, Councillor Zusy? Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	The policy adopted by the affirmative vote of nine members. Move now to number three. It was pulled by the mayor that reads as follows. That the city manager is requested to work with the Commission on Immigrant Rights and Citizenship and the city solicitor, the police department, the mayor's office, and other relevant stakeholders to evaluate and implement ICE encounter guidance. I'm offering this policy order very specifically because of a certain incident that happened just recently and I do hear and respect people that have spoken during public comment about this LIUNA and a number of other organizations. What I want us to do is be very clear and concise about how we do it here, relying on, and it says in the policy order, other people that are doing this work so that we can make sure Our families in particular are informed. Part of what we struggled with just recently, and we're still working through, we're not sure about the outcome, is this family did not even know the resource existed. And had we heard from them earlier, we might have had some positive and a better outcome. Maybe not. Working with the... Washington and their rules and practices is very, very difficult. So we want to be as good as we can. Certainly not trying to duplicate the wheel, but there's people that know and there's people that don't know. And we very much have to increase the number of people that know so that we can provide advocacy as soon as possible. Perhaps, I don't think, I don't know if it would happen. We might be heading toward a different outcome had this person been better informed. And certainly we would not exclude the schools. So this is, in order to get us to be more informed, inform more people, streamline our process, work with our cities and towns that are doing this work and the organizations that are doing this work so that we can have as comprehensive a response time as possible. I don't know if my co-maker, the Vice Mayor, wants to speak to this at all, but I will yield the floor.
Marc McGovern	Thank you, Madam Mayor, real quick through you. First of all, thank you and to your staff for last week and helping that family. That's what we do, and you guys really stepped up, so I appreciate that. I'm not sure that this has to be necessarily amended because we do say other relevant stakeholders, but I think making it clear to the manager and what we heard in public comment today of who some of those other stakeholders are and reaching out to them to make sure everybody is on the same page. We don't want folks getting different information. But this is sort of like what we talk about you know, outreach teams and stuff where I've said you can never have too many resources and too many avenues for people to get information in a crisis, right? So it's not to replace anything that any of these other organizations are doing who are doing absolutely tremendous work. But some people are going to know to call one number. Some people are going to go to the city first because that's what people often think. Well, they went to the mayor's office first, right? Because what do you do? Call the mayor. And so as many ways that we can get people the information that they need to be safe, we should have them. you know, if the manager's still out there, if he cannot, as other relative stakeholders, you know, that, oh, well, he's coming up. He's coming up, or you're not coming up. I don't know. You look like you are. Do you know, sort of, you know, you heard in public comments, some of those organizations, would it be your intent to, do we have to name? I mean, the problem when you start naming is there's others you don't include in the list, and maybe they need to be reached out to. Do you, but you, I think you sort of get the gist of what we're talking about, yes?
Yi-An Huang	Through you, Mayor Simmons. No, I think we understand the spirit of the policy order and agree that there are ways that I think we can improve the way that we're coordinating with residents, families in Cambridge that are showing up in our community. looking for information or struggling with just a really tragic situation and so I do think there is real opportunity for us to put more of this on paper it is a fast evolving landscape both in terms of what we're seeing from ICE and the rules surrounding different statuses that are being treated differently today than they were a year ago in terms of what's getting approved and what's not on immigration status. And I think if we can do a better job of bringing together all the information, it will help us both meet families where they are, give them better information, and I think to this discussion, connect them to a lot of the resources that are being built. I do think my you know, this will bring back and I'm happy to have more Conversations with the mayor's office with counselors that are interested My understanding is some of these are really being built out statewide The state's office for refugees and immigrants the Attorney General's office the organizations that are mentioned in public comment I know I know Bijan is putting together both a bond and legal defense fund and to ensure that everybody who needs an immigration attorney is able to get one even if they don't have the financial resources. So I think a lot of this work is happening at the state level and we may not need to duplicate those efforts. But I think it is really important that we're keeping track of those resources that we can help families access them and follow up with them to make sure that we understand their circumstances and everything that we can do to support them we're doing.
Marc McGovern	Thank you through you but I also just don't want people to think Because I've heard people suggest that we're not doing anything and I think there's a lot the city has done We've trained our staff. We've trained school staff there are procedures in place We've done a lot of know your rights trainings for people in the community. We've produced a lot of the the pamphlets that have been distributed. I know our community engagement team and others are working. I just don't want people to think that this is the first thing we're doing or the only thing that we're doing. There is a lot happening and there needs to be unfortunately a lot happening because this is such a um a pressing issue and and one that's i think it's going to be a while before it gets better um so uh thank you madam mayor i'll yield vice mayor yields the floor
Denise Simmons	Council, Sabina Wheeler.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just briefly, yeah, just wanted to lift up the work that everyone has done on this and shout out to one of the suggestions in public comment, including making sure outreach is to the Cambridge Public Schools, who also are very much lifted on this. I think there are some great organizations doing this work, and the more we can support and uplift them and provide the city's resources to that, I think we should be trying to do that and happy to help with some of those connections. I've been in touch with some of these folks as well, so if there's ways we can be helpful, just offering that. But thank you. I go back.
Denise Simmons	Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler yields the floor. Councillor Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you, yes, thanks to Mayor and Vice Mayor for bringing this forward and very distressing and sad that it's before us. It's really important we do this and also, as we've just said, build on the work of others so that if it turns out LUSA can provide this, let's use them. Let's not wait, also, because it will definitely, as we heard, And as we all know, it will just take time. And the more that we can also be coordinated, it's also really helpful for people. I have the loose cards at home. I've handed them out. I've referred a couple people to them. It's also better for the community as a whole if there's actually just one number as opposed to, oh, there's the city number, and then there's this other number, and then there's seven. Which number do I call? I think it might be really great if we could just build on that. And as Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler said, maybe even the city just support it in whatever way that they find useful. So much of what's on here is something the city, as the vice mayor also said, we're already doing a lot, which doesn't mean we can't do more, but sometimes people don't know it or it's not coordinated. But again, the message is do this, make sure we can provide people with the support and services, and make sure that we're not duplicating efforts or recreating and reinventing the wheel because we don't have the time to do that. This is happening right now, as we just heard the news report today, is there were a couple people taken in Somerville. It's already here. Let's make sure that we... make use of and let our residents know about the available resources, which includes, by the way, the translation services are also available as well.
Denise Simmons	Councillor Nolan yields the floor for the discussion.
Ayesha Wilson	Councillor Wilson. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And through you, I want to also appreciate the work and the efforts that we have. I also want to, I think, just lift up the coordination piece again and just ask for some kind of... just like a cheat sheet that we can have you know again we all as counselors have our own um newsletters and groups that we're connected with and so just if we can actually have that cheat sheet and be able to leverage that and you know recognizing that people may just pop into our offices at various times so just whatever can be shared with us that can help um that can help us to help families would be great, greatly appreciate it. So just, I guess my question would be, how soon do we think you can get, through you, Madam Mayor, to the city manager, how soon do you think you can get us like a resource sheet? Mr. City Manager?
Yi-An Huang	Through you, Mayor Simmons, I think we can probably start sharing information pretty quickly. I mean, certainly some of the resources that are available or are being built, we can share. I think we can get a response. There's no council meeting next week, and I think actually October 13th is Indigenous Peoples Day, so we can come back either on September 29th or October 6th with a more formal response, but I think some of this information we can share earlier.
Denise Simmons	And what I might add, Counselor, is even as we roll out the resource sheet, think of it as a living document as other resources come online. Just kind of to briefly, well, let me go back to you and see if there's other questions that you had to ask.
Ayesha Wilson	Well, thank you. I was going to just say that. So like anything that we can get before the end of the week, that's just like a list, you know, names, contacts, whatever, and recognizing that, yes, this list could grow. And so as it grows or whatever, please just update us and inform us of another organization or whoever that we can be mindful of as supportive to our community members, to members of our community. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Council Wilson, you have the floor for the discussion. Let me just add the facts behind the order. As you can see, speaks for themselves, but the incident was after business hours on September 10th that we received an urgent call from a Cambridge family, including a CRLS student. In the midst of all that unfolding immigration enforcement crisis, the parents were already wearing ankle bracelets. and their passports had already been confiscated by ICE and detention seemed imminent. And so over the next few hours, we gained greater clarity around the facts of the case. The first thing, the first impediment was there was a language barrier. Once we got past that, which, you know, it was very stressful for them and stressful for us because we wanted to make sure we were conveying, first of all, giving them as much assurance as possible, being able to convey the information to them in the language that was native to them. And we were trying to do this in the heat of the moment. And at that critical moment when minutes mattered, A lot of the city departments that we would have automatically called were closed. Legal resources and community partners were closed, at least to the pieces of access information that we had. So we didn't have a protocol or a hotline or interpreter on standby, and no system to escalate, just a terrified family. And a staff doing its best, and kudos to, I can't think of a name, I'm drawing a blank. Maria Mello, who we were able to get on the phone and stop whatever she was doing to be the interpreter for us. And so let me just say out loud, thank you, thank you, thank you, Maria, for what you've done. And she continues to do. So we were trying to respond in real time. And so this will not be the last time something like this is going to happen. because ICE does not operate on 9 to 5. And the little bit that I have just noticed recently is they seem to do it when the fewest amount of resources are available. So what the order basically is doing is laying out a framework for how the Cambridge must prepare, knowing it's going to be a fluid kind of a thing going forward with a structure and clarity and trained support What happens if someone contacts you? Because they're not always going to go to the mayor. They are going to reach out to the city councilors or members of the school committee or administrators. And so we want them to have this information on the ready. And we also know that it has to continue to be updated as more resources come on board. So my appreciation to the vice mayor for signing on. I'm hoping that each of you will see this as important enough and will adopt the order. Is there any other conversation, relative discussion on this? Hearing none so, on a motion by the Vice Mayor to adopt the order.
SPEAKER_33	Roll call, please. Councillor Azeem. Yes. Vice-Mayor McGovern. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the policy order is adopted by the affirmative vote of nine members. We move now to number four. This is pulled by Councillor Nolan. READS AS FOLLOWS, THAT THE CITY MANAGERS REQUESTED TO WORK WITH RELEVANT DEPARTMENTS TO PROVIDE AN UPDATE ON ROIDING CONTROL MEASURES CITYWIDE, AND ESPECIALLY HOW THE CITY ADDRESSES ROIDING MIGRATION THROUGH LARGE-SCALE CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS, BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE. THIS WAS PULLED BY COUNCILOR NOLAN, COUNCILOR NOLAN'S LEAD SPONSOR. THE FLOOR IS YOURS.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you, Mayor Simmons. Glad the city manager can hear this because he's still here. It's been a while since we got an update on city efforts. And again, it may seem not sexy or as... relevant to some city operations as others, and yet it's something every single resident knows about, and it does seem that the rat population is exploding. So this policy order that I filed along with Councilors Azeem and Siddiqui, really to try to highlight this to elevate it in the city and to make sure that we specifically understand as this happens across the city that it's something we need to do two things one let residents know about the programs we do have because there is a way and I have talked with the city and not some residents aren't reaching out to the city for the resources that are available in order to deal with this not that we can solve the problem magically but If those aren't being taken advantage of, that means the population is not going to be addressed. So I think it's important for us to highlight that. And also, we need to get the information from the city about it. And what is it that we can do? What are we doing? And what's the impact of the steps that we've already taken? Somerville has done the birth control. Cambridge has had a number of different kind of boxes. The more that we can understand what it is that is an effective way to deal with this, the more that we can then convey it to the residents and also be able to answer questions ourselves. It is good just to remind us all that by passing the updated zero waste master plan, we're hoping that this will be addressed somewhat because as commercial food establishments need to participate in a food waste. which they have not been required to do so far. That is a big way that we're gonna address this. And also the DPW will be installing fully enclosed big belly bins, which are also going to make an impact. But again, this was brought forward so that I hope the city and the residents can all come together and fight this. It's actually something we can do something about. Some of these other issues we might not be able to. That's it, Mayor Simmons, I yield.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Nolan yields the floor. Pleasure, the City Council. Council Wilson.
Ayesha Wilson	Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll just speak briefly on this. This issue that we have before us is really significant. And as we heard from folks in public comment, the quality of life, the quality of health in people's homes, etc. So we have to figure out the master plan here because Folks are living in fear to go in their homes. Folks have had to be moved out. I personally know of some residents who have had to, who are still out of their homes because rats particularly have taken over their home. In addition to, I think, some of what my colleague, Councilor Nolan, has shared, I think about the sidewalk that's just being redone and paved in front of my home and how that's going to cause disruption and maybe some activity into our spaces that worries me Like, it really worries me because I am petrified of rodents. So it's those types of things. Like, yes, we want to be able to do things and be culturally competent and supporting and culturally competent within the education of how we are supporting residents around mitigation and things that they can do within their homes. But as the city as a whole, while we are a city and we're building and doing this and doing that, like they're... it's like this endless thing and I mean we heard from specifically we heard from Nicola Williams who I just want to call out because she has talked to me on several occasions of the increase especially within Harvard Square and so you know imagine seeing 10 or some odd rodents every single day in your neighborhood like I would be out of here that's all I gotta say so Whatever we can do, I look forward to passing this. I'm happy to even be a co-sponsor, but we really just need to address these issues and really think about, you know, big belly bends and all that stuff is great, but there's also, like, what could we be doing on the ground to help support? I mean, I see those black... How much more do we need? If that's not the safest thing, what is? But there needs to be something that we're doing and I would want to say urgently to help mitigate this because it is really impacting the quality of life and the quality of health of some of our residents. I yield.
Denise Simmons	Council Wilson deals the floor. Do Council Resume and Council Siddiqui want to speak on this? Further discussion? Hearing none, on a motion by Council.
Patricia Nolan	Mayor Simmons, if Councilor Wilson wants to be added, that's fine by me, it's up to her.
Denise Simmons	Did you ask to be added? I'm sorry, I missed it. Okay, so on a motion by Council Wilson to amend the policy order to be added as a co-sponsor on suspension of the rules. Okay, so on amending it by adding Council Wilson, roll call.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Vice-Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	The policy order is amended by the affirmative vote of nine members on the policy order as amended. Roll call, please.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner?
SPEAKER_39	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?
SPEAKER_39	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the policy order number four is adopted as amended by the affirmative vote of nine members. The last policy order I believe we have this evening is number five. was pulled by Councilor Zusy reads as follows. That the City Manager is requested to work with the Cambridge Police Department, the Law Department, and the relevant stakeholders to develop and present to the City Council of a proposed policy for the timely release of body-worn camera footage. This is pulled by Councilor Zusy. The lead sponsor is Councilor Azeem. Council Susie or Council Sandy, he yields to you, Councilor.
Catherine Zusy	Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to say I was in touch with Commissioner Ello about this earlier today or something else. I think it's Elo. Elo, Elo, excuse me. In response to something Roy Russell had sent me. Apparently we have a video retention policy already. The city retains footage from public safety cameras for 30 days and then erases it the 31st day. And it is retaining body worn camera footage for 36 months, which seems like a long time. So maybe this is worth reviewing. But just making body-worn camera footage available to the public seems like an invasion of privacy to me. And it seems like sometimes the police are withholding it, like they explained at our public safety meeting last week, because there's an ongoing court case. So it's not ready for public release. But one of the questions, and I don't know if anybody on the police department is listening to this call, but I wondered, as I understood it, the footage is only, aren't the body-worn cameras only taking footage once a gun is removed from the holster? I think it's only when there is a, it's all the time. Yeah, so I would like to understand more about when they're taking footage. I know we have five employees that are reviewing the footage. But it'll be interesting to hear back from the police department about this to see what what the standard practice is with public release of the body worn camera footage. And is anybody through you, Madam Mayor, is anybody from the police department?
Denise Simmons	No. I don't believe so. I think when the city manager leaves, his staff leaves as well. So I don't think there's anyone available.
Catherine Zusy	Okay.
Denise Simmons	So are you yielding the floor?
Catherine Zusy	I do yield.
Denise Simmons	Okay, Councilor Zusy yields the floor. Councilor Azeem, the floor is yours.
Burhan Azeem	Thank you, Madam Mayor. This policy order has the same 30 days because that's generally our keeping, but the policy order says very explicitly, or we can have a public process to set up what might be more appropriate for a body cam. I just think that we've spent two years and many hundreds of thousands of dollars getting these body cams. If the footage isn't released until much further along, many years after an incident, I think they kind of defeat the purpose. I think that whether you're on the side of believing that police responded appropriately to an incident or that police responded inappropriately, I think the theory behind body cameras was we would be able to see for ourselves a little bit, and even if that footage isn't perfect, even if it doesn't capture the whole picture, it helps us verify or understand at least a little bit of what's going on. and so i think that the goal with this policy order is to say like hey can we get at least a policy set over so the public has expectations around when you know now that we have body cameras will they be released around what time will they be released um and in general um i would just say that um you know the cambridge pd will have a chance to respond to this with the city manager's office but also um YOU KNOW, THERE'S NO POLICY AT THE STATE LEVEL THAT SAYS, LIKE, YOU HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL X THING HAPPENS TO RELEASE THE FOOTAGE. THAT'S ALL CITY POLICY. SO WE DO HAVE A LOT OF DISCRETION TO FIGURE OUT HOW WE WANT TO DO THIS.
Denise Simmons	ARE YOU YIELDING THE FLOOR? I AM. COUNCILOR Azeem YIELDS THE FLOOR FOR THE DISCUSSION. COUNCILOR NOLAN?
Patricia Nolan	Yes, thank you. Quickly, Mayor Siddique, I appreciate Councilor Azeem's explanation and note that the whereas is very clear, whereas there's no legal barrier preventing the city from releasing to the public once appropriate privacy protections are in place. So that's in this language that privacy protections will be included and as Councilor Azeem noted, Other other places sometimes take a body footage once the privacy protections are and release it so that answers the questions and that's what that's what this would do and Definitely the deletion policy of all footage can be considered as well that we want to make sure we're not maintaining this forever and It may be quite appropriate to do that But what this simply does is ask for recommendations and to be discussed so I hope it passes so that we can get to that because I think we'll address a lot of the questions that are in the community and
Denise Simmons	Councilor Nolan yields the floor. Do any of the other co-makers want to speak to it? Councilor Sabina Wheeler, do you want to speak on this? Councilor Siddiqui? Vice Mayor?
Marc McGovern	Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, I support this, and I think similar to the surveillance ordinance where there is some discretion for the police department depending on the specific case, but they they have to report things to us, right? So if there's a reason, if we didn't have that Public Safety Committee meeting last week, we wouldn't have known that that footage wasn't being released because of a pending investigation, right? And that still raises the question of why isn't it, what's pending and why is it not released even though there's a pending investigation, but at least that helps explain. I guess when they're thinking about this, the only thing I would just caution or at least think about is, every police officer is wearing a body camera, every interaction is getting taped. Are we saying that every single body cam footage needs to be uploaded or something, wherever that's going to be stored and available to the public, or is it Only when someone requests it. I mean, it's just, that's a lot of interactions in the course of a day. So, you know, but as Consulate Resume said, I mean, the whole, one of the main things we, reasons we did this was for more transparency and for people to get more information and, you know, to, you know, it will clear a lot of things up, I think, you know, when we get the footage. So I'm all for that. And I just, I appreciate the order. Thank you. I yield.
Denise Simmons	Vice Mayor yields the floor. Anyone else wanna be heard? Councilor Toner, do you wanna be heard on this?
Paul Toner	I do not, thank you, Madam Mayor.
Denise Simmons	Any further discussion? Hearing none, on a motion by Councilor Azeem to adopt the order. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Azeem, yes. Vice Mayor McGovern, yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner.
SPEAKER_39	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the policy order is adopted with the affirmative vote of nine members. This concludes the policy order and resolution list. We're now going to go to the calendar. The first item of business is a charter right. The charter right was exercised by Councillor Toner. It reads as follows. that the city managers requested to work with the appropriate city staff to ensure that effective immediately and for each fiscal year in which the Office of Tourism continues to receive TDMD funding, that the city shall redirect its municipal funding to distribute those funds equally among the Central Square Business Improvement District, the BID, the East Cambridge Business Association, the Harvard Square Business Association, and the Kendall Square Business Association. Councilor Tony, you exercised your charter right on this. I'm gonna turn the floor over to you.
Paul Toner	Thank you, Madam Mayor. So what I'd like to do is also make a motion to suspend the rules to pull forward communication number one from Candace Bullier of the Taurus Board.
Denise Simmons	On a motion by Councilor Toner to suspend the rules on suspension, please call the roll.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councilor Wilson. Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy.
Denise Simmons	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And bringing forward a communication from who?
Paul Toner	KANDICE BOULIER OF THE TOURIST BOARD.
Denise Simmons	IT'S ON COMMUNICATIONS.
Paul Toner	YES. I WANT TO PULL THAT FORWARD TO DISCUSS IT WITH THIS.
Denise Simmons	AND TO BRING FORWARD COMMUNICATION NUMBER ONE.
SPEAKER_33	YES. Councilor Azeem. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	Thank you. So we have before us the Charter Right item and the letter from... Candace, I can't correctly say her last name, so. Oh yeah. Yes, communication number one. Councilor Tona, the floor is yours.
Paul Toner	Thank you, Madam Mayor. What I'd like to do is ask my colleagues to support a motion to send this to the Economic and Development Committee for a fuller roundtable conversation. I have talked to Councilor Wilson, the chair of that committee, and she is supportive of that. I just think that there's a lot more discussion that we have to have with all the parties involved. I mean, first of all, I want to support all of our business associations as well and provide them with the necessary resources. But I also I'm trying to do it without taking from one organization to give to the others and figure out if there's ways that we could be supportive of all the organizations, but also to better understand what the tourist bureau does. and also what are the needs of the different associations so that we going forward in the next budget, we can have this discussion and allocate monies if possible to everybody to help support their work. Just because the policy order as it is, it's my understanding The check for the year was already written in cash, so there isn't any additional funding to split up, and this really should be a forward-looking conversation to discuss as part of the planning for the next budget season. So I would like to make a motion to send this to the Economic Development Committee for a roundtable committee meeting.
Denise Simmons	Is there discussion? If there's no discussion, let me just say this. The reason behind this policy order wasn't meant to be a punitive measure against the Cambridge Office of Tourism. Rather, it's about ensuring that our municipal funds are distributed equitably among the important organizations that strengthen our local economy. I think we all received a document from the Harvard Square Business Association, and that's just one of several business associations in the city that are contributing to our city through their programming, their support of the businesses that pay taxes into the city. And so when I look at that, for nearly three decades, we've invested over 10 million in the Office of Tourism, and they continue to receive substantial funding through the Office, through the Tourism Destination Marketing District. And meanwhile, our local business associations, particularly after COVID or as COVID has kind of released its grip, I should say, As we've come out of COVID, the Central Square Bid, East Cambridge Business Association, Harvard Square Business Association, and Kendall, they've all proven their value in time and time again, particularly during in this time is what we call the post-pandemic recovery. So this order, the reason why the order has been put forward is simply that we recognize all these organizations for the vital work that they do promoting commercial vitality across our city, I want to emphasize that I hope that will be able to sit down with the head of the Chamber of Commerce and other stakeholders to discuss this policy. So that may be keeping with what my colleague is suggesting. And that this invitation remains open. I'm so hopeful that we can get everyone on the phone for productive meeting of the minds and collaboration and dialogue. But I do feel very firm behind my principle behind this order. And so I will release the floor. Is there any further discussion? Council Wilson.
Ayesha Wilson	Thank you, Madam Mayor, and through you to my colleague, Councilor Toner, I want to appreciate the motion. I definitely support it. And as Chair of Economic Development, happy to host a meeting to discuss this more. uh definitely want to i totally respect our business associations and districts and and understand that through covid you know financially there's things that we need to be doing more of and should be and could be doing more of and kind of understanding respectively what would those things be and look like So I do look forward to hosting more of a roundtable so we can hear from all of our stakeholders to actually dive deeper into this conversation, as well as our acting or interim director of tourism, Office of Tourism. So, yes, so I look forward to having that conversation really soon and more to come. Thank you, IU.
Denise Simmons	Further discussion? So on the policy order being, on the order being, put forth by Councilor Tona is to refer this particular policy order to, what was the committee? Economic Development.
Paul Toner	Economic Development and Universities Relations Committee.
Denise Simmons	Economic Development and University Relations. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, roll call.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the matter is so referred by the affirmative vote of nine members. We'll now move to matters that are on the table. I'd like to bring... So our clerk is saying because you pulled the communication, Councilor Toner, what do you want to do with it?
Paul Toner	Sorry, Madam Mayor, I intended for that just to be forwarded along with the original policy order to the Economic Development Committee.
Denise Simmons	So I'm forwarding communication number one to the Economic Development and University Relations. Is there any discussion?
SPEAKER_33	Hearing none, on referral. Councilor Azeem.
Denise Simmons	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Counselor Nolan. Yes. Counselor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Counselor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Counselor Toner. Yes. Yes. Counselor Wilson. Yes. Counselor Zusy.
SPEAKER_16	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, Madam Clerk. We're going to go to items that are on the table. I'd like to pull number five, which is on the Apex Clean Energy decision. So if there's no others before that that you want to remove, I'm going to go to what's on the table number five. And I will read it. And it says that the City Council go on record expressing its profound disappointment over Apex Cleaning Energy decision to forego the use of local union labor by the Bowman Wind Project. And that was placed on the table as amended. And so I would like to, where is it? Submit, I think we have the amended already, and so I'd like to move the amendment by substitution. Does everyone have a copy of it? I think everyone has. Yeah, Councilor Toner, the floor is yours.
Paul Toner	Madam Mayor, is this the amendments that I offered a while ago, or are these different amendments?
Denise Simmons	This is the one that you offered a while ago. Great, thank you. I have a copy, thank you. All right, any discussion? Councilor Nolan?
Patricia Nolan	Thank you very much, Mayor Simmons, for offering this as either an amendment or substitute, whichever it is. As we learned, the original- It's amendment by substitution. Amendment by substitution. Thank you very much for offering it. As we learned, the original policy order would risk higher prices, higher electricity prices for residents. It could have undermined the project and it came with some legal risks for the city. And yet the substitute I noticed, there's some very strong language that supports labor unions and that makes sure that in the ask the city and relevant to negotiate forcefully for local union preference. So that's a strong statement on labor and I'm happy to support this amendment by substitution.
Catherine Zusy	um yes yeah uh three madam mayor i i'm not sure i think what you're what's posted is the original policy order from june 23rd 25 i don't think it's the amended version is it is it okay any other questions did you
Denise Simmons	We're going to go and review this, hold on. I don't have the original, so. This is it.
Patricia Nolan	Mayor Simmons, if it would be helpful for the red line version or no? Do you have the red line version, Ms. Stephon? The one we were discussing? I can forward it to you if you want. But this is amendment by substitution, so I'm not sure we need it. But I'm happy to, I happen to have it.
SPEAKER_33	So I'm looking at number five. Yep. And what was sent out today is completely different from that.
Denise Simmons	So we believe it's, a different order, but we're working on that. Let's confer for a moment. Walk around the chamber if you'd like, stretch your legs. Yes, what's in the book?
SPEAKER_33	Calendar item number five. It's completely different than the one that Neil gave us today. It's completely different than the one that's here.
Denise Simmons	I don't wanna spend a lot of time because it's late in the hour. I'm gonna put this back on the, I'm gonna just leave it and we'll come back a week from now because I think it's important that we move the agenda along. So if no one has any objections to that, we will leave that where it is and move to the next item on our agenda. And I believe that is, the application and petitions, there's just one. On a motion by the Vice Mayor to adopt the application which was received by Harvard Art Museums requesting permission for 22 temporary pole banners around Cambridge Commons, Quincy Street, and Cambridge Street announcing the Master Brand Campaign from September 15, 2025 through January 15, 2026. This is moved by the Vice Mayor. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, roll call.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councilor Wilson. Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy.
Denise Simmons	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes, Mayor Simmons.
Denise Simmons	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the petition is adopted by the affirmative vote of nine members. We move now to communication. What is the pleasure of the City Council? There are seven.
SPEAKER_33	Two for seven.
Denise Simmons	On a motion by Council Wilson to place on file all communications, all seven of them, any discussion?
SPEAKER_33	The six?
Denise Simmons	Oh, that's right, because we already disposed of one of them. So on the six communications, any discussion on the balance? Hearing none, on a motion by Council Wilson to place all communications on file, roll call.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Azeem.
SPEAKER_00	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Counselor Nolan? Yes. Counselor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Counselor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Counselor Toner? Yes. Yes. Counselor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Counselor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	Thank you. We move now to consent resolutions. Pleasure of the City Council.
	Thank you.
Denise Simmons	On a motion by Councilor Nolan to adopt the resolutions, making them unanimous upon adoption, roll call. Councilor Azeem.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Counselor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Counselor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Counselor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Counselor Toner? Yes. Yes. Counselor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Counselor Zusy?
SPEAKER_16	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative. Thank you. We move now to, I think it's communications.
Denise Simmons	There are two.
Patricia Nolan	Mayor Simmons?
Denise Simmons	Counselor Nolan?
Patricia Nolan	I want to pull number two.
Denise Simmons	on the balance. On a motion by the Vice Mayor to accept the communication report, place it on file, roll call.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner. Councilor Toner. Yes, left.
SPEAKER_25	Absent.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy?
Denise Simmons	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Mayor Simmons?
Denise Simmons	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. And you have eight members recording the affirmative and one recorded as absent.
Denise Simmons	Communication number one has been placed on file by the affirmative vote of eight members, one recorded as absent. We move now to communication number two. This was received from Councillor Nolan, Transmitting Report on the Cambridge Zero Emission Transportation Plan. This was pulled by Councillor Nolan. Councillor Nolan, the floor is yours.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you, Mayor Simmons. I'm sorry if there's a little bit of confusion around this issue. We had expected the zero admission transportation plan draft to be on the agenda for tonight, so this could be considered at the same time. We've been working on this over the last couple of months, adding some smart goals. And also, what the communication before you shows is that there's some council priorities that were not reflected in the plan simply because the task force finished this work before we had passed some of those. And so the idea is I talked to staff about including them later. But again, we don't have the final document tonight, so it seems most appropriate since I don't think I can charter write a communication that we would lay this on the table, which the staff recommended and said that would make more sense. And then when that report comes before us, this communication will be considered at the same time and make some amendments to the to the draft plan for it to be finalized so if I'm correct that I can't try to write it then I move to place it on the on the table so that whenever the staff brings that plan forward this will be there for us to discuss Councilman Nolan makes a motion to place communication number two on the table discussion
SPEAKER_33	Hearing none, roll call. Councillor Azeem.
Burhan Azeem	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner. Absent. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.
Denise Simmons	Thank you. We move now to late resolutions. Are there any late? I think there are two. There are two, Madam Mayor. There are two late resolutions. We're going to suspend the rules that take up late resolutions. On a motion by the Vice Mayor.
SPEAKER_33	Any roll call, please? Councilor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner is absent. Councillor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.
Denise Simmons	Thank you.
SPEAKER_33	And I'm taking up the two late resolutions. Roll call. Councillor Azeem?
Denise Simmons	Gone.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Zinn? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner is absent. Councillor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	So I'm going to take up the first late resolution and I'm going to read it. And it's whereas Marvin E. Gilmore Jr., who has been a pillar of the Cambridge and greater Boston communities for over a century, dedicating his life to the pursuits of justice, equity, and opportunity for all. And whereas Mr. Gilmore was born in Cambridge, Mass. on September 23, 1923. and has now reached the rare and remarkable milestone of his 101st birthday, a testimony not only to the longevity of his life, but to the enduring legacy of his work and values. And whereas Mr. Gilmore served honorably in World War II as a member of the storied 485th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, one of the first black army units to land on the beaches of Normandy, helping to liberate Europe from fascism while confronting segregation and discrimination at home. And whereas following his military service, Mr. Gilmore became a transformative figure in business, finance, civil rights, co-founding the Unity Bank and Trust Company, the first black-owned and operated commercial bank in New England, to address decades of exclusion, economic disenfranchisement. And whereas, throughout his long and distinguished life, Mr. Gilmore has been an advocate, mentor, trailblazer, and role model, breaking barriers, uplifting his community, and using his voice and influence to bring about systemic change. And whereas Mr. Gilmore's work has impacted generations of entrepreneurs, veterans, artists, activists, and young people, and his story remains a beacon of resilience, courage, and dignity, now therefore be it resolved that the city council formally go on record. extending its deepest admirations, gratitude, and warmest wishes to Marvin E. Gilmore Jr. on the occasion of his 101 birthday and be it further resolved that the city clerk be and is hereby requested to further suitably engrossed copy of his resolution to Marvin Gilmore on behalf of the city council. Discussion?
Ayesha Wilson	Happy birthday and where's the party at?
Denise Simmons	It's on Sunday. I'll look at my phone and let you know, because I know I saw it. So, any other discussion? On the motion, making it unanimous upon adoption, roll call.
SPEAKER_33	Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councillor Toner is absent. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes, Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.
Denise Simmons	The next one. resolution was presented by Councilor Nolan. Councilor Nolan, would you like to present your policy resolution?
Patricia Nolan	Sure. Everyone has a copy of it. I won't read the whole thing, although I think it's a really important moment for the city. And the result is that the city council go on record to congratulate Cambridge Day and Michael Fitzgerald on this exciting announcement. of his hiring and the ability of the paper basically to continue and express deep appreciation to the board of Cambridge Day for recognizing the urgent need for independent journalism, which is key to democracy. So it's about the announcement from Cambridge Day that they had hired an editor-in-chief in order to fill this. As we know, we have a situation where the Cambridge Chronicle over the years basically became press releases from other cities. So we really need independent journalism.
Catherine Zusy	I just wanted to say thank you, Councilor Nolan, for advancing this resolution. I think you all know I was on the board of the Cambridge News Matters Advisory Board for a year preceding my, I left it when I joined the council, But this group has been working towards this goal for two years, and it's an extraordinary day that this has happened. So I welcome Michael Fitzgerald, but I also just want to herald the work of Mark Levy, because since 2009, Until very recently, he was working as a volunteer to provide us with our local news. And I just think that was a very, very noble thing. And I am so grateful to him. The community has relied on his work for all these years. So finally, he's getting paid. and he'll have a partner. So again, thank you, Mark, and welcome, Michael. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Further discussion? Hearing none, on a motion by Councilor Nolan to move the adoption, roll call.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councillor Turner is absent. Councillor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons?
Denise Simmons	Yes.
SPEAKER_33	Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.
Denise Simmons	Thank you. This concludes the agenda with the exception of announcements. Are there any announcements?
Ayesha Wilson	Madam Mayor. Just to announce Family Fund Day at Danahy Park this Saturday, I think it's 11 to 3. Thank you, Council Musil.
Denise Simmons	Council Susie.
Catherine Zusy	Oh, yeah. So I just want people to know that there is another textile book drive that the Cambridge Port Neighborhood Association has organized at Hastings Square between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. So if you have extra textiles, they'll be donated to help see, and books will go to more than words. It's a great way to clear out your closets. And there's Market Central Square by night on Saturday night. So many great events this weekend. Thank you.
Patricia Nolan	Others? Mayor Simmons? Yes. Just a quick reminder that tomorrow from two to four, there's a Health and Environment Committee meeting where the staff will be presenting their, after researching the policy order by the council to say how is it that we can think about protecting solar given the changes to the multifamily zoning. And that meeting is here in the chamber two to four tomorrow.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, Councilman Nolan. So relative to Marvin Gilmore, blessed to be 101, Dr. Marvin E. Gilmore Jr., it's Sunday, September 21st, 3 to 7 at 310 Massachusetts Avenue, Pagu, it's at Pagu, from 3 to 7 on Sunday. Also on Sunday is the Cambridge Science Festival. So pace yourselves. Any other announcements?
	Yes.
Denise Simmons	The announcement of a motion to adjourn?
Patricia Nolan	No, the announcement is that it's Artist Open Studios this weekend. So let's, right? That's thrilling. Next weekend.
Denise Simmons	That's thrilling. Now. Another announcement, no meeting next week. No meeting next week. So on a motion by.
Patricia Nolan	Shana Tova, Happy New Year, everyone. Thank you so much.
Denise Simmons	On a motion by Council Wilson to adjourn, Madam Clerk.
SPEAKER_33	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Turner is absent. Councilor Wilson. Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.
Denise Simmons	And the meeting is now adjourned.
Patricia Nolan	You know that.