Council Updates, City Dance Party, and More

BEUDO
This Monday, we will be voting on final ordination for amendments to the Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance (BEUDO). There will be some debate as there are a few changes being contemplated. One change, which I support, would require new buildings constructed after 2024 to get to net zero by 2030. This change is in line with the principles of the ordinance and would help incentivize more building developers to build directly to net zero construction. And the city council has passed a goal of net zero for the entire city by 2035 – this version of BEUDO would only get HALF the city to net zero by 2035. Other changes being floated may include a call out for labs or healthcare facilities and houses of worship, something I cannot support as an implied exemption. The ordinance amendment includes a hardship exemption, which would automatically cover any of those buildings that have financial or technical feasibility issues with compliance. That is sufficient. We are at a place where we are on the precipice of passing strong BEUDO amendments that will get us much closer to our net zero goals and we cannot allow ourselves to weaken the ordinance at this point. After all, BEUDO alone doesn’t get us to our net zero goals, we still have a long road ahead of us, so we need to be sure that BEUDO (which does represent a significant chunk of our carbon emissions) is as strong as possible. Your emails to the city council have been incredibly important during this process. Let’s get BEUDO over the finish line next Monday.

Police Officer Shooting
On our agenda this week is a memo from the Police Commissioner outlining the process for establishing a use of force policy for the Cambridge Police Department (CPD) and discussing the timeline for releasing the names of the officers involved in the death or Arif Sayed Faisal. The memo outlines some of the history behind the policy of releasing names of officers involved in use of force incidents and explains the current review of CPD policies being undertaken by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). The memo concludes with the decision by the City not to release the names of the officers at this time, until either a formal policy can be proposed and implemented by the CPD or the inquest is completed. I believe it’s important to have a policy in place about the circumstances for releasing the names of the officers. I support such a policy. I do not have all the information behind the status of the inquest, but Commissioner Elow has indicated the memo that the “judge overseeing the inquest has issued an expansive protective order, preventing all parties involved, including the Cambridge Police Department, from releasing any additional information until the inquest is completed and the court issues a report”. That appears to limit what we can release now. At this point, six months since the shooting, I hope we won’t have to wait much longer for the report. I am glad the investigation is being conducted through the independent inquest process, but the timing of the report is outside of our control; and I am still committed to a full review of our CPD policies and procedures, something that the council has pushed for and is underway.

Urging Businesses to Save Energy (and Money!)
As I’ve often said, combatting the climate crisis will take every tool we have: big and complicated tools like BEUDO, but also small and obvious ones. My policy order this week asks the City to take action to urge local businesses to take an obvious step to reduce their energy use and help them save money: close their doors while running the air-conditioning! It seems like a no-brainer, but unless you push for it, we often find that things like this don’t happen. The policy order is inspired from action last summer in France that fines businesses for leaving their doors open while running air-conditioning. This policy order doesn’t go that far – it simply asks the City to communicate with all retail businesses to get them to take this obvious step to reduce energy use and help them save money in the process. But one step further: the policy order also asks the City to communicate with businesses, business associations, and stakeholders, to consider whether a more formal policy would be appropriate in the future. As we will be seeing hot weather soon, it’s more important than ever to conserve our energy usage.

Cycling Safety Ordinance Business Impact Study
As I’ve mentioned in the past I have been working and am continuing to think about ways to review the effectiveness of our Cycling Safety Ordinance (CSO). Recently, discourse over the issue has lent itself to a range of competing metrics and I want us to be able to have more reasonable discourse over the impacts of the CSO. If you’ve been following my council work, you’ll remember my recent policy order calling for a committee meeting to review the effectiveness of the CSO and provide an avenue for transparent review and discussion about implementation. In that vein, this week, I am introducing a policy order to improve the data gathering of the ongoing business impact study. I support the CSO and support improving transportation infrastructure across the city, especially carbon free transportation – and we need to ensure that any analysis of the effects of recent changes are as comprehensive and clear as possible. I hope this policy order will lead to a better impact study.