Council Updates, Summer Council Meeting, and More

Paying Election Workers
Based on talking with some election poll workers, I started working to address the onerous paperwork our election poll workers face in the summer of 2022. Other cities in Massachusetts do not make poll workers become employees, with all the paperwork that entails. It has been a long haul to finally get some response. I am grateful for the response – and I hope and expect that it will streamline the hiring and payment processing of poll workers and other temporary elections officials. The Finance Team, HR, and the Election Commission delivered a report which outlines that now election workers will be able to be paid without required retirement or medicare tax withholdings if they are not expected to meet the FICA threshold. Almost 90% (256 of 285) of election workers in 2024 earned under the FICA earnings threshold required for mandatory withholdings.

Curb Cut Reviews
The City Council has asked the City Manager to review the way curb cut applications are reviewed and approved. The City Manager has delivered a report outlining two proposals for the curb cut application process and approval and has included draft ordinance language.

Cycling Safety Ordinance (CSO) Progress Report
The City Manager has delivered the sixth annual CSO Progress Report, which outlines all the bike lane construction projects scheduled for 2026 and 2027 and progress on completing all required work of the Cycling Safety Ordinance.

Affordable Housing Overlay Annual Report
The City Manager has delivered the 2026 Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO) Annual Report. The report includes a list of all sites considered for affordable housing development under the AHO and a description of each AHO project underway or completed.

Streamlining Permitting for Building
Following a policy order asking staff to look at permit delay issues for residential construction and permitting, CDD has prepared a substantial report to look at streamlining permitting issues. I have worked with many residents and small business owners over the years to help them deal with confusing, duplicative, or burdensome permitting requirements, and so I am excited about this coordinated effort to really look at requirements to ensure that the processes we have in place are clear, functional, and efficient, so that residents and businesses can improve their properties, do business effectively, and add to the vibrancy of Cambridge. The report focuses only on residential projects. After this effort, I have asked for a similar effort on commercial projects. We need to coordinate our regulations and processes. And we need to make the process as efficient and timely as possible.

Licensing Commission Updates
Earlier this summer, the community and the City Council were made aware of potential changes to the alcohol licensing rules that were published for review by the Licensing Commission. After outcry about the lack of any rationale provided for the draft changes, the License Commission suggested that some changes were to update the rules in line with state law, but no specifics were given. From all I read and heard, the proposed changes are unnecessarily restrictive and would impose significant operational and management changes on licensees. I spoke with bar owners and local businesses and submitted a policy order, with Mayor Siddiqui, Councillors McGovern and Zusy disapproving of the draft changes and the process – and requested an inclusive process for working through any potential changes. Further, the timing of this lapse is directly counter to the goals of the City as we work to make this summer’s events, including the World Cup events, a success for small businesses and the entire community. I also am in full support of considering changes to our overly prescriptive and arcane liquor laws the state needs to consider overhauling. We filed another policy order for Monday asking for options to reform and modernize the Licensing Commission to modernize and improve its functions. The structure of Cambridge’s License Commission is unusual among Massachusetts municipalities and as it was established over a century ago, its composition should be reviewed to ensure alignment with modern standards and best practices.

Improving Tree Removal Tracking
I worked with Councillors Zusy and McGovern to file a policy order that asks for better tracking of tree removals. We hope these changes will allow for more clear data that will inform policy decisions. As a reminder, as chair of the Health and Environment Committee, I am working on the 5-year update to the Urban Forest Master Plan which works to protect and expand tree canopy and our urban forest.

Automated Parking Enforcement
Ever since reading with envy about Somerville deploying automated parking enforcement technology, I have sought to get Cambridge to do the same. Turns out to implement automated parking enforcement we needed to have the state legislature amend a law. After a lot of back and forth with the Law Department, Cambridge DOT, and MassDOT, and with the help and attention of Senator Brownsberger, I was excited that our home rule passed and Cambridge can now do what cities like Somerville and Everett have already done. I’m filing a policy order with Mayor Siddiqui, Councillors McGovern and Sobrinho-Wheeler for Monday that asks the City to implement a pilot program testing out the different technologies for specific locations in the city.

Better Municipal Fine Collection
Collection of fines for violations of local ordinance can be difficult for municipalities as many disputes can result in lengthy and difficult battles in state court for otherwise minor dollar amounts, and the Ch. 40U procedure works similarly to the process in place for hearings on parking citations which allows for appeals of citations outside the judicial system, allows penalties for late payments, and allows municipalities to impose sanctions for failure to pay fines by assessing additional penalties and interest, eventually allows municipalities to place a lien on a property based on the number of violations and/or dollar amount. I worked with staff to develop use-cases for Ch. 40U as well as modernizing our fine collection practices – including online payment of fines, which is not allowed currently for some fines, per state law. I was happy that, upon hearing of a state law that prevented us from allowing residents to pay some fines online, Senator Brownsberger stepped in and promoted a statewide change that would improve municipal fine collection for all municipalities. The policy order I filed for Monday authorizes the use of Ch. 40U asks staff to come forward with formal recommendations for which ordinances to enforce with this new mechanism. One clear use case is for our Short Term Rentals Ordinance.

Residential Decarbonization – Time of Sale Energy Audits
Cambridge has included a recommendation for energy upgrades at points of transition in climate plans for more than a decade, including the Net Zero Action Plan adopted by the City Council in 2015. For large commercial and industrial buildings, Cambridge already has ambitious emissions reductions policies, such as the Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance (BEUDO). Energy efficiency and electrification upgrades for residential buildings are a goal of the City, and one way to advance that goal is by incentivizing energy audits, which provide clear recommendations on possible actions to take. My policy order starts the process of exploring this idea – by having a Health and Environment Committee meeting to discuss recommendations from past City Council and City adopted climate plans that have yet to be enacted, beginning with discussion of a possible requirement for an energy audit at the time of sale along the same lines as Austin, Texas; Portland, Oregon; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Berkeley, California, and including how to address energy costs with renters and landlords.

MA State Climate Efforts
I have been following the state climate legislation closely the past few months and working with the Office of Sustainability and local advocates to ensure that the state legislation is in support of our own climate goals and City operations targeted at carbon emissions reduction and energy affordability for residents. I filed a policy order advocating for some specific changes.

Violence Prevention and Shotspotter
As mentioned above, the Council held a special meeting to discuss violence prevention on July 23 in response to the tragic killing of a DPW employee the morning of July 4. There were four policy orders discussed in that meeting that we will now also discuss on Monday night. One related to temporarily restoring shotspotter, one related to implementing recommendations from the Feb. 2026 violence prevention report, one to evaluate violence response and prevention strategies and support services, and one to expand the overt camera pilot. As I wrote in the statement I shared above, I remain skeptical about the actual efficacy of shotspotter technology and have serious concerns about data collection policies for audio recordings we do not have direct control over – in line with concerns expressed by the ACLU. I also remain supportive of expanding public safety cameras in the city in public spaces in line with the overt camera pilot which has been operational in Central Square for almost two years now. These cameras are owned and operated by the City of Cambridge and the data collection is done in a responsible way and lawfully under both our Surveillance Technology Ordinance and our Welcoming Communities Ordinance.

Zero Waste Master Plan 2.0 Ordinance Updates
I am excited that the ordinance language for the Zero Waste Master Plan 2.0 was passed to a second reading earlier in the summer and is due to be ordained on Monday. This was not an easy path, as there were many critics and skeptical councillors, the sustained advocacy from experts and advocates really helped, as well as a consistent message from City staff about the importance of these changes. I wrote to the entire Council about the specific changes and why they are important here. The bottom line is that these changes will save money for the City and for commercial property owners on expensive trash hauling, control rats by separating food waste, and encourage less trash through waste management plans for large buildings.

Short Term Rentals Ordinance Updates
There had been no review of the ordinance and its impact until a couple of years ago when I started looking into some resident concerns. And upon review, it became clear that more than half the STRs advertised in Cambridge are illegal. The updated language is meant to allow better enforcement, and to clarify types of STRs allowed. I will be proposing one key amendment to the zoning petition, which I hope the council will consider and support. The new zoning petition contains a provision which limits the operation of all STRs to 90-days per calendar year. From all I know, that would effectively end STRs in Cambridge – since no one could legally rent short term their rooms or adjacent units for more than 90 days of the year. I understand such a limit for whole unit owner occupied rentals. If someone lives in a unit, and leaves for vacation and wants to rent the whole place, it seems that 90 days a year is sufficient. However, for rooms in a unit where one lives, and for adjacent units in owner occupied 2-4 family properties, allowing more than 90 days a year makes sense. We have gotten many comments from STR operators that such a limit would be a hardship on them, and lead many in the community to flout the rules – the exact opposite of what we are seeking to do. Thus, my memo – which I submitted to the City Council for Monday’s meeting, and to the Planning Board for their meeting next Tuesday, proposes eliminating that 90-day annual limit for two categories of STR (owner-adjacent and owner-occupied), while retaining it for the autonomous category.