Dan Totten
2023 Candidate for Cambridge City Council

Home address:
54 Bishop Allen Dr.
Cambridge, MA 02139

Contact information:
email: dantottencambridge@gmail.com
phone: 781-234-4793
website: danforcambridge.com/
Twitter: danforcambridge
Facebook: facebook.com/totts
Instagram: instagram.com/totts19/

Send contributions to:
Committee to Elect Dan Totten
54 Bishop Allen Drive #2
Cambridge, MA 02139

New Candidate - 2023

MEET DAN
Dan is a queer renter from Central Square and a democratic socialist running to continue Councillor Zondervan’s legacy of progress after six years of public service as his council aide. At city hall, he played a major role in researching and drafting pioneering legislation while also helping hundreds of residents navigate homelessness and housing instability. We need perspectives on the council who see the bigger picture and the urgent need to allocate more of our city's riches toward our most vulnerable residents. Let’s build a Cambridge that works for all of us - not just the wealthy and well-connected!

PRIORITIES

• Continue our progress on climate justice, affordable housing construction, protected bike lanes, and HEART as a police alternative.
• Achieve universal afterschool through a city ordinance.
• Increase support for unhoused people through the use of local revenue to expand housing vouchers, shelter capacity, and wraparound case management.
• Advance queer justice by requiring safer options for transgender people living in the shelter system and establishing affordable and intentional LGBTQ+ senior housing.
• Raise the minimum wage for city employees to at least $25/hour.
• Establish the long-anticipated Racial Justice and Equity Commission in partnership with racial justice advocates to examine all aspects of systemic racism and racial inequity. Support a serious conversation on reparations for Black Cantabrigians. Create an ongoing, multigenerational body of residents to discuss and address issues facing Black men and boys in the city.
• Stand with city unions including the educators, the janitors, the nurses, the coffee shop workers, the clerical workers, the grad students, and all other workers organizing for better conditions. Specifically, I proudly stand with the Cambridge Education Association in their struggle for a better contract.
• Stand with tenants and especially demand better treatment from the Cambridge Housing Authority.
• Expand the School Health Program to include positions dedicated to mental health at every school in the district.
• Demand justice for Faisal by siding with the movement, reducing the police budget to expand social services, and nurturing HEART as our trusted community alternative.
• Invest in The Port neighborhood and the people who live there by starting a true community process around 105 Windsor Street, upgrading the Moses Youth Center and the Windsor Street Health Clinic, renovating the Squirrel Brand Community Garden to address flooding issues, and ensuring that community input is listened to on the future of Clement Morgan Park and the tot lot.
• Fight for Jerry’s Pond and the funding that was promised to move forward with environmental justice and ecological restoration on Rindge Ave.
• Make Cambridge even more fun by asking the state for permission to extend nightlife hours past 2 AM in Central and Harvard. Protect the Middle East nightclub and other cultural institutions. Expand and institutionalize outdoor dining.
• Create new multipurpose field space. Simplify the process for hosting a special event on public property.
• Plant way more trees, especially in the densest neighborhoods. Accelerate implementation of the Urban Forest Master Plan.
• Ensure that the Charter Review process leads to a ballot question that asks the voters whether the city should move away from the unelected, unaccountable city manager as our executive branch.
• Pilot a local, fare-free, on-demand transit option - one possible circuit is between Kendall, Lechmere, and Inman Square.

Thanks so much!
Dan

CCTV candidate video (2023)