June 19, 5:30pm at City Hall - Cambridge City Council meeting

If a lean agenda means a short meeting, then the Cambridge City Council should be home by 7:00pm tonight. Of course, there's no real connection between the amount or importance of business and the amount of speechmaking at a meeting of the Cambridge City Council. Let's hope they make it quick. The lack of air conditioning will help. [Please, Mr. City Manager, don't ever make that chamber too comfortable.] Here are a few items I think are interesting:

UNFINISHED BUSINESS
5. A communication was received from D. Margaret Drury, City Clerk transmitting a report from Councillor Brian Murphy and Councillor Michael A. Sullivan, Co-Chairs of the Ordinance Committee, for a meeting held on April 26, 2006 for the purpose of considering a petition to rezone the Concord/Alewife area, which was re-filed by the City Council. The question comes on passing to be ordained on or after May 29, 2006. Petition expires July 25, 2006.

Rumor has it that Michael Sullivan wants to have a vote on the Concord/Alewife petition this month, so that means it would have to come up tonight (June 19) or next week (June 26). After that, it's summer vacation for the City Council. If you'd like to read the committee reports on this matter, here they are:
June 22, 2005  July 18, 2005  Nov 22, 2005   Apr 26, 2006   May 17, 2006   June 13, 2006   June 14, 2006

ORDERS
1. That the City Manager is requested to require every City Board, Commission or other entity which meets subject to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Open Meeting Law to post on the City's website its agenda prior to the meeting and to require that the Minutes of such meeting also be posted on the City's website as soon as practicable.   Vice Mayor Toomey

This is an Order inspired by observations on this website that the Cambridge Election Commission has NEVER made its meeting agendas available prior to any meeting, despite promises to the contrary. I have been informed that, in response to my griping, the Commission has contacted the City's info. tech. people to make arrangements for this. However, the posting of meeting agendas (as well as minutes of meetings and related documents) has to be done within each City department or it will never be consistently done. It is my understanding that this responsibility in the Elections Department rests on the shoulders of deputy director Joe Kaplan who is also responsible for making campaign finance reports available on the department's website. His consistent failure to maintain these responsibilities is what needs to be addressed. It's not something to be farmed out to techies outside the department. In fact, every City department needs to have at least one technically savvy person on staff to maintain their corner of the City website.

Councillor Toomey is to be congratulated for filing this Order.

2. That the City Manager is requested to implement a program which allows hybrid and other approved alternative fuel vehicles with a Cambridge Resident Parking Sticker to park without charge at any parking meter within the City of Cambridge.   Vice Mayor Toomey

This is an intriguing Order, but it's shortsighted. I live on Broadway and there are parking meters in front of my house. I would like to sometimes park my 1979 VW Bus in front of my house, but I would have to feed the meter to do so. Should the ever-so-wealthy condo owner around the block who drives a Prius be permitted to park for free in front of my house when I cannot? I agree that there needs to be some revision in the way the Dept. of Traffic, Parking, and Transportation regulates parking in Cambridge, but I would start by reducing excessive signage, removing parking meters except where clearly necessary, and establishing more flexible rules in mixed residential/commercial areas (including Cambridge St. in Councillor Toomey's neighborhood). By the way, Susan Clippinger, head of Traffic & Parking, was last year asked by Councillor Toomey when she would be reconstituting Cambridge's Traffic Board, a state-mandated citizens committee with the authority to rescind wrong-headed regulations established by Ms. Clippinger. There has been no response from either Ms. Clippinger or the City Manager.

3. That the City Manager is requested to instruct the City Solicitor to obtain a ruling from the Attorney General of the Commonwealth whether soliciting sponsorships of Council orders by a Councillor to all other Councillors by e-mail is a violation of the Commonwealth's Open Meeting Law.   Vice Mayor Toomey

Another interesting Order from Councillor Toomey. There was a time many years ago when city councillors actually collaborated on the orders they filed. They also filed far fewer frivolous Orders compared to today. It was not uncommon in the old days to see many Council Orders cosponsored by 4 or 5 councillors. These days, almost all Orders are filed by one councillor only. One interpretation of this is that most orders are so lightweight that they require no collaboration. Another reasonable interpretation is that there is very little collaboration among councillors. [To borrow from a famous observation about the Red Sox of a generation ago, "Nine councillors, nine cabs."]

At the most recent Council meeting, there were many more Orders than usual with multiple cosponsors, perhaps because of some e-mail request, possibly coordinated by the City Clerk's Office, the City Council Office, or by an individual councillor. City councillors are generally pretty good about not gathering outside of Council meetings to talk shop except in groups of maybe two or three. To have five of them talking shop privately is a violation of the Open Meeting Law, so Councillor Toomey has a good point here. I recall a time about 15 years ago when similar questions arose over "serial meetings" in which 3 or 4 councillors would meet to talk about a pending matter, then send 1 or 2 councillors away and replace them with other councillors, and so on. The effect was the same as having a majority meeting completely outside of public view. I believe then District Attorney Tom Reilly responded with an opinion that such serial meetings were not permissible.

My guess is that soliciting cosponsors doesn't rise to the same level as talking shop, and that there is no violation of the Open Meeting Law here. That said, I think it's bad practice to have councillors sign on to Orders without any real participation in the drafting of those Orders. It's not inconceivable that an insubstantial councillor could go on record as sponsoring every single policy order without being involved in the drafting any of them. I would prefer a somewhat higher hurdle. I would also hope that any self-respecting councillor would not allow a nonparticipating colleague to cosponsor an Order.

9. That the City Manager is requested to report back to the City Council on the status of creating a formal Community Policing Policy.   Councillor Kelley

I expect this may generate some discussion, but it shouldn't. Community policing is really more of a working philosophy within the Police Department (at least it should be). I can't imagine trying to distill the philosophy down to a few bullet points to satisfy a few councillors. "Policymakers" apparently like to see everything in terms of policies. Competence, intelligence, sensitivity, and skill aren't policies, but those are what are needed for good police work and any good work. Perhaps we should ask the City Council to write up the "policies" that guide them when they file City Council Orders or blather on past 10:00pm on Monday evenings. - RW