Cambridge Civic Journal Forum

July 18, 2009

June 22, 2009 City Council Agenda Highlights

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: — Robert Winters @ 3:04 pm

June 22, 2009 City Council Agenda Highlights

It is expected that the Lesley/Porter zoning proposal will be voted at this meeting. There has been plenty of public comment on the proposal – both in support and in opposition. The related landmarking of the former North Prospect Church at Roseland and Mass. Ave. is also expected be taken up.

There was an aborted attempt at the last meeting to take off the Table the item (#3 this week) that requests “to make available adequate funds to the City Council so that the City Council can hire its own legal expert to review relevant issues in pending litigation.” The item also includes Councillor Toomey’s substitute motion, and both relate to the matter before last week’s Executive Session that lasted more than two hours. I expect there will be another attempt to take up this matter this Monday or next week – the last meeting before the summer recess. A simple majority is required to take any item from the Table and there appeared to be five votes last week to take up this matter except that one member was absent at the time of the vote, and a motion to reconsider the vote failed. If the matter is taken up, things could get very contentious.

Speaking of contentious, there’s this:

Order #4. That the City Manager is requested to review whether the City of Cambridge, including the Cambridge Retirement System, has any investments in which Evergreen Investment Management Company and its affiliates are involved, and is further requested to divest itself of any such investments that may exist, and to report back to the City Council on his findings at the City Council Meeting on July 27, 2009.   Councillor Toomey

What makes this Order interesting is the fact that one of the vice-presidents of the company named in the Order apparently just co-authored a commentary in “America’s oldest weekly newspaper” ripping into the City Manager and all nine city councillors over the matter of the City’s AAA bond rating. These co-authors imply in their screed that the City is being mismanaged by its “reprehensible” city manager. This is an interesting charge coming from someone in the leadership of a company that just shelled out over $40 million to settle charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission on top of a previous $32.5 million settlement (according to the statement of Order #4). It is worth noting that the aforementioned vice-president is a resident of East Cambridge who reportedly intends to run for a Cambridge City Council seat this year. This could be an interesting election season.

The meeting agenda is actually quite short, but with the zoning vote and one or two potentially incendiary items, there may be a good show Monday night. – Robert Winters

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