City Council - Regular Meeting

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Meeting Title: City Council - Regular Meeting
City: Cambridge, MA
Date Published: 2025-08-04

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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
SPEAKER_80	You have a quorum, Madam Mayor, and it's 5.30.
Denise Simmons	A quorum being present, I'll call tonight's August 4th meeting to order. The first order of business is a roll call of the members present. Madam Deputy, Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. Present. Present. Vice Mayor McGovern. Absent, Councilor Nolan. Present, Councilor Siddiqui. Present. Present, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Present. Present, Councilor Toner. Absent, Councilor Wilson.
SPEAKER_94	Present and audible.
SPEAKER_80	Present and audible. Counselor Zusy?
SPEAKER_94	Present.
SPEAKER_80	Present. Mayor Simmons? Present. Present. You have seven members recorded as present and two recorded as absent. Thank you, Madam Clerk.
Denise Simmons	Please rise if you can and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance and pause for a moment of silence to remember William Bill King and Tom Lehrer.
Sumbul Siddiqui	I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God.
Denise Simmons	Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, adopted by the Massachusetts General Court and approved by the governor, the city is authorized to use remote participation at meetings of the Cambridge City Council. In addition to having members of the council participate remotely, we have also set up Zoom teleconference for public comment. You can also view the meeting via the city open meeting portal or on the city's cable channel, and that's channel 22. To speak during public comment, you must sign up at www.cambridgema.gov backslash public comment. You can also email written comments for the record to the city clerk at cityclerk at cambridgema.gov. We welcome your participation and you can sign up until 6 p.m. Please note that the city of Cambridge audio and video records these meetings and makes it available for the public for future viewing. In addition, third parties may also be audio and video recording our meetings. Our first order of business is public comment. Public comment may be made in accordance with Massachusetts General Laws 38, Section 20G, and City Council Rules 23D and 37. Once you're finished speaking, the next speaker will be called. Individuals are not permitted to allocate their time to another speaker. Please state your name and your address for the record and the item that you're speaking to. Given that we have 61 speakers, Signed up each speaker will be given two minutes. I'm going to now turn public comment over to Ms. Naomi Steffen. Ms. Steffen, the floor is yours. Excuse me, Ms. Crane would like to say something.
SPEAKER_80	Vice Mayor McGovern. Present. Present.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, Clerk Crane. Ms. Steffen, the floor is yours.
SPEAKER_66	Our first speaker is Julia Schlossman, followed by David Sullivan. Julia, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
Denise Simmons	No, it's not.
SPEAKER_31	Good evening.
Denise Simmons	Much better.
SPEAKER_31	Good evening. My name is Julia Schlazman, and I live at 41 Walker Street. I am here once again to support strengthening the welcoming community ordinance, specifically the most recent language in the agenda packet. As I've said previously, it's crucial that our local law enforcement neither help nor be perceived as helping ICE, whether through crowd control, police escort, or anything else. I also reiterate my thanks to CPD leadership, the city solicitor, and members of the council for your collaboration and support. Since addressing you all at the ordinance committee meeting last week, I took a cursory look at a 2023 report from Northeastern Law School analyzing welcoming city ordinances in Massachusetts and concluded that, were this language to pass, Cambridge would have the strongest ordinance of its kind in the entire Commonwealth. I'm so proud to live in a city that it's a leader on so many issues, and I urge the council to adopt this language. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Our next speaker is David Sullivan, followed by Andrea Saltzman. David, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_26	Thank you, Madam Mayor, and through you to the city council. My name is David Sullivan. I live at 16 Notre Dame Avenue in North Cambridge. I am here to support the most recent language amending the Welcoming City Ordinance. I will be brief since most of you heard me at the Ordinance Committee. I agree with everything Julia just said. I am very happy with the language proposed most recently by the City Solicitor and Superintendent Wells and others in the administration for listening to our concerns and responding with language that successfully addresses these difficult issues. Also want to thank counselors, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Nolan, and Siddiqui and others for bringing this important issue forward. This language draws a bright line against cooperation or assistance by city employees by removing existing ordinance language that allowed police to assist ICE with crowd control and police escort. And it directs police command staff to take reasonable steps to ensure that ICE agents are who they say they are. So I strongly support this language and I want to be recorded as opposing any other amendments that might require our police to engage with ICE in ways that will inevitably be counterproductive. So we will ordain this language this evening. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Andrea Saltzman, followed by Rebecca Bjork, then Adria Katz. Andrea, two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_27	Hi, my name is Andrea Saltzman. I live at 183 Lakeview Avenue, and I'm a 25-year member of St. James Episcopal Church here tonight to speak on policy order number three. I'm here to offer some additional context and clarification regarding this order, which addresses overnight use of the garden and porch areas near St. James. First, I want to gently correct an important point. The garden mentioned in the order is not solely owned by the neighboring condos. It's a limited common element of the condo association, which is 50% St. James, and under the church's exclusive use and care. This sounds technical, but it's important, especially as we approach mediation and good faith with our neighbors. For many years, our church has welcomed unhoused individuals to sleep on our porches. This practice is grounded in our faith and our call to extend hospitality and care. We recognize that this arrangement can cause concern for others. That's why members of our community regularly come in the mornings to clean up, build relationships, and reduce any impacts on the surrounding areas. We have worked with city partners like First Step, the CARES team, and sometimes the Cambridge Police to respond thoughtfully. We've also been in dialogue with our neighbors, and we are preparing for mediation this September with a sincere desire to find a shared path forward. Given all that, we were disappointed that the policy order was introduced without input from the church. It was shared with our rector just a day before it was finalized, and despite his suggested edits, the order proceeded as written. That felt discouraging, not because we opposed collaboration, but because we've been trying hard to be a part of the solution and weren't given an opportunity to contribute. We believe any lasting approach to this issue needs to be developed in partnership with respect for the complex needs involved and with care for both housed and unhoused neighbors. We remain hopeful for a collaborative way forward that reflects the values we all share as members of this city. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Thank you for your testimony.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Rebecca Bjork, followed by Adria Katz. Rebecca, two minutes.
SPEAKER_29	My name is Rebecca Bjork, and I live at 20 Concord Ave, Unit C, and have been a Cambridge resident and St. James member since 1998. I've already written an email in about PO3, which I hope you have read, detailing the issues around the description of the ownership of the garden and the introduction before mediation is started. Tonight, though, I want to give voice to the people who were also left out of the conversations when this PO was drafted, the people who sleep rough on our porches. They regularly say thank you and talk about how our porches are a safe and sacred space. People share how different they feel on our porches and when parishioners stop by to check in and wake them up in the morning. Elsewhere, they either feel unseen or chased away. But in our space, they feel safe and supported. They tell me they know that the people who can afford expensive homes in Cambridge often look down on them and want them to go away. When one woman was angry with me over a boundary I set, she said, I know you think I am trash. I knew she didn't truly think I felt that way, but rather that was the message she hears day in and day out from others. They know their lives are seen as less valuable than others. People like Tommy, who faithfully took care of other unhoused folks on our porches and always cleaned up his stuff and things others left behind. I used to call him and his buddy Kevin the captains of our crew. Our perches were their safe space and they made sure to take care of them and everyone who found their way to us. I saw Tommy yesterday and he shared that he had a bed in a small shelter and is so happy. I'm so glad our portraits provided him a safe space to be until he was able to enter the shelter. Or Chelsea who told me one morning she was heading to a rehab bed but didn't go. Two days later I saw her again and I checked in and she said she didn't make it but she really wanted to go. As we were eating breakfast, waiting for it to be late enough to head for her clinic, she said, you aren't going to leave my side until I checked in, huh? And I smiled. I haven't seen her since I left her at the clinic after she told them she was ready for rehab. So I hope she is still in rehab or done and home with her family. These are just two people who slept on our porches and for whom I know the space made a real difference.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you so much for your testimony. Thank you. Our next speaker is Adria Katz, followed by Dan Totten, then Steve Nutter. Adria, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_17	Hi, my name is Adria Katz, and I live at 109 Cushing Street, number 3, and I'm speaking in regards to the Biomed Realty petition for UBZoning. I'm the managing director of the Multicultural Arts Center, a nonprofit located in East Cambridge on 2nd Street for over 45 years, and I'm also a Cambridge resident, and I'm speaking today on behalf of the Nonprofit Coalition Sector Strategy Committee to advocate for an improved process for funding nonprofits through zoning mitigation, and in particular through the Community Benefits Fund. This Community Benefits Fund that was held for this petition, the process, excuse me, that was held for this petition did not reach the necessary residents nor the nonprofit leaders of East Cambridge, let alone the wider Cambridge network, many of whom are directly impacted by the development in East Cambridge and Kendall Square. The Community Benefits Fund is the one vehicle designed to support nonprofits in Cambridge, and I believe it was set up to fail by not having a clear expectation of when and how funds would be allocated, and by not making it a clear option or even a requirement in all discussions with developers regarding upzoning. The city puts so much responsibility on the nonprofit sector to deliver on the goals the city has articulated. And if not through this vehicle, then how is the city going to make sure that the nonprofits it depends on will survive the changing funding landscape and the changing landscape of real estate and the cost of living? I'm glad that a compromise has been reached, and I want to thank the counselors who advocated on behalf of a portion going to the Community Benefits Fund, Counselors Wilson, McGovern, Siddiqui, and Simmons. And I want to stress the importance of having an improved process squarely in place before the next development petition comes up for debate.
Denise Simmons	Thank you for your testimony. I just want to add, if there are folks that have already spoken but want to stay for the rest of the council meeting, there is seating up there. So you don't have to stand in the hall. You don't have to stand up in the council chamber. There is additional seating. I just want to make sure everybody knows that. And then, Madam Clerk, did you call the roll for a councillor?
SPEAKER_80	I did see Council Otona present. He is not in the chamber at this moment. Very good. We'll just wait till he comes back. Ms.
SPEAKER_66	Steffen? Our next speaker is Dan Totten, followed by Steve Nutter, then Tom Hershey. Dan, you have two minutes.
SPEAKER_14	Please go ahead. Yes. Hi. My name is Dan Totten. I live at 54 Bishop Allen Drive. I want to quickly mention my support for the further amendments to the Welcoming Community Ordinance. that are apparently going to be introduced tonight, and also the community benefits compromise. I stand in solidarity with the Community Arts Center, the Cambridge Community Center, and the other nonprofits that are asking for a bigger share of the pie. But I do want to focus on the policy order number three, which seems to target a specific group of outside sleepers, and it asks for additional enforcement tools that could target outside sleepers across the city. I have really deep concerns about this. particularly because it's coming just one week after President Trump issued an executive order that criminalizes homelessness to a degree that we have never seen in this country before it's really scary when you read that order and you think about what he's saying and then to see this order this policy order on our local agenda one week later which mirrors that executive order, it's really concerning. It's also concerning that this comes just one month after the closure of a 58-bed homeless shelter. It's so hypocritical to take away shelter options and then criminalize outside sleepers. Where do we expect them to go? So, Mayor Simmons, I assume that you had really good intent in submitting this. I know that there are people on both sides of the issue, but I think given the executive order last week, this really needs some more thought. I would also contend that maybe if there's an ongoing mediation process that the city council putting their thumb on the scale in this moment could actually undermine that mediation process and make it more difficult for the church and the condo owners to reach an agreement. So for those reasons, I would respectfully ask you to either vote it down or exercise a charter right so that we have a month to work on it. And please add heart to consideration of alternatives to the police that should be contacted in a situation like this. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker is Stephen Nutter, followed by Tom Hershey, then Laura Roberts. Stephen? Stephen has not joined us. We will go to Tom Hershey. Tom has not joined. We will go to Laura Roberts, followed by Elena Sokolaw-Kaufman. Laura is joining us via Zoom. Laura, you have the floor, two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_63	Thank you. Good evening. My name is Laura Roberts, and I live at 1715 Cambridge Street. I'm here to address the BioMed East Cambridge Enhancement Settlement. I am the president of the board of Central Square Theatre. CST explores social justice, science, and gender politics through theater. Combining artistic excellence, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and community engagement, we create theater where diverse points of view are heard, perspectives shift, and change can happen. Through our programs and partnerships, we serve communities across Cambridge, including East Cambridge. We find the Cambridge Nonprofit Coalition to be a valuable partner and advocate for the sector. The allocation of $3.2 million to the Community Benefits Fund from the BioMed settlement is welcome and essential to the ongoing sustainability of the city's nonprofit sector. CST and other organizations benefited enormously from COVID relief funding from the CBF. Rather than distributing funds through one-off signed deals, the Community Benefit Fund has engaged in a transparent and equitable practice. With the fund down down to $1.6 million, It's essential to bolster its funding. The city's nonprofits are facing a new set of fiscal challenges, just as we've begun to recover from the pandemic. Thank you, Vice Mayor McGovern, Councilor Wilson, Councilor Siddiqui, and Mayor Simmons for your efforts to arrive at the compromise that's before the council this evening. I understand that the Cambridge Nonprofit Coalition has approached the council about creating a more clear and open process for allocating similar zoning mitigation agreements in the future, and we at Central Square Theatre welcome that. A transparent process that includes the leadership of all of the city's nonprofits will benefit all of us. As a nonprofit leader, I know how vital it is to have access to clear, inclusive funding opportunities like the Community Benefits Fund. which not only offers critical financial support, but sets a standard for equitable, transparent, and collaborative decision making. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Thank you for your testimony.
SPEAKER_66	Our next speaker is Elaine Sokolow-Kaufman, followed by Cassandra Ling, then Suzanne Blier. Elena, two minutes.
SPEAKER_65	Thank you. My name is Elena Sokolow-Kaufman. I'm the executive director of the Cambridge Nonprofit Coalition. Our mission is to advance equity and justice in Cambridge through strengthening the nonprofit sector, building collective voice, and promoting collaboration. We represent almost 100 Cambridge-serving nonprofits that provide services and programs ranging from affordable housing to youth development to early childhood to environmental preservation, legal services, arts and culture, and much, much more. I'm here on behalf of the coalition to share our support for the compromise in the Biomed Realty East Cambridge Community Enhancement Petition that will allocate $3.2 million to the Community Benefits Fund. Even though it's clear that both Cambridge nonprofits and residents are facing rapidly increasing challenges that require further resources, this allocation to the Community Benefits Fund is a critical and appreciated investment. It is a contribution to a centralized, transparent, and equitable fund that will positively impact many nonprofits across the city and the people they serve. It is especially vital to make an investment in the Community Benefits Fund now. During the pandemic, the Community Benefits Fund provided $2 million in COVID relief grants that help nonprofits navigate severe financial challenges. Today, many organizations are again facing the same instability and increased demand for services. The fund currently has only $1.6 million available now, so every additional dollar that can be put toward the Community Benefits Fund is needed to help ensure that nonprofits throughout Cambridge remain strong, resilient, and able to serve our communities effectively. We are deeply grateful for the advocacy of Vice Mayor Mark McGovern, Councilor Ayesha Wilson, Councilor Sambal Siddiqui, and Mayor Denise Simmons, who invested countless, countless hours on behalf to negotiate this compromise. CNC looks forward to working together to change the processes surrounding zoning mitigation agreements in the near future in ways that make them more clear, more open, more equitable, and prevent similar situations from happening again. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.
SPEAKER_66	Our next speaker is Cassandra Ling, followed by Suzanne Blea, then Steven Bardage. Cassandra, two minutes.
SPEAKER_94	Good evening, Mayor Simmons and city councilors. My name is Cassandra Ling, and I serve as the executive director of YWCA Cambridge. For over 130 years, our organization has been dedicated to eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all. I'm here to share my support for the compromise on the Biomed Realty East Cambridge Community Enhancement Petition that will allocate $3.2 million to the Community Benefits Fund. This allocation to the fund is a critical investment. It's a contribution to a centralized, transparent, and equitable fund that will positively impact many nonprofits across the city and the people we serve. It's especially vital to strengthen the fund now, as the fund currently has $1.6 million available, and every additional dollar will help ensure nonprofits throughout Cambridge remain strong, resilient, and able to serve our community effectively. We are extremely grateful for the advocacy of Vice Mayor Mark McGovern, Councilor Ayesha Wilson, Councilor Sambal Siddiqui, and Mayor Denise Simmons, who invested countless hours on our behalf to negotiate this outcome. At a time when federal support for our social safety net is shrinking, local investment is more important than ever. Flexible community-driven funding like the Community Benefits Fund helps nonprofits like YWCA Cambridge respond to rising needs, from housing women at our Tanner residence SRO to offering emergency shelter and wraparound services to families at Renee's Place. We're looking forward to this council continuing to work with the Cambridge Nonprofit Coalition and others to strengthen the processes surrounding zoning mitigation agreements in the near future in ways that make them more clear, open, and equitable. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you, our next speaker is Suzanne Blea, followed by Steven Bartage, John Froyo, then Darren Corte. Suzanne, you have two minutes.
SPEAKER_74	Thank you. Suzanne Blier, by Fuller Place, and I'm wishing you all well for this summer meeting. Thank you. The clearly transparency and well-constructed process and well-known process is on the table in the previous comments and some of the issues here, and I would just endorse that more generally. But I'm here to speak specifically to three other things. First, a celebration of of all of the affordable housing that is now being built and is in the packet that was presented for this particular meeting. I think it's important to celebrate that news and also including one of the new ones, a preserved parish structure in East Cambridge. And that speaks in part to how preservation and community input is really doing very positive things. And that currently, I guess, we're purchasing land for more housing when other funding becomes available for this. So I'm on the real celebration side on that. On the question, there's an upzoning petition about allowing larger, taller buildings for religious use, a zoning case. As you probably know, historically today, there's so many religions in Cambridge from around the world and not just here, that I hope you will not approve this. I worry that providing special compensation to build bigger structures would potentially hurt both our commercial base, taking away potentially critical commercial sites, and our goals for housing structures and green space. And finally, I'm a signatory to the zoning petition bearing Martin Bacall's name. I think it's a really, really terrific one. And it would provide a means to get more green spaces as we're building higher and bigger by putting certain restrictions on pavements. And I really urge you to support it. I think that's a win-win too. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Stephen Bartage, followed by John Froyo, Darren Corte, then Carol Ann Barrett. Stephen, two minutes.
SPEAKER_03	Thank you. My name is Steven Bardage. I've lived in Cambridge for 53 years. I've lived in 7 Beach Street for two and a half years. I'd like to thank the mayor's office for initiating this policy order and we really appreciate it. the efforts that they've put into that. You, the members of the council, have received numerous personal, very articulate emails from the residents of St. James Place, from the businesses that surround it, from former residents of St. James Place that repeat the issues that were faced day in and day out. I won't repeat those at this time. But I would like to address Councilor Nolan's response, and I really appreciate the fact that she sent us a response detailing her thinking. And I agree with much of what she said, but we urge you in the strongest terms not to delay. We really need immediate intervention, particularly in the garden area. As to mediation, I think there's some confusion. Mediation is scheduled for September 5th, 2025. It exclusively involves the porches. It does not address the garden area and the activities that take place there. The residents and the churches agree that no one should be in the garden area after dusk, period. The church is responsible for enforcing these rules that were established prior to the construction of the condominiums, in agreement with the city, the developer, and the church. But there is no enforcement. By my best estimates, the police and the EMTs have been to the garden area about a dozen times in the last month. There have been at least two arrests. The residents in the church have talked about the use of its porches for two years. Pursuant to the condo documents, the church and the residents agreed, because we had an impasse, to submit the dispute to mediation. The mediation does not address the broader issues of homelessness, drug and mental health problems. It does not address the garden area.
SPEAKER_66	Mr. Barrage, unfortunately, your time has expired. Please email the remainder of your comments to the council. You can email them to citycouncil at cambridgema.gov. Our next speaker is John Froyo, followed by Darren Corte, Carol Ann Barrett, then Mary Shetterly. John, you have two minutes. Please go ahead. John Froyo, you need to unmute yourself. You have the floor.
SPEAKER_95	Okay, is that better?
SPEAKER_66	Yes, please go ahead.
SPEAKER_95	My name is John Froyo. I'm the Deputy Director of De Novo, located at 47 Thorndike Street in East Cambridge. I'm here tonight on behalf of De Novo and our clients to testify on unfinished business number six, as our office is a few blocks away from the Biomed project. First, I want to thank Mayor Simmons, Vice Mayor McGovern, Councilors Siddiqui and Wilson for working towards having some of the funds from this project go to the Community Benefits Fund. As I stated last month when I'm at the meeting, I've been impressed over my career at De Novo on the way the City of Cambridge has been how they've implemented programs that have been innovative and really helped improve the quality of life for its residents. One example of these programs would be the Community Benefits Fund in the Community Benefits Advisory Committee. This mechanism generates and distributes funds to nonprofits, and it's something that really sets Cambridge apart from other cities in the area. What I don't understand is why the city that has something that works so well wouldn't use it. and while i'm concerned about the process that has gone through i'm happy about the resolution i'm just asking the city as you move forward to really use this process it's something that has shown to work it really helped out the city helped out the residents and helped distribute funds that otherwise wouldn't be there for for people in the community so again thank you for coming to the compromise but real am i my I would ask that as you move forward into the future that you use that process. Have a good evening and thank you for letting me talk tonight.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Darren Cort or Cortay, followed by Caroline Barrett, then Mary Shetterly. Darren, you have two minutes.
SPEAKER_78	Good evening, my name is Darren Cordy. I am the Executive Director at the Cambridge Community Center. We're located at 5 Calendar Street in Cambridge, and I'm here to speak about unfinished business number six. I want to begin by thanking Mayor Simmons, Vice Mayor McGovern, and Councilors Wilson. and Siddiqui for their leadership in pushing for a more equitable outcome in this process. We know this was a difficult situation, and while the result isn't exactly what we originally hoped for, we recognize that it represents the best possible outcome under the circumstances. We're encouraged that over $3 million will now be allocated to the Community Benefits Fund. That change was not inevitable. It came about because of collective advocacy from residents, nonprofits, and counselors who stood up for a more transparent and community-centered process. We're also deeply grateful to Biomed for their significant investment in the Cambridge community. Their support has the potential to strengthen our city's nonprofit ecosystem and improve outcomes for families across Cambridge when paired with an equitable and inclusive funding process. I also want to express deep appreciation for our many nonprofit partners who engage in this process, many of whom are here today. Over the past two months, we've seen a great deal of unity across the nonprofit sector in Cambridge. Organizations from every part of the city came together to speak with one voice in support of equity, transparency, and shared opportunity. At CCC, we've been serving families for over 90 years. We know firsthand that no one organization or neighborhood can meet the needs of our city alone. This was never about stopping investment specifically in East Cambridge. It was about making sure that when major public impact funding is on the table, the process includes everyone and the outcomes benefit more people throughout the city. We remain committed to working with city council and our nonprofit partners to strengthen how these decisions are made in the future so that all voices in our city are heard and reflected in both process and outcome. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Carol Ann Barrett, followed by Mary Shetterly. Carol Ann, two minutes.
SPEAKER_22	Hello. I'm Carol Ann Barrett. I live at 44 Clarendon Avenue, and I wanted to speak about policy order number three. I've been a resident of Cambridge for 43 years, and I'm a member of St. James's Episcopal Church. counselors thank you for your attention i hope you are persuaded about the good faith conversations to date between all parties and i know the delegates from st james's will continue to act in this way with the condo owners and with the city serving unhoused neighbors is part of our calling we would be grateful if policy order 3 can be charted until after mediation occurs on september 5th On June 27th, I received one of Patty Nolan's regular email updates. She included a link to a report by the Housing and Neighborhood and Long-Term Planning Committees that addressed, among other things, zoning recommendations for Mass Ave north of Harvard Square. The report contains at least five references to St. James and photos. Some of these are, they listed the church as a key community asset and showed a photo of the courtyard. They indicated that the St. James lawn is an opportunity for improved public space and included another picture and identified the courtyard as a publicly accessible open space. Last, St. James is included as a partner in action in an item called Creating More Space for the Community to Gather, Partner with Property Owners and Institutions to Activate Underutilized Spaces. It's obvious from the report that the joint committee values St. James' and the courtyard in particular. The care team is still in the rollout phase and cannot yet provide 24-7 responses. I urge the council and community safety department to consider additional funding for 24-7 service. Last week, during a recent torrential rainstorm, when I was going home, I was soaked. I saw many people standing inside the St. James's Porches. Perhaps some of them were our usual unhoused neighbors. I'm glad St. James's Porches were available to them.
SPEAKER_66	Please email the remainder of your comments. Sorry, that was Ms. Barrett. Mary Shetterly followed by Young Kim, then Michael Flyer.
SPEAKER_68	Good evening. My name is Mary Shetterly. I live at 4 Reed Street Terrace in Cambridge. I've been a member of St. James's Church for 34 years and I'm currently on the vestry. I'm here to speak about policy order number three. St. James's answers a calling based on our faith to welcome unhoused people and to provide a relatively safe space for them during the night. This can be easy when everybody follows the rules, stay on the porches, stay out of the garden at night, no drugs or alcohol, no litter or loud noise, but everybody doesn't always follow the rules. Often someone is drunk or high and forgets or doesn't care. Pleasantly, it's sometimes another unhoused person who keeps the noisy behavior in check. We understand that it is difficult to live next door to a noisy situation, and some of the Beach Street condominium unit's windows open to the side where one of our porches In the city, we sometimes get loud neighbors and have to close windows. The problem some residents complain about take place outside their windows, not outside their door. Residents cannot use the garden doors after dusk. The garden doors give access to church space, not residences. The residents enter the building way around the corner on Beach Street. It is our wish to work with the residents through mediation to develop a way for us to welcome unhoused people, which is mutually satisfactory. Mutual to the residents, to the church, and to our unhoused porch guests. Following that, we wish to work with the city to tease out this problem, which must be common with respect to city parks, parking lot, and to other public places. What does the city do in response to similar complaints? We look forward to learning from discussion with you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Young Kim, followed by Michael Flyer. Then we will be at speaker number 20, David Trueblood. Young, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_19	Young Kim, 17 Norris Street, asking you to reject CMA number 20 and number 21 based on real facts. CMA number 20, the 2025 AHU annual report shows strong afford. Okay. CMA 20. The 2025 AHU annual report shows a strong affordable housing development. Similarly, the April 18th, 2024 housing data and facts announced a robust overall housing development. On the other hand, during the multi-journey petition debates, and it's still continuing, we were told we were falling short of the Envision 2030 housing goals. These two positions can both be true. How could we have robust housing development now, but we can't reach housing goals in five to six years? If AHO project had been properly factored in, We might have seen we were already on track, possibly avoiding the need to change zoning in the first place. I urge you to press the city manager to explain the contradiction and to post any new zoning amendment until we get a clear picture answer. On CMA 21, the electronic records archiving policy proposal misses a critical component. Archiving policy based on modern, unified digital system that allows the public to search records directly and improves coordination across departments. For a city that values transparency and lacks no brain power, this is long overdue. Please hire MIT students on a summer internship or work-study program to implement this right once and for all. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Flyer, followed by David Trueblood, then Alex Marthews. Michael, two minutes.
SPEAKER_15	My name is Michael Flyer. I'm a resident at St. James Place and a resident of Cambridge for 34 years. I want to just first of all thank Mayor Simmons, Councilor Toner, and Vice Mayor McGovern for bringing this public order forward. It's very, very important and I strongly urge you to approve it. There are two ideas that actually stand out to me in looking at this whole situation. One is control and the other is safety. There have been rules in place regarding the time when the unhoused can be in the porches. And there's policy against drugs, a policy against littering, and loud noise. I walk my dog every morning early. I have never ever in the four years I've been here seen the unhoused out of the porches by dusk. I mean, sorry, by dawn. Not once. So that isn't enforced. Some of the people in the church come by and they begin to look after things and they're doing their best, I understand. But there are some things that they cannot govern, drug use. They're not going to go around and examine everyone and make sure that no one has drugs. Drug use has been a real problem. It has resulted in shouting matches and in violence and in arrests. It has also been involved in terms of safety that we have found on the grounds of the garden needles. We have found small bottles with not completely digested liquor. And that is something that I think really takes precedent over everything else. It has to be safe, because this is a public square.
SPEAKER_66	Mr. Flyer, your time has expired. If you can, please email the remainder of your comments. Our next speaker, we have reached speaker number 20, for those who are waiting, is David Trueblood, followed by Alex Marthews, then Siobhan McDonough. David, you have two minutes.
SPEAKER_55	Thank you. My name is David Trueblood.
SPEAKER_66	You can speak directly into the microphone. Oh, sorry.
SPEAKER_55	Thank you. My name is David Trueblood. I live at the condominiums in St. James. Sorry. and what i've been listening to the comments most of many of which i kind of agree with in support but what i wanted to add was two things one was i had the opportunity to speak to the police who oversee issues related to unhoused people in the city and i was really struck by their thoughtfulness and kindness and their interest in solving the problem in a productive way. I also had the chance to speak to the person who runs the outdoor church. which is a significant organization that addresses issues related to homelessness. Also, just a remarkably thoughtful and attentive and careful person. Since I agree with most of what's been said about the issues here, I thought it was more important just to affirm that the people we have are remarkably kind and thoughtful and effective, and just a note of general appreciation. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Alex Matthews, followed by Siobhan McDonough, then Laura Rotolo. Alex, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_18	Members of the City Council, I'm Alex Matthews, representing the Cambridge-based volunteer-run civil liberties organization, Digital4. Thank you for the chance to speak to you today. Councillors Nolan and Sobrinho-Wheeler have proposed language that helps prevent Cambridge PD from facilitating ICE raids, this language is appropriate and good. Standing aside from ICE raids is better than facilitating them. But this language won't incentivize ICE agents to unmask or to behave less abusive. In fact, this proposed language is nowhere near all that Cambridge can do under the law. Federal and state law does not forbid Cambridge PD from protecting residents by asking purported ICE agents for their name and badge number. And if the purported agent refuses, beating them as regular members of the public. We understand that Cambridge PD doesn't want to do that. They won't do anything that might pose any risk to officer safety. even if it would promote community safety, the safety of poor, vulnerable and marginalized people in the city who are under renewed attack from the federal government. We understand that the police union's priority is to protect its own members, not the community at large. But the administration and the city council don't have to give the police union a veto over what gets done. Cambridge PD should be shouldering some of the risk here. We have proposed language that complies with all federal and state laws. We urge the city to work with us and with other community groups who believe there is more that the city can do to revisit this topic and to do better. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Siobhan McDonough, followed by Laura Rotolo, Peter DiMuro, then Stanislav Rivkin. Siobhan, you have two minutes.
SPEAKER_20	My name is Siobhan McDonough. I live on Walden Street. I'm a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and the National Organization of Legal Services Workers, which is part of the UAW. As a legal services worker, I support additional investment in the Community Benefits Fund. And you all already heard me at the committee meeting on the need to strengthen our welcoming communities ordinance. So today I am here to speak in opposition to policy order three. Just a few months ago, there were residents of the Transition Wellness Center who were pleading with you to keep their shelter open. We heard from all of you about how great the shelter was, but when push came to shove, you and our city manager said that we couldn't afford it and it got shut down. Now, some of you are trying to pay police to harass our unhoused neighbors overnight, presumably contributing to their already obscene overtime costs. How can we possibly be this callous? I expect this. I expect this from our anti-democratic Supreme Court who supports criminalizing unsheltered existence. I expect this from Trump with his executive order to lock people up who are experiencing mental illness or homelessness. I expect this from our governor, frankly, who gutted the right to shelter. But I hope for better from Cambridge. I hope that you all could look at CPD over the past week using chemical weapons on anti-genocide protesters and even on tenants sleeping in their apartments. And I hope you could understand that more policing won't make any of us safer. The fact that some of you even proposed this makes me worry that that hope was misplaced. I hope the majority of you At least, we'll reject this crackdown on our most vulnerable neighbors. If you want to call this a welcoming community, you need to act like it. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Our next speaker is Laura Rotolo, followed by Peter DeMuro, then Stan Rivkin. Laura, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_46	Thank you and good afternoon. My name is Laura Rotillo and I am here on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and our many members who live in Cambridge in strong support of the proposed amendments to the welcoming community ordinance. These amendments were created to really meet the moment in which we are living. It's a moment when communities and families are under attack, when immigration arrests have more than tripled in Massachusetts, and when we're seeing masked agents take our neighbors and friends from our city streets. And while no city or state can fully stop the federal government from carrying out its agenda, or from detaining people, or can even ask them or compel them to stop wearing masks, there is much that we can do at the state and local levels. And Cambridge has always been a leader in this respect. This amendment is just the latest in the city's long history as a welcoming community for all, and it seeks to update language that could be abused by federal agencies and could lead the Cambridge Police Department in being implicated in basically ICE's cruel, cruel work. It directs police to make reasonable efforts to verify that those operating in the city are federal agents, and it clarifies police roles in responding to the scene of an immigration action. Time and again, Cambridge has said it will not use its city resources to aid federal immigration enforcement, and that commitment could not be more important today. So for that, I just want to thank the city council members, the ordinance committee, the police department, and the Cambridge advocates who engaged so thoughtfully in this process. And I ask this body to approve the amended language. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Peter Demuro followed by Stan Rifkin, then Jennifer Warren.
Denise Simmons	Excuse me before you take right here. Before you take the mic, let the clerk just do up call the road to the toner.
SPEAKER_80	Present. Thank you. The floor is yours.
SPEAKER_08	Thank you so much. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. You've been listening a lot. I've been watching all of you. You're all listening so well. I'm in admiration of you all. Thank you. I'll be brief. We've had many thoughts and many words have transpired over the last few weeks in multiple discussions considering the questions brought up by some of us regarding the gift of Biomed Realty of $20 million. The Dance Complex prides itself as an international center for dance. With all we serve, we're intergenerational. We're from all socioeconomic backgrounds. realms, predominantly BIPOC and queer and disabilities communities. We are multiple cultures dancing dances from the world over, living among each other. While the dance complex contributes to the preservation and ongoing creation of world culture, we also provide the necessary preventative care for the public's mental health and physical health as well. There are times when we have challenging conversations amidst our walls, and it's natural when multiple points of view are present. But we bring the gifts of the conciliatory acts of dance and good dialogue and good dancing. We are grateful for the unique dance and the conciliatory acts we have been involved with with all of you. and conversations among Cambridge nonprofits and members of the council and others. All of us at the DC are grateful, especially for the counselors who went deeply into their life skills, and yes, your dancing skills, I was watching. Leading, following, taking turns, listening, observing these simple things, holding hands with ideas we brought forth in the past few weeks regarding equitable and transparent processes thank you mayor simmons vice mayor mcgovern counselor sadiki and wilson especially for your engagement in this process i believe our conversation illuminated many aspects of the process that were flawed i think we can come back to that at a future point uh we want to uh uh We hope that the future processes, including support through community benefits funds, find their way to more transparent, equitable, and timely open dialogues. We are grateful for your support. We're grateful for the gift to us, and we will support our next beginnings of our capital campaign with those funds. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Stan Rivkin, followed by Jennifer Warren, then Erin Muirhead McCarthy. Stan, two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_16	Yeah, hi, Stan Rifkin, 17 Channing Street. First, I want to support the compromise for the Biomed Community Benefits Fund. I think we also need to establish guidelines, as several folks have said, for more transparent and equitable distribution of the CBF funds going forward. We also need to provide far more support for our amazing nonprofit community, ensuring that we're not pitting various nonprofits against one another for survival. And then within the confines of the anti-aid amendment, I would like the city to explore a matching program for community benefit funds, expanding the resources available to nonprofits, especially for a portfolio of projects that is meant to address capital expenses as is needed by the East End House presently. I'm also strongly opposing policy order three. We just closed, as several folks have mentioned, a 58-bed homeless shelter for no good reason. And now the sponsors are surprised that more people are sleeping outside in spaces they didn't used to. I can't imagine how that's a surprise. But where are these people going to go? by giving the city manager the instruction to take quote all appropriate action without elaboration the city council is once again following the trump administration's recent recommendation to incarcerate our unhoused community this is cruel excessive and premature mediation has not started we don't know if they have anywhere else to go we haven't heard about physical barriers being implemented or other nonviolent resolutions being considered short of this policy order. None of this is discussed in the order, and this is a clear invitation to once again take advantage of the cover provided by the Trump administration to neglect our lowest income neighbors. MAGA relies on people believing that nobody really cares about low-income people, that everyone's goal is merely to enrich themselves, and that progressives who profess altruism and empathy are merely engaging in a collective performance. This provides moral cover for their apathy and indifference. Here in supposedly progressive Cambridge, we can either affirm this philosophy or roundly reject it by supporting our lowest-income neighbors. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Our next speaker is Jennifer Warren, followed by Aaron Muirhead McCarthy, then Jacob Brown. For those waiting, we are at speaker number 26. Jennifer Warren, two minutes.
SPEAKER_01	My name is Jennifer Warren and I'm a resident of Kinnaird Street and I also work in services for the unhoused here in Cambridge. I'm speaking against policy order three and the policing of people sleeping outside. We need less policing in the city overall. Just this weekend, Cambridge police tear gassed an apartment building full of people and then pepper sprayed a crowd of protestors engaging in their First Amendment rights just yesterday, including my own partner. This police force is brutal and unruly and I have only seen them be aggressive towards my community members. I don't trust them to safely police our most vulnerable populations in any capacity. In addition to that, you yourself shut down a 58 bed shelter just this season. You shut down the shelter and now you have an issue with people sleeping outside. This is a problem that you caused and then didn't find a solution to. Why don't you invest the money that would go towards the salaries of over-policing the unhoused and put towards services that will actually benefit our communities? You keep claiming that we're a sanctuary city, but you don't act like it. Aside from this, I also support the amendments to the welcoming committee to stop collaboration between CPD and ICE. In this day and age, over-policing and cooperation with fascists will only go poorly for everyone involved. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Our next speaker is Erin Muirhead McCarthy, followed by Jacob Brown, then Chaz M. Erin, two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_77	Good evening. My name is Erin, and I'm the Executive Director of Community Art Center. We've been serving Cambridge families since the Great Depression. We're largely a black and brown organization. 93% of our families come from low income situations. The port neighborhood where we operate has been transformed by gentrification. But public investments tied to that development haven't reached us. We don't even own our own space. That means that time and energy meant for our youth is instead spent fundraising to fix a building we don't even control. On top of that, we've been over capacity for years. When a neighborhood organization closed their childcare program, we absorbed all of their children without new funding. Because it was the right thing to do, and that's what community organizations do. We step up. But the constant hustle to fill systemic gaps is not sustainable. And frankly, I'm tired of hearing about what a broken and insular process yields. We've heard from organizations and leaders across the city, some even in East Cambridge. None but one seem to have been invited to the table over and over again. And there is nothing disingenuous about shining a light on exclusionary process, one that took place in an echo chamber. More to the point, aren't we all a bit tired of this winner-takes-all mentality that has permeated our national politics? Cambridge can do better. And through the Community Benefits Fund, we've already built a more collaborative, equitable model. This isn't about dismantling an agreement. It's about carving out a modicum of support for colleagues across Cambridge who are also serving East Cambridge residents. I want to thank the councilors who recognized that and fought for fairness. They exhibited political courage and moral courage. Thank you to Mayor Simmons, Vice Mayor McGovern, Councilor Wilson, and Councilor Siddique, who saw something flawed and advocated to make it more right. We greatly appreciate your leadership. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next three speakers are Jacob Brown, Chaz M, then Cheryl Hamlin. Jacob, you have two minutes. Please go ahead. Jacob has not joined us. We will go to Chaz M. Chaz, you have two minutes. If you can unmute yourself, you have the floor.
SPEAKER_61	Hello. Hi, this is Chas Mitchell from North Cambridge. I'm a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and I would like to speak today in opposition to policy order number three, This council and this government voted just a few months ago to close 58 bed homeless shelter at the Transition Wellness Center. And now today we're looking for solutions to a problem with outside sleepers. And what we're putting forward in this policy order, what has been put forward is criminalization as a solution. I urge people to vote no on this and also to consider exercising the charter right on this policy until mediation can take place. Criminalization will not be the solution. And as the federal government moves to criminalize homelessness on an unprecedented scale, we must not accept that as a solution in Cambridge. Housing is the solution to being unhoused. I will also speak in favor of the amendments to the Welcoming Communities Ordinance. It's a necessary improvement to the policy that our city is not going to collaborate with ICE. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Cheryl Hamlin, followed by Srirama Varanasi. Cheryl, you have two minutes.
SPEAKER_70	Hi, dear city council. This is regards to 108. My name is Cheryl Hamlin, and I live at 7 Beach Street, directly overlooking the St. James Church and the garden. And I've been watching over the past two years the situation in the church garden and how it's evolved. We were given rules created by the church to allow unhoused to sleep safely on the church porches, only the porches, from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., and no drug use. Over time, it became clear that these policies could not be enforced. And last summer, I witnessed as more and more people were sleeping on the porch and spreading into the garden. There was obvious drug use, drug dealing. There was a full-on drug ring under my kitchen window. And all the things that go with that, needles, human feces around the garden, including near a school bus stop. We worked with the church, and we did not involve the police. But by September, there was a full-on encampment, people coming and going all day long. And typically, the activity will decrease over the winter, but it never goes away. So this spring, when I started to see increased activity, and by June, nightly intoxication, witness self-injections, and loudness during the night, and people coming and staying later, it finally prompted me to call the police. Look, I don't want to be the person who tells people to move along. I don't want to criminalize homelessness. But it breaks my heart to see people sleeping on church porches and on the street and young people destroying their bodies with nightly drug use. But I don't want to look out my window every morning and worry if someone has overdosed when it's serious enough that I should call the police. I want to feel safe walking to and from my home, whether it's early in the morning or later at night. And so I ask you to move forward to finding a solution. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Srirama Varanasi, followed by Laura Jasinski, then Aya Al-Zubi. Srirama, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_59	Hi there. I'm here on behalf of SEIU 32BJ. I'm going to have our member read some brief remarks
SPEAKER_71	Good afternoon. I'd like to start by thanking the Cambridge City Council for your time today. As you may remember, we were previously here a few months ago to share stories, thoughts, and worries as the council began to decide who will be their new cleaning contractor. Hiring a responsible contractor is crucial to workers as they can make a difference in how they're treated and compensated for a while on the job. We sent letters, shared thoughts and concerns, and made clear that this decision must not be made lightly. But thankfully, you heard our concerns and did the right thing. By awarding the contract to a union senator, you demonstrated the importance of standing with workers and preserving labor peace. All workers deserve the right to a fair, livable wage that allows them to support their families. Thank you for hearing our concerns and seeing us beyond our uniforms that we have loved ones who depend on us to provide for them. And thank you for awarding the contract to an employer that has historically supported workers and unions and will allow us to continue in our roles safely and effectively.
SPEAKER_59	And then we have a small thank you card that was signed by our members, and I can give this to whoever. I'll give it to you. All right, that's it. Thanks, guys. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Laura Jasinski, followed by Aya Al-Zubi, then Rowan Murphy. Laura has not joined us. We will go to Aya Al-Zubi. Aya, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_05	Hi, my name is Aya Al-Zubi from 156 Magazine Street. I wanna try to cover a few things, but first I strongly urge you to vote against policy order number three or at least try to write it for now because it's not dignified as it stands and does not approach our residents with care. And this way you prolong homelessness instead of addressing it with actual systemic advances like housing and services. But I mean, how can we even do that when we close the homeless shelter or haven't even expanded services? We need to be more intentional about this, especially when we've heard mediation hasn't happened. If you pass this order, you're going to make people experiencing homelessness feel less safe. Within the past month, I witnessed the police arrest a homeless person based on what they claimed was trespassing when it was explicitly not trespassing and proceeded to scramble to find a reason for their arrest when I pointed out that it was an unlawful arrest. So I am worried if the police will treat these residents experiencing homelessness with dignity and care. Please take more time to thoroughly address this instead of moving forward with how it stands currently. I know we can be mindful of every party involved without treating people experiencing homelessness like criminals. I just also want to say thank you to all the members of the St. James Episcopal Church for supporting these residents, and I hope we can find a productive way to resolve this situation. I also want to encourage you guys to support the further language changes for the welcoming city ordinance to ensure CBD does not work with ICE in any way and to support implementing non-police flaggers for construction projects and more. as well as please support policy order number five concerning increased needle boxes and as well as supporting equitable allocation and investment of community benefits. The situation that happened there has highlighted the dire need of support to our nonprofits across the board. I'm looking forward to reading the interim report on the demolition requests and thank you for your time.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Rowan Murphy, followed by Pedro Spivakowski-Gonzalez, then Rabea Asker. Rowan? Apologies for that. Rowan, you should be able to unmute yourself now. You have the floor. Two minutes.
SPEAKER_54	Hello, I'm Rowan Murphy and I live at 22 Gurney Street. I'm speaking on behalf of the unfinished business, the Biomed Realty petition for upzoning. I am a resident and since 2017, I've been a member of the Community Benefits Advisory Committee. I'm speaking in support of the compromise to allocate $3.2 million from the Biomed Realty Petition to the Community Benefits Fund. I'm grateful to the counselors who have worked on this compromise to help a broader number of nonprofits, many of which are facing increased financial challenges and need other channels of resources. Allocation of funds to the Community Benefits Fund is the most equitable and transparent means for distribution of funds. The Community Benefits Advisory Committee worked diligently since 2017 to create a process to distribute the first round of Community Benefit funds fairly and with accountability across a spectrum of nonprofits, so has the expertise to manage this new allocation. The $3.2 million allocation will be added to the existing 1.6 million remaining from the original pool of 7 million in mitigation funds and will leverage needed dollars for Cambridge nonprofits. In closing, I implore the city council to review CBAC's report presented to you in June, which details the distribution of funds in phase one, as well as the $2 million in emergency COVID relief funding. It is imperative that the council evaluate and revise, if necessary, the mitigation process so we don't repeat the missteps and false starts made with this original petition. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is speaker number 35, Pedro Spivakovsky-Gonzalez, followed by Rebea Athgar, then Ana Menea. Pedro.
SPEAKER_00	Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today on unfinished business item number six. My name is Pedro Spivakovsky-Gonzalez, and I am the executive director of the Community Dispute Settlement Center, a community mediation center located at 60 Gore Street. We've been serving Cambridge and the greater Boston community since the 1970s. Our mission is to empower individuals and communities to solve problems collaboratively. through conflict resolution services and training. We have trained and provided conflict resolution services to thousands of people over the years, including over 2,000 last year, more than doubling our services compared to the previous year. So we do a lot with very little, like a lot of other nonprofits here, as many of you know. But as representatives from the Cambridge Nonprofit Coalition have mentioned, it has become a challenging time for local nonprofits, with big changes happening at the federal, state, and local levels. At the federal level, for example, there have been cuts to AmeriCorps, and our organization will no longer be able to host an AmeriCorps member this year as we did last year. Meanwhile, at the state level, there have been funding cuts as well to community mediation, as the Commonwealth considers different funding priorities in response to federal challenges. So at the local level, many nonprofits are applying to private foundations in an environment that's really challenging, and there are many worthy causes. The clients we serve every day are facing an onslaught of challenges from housing insecurity to crushing debt loads and more. So it's a particularly important time to support local nonprofits and the rich tapestry of organizations that make up the Cambridge nonprofit sector. So I support the allocation of funding to the Community Benefits Fund as part of a compromise on the Biomed Realty East Cambridge Community Enhancement Petition. I want to especially thank Councilor Siddiqui, Wilson, Vice Mayor McGovern, and Mayor Simmons for reaching a compromise that will help to fund the work of local nonprofits serving East Cambridge. As a community mediation center, and though I'm not speaking in a neutral capacity here, it's no surprise that we appreciate a good compromise. And of course, we also appreciate value creation and win-win agreements, as we hope this will be. Thank you very much for your time.
SPEAKER_66	Our next speaker is Rabea Athkar, followed by Anna Minea, then Lawrence Adkins. Rabea, two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_11	Good evening. I am Rabia Akhtar. I live in Cambridge almost 22 years. And first five years I live in East Cambridge. Now I live at 12 Bingham Street in Cambridge. I am a community advocate at CEOC. I would like to speak about unfinished business number six. I am disappointed that a large amount of money went to just one non-profit while other groups like CEOC and the Community Benefits Fund got much less. CEOC, like many other non-profits, supports the whole Cambridge community, including people in East Cambridge. Many of the people I work with CUC live in East Cambridge, and I wish the money was shared more fairly. Thank you to the city councilor who helped reach a compromise. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Anna Minaya, followed by Lawrence Adkins, then Sophia Berhe.
SPEAKER_53	Anna. Hi, my name is Anna Minaya. I am a resident of Kendall Square and community advocate at COC. I help my East Cambridge neighbors on a daily basis with things like SNAP, health insurance. financial education, and the food pantry. I don't think it's fair that one neighborhood agency got millions of dollars while others, nonprofits who serve East Cambridge, were left out. I wish I had been aware of the process to decide how this money was spent. I support compromise, amend that, but I wish other Cambridge nonprofits could have a fair share. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Lawrence Atkins, followed by Sophia Berhe, then Alan Joslin. Mr. Atkins, you have two minutes.
SPEAKER_04	Good evening. Good evening. Name is Lawrence Atkins, 45 Hay Street. I'm here because of the biotech meal to compromise. First, I want to say I did not find out about this compromise until 10 a.m. this morning, so I don't know what transparency one is talking about, seeing that they reached out to us instantly, and I just found out about this this morning. Unfortunately, I'm going to be in the number of the dissenting group. It's healthy to have dissenting amongst folk who are supposed to have conversations. But let me specify this. The Community Benefit Fund had a great opportunity, which was to start this thing off correctly. Because all of you know the encompassing time to do this right makes it severely difficult from this point on. You have a winner of two thirds of the $20 million. There's been no statement made about their further participation as being a non-profit Cambridge member. And I'm certain if you didn't, I want my hand in any prize you got and you could tell me I couldn't be a participant. Again, we should have a community benefits process that's for the city as a whole. That entire selection of money should go into that bucket and there needs to be that singularity of everybody competing and a clear transparency for even an outsider like myself to be in the audience of this conversation because all that I've heard today There's only been selected members of nonprofit, executive directors, associate directors, whatever. But we, who stood here on that evening, took our time to be involved and let it known to be what was wrong, did not receive a single invitation. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Sophia Berhe, followed by Alan Jocelyn, then Donnie Harding. Sophia, two minutes. Please go ahead. Sophia, if you can pull the mic down right up to you.
SPEAKER_90	Sure. My name is Sophia Berhe, and I live at 2 Earhart Street in Cambridge. I am a financial coach and community educator at COC. As a resident in Cambridge, I was unaware of the process that was taking place to decide where all biomed money would go. as East End House does very important work in my neighborhood, but there are many non-profits who serve my neighbor in East Cambridge who are in need of funds. I support the amendment that has been voted today. I hope that in the future of this process will be more equitable. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Alan Joslin. Alan, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_02	Can you hear me?
SPEAKER_66	Yes, we can. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_02	Thank you. Good evening. I'm Alan Joslin. I'm a 37 year resident of 36 Bank Street. And I'm here to say that the Mariseo zoning petition should not be adopted. It is taking unfair advantage of the mistaken changes in educational and religious institutional zoning that your residential zoning changes have created. For decades, the city of Cambridge has held a compelling government interest to keep educational and religious institutional development to a minimum in residential neighborhoods through a selected exclusion from the Dover Amendment. This was based upon the city leaders understanding of the effect of intensity of use on residential neighborhoods. Specifically, as it pertains to protecting both the quantity of housing units as well as the quality of their environments from excessive traffic, parking, trash, noise, et cetera, from high non-residential development. Please consider this contrast. When you build a 40,000 square foot residential structure, code allows 200 residents. When you build a 40,000 square foot institutional religious assembly building, as is being done in Bank Street, code allows 2,000 patrons. That is 10 times intensity of use. Current zoning recognizes the difference in use characteristics and seeks to provide reasonable protection. Please do not allow these to be lost. Note that HubBot has over 10 properties in Cambridge ready to take advantage of the benefit that their proposed zoning amendment would allow. Also remember the dictates of the Dover Amendment, religious and educational institutions must be treated equally within zoning. Thus, should the council provide zoning exemptions to religious institutions, the Dover Amendment can be used by educational institutions to require the same rights as religious structures. The effect would be catastrophic. Please reject the Mariseo zoning petition. Direct the CDD to develop a more comprehensive institutional development plan. AND WHICH IS CONSISTENT WITH LONG-TERM VALUES OF THE CITY AND DEFENDABLE IN THE CONTEXT OF RELUPA LAW. THANK YOU.
SPEAKER_66	THANK YOU. OUR NEXT SPEAKER IS DONNY HARDING, FOLLOWED BY MICHAEL MATTFESS, ALAIN O'REILLY, THEN ALAIN SCARY. WE'RE AT SPEAKER NUMBER 41. DONNY, PLEASE GO AHEAD.
SPEAKER_09	GOOD EVENING. My name is Donnie Harding, I live at 181 Windsor Street. I'm here to speak about the sharing of the bio-med mitigation funds received by the East End House. First, let me begin by congratulating them on their success in securing these funds. Their advocacy is commendable. Had we in the port had similar representation during the development of Kendall Square, I might not be standing here now, and the city might be far wealthier for it. But we didn't. To be honest, if the East End House were not part of the Red Feather Agency, a coalition that served all the settlement houses in Cambridge equally for the last 75 years, starting in the 1920s, I wouldn't be here speaking. The mission of the Red Feather Agency was rooted in sharing and collective support. But when did that stop? Or have we now allowed ourselves to be influenced by the divisiveness of this 21st century? But this isn't about one agency. This is about the youth of Cambridge. The sharing of these funds means investing directly in the future, the children and the young people of today that you, the city council, are sworn to serve. You are their caretakers today. Let them benefit from the victories and the resources that were earned today. I urge you, please vote to share the BioMed funds. with federal funds cuts affecting nonprofits, it's harder for fund raising to become harder for nonprofits. This may be the only opportunity we have to ensure that all of our community resources Survive the next five years. Do what your conscience tells you to do. Do what's right for today's kids. In fact, you shouldn't be voting for 5 million, you should be voting to share $10 million. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Matfess, followed by Elaine O'Reilly. Michael, two minutes, please go ahead.
SPEAKER_45	Good evening. My name is Michael Matfess. I'm the Director of Finance and Operations at the Community Arts Center, and I'm not here tonight to advocate for the Community Arts Center. I'm here advocating for the 80-plus other nonprofits throughout the city of Cambridge. I'm here to support a compromise that's been put forth to the grossly one-sided allocation of public funds to the East End HUS through a process that was demonstrably one-sided. I read in Cambridge Day a quote from Bob Zimka where he admits that at least one-third of his hand-picked committee included individuals associated directly with East End House. Not one organization or person was identified in that article that represented the Cambridge Nonprofit Coalition or any of the other nonprofits around the city. This arrangement lies in the face of historic precedent and the intentions of this City Council when the Community Benefits Fund was originally created. This one project is providing to one organization three times the money that the Community Benefits Fund has paid out in the past 10 years in total. and we need to acknowledge that not taking a more holistic view of this development and the fees being generated by it is in direct contravention of the goals of the fund and the CNC. In addition, to directly address the statement the East End House needs the full 20 million, I would suggest that they may have to pare back their needs or their wants, just like the rest of us are doing in these tough times. The compromise being offered tonight is still inadequate, However, I am supporting the resolution at the compromise figures that are being offered in the interest of supporting East Cambridge and the exciting project by Biomed Realty. I want to thank the members of the council who have tried to negotiate a more reasonable sharing of the Biomed fees for their time and courage. I strongly urge a unanimous vote in favor of the modified fee arrangement.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Elaine O'Reilly, followed by Elaine Scarry, then Rachel Plummer. Elaine O'Reilly, please go ahead.
SPEAKER_42	Good evening. First of all, I'd like to thank all the city councilors for their public service. My name is Elaine O'Reilly. I live at 95 Cushing Street and have been a resident of Cambridge for 43 years, longer than I've lived anywhere else. Currently, I serve on the board of CEOC and am the chair of the development committee. I'm here tonight to express my support for approval of the compromise agreed to regarding the Biomed Realty East Cambridge petition. Unfinished business number six. Special thanks first to Mayor Simmons, Vice Mayor McGovern, and Counselors Siddiqui and Wilson for their leadership, their time, and energy in working on this issue in negotiating this compromise over the last month. The issues of development in zoning are ones that our city has been grappling with for decades, and it will remain so for the future. Equity and fairness are goals in our city for all that goes on here as well. While the compromise is not what CEOC and the other nonprofits recommended originally, It deserves approval along with a commitment of all of us to strengthen the development process for major businesses, bringing more transparency to bear, and strengthening the existing mitigation fund, as was mentioned earlier. Thank you for your consideration and time.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Elaine Scarry, Rachel Plummer, then Alex Hines.
SPEAKER_40	Hi, my name is Elaine Scarry. I live at 634 Green Street in Cambridge. I'm here to thank Councillor Nolan, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Vice Mayor McGovern, and Councillor Siddiqui for their work in drafting Policy Order 2025-111 that supports the attempt of the members of US Congress to diminish the peril of nuclear war. It does this by urging that we take weapons off alert, that we eliminate presidential first use of nuclear weapons, that we stop the trillion-dollar budget for new nuclear weapons and that we work with other countries. This is done with HR 317, HRES 317 in the House, and SRES 323 in the Senate, the first introduced by Representative Jim McGovern from Massachusetts, of whom we can all be proud, and the second by Senator Markey from Massachusetts. This bill is urgent for three reasons. First, in the midst of very grave city matters that we've been hearing about tonight, and they are grave. My heart goes out to all people trying to figure out the answer to them. There is a great peril from nuclear weapons. The former diplomat Thomas Countryman points out that nuclear weapons Global warming may destroy our civilization over the next 70 years, and nuclear weapons may destroy our civilization over the next 70 minutes. These two resolutions in Congress need your support. Presently, there are 28 co-sponsors in the House, but only one co-sponsor from Massachusetts other than Jim McGovern. and only four co-sponsors in the Senate. The resolution which you've drafted addresses the need for more Massachusetts support. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Rachel Plummer followed by Alex Hines, then Richard Solomon. Rachel, two minutes.
SPEAKER_49	Thank you. Good evening. My name is Rachel Plummer. I'm a resident at 10 Wendell Street in Cambridge. I'm the associate director at CEOC, the city's designated anti-poverty nonprofit. I'm speaking tonight in support of the compromise East Cambridge community enhancement petition, unfinished business number six. We appreciate the $3.2 million that will be allocated to the community benefits fund. We wish that a larger sum of money could have been distributed to the greater nonprofit community through this fund, but we wholeheartedly appreciate Mayor Simmons, Vice Mayor McGovern, Councilor Siddiqui, and Councilor Wilson for advocating so tirelessly on behalf of the nonprofit community to reach this compromise agreement. At the last City Council meeting in June, the nonprofits were tasked with compromising and working together. The way that the Cambridge nonprofits came together to work out a solution was incredible to see, and many nonprofit leaders spent countless hours working through this issue. The Community Benefits Fund is critical for nonprofits, especially amidst uncertain and volatile funding environments. As demand for our services continues to increase, the Community Benefits Fund will provide a crucial, stabilizing resource for nonprofits like ours, and the more funding we can put into it, the better. We look forward to being part of the process to make future zoning mitigation agreements more equitable and transparent, such that all nonprofits have access to the funding. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Alex Heinz, followed by Richard Solomon, then Deborah Epstein. Alex Heinz, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_06	Hi, my name's Alex. I'm a resident of West Cambridge on Oxford Avenue. I'm here to speak about policy order number three. It was really interesting to come here tonight and hear all the different perspectives on this issue. I came here to speak on my values and my beliefs and hearing all the different groups that have organized to come to this session tonight really sheds light on how complicated this matter is. I think it's really important to hear the human stories behind this issue, hearing the people who live there, the people who have nowhere else to stay, the people who are trying to help. I think we should not let ourselves fall into the mindset that this is just a nuisance thing. Right now, the Trump administration is actively attacking the weakest people in our city and research has shown over and over again that homelessness isn't a personal failing. It's not a character defect. It's not even caused by addiction. It's caused by housing policies first and foremost. people want to be housed and I think that's pretty clear from everyone's perspectives tonight that people need housing they want housing and we as a city have the ability to give that to people I think it's reprehensible that we're still closing housing shelters in our city as recently as last season and then turning around and complaining that we have people living unhoused I think it's pretty obvious that we are making the decisions that are putting people on the street. And we are the ones that have to fix it through the same mechanisms that put them on the street in the first place. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	I think our next speaker is Richard Solomon, followed by Deborah Epstein, then Tina Alou. Richard, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_24	Hello, my name is Richard Solomon. I'm a resident of 9 Kinnaird Street. I'm speaking against policy order number three, which requests additional enforcement tools to target groups of outside sleepers. This policy order will harm the people who are surviving poverty on our streets. It will put them in grave danger. of police violence and worsening living conditions. Just yesterday, I was tear gassed in the face by Cambridge cops at a protest in Harvard Square. And two days before that, I saw them pump tear gas into a six-story apartment building where they had told the residents to shelter during a standoff. And they were in bad shape when they came out. And so if that's what they're doing to people like me or to residents of that building, what are they doing to the homeless? It's clear that they're using chemicals as a crowd control. They're violating city ordinance. And if they're not defunded or prosecuted, there's not gonna be any accountability and they won't change their behavior. Policy order three, voting no on it is a concrete measure to punish the cops and redirect public resources to life affirming and publicly useful activities. Instead of fighting to keep the transitional wellness center open or expanding shelter access, to keep our neighbors housed, the mayor and councilor Toner would rather side with Trump's goal to criminalize homelessness. And that's really appalling to see this policy order just less than a week after Trump's own executive order calling on cities to criminalize homelessness. In addition, I'd like to speak in favor of the amendments to the welcoming community ordinance to remove police presence at construction sites. It's not effective or cost-conscious for taxpayers to have cops standing around outside construction sites. I worry about the massive waste of public resources. I think it serves as a sink for police overtime. We should be putting our public resources to life-affirming public services, not the cops.
Unknown Speaker	Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Your time has expired. Our next speaker, Lori Rothstein, had to leave, so we will go to speaker number 49, Deborah Epstein, followed by Tina Alou, then Elaine DeRosa. Deborah Epstein, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
Unknown Speaker	Okay.
SPEAKER_58	DEBORAH EPSTEIN, 36 BANK STREET, FOR THE LAST 37 YEARS. I'M SPEAKING AGAINST THE MARASAL ZONING AMENDMENT. FOR THE CARRIE CORNER NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION'S COUNCIL WITH LEGAL SPECIALISTS IN RELUPA LAW WHO SPECIFICALLY REPRESENT UNICIPALITIES IN RELUPA CASES, PETITIONER'S ASSERTION THAT IT IS ENTITLED TO FULL APPROVAL FOR THEIR ZONING AMENDMENT UNDER RELUPA IS NOT CORRECT AND IS A MISREPRESENTATION OF FEDERAL LAW. We question the conclusions of the city solicitor. The petitioner's fear tactics seem to be working, unfortunately. However, there are other points of view backed by case law. Here are some highlights. RELUPA does not provide religious institutions with immunity from land use regulation. The onus is on the petitioner to show that a zoning board's denial or conditional approval of a particular sized project would substantially burden its sincerely held religious beliefs for a particular project with a particular dimension in a particular location. Many cases explain that a religious institution is not entitled to build a project without size or other reasonable limitations. The Zoning Board has the authority to request a smaller proposal without running afoul of RELUPA. RELUPA does not give religious institutions the right to circumvent the application process and or omit essential elements of a typical land use application. The Zoning Board need not consider the petitioner's religious needs at some indefinite point in the future or give credit to a speculative assertion that it requires almost unlimited capacity. By using the rules already in place, the boards and commissions of the city of Cambridge can oversee proposals and make sure that religious institutions get what they need, not necessarily what they want. The proposed zoning amendment would discriminate against many of the citizens of Cambridge. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Tina Alou, followed by Elaine DeRosa, then Yemi Kibret. Tina, you are speaker number 50. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_33	Good evening. My name is Tina Alou. I live at 113 and a half Pleasant Street, and I'm speaking as the director of CEOC on unfinished business number six. First, I want to thank Mayor Simmons, Vice Mayor McGovern, and Councilors Siddiqui and Wilson for their tireless work over the past weeks. to seek a compromise that would have allowed more equitable funding to go to the entire nonprofit community rather than to only one agency. The compromise before you tonight doesn't achieve the $5 million that the nonprofit community had hoped for. but we have come to terms with the realization that there are not enough votes to reach a more equitable outcome and therefore ask you to support it. We are pleased that in this deal some funds will be put into the Community Benefits Fund and CEOC is certainly pleased that we are receiving funding which will go right back out into the community in the form of rent and utility payments along with cash grants to low-income families and seniors, many of them living in East Cambridge. I'm also pleased that the past weeks have not led to what has been characterized by some as infighting between the nonprofit community. In fact, the opposite is true. It has brought many of us together in a unified force with a commitment to ensure that future mitigation dollars are put into the community benefits fund that all nonprofits have access to, to continue the important work that we all do. We are committed to ensure that we are present at all meetings where these decisions are made so that 14 handpicked people in one neighborhood will not be able to make further decisions that impact the entire city. We will not be told again that a strong inclusive community process has taken place when only one nonprofit was ever made aware of any of these meetings. This new process will help us to actually have good governance. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Elaine DeRosa, followed by Yemi Cabret, then Marie Sicoccio. Elaine, you have the floor, two minutes.
SPEAKER_64	Thank you. My name is Elaine DeRosa. I live at Fort Pleasant Place. As a former director of CEOC, we were one of the nonprofits that worked to establish the community benefits process that created an open and equitable and transparent procedure for all nonprofits to apply for community benefits. Clearly, this zoning ordinance proposal did not follow the established community benefits process and allowed this ordinance to move forward with little oversight and understanding of the community benefits process. I realize that tonight there is a proposal to try to address the inequitable process to date. but the damage is done. Nonprofits have been wrongly and negatively portrayed. They were demonized for their advocacy for an equitable distribution of these funds to be able to serve their participants. This was the goal of community benefits, that these funds serve all community individuals and families, regardless of their address. Individual and family need in Cambridge is not determined by geographic location. Going forward, I hope that the negative lessons learned from this flawed process will result in the city returning to the successful community benefits process. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Yemi Kibret, followed by Marie Sicoscio, then Kosar Mohamed. Yemi, two minutes.
SPEAKER_07	Thank you. Yemi Kibret. I live on Columbia Street, and I work at COC Cambridge, the longtime advocate at COC. I'm here to support Unfinished Business 6 tonight. I believe community thrive when we stand together, support one another, sharing resources, and working toward common goals. I'm also here to thank the city councilors tonight. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Marie Sakoshio, followed by Kosar Mohammed, then Michelle Song. Marie, two minutes, please go ahead.
SPEAKER_91	Good evening. This is Marie Saccoccio, 55 Otis Street in Cambridge. I am fourth generation East Cambridge, and I speak to you this evening as the member of the board of directors of the Dante Alighieri Cultural Society. I would just like to remind everyone present that the Dante has been with us for 40 years. It has served the neighborhoods Of Cambridge and beyond, it has provided scholarships for Cambridge high school students for the language programs, which are played us. And also scholarships for students who are studying Italian culture in Italy to actually finance trips. Also, most of the functions are open to the public. We have core Dante. which is a choral group open to the public for participation, invited to the State House every year for the Italian Heritage Month. I say this as a reminder that it's an active nonprofit. We were never at the table. As a fourth generation East Cambridge person, I signed a petition which was totally ignored. There were over 100 people opposed to the BioMed upzoning. We need housing. We don't need more labs. That is a huge lab undertaking, incredibly dense and high, right in the neighborhood. AS FAR AS WHATEVER THIS CONCILIATION AT THE END IS, I ACTUALLY RECEIVED A LETTER FROM MICHAEL, WHO IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE EAST END. YOU DON'T NEED TO BOTHER PARTICIPATING TONIGHT. IT'S A DONE DEAL. SO I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY ABOUT THAT. I'M HERE TO SAY THAT I WAS OPPOSED TO THE UPZONING. But if it's going to take place, this should be a... Marie, your time has expired.
SPEAKER_66	Please email the remainder of your comments. Stan Rivkin was a double sign-up. We will go to Kosar Mohamed, followed by Michelle Song, then Kit Haynes. Kosar, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_72	Hello, my name is Kosar Muhammad. I have had the privilege of serving as a caseworker at the Community Art Center since 2021. When I first stepped into this role, my position was funded directly through the Community Benefits Fund. That's just a detail. It's a clear example of how this fund has already been put to meaningful, tangible use. It's a living proof of the vision behind it. I'm here tonight to express my full support for continued public funding, funding that truly serves all of Cambridge. I firmly believe that some portion of every zoning and development dollar that comes through the city should be set aside for community benefits fund. That is not just a good policy. It is honoring the intention behind the 15 years of community organizing that made this fund a reality. It's a longstanding commitment to equity, inclusion, and shared investment. This fund matters because we in Cambridge take care of each other. Whether it is in housing, education, food security, arts, or beyond, the Community Benefit Fund helps local groups and nonprofits meet people where they are. I can tell you personally, I work with clients from all corners of the city, I collaborate with organizations across the neighborhood, and I witness every day how people are grappling with enormous challenges. Job loss, food insecurity, unstable housing, lack of access to childcare and medical care. The need is real and it's growing. Unfortunately, as funding dries up, so do the safety nets that people rely on. That's why this moment calls for renewed commitment. The Community Benefit Fund is not just a pot of money, it is a tool for ensuring our shared prosperity now and into the future. I want to sincerely thank the city councilors who have stood up for that vision, those who pushed to ensure the Community Benefit Fund received necessary investment and who advocated for the fair distribution of the Biomed investment across the city. Thanks to Mary.
SPEAKER_66	Your time has expired. Unfortunately, the timer is frozen. We will go to our next speaker, who is Michelle Song, followed by Kit Haynes, then Danielle Mulligan.
SPEAKER_56	Good evening. My name is Michelle Song, and I live on 401 Washington Street near Central Square in the Port. I'm here to urge the City Council to approve the amendment that allocates $5 million of Biomed's mitigation funds to the Community Benefits Fund. The Community Benefits Fund was created after years of advocacy to ensure that developer contributions are distributed fairly and transparently across Cambridge's nonprofit sector. It's a model that works. During COVID-19, this fund provided over $2 million in emergency relief to nonprofits serving residents in every community. from housing and food security to education and the arts. Yet today, we're watching an inequitable process unfold. A $20 million direct allocation to a single organization on top of a prior $9 million deal undermines the very principles of equity and collective benefit that this fund was designed to uphold. This is not about diminishing the value of East End House. They're a very important partner. But this is about making sure that all of Cambridge's nonprofits, especially smaller organizations without political leverage, have a fair chance to access critical resources. To be clear, I believe the Community Benefits Fund deserves more than $5 million. But this amendment is a necessary step to restore fairness, transparency, and a citywide vision to this process. It's a reasonable compromise that acknowledges the East End House's role while reaffirming our commitment to equitable resource sharing. Cambridge is strongest when we invest in all of our communities, not just one. I strongly urge you to vote yes on this amendment. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Our next speaker is Kit Haines, followed by Danielle Mulligan and Jack Reynolds. Kit, please go ahead. You have two minutes.
SPEAKER_30	Hi, my name's Kit Haines. I live at 101 Reed Street in North Cambridge. First, I support stopping police collaboration with ICE, but I think we can do better. We consistently refer to our police officers as brave, as police work, as high risk, and offer our police officers respect and a salary commensurate with that job. ICE is attacking our community, and police are uniquely qualified to protect our community by asking for names and badge numbers of ICE officials and treating them as members of the public if they refuse. But primarily, I want to speak in opposition to policy order number three. Living on the streets is terrifying, it's humiliating, it's shameful, and it brings out the worst in everyone. It's hard to find legal places to sleep, places to use the toilet, even places to panhandle. It's especially hard to face that shame when escapism is a needle away. Every single unhoused person I've spoken to, even those sober, have some negative interaction with the police. It's hard to feel safe around someone who, at best, tells you off for trying to live. And it's hard to rest without feeling safe. I especially hope after this past week you can empathize with the people who don't feel safe around the police. Asking for police to get involved here is not helpful to our struggling unhoused neighbors. My heart does go out to the James Street neighbors because it's not comfortable to see unhoused neighbors struggle. It can feel more safe to send the issue away to some other park and some other sidewalk, but that doesn't help and it doesn't make anyone safe. If we are a welcoming city, we need to curb that impulse. Scaring people off with police won't stop anyone from using drugs. It will likely contribute to the shame and isolation that drives people to continue drug use in the first place. Unhoused members are not a threat to our community. ICE is a threat to our community. The solution to not having people unhoused is to provide housing, to open shelters, to find more affordable housing. It's not ask police officers to scare away people who aren't a threat and allow them to be cowards to people who are a threat. Thank you for your time.
SPEAKER_66	Our next speaker is Danielle Mulligan, followed by Jack Reynolds, then Ruth Riles. Danielle, you have two minutes. Please go ahead. Danielle Mulligan, if you can unmute yourself, you have the floor. It seems Danielle is unable to unmute. We will go on to Jack Reynolds, followed by Ruth Riles, then Ilan Levy. Jack, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_10	Thank you to the mayor, the vice mayor, and the city council, all who have paid tremendous attention to the lengthy remarks today. My name is Jack Reynolds. I'm a resident at 7 Beach Street in Cambridge. I've been a resident of Cambridge for 41 years, and I'm very committed to the city. i'm glad to be able to speak late in the program today because i hope i can clear up some of the confusion i'm speaking on behalf of policy order number 108 which seems also to be called order number three it is an order about the green space near the church it is not about the porches it is not about harassing the unhoused it is about managing drug transactions and drug abuse it is about the use of a green space that everyone including the condominium and the church have complete agreement that it will not be occupied during the dark hours of the day this is not in dispute It is not about police abuse. The peace officers of Cambridge are not doing anything with pepper spray. They are extremely sensitive to dealing with persons who have addiction issues and may also have homeless issues. We have all been impressed by the very fine services of the peace officers. The church does not provide any services that I'm aware of to the unhoused. There is no water, there is no food, there are no sanitary facilities. The unhoused defecate and urinate. It's not unhoused, it's the drug addicts who are defecating and urinating in the green space. The order has nothing to do whatsoever with the mediation There's no reason for delay.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you, Mr. Reynolds. Our next speaker is Ruth Riles, followed by Ilan Levy, then Betty Sicoccio. Ruth Riles, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_41	I'm here to speak primarily about number two on the agenda, the request for a study for a bid in the Porter Square area. But I think it links very easily with number three, because I don't know how many of you actually realize the problem we're having, and you may be having that problem in many other places of the city, but we have a very big increase in the amount of drug abuse, homelessness, shoplifting, lots of other things that make life very difficult for businesses trying to carry on a regular life. existence and for shoppers to feel safe and for homeowners to feel safe. Nobody is against the homeless. We're all trying to help. IN ANY WAY WE CAN, BUT THERE NEEDS TO BE SOME WAY TO SORT THIS ALL OUT SO THE REST OF THE POPULATION IS COMFORTABLE COMING TO OUR BUSINESSES AND DEALING WITH THE ISSUES WE HAVE AT HAND. THAT'S OBVIOUSLY NOT THE ONLY THING THAT THE BID WOULD TALK ABOUT OR DEAL WITH, BUT I'M IN FAVOR OF THAT. I'M ALSO IN FAVOR OF NUMBER THREE. THANK YOU.
SPEAKER_66	THANK YOU. OUR NEXT SPEAKER IS ELON LEVY, FOLLOWED BY BETTY SECOTIO, THEN CHRISTOPHER HOPE. Ilan, if you can unmute yourself, you have two minutes. Please go ahead. Ilan, you're unmuted on both sides, but we can't hear you. You can't hear me? There you go. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_12	Okay. Okay. So I would like to talk about policy unfinished business number six. First, I would like to reiterate that we had a petition that I submitted to the city council twice and had no feedback or no consideration on, and which was signed by, as Marie-Hélène Tocascio pointed out, by almost 100 people that are direct about her to the project and have been completely left out of any of the conversation. The only thing I've heard tonight and through the discussion was talks about money. How much money can we get from biomed? How that money is going to be distributed? The same process that has existed for the last 15 years and has been used by the city councilors to... to satisfy their constituency. It is astounding to me that none of the nonprofit was aware of contract zoning and of the benefits that each development provides to the city and the huge amounts of money that come into the coffer of the city through contract zoning and the negotiations of benefits. It is not thanks to the city council that there is a compromise. It is thanks to them that we are talking about money, but we are not talking about the neighborhood and the people who live there. We, the neighbors, who are going to be affected by this upzoning, which is going to bring an extra thousand people from the actual zoning that would be, if they, as of right, they would allow 750 people in the building that they can build. Now they're going to have 1,500 people in that building. Did the neighbor take a consideration? Did the city council approach the neighborhoods to understand what the problems of that extra density and that commercial development was going to be? No, they did nothing. They take the money. The only thing that they consider is the money. They are no different than Trump. And to get that illusion that our city council is better than Trump is just a fallacy. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is Betty Sakoshio, followed by Christopher Hope, then James Williamson. Betty has not joined. We will go to Christopher Hope, followed by James Williamson, then LaQueen Battle. Christopher? Two minutes. Please go ahead.
Denise Simmons	Thank you.
SPEAKER_13	Good evening, everyone. Good evening, counselors and community. I want to begin by thanking Mayor Denise Simmons, Counselors Ayesha Wilson, Ensemble Siddiqui, and Vice Mayor Mark McGovern and others for your leadership on unfinished business item number six, the Biomed Realty Project. We are at the Loop Lab in full support of this project and the compromise that moves funds into the Community Benefits Fund. That's a step in the right direction. I'm also here to say the fund itself has to be equitable. We believe that the process by which it's distributed ultimately must also reflect the full diversity of the city of Cambridge, not just in name, but in presence, power, and partnership. For those who are uninitiated, I am Reverend Christopher Hope, a proud resident of the city of Cambridge, also the executive director of the Loop Lab. We are a nonprofit organization located in East Cambridge, and we train BIPOC young adults to get into the audio-video industry, many of whom are Cambridge-range Latin students and graduates, and we prepare them for careers in the audio-video industry and media technology. With that being said, us along with many other organizations that are located in East Cambridge were not included at any time or point in the process and our students at The Hive were not included. Organizations like the Multicultural Arts Center, De Novo and others that have spoken here and we want to advocate on our behalf as organizations that are located in East Cambridge in Kendall Square. I also, as a faith leader, have to say I was surprised that Cambridge Black Pastors Association, some other faith-based entities were also not a part of this conversation. Ultimately, we want to lift up the Cambridge Neighborhood Coalition for their fierce advocacy. We want to outline that this inclusion isn't symbolic, but it's structural. We're not here to ask for crumbs, but we're here to help set up the table. Thank you for your time, and we want to make sure that the feast ahead is for everyone to enjoy. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our next speaker is James Williamson, followed by LaQueen Battled and Tevin Charles. James, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_44	Can you hear me?
SPEAKER_66	Yes, we can.
SPEAKER_44	Thank you. Can you still hear me? Because I've done something with my phone.
SPEAKER_66	We can still hear you. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_44	Oh, good. Thank you. I want to speak mainly to the two Porter Square related policy orders. One having to do with what was once the cherished public space at St. James Church and the proposal for a business improvement district in Porter Square. And I want to start by reading from another policy order about adding needle boxes. And it says between July, 2024 and July, 2025, the central square business improvement district collected 85,000 discarded needles in central square alone, including an average of 6,000 needles per month. Now, It seems like the city's administration and the council are kind of pushing policies that are in direct opposition to each other. On the one hand, basically encouraging and enabling injection drug use, and then worrying about the impact of the behavior of people who cannot or will not do what All these nonprofits are providing help, but it doesn't seem to be doing much good for a lot of people. I think we have to have some rules for people. It's not just the people who are doing drugs and stealing and whatnot who are vulnerable. It's all the rest of us who are also vulnerable as the city administration have abandoned the public realm to the behavior of people who, as someone had said earlier, cannot or will not follow even basic norms or rules.
SPEAKER_66	James, your time has expired. If you can please email the remainder. Thank you. Our next speaker is LaQueen Battle, followed by Tevin Charles, then Nino Leight. LaQueen, two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_83	Hello. Thank you to the City Council and to the public for coming to tonight's meeting. My name is LaQueen Battle. I stay in East Cambridge on the border between Somerville, Everett, Boston, and Cambridge. I'll make this really quick because this has a lot to do about a lot of different topics. So here we go. I want to thank this Cambridge City Council, Mayor Denise Simmons, Vice Mayor Mark McGovern, Councilor Sumbul Siddiqui, Paul Turner, Alicia Wilson, and the rest of the council for recognizing the importance of the homeless shelter system. While the closure of any shelter takes away many critical resources from the community, the value of these services brings the people's lives cannot be overstated. With many shelters for the homeless and migrant families closing after the COVID-19 pandemic, I'm grateful that the Cambridge continues to support this population through organizations such as Cambridge Women's Center, On the Rise, The Salvation Army, YWCA, Catholic Charities USA, and even Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, Cambridge Health Alliance, which alongside it, I celebrate my 40th birthday and its anniversary this year. It is truly a blessing that these organizations not only serve Cambridge and Boston, but also operate worldwide, providing essential resources to those in need. I was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and after going through the shelter system and receiving housing here in Cambridge, I consider it a miracle to now call this city home. Here, I had the opportunity to meet with Reverend Dr. Jeremy Battle of Harvard Divinity School and First Lady Jessica Battle of Western Avenue Baptist Church, whose family also comes from the South in Texas and Alabama. I'll make this really, really quick. I know there's a lot to do. I'm on social media also. But anyways, I want to also highlight the importance of the nonprofit Heal Palestine, which recently brought three young girls from Gaza to the United States just yesterday, this morning, for medical treatment. Their efforts promote community engagement and understanding of the Gaza conflict, which many Americans are still learning about.
SPEAKER_66	Time has expired. I will email the rest of the comments to the committee. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Tevin Charles, followed by Nino Leight, then Lee Farris. Actually, before we go to Tevin, we're going to try to go back to Danielle Mulligan, who was unable to unmute before. Danielle, if you can try again. Danielle, I see your hand is raised. You need to unmute yourself on your side, and then you can go. There you go, you're unmuted. Danielle, we can, there you go.
SPEAKER_34	Hi, my name is Danielle. I'm a resident of Cambridge. I live on Tremont Street. I'm calling in regard to policy order number three, as well as the unfinished business number seven with the welcoming ordinance update. In the wake of ongoing attacks from Trump administration, we have the choice as a city to decide whether we want to talk about protecting our residents or actually implement the policies that keep our residents safe. In regard to the unfinished business number seven, it's urgent that our city councilors use every single tool in their toolbox to minimize the extreme harm that ICE is inflicting on our communities and make sure that Cambridge Police Department is not putting any resources towards collaboration with ICE and that they do everything they can to protect our residents from these masked kidnappers. In regard to policy orders number three, I'd like to speak out against it as the council is again faced with an option about whether we support our residents with humanity or whether we resort to an unjust carceral system to keep our unhoused neighbors out of sight. So we don't have to face the unjust systems. that have led them to sleeping outside. This is especially hypocritical following the city's decision to close the shelter and in light of the continued federal tax on our unhoused neighbors. There is no research that indicates criminalizing homelessness does anything to end homelessness. In fact, the most effective tools we have to end homelessness are to end our housing affordability and our unavailability crisis. This is where we should be spending our time and money, rather than putting it into the police force to criminalize homelessness, which just over the weekend has used chemical weapons against residents of Cambridge in affordable housing and those speaking out against the genocide in Gaza. I would like to lastly urge the council to implement the non-police traffic flaggers for construction so that we can redirect our city funds away from the police unnecessarily while keeping our streets and our community safe for all of our residents. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Our next speaker is Tevin Charles, followed by Nino Leight, then Lee Farris. Tevin has not joined us. We are gonna go back to earlier skipped speaker, Jacob Brown, then we will hear from Nino Leight. Jacob, two minutes, please go ahead.
SPEAKER_23	Hi, my name is Jacob Brown. I live on Magazine Street here in Cambridge. First off, I'd love to support the updates to the welcoming community ordinance. I just think, yeah, it's incredibly important to maintain the separation between Cambridge Police and ICE and make sure that Cambridge Police is not assisting in their operations in any way. And that sort of leads into my main point, which is to speak against policy order number three, And again, I feel like these next few years are going to be defined by essentially just an existential battle against the ideology of the Trump administration. It's really a battle for cities that believe in our shared humanity against an administration that has made time and time again obvious that they seek to target cities that display that. And one of the things that we've seen them target is this recent executive order essentially advocating for the criminalization of unhoused individuals. I think that's unconscionable and I really think that it is a huge mistake and a way to not only play into the hands of the Trump administration, but tear apart many of the bonds of our community to essentially give a greater toolbox for the criminalization and penalization of our unhoused community members. These are our neighbors, and they live through really an unimaginably difficult circumstance, and Cambridge is quite honestly the most well-resourced place I've ever lived in. We've got plenty of resources to be able to try and support these people, like these members of our community. Among other things, we recently voted down funding for the Transitional Wellness Center, and instead this is something that we want to give for basically just, yeah, enabling more policing of our neighbors we've got we've got things like heart we've got community safety development and we should be working with these people instead of just the police department because our our solution should be extending a hand and trying to give resources to help people out and not just finding more ways to arrest them thank you so much thank you our next speaker is nino leet followed by lee ferris then heather hoffman nino
SPEAKER_66	Nino has not joined. We will go to Lee Ferris. Lee, you have two minutes. Please go ahead. Lee, you're muted on your end. If you can unmute, you have the floor. It looks like Lee is having some trouble unmuting. We will go to Heather Hoffman. Heather, you have the floor. Two minutes.
SPEAKER_88	Hello, Heather Hoffman, 213 Hurley Street. I'd like to start with the Bacall petition. We need to protect the greenness of our open spaces and stop aiding them excessively. With respect to the Biomed petition, I'm just pretty much disgusted by the way all of the other stuff in East Cambridge didn't get a peak of opposition, and somehow this one is. With respect to the separation of church and state, I hope that you will do that where the Marisol petition is concerned. You can't seem to learn the lessons of Grendel's Den or the lessons of Fight Fiercely Harvard and everybody else that Tom Lehrer told all of us. And I'm sorry that you can't. We deserve better from our city government. With respect to the open meeting law, once again, the city solicitor seems to be unaware of prior cases involving the city of Cambridge. In 2013, the open meeting law decision on a complaint brought by Tom Solman, was that the city was engaging in serial deliberations. And I think that at the very least, you should have the city solicitor's opinion on how that applies to what's before you now. Thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. We have two final speakers that I am going to call now. They're Peter Crawley and then former counselor Dennis Carlone. Peter Crawley, you have two minutes. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_89	Peter Crawley. I wanted to address the Council from the perspective of the East Cambridge Coalition that worked on the biomed upzoning at 320 Charles Street. First, I wanted to thank the Council for working through nights and weekends on a compromise, and I applaud them for being sensitive to a broad coalition of constituents, and I think we did get to a good place, so we appreciate that. I also wanted to point out some takeaways from the process that I hope will be helpful to the city going forward. One is, I think we have a definition problem here because community benefits are thought to encompass also mitigation development impact mitigation payments and I think that these two are different things and I'm not um advocating that the funds from contract zoning go one place or another but we have to admit that historically they have gone primarily to mitigate impacts in the neighborhoods where the developments occurred whether it's a substation or moving a gas transfer or you know buying land on the grand junction So the fact that this project was accused of going outside that protocol, I think is a little unfair. And I would just ask people to actually respect that East Cambridge did the best job they could through this process. And we think it's a win for the whole city. So thank you.
SPEAKER_66	Thank you. Our final speaker is Dennis Carlone. Dennis, please go ahead. You have two minutes.
SPEAKER_57	Thank you. I'll be relatively quick. I'm not going to talk about the East End House or the zoning. I'm going to talk about funding for nonprofits. I know from the past that when I was on the council, there was a general consensus. Members wanted to help nonprofits. You can hear it tonight. people asking for it, and I know how you feel. So the future, which is what excited me about trying to help East End House get going, to build a community center, not to take money and put it in their pockets. So you have to think about, I know you know this, but I'm gonna say it publicly, how to direct community benefit money, how to direct mitigation funds. They are separate. You can make it one if you wish, but they are separate. But more importantly, you can now use the budget. I realize we're going through a downside on budget money with offices not being occupied, but you can use funds that are non-real estate taxed So is it 300 million, 400 million? I'm not suggesting it's that amount of money. Even if you make it one start out of 1% of that, that's three to four million a year into community benefits. And it will grow just like we all helped affordable housing grow. So not touching the budget even if it's delayed given the terrible budget times we are a wealthy city we need to help those who help our people thank you all thank you thank you madam mayor that is all that we're signed up to speak thank you mr stefan this complete completes public comment what is the pleasure of the city council
Denise Simmons	On a motion by the Vice Mayor to close public comment, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
SPEAKER_80	Councillor Zinn. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson.
Ayesha Wilson	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	Public comment is now closed on the affirmative vote of nine members. We're now going to go to the submission of the records. Vice Mayor?
Marc McGovern	Move to place on file.
Denise Simmons	Vice Mayor moves to place the minutes of June 2nd, 2025, July 21st, 2025, and July 23rd, 2025. Is there any discussion? Discussion?
Catherine Zusy	Yes, through you, Madam Mayor. I want to make a little amendment to the minutes for July 21st.
Denise Simmons	The minutes of July 21st? Are you okay with the minutes of June 2nd and July 23rd?
Catherine Zusy	I am.
Denise Simmons	All right, so on a motion by the Vice Mayor for the minutes of June 2nd and July 23rd, if there's no further discussion. Councilor Wilson, any discussion on the minutes of June 2nd?
Ayesha Wilson	No, Madam Mayor, thank you.
SPEAKER_80	then we'll roll call those two minutes and then we'll come back to Councilor Zusy. 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. We have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the minutes of June 2nd, 2025 and July 23rd, 2025 are approved and placed on, accepted and placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We're going to go back to the minutes of the City Council meeting, special meeting. July 21st, 2025. This was pulled by Councilor Zusy. Councilor Zusy, the floor is yours.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to, I had sent Naomi Steffens the amendment. I HAD TRIED TO ATTEND THAT MEETING. I WAS TRYING TO ATTEND. SO MY AMENDMENT WOULD SAY FOR UNEXPLAINED TECHNICAL REASONS, COUNSELOR ZUZI WAS NOT ADMITTED TO THE MEETING earlier I wanted it to be noted for the record that I actually was present for that meeting but for whatever reason I wasn't allowed to join the meeting so I did try to be to that meeting and I thought it was it was an important meeting and I wanted to be there so it's on the screen the amendment
Denise Simmons	For unexplained technical reasons, Council Susie was not admitted. Not admitted sounds like we restricted. Do you want to maybe soften that to say was not able? Because it sounds not admitted like we blocked you. I don't think that was the intention.
Catherine Zusy	we can say was not able to join the meeting. We should remove the comma after for unexplained. We don't need a comma there. So yes, that would be okay with me.
Denise Simmons	That'd be acceptable. So Councilor Zusy wants to amend the July 22nd, 2025 minutes to say the following, and I guess I don't know where that would be placed, but I'll leave that to the clerk. For unexplained technical reasons, Councilor Zusy was not able to join the meeting. Any discussion on that amendment?
SPEAKER_80	Hearing none, roll call. Councillor Azeem. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. 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 July 21st, 2025 minutes are amended. So on the minutes as amended, roll call, please.
SPEAKER_80	Counselor Azeem. 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, Councilor Zusy?
SPEAKER_48	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes, Mayor Simmons?
SPEAKER_48	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	Thank you. We'll now move to reconsiderations. There are none. We'll move now to the city manager's agenda. What is the pleasure of the city council? Vice Mayor. Number five.
Marc McGovern	Number five. Number 23 and 24.
Denise Simmons	Five, 23 and 24? Yes. Just a moment. 23. 23. and 24. Pleasure of the City Council.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Madam Mayor.
Denise Simmons	Council, Sobrinho-Wheeler.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Bill number nine and 22.
Denise Simmons	Nine and 22?
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Yes.
Denise Simmons	Just a moment. Nine and 22. Councilman Nolan. Was number one pulled? Anything else? No. Pleasure of the council. Council Zusy.
Catherine Zusy	Three, four, six, 11, 14, 16, and 19.
Denise Simmons	Okay, can you say that a little slower?
Catherine Zusy	Three, four, six, 11, 14, 16, 19. 11, 14 did you say?
Denise Simmons	Yes. 16? Yes. And was there another one? 19. And 19. Pleasure of the city council. Council Wilson, is there anything you want to pull on the city manager's agenda?
Ayesha Wilson	Thank you, Madam Mayor. All of the ones I wanted to pull were pulled. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Pleasure of the city council. Council Siddiqui.
Sumbul Siddiqui	Thank you. Through you. Was 18 pulled? I'm sorry, please. Was 18 pulled? I'll pull that one.
Denise Simmons	Pleasure of the city council. hearing.
Ayesha Wilson	Yes, Council Wilson. Madam Mayor was number 12. Hold. No, no, not number 12. Number 11. Excuse me.
Denise Simmons	Number 11. Yes, that was pulled by Council Z. Okay.
Ayesha Wilson	Okay. Thank you. I'll pull number 12 as well. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Council Tona, Council Zeme. Anything that you'd like to remove? Very good. Madam Clerk, let me just go over what's been pulled. Number one was pulled by Councilor Nolan, Councilor Zusy pulled number three, number four, Vice Mayor pulled number five, number six was pulled by Councilor Zusy, number nine by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, number 11 by Councilor Zusy, number 12 by Councilor Wilson, number 14 by Councilor Zusy, number 16 by Councilor Zusy, number 18 by Councilor Siddiqui, number 19 by Councilor Zusy, number 22 by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, number 23 by the Vice Mayor, and number 24 by the Vice Mayor. Correct? If there are no other items to be pulled, I will entertain a roll call on the balance. Discussion? ON A MOTION BY THE VICE MAYOR, ROLL CALL, PLEASE.
SPEAKER_80	COUNCILOR Azeem. YES. YES. VICE MAYOR MCGOVERN. YES. YES. COUNCILOR NOLAN. YES. YES. COUNCILOR SADIKI. YES. YES. COUNCILOR SABRINO-WHEELER. YES. YES. COUNCILOR TONER. YES. YES. COUNCILOR WILSON. YES. YES. COUNCILOR ZUZI. YES. YES.
Denise Simmons	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, Madam Clerk. We're now going to go back to the items that were pulled. The first item is an update, excuse me, reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to a federal update, including an update on relevant court cases. This is pulled by Councilor Nolan. Councilor Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you, Mayor Simmons. Very appreciative through you to the staff. I recognize that we have, due to the extraordinary circumstances which we find ourselves in vis-a-vis the federal government, have put an ever-increasing burden on city staff across the board. Anxiety throughout the city, and in particular, given this communication, time spent on a myriad of legal cases related to the government. So I want to very much appreciate that this is, unfortunately, it's not unprecedented time. It's actually precedented because we're finding ourselves in this practically every week. This is a list of all the lawsuits challenging federal actions. I just wanted to follow up on a couple of them. There's some in which we have filed. We're either plaintiffs or have joined a brief. There's others that... For instance, one I'm particularly grateful for that we do intend to file an amicus brief in the case, particularly for Harvard, contesting the federal government revocation of ability to enroll foreign students. This will have a direct and immediate impact on the city if this goes through. I'm curious, is there any timing issues involved in filing these? And the other questions related to this, so there's a couple cases listed. Where we are not plaintiffs, there's one the city of Boston is, the city's Chelsea and Somerville. I understand that some of the court cases come down that when a jurisdiction is not part of the case, then it may not apply to them. So are we reviewing any of these cases to ensure that those that we are not party to that we maybe should be joining in order to ensure that any injunctive relief or any relief that's granted will be applied to the city of Cambridge so that we can protect both our finances, our ability to survive as a city, and also the residents across the city. If that makes sense is a question I'd be interested in hearing from from the city staff. But once again, I know this has been quite challenging. If anyone hasn't had a chance to review the list, I know in addition to the lengthy ways in which we'll see later in the meeting of the city has been working, that this has created an extra challenge. And I very much appreciate everyone working overtime on it.
Denise Simmons	Before I go to you, city manager, I wanted to acknowledge our newly minted deputy city manager, Ms. Kathy Watkins, or I often refer to as the other Kathy Watkins. So I want to say welcome. This is a very good night for you to be here. We'll be here till 1 a.m. I hope you look as fresh at 1 as you do now. Mr. City Manager, so very seriously, welcome. It's good to have you. Mr. City Manager, the floor is yours.
Yi-An Huang	Thank you so much, Mayor Simmons. We are really thrilled. to have Kathy not a new hand at city council meetings, but sitting in this chair. So I think thank you, Councilor Nolan for pulling this item and maybe I'll just provide a quick update and then turn it over to the solicitor and deputy solicitor to talk about some of the court cases. Really we wanted to cover two things. One was the budget reconciliation bill that passed on July 4th and then was an update on the major court cases which we've provided a summary of in the lawsuit tracker that was submitted with the agenda and we'll continue to provide those regular updates as we move forward. The budget reconciliation bill that passed on July 4th included many big and small changes. The largest were an extension of tax cuts, raising the debt ceiling, increasing funding for defense and immigration enforcement, increasing the endowment tax on universities, phasing out clean energy tax credits, and implementing major cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits. We are deeply concerned with so many of these policies, but in particular our starting conversations about how we start to prepare for changes in Medicaid and SNAP benefits. Much of the cuts are meant to be implemented through work requirements that make it more administratively burdensome for eligible households to stay covered. These policies have been tried, in particular in Arkansas in 2018, and it's been shown that there's a real impact on loss of coverage among people who are actually eligible, who are working. This creates strains on the medical system, on individuals and their families, and really has shown very little measurable impact on employment or hours worked. The changes to Medicaid work requirements are going to be rolled out through CMS and also through state Medicaid agencies. These are meant to take effect in early 2027, and so there will be much time for both development of rules and also new systems and processes. SNAP benefit work requirements don't have a specified timeline that we're aware of at this time, and it's really up to HHS and other federal agencies to develop and implement those new rules, but those could happen much more quickly. We can provide more detailed updates as we move forward. We are still waiting to understand the specific rules that will be rolled out, but I think we all recognize that there is an important role for the city. human service and public health programs, nonprofits, and community groups to work together to ensure that our residents are aware of the changes that will come, how to stay eligible, and that they're supported throughout this process of redeterminations. We'll also work to advocate with the state for more simplified and streamlined enrollment and re-enrollment processes, and with other municipalities on how we coordinate awareness, education, and engagement. We've started reaching out through Metro Mayors to set up some meetings And certainly as we move into the fall and the new year, we'll keep the council updated and are looking forward to working with many of the community organizations that are already doing this work, getting their feedback and input and trying to make sure that we can bring that to conversations with the state. But just wanted to flag that that's one of the biggest impacts that we can see that we'll roll out over the next year. And we're very much tracking it and trying to start thinking through what we can do. So I think that was the update in terms of major legislation. And then we'll turn it over to the law department to give an update on some of the major cases and what we've been seeing.
Denise Simmons	Solicitors Behr and Veloso, floor is yours.
SPEAKER_50	THANK YOU, THROUGH YOU, MADAM MAYOR. SO FIRST I'LL ADDRESS SOME OF COUNSELOR NOLAN'S QUESTION, AND THEN THERE ARE A FEW OF THE CASES ON TODAY'S TRACKER THAT DEPUTY CITY SOLICITOR VELOSO AND I WILL GIVE SOME HIGHLIGHTS ABOUT. SO FIRST OF ALL, WE ACTUALLY cut back somewhat on the number of cases that we have before you today on this litigation tracker, because there's so many across the country, and we wanted to make sure we're really bringing your attention to what we think You know are the at this time the most relevant to the city of Cambridge either because the city is actively participating in them or because our our neighbors Here in the Commonwealth are participating in them or because they directly impact what we're doing in the city And so this will change over time as the cases progress and COUNSELOR NOLAN WAS CORRECT WHEN SHE COMMENTED THAT WE NOW HAVE A DECISION FROM THE SUPREME COURT THAT INJUNCTIONS CAN'T APPLY ACROSS THE BOARD TO EVERYONE IN A SIMILAR POSITION. YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY BE A PARTY TO LITIGATION TO GET THE RELIEF THAT THE COURT IS GIVING. SO IT HAS BEEN REALLY IMPORTANT for us to be following what's happening and making sure that we are involved in litigation that would have a direct impact on the city. We've been fortunate to have some really good partners in this. We've been working with the Public Rights Project, which is a national organization that is supporting municipalities. really helping us all organize and join together in this litigation. We also, in the law department, have been working closely with law departments in other communities in Massachusetts and then also other communities across the country through both the Massachusetts Municipal Lawyers Association and the International Municipal Lawyers Association. And so it's been very helpful to be part of these very collaborative and helpful groups that are helping municipalities organize and get together and do this work. There may be cases that some of our neighbors, such as Boston, are in that we are not participating in because we have different grants available or somewhat different situations. But everywhere where Cambridge is being impacted, we are trying to engage and be part of litigation. I'll just jump out of order to answer your question about the presidents and fellows of Harvard versus Department of Homeland Security case. We are working with an outside law firm with the intent of filing an amicus brief in that case when it's already before the First Circuit, but when briefs are due. So we are expecting that that should be approximately the beginning of October. The federal government, the Department of Homeland Security, appealed that decision. Their brief is due August 25th. And then Harvard has 30 days to file their brief. And then any amicus briefs have an additional week after that. So that puts us around October 1st. So I'll now turn it over to Deputy City Solicitor Veloso and we'll just, between the two of us, cover a couple of other cases we wanted to update you on.
SPEAKER_67	Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. The first case, the next case that we will update you on is King County v. Turner. This is a case in which plaintiff municipalities and regional transportation outlets, of which the city of Cambridge is also a plaintiff, sued the Secretary of Transportation and HUD for imposing conditions on grants to local governments, including HUD Continuum of Care grants and Department of Transportation grants. The conditions that the federal government have attempted to impose on these grants include restrictions on DEI, what the federal government refers to as gender ideology, elective abortions, and aid to immigrant groups. These imposed conditions threaten over $4 billion in federal funding. The plaintiffs have argued that the imposing of these conditions violate various federal laws and constitutional provisions. Current status is that a preliminary injunction has been granted in favor of the plaintiffs and the local governments on June 3rd, 2025. The preliminary injunction that was granted has allowed the city to enter into grant agreements with HUD for the continuum of care grants, which the city has done so. The federal government has appealed and the appeal is pending. Additionally, plaintiffs have filed a second motion for preliminary injunction and has also filed an amended complaint to add additional claims against the federal government to ask for protection of other grants. um the court has not issued a decision yet but it has scheduled accelerated briefing on the new preliminary injunction motion briefs will be due august 6 2025. No hearings have been scheduled on the preliminary injunction motions. However, the court need not grant hearings before rendering a decision, so it is up to the court to determine whether hearings will be scheduled on this updated preliminary injunction.
SPEAKER_50	through you madam mayor i'll just add to that that um the we have since we got the first order in that case uh received our materials we have to submit to hud on the cdbg grants and a few other hud grants so Our real interest now in the second preliminary injunction is to not have to agree to those conditions in order to get the CDBG grants and a few other HUD grants. The next case that I'll mention is the San Francisco versus Trump case. So this case was originally filed challenging the first sanctuary jurisdiction executive order that President Trump had issued. Subsequent to that case, there was the second sanctuary jurisdiction order, and then there was, Remember, there was the list of sanctuary jurisdictions that was up for a few days, and it did include Cambridge. So we are now part of a group of additional communities that are asking the court to allow us to join the case. So a new complaint that would add Cambridge and some other municipalities as plaintiffs in this case. so that we would be part of challenging these two executive orders and challenging their enforcement against the city. And there's a hearing later this week, August 6th, on whether the court will allow the complaint to be amended to add the new parties. And then the parties will be seeking a new preliminary injunction to say that there is an imminent threat that the federal government would enforce those executive orders and they should be stopped from enforcing those executive orders while the communities challenge those orders. I'll turn it back over to Elliot.
SPEAKER_67	The next case is State of New York v. U.S. Department of Justice. The states in this case of which Massachusetts is also a plaintiff are challenging the revocation of various exemptions under what's known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. or PRORAR is part of the federal welfare system and it governs the eligibility of non-citizens to receive federal, state, and local public benefits. Several federal agencies have recently just issued new requirements that require recipients of federal funding to be checked for their immigration status. And these conditions also now apply to states and their instrumentalities. Administering federal benefit programs are now also required to implement verification schemes to verify the status of recipients to any public benefits, even if those programs previously did not require the states to check immigration status for recipients. In terms of current status, the federal government has agreed to pause enforcing these new rules against the plaintiff states and their subdivisions. Again, since Massachusetts is a plaintiff, whatever decisions are rendered in this case will apply to Cambridge and all other municipalities in the Commonwealth. The plaintiff states in this case have filed for a motion for a preliminary injunction. And we have recently received notice that HHS has agreed to stay enforcement of these PORAR conditions through September 10th, 2025. Now, HHS has stated that this period will permit the agency to, quote, consider as appropriate whether to provide additional info about HHS's notice requirements. Again, that is their official statement as to why they are pausing. So, that is current status on that case.
SPEAKER_50	Through you, Madam Mayor. And just to sort of break down what that all means is that there are some grants that the city receives where we've been able to provide services and programs without having to, without regard to anyone's immigration status. You know, the city's been able to make services or programs available to everyone. And this could... ADD A REQUIREMENT ON THE CITY TO CHECK IMMIGRATION STATUS AND ONLY PROVIDE SERVICES OR PROGRAMS TO THOSE WITH A CERTAIN STATUS. AND I THINK THE NUMBER OF GRANTS THE CITY RECEIVES THAT WILL BE SUBJECT TO THIS WILL BE ON THE SMALLER END. BUT IN SOME COMMUNITIES THAT RECEIVE A LOT OF THE HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES FUNDING It's asking, when someone is in an emergency situation, for the local government to say, hold on, I can't help you until I've checked your status. So it's a difficult process. and it's a change from what the practice has been of the federal government. So finally, I just wanted to really briefly mention one additional case, United States versus Illinois, Cook County, and Chicago. And I wanted to mention that because that was a case where the federal government brought, through the DOJ, brought a case against Illinois and Chicago and Cook County challenging some of their sanctuary policies. And in Chicago, it's specifically a welcoming community ordinance, very similar to Cambridge's, that has language about City employees not asking about immigration status before providing services to residents and the city not complying with federal detainers and the court recently upheld the sanctuary policies in that case and found them that it the federal government was overreaching they cannot commandeer the local government and upheld the sanctuary the Welcoming Community Ordinance. So as we have later on the agenda this evening, the Welcoming Community Ordinance here in Cambridge, I did want to highlight that case. And I think that's it for now, unless there are any questions. Councilman Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you, Mayor Simmons. Thank you, staff. I'm hoping there's some good hope here, and yet we're not through this. There'll be appeals, and there's clearly hurt already happening, right? We already know that the housing authority is having to adjust some of it based on another case related to mixed status families. And I'm glad City Manager, you mentioned, through you Mayor Simmons, City Manager mentioned, The federal laws, I was going to ask if we're already seeing an impact of the restrictions, particularly on health care, knowing that health care facilities across the state, across the country, and in the city are already experiencing a very, very challenging time. This particular change may make it worse. Some of it doesn't, as noted, take effect until 2027, which is conveniently enough in times like this. of politics which would mean that the repercussions of it may not be fully felt until 2027 and yet it will be started in 2025 and 2026 so if there's anything else to add in terms of the specific particularly on health care or others otherwise if the city manager is done i yield council nolan yields the floor council wilson do you want to be heard on city manager's agenda number one
Ayesha Wilson	Madam Mayor, through you, I'll just say thank you for the information and the update. This is a lot of work and I want to appreciate the city, the city staff for really keeping the finger on the pulse and being active and proactive in all these matters. Thank you. I yield.
Denise Simmons	Council Wilson yields the floor pleasure of the city council. Hearing no further discussion on a motion by Councilor Nolan to place on file.
SPEAKER_80	Roll call. Councilor Azeem.
Burhan Azeem	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Absent. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson.
Ayesha Wilson	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the city manager's agenda item number one is placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We move now to city manager agenda item number three. This is pulled by Councilor Zusy reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yanwang City Manager relative to request for the City Council to authorize the purchasing agent to award a contract for five years with an option to renew for an additional five years to the successful bidder on the flexible spending services bid. Council Susie, the floor is yours.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. My question is, where are we with securing a consultant to advise about benefits? Because I would think that this would be part of that, or are they two different things? City Manager?
Yi-An Huang	I believe we have three, Mayor Simmons. I believe we have HR virtual, and if not, I can jump in.
Denise Simmons	Is there someone, do you know who it is that's virtual?
Yi-An Huang	I believe it is either our Chief People Officer, Ms. Rae Ketchings, or our Director of Benefits, Barbara Brown.
Denise Simmons	Ms. Ketchings, are you with us? We don't see her. What was the other person? I take that back.
SPEAKER_66	Rae is on the Zoom. We are promoting her right now. Just one second.
Denise Simmons	Ms. Ketchings, the floor is yours.
SPEAKER_66	Ray, I'm getting a message declining promotion. If you can just don't do anything, I'm going to try to promote you again, and then you have to accept the promotion. One second. Ray, unfortunately, I can't promote you. I can unmute you so you can speak. If you can unmute yourself on your side now, there you go.
SPEAKER_84	Good afternoon. Can you all hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Sorry. So we are engaged with the benefits broker. However, the timing of the agreement for our flexible spending is slightly off. And this is a contract that we would have for a number of years and which we already have for a number of years. So we're just asking for a five year with an option to renew for another five years, which is allowable under our procurement rules. And so that's what we're bringing forth today. But it is covered by the benefits work we do.
Unknown Speaker	Thank you.
SPEAKER_84	Councilor Zusy?
Catherine Zusy	That's helpful. So you have engaged a benefits broker or you're in the process of engaging the benefits broker?
SPEAKER_84	Ms. Ketchum? We actually had our kickoff meeting a week and a half ago. So we are engaging with a broker.
Catherine Zusy	That's fantastic news. Thank you very much and I yield.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Zusy yields the floor for the discussion. Council Wilson, do you want to speak on the city manager's item number three? No, thank you. Hearing no further discussion, on a motion by Council Zusy, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councillor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan? Yes. 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 city managers... Agenda item number three is adopted and placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We'll go now to item number four. This is pulled by Councilor Zusy, reads as follows. A communications transmitted from Yan Wang, City Manager, relative to the appointment of members to the Commercial Parking Control Committee. Councilor Zusy, the floor is yours.
Catherine Zusy	Through you, Madam Mayor, Commissioner McKenna, I'm just really glad that this committee has been established because I'm hoping that it will inspire the release of some commercial parking places and ease some parking misery within the city. The bios don't include affiliations with ABC or the Cycle Safety Committee. Anyway, I'm just hoping that it's a balanced board that recognizes the need for parking in the city, even as we aspire to become more sustainable and to actually discourage driving in the city. Did you talk to people about their broader transportation interests as you were interviewing?
Denise Simmons	Commissioner McKenna, do you want to speak to that or do you want to defer? Madam Mayor, just a point. Just a moment, Commissioner. I don't want to. Vice Mayor.
Marc McGovern	It doesn't say people's affiliation with ABC, but like safety, it also doesn't say people's affiliation with folks who are opposed. So I don't want to just pick on certain groups. So do you ask those questions of everyone?
SPEAKER_76	Through you, Madam Mayor. I would say that I wasn't in on the interviews myself, but what I heard back was that all of these folks are really interested in seeing how we can kind of best balance all of the different policy perspectives in the city, really looking for ways to both... support needs for current parking while at the same time supporting parking policy and other policies in the city. So I feel like overall it felt like a very well-rounded group who are really more interested in kind of optimizing the situation versus coming at it from one extreme or the other. Council Zusy.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you so much. That's very reassuring, and that's what we need is balance. Thank you so much.
Denise Simmons	Council Zusy yields the floor. Pleasure of the City Council. Madam Mayor. Councilor Azeem.
Burhan Azeem	Thank you. I just wanted to say that I'm not sure that staff should be... curtailing people for their political opinions. I've never rejected anyone who's been appointed to any committee by staff ever of any political beliefs, including people who I very strongly disagree with. And I think that staff shouldn't get in the middle of trying to balance political needs in the way that city council does. I think that if we feel very strongly, we can do something. But I think that as long as people are committed and trying to do the work, that is the most important thing. and just wanted to say that, and especially trying to like filter by people who volunteer in one group or another. I just think that that's in bad taste personally.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Ziem yields the floor. Councilor Wilson, do you want to speak on this item?
Ayesha Wilson	Not at this time, Madam Mayor. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Wilson yields. Councilor Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you. Through you, Mayor, thanks very much for getting this started. How many applications have already been submitted and are pending approval by the group? I know that we've been anxiously awaiting this. We had to change our ordinances, I think, in order to allow this, right? So I'm just curious as to have we received applications and how many are pending for the spaces? This is the one that's along all those quarters that were identified, right? Commissioner McKenna?
SPEAKER_76	Through you, Madam Mayor. The Commercial Parking Control Committee will issue commercial parking permits across the city. It's not directly linked to the flexible parking corridors, although the zoning changes for the flexible parking corridors make the transition to commercial parking easier. That said, we have not started accepting applications, but we have been having conversations with people we expect to submit their applications. And we think there are about six entities at this point who are looking to submit as soon as we kind of open the doors. Councilor Nolan?
Patricia Nolan	Thank you, so everything's ready as soon as this is committed. The portal's all ready to go. Everything's set other than we just haven't opened it.
SPEAKER_76	Through you, Madam Mayor.
Patricia Nolan	Commissioner?
SPEAKER_76	Yes, we're ready to go as soon as we get the committee up and running. And so that involves some training with the law department, just logistically to get them ready to go, public open meeting law training, things like that.
Denise Simmons	Councilman Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Great, thanks. I just look forward to this. I hope there's as little. as little barriers at all in order to getting these approved and done, and as little paperwork as possible, as little barriers in getting it approved. Basically, while we have a process for application, I really hope the predilection is you apply. As long as there's not a reason to deny you, you will be allowed immediately with minimal delay or hassle factor. So I'm very excited. I hope this happens and I hope those six people are hearing this and are going to apply tomorrow. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Further discussion? Hearing none, on a motion by Councilor Zusy to place on file, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Absent. Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councilor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative with one recorded as absent.
Denise Simmons	And city manager's agenda item number four is passed with the affirmative vote of eight members, one being recorded as absent. We move now to number five. This was pulled by the vice mayor reads as follows. Transmitting communication from Yan Wang, City Manager, relative to the appropriation of $704,800 received from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission Community Mitigation Fund to the Grant Fund Community Development Department Other Ordinary Maintenance Account 39,300. The Grant Fund Community Development Department Salary and Wages Account, 75,000. The Grant Fund Community Development Department Extraordinary Expenditures Account, 12,000. The Grant Fund Community Development Department Travel and Training Account, 1,000. The Grant Fund Arts Council Other Ordinary Maintenance Account, 235,100. The Grant Fund Police Salaries and Wages Account, 112,400. The Grant Fund Fire Extraordinary Expenditures Account, 48,000. The Grant Fund Fire Travel and Training Account, 32,000. And the Grant Fund Transportation Extraordinary Expenditures Account, 150,000. This is pulled by the Vice Mayor. Vice Mayor, the floor is yours.
Marc McGovern	Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a couple questions. What was the process in deciding these amounts? and who made that decision, who was included.
SPEAKER_84	Director Jennings.
SPEAKER_60	Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. So this is a grant program through the Gaming Commission at the state. Departments collaborated on the one application for the city that included several projects. Part of the criteria is that projects have to show a connection to casino-related impacts. And so departments met since probably January to talk about what kinds of projects were needed, what met the criteria, what could be implemented, and came up with a list of projects that more or less reflected the amount that was going to be allocated to Cambridge.
Marc McGovern	vice mayor thank you thank you through you to mr jennings um but just what was like you know i look at this and um you know the thing that sort of pops out at me is just the 25 000 to the special events and support for commercial districts like i want to i want more money going to that i want our commercial districts to do all kinds of special events be lively draw people in who are going to shop and spend money and support those local businesses So I'm just curious, why was it $25,000 versus $30,000 or $300,000?
SPEAKER_84	Director Jennings?
SPEAKER_60	Through you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, I think a lot is at the discretion of the department that actually has to implement the project. In last year's grant, there was $75,000 awarded for a commercial district marketing campaign. So this is kind of following up on that. I think we have representatives from CDD that can talk more about the project for this year. But it was really based on one, showing that nexus with casino-related impacts and what was able to be implemented. The Gaming Commission wants to see projects move forward that are actually going to be used. It's a good program. We're happy to be able to take advantage of it.
Marc McGovern	And through you, Madam Mayor, just in the spirit of time, it would be helpful. I mean, some of these are pretty self-explanatory, I think. Fire blankets, I mean, I think I know what that means. But de-escalation and tactical training, what is that? It would have been helpful, I think, in the report to get... A DESCRIPTION OF WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT SO THAT JUST SO THE PUBLIC KNOWS AND WE KNOW WHAT WHAT WHAT DOES THAT MEAN SO I DON'T WANT YOU TO GO THROUGH ALL OF THOSE IT'S TOO LATE YOU KNOW WE HAD A LONG NIGHT AHEAD OF US BUT MAYBE WE CAN GET AN UPDATE OR SOME KIND OF COMMUNICATION AS TO WHAT ARE THOSE PROGRAMS THAT WE'RE FUNDING THROUGH THIS MONEY I JUST THINK PEOPLE WOULD BE CURIOUS WE CAN ABSOLUTELY ADD MORE INFORMATION ON THE SCOPE OF THE PROJECTS THANK YOU THANK YOU MADAM MARIA VICE MAYOR YIELDS FOR THE DISCUSSION COUNCILOR NOLAN
Patricia Nolan	Thank you, and just following on what the Vice Mayor said, it's given that these elements here, public art, 200,000, and then a safe biking training, 100,000, it's just hard to understand how that was decided, and I echo the idea that We get a little more detail in this and we understand the process by which it happened and also how it coordinates or doesn't coordinate with other funding across the city. I mean, we're very blessed because we have a whole range of funding, but sometimes it is, well, we have participatory budget for this, we have gaming commission for this, we have the regular budget for this, and then we have some other funds for this. While I appreciate this, a little more detail would be good, exactly how it will be spent, and also understanding the process. Because unlike some of our grants where it's $5,000 we're appropriating and accepting, $700,000 is a fair amount of money that will and could dramatically, especially given what we heard in public comment and what we'll be discussing later, it could really dramatically affect certain, for instance, nonprofits across the city. Thank you so much, Mayor Simmons, I yield.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Nolan yields the floor. If members want to start kicking up gambling, we can start contributing to this fund in a more aggressive way. Just want to put that out there.
Ayesha Wilson	Councilor Wilson? Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor. That was funny. Through you. Yeah, I just want to echo the need for more information here and absolutely just emphasize, especially where we are putting up city dollars for some of these expenses, just getting more information as to how we see this impacting the needs greater. So, again, just emphasizing that. You know, again, what's sticking out like a sore thumb, like Vice Mayor said, is the commercial districts and special events support of 25,000 versus, you know, these other numbers, which are so much far greater. And so I want to appreciate these dollars coming in from the Gaming Commission and also would like to see it be more equitably distributed. And so I want to appreciate the departments and department heads who obviously did the work. but look forward to getting something more in writing. So I don't know. I kind of want to charter this so that we can maybe get more information and talk about that. But I recognize this is a grant. So procedurally, Madam Mayor, to you, just asking kind of procedurally, what would be the best next step?
Denise Simmons	Um, council, I would make two suggestions. If you exercise your Toronto, right? It may hold up the distribution of the funds and that might have a negative effect. I would have to ask, uh, director Jennings. The other thing that you can do, uh, at any time, economic development could take this up into committee and talk about the process. The questions, uh, questions like. Does it have to be something that is associated with grant gaming? I don't know, because we have a long agenda. I don't think it's a good time for us to talk about it this evening. So I would have to defer the city manager, but my initial thoughts would be departments are already looking for this money to come in their direction. They may have even spent a little of it. I can't say for sure. Rather than stop this from going forward, sort of... Let's look at going forward how we may, if we can, change this. Let me see if Director Jennings wants to speak any more to that. Director Jennings, anything else you'd like to recommend? If we were to charter right this, this means nothing would happen until September. This money would be held in abeyance until September. And would that have a negative effect on these departments that are already expecting or anticipating these funds?
SPEAKER_60	Through you Madam Mayor, the department shouldn't have spent any of it already because we haven't appropriated anything. But I don't want to speak for departments in terms of their workflow and their planning for the summer months. I think the summer meeting provided an opportunity because of when we got the grant award. Theoretically, it could be appropriated later, I imagine, but I don't want to get ahead of myself or anyone else and speak for them. I know we have representatives from departments that are reflected in the grant available for this meeting if any of them wanted to answer questions.
Denise Simmons	My inclination, because there's a long agenda, there's a number of items. Counselor, I would say use your best judgment. If you use your charter right, we will not be able to vote on this appropriation until September 7th, 9th, something after Labor Day. So it's your prerogative. What would you like to do, Counselor?
Ayesha Wilson	Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, through you. I definitely, I don't want to hold up any dollars or any work being done, but definitely would like to see information on this. And we're probably just willing to pass it and also maybe refer it to the Economic Development Committee for further conversation. And my other question through you, Madam Mayor, to Director Jennings, is this something that we can anticipate on an annual basis?
SPEAKER_60	Through you, Madam Mayor, I am not sure. The Gaming Commission would like to be able to provide this on an ongoing basis. This is the second year they've done it in this format. But it really does depend on support from the state in terms of how the state budget is put together and if it includes money going into the gaming mitigation fund. So there is no guarantees. I think it's anticipated to go on over the years, but can't guarantee it at this point.
Ayesha Wilson	Okay. Much appreciated. Madam mayor, I would be happy to, you know, vote this in again, don't want to hold up any dollars, but. I would like to also refer to the Economic Development Committee and University Relations Committee.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, Council Wilson. I think that's a good recommendation. And as opposed to discussing this particular appropriation, you may want to make it more general and speak about the appropriation process. If there's any ways we can modify that. That way you're not pulling out any particular division or department. Are you yielding the floor, Councillor?
Ayesha Wilson	Yes, Madam Mayor, I yield.
Paul Toner	Councillor Turner. Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. Just a quick one. Is this the only source of monies, dollars that comes from the Gaming Commission? Are there also dollars available for us to apply for from... I'm not much of a gambler, so Encore. Does Encore have also a source of funding that we can apply for?
SPEAKER_60	Director Jennings? Through you, Madam Mayor, this is related to the Encore Casino.
Paul Toner	Is this the only part?
SPEAKER_60	I don't believe it's the only. It's the largest, but I don't believe it's the only source of mitigation funds for the casino. I think there are other... older agreements that provide smaller amounts of funding, I think, in areas of transportation, if I'm not mistaken.
Paul Toner	Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, I was just under the impression, it was actually Joe Barr several years ago that told me there's a foundation over there that he suggested applying for funds for maybe some transportation stuff, and that they were eager to give us money because nobody was applying. So just, if that's true, we'd love to hear more about it. Thank you, Madam Mayor, I yield.
Denise Simmons	Council Tony yields the floor for the discussion on this item. Hearing none, Council Wilson, if I may, could I recommend that you on the taking this matter up in committee, that you do it under a separate policy order, either late or for some time between now and the September meeting, just exercise your right as a committee chair to do that?
Ayesha Wilson	Sure, absolutely. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, Councillor. So on a motion by, if there's any further discussion, Vice Mayor, on a motion on the Vice Mayor, having had full discussion, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councillor Azeem. 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. Yeah. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	Thank you. Number six of the city manager's agenda. The appropriation has been approved and the matter placed on file. We move now by the affirmative vote of nine members. We're now going to move to number six. This was pulled by Councilor Zusy reads as follows. Transmitting communication from Yanmong City Manager relative to the appropriation of $16,600 to the grant fund historical commission salary and wages account, $14,500. And to the grant fund historical commission other ordinary maintenance account, $1,475. And to the grant fund historical commission travel and training, $625. These funds will be used to support financial assistance to educate and inform the public about the city's architectural and social history through presentations to children and adults, publications, technical assistance, and the archive and non-circulating reference library. Council Susie, Susie, this was pulled by you. The floor is yours.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. So I had a question, again, I'm not so new anymore as a counselor, it's like 10 months, I'm 10 months in, but one of my questions is, so we're in a new fiscal year, so are all of these grants that we're receiving, these are grants that we anticipated as all of this money already in the fiscal year 26, or did we not know this money was coming in? So that's one general question.
Denise Simmons	And you're posing your general question to the director or to our chief financial officer?
Catherine Zusy	I see that our chief financial officer has stepped up. So I'd love to hear from Claire Spinner. And then I just wanted, as long as the historic commission is here, I just think it's fabulous that you got this grant. And I think it's critically important work that you're doing to help people to understand the value of design and the impact of the built environment on all of us. And I think it's very important that residents have more familiarity with architecture and design and how it shapes the way we feel. Often we're not aware of it, but it really affects us. So I commend you for your work, and I'm thrilled you got this grant. But again, I'd love to hear from the deputies.
Denise Simmons	So why don't we start with the Historical Commission, because they're sitting at the table, and then we can have the CFO, Chief Financial Officer Spinner, follow up. So the floor is open to you, Mr. Sullivan. Through you, Madam Mayor. Oh, I'm sorry. I was looking down. The floor is yours.
SPEAKER_28	This grant was specifically for fiscal 25. It was late in coming because the state's budget process was delayed, as it often is. So it was late in coming. It comes as an 80-20 split. 80% upfront, and then when our annual report is submitted, the second 20% is processed.
Denise Simmons	Council Zusy.
Catherine Zusy	Fantastic, I go on your walks, I love your walks, and if this is what helps to fund that, I think that's fantastic. I think that public education is a very important part of your work, and I thank you for it.
Denise Simmons	Did you want any further follow up from Director Sullivan?
Catherine Zusy	Well, if Director Sullivan wants to pontificate about that, I always love to hear from Director Sullivan.
SPEAKER_21	Director Sullivan, we always love to hear from you. The floor is yours. Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. Yes, this is one of a series of grants that we've received from the Cultural Council annually for many years, perhaps 20 years. And it's increased gradually. It used to be in the low thousands of dollars, and now $16,000 is... A SUBSTANTIAL ADDITION TO OUR BUDGET THAT ALLOWS US FLEXIBILITY AND THE ABILITY TO RETAIN THE SERVICES OF AN ARCHIVAL ASSISTANT TO ASSIST OUR ARCHIVES. SO YEAH, IT'S VERY WELCOME. WE HAVE COME TO COUNT ON IT. WE HOPE THAT THE STATE WILL CONTINUE TO FUND IT.
Denise Simmons	DIRECTOR SULLIVAN YIELDS THE FLOOR.
Catherine Zusy	If CFO Spinner wants to talk just generally, so when you're budgeting for the year, you know that the departments have applied for these grants. So there has to be sort of an estimating aspect to the budget. Okay, I see Assistant Director Rollins asking. So my real question is, are these generally funds that we anticipated that were in the budget? or since we didn't know we would receive them, they weren't in the budget.
Denise Simmons	Chief Financial Officer Spinner, the floor is yours.
SPEAKER_51	Thank you, Mayor Simmons, through you, to Councillor Zusy. So, you know, grants, we typically do appropriate only after we actually have the signed agreement with the granting entity. And in many cases, you know, the grant applications come out, the CITY'S DEPARTMENT APPLIES FOR IT, AND THEN WHEN WE RECEIVE NOTIFICATION THAT WE HAVE THE AWARD AND GO THROUGH THE PROCESS OF SIGNING THAT GRANT AGREEMENT, ONLY THEN DO WE COME FORWARD TO THE CITY COUNCIL TO HAVE THOSE FUNDS APPROPRIATED. AND YOU WILL PROBABLY NOTICE THAT THROUGHOUT THE YEAR WE'RE ACTUALLY BRINGING IN GRANT AGREEMENTS. AND SO MANY OF OUR GRANTS WE DO RECEIVE YEAR AFTER YEAR. THE HISTORICAL GRANT IS ONE OF THEM, BUT MANY OF THESE LARGER GRANTS, THE FEDERAL GRANTS, We do anticipate receiving them, but we do not budget them or set up the appropriation for expenditure until we know that we have the grant award.
Denise Simmons	Are you yielding the floor?
SPEAKER_51	Yes, I am. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Zusy?
Catherine Zusy	Yeah, I thank you. That's really helpful to understand and I yield as well.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Zusy yields the floor. Thank you. for the discussion from anyone? Hearing none, Council Wilson, anything from you on this matter? No, Madam Mayor, thank you. Hearing none, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Zinn? Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes, Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	The appropriation of number six has been approved and the matter has been placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We'll now go to number nine. This was... This was pulled by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yan Wong, City Manager, relative to a waiting report, item number 25-28, regarding an update on the status of potential civilian flagger operations in the Cambridge Police Union contract. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, the floor is yours.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Thanks, Madam Mayor. Through you, just very briefly, I wanted to say I was excited to see this update. I think we hear a lot from residents about how can we do more things on traffic management, how can we think creatively, and I think this is a great way that we can be thinking creatively around this. Civilian flaggers are common in other states, but still pretty rare in Massachusetts, even though they've been legal, I think, since Governor Deval Patrick signed legislation on this a couple decades ago. Boston is moving forward with this as well, so glad we're working on this and looking forward to seeing updates, but just wanted to to say thank you for the timely response on the policy order on this. I'm looking forward to next steps. I yield back. I'll make a motion to place this on file.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Savino, Wheeler yields the floor. Councilor Zusy and Councilman Nolan.
Catherine Zusy	A quick question through you, Madam Mayor, for Commissioner Ello. I just wonder, so do police officers have the first right to the details, and are they paid at a different rate than the trained civilians? Commissioner Ello?
SPEAKER_79	through you, Madam Mayor. I don't think we've decided on what the flagger rate will be, so I don't know the answer to that.
Denise Simmons	Councillor Zusy.
Catherine Zusy	So it hasn't been resolved, that's what I understand. Not been resolved. Thank you, I yield.
Denise Simmons	Councillor Zusy yields the floor, Councillor Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you. Through you, Mayor Simmons, yes, I'm excited to see this. I will note, I believe we are not allowed to pay any less than the prevailing rate by the state law, which is not something I would necessarily have approved. I think it would be really great to be able to give the job to folks. We know that our police staff is pretty stretched. They will get first dibs on it, but that in those situations that it would be really nice, but I believe to answer the question that we actually have to pay the prevailing wage. Is this something that, through you, Mayor Simmons, is this something that we anticipate using because we are not filling these jobs frequently? And is it the case that our police officers would get first dibs, but that we could then go to civilian flaggers and not have to go to other police departments next? Commissioner Elu?
SPEAKER_79	So I just want to restate the question. So as far as the flaggers go, would we then discontinue the other officers that come in and do details in the city? Is that the question?
Patricia Nolan	Council. Yeah, the question is what seems to me, since part of what we wanna do is safety, we also talked about that this is an opportunity for some jobs for local people, that our police officers would have the opportunity to have these jobs. But since I routinely see officers from other cities around the state here, what I would hope we would be able to do, and I want to know if we can, and if so, if we will, that first is Cambridge police officers, secondly is any civilian flaggers. In other words, no police officers outside of Cambridge would have preference over any kind of civilian flagger.
SPEAKER_79	Through you, Madam Mayor, I do know that Manisha Kibberwal from our Director of Office Planning, Budget, and Personnel is on the line. See if she could potentially answer that question. Are you there?
SPEAKER_37	Yes. Good evening, everybody. Through you, Madam Mayor. So I think it just depends on the type of detail that is being requested, right? So if there's a particular public safety risk, it may be that an officer would do it over a civilian flagger. It just depends on the specifics of that particular detail and the nexus to public safety risk. Councillor Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Okay, thank you. It sounds like we would be able to specify other than our police officers getting first Opportunity that after that we could then have Civilian flaggers before any other it I would hope that would be the default and that in pretty much every situation that would give it as much opportunity as possible to local people and local residents who would have this opportunity to do this instead of bringing people in from other cities in town, so I whatever we can do would be something I think we should look very seriously at, and never ever use other officers unless there was no, not only Cambridge police officer, but civilians. So that is my hope and expectation for this program, since that's part of why we started it, it's part of why this state authorized it, and it's part of why the council took some time, and all of our city staff has been working to implement it. So thank you, Mayor Simmons. With that, I yield.
Denise Simmons	Council Nolan yields the floor. Council Wilson, do you want to be heard on city manager's agenda number nine?
Ayesha Wilson	Thank you, Madam Mayor. The only thing I'll just add is that, you know, happy to see this moving forward. Definitely agree with my colleagues that we'll love to see folks be more prioritized, especially over outside folks. But I do understand some of the risk of safety and other measures, but definitely want to see that we are hiring within and training our locals to be good flag, civilian flaggers.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, IU. Council Wilson yields the floor. Quick question to you, Commissioner. When we do details, and we do see from time to time other police officers from outside of the city of Cambridge, and so I think I understand the genesis of Councilman Nolan's question, but we have outside officers because we cannot find Cambridge officers to fill those positions. So it's the experience of the city to always go to our own folks. When we find, and again, Commissioner, correct me if I'm wrong, if we have a detail and we have no one to fill it, then it's offered to someone outside of the city of Cambridge.
SPEAKER_79	Am I correct, Commissioner? Yes, Madam Mayor, you are correct. If we cannot fill the detail with Cambridge officers, it is then offered outside.
Denise Simmons	Very good. I just want to make sure that we understood that.
Paul Toner	Councilor Toner? Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm sorry if I sound like I'm asking the same question. Just when we first talked about this a few months ago, has the contract changed to such a degree? Because I was under the impression contract says our local officers and that there was something in the contract that said you had to go to other surrounding officers and then at some point you could go to civilian flaggers. Is that the order of operations on that? Commissioner?
SPEAKER_79	Through you, Madam Mayor, to Councillor Toner. So there was some contract language that did change with the implementation of a body-worn camera program, and I am going to, again, shift to Manisha Tibberwald to talk specifically if you have specific questions about what that is.
SPEAKER_37	Ms. Tipperwall, floor is yours. Thank you. Three, Madam Mayor. So the language in the contract still remains regarding the order in which details will be offered. What I was trying to say is that we will still follow that order, but then as you go deeper into a list of details, the ones that have the least risk posed to public safety would then go through the pecking order and then be offered to the civilian flaggers.
Denise Simmons	Council Turner.
Paul Toner	Thank you and then I had another question to follow up on this and I'm trying to remember it. After they follow that order, the other part was is that my understanding is we the city actually make a little bit of money off of the details if a Cambridge police officer is the one that is chosen to do it because we get the charge of fee of some sort, is that correct?
SPEAKER_37	Yes, there's an admin fee for certain details depending on the company that's requesting that detail. Yes.
Paul Toner	Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. The only reason I ask these questions, and if there are Cambridge residents who can benefit from being civilian flaggers and make some money, that's great. I just want to remind people, some people seem to think we're going to save all this money if we go to civilian flaggers, and that's really not necessarily true. But if civilians can make some money and get a job out of it, that's great. Thank you. I yield.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Tony yields the floor for the discussion. Councilor Siddiqui, the floor is yours.
Sumbul Siddiqui	Thank you. Through you, I echo the sentiment about this being good that this is happening. The original policy order said also to update the current police contract on the city's union contracts web page and so wanted to just flag that. I know that there's two contracts. There's the currently related to the police, the patrol, officers association contract which i think it's expired in 2024 and then the um the superior officers contract which i think it's from 2020 on there so if anything could be updated just so it's updated um that'd be great
Denise Simmons	No question, just a statement.
Sumbul Siddiqui	That was just my ask because that was in the original PO and the response didn't speak to that part. Thank you. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Siddiqui yields the floor. Discussion having been held on the motion by Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler to place this matter on file. Roll call, please.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. 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	Thank you. And the matter is placed on file by the affirmative of nine members. We'll now go to city manager's agenda item number 11. This is pulled by Councilor Zusy, reads as follows. Transmitting communication from Yanwang City Managers relative to the appropriation of $268,815 to the grant fund Department of Human Service Program salary and wages account, $242,282, and to the grant fund Department of Human Service Program's other ordinary maintenance account. Funds will be used to support the cost of six full-time staff and one full-time staff salaries. Additional funds will support text a tip, fatherhood campaign, workshop, events, consultant, and program supplies. Councilor Zusy, the floor is yours.
Catherine Zusy	Thank You madam mayor I just wanted to make sure I understood this so is this a state grant that we received that we hadn't so we hadn't it wasn't in our budget right because we didn't know we were gonna get it but it'll allow the Department of Human Services to add six and a half staff So I just wanted to make sure, is that what I understand? And then I wanted to hear more about the DADS program and how many participants were in the DADS program.
SPEAKER_92	Through you, Madam Mayor, two things. First- Ms.
Denise Simmons	Simonoff, you have a very soft voice.
SPEAKER_92	Okay, how about that?
Denise Simmons	That's a little better.
SPEAKER_92	Through you, Madam Mayor. Thank you. First of all, we did anticipate that we would get this grant. We have gotten it for very many years. We never know exactly How much money, whether this year it happens to be exactly the same money as we got last year, but because we can't count on this, it doesn't get appropriated as part of the city budget. As you will see, I am frequently coming to city council meetings. because we as a department get a large number of grants. And so this is a grant we've had for many years and this is an additional year of that. The grant covers partial costs for between Baby U and the Center for Families, both of which are run by the same office. We have about 18 staff. This funds a large portion of the, or some portion of the salary of about six of our staff, including a portion of the Cambridge Dads coordinator. You may remember this used to be funded through the health department, and when things changed, we took it over. We were partners with them. So this is a program that now we work we're the primary supporter of that program. And a major piece of that program, and you may see it advertised frequently on different city media, are we do dad's workshops, we do dad and child basketball, dad and child barbershop, dad and child events in general, meetups. And it is an effort to support dads and their, especially young children, but not only young children.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you, Assistant City Manager Seminoff. It sounds wonderful. I know I was part of father-daughter events with my father when I was younger. About how many people participate in it? Do you have a sense for how many participate?
SPEAKER_92	I would say off the top of my head, I'm sorry, I don't actually know, but I would say if you attend an event, which I have attended a number of the events, you will see, I don't know, 40 or 50 dads at an event in a basketball. It's a smaller number of dads just fitting in the gym with their young. But I could certainly provide more information about how many dads we provide services to. Thank you, Ms.
Denise Simmons	Seminoff.
Catherine Zusy	Council Susie? Thank you, 3D Madam Mayor. It sounds wonderful. I think these sort of bonding events are very good for families and relationships. Thank you, and I yield.
Denise Simmons	Council Wilson, do you want to be heard on item number, where we are, 11?
Ayesha Wilson	Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I'm happy that Assistant City Manager Seminoff actually answered my questions just in regards to the allocation of the dollars. So given that it's for staff that we currently have and not new additional staff, which may be the write-up kind of intent, like it made it seem like maybe it was for something additional. So I was curious about that. So thank you for explaining. And of course, our dad programs is free. A PHENOMENAL ONE AND ONE THAT I AM REALLY GRATEFUL TO SEE THE MEN WHO WORK THESE PROGRAMS ENGAGE OUR COMMUNITY AND THE FATHERS OF OUR COMMUNITY IN SUCH A BEAUTIFUL WAY. SO, YEAH, THANK YOU. AYE-YO. COUNCIL.
Denise Simmons	COUNCIL WILSON DEALS THE FLOOR. ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION? HEARING NONE, CALL POLICE.
SPEAKER_80	COUNCILOR Azeem. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councillor Nolan. Yes, Councillor Siddiqui. 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	Thank you. So the appropriation of number 11 on City Manager's agenda has been approved and the matter placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We now move to number 12. This was pulled by Councilor Wilson. Reads as follows. Transmitting communication from Yan Wang, City Manager. Relative to the appropriation of $46,000 to the grant fund Department of Human Service Program salary and wages account, $32,395. And to the grant fund Department of Human Service Program's other ordinary maintenance account, This is the grant that DHSP has received for many years. Funds will be used to support the cost of three full time staff salaries, food for parenting support programming, parent child safety activities, parent education series, community building and events, program supplies and staff training. This was pulled by Council Wilson. Council Wilson, the floor is yours.
Ayesha Wilson	Thank you, Madam Mayor. And through you to Assistant City Manager Seminoff, I'm assuming that this kind of falls under the same of what you just mentioned, Assistant City Manager. If you want to just speak to maybe the department or the staff that this covers, would love to hear it. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Madam Assistant Manager.
SPEAKER_92	Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Through you, Madam Mayor.
SPEAKER_92	This is actually federal money through the state to the Children's Trust Fund. And you could see that it's typically we were getting a higher amount of money. They're giving us money from the past federal fiscal year, which doesn't require us. To commit to any of the new conditions that the federal government might be requiring of the city. So this $46,000, which is, we had anticipated getting 80, but Looks like we will only get the 46 and it covers the cost of partial cost of three different staff members from the Center for Families as well. We anticipate being able to figure out a way to cover the costs to keep the staff of the Center for Families steady despite the loss of the $34,000 in funding. Council Wilson.
Denise Simmons	Any follow-up? Thank you.
Ayesha Wilson	That's all for me. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Council Wilson yields the floor. Further discussion? Hearing none, a roll call on the appropriation and placing the matter on file.
SPEAKER_80	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.
Unknown Speaker	Yes.
SPEAKER_34	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the appropriation is approved and the matter placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We now move to city manager's agenda number 14. This was pulled by Councilor Zusy, reads as follows. Transmitting communication from Yi-An Huang, City Manager. Relative to the appropriation of $1,437,938 from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to the Grant Fund Human Service Program salary and wages account, $19,720. And to the Grant Fund Human Service Program's other ordinary maintenance account, 1,418,218, this grant was awarded under the Federal Fiscal Year 2024 Continuum of Care Program Competition. The Continuum of Care Program is authorized by the Hearth Act of 2009. The Continuum of Care Program funds will be contracted with homeless services providers, excuse me, and covers the cost related to serving homeless persons. This is pulled by Council Susie. Council Susie, the floor is yours.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to make sure I understand. God bless you. On June 23rd, we appropriated $4.7 million from HUD as part of the continuing of care competition. So is this additional federal money that we've received? Ms. Seminoff?
SPEAKER_92	Through you, Madam Mayor, this is actually money that we had anticipated receiving, that our total grant for HUD for the continuum of care included both what we appropriated on June 23rd. We did not yet have the final agreements at that point, which is why we are appropriating these tonight. but they are a piece of the same package and are falling under the same current preliminary injunction that the city solicitor spoke about earlier. Council Zusy.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you. That clarifies things. Thank you. I yield.
Denise Simmons	Council Zusy yields the floor. Council Wilson, do you want to be heard on this item?
Ayesha Wilson	Nothing on this matter.
Denise Simmons	Thank you for the discussion.
SPEAKER_80	Hearing none, roll call. Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councillor Nolan. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councillor Wilson. 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 money has been approved and the item placed on file. We'll now move to number 16. This is pulled by Councilor Zusy, reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang City Manager relative to a request for approval to seek authorizations from the Massachusetts Office of the Inspector General for the city to use a contractor manager at risk procurement and construction method in connection with the First Street Garage Life Safety Priority Project. Councilor Zusy, floor is yours.
Catherine Zusy	I just wanted to, so we had approved this construction manager at risk procurement construction method for many, many other projects. I was just surprised because, so the budget looks like it's $10.3 million overall, but in the budget, our fiscal year 23 budget, it looks like we weren't anticipating that it was gonna be such an expensive project. It looks like we were gonna budget, we budgeted $11,100,000 for fiscal year 25. Let me know if I'm mixed up about that, but we thought that money would go to upgrades for the Moses Youth Center, the First Street Garage, the City Hall Annex, and the Healey Public Safety Building. So I'm just wondering, is the first street garage repair going to cost us much more than we had anticipated? And when we do use this construction manager at risk procurement construction method, are we getting several bids so we can make sure that we're staying on budget and we're getting the best deal?
SPEAKER_85	Deputy City Manager Watkins?
Kathy Watkins	Uh, through you, uh, Mayor Simmons, um, I can start maybe with a high level and then Brendan Roy, who's the Director of Capital Buildings, is available online. Um, so the first Greek garage is costing more than anticipated. Um, the focus when we first started scoping the project was really on, um, The staircase on the second street side, which people may remember during the renovations that were originally planned there, there was a collapse and there was a fatality on site. And so the scope at that point was really focused on replacing that staircase and then the elevator on that side. As we've gotten into the building, it has become clear that there are significant other issues that need to be addressed in the garage. What we focused on is really, we've called this a core life safety package. It's looking at that staircase on the second street side as well as the elevator. as well as the elevator on the first street side and some stair issues on that side. It's also looking at fire protection throughout the building and also drainage throughout the building because one of the things as we've had more consultants really go in and looking at the building, there are significant issues with the drainage which is leading to significant deterioration within the building. And so what we've really focused on here is looking at those sort of core life safety elements. And so We are looking at the appropriation that we did previously as well as supplementing it with deferred maintenance funds that we have identified through various years through the MFIP program. And so it'll be a complement of both of those funds. Council Zusy?
Catherine Zusy	yeah um anyway i'm glad we're doing a thorough repair so is it because the building hasn't been maintained over the years why would it be in such poor shape and i'm glad you're finding money from other pots deputy city manager and the repair of this building is so important i know 40 thorndyke has been getting some heat for not running out their units but I know when I toured it, they were saying that the repair of this garage is really essential to their being able to rent out their spaces. So I'm glad that this job will be completed by June of 27. So when we use this procurement construction method, do we bid it out to a number of people, or do we use a house doctor?
Denise Simmons	Deputy superintendents?
Kathy Watkins	through Mayor Simmons. So in terms of, I would say that the garage is much like many of our municipal facilities in that we have a significant backlog in terms of maintenance. So I think people were doing sort of basic maintenance and keeping the garage functioning and doing the sort of day-to-day operations but not looking at those sort of bigger capital maintenance needs. And so I think it is very much like the conversations we've had about a number of city buildings and that sort of backlog of maintenance. In terms of the process, I'd like to turn it over to Brendan. And Brendan, maybe you could talk a little bit about the sort of selection process and how that works, getting a contractor on board.
SPEAKER_85	Mr. Roy?
SPEAKER_32	Yes, I'd be happy to. Can you all hear me well?
Kathy Watkins	Yes, we can.
SPEAKER_32	Great. So through you, Madam Mayor, I mean, the construction manager at risk process obviously is something we've done a whole bunch in the city the past couple of years. And one of the real benefits to it is being able to have the general contractor kind of come in towards the end of the design process or in the middle of the design process sometimes to kind of help identify unknowns. And so in an instance like this, where we have an existing building, an existing structure that might have some concerns with it, an architect can't always find all the issues right away. And when you go out to bid, they're only going to own what's on the drawings, what the architect could identify. And so by doing a see them at risk process, We can do a selection process to find the best contractor for us, looking at a bunch of different things. And then they become a team member from the start. And that allows us to go into the building, do a little bit more extensive investigation, find out what we need to do to make the building right. And that way we have a better understanding of what our costs are going to be. It's really about minimizing the unknown costs. We all fear change orders, none more so than myself. And so this is a way to identify the cost upfront and so we're better prepared for it. And then also just to mention, we do go through a process, the CMRS process, it's laid out there. We have an entire committee that's assigned to looking at the request for qualifications and interview process to select the best construction manager for us.
Denise Simmons	Council Zusy?
Catherine Zusy	Yeah. So again, for you, Madam Mayor, so is this... So we're maybe budgeting... It sounded like $10.3 million was the cost of the project. But it seems as though... Anyway, I'm just surprised that again, in the budget book, we were anticipating paying $11.1 million to fix four buildings, and we're going to end up spending almost all of that on one building. So is there any competition for the job? I'm just concerned because we're going to have less money going forward. So again, are we receiving multiple bids or are you only getting one bid?
SPEAKER_85	Mr. Roy?
SPEAKER_32	Yes. So through you, Madam Mayor, we most assuredly are getting multiple bids. But at this point, it's just a construction manager that will be going out for. So all that all the value of that is they just assign a kind of a percentage that they'll charge. So there's really not a lot of money involved in the selection of the construction manager. Once they're part of the team in about three to four months, I don't want to say the exact date once the drawings are complete, then we'll go out to bid. The more bidders, the merrier. And hopefully we get many low bids and we get to choose one that works just perfect for us. But at this point, we're still just developing the scope of the drawings. And by having the construction manager, it just helps us identify it. So we don't actually have any bids coming in right now or anything like that. It'll still be another few months later. or yeah, a few months, but while we develop the drawings.
Catherine Zusy	So again, yeah, through you, Madam Mayor, again, so is the number on page 95, the total project budget of 10,325,000. So that is, is that your in-house estimate? That's not.
SPEAKER_32	Correct. So it's a combination through you, Madam Mayor, sorry. That budget that you see there is a combination of our in-house cost estimating as well as the estimate from the architect about a month or two ago with what they know. And that's one of the reasons that triggered us to say we should probably, it's advantageous to the city to use this construction manager at risk process once we cross the $5 million threshold that becomes allowable for us to do that. By having them come in, now we can actually define that budget a little bit better. So the 8.3 that you see in there, or 8.5 I think it is for actual construction costs, that will get redefined over the next few months. I mean, we think it's pretty close to that. I mean, we have a lot of backup for it, but it's better to be safe than sorry and have a second opinion from an actual construction manager. And then... And just to follow up on your other piece of your question that no one's competing for this money that we had for those projects. I mean, we have our budgets set aside and allotted for it. And the extra money that might be necessary for this comes out of our general MFIP fund that my department now has. And so we can weigh where it needs to go for projects like this that may need a couple extra dollars.
Catherine Zusy	So I'm sorry, one last question for you, Madam Mayor. So if we're spending so much more than we anticipated for this project, which we want to do right, will we have money to do the upgrades to the Moses Youth Center, the City Hall Annex, and the Healey Public Safety Building in fiscal year 26?
Kathy Watkins	uh deputy super uh he wants a deputy superintendent i'm gonna go for christine why not you know you're gonna have time uh city manager floors yours mayor simmons yes those projects are also proceeding so again we talked about um as part of our municipal facility improvement plan we have money that we've set aside for deferred maintenance for exactly these kinds of projects and so We do have some ability to prioritize those and again, continue to evaluate projects. And again, I just want to go back to this project is I would say there is many more improvements that could be done in the garage. The focus of this project is really on what we've called a life safety package in terms of drainage, fire safety and safe egress out of the building.
Catherine Zusy	Council Zusy. It sounds very important to do. Thank you and I yield.
Denise Simmons	Council Zusy yields the floor. Does anyone else want to be heard on this item? Council Wilson.
Ayesha Wilson	Madam Mayor, I think Council Zusy asked enough questions, so I think we're good. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	COUNCILOR ZUZI YIELDS THE FLOOR. COUNCILOR WILSON YIELDS THE FLOOR. HAVING HAD SUFFICIENT DISCUSSION, WE'LL CALL THE ROLL.
SPEAKER_80	COUNCILOR Azeem. YES. YES. VICE MAYOR MCGOVERN. YES. YES. COUNCILOR NOLAN. YES. YES. COUNCILOR SIDDIKI. YES. YES. COUNCILOR SABRINO-WHEELER. YES. YES. COUNCILOR TONER. YES. YES. COUNCILOR WILSON. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	Thank you. And the order has been adopted and placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We move now to number 18. This was pulled by Councillor Siddiqui, reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yanwang City Manager relative to a waiting report item number 2537 regarding full and open access to linear path at Wesley Avenue. This was pulled by Councilor Siddiqui. Councilor Siddiqui, the floor is yours.
Sumbul Siddiqui	Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. I know that the council had approved some amendments around this and basically tried to look at to see if lighting, a gate, and I think there was one more thing, maybe access hours were were feasible and this response says right now that your recommendation is that there's your recommendation is basically essentially saying that the gate the installation of the gate is not really feasible due to access and operational issues. I'm just wondering if you can just speak to that a little bit briefly and then I'll follow up.
SPEAKER_76	Commissioner? Madam Mayor, I think on the operational side, the feeling is that in order to provide a really good quality and consistent experience for users of the park, it's really important that it be open access, kind of generally speaking, whether you're going to exit at Wesley Ave or you're going to exit at Mass Ave or you're going to exit at one of the other entrance points or exit points. So that was what we felt was not advisable from kind of the use of the park and the experience of the park for users. On the operational side, we don't really have the ability to consistently go out and open and close gates. We don't have other areas in the city that we do that type of everyday maintenance. So the feeling, and we definitely, we don't have anywhere where we have automatic opening gates. So our feeling was that it doesn't really work for us from an operational perspective either. So it was not feasible on both fronts.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Siddiqui.
Sumbul Siddiqui	Thank you, through you. And then could you speak to how you mentioned that the city will evaluate the lighting levels and kind of what does that, and can I kind of consider the improvements? I think on that note, you know, right now the design, I think it says here that Everything is still in process. Can you just remind us of the process here and as it relates to the evaluation of these items and communicating them with the residents?
SPEAKER_76	Through you, Madam Mayor. Yes, so as it stands right now, the project is kind of in its startup phase. The contractor is getting ready to go. As they do that, they're starting on the section of path kind of north of Mass Ave, will be the first work section. While that moves forward, we'll be able to do the small amount of design work to add the Wesley Ave access point. And as part of that, we're already talking to Mark Mello in the electrical department about the lighting levels on Wesley Ave. We can also look at the in the park lighting levels as well in that area. So we're able to do that kind of at the same time that work is starting on the other end of the park. Council Siddiqui.
Sumbul Siddiqui	Great, thank you. And then just through you finally, I think my ask would be because there's been questions around this on making sure this just gets communicated with that group of residents. I don't know if there's a point person. That's just my request after this is on the agenda. I don't know how many people are paying attention, but just... kind of circling back with the residents and saying this is what how we came to this decision this is where we are you can reach out to us for questions that that'd be my request but that's all I had thank you.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Siddiqui yields the floor for the discussion on this councilor Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you. Through you, Mayor Simmons, I really appreciate this. I think this is a fair compromise. I would not think we would need any fence whatsoever there, but given that it'll be monitored, it'll be light. I also want to confirm and point out, I agree with Councillor Siddiqui on communicating this, because one of the most important parts of this memo, in my view, is, quote, no trees will be impacted or removed with the addition of a connection at Wesley Ave., that was a concern raised by many people in the neighborhood that this would be something that would negatively impact the trees so i just would would like that public confirmation that this has been assessed it's been there will be a beautiful path and connection connecting of this public street to this public park and that it will not be done in any way that will compromise the the trees that are in existence and it will be landscaped as per our um usual method is that just just wanted to confirm that and point that out and then i think for this memo itself just to be communicated and sent out to everybody who's written in the entire neighborhood makes sense. I think there's a list for this project for all of Linear Park to communicate this and make sure that's highlighted because it's very important. I know we all care about the tree canopy, and given that care has been taken to ensure that this new connection, which will allow more connectivity, will not affect the trees. That would be great. Thank you, Mayor Simmons.
Denise Simmons	Council Nolan yields the floor for further discussion on this item. Council Wilson, do you want to be heard?
Ayesha Wilson	Madam Mayor, thank you. I do have a quick question through you in regards to the opening and closing, just closing down of Linnium Park just to do the work. Maybe if through you, Madam Mayor, to Commissioner McKenna, if she could just talk, speak a little bit more to that for the public, just in terms of like, I know that we're in this process of actually identifying a person, but when we actually get this up and running, when might the park actually be closed, and when do we anticipate the park being reopened?
Denise Simmons	Commissioner McKenna.
SPEAKER_76	Through you, Madam Mayor. Is this question regarding the construction? Yes. I know we have Stephanie Grohl on the line with us, and I think she might be able to give us a... an update on this if she's available. Ms.
Denise Simmons	Grohl, are you available?
SPEAKER_66	Stephanie is coming in as panelists now.
SPEAKER_84	Yes, she is.
SPEAKER_31	She's on.
Denise Simmons	Ms. Grohl? Hello. The floor is yours. Thank you.
SPEAKER_75	Did you hear the question? I did, thank you, through you, Madam Mayor. We expect the linear park to be closed down in, you know, early September or mid-September, depending on when we get the contract signed. And it will be closed for 18 to 24 months. WE HAVE A DETOUR MAP READY TO GO. SO THERE WILL BE GUIDANCE FOR HOW PEOPLE CAN GET BETWEEN THE TWO ENDS OF LINEAR PARK WHILE THE CLOSURE IS HAPPENING.
Denise Simmons	COUNCIL WILSON?
Ayesha Wilson	THANK YOU. AND THANK YOU FOR SHARING THAT. SO HAS ANY COMMUNICATION ACTUALLY BEEN SHARED OUT WITH NEIGHBORS YET?
SPEAKER_75	WE ARE MEETING WITH DPW TO COORDINATE OUR COMMUNICATION. WE HAVE PLANS TO DO FLYERING AND ALL OF OUR TYPICAL CITY COMMUNICATION CHANNELS, THE DAILY UPDATE, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND WE WILL HAVE SIGNS THAT WE'RE POSTING ALL AROUND LINEAR PARK AND WHICH WILL GO IN THE GROUND AS WELL AS VARIABLE MESSAGING SIGNS. COUNCIL WILSON.
Ayesha Wilson	THANK YOU, MADAM MAYOR. THROUGH YOU TO MS. GROLL. I APPRECIATE THIS UPDATE AND RECOGNIZE THAT IT SOUNDS LIKE A REALLY SHORT TIME. timeframe if we're even thinking by the end of September. So just wanting to make sure that we are communicating this as best we can, recognizing, you know, we're going to probably get dozens of emails that says people didn't know that this area was being shut down. So just want to make sure that we are overly communicating because this is such a throughway that many people use for a variety of different reasons. So just wanted to name that. Madam Mayor Ayo, thank you.
Denise Simmons	Council Wilson yields. Any further discussion on this matter?
SPEAKER_80	Hearing none, roll call. 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.
Ayesha Wilson	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councillor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the city manager's agenda item number 18 is placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. We go now to number 19. This was pulled by Councillor Zusy. Reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yan Wang, city manager relative to a waiting report item number 25. regarding a list of public and private spaces available to the public indoors and outdoors. This was pulled by Councilor Zusy. Councilor Zusy, the floor is yours.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just, through you, I wanted to thank Deputy City Manager Melissa Peters. Thank you so much for pulling together this list. I think it'll be really helpful to everyone. And I'm just, I know you'll be posting this on the website. I don't know where, but I think that it will be really helpful. helpful because it's hard to find places to meet. I know when I was the head of the Cambridge Port Neighborhood Association, we met many different places that aren't listed on the list yet. So I know this will grow. We would meet at Cambridge Housing Authority Spaces, which is like another category that we should add. So we would meet at Woodrow Wilson Court, we would meet at LBJ Apartments, And then actually there was a community room at the Corporal McTernan at the old Blessed Sacrament School where we would also meet. And even before then, we used to meet sometimes at churches. So I think the list of churches can be added. And don't forget Magazine Beach. That's not a city property, but it's in the city. And I can share information on how people can access and permit projects at Magazine Beach. I'm really excited that you list so many gyms that I knew at the Moore School just down the street from me. There's often pickup basketball at the gym, and I see that that's the case at many, many other gyms. I just wondered, who pays for that? Does the recreation department pay for that? Or do group-specific teams pay for the pickup games at the schools? Because I think we should be using our schools and those school gyms. Or you can let me know later. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I am curious about that.
SPEAKER_39	Thank you. I don't know the specific answer to that question, but certainly can get back to you on that.
Catherine Zusy	Okay. Fantastic. Anyway, again, thank you so much for pulling this together. It lists indoor and outdoor spaces. And I just wanted again to say what inspired my requesting this list was some constituents reaching out to Councilor Nolan and me wanting to access the Russell Youth Center. It was a group of seniors that wanted to meet there. So again, I think when we can it's good to make our already existing municipal spaces available to residents to meet we don't have to build buildings we have the buildings so I know staffing is an issue but I feel like all we have to do is pay for staff and we don't have to build a new building and we encourage community encourage exercise encourage people gathering which is a really really significant thing so thank you I yield.
Denise Simmons	Council Zusy yields the floor. Does anyone else want to be heard on city manager's agenda number 19? Councilor Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	thank you mayor simmons i'll be brief um and through you i echo uh counselor zuzi's request and appreciate this my understand our understanding is for this that this will be published somewhere on the website so people can access it and i know in the footnotes there's still some work to be done on the pops the public spaces to ensure that the additional information is available so people know this is obviously not every single possible space across Across the city, which is also important to note in the in the footnotes But I appreciate that those will be updated so that people can understand across the different areas of the city what they can access and it might be useful also as we reach out or as we learn more and more to continue to add to this so we can Certainly send it through the city manager to the relevant folks. I will note that having rewritten the policy on school use of spaces I'm the all of those spaces are available but it's for rented and we have different categories there's if you're a Cambridge group if you're a youth group if you're a city group if you're Cambridge residents but not a youth group and also if you're just outside Cambridge the school department has a very robust policy of trying to allow folks to use it but also to cover the cost because it can be quite expensive to to lend these out and you pay a different rate if you're a non-profit or not a non-profit so um what one could do uh through you mayor simmons to counselors is you can look up that rate on the school committee website and you will have your questions answered so thanks for putting this together and look forward to helping you update it council nolan yields the floor anyone else want to be heard on city manager's agenda item number 19. council wilson
Ayesha Wilson	Madam Mayor, not necessarily on this agenda, but just looking at the time and recognizing we have such a long agenda. If we could, I don't know, through you, Madam Mayor, to my colleagues, if you try to keep our comments as brief as possible so we can get through this agenda as quickly as possible would be greatly appreciated. And again, I apologize I'm not there in person, but just really appreciate as I'm home and not feeling well. So I just needed to name that, but thank you. And I yield.
Denise Simmons	Council Wilson yields the floor on a motion by Council Zusy. If there's no further discussion to place on file number 19, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Vice-Mayor McGovern. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner. Absent. Councilor Wilson.
Ayesha Wilson	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councillor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative with one recorded as absent.
Denise Simmons	Thank you. City Manager's Agenda Number 19 is placed on file by the affirmative vote of eight members, one being recorded as absent. We'll move now to Number 22. This was pulled by Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. It reads as follows. A communication transmitted from me on Wong City Manager. Relative to awaiting report item number 25-36, regarding a further response to the request that the exception language in chapter 2.129.040 Section J of the Cambridge Municipal Code be revised with language clarifying that Cambridge City employees shall not participate in federal immigration enforcement operations and that the sole role of Cambridge City employees during an action by ICE is only to protect public safety and not to assist or facilitate the work of ICE. This is pulled by Council Sobrinho-Wheeler, the floor is yours.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Thanks, Madam Mayor, through you, and thank you to the city staff for their work on this and for all the advocates who have made time to discuss and help make sure we have the best version of this possible. We passed the original welcoming community ordinance before the current federal administration and the actions that we've seen in places, including in Massachusetts, next door in Somerville and nearby in Worcester with masked individuals claiming to be federal agents abducting folks off the street. This ordinance updates our recognition that we need to meet the moment and also that Cambridge is not going to back down or make a deal with the Trump administration and weaken our protections. In fact, we're gonna bolster them. As we heard in public comment, this would make our welcoming community ordinance the strongest in the Commonwealth, which I think we should be proud of. These updates do two things. They make clear that CPDs only focuses on public safety, not assisting ICE in any federal action, and also require that in any action, including with masked individuals, that city employees work to verify and document activity on the scene, that these actually are federal agents, and that they're intervening as much as possible on behalf of uh a residence um so i'll yield there in case um you know other counselors have questions or remarks um but then i did have some motions to ordain this and uh you know looking forward to this taking effect as soon as possible um but i'll yield for now council sabrina wheel yields the floor is this further discussion on item number 22. council known
Patricia Nolan	Just quickly, I'm really glad we are here to ordain because we passed it to a second reading. We had an ordinance committee meeting on this. We've heard from the public. And to remind people we are doing everything we can to protect our city residents. And there are some things we cannot do that we wish we could do, but federal law prevents us from doing it. So as much as we'd like to perhaps do additional things and What we're doing is something that's very responsible and also very clear that we are standing up, as Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler said, and I think all the city staff agree that we're moving forward with a strong ordinance to ensure that our safety is protected. And yet, we are not having any of our staff do the job that is not something they should be doing.
Denise Simmons	Councillor Nolan yields the floor for the discussion. Council Wilson, do you want to be heard on this item? No, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Council Sobrinho-Wheeler, it flows back to you.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Thank you. I make a motion to refer CMA number 22 to calendar items number 7 and number 9 to begin with. Discussion?
SPEAKER_80	On referral. Councilor Azeem. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes, Councillor Nolan. Yes, Councillor Siddiqui. Yes, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councillor Toner. 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 matter is referred to the committee report number seven on the affirmative vote of nine members. Council, Sobrinho-Wheeler.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	On the motion to suspend the rules to bring calendar item number seven and calendar item number nine. On suspension.
SPEAKER_80	Discussion?
Unknown Speaker	Discussion?
SPEAKER_80	Hearing none, roll call. 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	On bringing community report number seven and voting to amend, roll call.
Unknown Speaker	Yes.
Denise Simmons	on bringing forward seven and nine.
SPEAKER_80	Roll call. Councilor Azeem. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	Okay, item seven and nine, and now before us, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, the floor is yours.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	I'd make a motion to amend calendar number nine with language from CMA number 22.
Denise Simmons	Discussion?
SPEAKER_80	On the amendment. 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?
Unknown Speaker	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	In the matter as amended by the affirmative vote of nine members, Councilor Sabrina Willow?
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	I'll make a motion to ordain as amended calendar item number nine.
Denise Simmons	On amending as amended, on amending the ordinance and passing it, any discussion? Hearing none, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Counselor Nolan. Enthusiastic. Yes. Yes. Counselor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Counselor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Counselor Toner. Yes. Yes. Counselor Wilson.
Ayesha Wilson	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Counselor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	The matter is amended, deemed as amended by the affirmative vote of nine members. We now... as we roll up to the finish line. We are getting there. We moved now. Council Sabina, any more actions from you?
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Yeah, just two more motions and then I was gonna do a reconsideration. Yes, okay. Make a motion to place calendar number seven on file.
Denise Simmons	Discussion? I'm placing number 22 on file, roll call.
SPEAKER_81	Councilor Z. Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	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	And the matter is placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Okay, and then just need to move reconsideration, hoping the same will not prevail. On suspension on the rules to move reconsideration, hoping the same will not prevail. Discussion?
SPEAKER_80	Excuse me, madam. Is there another that needs to be placed on file?
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Number?
SPEAKER_80	No, 22. He just did number nine. No, he did number nine. Now we need number 22. Place number 22 on file. We did seven, and now we're doing 22.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Okay. Motion to place number 22 on file.
SPEAKER_80	Discussion? Hold on a minute.
Denise Simmons	We're going to just straighten this out.
SPEAKER_80	I have calendar item nine was the last one that we did. Then we did calendar item number seven was placed on file. And now we have to do calendar item CMA 22 on file.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Motion to place number 22 on CMA number 22.
SPEAKER_80	Exactly. Discussion? Hearing none, roll call. Councilor Azeem. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councilor Wilson. Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And item number 22 is placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. Councilor Sabrina will, and now you can suspend the rules to move reconsideration, hoping the same will not prevail.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Thank you. Motion to move reconsideration, hoping the same will not prevail.
Denise Simmons	Discussion? Councilor?
Patricia Nolan	I'm not sure it matters, but did we also place committee report number seven, which is about the ordinance committee discussing this? Did we accept the report, place it on file, and the recommendation was to pass it to a second reading? I'm not sure if that needed to be part of this series too, and if we've already done that, then fine. Let me check with the clerk.
SPEAKER_80	It wasn't part of this.
Denise Simmons	Not yet, it wasn't part of this. So we're coming to that. We're going to. We're coming to that, Councilor.
Patricia Nolan	Okay, do we need to do it before reconsideration, because this is part of the whole thing?
Denise Simmons	Well, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler has the floor, so your colleague wants to know, do you want to take another action, which the clerk is saying you could do later on, but you could do it now? Do you want to do a committee report? On the committee report? I'm happy to make that motion, yep. All right, so.
SPEAKER_80	Maybe state the motion. I don't know what it is. Councilor Noling, could you just repeat the motion again?
Patricia Nolan	Or Councilor Serbino-Ruelo can make it. It would be to committee report number seven. The actions recommended were to be accept report, place on file. And under it, because the committee had voted to afford the proposed amendments, passed to a second reading. That's what we did in ordinance. It's just a report on ordinance.
Denise Simmons	And I thought we did. I thought that's what we did.
SPEAKER_31	We don't need to pass that to a second reading.
SPEAKER_80	We're just going to accept her report and place on file. We don't have to pass it to a second reading.
Denise Simmons	According to the clerk, she already did. It doesn't have to be passed in a second reading. Thank you, but thank you for bringing that to our attention. Counselor, so on suspension of the rules to move reconsideration, hoping the same will not prevail.
SPEAKER_80	ON ACCEPTING THE REPORT. ON COMMITTEE REPORT NUMBER 7, ON ACCEPTING THE REPORT AND PLACING IT ON FILE. COUNCILOR Azeem. YES. YES. VICE MAYOR MCGOVERN. YES. YES. COUNCILOR NOLAN. YES. YES. COUNCILOR SIDDIKI. YES. YES. COUNCILOR Sobrinho-Wheeler. YES. YES. COUNCILOR TONER. YES. YES. COUNCILOR WILSON. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?
SPEAKER_48	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the report has been accepted and placed on file. Now can we go to suspension of the rules? To move reconsideration. So on suspending the rules to move reconsideration, hoping the same will not prevail, is there any discussion?
SPEAKER_80	Hearing none, roll call. Councilor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? 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	Thank you. On reconsideration. Discussion?
SPEAKER_80	Hearing none. Councillor Azeem? No. No, Vice Mayor McGovern? No. No, Councilor Nolan? No. No, Councilor Siddiqui?
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	No.
SPEAKER_80	No, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler?
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	No. No.
SPEAKER_80	No, Councilor Toner? No. No, Councilor Wilson?
SPEAKER_68	No.
SPEAKER_80	No, Councilor Zusy?
SPEAKER_68	No.
SPEAKER_80	No, Mayor Simmons? No. No, and reconsideration failed with nine members recorded in the in negative.
Denise Simmons	Thank you. We now move to number 23. This is pulled by the Vice Mayor. Reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yan Wang, city manager relative to a planning board report regarding the, I'm going to say it wrong, Marisau et al. zoning petition, religious uses. Vice Mayor, the floor is yours.
Marc McGovern	Madam Mayor, can we actually pull 24 as well? They're related. Say it again, please. Can we pull 24 as we talk about them at the same time, please? Okay.
Denise Simmons	So on a motion by the Vice Mayor to take up number 23 and number 24. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	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.
Unknown Speaker	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, Madam Clerk. Number 23 of the city manager's agenda and number 24 are before us. I read 23, I will read 24, which reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yan Wang, city manager, relative policy order number 25-101 regarding the Marisol et al. zoning petition. Vice... Mayor, the floor is yours.
Marc McGovern	Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just have a couple, excuse me, procedural motions to make, and then we can get into any discussion. So first, I would like to make a motion to refer City Manager Agenda Item 23 and City Manager Agenda Item 24 to Calendar Item 8.
Denise Simmons	Discussion? On referral, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councillor Zinn. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. 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	In 23, item 23 and 24 of the city manager's agenda has been referred to calendar item number eight.
Marc McGovern	Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would now like to make a motion to suspend the rules to bring forward calendar item eight.
Denise Simmons	On suspending of the rules to bring forward calendar item number eight, is there any discussion? Hearing none, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	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.
Ayesha Wilson	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	The rules are suspended and calendar item number eight is now before us, Vice Mayor.
Marc McGovern	Thank you. Just so we have the amended version in front of us for discussion, I would like to make a motion to amend the petition by substitution from language and city manager agenda item 24.
Denise Simmons	On amending by substitute...
SPEAKER_80	He skipped one section.
Denise Simmons	He skipped a section.
SPEAKER_80	He moved suspension, now he has to bring forward calendar item number eight.
Denise Simmons	You have to bring forward calendar item number eight. Didn't we just do that? I thought we just did that.
Marc McGovern	No, you moved suspension.
Denise Simmons	It's a two-part. Okay, it's a two-part. It's a two-fer. It's a two-fer. All right, well then I would like to bring forward calendar item number eight. On bringing calendar item number eight forward is a discussion. Hearing none, roll call.
SPEAKER_81	Councilor Z.
SPEAKER_80	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	Calendar item number eight is now before us. Vice Mayor, what is your pleasure?
Marc McGovern	Madam Mayor, I would like to make a motion to amend the petition by substitution from language and city manager agenda item 24.
Denise Simmons	On the motion, is there discussion?
SPEAKER_80	Hearing none.
SPEAKER_70	Ready?
SPEAKER_80	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.
Marc McGovern	Thank you. The substituted item is now before us. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Madam Mayor. We now have the most up-to-date language in front of us, and I would just turn it back to you to open it up for discussion. I have no questions or comments at this time.
Denise Simmons	Any discussion from the floor? Councilor Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you, Mayor Simmons. We've discussed this at length. This has been before us a number of times. I did think it would be important for us to communicate the answer to a question that through you, Mayor Simmons, I think to city staff, city manager, city solicitor. that there was some question and reference made to the Dover Amendment. This is really, in my understanding, this is not related to that. This is because the federal law, RLUPA, is something that we will have to follow no matter what. This is only about that. The Dover Amendment is a separate discussion, which we can have another day. But just to let people know, it's not that... We have frankly messed up on that. This is something that we are doing in order to ensure a compliance with the RELUPA, which stands for the religious use. And there was some concern that, well, why are you doing this? Let's just do a case by case instead of allowing the use explicitly. And in my view, the reason to do this overall is because if we did a case by case, it would burden the staff. It would burden anyone coming forward with a case. It would mean every single time there was a religious use expected that we would have to go through an entire process. And in the end, we would have to grant it because of the federal law. So I just wanted to confirm that that's our understanding through you from the city solicitor that that is why this would be a better way to approach this, which is what is the petition before us. Madam Solicitor.
SPEAKER_50	Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. To Councilor Nolan, correct, this does not relate to the Dover Amendment, although that is a separate type of protection that a religious use could avail itself of. This does relate to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which is a federal law. And just To clarify a point that you said, IF THERE WAS A CASE BY CASE ANALYSIS DONE FOR EVERY EXPANSION BY RELIGIOUS USE, IT ISN'T AUTOMATIC THAT THE PERMITTING BOARD OR ISD WOULD HAVE TO ALLOW IT. THEY WOULD HAVE TO DO THAT CASE BY CASE ANALYSIS AND EACH APPLICATION IS UNIQUE AND YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT THE ANALYSIS OF whether there's a burden to their religious use, whether there's a compelling governmental interest and whether the least restrictive, what's being imposed, the zoning requirement is the least restrictive way of imposing that governmental interest. So it's not an automatic that every application would be allowed But by if the council chooses to enact this amendment to the ordinance There are at least any application That's looking for the additional size and height Would THAT WOULD HAVE HAD THE ARGUMENT THAT THERE ISN'T A COMPELLING GOVERNMENT INTEREST BECAUSE WE'VE ALLOWED THIS SIZE AND HEIGHT FOR RESIDENTIAL. I'M NOT ARTICULATING IT THAT WELL AT THIS HOUR IN THIS WARM CHAMBER, BUT IT'S NOT THAT EVERY PROJECT WOULD BE ALLOWED ABSENT THIS, BUT THIS WOULD there would be a number of projects that could have been allowed absent this because of what we allow for residential size and this zoning amendment would allow them without having to apply and go through the case by case analysis.
Patricia Nolan	Yeah, thank you. That's why I'm supporting this, because I do think, based on everything we've seen, this is not allowing any religious use to go beyond what we already allow in our ordinance for housing. It's carte blanche for anything you can do. It really is limited to what is already existing in it. in the zoning that we passed. So I'm happy to move this forward. I think it expires if we don't. This is maybe a second reading in ordainment tonight. So happy to support and I just wanted to clarify for folks that this is why it is that the council has decided to take this step.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Nolan yields the floor. Is there further discussion on this item? Council Wilson, do you want to be heard on this item?
Ayesha Wilson	No, Madam Mayor, thank you.
Marc McGovern	Vice Mayor. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would like to make a motion to ordain calendar item number eight as amended by substitution.
Denise Simmons	Discussion?
SPEAKER_80	Hearing none, roll call. 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. Councillor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. You have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Marc McGovern	And the matter is ordained as amended by substitution. Madam Mayor, I would like to make a motion to place City Manager Agenda Item 23 and 24 on file.
Denise Simmons	On a motion by the Vice Mayor to place item 23 and 24 on file, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councillor Azeem. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And item 23 and 24 are placed on file by the affirmative vote of nine members. Vice Mayor. You want to take up some additional?
Marc McGovern	Yes, I'm there. Now that we're done with the manager's agenda, I would like to move suspension of the rules to bring forward city managers supplemental agenda item 214 and calendar items five and six.
Denise Simmons	On a motion to bring forward city manager's agenda, and I don't have the number in front of me, but you should say it, and calendar items five and six. And Madam Mayor, this is pertaining to the- I was going to read it, but I found it. I can have you read it. Go ahead.
Marc McGovern	I'll let you do the honors.
Denise Simmons	I'll bring it back to you. On bringing forward the city manager's agenda item and- I'm going to do suspension first and then that.
SPEAKER_80	Thank you.
Unknown Speaker	Okay.
Denise Simmons	On suspension on the rules.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Councilor Toner. Yes. Councilor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes.
Denise Simmons	And you have nine members recording the affirmative. And the rules are suspended. On the supplemental city manager's agenda item, I'm bringing that forward. With calendar item. With calendar item five and six.
SPEAKER_80	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.
Denise Simmons	Thank you. Before I turn the floor back to the Vice Mayor, the Supplemental City Manager's agenda item reads as follows. A communication transmitted from Yanwang City Manager relative to a revised letter of commitment dated August 4th, 2025 submitted on behalf of VMR-320 Charles, that's biomedical research, 320 Charles, LLC. That will be incorporated by reference in the East Cambridge Community Enhancement Overlay District, EEC District, if the council adopts the rezoning petition. Vice Mayor.
Marc McGovern	Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, I certainly have some comments I'd like to make on this, but I don't know if with the City Manager, Madam Solicitor, do you want to speak first about your supplemental item and where we stand, and then we can get into discussion?
Denise Simmons	City Manager, if you want to set the table, and then you can defer to anyone that's with you that wants to make further comment before we open the floor.
Yi-An Huang	Sure, through you, Mayor Simmons. Just to clarify, Vice Mayor, do you mean the full set of agreements and just providing some of that overall context? I believe there's an updated amendment. Update where we are as of tonight because much has changed. Sounds good. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I know there's been... A lot of discussions and work. I really appreciate the work of the city council over the last weeks. And in particular, I think Vice Member Govern for leading a lot of the back and forth. I know that in the June 30th, conversation there was really a desire from the council to try and find a way for us to move forward ideally with folks feeling like we were listening to a lot of the different voices that were being expressed recognizing that there was a process that got us here and there was also a lot of feedback that came out while we were coming closer to the end I think in many ways appreciated the public comment tonight and also felt like it in many ways reflected that the conversations that have been had are getting us to that point where we are in a better place than we were a couple of weeks ago. And I think that's reflected in the commitment letter that Biomed has submitted to the city. I think in regards to the vice mayors, I'm speaking like prior deputy city manager Owen O'Riordan. I feel like he's rubbed off a little bit. But in regards to some of the work that's happening that will continue to happen, we have a letter of commitment from Biomed tonight that's been shared with the council and has been posted. That reflects Biomed's commitment to community benefits, community mitigation as part of the zoning that is on the table. That really lays out the money that's coming in for which purposes and the timeline as well as some appropriate conditions on that. In addition, the city has been in discussions with East End House regarding an agreement, a memorandum of agreement between the city and East End House over how the East End House benefit dollars will be distributed. I think those discussions have been going productively. We feel like on both sides, there's trust that we have line of sight. On terms of those agreements, it's not finalized yet, but I think we feel like we're going to get that done over the coming weeks. That is not a holdup for the vote tonight. I think we can vote the zoning and accept the letter of commitment from Biomed, and there's a commitment from the city to continue working with these in-house. We're going to get to an agreement, and I think those terms and conditions will be acceptable to both sides. So I think those are the main updates. Maybe I'll turn it over to the city solicitor just for some additional comments. And then happy also if Assistant City Manager of CDD, Melissa Peters, has some final thoughts as well. Madam Solicitor.
SPEAKER_50	Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, just procedurally, I want to make sure the council and the public is aware that during the course of this meeting earlier this evening, Biomed did submit a slightly revised letter of commitment. And so that was shared with the counselors and copies were made available to the public here tonight. And now it's being put up on the screen. So if you could scroll down a little bit, Naomi, to Thank you. So what this change that BioMed put into the letter tonight, it doesn't change the amount of funds that they've committed to providing or how those funds are dispersed. What it does, though, is there's an initial payment that's made 60 days after the zoning is passed. And then a second payment that's made after the special permit has been approved, but BioMed has put in a further requirement or condition term, I guess, that if they don't apply for a special permit within the first 12 months, that second payment would still be paid on the anniversary of the first payment. even without waiting for special permit approval. So this doesn't change what any of the recipients are receiving. It's just, in fact, ensures that they get the payments according to the schedule, even if Biomed decides not to move forward with the special permit within the first year. So that is now... in the signed commitments made by Biomed that they are offering that are incorporated by reference into the zoning text if it passes. Thanks.
Denise Simmons	Ms. Peters, did you want to add anything before I go back to the Vice Mayor?
SPEAKER_39	Thank you. Through you, Mayor Sittem, just want to recognize that this was a hard public process and really want to thank all members of the community for speaking their minds and participating. We know it wasn't easy and want to thank the counselors for advocating on both sides. You know, we do recognize that there's a role the city can play and improve this process, so we definitely will work to help make sure these processes move smoother in the future. Ms. Peter yields the floor. Vice Mayor?
Marc McGovern	Thank you, Madam Mayor. So just a quick question before a brief statement. So just to be clear on the distribution piece that The funds that are going to the East End House and the other folks, Biomed is committing to distributing those over the course of the next three years, regardless of whether or not the building is built or occupied. Is that right?
SPEAKER_50	Through you, Madam Mayor. Yes, they've committed to that schedule. They do have a condition that's on the last page that if their applications for permits were denied, so if they weren't eventually able to go forward with their project, their commitments end at that time. But they have committed to that schedule even if they have not applied for the special permit within the first year.
Marc McGovern	Through you Madam Mayor, so essentially if they've committed to distributing the funds even if the process takes, you know, five, six, seven, eight years. But if they get denied and cannot do the project, then, which makes, would make sense. Because if they can't do the project, then the whole thing falls, falls apart, right? Okay. Through you, Madam Mayor, I too want, so, yeah, this has been a long, a long few weeks. You know, but I do want to point out too that, that This is not unusual, right? This is kind of how the process often goes, where there are meetings that get held within a community, within a neighborhood. And then that comes before the council, which then opens that conversation up. to a lot of people who may not have been involved in the neighborhood conversations. And then it's our job as policymakers and the governing body to then ask questions and make revisions and do things that and make amendments. I mean, we do this kind of thing all the time. So for the folks who are concerned that this is somehow We are operating differently. We're not operating differently. Most of these zoning petitions and agreements don't come out the way they go in, and that happens all the time. I do really want to thank a number of people. The East Cambridge Neighborhood Coalition, which was the group that engaged with Biomed for several months to sort of get this agreement on the table. We've had a lot of discussions with them over the last week or two, and I do want to appreciate their willingness to compromise and move off of their initial stance to reach, I think, an agreement that may not be everything that everybody wanted, but everyone is coming out of this process in a better place than where they were before. And I think that that is a positive thing. I want to thank the East End House also for their work. I want to thank the nonprofit coalition and the nonprofits who took part in this conversation. I think, as you heard tonight, there was a lot of talk about how do we figure out a way forward where the Community Benefits Fund and how we can strengthen the entire network of our nonprofits. Because the reality is that our nonprofits cross neighborhood lines all over the city. And there are nonprofits in West Cambridge that are serving East Cambridge kids. the East End House that's serving West Cambridge kids, and that we are a small city. And so thinking of the network is really important. And there was a policy order that we passed a few weeks ago, sponsored by myself, Councilor Siddiqui, Councilor Wilson, and I believe maybe the mayor, that we're going to look into the community benefits fund and take a look at that and reevaluate that and see how we can move forward to kind of Make improvements. And so we are committed to that and we will be doing that. I want to thank Biomed. Obviously, I've said several times that not just on this project, but in general, really every project that I've worked with Biomed on and we've worked with Biomed on, they set the standard, I think, for commercial developers in the city. reach out to the community. They listen to the community. They make changes based on the community. They follow through with the promises they make with the community. And really, they have built up, at least with me, a great deal of trust because they've earned it. And so I really want to thank them. And I want to thank my Councilor Siddiqui, Councilor Wilson, and the Mayor, who, along with myself, worked really hard to try and find a way that we could honor and respect the work that was done by the East Cambridge Neighborhood Coalition, and that East Endhouse would walk away with a sizable contribution, but that we would also respect the concerns raised by the other nonprofits. And I think we did that, and we were able to do that because people were willing to compromise and work together and talk to each other. I really appreciate all of that. And so just so folks are maybe who didn't read it or are Just listening, let me just sort of summarize the financial sort of allocation that we're voting on tonight. So the total funds that Biomed was committing to the community benefits package in terms of nonprofits was $21,800,770. That was originally going to the East End House at one of our previous meetings, I think it was May 30th. We allocated 1.7 million of that to four other non-profits, which brought the East End House, it was a little more than that. We brought the East End House allocation to 20 million, and then now what is in front of us is another sort of agreement or set of numbers. at the end of the day if this passes the east end house will receive sixteen million seven hundred and fifty thousand seven hundred and seventy dollars the community benefits fund will receive three million two hundred and forty nine $249,230. The East Cambridge Scholarship Fund will receive $50,000. CEOC Rise Up Program will receive $500,000. The Cambridge Community Center will receive $416,923.33. The Cambridge Community Arts Center will receive the same $416,923. and the dance complex will receive $416,923.23. So again, I know that I appreciate that the East Cambridge folks who were hoping initially for 21,000,008 were able to work and get, and that number is now 16,75. And then obviously I appreciate all the other nonprofits who were hoping for more money to go to the Community Benefits Fund, but also were able to work collaboratively and get to the point where we are today. So I really hope that this passes. This is a very good project, I think. regardless of the funding that's going to all of these nonprofits, I think the building itself is a vast improvement over the building that's there now. It's going to create more green space. It's going to be a much better looking building for the community. So I think we've landed, although it was a lot of work and stressful, I think we landed in a place where everybody's walking away better off. And that's ultimately what I think people want most. So I will yield at that point, Madam Mayor. I thank you and I thank everybody for their work on this.
Denise Simmons	Vice Mayor yields the floor. Council Wilson, do you would like to be heard on this?
Ayesha Wilson	Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just to follow up on what the Vice Mayor said, I too want to thank members of our community for speaking out to our nonprofits. The Biomed, you know, this is I just wanna say thank you. I think this has been good governance, really, where we could recognize a challenge or even maybe a feeling around injustice or inequity. and be able to act upon it, especially within our role as counselors. I recognize where we were on May 20th and really respect where we are today as August 4th in the countless number of hours. of meetings that went into this on all sides of the conversation. This was important for us to be able to elevate it to this level in order to kind of get us to where we are today. And for the Community Benefits Fund to see over $3 million be distributed to that fund is also hasn't happened in quite some time. So the nonprofits that are going to be able to benefit from those dollars will be a beautiful thing, especially in these times of uncertainty and these times of challenge, of dire needs that many of our nonprofits are experiencing. I do want to appreciate heavily this process because what it has opened our eyes to are the flaws within a system, the flaws within not only just the, you know, people's feelings around the community benefits fund and the needs around making it a more robust, more equitable resource for our nonprofits to be able to take advantage of. But I think respectfully, this allows us to be mindful of when we are engaging with developers who are doing work in our city, that we are using those dollars and probably distributing them into this fund in a way that can be beneficial to many of our nonprofits across the sector. Again, I want to thank my colleagues on the council who stayed up with me, early morning meetings, late night meetings, weekend meetings, et cetera, on this. But the many of people who we engaged with throughout this process from East Cambridge to other nonprofits across the sector, excuse me, across the sector, y'all put in a lot of work and you all should be proud of yourselves for getting to this point. While I know it's not 100% happiness on one side or the other, I think what we need to be happy with is a process, that we were able to engage folks in a process and get to a place where we can say, we're here, folks all agree, and we're able to move this forward. Again, I want to say thank you to Biomed, to Sal, and others from his team on this work. REALLY I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING MORE DOLLARS COME INTO THE CITY AND I LOOK FORWARD TO AS CO-CHAIR OF HUMAN SERVICES TO BE ABLE TO TALK MORE ABOUT THE COMMUNITY BENEFITS FUND AND HOW WE CAN DO A BETTER JOB OF MAKING SURE THAT THESE DOLLARS THAT WE ARE ACTUALLY INVESTING IN THIS FUND AND UTILIZING THESE DOLLARS TO MAKE OUR NONPROFIT SECTOR EVEN MORE ROBUST. THANK YOU. AYEU.
Denise Simmons	COUNCIL WILSON YIELDS THE FLOOR. Councillor Siddiqui, the floor is yours.
Sumbul Siddiqui	Thank you. I think my colleagues have mostly covered it. I think I'll just add that there probably could be a case study on what happened here. I think there's a lot to learn and I think you know i think some of my colleagues you know feel you know they could have voted last month i do think though that it's important to reflect on intent versus impact and the fact that around how we make decisions and what we do is really important and I do think that there has to be improvement on that and I think there is a shared commitment from the council as we move forward with updating the ordinance, having those conversations, you know, and thinking about the moment that we're in. The moment's different from five years ago, right? Or even ten years ago. Right now, with the challenges nonprofits are facing and what's up ahead, there is a lot more need. And so how we do things and allocate money through these processes is really important and so I think we will probably have more projects coming and so I want to really have that urgency to think about and have those conversations as we get those updates to the ordinance and hear from the Community Benefits Advisory Committee on some of, you know, what's worked and what hasn't worked. I know that Chair Wilson will be having, and Vice Mayor McGovern will have meetings on this in the fall, but I do think there's an urgency there. So there was a lot of, there were a lot of meetings here, there was a lot of back and forth. I think you know, things could have been done differently. And, you know, I take my own responsibility in that. And I think, you know, I think we've landed in a place where I think most people, you know, are in a, you know, are okay but as we heard in public comment there's still so much more work to be done so i look forward to doing that and moving forward but not losing sight of the last few months thanks council sadiki yields the floor council tone our floor is yours thank you counselor uh
Paul Toner	Thank you, Madam Mayor. First, I just want to say I respect the efforts of the Vice Mayor, Council Siddiqui, you, Mayor Simmons, and Council Wilson, but I'm going to be voting no on this. I attended a number of meetings and voted twice to support the original deal that was on the table. and people from East Cambridge thought that that's what they were getting, and many people only supported this project with BioMed because they thought this was going to support the East End House. This is no disrespect to the other non-profits in the city, but I didn't hear one complaint about this proposal from any of us until the week before we were going to vote on it. And then all of a sudden it became this discussion about we should chop this up and other people should get dollars. I live in North Cambridge. I wouldn't think for one second that people in North Cambridge should get any of the impact mitigation money based on what's going to happen in East Cambridge in this residential neighborhood. That's why I supported it. That's who came out and spoke in favor of it. I feel like there's been a lot of accusations about lack of transparency. Well, if that's true, the nine of us are guilty of it because we were part of those meetings for a year with Biomed and the East End House. And I believe the staff knew about these conversations. But again, a week before a vote comes down, all of a sudden, we're going to change what's being proposed. I'm definitely filing a policy order for our meeting in September to have some clarity on this issue going forward about how we do this work. I've only been on the council for three years, but I've lived in the city for my entire life, and I've seen many, many, many things built and developed where the conversation was limited to the abutters of the property. I live about 300 yards away from the W.R. Grace building, which is now IQ HQ. I just, because I live on the other side of Mass Ave, we weren't part of the list of people called to come to the meetings when they were discussing. Now, it turned out great. Nobody talked about it. I'm not sure if any mitigation funds went to non-profits or not. I know they're doing good work in my neighborhood, and it's going to be a lovely project when it's done. But we need some real clarity about how this happens. There are a lot of, you know, I'm not saying anybody here on this council said negative things, but there were a lot of negative things said about the process, lack of transparency, the East End House, the executive director of the East End House in this process, and that's very, very unfortunate. So going forward, I hope we can have a better process. I'm not going to be voting for this. I may be the only one, but I just feel that I made a commitment a long time ago to support the original proposal. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I yield.
Denise Simmons	Councillor Tony yields the floor. Councillor Azeem.
Burhan Azeem	I just wanted to make a slightly different point, which is that, like, I mean, I won't talk too much about the process and everything, because I think that we've talked that to death, and I think people know how I felt about it. I will say the other point of this is that I know as a council we've struggled around how to fund nonprofits because of the anti-aid amendment. There was a conversation last term around the Cambridge Math Circle and all of that. And I think that this is not a bad model, in fact, of funding it through development. And I think this is done in some ways beforehand, but this specific way where all the benefits are going to nonprofits, I don't think is at least something that I've seen before. So I thought that this was really interesting. And I think that, you know, to counselor's point, like, you know, like the positive aspect of that is that because the money did go to a local nonprofit first, the project was pretty popular. And so now we have all these nonprofits that are active and interested and want to get funding. And hopefully that'll lead us to some win-wins where, you know, I'm sure Biomed will have a next project or Alexandria or someone else. And if they could get nonprofits on board and it feels like a win-win, hopefully it'll be something that the community can get behind going forward. So maybe there's like a silver lining here in terms of next steps.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Ziem yields the floor. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, did you want to speak on this?
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just briefly, I'm going to be supporting this tonight. I would just say I think this was a really strange process after all the discussions we had and then a lot of changes at the last minute. It's just a strange piece. I've been a part of a lot of development conversations, and usually it is about the development, right? And if that folks opposing that or supporting it. This was a case where everybody agreed that the development should move forward. But it was a sort of conversation between nonprofits about how the benefits funding was going to be allocated. And that was a really strange conversation to be having, I'll be honest. We hope we can improve the process going forward so we don't end up in this situation again, because it is just a tough piece to be having this conversation, not about the development itself, but about how to split funding between nonprofits and the community development funds, which are all things we want to support. I was really sympathetic to folks on all sides of this conversation. And that just made it really hard and a really challenging one. And I hope we can improve this process going forward. I think there's a lot more I could say about this, but, you know, grateful for the folks who spent all the time working this out and glad we were able to, you know, get something that I think is going to move forward with, you know, the vast majority of support, and we're not, like, having a contentious, you know, fight on the floor about this, so grateful for that, and looking forward to improving this process going forward. Ailbeck?
Denise Simmons	Councillor Sabina Wheeler yields the floor. Councillor Nolan, the floor is yours.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you, Mayor Simmons. I will just echo the thanks that have already been said, starting with the Vice Mayor of all of East Cambridge who came out, all of the nonprofits across the city, Biomed and Sal Zenoa sitting here in the audience and really good partners. The remarks are, I do hope we learn the lessons from this. There are many, many improvements we need to make in the process. We must do a better job at contract zoning mitigation. And with this case, what I saw was that after good faith negotiations, based on what the city requested, an agreement was reached. And then after the seeming consensus, some serious and valid concerns were expressed about how it unfolded. And to many, this agreement appeared to be counter to council stated values and past attempts to ensure development led to community-wide discussions. There was publicly available information about all these meetings, but many did not know about it, which contributed to ill will. And also, concerns ended up coming up relatively late in the process, which then created additional ill will. So it really is not Cambridge at its finest hour. And I think what was somewhat surprising and challenging for people in contributing to the concern is how many other recent projects with the community impact did not raise questions. So we've had a lot of projects recently that didn't lead to contributions to the community benefits, which did start in I believe 2015. So we have the Foundry, we have Grand Junction from Alexandria, we have 40 Thorndike Street, Project by Leggett, we have IQHQ, which needed ComCom approval and committed to some community benefits, which was non-profit, Stancer, Counselor, Toner, many of the non-profits in that neighborhood, and they were all in the affected neighborhood of Ale Life. And very close to this one, Biomed spent tens of millions of dollars, which are astonishing and wonderful, on the 585 project with the theater and arts programming. And yet that did not spur a call to say, why not spread the wealth and have an art space and help the dance complex or Central Square Theater? So I think that's why this led to this real concern and frustration across the city, that it didn't seem like... Why this project all of a sudden on the other hand it did raise these questions And I think it's healthy that we're now asking them and I think that there's two key questions that stand out as begging for answers Who is selected for a community process when it's established? I don't know people asked me I Couldn't answer that question because that was part of the concern well this group got together But it was seated with people of just one ilk and not all the other nonprofits were at the table I do think we have to answer that question and know the answer to it and And then what's the difference between contract zoning and mitigation and a community benefits project? Is there a ratio, which I think was talked about in this one? When someone said, well, I said this is contract zoning mitigation. We've done this a lot in the past. That's why it's all focused on East Cambridge. East Cone Bridge has borne more of the displacement due to this development. It makes sense that the development mitigation would be there, but then the question is, well, why isn't all of it a community benefits project? I think those key questions about how the community group gets established and what does it mean to have a community benefits and contract zoning are two of at least the first questions we should start with. I think we all, at least I would say, negotiation should be transparent. clear, equitable, and they should make sense. And that did not happen here. A lot of people felt one of those criteria were not met. So whatever we do as we fix this process, we really do need to, I think, commit to those goals. So I also spoke with a lot of people on this issue over the past few months and intensely in the last few weeks. And yet, I want to remind all of us, those of us who were not involved directly, we were very aware of open meeting law and could not have engaged directly with our colleagues on some of this. So that also creates some issues that I know a lot of us, many had way more hours than I did, but I also spent a lot of hours back and forth with people. But making sure that I was very aware that we wouldn't break open meeting law. And during that whole process, just like publicly, I was very consistent in stating, yes, the process was flawed and could be improved. And that to amend this agreement, given that it came out of a community group that had been established, that is the group that should be worked together on working on this. So I'm really grateful and appreciate that some of my colleagues in that community group did come together and amended it. and address some of the concerns, not all of the concerns. But again, I really appreciate all those conversations that I was not part of that led to this. And the goal for me was to ensure as best a community process as could be had given the situation. So there are other projects that will happen, hopefully, in the future. Again, and I'm also going to say, we should be grateful Biomed is even moving forward, because there's not a lot of development going on. And this is an astonishing amount of money that will be put to good use over the next few years. And any developer mitigation funds, whether it's an East Cambridge or an Alewife, should be considered for investments in other areas of the city. But again, let's have a transparent, comprehensive process that we understand how it is that those get adjudicated. So I will be supporting this. I was supportive of the original. It came out of a community group. This also came from the community group after a lot of back and forth and work from my colleagues on this, which again, I appreciate and I know that if we're all committed to doing this better in the future, then we'll be able to not have these conversations, every single one. And just remember though, vice mayor said many of these projects that's what happens it gets messy at the end but this is how it does unfold there's been a number of projects where this kind of of work happens so i will again be supporting this and i look forward to moving forward and celebrating that new building council nolan deals the floor council lucy floors yours
Catherine Zusy	Thank you, Madam Mayor. Before I give a short statement, because we've had a lot of wonderful statements, I have a question. A clarification, please, through you, Madam Mayor. So are the payments, they're not contingent on building permits or any other discretionary permits, is that right?
SPEAKER_50	Through you, Madam Mayor. Ultimately, the letter of commitment says that it's subject to the following conditions. And condition number two is that BMR Biomed receive its discretionary permits and building permits so that it can build this project. So if that didn't happen, then it doesn't have to be the other commitments in the letter.
SPEAKER_84	Council Suzy.
Catherine Zusy	Well, let's hope they get their building permits and other discretionary permits so that they can count on the funding as they plan for their capital campaign. I will be supporting this tonight, and I really commend the East Cambridge Neighborhood Coalition and Biomed Realty. their very public community process and I'm very grateful that they and the nonprofit coalition have come to an understanding about community benefits I agree with counselor Nolan I think we really have to understand better so when are we providing development mitigation funds, and when are we providing community benefits? And not all community benefits will go to nonprofits, because I know when we were talking about Porter Square and upzoning there, we were talking about how parking and open space may be community benefits that we really seek. So it's a broader world, the world of community benefits. I hope, I mean, one of the reasons that I was convinced that or felt strongly that the East End House really should get the majority of the funds was because they are this legacy service provider, primary provider in East Cambridge. that has a home that's falling apart and they really must raise funds if they want to continue to serve all ages. That's the thing that's amazing about them. They serve it's from cradle to grave at the East End House. Anyway, I hope going forward, they'll still get a chunk of money. They're going to have to raise more money. I hope that the city will really consider making the ground floor of 135 Fulkerson available to them because I think whether they have to pay for it or not, if we want them to stay in Cambridge, I think the city of Cambridge needs to help them find a location in East Cambridge because I think we could lose them otherwise, and that would be very, very sad. for the community. While I feel like we're about to have a bumpy ride for the next few years, I'm an optimist and I believe that there will still be a lot of development, not only in East Cambridge, at Kendall, but soon At Alewife with the MBTA station, we're upzoning Cambridge Street, North Mass Ave, Central Square. I just think the Alewife Quad with the Health Peak development, there are going to be lots of opportunities for community benefit and development mitigation funds going forward. which will provide for funding for nonprofits to provide services for residents, but also for open space and parking. So that will be great. I feel like the challenge before us that has been raised by this discussion has been addressing the reality that our nonprofits are often starving for operating and capital expenses. So we've really got to figure out how we can address their needs better. And we need to make it better known throughout the city that There are a lot of wealthy people in Cambridge that are local nonprofits need funding, both for operational and capital expenses. And then I agree with my colleagues, we need to have more nuanced conversations about how the community benefits committee functions. Some have suggested that it's a conflict of interest to have nonprofit leaders on this committee because they advocate for their own nonprofits. Some have suggested that perhaps it should be the Cambridge Community Foundation that helps to disperse these funds to nonprofits because they do that already. Anyway, those are conversations that we'll have going forward, but I am grateful to all of you here and, again, to... Biomed, thank you. Salazino, thank you for your incredible process. Thank you for all of you in East Cambridge. Thank you, Michael Dillia of the East End House. Thank you, all of you from the nonprofit coalition and my colleagues that negotiated the settlement for negotiating a settlement and allowing us to advance. And I think this will provide a lot of great good for the city. Thank you so much, and I yield. Councilor Zusy yields the floor.
Denise Simmons	So we have a few things that we have to do. I will not read my seven pages of notes. I will lean into brevity, seeing that it's 85 degrees in here, and we have two or more hours of meeting to go to deliberate. I will say this, one thing my Vice Mayor was very eloquent in his acknowledgement of the process, the work that went into it, how everyone leaned into this regardless of where they stood, it was a very robust process. And given the climate that we're living in, to be able to have this conversation in so many ways is quite unique. Because other people are closing programs and laying people off, and we're talking about how we can use a dollar amount to benefit as much of the community as possible. I often talk about the unhappy medium, and I think we might have gotten ourselves there. But at the end of the day, people that are not in this room, children that we'll never meet, will all benefit from what has happened here in some way. And so to all of us that have a part in this, I say thank you, because it is going to be worth it. It's going to certainly be worth it. So that being said, Mr. Vice Mayor, I'm going to ask you to make a motion to amend 20.1212 to insert today's date as your first motion, and then take it from there to vote the amendment of the letter, and then vote the letter of commitment as amended, then to place on file, and then motion toward date. Is that how you have it?
Marc McGovern	Pretty much, yes.
Denise Simmons	Okay, but the very first thing is we do want to amend to put the date in. So to move to amend with the current language. Okay, very good. Thank you. So the Vice Mayor puts to the floor an amendment on 21212 to insert today's dates. I'm sorry? In the volume position. in the zoning petition. So are there any discussion? No. Having had a thorough conversation, maybe have the roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson.
Unknown Speaker	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, Madam Clerk. So the amendment to 21212 to insert the today's day passes on the affirmative vote of nine members. Vice Mayor?
Marc McGovern	Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would like to make a motion to accept and place on file City Manager's Supplemental Agenda Item 214 as amended.
Denise Simmons	I'm placing the City Manager's Supplemental Agenda Item number 25 on file. Roll call. So we want to just take a step back. Mr. Vice Mayor, can we vote the amendment to the letter? Yes. So let's do that first. So move. Because it's a little surprise thing, just to make sure everyone's paying attention at 11 o'clock. So on amending the letter of commitment, we'll have a roll call. Madam Clerk.
SPEAKER_81	Councilor Azeem.
SPEAKER_80	Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner? No. No, Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded in the negative.
Denise Simmons	And the amendment passes on the affirmative vote of eight members, one being recorded in the negative. Vice Mayor.
Marc McGovern	Now we make a motion. I make a motion to accept and place on file. No. Madam Clerk, why don't you just lead us through it?
SPEAKER_80	My script is clearly not correct. The City Manager's Supplemental Agenda Item Number 214 as amended. We're going to accept and place on file. There you go. Any questions? ROLL CALL, PLEASE. COUNCILOR Azeem. YES. VICE MAYOR MCGOVERN. YES. YES. COUNCILOR NOLAN. YES. COUNCILOR SADIKI. YES. YES. COUNCILOR SABRINO-WHEELER. YES. YES. COUNCILOR TONER. YES. COUNCILOR WILSON. YES. YES. COUNCILOR ZUZI.
SPEAKER_48	YES.
SPEAKER_80	YES. MAYOR SIMMONS. YES. YES. AND YOU HAVE NINE MEMBERS RECORDED IN THE AFFIRMATIVE. THE NEXT VOTE, MADAM CLARK. NEXT VOTE IS PLACING CALENDAR ITEM NUMBER 5 ON FILE. On placing calendar item number five on file, roll call please. 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. Yes, Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And the vote is approved on the affirmative vote of nine members. Now to ordain, correct? As amended. As amended.
Marc McGovern	Now, Madam Mayor, I'd like to motion to ordain calendar item number six as amended.
Denise Simmons	on the motion.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner. No. No, Councilor Wilson.
Ayesha Wilson	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded in the negative.
Marc McGovern	Very good. Madam Mayor, given that- Vice Mayor. Given that this petition will expire in a couple weeks, I would like to move suspension of the rules to move reconsideration, hoping the same will not prevail.
Denise Simmons	On suspension of the rules to move reconsideration, hoping the same will not prevail, roll call, please.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Zinn.
Denise Simmons	Councilor Z?
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner? Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	And we are in suspension of the affirmative vote of nine members. We are now going to vote reconsideration. By voting reconsideration, two things happen. One, it makes this item final. So we want to vote no if you do not want to reconsider and make it final. Questions? Hearing none, please call the roll.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. No. No. Councilor Azeem is a no. Vice-Mayor McGovern. No.
Unknown Speaker	No.
SPEAKER_80	No. No. Councillor Nolan. No. No. Councillor Siddiqui. No. No. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler.
SPEAKER_38	No.
SPEAKER_80	No. Councillor Toner. No. No. Councillor Wilson. No. No. Councillor Zusy.
SPEAKER_88	No.
SPEAKER_80	No. Mayor Simmons. No. No. And reconsideration fails. You have nine members recorded in the negative.
Denise Simmons	Reconsideration fails on the affirmative vote of eight members, I believe, or nine? Nine. Nine members. So the vote is final this evening. Thank you, everyone, for all your hard work and your due diligence in staying this late. I think that concludes the city manager's agenda. Don't leave, Mr. City Manager. We have other funds for you. We move now to policy orders and resolutions. I'm going to be pulling number three. What is the pleasure of the city council?
SPEAKER_35	Madam Mayor, one and two.
Denise Simmons	What was the number that you wanted to pull?
SPEAKER_35	One and two.
Denise Simmons	One and two. Madam Mayor. Just a minute. Sorry. Vice Mayor. Number five.
Patricia Nolan	Mayor Simmons.
Denise Simmons	Council Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Number six.
Denise Simmons	Council Wilson, is there anything you'd like to pull of the policy order and resolution list?
Ayesha Wilson	No, Madam Mayor. I think mine is just more of an announcement. I'll share Darnier announcements. Thank you.
Denise Simmons	Okay, very good. So I'm just going to go over what has been pulled. Number one has been pulled by Councilor Toner. Number two has been pulled by Councilor Toner. Number three has been pulled by the Mayor. Number five has been pulled by the Vice Mayor. Number six has been pulled by Councilor Nolan. Have I recorded that accurately? Yes, you have. Okay, I will entertain a motion. Motion by Councilor Wilson to adopt four, seven, and eight.
SPEAKER_81	Roll call.
Denise Simmons	A motion to adopt number four, the Rocky Harbor show. Council Wilson. Got it. Number seven and number eight.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councilor Wilson. Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Denise Simmons	adopted on the affirmative vote of nine members. We can go now back to number one, what was pulled by Councilor Toner. It reads as follows, that the city manager is requested to direct the community development department in collaboration with the finance department to conduct a comprehensive review of current permitting fees for residential development projects with a focus on identifying opportunities to create a tiered fee structure that reduces or eliminates fees entirely, particularly for small-scale housing developments. This is pulled by Councilor Toner. Councilor Toner, the floor is yours, the Vice Mayor and the Chair.
Paul Toner	thank you madam mayor i probably shouldn't have pulled it because i think it's pretty self-explanatory it was suggested to me and some others to investigate the possibility of reducing or eliminating fees where possible when i discussed it with the city manager and the assistant city manager miss peters they said they were actually already considering and looking at these things and they appreciated the policy order as just giving them some direction if this if the city council supports this as a possibility so I yield matter, ma'am. Further discussion?
Marc McGovern	Councilor Nolan?
Patricia Nolan	Yeah, I support it and would like to be added.
Marc McGovern	You'd like to be added? So on adding Councilor Nolan, oh, Councilor Zusy? On adding Councilor Nolan? All right, so let's just do that first. On adding Councilor Nolan, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Sorry, I had to write it. Councillor Azeem. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner.
SPEAKER_48	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Absent. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.
Marc McGovern	Councillor Zusy.
Catherine Zusy	uh thank you through you um vice mayor um i i just wondered i i anyway i understand that this is sort of a nod to encouraging housing production but we're only our permanent our building permit fee if i understand it correctly is only two percent so it's a very small number if it was just for housing right i was looking at um from our our budget it looks like from licenses and permits in fiscal year 26 i have two numbers i have one from my aid and one from here that i'm confused by but according apparently in fiscal year 26 for building permits alone We brought in like $31 million, but that would be from things outside of residential construction. Anyway, I just wondered, I feel like we are already giving multifamily housing developers so many different things. We're giving them height. We're giving them no FAR. We're giving them reduced setbacks. We're giving them... like a little open space do we I know this is like a nominal nod to them but is it really necessary it seems like that like we could come up with more substantial ways to actually um support the creation of housing that's what I'm wondering and if anybody has any Feedback about that, if I'm misunderstanding, again, it does seem like it's a very small number. It's 2% that we charge. If I'm wrong about that, please correct me. Thank you. I yield.
Paul Toner	Pleasure to the council. I've been told by the contractors I've spoken to that the cost can be pretty substantial and that this would be something that would be greatly appreciated and help defray the costs. And we're also talking about trying to build more affordable housing. And the more fees and the more costs we put onto building, they're just going to end up passing it on to the price of the home. So that's why I've put it forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilor Zane.
Burhan Azeem	I would concur. I would say that it's 2% or 1% usually of overall building costs, I think. And so it isn't that significant in the total scheme of things, but it's probably equivalent to 2% or 3% of inclusionary. And so you can imagine instead of lowering inclusionary by 2% or 3%, you could do this and it's just one more thing that adds up. Probably not just by itself, but if you do this and a tax abatement and some other things, it really does add up to a significant way that makes buildings more pencil in this difficult environment.
Marc McGovern	And just to point out, I think it was about maybe a year and a half ago, give or take, where we had, where CDD came forward with a whole list of requirements that we require developers to do. So, you know, people always say, oh, developers get away with their... We have more requirements around environmental impacts and process that people have to... I mean, all of which cost money. I mean, individually, they're all wonderful, but they all cost money. And so that adds to the cost of a project, which then adds to what... developers have to charge for rents. So all of these things are great, but they all add up. And so if we can maybe save a few bucks here and there, then that's probably a good thing to do. But we'll get a report back, and then we'll figure out where to go from there. So nothing is being finalized tonight. So if there's no further discussion... Councillor Wilson, anything? Can't see you? No.
SPEAKER_80	No? All right. 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.
Marc McGovern	Thank you. We now move on to policy order number two, that the city manager is requested to allocate $25,000 in feasibility funds to support an exploratory process potentially including stakeholder engagement, legal and technical assessments, and community outreach to evaluate the creation of a business improvement district in Porter Square. This was filed by Councilor Toner, Mayor Simmons, and Councilor Wilson. Councilor Toner, you have the floor.
Paul Toner	uh thank you mr vice vice mayor um so it's pretty straightforward i i know many of you have probably had these same conversations with ruth riles and the porter square neighborhood association uh ruth has been trying to get uh you know a business organization up and going she and i have had meetings with mike monestine of the central square bid and a number of the businesses up and down mass ave uh looking for an opportunity to to put something together. I actually stole your policy order language from 2018, I think, Mr. Vice Mayor, when you put the policy order in for the Central Square bid. This is just to do the preliminary investigation research and data gathering to see if it's possible and what would need to happen to have it go forward. So there's no commitment. The hard work would happen after we have this information to then work with the businesses in the community to form the bid. I also know that Councilor Nolan would like to be added, so if I can make the motion to add Councilor Nolan.
Marc McGovern	Thank you, and since you borrowed my language, I'd like to be. There you go, you too. No, but this is a really important, I think this is really important. Porter Square is one of the few business districts that does not have a business association or improvement district, so they certainly could benefit from one. So I thank everyone who filed this. So we'll do, on the amendments of adding folks, or do you want me?
Denise Simmons	I just want to say something.
Marc McGovern	Mayor Simmons.
Denise Simmons	through you, Mr. Mayor, to my colleague and colleagues. I'm glad to see this. As Councilor Toner has said, Porter Square has been without that sort of link to the business community, no advocacy, nothing coming from there because no one has sort of been able to or had the support to step up and get this done. And so this is really important that we're doing it so that Porter Square can always be at the table of conversations when we're talking about economic development in the city. It's a large area. It has a lot of economic opportunities there without the representation. So it's really time that this has happened, and I'm glad that it's moving forward. I yield.
Marc McGovern	Councilor Zuzi.
Catherine Zusy	I think it's a good idea for there to be a business association at Porter Square. I understand that they don't have a business association yet. And I was part of the conversations at Central Square when they were just forming the bid. Yeah. So usually you have a business association first, and then you develop the bid. And I do feel like the bid has made a world of difference at Central Square. Anyway, that's my only question is, the thing about the bid is at Central Square, you've got some anchor tenants. So you've got MIT paying a lot of money. You have Matimco. You have a couple big land owners paying a lot of the cost of a bid. A bid has real expenses. And Porter Square is pretty small. So I wonder if it's premature to be thinking about a bid. I wonder if that shouldn't happen. Like, shouldn't there be a Porter Square Business Association developed? And then the bid. Because you've got to remember, once you create a bid, you start taxing your business owners, which is an expense, and it seems like everybody's hurting. Maybe the jump to becoming a bid should be once Porter Square develops, you know, because I think we will be seeing quite a bit of development there within the next ten years, probably in the next five or six years. So that was my quandary. I did talk to Ruth Riles, and I'm glad that... So the other thing is that Central Square, the bid came out of the desire of local businesses for the bid. So is this local businesses are wanting a bid or is this that we're thinking it might be good for them because they have some issues to address and then it may help to address those issues?
Paul Toner	Thank you. First of all, Porter Square, the zone we're talking about isn't just the Porter Square shopping center. We're talking about everything from the Cambridge Common, the restaurant, all the way to the other side of Porter Square down to Walden Street where I always refer to the Kentucky Fried Chicken. So that whole strip of Mass Ave. And if you go and look at everything from the Leslie building, the old Sears and Roebuck building, down to Harvard Square, I think there's about 70 or 80 restaurants, small shops, et cetera. And as you've pointed out, Council Zusy, it's actually the landowners that are the ones that would pay the dues or the fees, not the individual small businesses. They would get the benefit. And as I know on the Central Square bid, they have the landowners, they have the businesses, they have some of the nonprofits on their board, et cetera. But again, this is just to investigate the feasibility and get some research and data. And I would argue there's no reason to start with a business association. And I'm sure if you talk to Jason Alves of the East Cambridge Business Association, he would probably love to go straight to a bid. And I'm sure he's thinking about it at some point. But there's actually a lot of big land anchor properties along that stretch of Mass Ave. So again, it may never happen. This is to do the research to see the feasibility of it. Councillor Nolan.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you. Yes, as I was going to say, this is a feasibility study, so we'll see. And if it turns out the answer is, gee, maybe a business association is better, that will clearly come out of it. But this has been long overdue. When we did the bike lanes, there was no business association to go out and talk to all the neighbors. I mean, the whole idea is Mayor Simmons and Councillor Toner and Councillor McGovern said this is something that folks have wanted some organization and I think it's really important again to remember this is a feasibility study to say let's go out and talk to people and find out what's missing what's not and it is completely unfair in a way that the Porter Square Neighborhood Association has ended up functioning as the only equivalent of a business association because there is no other thing so I'm really happy to co-sponsor. I've also talked to folks about this and talked to small businesses who are frustrated that they don't have a business association. Sometimes Harvard Square Business Association steps in because it's the closest one, but again, it's a different area of the city and there's a lot of people involved. So I support this and hope we can move forward and get the city on it.
Marc McGovern	Councilor Zusy.
Catherine Zusy	Just a follow-up question. So is this being inspired by property owners and business owners from that broad district?
Paul Toner	Over the past three years, I've had several meetings with more than 10 to 20 businesses up and down Mass Ave. asking, trying to get a business association going. So yes, they are very interested.
Catherine Zusy	Thank you for that clarification.
Marc McGovern	Just to point out two quick things. First, and the mayor, I think this was even before I got on the council, that Central Square did try to move forward with a bid 20 years ago, maybe, and it didn't happen because you have to have a certain percentage of the property owners agree to it before a bid can actually be enacted. If the property owners don't vote to be part of it, it's not going to happen. So, you know, and the Central Square Business Association was first, but the bid conversation for Central Square has actually been going on decades. So the first is, if there's no further discussion, to amend the policy order to include Councilor Nolan and myself. Roll call.
SPEAKER_69	Councilor Zinn. Vice Mayor McGovern.
Marc McGovern	Yes.
SPEAKER_69	Councillor Nolan. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Councillor Savannah Weaver. Yes. Councillor Toner.
Paul Toner	Yes.
SPEAKER_69	Councillor Wilson. Yes. Councillor Susi.
SPEAKER_48	Yes.
SPEAKER_69	Mayor Simmons. Yes.
Marc McGovern	On the policy order as amended, roll call.
SPEAKER_69	Councillor Azeem. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Councilor Siddiqui? Yes. Councilor Saverny-Wheeler? Yes. Councilor Toner?
Paul Toner	Yes.
SPEAKER_69	Councilor Wilson? Yes. Councilor Zusy?
SPEAKER_48	Yes.
SPEAKER_69	Mayor Simmons? Yes.
Marc McGovern	And the order passes, nine members. We now move on to policy order number three, that the city manager is requested to coordinate with the Community Safety Department, the Cambridge Police Department, and other relevant parties to ensure that the overnight use of the garden area between St. James Episcopal Church and the Beach Street Condos is actively monitored. This was filed by Mayor Simmons and Councilor Toner. Mayor Simmons, you have the floor.
Denise Simmons	Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor, and through you to my colleagues. So this order arises from an unmistakably quality of life problem that has been brewing for a long time on the stretch of Massachusetts Avenue between St. James Episcopal Church and the Beach Street condominiums. And my office has field several calls, lots of calls from nearby residents talking about sleepless nights, discarded needles, brazen transactions carried out under the porch lights. Ignoring those voices would be a dereliction of duty. We cannot sort of turn a blind eye to what people are concerned about in that neighborhood. But also, let me be clear. I deeply respect the church's mission. I had a very positive call with Reverend Stewart before filing this order. I was very deliberate about that because I did not want Reverend Stewart or the St. James community to find out Thursday or by word of mouth that this policy order was being offered. So I wanted to be very intentional about engaging St. James so they would know what was coming forward and why. And the pastor and I were in full agreement that no one should be criminalized simply because they have nowhere to sleep. And St. James has offered sanctuary to individuals who feel unsafe or unwelcomed in traditional shelters. And that compassion, I believe, is both admirable and entirely consistent with Cambridge's values. And I commend Reverend Stewart and his congregation for their kindness and their empathy. And I just want to say, both Reverend Stewart and I both agree that we should not criminalize are unhoused residents or people that are in our city. And so I do get a little bit miffed at people saying they were being arrested. They were arrested and strong-arming by the police because that was not happening. Having said that though, good intentions do not grant immunity from misuse. And so when word spread that a space is sort of hands off for law enforcement, it can attract bad actors. And people who are not there for rest or refuge, but are there for the commerce of fentanyl and methamphetamines or taking advantage of those who may be susceptible to addiction. And this is not conjecture. It is playing right now, playing out on that garden strip. So for me, I say that because compassion without boundaries is merely abdication. And common sense tells us that we do not need to find, that we do have to find a more valuable balance. Some of the pushback I received about bringing this order forward suggested I was calling for a sweep of the police in that area. Clearly was not. And the commission is not here, and I'm glad she's not because it's rather late in the evening, but they have been deliberately not having a heavy hand and taking a hands-off policy around rest or any sort of manhandling. So that was just simply not true. And quite frankly, it's insulting that people would say that. It disregards the decades that I, in particular, you, Mr. Vice Mayor, and others have used building trust with our interfaith leaders, standing with our unhoused population and our advocates, working to ensure our policies reflect both compassion and common sense. So this order doesn't ask for a crackdown. It asks for a plan. A coordinated city-led approach to ensure that people who need a safe place to sleep are treated with dignity. And those who are exploiting that space for dangerous or illegal activities are not given free reign. If the city needs additional tools to strike that balance, we want to understand what those are. And I'd like to know that by October 1st. So to suggest that this is somehow an attack on the church or the unhoused community is just inaccurate. It is a disservice to the people who have been raising legitimate concerns. in looking for us for leadership and assistance. Cambridge can and must walk and chew gum. Uphold the church's humanitarian outreach while preventing our public private spaces from becoming corridors of illicit activity. That's the balance. That's the hallmark of our government and our governance. And that is all this order seeks to do is secure a safe place. And that's why I hope my colleagues will support this order. However, I will say I have heard. from members of the church, and I know that they're working on some sort of mediation that's supposed to happen very shortly. So because of that, I am going to exercise my charter right. This will come up in September, or as I said, no later than October 1st. Something has to happen that makes this place secure that, again, honors what St. James is trying to do, but also respects the right of the people that live there. I yield the floor.
Marc McGovern	Councilor, Mayor Simmons has exercised her charter right. We will move on to policy order number five. This was filed by myself, Councilor Siddiqui, and Councilor Wilson. It reads as follows. That the city manager is requested to work with the Department of Public Health department of public works and any other relevant city departments to develop a plan to install needle drop boxes in identified problem areas throughout the city i do have an amendment a small amendment to add to that i'll just say in in general as it says in the order that the uh the Central Square bid picks up tens of thousands of needles in the city. They also, in the drop box that's located on Green Street, they also get thousands of needles dropped off there. We hear from across the city, particularly around our parks and open areas, that people are finding needles discarded. and uh you know this isn't going to solve this doesn't mean that you're never going to find a needle in a place where you don't want it to be but if you want people to stop doing something you have to help them stop doing it and um that's what these needle drop boxes do i'll quickly want to just address one comment that was made in in public comment where where it was said that you know if we do this we're going to be encouraging people to use drugs and i could just assure you that there's nobody i've been working with folks struggling with substance use disorder for thirty years i can assure you that no one is going to say hey the city just put a drop box in this park i think i'm going to start shooting up It doesn't work that way. It doesn't happen that way. So this is not about encouraging people. This is a complicated issue. We have to fight it on many fronts. But again, if you want to try and dissuade people from taking an action you don't want them to take, then you need to provide resources for them to do something differently. And that's what this does. The amendment, I don't know if Ms. Steffan wants to put it up. And again, I understand that this is a little bit more complicated, but I do want to add, in addition, when we get that report back, that not only a report back on needle drop boxes, but also installing naloxone, Narcan boxes as well. We have heard from a number of people that they have come across people who have overdosed or are in the process of overdosing, and most people don't carry Narcan. It's been a very scary situation to literally sit there and watch someone potentially die. So if we can also think about installing Narcan boxes more consistently around the city, that will save lives as well. So that's the amendment. So I'll open it up for discussion. Any? No, no, no, no, no. Oh, Councilor Zusy.
Catherine Zusy	just in case anybody's watching at 1115 so the City Council has received like many many letters over the last months about needles found at Russell field Senate Park goose meadow beside the BU bridge at the alewife area you know they're they're needles that are scattered in all these public places that are real health issues for all of us. So I think it's a good idea to have the needle boxes. But I just want to remind us that needle boxes will improve the state of public health because Little children are less likely to step on the needles, but it's not going to solve the problem, right? So I feel like it improves things a little bit, but it doesn't solve the whole problem. But I will support this. I wonder, is it... Like, what is going on? Is it that we have more, is drug use up? Or is it that we have, you know, that's a little, or that we have more people that are on drugs? Do we have any sense of the trends?
Marc McGovern	Well, I mean, we don't, we can, if, maybe if Ellen were still here, but I would just say in general that we're seeing drug use consistently increase, although there's been some drop in deaths. But the drop in deaths has been because we have taken steps, not just in Cambridge, but across the state, in making things like Narcan more available, by doing more outreach, by distributing clean needles. So a lot of those steps are helping to, those harm reduction strategies are helping to keep people alive, but usage is not going down. And, you know, again, just it was referred to in the, some people mentioned it during the discussion of the policy order number three. Just last week, the occupant of the White House signed an executive order basically criminalizing homelessness, drug use, and mental illness and really basically came out and said other harm reduction strategies like overdose prevention centers, which we've talked a lot about in this chamber, he's going to go after criminally any person or city that really tries to help engage in harm reduction, which is something we all should have expected coming from that source. To short answer, drug use is not decreasing. Deaths have decreased slightly, but still way too many people dying. So if there's no further discussion on the amendment.
Ayesha Wilson	Vice Mayor.
Marc McGovern	Oh, Councilor Wilson. She didn't have her hand up, so.
Ayesha Wilson	Thank you. Of course, I definitely support this. And as a mother to a young child, where we frequent so many parks and nature spaces. I have to, as a mom, before we go into park spaces or before I let him run free, I literally have to do a scan of the parks. not only just the grounds of them, but also the play structures. We have had emails in regards to human feces in places and all this stuff. And so safety for me as a mom is really important. And, you know, while this may not solve the issue, this will hopefully improve kind of needles, just being just safe, Just just placed wherever in at least placed in safe spaces, so that our children, our babies or anyone else doesn't have to be stuck by one which I think we also got. An email, or at least I received an email regarding a child being stuck by a needle Thank God, they are okay, but again. this is not acceptable that needles are just being dropped wherever. And so as many safe drop boxes as we can have, hopefully people will use them and we can minimize at least those needles being in spaces where our children are playing or our elders may be wanting, you know, participating in recreational activities, et cetera. But again, as a mom, who frequents a lot of these spaces, it is unacceptable that I have to really scan a space before my child goes into play because of these risks.
Marc McGovern	Yes. Thank you, Councillor. And I don't think we can get into a discussion about this because it's not on the policy order. But I do also want to mention that the city manager issued a communication about a week ago that we're using some of the opioid settlement money to start a needle buyback program, which was very successful in Boston, that we're going to be doing that in Cambridge as well, which is hopefully also going to help reduce the amount of needles we see in public areas. So on the amendment, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	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 is absent. You have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.
Marc McGovern	On the policy order as amended.
SPEAKER_80	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_48	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Mayor Simmons is absent. You have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.
Marc McGovern	Thank you. We now move on to the calendar. Pleasure of the council. No.
SPEAKER_80	No policy order number six.
Marc McGovern	Oh, six. I'm sorry. I'm going to flip the page. We now move on to policy order number six, that the city council support, city council support of Representative McGovern's resolution on unclear, nuclear, I gotta have new glasses, nuclear deproliferation. And just for the record, I am not related to Representative McGovern, although he's a really cool guy.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you. But you're both pretty awesome legislators.
Marc McGovern	My father is also James McGovern, but just a different one.
Patricia Nolan	Go ahead, Councillor Nolan. He does pretty awesome work. I only pulled this. This is actually just a repeat of something the council did a couple years ago. But I did pull it because since this was written, Senator Markey has already introduced a resolution. So I sent some possible amendments to the clerk just to make that clear and to clarify the current situation. So it notes in one of the whereases that Senator Ed Markey has filed a companion resolution in the Senate, and therefore the resolves change in line with that.
Marc McGovern	Any discussion? On the amendments, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner. Councilor Toner? Yes. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons is absent. You have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.
Marc McGovern	On the order as amended.
SPEAKER_80	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. I'm sorry, what? Present. Present. Councilor Wilson? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?
SPEAKER_48	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as present.
Marc McGovern	Thank you. We now move on to the calendar. Pleasure of the council. Councilor Turner, did you have?
SPEAKER_81	Councilor Z?
Marc McGovern	Yes. he means yeah concert owner's pulling number four on the calendar all right let's see hearing nothing else we pass over uh concert nolan wait are we passing over that we're passing over one two and three okay And then we can move on to, I don't think there's, I'm not sure there's anything on unfinished business that we already did everything. So it's just calendar item number four. So calendar item number four that the city council go on record expressing is profound disappointment over Apex Clean Energy's decision to forego the use of local union labor on the Bowman Wind project. This was placed on the table as amended in council June 23rd, 2025. Councilor Toner.
Paul Toner	Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have a motion, a substitute motion, which if I can put up on the screen. I started to do this the last meeting or a couple of meetings ago, but we tabled it. And this language is language that was recommended and suggested by our legal counsel there were just some concerns that based on the contract that we have with this project that some of the wording could possibly cause some legal consternation so this language meets muster discussion i missed the vice mayor madam mayor
Denise Simmons	Hold on. I really appreciate my colleague's input. And I'm sure we all record that the first order appeared before us in June and it was laid on the table so the administration could analyze its implications and continue conversation with Apex Clean Energy. I've since reviewed the city manager's feedback in detail. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. The language contained in the order is deliberate. It does not instruct Cambridge to abandon the power purchase agreement with the North Dakota City with North Dakota, it does register this council's disappointment, however, with a deal that advances our common goals while shortchanging the very workers who made those goals possible. And if that stings a little, then shame on us because both the council and the administration, because we have been, we're prepared to claim environmental wins at the expense of working people. Tony Pini and our partners from LIUNA were the ones who first brought this to my attention. LIUNA's reporting indicates that Apex prioritizes cheaper non-union, non-local labor over skilled North Dakota union members. Repeated attempts by liona to secure a good faith dialogue has been met with polite deflection that is that is not how a responsible partner behaves so cambridge has always linked the climate ambition with economic justice if addressing these concerns creates some short-term headaches for the city then that that's a hit that i think we should take my greater aim is that we is that this episode is a lesson for all of us from now on. Any proposed contract that touts an environmental upside while shifting the economic burden onto workers should be immediately flagged, rigorously scrutinized, and if necessary, rejected outright. We must never allow ourselves to be dazzled by green metrics achieved by cutting wages, undermining collective bargaining rights, or exporting good jobs elsewhere. Environmental stewardship divorced from workforce fairness is quite simply not stewardship at all. That is not the kind of example I want Cambridge to be setting. It should not be the example that we want to set. And that's why I hope my colleagues will support this policy as written. And with that, I thank you and yield the floor.
Marc McGovern	Thanks. So please accept my apology. I thought this was a calendared item. It was on the table, which means we had to vote to take it off the table. My bad. I'm sure I'll hear about it. So let's backtrack and vote to take this off the table.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. No. 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 eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded in the negative.
Marc McGovern	Thank you. So we're back to the discussion. Councilor Toner has put forward amendments. We've heard from the mayor.
Paul Toner	Councilor Toner? I wanted to ask if maybe the city manager and the solicitor might want to speak to it because they were the ones that raised the concerns. Mr. Manager, Madam Solicitor, do you want to come to the table?
Marc McGovern	You're not moving very fast, Mr. Manager.
Denise Simmons	He's tired. It's only 83 degrees and almost midnight.
Marc McGovern	Somebody want to help him out of the chair?
SPEAKER_64	Would you guys want this too?
SPEAKER_50	Thank you. Through you, Mr. Vice Mayor. The law department did recommend these changes to the policy order because the city, through the city's administration, has entered into an agreement with Apex for a... virtual power purchasing agreement where after the solar plant is constructed, the city is buying the energy attributes that are generated from the solar facility. As part of that agreement, we do have conditions that bind the city administration through the city manager to how we communicate about the project and working cooperatively with Apex on those communications. So although the city council being the legislative body is separate from the executive who entered into this agreement and therefore not subject to the contract in the same way as the executive branch. We did recommend that we broaden the policy order to not make it specifically about this particular agreement with APEX where we would, you know, the executive branch does have to work cooperatively in our communications. But to more broadly talk about in the future when the city is looking to enter into these type of energy agreements that the city council express their belief that the city should look at prioritizing union labor AS CONDITIONS TO OUR FUTURE VIRTUAL POWER PURCHASING AGREEMENTS FOR ENERGY ATTRIBUTES. WE THOUGHT THAT WAS IN THE SPIRIT OF THE AGREEMENT THAT THE CITY'S EXECUTIVE ENTERED INTO FOR THE COUNCIL TO ALSO BE MINDFUL OF THOSE COMMUNICATIONS, BUT STILL express their you know strong and worthy feelings about needing to prioritize labor in the future thank you manager anything
Yi-An Huang	I think I appreciate the substitute order. I think it does represent the spirit of what was in the original order without, I think, intersecting in an unfavorable way with the existing contracts we've entered into. I do just want to recognize that this is a very unique agreement that allows us to purchase renewable energy in some of the dirtier grids in the country and in collaboration with more than a dozen other institutions. And so in many ways, it is the uniqueness and complexity of this arrangement that I think has made it a little bit less clear exactly how we're acting, but I think certainly this policy order expressed the desire from the council, if it's passed, that we continue to push and create as much possibility for us to use local labor and to prioritize paying prevailing wage as we can as we enter into future agreements. And so I appreciate the willingness to consider this. And I think certainly I feel like there's these conversations that we'll want to continue to have. And I think the earlier the better in these processes versus after the fact.
Marc McGovern	Councilor Tottener, you still have the floor.
Paul Toner	The only follow-up question I have is I understand the concerns that we have to the solicitor. What level of liability or risk are we at if we go forward with the original policy order? What could they do to us if we publish that policy order?
SPEAKER_50	Through you, Mr. Vice Mayor, the The agreement that is in place is between the city's chief executive, who is the contracting authority of the city. And so I would argue that there is no breach of the agreement if the council speaks out. However, I would caution the council that even though I would argue that the the council's policy order doesn't breach the agreement, that there still could be, the business apex could interpret it as the council has. Through the council's action, the city has breached the agreement, and we could be litigating that dispute. And if they were successful, they could find that the city has breached the agreement and terminate the agreement or pursue other contract remedies that they might have.
Paul Toner	Thank you, I yield.
Denise Simmons	Madam Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor, through you, to my colleagues, and to the city manager and staff. I certainly appreciate your due diligence. I just take a very different tact. I think that the amendments, and thank you, Councilor Toner, for your thoughtfulness. sanitizes the policy order to the degree it doesn't say anything to Apex or its subsidiary that we're displeased. We're not saying we're not going to go through with the contract, we're just saying we're displeased with the fact of how you are treating workers and you're not paying them a fair wage, something we stand for all the time without blinking. So to sanitize the order to say we're standing up for our principals, so what? We already do that. What we're trying to say to Apex, someone who is taking our money, that we do not want to pay for other people's oppression. That's how I see it. By not saying something to them, at least making them knowledgeable about it. We are participating and oppressing a group of other people, and that's not what we do here. So I would strongly, again, I thank my colleague for his thoughtfulness. I don't agree. It's not going to be the first time. I would ask the council to vote it the way it is written. I stand down.
Marc McGovern	Councillor Siddiqui.
Sumbul Siddiqui	Thank you. Question for Councillor Toner. The amendments that you've put over that are above you, that are above us, were they run by any of the unions?
Paul Toner	They were not.
Sumbul Siddiqui	Okay, just wanted to ask that question.
Marc McGovern	Councillor Nolan?
Patricia Nolan	Thanks. I want to completely support workers and I do understand that there's some risk to the city involved if we if we go with the original, and I'm concerned about that. I also want to note that the amendments talk very strongly about supporting local labels, supporting union, moving forward with it, and that letter that we all received from Apex said very clearly that the stated commitment for Bowman Wind is to encourage the balance of plant contractor to source the construction workforce from North Dakota. We've remained consistent with this commitment, hiring workers from several local entities. They engaged a construction, so their focus is on local labor and also a IBEW union subcontractor located in Montana, which is less than three hours from the job site because they couldn't find anyone closer. They've distributed it to other union workers. they have said very clearly they have met their commitment made during the permitting and as the city manager said this is an odd thing that we're not actually doing the construction we're not even contracting for the construction we're contracting for the output of this construction so it's hard for i think that's the the dilemma here for us to require something on construction when we're not even involved with the construction i really appreciate the mayor bringing this forward and understanding that There were some concerns, and I respect the unions who came forward and spoke about this, but I will be supporting the substitute because I think it's really important to separate that out again. Anytime the city is involved directly in construction, it would make sense to require that. It's in our living wage and all our ordinances. This is a completely different, this is almost like a financial contract that is at great risk, and there's the additional risk of possible breach of contract by Apex Energy if we pass the language as is, and I'm not willing to take that risk as a city. We are facing so many other risks as a city. We have a gazillion lawsuits going on. I really just wanna make sure this is clean as possible. So thank you, I yield.
Marc McGovern	So, Councilor Zusy.
Catherine Zusy	Yeah, I think I also will support the sanitized version of the policy order. I agree we are taking on a lot of risks right now, and I don't think we need another one. And I think this, again, does support our using or their using local labor union preference. I agree this is almost, it's almost so sanitized, like should we even be submitting it? But I hesitate to take the risk. Thank you.
Marc McGovern	So I have a comment, and then there's, I think, Madam Solicitor, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a few things we could do here. I am... With the mayor on this, I'm very reluctant to, particularly to support the watered down version, given that the union themselves weren't consulted. Several members of the union came out when we discussed this last time in support and thanking us for standing with them. If they were here saying we're okay with these amendments, I would feel differently. But given that they are not, and as counselor toner said you know he didn't have the opportunity to speak with them i'm sort of i don't feel like i want to water this down without hearing from them um out of respect so there's that but again we can go to a vote so there's um we can also vote and again i don't know tell someone tell me about the timing of things but we could also vote to keep this on the table or to put it back on the table. We can vote the amendment. If the amendment fails, the amendments fail, someone could move to pass the order or we can vote to keep it on the table. Is that correct? You looking at me? No, I'm gonna solicit.
SPEAKER_50	Yes, it is.
Marc McGovern	Okay, so I think maybe we should, if there's no more discussion, at least call the vote on the amendments. Can you talk in the mic?
Paul Toner	Since there's a concern about showing it to the unions, I can send it to Mr. Peeney and Mr. Boyer and ask for their feedback. But I'd rather have it not fail because I didn't check with the union. And if it's proper, I'll pull it off and we can table it until September while we get feedback from the unions. Councilor Azeem.
Burhan Azeem	I'm fine with the original personally at this moment. My thought is that maybe also it's hard to have a conversation about what will get us into a lawsuit in a public space because all this is being recorded and stuff. If the solicitor and stuff do have concerns and this is not urgent, maybe we can just check independently with them and stuff. just to see what would be the best course of action. But if we take a vote now, I think that the original sounds fine.
Marc McGovern	Anybody else? Is Councillor Wilson? Vice Mayor.
Yi-An Huang	Mr. Manager. I mean, I think, just to clarify Councilor Razeem's point, I would say that we put the city solicitor in a bad position to ask her if such an action would result in a lawsuit that we would lose. It's sort of an unanswerable question for the city solicitor to publicly state that if an action were taken, that she would not be able to defend us. So I think we have provided this council with a pretty clear sense of the choice before you We have duly entered into this contract. It is a financing arrangement that is fairly complex. We are always available for additional explanation of what this is and the powers that we have as we negotiate these complex arrangements with other institutions. And I recognize the purity that we seek in terms of wanting to be able to say that every single arrangement that we act through has met every single standard that I think we hold. Recognizing that we actually had staff working for many years in order to put this virtual power purchase agreement together, there was a lot of work to make sure that it could actually happen. I'll also emphasize that this VPPA is the core mechanism by which we will meet our butto obligations. And so I sort of recognize like, hey, there is an important conversation with the union. There's a forward looking question about how we may approach future contracts. But I would urge this body and encourage you to be thinking about the really significant investment of time and resources that we've put into this contract and the importance that it plays in meeting our climate goals, as well as the legal liability that we could be exposing ourselves to. I think to the solicitor's point, we would be able to defend ourselves by noting that the council is simply stating something. But I think we all have this conversation many times. The council is not a body that doesn't represent the city in a pretty substantive form, especially if the majority of the council acts. And so I think I'm happy. I feel like the council has all the information it needs. And ultimately, you're gonna make a decision. It would probably be better just to do it tonight and be done with this, but we are always available if you want to put this back on the table and we want to have further conversation. I think both Deputy City Manager Watkins and City Solicitor Bayer could provide additional context around both the amount of work that went into this, the importance it is towards our climate goals, and the legal risk that is posed in front of us. Further discussion?
Paul Toner	Do I need to make a motion to re-table it and not take a vote?
Marc McGovern	Madam Mayor, any discussion on that?
Denise Simmons	No discussion for me.
Marc McGovern	No discussion? So do we, Madam Solicitor, should we vote the amendments? Should we vote the amendments and then vote to either pass or table?
Denise Simmons	Well, Mr. Vice Mayor, I believe you have a motion. I just want to put it back on the table. I know you do. All right, so there's a motion. You have to see if you have the six votes to put it back on the table. If you do, then it's a moot point. If it doesn't, then you take up his amendment. If that doesn't pass, then you vote the main amendment.
Marc McGovern	So it's five votes, right?
Denise Simmons	I thought it was six, but five?
Marc McGovern	All right, so there's a motion by Councilor Toner to place this order back on the table. Roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem? Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern?
Marc McGovern	No.
SPEAKER_80	No, 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? No. No, and you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as negative.
Marc McGovern	All right, so it's back on the table. I'm going to, before we get into any further down the agenda, I'm going to move an extension of the meeting to 1230. See if we can get through by everything by then. So on a motion to extend the meeting until 1230, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem, yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.
SPEAKER_38	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson.
Ayesha Wilson	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councilor Zusy.
Ayesha Wilson	Or no.
SPEAKER_80	Is he? Yes. No. Councilor Wilson, yes or no?
Ayesha Wilson	Yes, Madam Clerk.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. No, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded in the negative.
Marc McGovern	All right. We now move on to applications and petitions. Pleasure of the council. There are one, two, and three are to be adopted, and four is to refer to the ordinance committee. Roll call. One, two, and three, what? One, two, and three, adopt. Four, to the ordinance committee.
SPEAKER_80	Okay. 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. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons?
Marc McGovern	You're voting for your motion to adopt petitions one, two, and three and place four, refer four.
SPEAKER_80	And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Marc McGovern	All right. We now move on to communications on a motion by Mayor Simmons to place communications one through 64 on file.
Patricia Nolan	The refer to ordinance, does that include refer to planning board or do we not need to do that separately?
Marc McGovern	It only says refer to ordinance, so we can do that.
SPEAKER_80	Zoning ordinance typically will go automatically to the ordinance and the planning board.
Marc McGovern	I can't hear you. So the action that the clerk that was on the agenda says refer to the ordinance committee does not say anything about planning board.
SPEAKER_80	It should be hearing in planning board as well. Go ahead.
Marc McGovern	SO IT SHOULD BE TO BOTH, MR. MAYOR. MR. VICE MAYOR. I'M SURE THAT'S NOT GOING TO CHANGE ANYONE'S VOTE, BUT ON NUMBER FOUR TO REFER TO THE... VICE MAYOR? YES?
Ayesha Wilson	CAN WE JUST MAKE SURE THAT EVERYONE IS SPEAKING INTO THE MIC? UNFORTUNATELY, I CAN'T HEAR THOSE WHO ARE NOT. YES.
Marc McGovern	SO THE... THANK YOU. THE CLERK SAID THAT IT SHOULD HAVE SAID REFER TO THE ORDINANCE COMMITTEE AND THE PLANNING BOARD, WHICH IT DID NOT ON THE SCRIPT, SO... On number four, to refer to the ordinance committee and the planning board, roll call.
SPEAKER_85	Sorry. Number four.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Absent. Councilor Toner. Yes, Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes, Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative, one recorded as absent.
Marc McGovern	On a motion by Mayor Simmons to place communications one through 64 on file, roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councillor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor McGovern.
Marc McGovern	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes, Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Absent. Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councillor Wilson.
Unknown Speaker	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.
Marc McGovern	We now move on to resolutions. Pleasure of the council. on a motion by the mayor to adopt resolutions one through 11, making unanimous upon adoption. Roll call. Councilor Azeem.
SPEAKER_80	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. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And there's nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Marc McGovern	We now move on to committee reports. There are seven. The first six call for accepting the report and placing on file. Number seven calls for accepting the report and placing on file. Seven was done. To a second reading, we did that. Seven was done. All right, on one through six, on a motion by Councilor Nolan to accept one through six on sector report and place on file. Roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councilor Toner. Yes. Councilor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. You have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Marc McGovern	We now move on to communications and reports from other city officers. There are two on a motion by Councilor Siddiqui to place one and two on file. Roll call. Councilor Azeem.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councilor Siddiqui. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councilor Wilson. Councilor Wilson. Councilor Wilson is absent. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative. and one recorded as absent.
Marc McGovern	All right, that completes the agenda. Any announcements?
SPEAKER_80	Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Late items.
Marc McGovern	Oh, sorry, late. Do we have anything late?
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Okay. Excuse me. We have one late resolution. It's a late condolence resolution for Chris Lee Harris sponsored by Mayor Simmons. We get a move suspension of the rules.
Marc McGovern	So on suspension of the rules to take up late resolution, the city solicitor's running in, and I don't know if that's usually not a good sign. Not that we're not pleased to see you, but again. Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_50	Sorry, through you, Mr. Vice Mayor. On communication number two, I needed the council to take a vote. That's responding to an open meeting law complaint. I need a vote authorizing the response.
Marc McGovern	Oh, not just placing it on file. Okay.
SPEAKER_80	Okay, let's do it.
Marc McGovern	All right.
SPEAKER_80	One sec.
Unknown Speaker	Come on.
Patricia Nolan	I MOVE TO ACCEPT THE REPORT FROM THE CITY SOLICITOR REGARDING THE OPEN MEETING LAW COMPLAINT.
SPEAKER_50	THROUGH YOU, MR. VICE MAYOR, I THINK WE GAVE ORDERED LANGUAGE. YES. DO YOU WANT ME TO READ IT? GO AHEAD. That the council authorized the law department to take any action necessary to respond to the June 25th, 2025 open meeting law complaint filed by Charles Teague on behalf of the city council, including by responding with the attached proposed response.
Patricia Nolan	So moved.
SPEAKER_80	Roll call. Councillor 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. Yes, Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons? Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Marc McGovern	Thank you. Now, suspension of the rules to take up late resolution. Roll call.
SPEAKER_80	On the motion of?
Marc McGovern	On a motion by Councilor Nolan. Councilor Azeem.
SPEAKER_80	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.
SPEAKER_48	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Councilor Zusy.
SPEAKER_48	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative. Now bringing it forward.
Marc McGovern	Now bringing forward late resolution. Roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councilor Azeem.
Unknown Speaker	Yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes, Councilor McGovern. Yes. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Siddiqui. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Toner. Yes. Yes, Councilor Wilson. Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Marc McGovern	Late resolution is before us. Madam Mayor, it's your resolution. Do you want to speak to it or just move it, make unanimous? We move the late resolution, make it unanimous upon adoption. Rocco?
SPEAKER_80	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.
Marc McGovern	Any late policy orders, Madam Clerk?
SPEAKER_80	No.
Marc McGovern	I'm sorry. Councilor Nolan speaking to the mic. I can't hear you.
Patricia Nolan	Thank you. There is a late communication that was on the late agenda item communications from other city officers. regarding a letter to City Manager Hwang and Commissioner Elo.
SPEAKER_80	So suspension of the rules?
Marc McGovern	Suspension of the rules to take up late communication. Madam Clerk.
SPEAKER_80	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. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Unknown Speaker	Okay.
SPEAKER_80	On bringing the late communication forward.
Marc McGovern	On bringing the late communication forward. Roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Councillor Azeem. Yes. Vice Mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councillor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councillor Siddiqui. Yes. Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councillor Toner. Yes. Yes. Councillor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Councillor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative.
Marc McGovern	So late communication is in front of us. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, wanna talk about it?
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	I don't, yeah, I'll yield in case anybody else wants to.
Patricia Nolan	Councillor Nolan. This is a late communication from Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler, myself, Councillor Azeem, and Councillor Siddiqui with questions related to the incident that happened over the weekend. Laying out some questions, happy to have other councillors add their questions as well. I think the thought as we've heard the community would appreciate updates and answers to some of the questions that have been raised. This could be answered in a community meeting or a public safety meeting of the council. We just thought it was very important given the timeliness of this to get this onto the agenda for tonight so the city manager would have the communication.
Marc McGovern	Okay. Councilor Strenowill.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler	Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yeah, just briefly, I think we heard a lot of concerns after the event on Saturday. I'm glad it ended without a loss of life, but I think it raises some questions, including about the use of chemical agents. So I'm hoping we can get these answers. And I had reached out to the city manager to see if there could be something on the agenda today. They weren't able to put anything on there. So we thought it was important to put some of the questions we were hearing from residents and had ourselves go back.
Marc McGovern	So, um, so I guess the question is we refer, we can refer this to when we have to do something with it. We don't want to place it on file cause that kills it. We don't want, we don't really adopt it.
Patricia Nolan	You could refer to public safety and the city manager.
Marc McGovern	Okay. So on a motion by council and Nolan to refer late communication to the public safety committee and to the city manager roll call.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. Vice mayor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Counselor Nolan. Yes. Counselor Siddiqui. Yes. Counselor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Counselor Toner. Yes. Yes. Counselor Wilson. Yes. Yes. Counselor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Simmons. Mayor Simmons.
Marc McGovern	Say yes.
SPEAKER_80	Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.
Marc McGovern	Great. Now,
SPEAKER_80	Announcements?
Marc McGovern	On to announcements.
Denise Simmons	Okay, so I have my 12 announcements. Please put your feet up. No, very seriously, just two. The Mayer Summer Youth Program, some of the students have, part of their work this year was working on Harriet Jacobs. And so they're going to have an exposition on Wednesday, August 13th from 4 to 7 at the Foundry. So letting people know about that. And then way down the road in November, there's going to be, in the key of Cambridge, a celebration of music and music venues. November 9th from two to four.
Marc McGovern	Any other announcements? I'll just say real quickly, because we passed over it on the policy order, we really want to have a good time Saturday night, 9 o'clock, Harvard Square, out in front of the Harvard Square Theater. They will be projecting Rocky Horror, which is a blast from the past, at the Harvard Square Theater, like the old days. Show up, watch it, have a great time. Councilor Azeem.
Burhan Azeem	Just more on a personal note, I was just disappointed to see the Mid-Cambridge NCD's vote on 86 Ellery Street tonight, so just wanted to say that, thank you.
Ayesha Wilson	Yeah. Vice Mayor.
Marc McGovern	Councilor Wilson, you got it.
Ayesha Wilson	Okay, thank you. I had a resolution or a policy order resolution in regards to recognizing Black History Month. So the month of August is Black Business Month, excuse me, Black Business Month. And I know that our city departments, there's a lot of events that will be happening throughout the month. Just remember to shop local, shop Black-owned, support our local businesses. Thank you.
Marc McGovern	Thank you. Nothing further. Motion to adjourn. Don't all jump at once on a motion by everybody to adjourn.
SPEAKER_80	I'm kidding, by the mayor, roll call. 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, Mayor Simmons. Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative. Good night, everyone, or good morning. We are adjourned.