Cambridge City Charter - Change Proposals: Major New Governance and Voting Changes in Play

The City's Charter Review Committee presented an outline of its proposed. Support for a Strong Mayor system of late has a 9 to 5 majority. Unlike Boston and other progressive cities which have a partial ward-based Council election system, ours would continue to be citywide. The current proportional representation system would be retained.  Lowering the voting age to 16 is proposed as is allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections. One of the more unusual proposals is the creation of a Citizen's review committee, which would have the power to bring items to Council and require a vote. This piece of the proposal has come by way of Poland, and members would be selected based on city demographics, further shifting power to younger city residents (including students at our three plus universities or post-docs here for a very short period of time). A number of members of the committee have been missing from various of the meetings so the actual support for some of the items remains unclear. Also relatively few residents have attended these meetings or supplementary ones set up to inform the public what is happening.
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Charter Review Website: https://www.cambridgema.gov/charterreview
Contact the Charter Committee here: [email protected]

Timeline:
December 5 Meeting
December 19 Meeting
Zoom Link to attend these meetings: [email protected]
December 31, 2023: The committee plans to submit its report. 
This report then will be taken up by the next Council. Following their vote, this will go to the state house, and come back to Cambridge for a vote. ​