Cambridge Civic Journal Forum

May 11, 2009 City Council Agenda Highlights

City Manager’s Agenda #1. Transmitting communication from Robert W. Healy, City Manager, relative to a Planning Board recommendation on the Lesley University zoning petition to extend the boundaries of the Business C zoning district in Porter Square and create a new Lesley Porter Overlay District.

This item is noteworthy only because the Planning Board “enthusiastically” favors the petition. You don’t usually get such an emphatic statement from the Planning Board. The Porter Square Neighbors Association (PSNA) has been generally supportive of most of the proposed changes, at least from what I’ve seen on their listserv messages. What seems to be driving this enthusiasm is the relocation of the Art Institute of Boston (part of Lesley University) to the Porter Square area with the hope that this will positively change the character of the area. The option of restoring the stockyards was not discussed. Art is the new beef.

City Manager’s Agenda #5. Transmitting communication from Robert W. Healy, City Manager, relative the Final Landmark Designation Study Report for the Shell Spectacular Sign at 187 Magazine Street at the corner of Memorial Drive.

I’m a local history buff – as anyone who’s seen my bookshelves will attest. That said, I’m not quite to the point of viewing a gas station sign as an historic landmark. The Cambridge Historical Commission has a 24 page report on the landmarking of the sign. The irony is that if some commercial enterprise (particularly a multinational corporation) were to today propose erecting such a sign in Cambridge, it would likely be fiercely opposed.

City Manager’s Agenda #7. Transmitting communication from Robert W. Healy, City Manager, relative to Awaiting Report Item Number 09-38, regarding a report on methods and policies that are in place to guarantee that all residents have equal access to city information and services.

Order #19. Urge the Massachusetts Legislative Delegation to be aware of the need for universal broadband access for all members of the public and the elimination of the digital divide.   Councillor Davis

These items are noteworthy primarily because of their partial nonresponse to the Order of the previous meeting. That order primarily addressed the fact that some people choose to obtain information via methods other than Internet access either because of disability or personal preference. The Manager’s response essentially says that you can read Legal Notices in the Cambridge Chronicle, go to a computer at a public library or other City facility, or read the semiannual CityView newsletter. This is all well and good, but I believe the real point of the original Order was to ensure that residents can get a verbal or mailed response to any reasonable information request made to any City department. Regarding Councillor Davis’ Order, it would be interesting to see what the latest figures are on the “digital divide” in Cambridge. I suspect that many of those whom Davis wants to reach are already twittering away on their cellphones and texting their way down the streets and sidewalks of Cambridge. It’s no longer a matter of who can open a browser and surf the web.

City Manager’s Agenda #8. Transmitting communication from Robert W. Healy, City Manager, relative to Awaiting Report Item Number 09-17, regarding a report on the possibility of creating a publicly accessible, appropriately confidential database of broad average or median neighborhood rents for retail space.

Though I was skeptical about Councillor Seidel’s original Order on this, the information that came back from Director of Assessment Robert Reardon is actually quite interesting. Here it is:

One has to wonder who’s paying $140/sq. ft. in Harvard Square and who’s paying $9/sq. ft. in Cambridgeport and North Cambridge. Other information I would love to have is the differential in rents between premium street frontage and the side streets and back streets in places like Central Square. I’ve always felt that all commercial districts in Cambridge would fare better if the back streets and side streets were better developed for businesses that cannot afford top dollar rents on the main drag. There really is room for everyone.

Charter Right #1. Transmitting communication from Robert W. Healy, City Manager, Awaiting Report Item Number 08-141, regarding a report on the possibility of awarding points to affordable housing applicants based on the number of times an applicant has applied for housing. [Charter Right exercised by Councillor Maher on City Manager Agenda Number Four of Apr 27, 2009.]

There is something perverse about this. In an ideal world, access to publicly-subsidized affordable housing should be based on need and suitability of the tenant for a given housing situation. Why should “the number of times an applicant has applied” be a criteria at all? It seems that this only creates an incentive for people to apply early and often in order to get a better position in the pecking order. It seems that affordable housing programs (and other initiatives) are already subject to abuse by those who are less than perfectly honest about their income and need. This will not improve things to create other ways to game the system.

Resolution #26. Congratulations to Laura Nichols on the occasion of being appointed to the position of Executive Director of the Cambridge Consumers’ Council. Councillor Davis

I note this Resolution only to again say what a great guy former Executive Director (and now gentleman farmer) Paul Schlaver is and that his successor Laura Nichols is cut from the same cloth as Paul. I have often heard tales from residents of how helpful the Cambridge Consumer’s Council has been.

Resolution #28. Thanks to the Central Square Restaurant Association participants for their successful Central Square Clean Up on May 3, 2009.   Councillor Davis

Order #9. That the City Manager is requested to direct the Commissioner of Public Works to increase the cleaning efforts in Carl Barron Plaza, as well as other benches and areas in Central Square where liquor bottles, cigarette butts and other forms of trash are routinely discarded and render benches unclean and unusable.   Mayor Simmons

Order #10. That the City council urge the License Commission to consider requiring all licensed establishments to be responsible for cleaning the cigarette butts and packaging in front of their business or risk being fined.   Mayor Simmons

Order #16. That the City Manager is requested to confer with the Commissioner of Public Works to direct DPW crews collecting trash to clean out the trash and debris that collects and rots in the metal trash cage the supports the barrel.   Mayor Simmons

These Resolutions and Orders all seem to have grown out of the recent First Annual Clean Cambridge Spring Cleanup. It’s worth noting that this wasn’t really the “first” such cleanup. I participated in a very significant Central Square cleanup with City Year volunteers about ten years ago in which we did a lot of graffiti removal in addition to a general cleanup. After this year’s efforts there was a noticeable improvement in Central Square, but it took no time before the slovenly smokers clogged up everything with their detritus. Would it be so difficult for the bars and restaurants to hire or assign someone to clean up after their patrons?

On a related note, our dear friends at the Department of Public Works really should methodically move up and down Mass. Ave. in Central Square restoring or removing the steel grates at the base of all the trees. They are a trip hazard now and really serve no useful function. While there, this would be a good time to systematically repair the brick sidewalks and replace the hundreds of missing bricks.

Order #1. That the City Manager is requested to confer with the Director of Traffic, Parking and Transportation to determine whether metered parking spaces in the East Cambridge residential streets can be converted to residential parking due to the decrease in courthouse traffic and increase in residential units.   Councillor Toomey

This Order will likely be filed in the same wastebasket that Traffic Director Susan Clippinger uses to file all of Councillor Toomey’s Orders. It’s a shame, really, because there are many simple fixes that could be made to make everyone’s life easier. Parking meters were installed in front of the old Longfellow School building across from my house when the Main Library moved there. The Library’s now gone, but the meters remain. Virtually all of the businesses on my side of Broadway are now residences or vacant, yet the meters remain. In Somerville, they have many metered areas where residents with stickers can park for free – an excellent compromise, especially for those who wish to use metered spaces just for overnight parking without having to move their cars at 8am. It sure would be nice if Cambridge could be as smart as Somerville. While we’re on the subject, whatever happened to Councillor Toomey’s request that the state-mandated Cambridge Traffic Board be appointed that would be empowered to review regulations made by the Traffic Director? Inconvenience is no excuse for ignoring the law, even for department heads.

Order #13. That the City Manager is requested to create a position for a Green Streets Coordinator to continue the coordination of the program currently performed by Janie Katz-Christy in recent years which has created a sustainable initiative that is being replicated around the world. Mayor Simmons

I’m all for Green Streets and sustainability ‘n stuff, but isn’t this the wrong time to be creating new positions in a bad economy?

Order #14. That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to consider a cost benefit analysis for refurbishing the former bath-house at Corporal Burns Park so that it might draw income for the city and simultaneously provide valuable service to residents and visitors to the park.   Mayor Simmons

As long as Mayor Simmons is talking only about a park-related use, this is a lot better proposal than what former City Councillor Ed Cyr and others proposed in the early 90’s. Back then their bright idea was to create a “Land Bank” of properties on which, you guessed it, affordable housing could be built. Included in the proposal was the building in Corporal Burns Park as well as all sorts of other small parcels around the city. Those were the great days of the CCA’s penchant for “solutions in search of a problem.” Thankfully, that trial balloon crashed. Unfortunately, a decade later the City sponsors the development of housing on any postage-stamp parcel it can deliver to its nonprofit partners. Would it it be so dreadful just to leave a few undeveloped square feet of land here and there around the city? Must everything be built over?

Order #17. That the City Manager is requested to direct the appropriate city departments to increase the City’s responses to a scale proportionate to the emergency and consistent with the city’s own Climate Protection goals for 2010 and beyond.   Councillor Decker, Councillor Toomey and Councillor Davis

Rumor has it that quite a few people intend to speak on this Order. At the risk of infuriating my environmentally conscious comrades, the vagueness of this Order worries me. It highlights the rise in greenhouse gases and calls for a “response proportionate to the emergency.” This could be interpreted to mean that the ability to own and operate an automobile in Cambridge should be made dramatically more expensive (even if you only occasionally drive), and that every little change made to your home should go through an onerous and expensive regulatory review. Everyone who lived through Cambridge’s rent control decades remembers how the claim of a housing emergency was twisted into a justification for oppressive and often idiotic regulations that were, in fact, politically motivated. I want very much to see good environmental initiatives in Cambridge, but I remain extremely wary of any effort to use a perceived “emergency” as an excuse for carrying out an agenda that will likely have very political overtones. The efforts of the Cambridge Energy Alliance seem the far more appropriate way to proceed, i.e. provide financial incentives and technical assistance for people “to do the right thing.” – Robert Winters