Council Updates, Welcoming Community, Winter Mix Events, and More

Expanding CPP
This week, after many months of discussion, I am submitting a policy order, cosponsored by Councillor McGovern and Mayor Siddiqui, that asks City staff to meet with Council to discuss options for expanding Cambridge Preschool Program. Expanding and building on universal preschool programming has long been a goal of the Cambridge City Council, and over the last twenty years, the City administration, City Council, School Committee, and Cambridge Public Schools administration have worked to make the goal a reality for all 4-year olds in Cambridge and many 3-year olds. Expanding CPP would be a substantial investment and would clearly impact long-term budget planning as well as community planning, and so in the years before implementation, the City should begin scoping programming and begin to place targets on future implementation, including evaluating different models for means-testing programming, which could allow for further expansion of offerings for Cambridge families within a further limited municipal budget. The costs of childcare have an enormous impact on families in Cambridge, and high childcare costs also keep parents, especially women, out of the labor force and can result in economic disparities in the women’s labor market. Access to high quality, affordable child care is a proven path towards enhancing economic mobility and reducing stress on families, and has great potential to do the same in Cambridge. This is the beginning of a long conversation and I will focus on reviewing lessons learned from the first iteration of CPP, reviewing programming from around the country including New Mexico and New York City, and discussing options candidly so that we can invest over time in Cambridge families.

Parking Permits
After years of discussions with Transportation staff and the Law Department, I am sponsoring a policy order this week which requests that the City Manager increase the cost of the resident parking permit sticker from $25 per year to $75 per year. To those who follow this issue: yes, we asked before – so why ask again? Because it hasn’t happened! The Council held a committee meeting in December 2023 to discuss options for amending parking fees and regulations throughout the City in order to further support the City’s goals of low carbon travel and I worked with the Law Department to understand the landscape of state law as it relates to implementing different fees. One important change will be to raise parking permitting fees to accurately reflect the real costs associated with the permitting system within the city. After further study, TPT has determined that the permit program costs at least $75 per vehicle to administer. That means for every dollar below that fee we charge, the extra cost is being subsidized by all taxpayers, whether they drive or not. In a time where we are facing budget challenges, we cannot rationalize leaving lost revenue on the table and continuing to subsidize the parking program. $75 per year, or just over $6 per month, for unlimited on-street parking access is a nominal fee for car-owners and amounts to less than 1% of the annual cost of owning a car, including car payments, fuel, insurance, maintenance, and taxes, which is estimated at $11,500 annually. The cost of operating the parking permit program should be paid by users and not pushed onto all residents including those who do not own cars and the City should seek to ensure fees charged match costs. Additionally, the policy order asks to reduce the number of cars that individual residents are allowed to get a residential parking permit for from four to two.

Protecting Academic Freedom
In April 2025, I sponsored a policy order urging Harvard to stand up to the illegal and immoral demands of the Trump administration to safeguard academic independence, the rule of law, and democracy, and directing the City Manager to act with urgency and coordinate a united response to counter assaults on Harvard, and by extension, our city’s historic role as a center of higher education. Cambridge is home to a diverse and robust community of students, educators, and institutions of higher education including Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lesley University, and Hult International Business School, all of which are an essential part of our economy and produce research benefiting the country and world. Since last April, the Trump Administration has continued to repeatedly and aggressively undermine institutions of higher education by withholding federal funding to advance its own political agenda, which includes dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, suppressing student speech and protest, restricting scientific research on issues including ones benefitting public health, lifesaving medical discoveries, and climate change, and threatening the rights and safety of international students. I am sponsoring a policy order this week in support of our local universities in their fight to uphold academic freedom in the face of worsening attacks – attacks which not only threaten the students, faculty, and staff of our university partners, but also our local and regional economy, and our democratic principles. This policy order was drafted in conjunction with people across the country who are working to stand up to undemocratic attacks on academic freedom and the rule of law. I hope other municipalities do the same – our economy and our nation’s innovation rely on higher education.