Council Updates, Happy Halloween, and More

Divestment and Boycott of Companies
Much of the last two weeks have been taken up by difficult discussions around two policy orders related to divestment and boycotting of companies related to Israel’s actions in Gaza. On October 19 we listened to almost 7 hours of public comment and on October 20 we discussed the two policy orders briefly, and both items were moved to discuss at a Special Meeting on October 28. Ultimately, the policy order related to divestment was amended by Vice Mayor Azeem and adopted 5-4. The policy orderr related to boycotting companies failed by a 4-5 vote. Cambridge Day covered the vote here and CS Indie covered the vote here.

First, I have repeatedly stated that the war is awful and the suffering terrible. And, I was disappointed to have seen these orders come up since I don’t think it is the City Council’s place to be debating incredibly difficult and divisive foreign policy issues during regular meetings. And it’s important to recognize how difficult this discourse has been on the community and the city over the past few weeks. A lot of staff time was spent ensuring safe meetings, processing public comment opportunities, scheduling additional meetings, in addition to the time and energy spent in the community. So while these issues are incredibly important to many people, it is clear to me that the passion for these issues is wrongly placed in the work of the City Council, who will have little to no impact, sadly.

There was a petition from supporters of the policy orders, which we were told has over 2,300 signatures collected over many months – although the full petition was not delivered to my office. A separate petition, which was put together the day after the agenda came out with the policy orders, has over 1,000 signatures, with 60% of signers living in Cambridge, another 20% living or studying in Cambridge, and the rest having ties here. Over 500 signers added personal notes of why they urged a no vote on the proposals – and they were moving and sobering. The signers were a range of people with varying levels of support for specific actions by the Israeli government – but all were united in believing the policy orders were harmful, divisive and inappropriate. And we also received a binder of material from a group of small business owners, workers, and institutional employees urging us to reject the premises in the policy order, which they provided evidence for being wrong. That so many people on very short notice brought forth a well reasoned, thoughtful and compassionate plea was impressive. And they did not diminish or deny the suffering of Palestinians.

I support divestment – I do not and did not support limited divestment that targeted only one country. I tried to engage in this debate in good faith, talking with advocates and residents over the past few weeks to understand how best to advocate for human rights while not dividing or harming community members. I was proud to cosponsor a substitute amendment for the divestment policy order that sought to center the conversation in setting standards for investment to develop a uniform, evidence-based divestment policy for evaluating companies whose activities cause or materially contribute to crimes against humanity, war crimes, support of terrorism, human trafficking, or unlawful forcible displacement. I stand firmly on behalf of human rights, opposing genocide and all war crimes. I also stand firmly that we must be unwavering in our commitment to opposing all such actions, in any country, enabled by any company. The original policy orders named only Israel, which is deeply troubling. We have seen the rise in violence and antisemitism related to the constant vilification of Israel. I want Cambridge to contribute to peace and condemn war and war crimes wherever they occur – not single out only one place. Sadly, our substitute amendment failed 4-5. I was encouraged by the work of Vice Mayor Azeem in working on a separate amendment, which went a long way to improving the intent and impact of the policy order, but not far enough that I could vote for the final policy order.

The amendments from Vice Mayor Azeem explicitly stated that the City does not take a stand on BDS and took out reference to external lists. That was a welcome change. An amendment Councillor MCGovern proposed passed – which added a reference to the fact that some companies named also help ICE. That the council did not then extend the support for our substitute which was intentional about reviewing all our investments in problematic companies was disappointing. The final policy order also included an amendment that I thought was incredibly important – to state on the record that we support our Israeli and Jewish residents and decry rising antisemitism. That amendment, shocking to me, passed only 5-4. Mayor Siddiqui, councillors Flaherty, Simmons, Zusy, and I were the only votes in favor. I can’t imagine being a resident or worker who has ties to Israel and knowing that only half the council supported language that explicitly and simply stated that we value our ties to them.

Health and Environment Committee Updates
On Tuesday, October 20 the Health and Environment Committee met to discuss Thermal Energy Network (TEN) planning in Cambridge (recording, packet). The meeting was informative and lively and was a significant step in the work to advocate for and implement neighborhood scale thermal energy networks in the city. I was happy that we had a good group of local experts and partners that gathered to discuss this complicated and potentially transformative energy solution. I look forward to continuing the discussion, and figuring out what role the city can play in furthering the dissemination of this type of project. This initiative comes after a lot of Council initiative, community advocacy and work by the City to study feasibility in Cambridge. Upcoming meetings of the H&Env Committee will include Residential Decarbonization Strategies (Dec. 2), the annual Net Zero Action Plan review, and a Climate Committee report on the work of the Office of Sustainability.