Cambridge Citizens Coalition
Checks  to Cambridge Citizens Coalition can be mailed to CCC at P.O. Box 410291, Cambridge, MA 02141.

​Get Active!  Stay Alert to what is happening on the ​CITY WEEKLY CALENDAR​
                                                       THE SEARCH FOR A NEW CITY MANAGER IS NOW UNDERWAY! 
​                      The Selection Committee has chosen 4 Finalists.  Two could be considered to be  "Inside" Candidates and two are "Outside" Candidates.
​                                              The screening committee members who selected these four finalists for City Manager is listed HERE
  • UPDATE: a  “Meet the Finalists” forum will be held on Tuesday, May 31st, 2022, from 6-9 p.m., in the Fitzgerald Auditorium at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, 459 Broadway, where members of the public will have an opportunity to hear from each finalist in person or on Channel 99 about their vision for the City and answer questions.
  • Cambridge City Council members will be voting to select from the 4 finalists their choice for city manager shortly. Please contact them individually with your input. Contact information is below. This will likely be one of the most important decisions of this term. 
  • Please submit questions to the Finalists by way of  randi@randifrank.com by Thursday May 26 at 12 noon for the May 31st public forum with the finalists. . All questions should be applicable to all four applicants. The City Council also will conduct public interviews with the finalists on Wednesday, June 1st, beginning at 6:00 p.m., in the Sullivan Chamber, 2nd floor of Cambridge City Hall, which the public can view in person, on 22-CityView (the municipal cable channel), and live online via Zoom.​​
  • Please contact each Cambridge City Councillor (information below). They will be making this decision. 
The two "Outside" Candidates include: 
  • YI-AN HUANG. He was Boston Medical Center’s Chief Transformation Officer during the critical COVID period (2019-21) and is now BMC’s Executive Director of Clinical Operations (2021-present). He comes with considerable management experience, addressing issues of transformation in a difficult change period. He holds an MBA from Harvard University. You can read his letter and questionnaire response on the right
  • ​NORMAN KHUMALO. He has been the Town Manager of Hopkinton since 2009. He formerly was Westford’s Town manager, and a Town Planner for Walpole and Wellesley. Prior to that he was a Transportation Project Manager Lawrence, Ma. He is the only candidate with a Carlton College MA degree in Public Management (the standard MA degree for Town and City Managers). He also holds an M.Sc degree in Regional and Urban Planning, and previously served as the Africa Regional Manager for Oxfam.  You can read his letter and questionnaire response on the right. He also is a finalist for City Manager of Watertown. HERE is their May 12, 2022 Council interview with him. And here is the one-hour long interview with all the Watertown candidates: His engagement is from hour one to hour two in their VIDEO. He and the other finalists are discussed HERE​
The two "Inside" Candidates Include:
  • IRAM FAROOQ. She is the current assistant City Manager who also heads up the Community Development Department which has been heavily involved in the issues of up zoning to add more residents and density and increasing commercial (especially lab) development citywide, including in residential areas. Many residents have not been happy with CDD decisions and efforts on a number of issues. Ms. Farooq has been a presence in many Planning Board and other meetings. She holds a degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard’s GSD program. You can read her letter and questionnaire response on the right.
  • ​CHERYL WATSON FISHER. She is a founding partner in the Cambridge law firm of Galluccio and Watson, one of the city’s most well-known firms for city Real Estate and Development interests. She remains the contact person for Galluccio and Watson and is also the current City Solicitor for Chelsea Ma. (2003 to present). Prior to that she served as Assistant City Solicitor for Cambridge from 1999-2003. She appears to be continuing her Cambridge legal practice outside of her Chelsea Solicitor work, but the city bio does not indicate the location or fields  of her ongoing private legal practice. She holds a law degree from Boston College. You can read her letter and questionnaire response on the right.
CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS WILL BE MAKING THE FINAL DECISION SOON. PLEASE CONTACT EACH ONE BELOW
WHO DO YOU WANT TO SEE IN THIS POSITION? An INSIDE Cambridge candidate who in many ways is part of the system we have today, or an OUTSIDE Candidate. Feel free to identify specific candidates you do support or don’t support. At this point one should not focus on city-specific political issues because the criteria for selection has already been set, and all four finalists are said to be equally viable from that stand point.

Things to Consider:
  • Some of the finalists have real managerial experience.
  • One candidate has led a large organization through a major transition.
  • Another candidate already has experience as a  city/town manager.
  • Their educational degrees are different. One has an MBA; another has several degrees, one in public administration (standard for this position) and another degree in Regional and Urban Planning. One Finalist has a Law Degree. One Finalist has a degree in Landscape Architecture.
Please contact each Cambridge City Councillor individually with your insights on this important decision: 
Don’t let developers delimit our city’s future. DONATE TO CCC  to support thoughtful planning, neighborhoods, and sustainability: https://www.cccoalition.org/joindonate.html

ISSUES 2022: Housing Costs, Environment, and Smart Planning


Three-Part Advancing Housing Affordability (AHA) Zoning Petition (pieces of a larger whole). See AHA link on this site for further information. 
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AHA UPDATE:  Meeting Results of the November 16, 2021  City Council Ordinance Committee and Planning Board Meetings: ​The City Council Ordinance Committee decided to keep the AHA “in Committee”  so that further work can be done on it. And they asked CDD to work with the Planning Board to come up with guidelines for new Single- and Two-Family District zoning language. The Planning Board, aware of the Council’s decision, gave a unfavorable vote to the AHA “as written” with the idea that the AHA proposals would be taken up by CDD and the Planning Board at a future meeting. At the same time, the Planning Board lauded the goals of the AHA petition and Hugh Russell noted that Part III of the AHA petition sought to address the root of our housing problem. This latter issue will be key if we are to have any sustainable plan going forward to address this. 
One of the things we are asking for is that housing be added to the Parking, Transportation, Demand Management Ordinance where key decisions for commercial and institutional employers are made. With CDD now requiring that sometimes 20% of new commercial employees live in Cambridge, but not requiring that these groups address city and area housing needs has exacerbated the problem and made it untenable, particularly since what was supposed to be a new City Plan (Envision) has yet to be used to create a city wide housing plan, so we end up with more and more long term residents being displaced, and both rental and home ownership prices sky-rocketing.
WATCH   “How to Build Better Affordable Housing” a video by star videographer Federico Muchnik,  put out by the Walden Neighbors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcMxysb2U7s Three of CCC's candidates - Dennis Carlone, Nicola Williams, and Patty Nolan - all speak passionately in this video of the need for thoughtful design in affordable housing.
PLEASE READ:   Frogs-R-Us: Its Unrestrained Development that is threatening to boil us if we don't hop to polls
and Playing Monopoly in Cambridge is not just a game   
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Frogs-R-Us addresses some of the issues around developer interests and investments in Cambridge; Playing Monopoly takes up core issues in the architectural preservation issues around a move by another political party to gut long-standing conservation and historic preservation efforts in Cambridge
Above image left; the cover to Jean-François Batellier’s 1978 cartoon collection, “No Deposit, No Return.”; right: cover of Cambridge Monopoly game.
THANK YOU again! Wed. Sept. 29th, the City Council Ordinance Committee sent back to the City (manager), a plan (petition) to gut our citywide preservation efforts. The committee asked  the City Solicitor to determine if the petition was even legal and have required the petition to work with the CHC on possible compromise language. 
​Video of the October 29 Ordinance Committee Hearing on the petition to limit  Neighborhood Conservation Districts with a majority of the public commentary opposed to this attempt to let developers have more power. Watch CHC Executive Director, Charles Sullivan on the  building and social history of this area: www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/historicalcommission/pdf/echistoryandresarchitecture.pdf
THANK YOU!   CCC's 2021 City Council Candidate Forum on Sept 26 from 4-6 PM went off without a hitch with a great Host Kerry Costello, a great moderator, Chuck Hinds, and a terrific group of City Council Candidates. Over 100 people were in the audience. A video of the event is now posted on Youtube: https://youtu.be/dnK2HglPr-8

Read about CCC's City Council  Endorsees BELOW  and on our Election Page.
​www.cctvcambridge.org/node/807441
Read the candidate questionnaires and news about the 2021 Cambridge City Council Election:    www.cccoalition.org/election.html 
                  NEED TO REGISTER TO VOTE?​  GO TO:   bit.ly/Register2voteMA
 Register to vote by October 13, 2021
      VOTE BY MAIL  Apply for Mail-in Ballot by Oct 19, 2021
               Email: elections@cambridgema.gov     Fax: 617-349-4366 
                                      Mail to the Cambridge Election Commission   51 Inman Street. 0213
Return Ballot to above address by Nov. 2 
                           *Allow up to 7 days for ballot delivery by mail in each direction. 

         OTHER VOTING OPTIONS              
              Ballot Drop Box or  Early Voting Sites:  bit.lydropboxsites 
​
         Or VOTE IN PERSON ON ​ NOVEMBER 2​
   Where to Vote? bit.ly/VotingPlaceMA
Recent Cambridge Citizens Coalition Research and Opinion Pieces published in Cambridge Day
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​                                                                                                       Promoting a More Livable Cambridge 
                                                                       
​                                                                     Change can’t wait. We need bold, progressive polices to address our most pressing issues 
 
                                                                                                                           POLICIES THAT MATTER ON:


1. Environmental Equity - addressing climate change can't wait!  Safeguard trees and green spaces in every neighborhood. 

2. Housing -  stop gentrification, end exclusive single family zoning, create a real path to home ownership; add  more mixed income housing  

 3. Smart Growth - we need a Citywide plan for smart growth (people before profits) 

 4.  Neighborhoods are key  (retain and build on naturally affordable longterm sustainable housing)

 5.  We live in an historic city; let's work together to preserve  our rich architectural diversity.

 6.  Policies for equity (from Broadband and  HEART to Universal Pre-K)  

Recent CCC Events

... an August 2 City Hall Rally co-sponsored by 15 Cambridge groups supporting trees.

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An important rally hosted by My Brothers Keeper and focused on recent gun violence (photos below) preceded the above tree rally at this same site. 
Earlier, on  June 17, 2021, many CCC leaders were out in support of a housing rally. the Peoples Housing Rally,  opposing the  misnamed Missing Middle Housing petition that  sought to up-zone the whole city to add more luxury (market-based) housing in backyards and other areas (see images below).
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​                            WE ARE ALREADY IN A HOUSING CRISIS - DO WE REALLY WANT TO MAKE IT WORSE?!


  Assault on Neighborhood Conservation Efforts   

This petition has been introduced and forwarded by City Council to the Ordinance Committee. This petition ,that one could  call the "Neighborhood Conservation District" (NGC) Assault Petition, was received from an individual often allied with  the pro-developer political Pac calling itself  "A Better Cambridge (ABC)." The petition seeks to gut Cambridge's long standing architectural preservation means, local areas established by neighbors to preserve the unique eclectic mix of housing in their area. What this petition does? It removes the right of citizens to petition the City on this matter, enabling City Council (who already must approve any new Conservation District after the study period, to stop the process before it even starts. Citizens will  lose long established rights. And, Council (not citizens) can change the language of established  districts, and have redefined criteria for existing Boards, from District residents who bring professional knowledge to  these issues, to simply ones ownership status.   Who benefits? Largely out-of-time developers, and non-resident monied investors (many of whom represent national and global financial interests), and those seeking to build large McMansions inconsistent with our long-standing local neighborhoods.  Why this matters? Cambridge, founded in 1630, one of the oldest planned cities in America. Its history, and the legacy of its rich architecture matters - whether we are talking about workers cottages or more elite residences,  workplaces, or one time battlegrounds. Because Cambridge neighborhoods matter, and this is just one more effort (based in part on a national drive) to end restrictions on developers and investors to build more luxury housing in this already very dense and very historic city - further gentrifying these areas, and forcing out long term lower income residents. We know that Neighborhood Conservation Districts help to keep rental and housing costs more stable, but this is not just about economic issues, and we know that our tourism economy and local businesses are dependent on our unique historical and architectural legacy; This petition  is also about environmental sustainability - maintaining sound architecture. Please write City Council at: council@cambridgema.gov  and CC the City Clerk at: cityclerk@cambridgema.gov
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​​​Read: the "Neighborhood Conservation District Assault Petition" at  www.cccoalition.org/docsinfo.html


              

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Who We Are
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​Cambridge Citizens Coalition is a group of local residents dedicated to smart development, sustainability, affordable housing, and the preservation of our trees, green spaces, and historic architecture. Contact us at CCCoalition1 at gmail dot com. or by mail at P.O. Box 410291, Cambridge, MA 02141.

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