The Proposed Cambridge City Charter
Oct 31, 2025 – I have been meaning to write up my thoughts on the proposed new Charter, but so many things all at once have been getting in my way. Many people have been asking me about it, so here are some thoughts:
Basically, it will be OK whether or not it passes. Virtually all of the Plan E provisions will remain – albeit it with some language revision and a relatively small number of actual changes.
The bottom line for me was the following:
(a) allow the Election Commission the freedom to approve a tabulation method for the PR Count that is independent of the order in which the ballots are counted;
(b) maintain the city manager form of government;
(c) maintain the practice of the City Council electing its own Chair, i.e. The Mayor;
(d) allow the School Committee to choose its own Chair.
If I had my druthers (which I don’t and I don’t really even know what that word means), I would have:
(a) created a new elected advisory council with representation from all the city’s neighborhoods that could propose legislation to the City Council and require a vote.
(b) rescinded the authority of the City Council to approve board appointments (they actually increased it – bummer)
(c) enhance the citizen petition mechanism to require a City Council vote on the substance of a petition with sufficient signatures.
I was not thrilled with the efforts of some city councillors to gain more power over city management, e.g. the power to approve or deny appointment of City department heads – a surefire way to bring back political patronage. Thankfully we were able to beat back that proposal. I was also quite horrified that some councillors wanted to give themselves the power to reallocate essentially all of the discretionary budget of any City department to other City departments. Again, we were able to beat back that effort. There were other disastrously misguided recommendations from the Charter Review Committee that were thankfully voted down or delayed to another day (or never).
I felt that the entire Charter Review process was flawed from beginning to end. Just as one example, the initial City Council vote was to completely eliminate the citizen right to petition based on the belief that it is already guaranteed in state law. It isn’t. That right was only restored when I convinced a few councillors and the Law Department that the City Council was in error – and they rescinded their prior vote and restored the right to petition.
I plan to vote for the new Charter – not because it’s perfect or what I would ideally want, but because it met my minimum requirements (see above).
Robert
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