What's on the October 5, 2020 Cambridge City Council Agenda? Taxes! Revolution! Cannabis!

Here's my grab bag of agenda items that will see some action or which seem either interesting or ridiculous or otherwise noteworthy.

Manager's Agenda #1. A communication transmitted from Louis A. DePasquale, City Manager, relative to votes necessary to seek approval from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue of the tax rate for FY2021. [Manager’s Letter]

There are so many statistics you could look at when comparing things over the years, but here are a few:

While it's noteworthy that the 7.85% increase in the property tax levy is very high, it needs to be emphasized that this is only after leaving 125 positions vacant (which allows for an FY21 budget rescission of $5 million), the allocation of $24.5 million from reserve accounts to reduce the levy, and other measures.

It's also worth emphasizing that property taxes this fiscal year are based on assessed property values as of Jan 1, 2020 - before the pandemic rolled into town. Many commercial properties are now generating considerably less income and that may be reflected in lower assessed property values come Jan 1, 2020. We have for a long time been taking full advantage of the property tax classification and the ability to set different tax rates for commercial vs. residential properties (within legal limits). This has allowed Cambridge to keep residential property taxes in check. If commercial values slip, it is quite likely that a considerable amount of the tax burden will shift to residential properties. The Manager's message alludes to this: “It is also important to recognize that a healthy balance of development between residential and commercial be continued to ensure homeowner’s real estate taxes remain affordable.”

I strongly recommend that you read the entire Tax Rate letter from the City Manager and think about what next year's letter may say if the pandemic continues to takes its economic toll.

Manager's Agenda #4. A communication transmitted from Louis A. DePasquale, City Manager, relative to the appointment of the Net Zero Action Plan Task Force for a term of nine-months.

Order #12. That the Council go on record supporting the passage of S.2500 and H.4933 and to support the inclusion of the following in the final bill: 1) The development of a net zero stretch code by DOER (S.2500, § 30-31, 54) 2) The consideration of geographically diverse communities, including low-income communities, in the development of a net zero stretch code (S.2500, § 54) 3) The increase in membership and the establishment of term limits for the Board of Building Regulations and Standards (H.4933, § 15A-F).   Councillor Nolan, Councillor Zondervan, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler

Committee Report #1. A report of the Ordinance Committee Meeting held on Aug 26, 2020 regarding Green Energy Analysis Zoning Amendments. [minutes have not yet been posted]

Rah, Rah, Rah for environmental initiatives! It's worth noting, however, that energy efficiency usually translates into cost savings in the long run - and many homeowners and developers will incorporate energy efficiency into their homes and projects regardless of any mandates from state and local government. Carrots work better than sticks.

I'll be soon taking advantage of a free (or at least reduced cost) insulation program in my house, but not because a few city councillors are twisting my arm to do it. I have some serious concerns about layering one mandate on top of another so that at some point a homeowner may simply delay repairs and renovations because of the added costs and restrictions. But I'm sure the councillors will feel perfectly righteous.

Manager's Agenda #8. A communication transmitted from Louis A. DePasquale, City Manager, relative to Awaiting Report Item Number 20-26, regarding a report on placing four little free libraries.

“Liberation Libraries” – Perhaps this will start a trend of topic-specific “little free libraries” around the city. I could start a “little free math library” or maybe a “cosmology corner”. It would help me reduce the weight of books in my house. Now that would be another kind of liberation.

Manager's Agenda #9. A communication transmitted from Louis A. DePasquale, City Manager, relative to Awaiting Report Item Number 20-47, regarding a report on heat lamps and outdoor dining during the COVID-19 public health crisis.

Manager's Agenda #11. A communication transmitted from Louis A. DePasquale, City Manager, relative to a response to City Council request at the Special Meeting relative to COVID-19 Update of Sept 29, 2020, to provide opinions on the question of eviction moratoria applicability.

Order #5. That the City Manager be and is hereby requested to work with the Public Health Department and the Law Department to amend Cambridge’s Moratorium on Eviction Enforcement to make clear that it remains in effect after October 17 and until at least the end of the state of emergency is declared.   Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Mayor Siddiqui, Councillor Zondervan, Councillor Carlone

Leave it to the good folks of the Central Square Business Improvement District to lead the charge in arranging for heat lamps to give local restaurants an extra tool to help them survive the Covid assault on businesses further into the colder weather months. Big thanks to some particular heros in the City administration (you know who you are) for helping to ease the bureaucratic burdens.

Regarding the matter of moratoriums on evictions and the relationship between commercial and residential landlords and their tenants, there is so much that has gone on out of the public eye in terms of rent forgiveness, renegotiated leases, and deferred rent that the politicians either fail to see or refuse to recognize. To them, it's like that Rahm Emanuel quote: “Never allow a good crisis go to waste. It’s an opportunity to do the things you once thought were impossible.” Whether it's using a shared street to execute mode shifts or fast-track your bicycle plans; or using the threat of a “tsunami of evictions” to attempt to reinstitute rent controls; or perhaps even using economic hardship to pursue your anti-capitalist agenda, there's nothing like a good crisis to grease your political axles.

Manager's Agenda #12. A communication transmitted from Louis A. DePasquale, City Manager, relative to Awaiting Report Item Number 20-41, regarding a report on the feasibility of an alternative Public Safety Crisis Response System.

Given the choice between listening to a bunch of sheeplike “Defund the Police” activists or reading a well-reasoned response from Police Commissioner Bard and other expert City staff, I'll choose the latter any day of the week.

Unfinished Business #3. That the “2020 Cycling Safety Ordinance” be forwarded to the Ordinance Committee for discussion and recommendation. [PASSED TO A SECOND READING IN COUNCIL SEPT 14, 2020. TO BE ORDAINED ON OR AFTER OCT 5, 2020]

Communications & Reports #2. A communication was received from Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler, regarding the Cycling Safety Ordinance.

I am convinced that the mandatory aspects of this Ordinance are not legally enforceable - though I'm sure that the City administration will carry out most of it nonetheless. It's one thing to lay out your vision for reconfiguring roads for better safety, but micromanaging the City Manager and City departments is another thing altogether. Then again, I suppose if there were 5 city councillors who wanted to pass a municipal ordinance requiring candy-striped streets, they could pass the ordinance and then screech at the Manager and threaten to not renew his contract for having used less-distracting road materials.

Unfinished Business #4. 100% Affordable Housing Overlay Zoning Petition 2020. [PASSED TO A SECOND READING IN COUNCIL SEPT 14, 2020. TO BE ORDAINED ON OR AFTER OCT 5, 2020]

This will be ordained, of course, but that doesn't make it any less of an offensive cross between an eminent-domain taking and an ideological agenda to relentlessly shift residential properties from private ownership toward public and quasi-public ownership that will forevermore rely on taxpayer support for maintaining these properties in perpetuity.

Order #3. That the Council go on record requesting the Secretary of Transportation Stephanie Pollack consider an I-90 lane reduction and at-grade design during the final decision-making process.   Councillor Nolan, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councillor Zondervan, Councillor McGovern

A viaduct or an at-grade multi-lane highway are both barriers. I'm far more interested in the peripheral aspects of this project (like a better-connected road and path network and better) than about the number of lanes or whether a portion remains elevated.

Order #4. That the Cambridge City Council adopt the following amendments to Chapter 5.50 of the Municipal Ordinances of the City of Cambridge entitled “CANNABIS BUSINESS PERMITTING”.   Councillor Nolan, Councillor McGovern, Mayor Siddiqui, Councillor Zondervan

Order #8. Cannabis Delivery-Only Zoning Ordinance.   Councillor Nolan, Councillor McGovern, Mayor Siddiqui, Councillor Zondervan

Doesn't it seem like this City Council and the previous City Council care more about cannabis than just about anything else? Perhaps they need an intervention.

Order #9. That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to confer with the Cambridge Historical Commission and other relevant City Departments to ensure that any report or recommendation for a new Neighborhood Conservation District in Cambridge presented to the City Council include an analysis of the potential effects on City housing affordability based on current research, as well as any mitigations that the Cambridge Historical Commission recommends, so that the City Council may holistically evaluate the matter.   Vice Mayor Mallon, Councillor Zondervan, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Mayor Siddiqui

One of the more bizarre aspects of this City Council is their tendency to simply absorb the rhetoric of their activist handlers without questioning the validity of their gripes. The latest talking point among the YIMBY crowd is that historic presevation is fundamentally racist or elitist or profit-driven and that any effort to preserve some of the more endearing qualities of your neighborhood makes you evil incarnate.

The current case involves some East Cambridge residents who would prefer to not see their particular brand of very dense neighborhood wiped clean in favor of large ugly boxes. Given the choice between closely-spaced two-family homes with grape arbors and tomato plants versus a boring box of a building with a concierge, I'll choose the former. In terms of affordability, those old Italian ladies and gentlemen of East Cambridge have done more to provide housing at affordable rents for generations than any of the vultures now circling.

Order #10. That the City Council go on record supporting the Roe Act and restate its commitment to the protection of abortion rights, reproductive health care rights, and individuals’ rights to make reproductive decisions about their own bodies.   Mayor Siddiqui, Vice Mayor Mallon, Councillor Nolan, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler

I try to pay as little attention as possible to what goes on in Washington, DC. I do, however, understand that if family planning access becomes no longer guaranteed across the country, it will be very important for individual states to provide such guarantees in whatever manner is consistent with the needs and wishes of its residents.

Order #13. That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to work with the Transportation Department and Solicitor to provide the City with an update on the progress toward a draft [Truck Safety] Ordinance as soon as possible and with the draft of an Ordinance by Oct 19, 2020.   Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Vice Mayor Mallon, Councillor Nolan, Councillor Zondervan, Councillor Toomey

One of the things I remember from decades ago is that federal jurisdiction in interstate commerce is pretty serious business and that regulating truck traffic is not easy. You can put restrictions and make safety improvements on your own vehicles and perhaps those of companies with whom you have contracts, but just about everything else will require endless studies and viable alternatives that won't be challenged in court. - Robert Winters

Comments?

HOW TO BREAK A POLITICAL MACHINE
[Collier’s Magazine, January 31, 1948]

Cambridge’s Board of Directors, which replaced the old City Council after the professors finished their reform wave, has reduced the city debt from twelve to three million, built the highest-paid group of employees in any city of comparable size, reduced taxes and increased and streamlined all the city services

BY JOSEPH F. DINNEEN

The taxpayers of Cambridge, Massachusetts, were paying far too much for far too little until a group of college professors and plain citizens got together and took on the local political machine. It was a tough and glorious scrap, but today Cambridge is one of the best-run cities in the land

WE WANT you, Dean Landis, to become the active, working head of a committee to change the charter of the City of Cambridge." The dean of the Harvard Law School was sympathetic, but not interested. He looked at Attorney George McLaughlin and the committee sent to persuade him. "You want me to become a Cambridge city politician," he said, "and I have neither the time nor the inclination to do that. Why pick on me?"

"Because we need a big name. And we need somebody with your kind of ability to head up the fight."

Dean Landis shook his head. "Count me out. I have enough to do without trying to reform the City of Cambridge. Harvard and the city have been fighting for years."

"That's no reason why Harvard and the city should keep on fighting," McLaughlin persisted. "It's time they got together. If they don't, the city will go bankrupt and the professors who live here will find that just as tough as the rest of us. We have a plan to save it, but we want you to help us put it across."

"Why me? And what's the plan?" The plan which McLaughlin outlined on that day in July, 1938, was simple. But putting it into operation started one of the fanciest political slugging matches the old city across the Charles River had ever seen.

The reason McLaughlin had helped organize forty-nine professors, industrialists, merchants, legionnaires, white-collar workers and laborers into a Committee of Fifty to back the plan, was that they well knew the sad state into which the City of Cambridge had fallen: They had seen the firemen in discarded letter carriers' uniforms answering alarms with equipment so old it often broke down before it reached the fire; they had driven over the rutted and littered streets and had been stopped cold when unremoved snow made them impassable in winter; they had' smelled the city when garbage and refuse lay for days without being collected. And they had felt it in their pocketbooks as the taxes inched higher and higher.

The Committee of Fifty had been organized after the first move to correct these abuses had been taken by a team of Harvard experts in government and progressive Massachusetts legislators. This step had been to get the state legislature to pass an act allowing any city to adopt Plan E, the city-manager form of charter, if it voted to do so.

Previously this form of government, which had been pioneered in Cincinnati, Ohio, and had been replacing corrupt municipal machines with streamlined, efficient administration in various other cities throughout the country ever since, had been unavailable to Massachusetts cities. Now that Plan E was available, the Committee of Fifty proposed to arouse the citizens of Cambridge to the point where they'd toss out the city administration and charter and vote in a new order. They well knew that they had a fight ahead of them.

"Mayor John W. Lyons doesn't know yet that Plan E is poison to him and to all other political bosses," McLaughlin told Landis. "But as soon as we start working to get the people to vote for it, he will. His political machine will start rolling to kill it and he'll fight as he never fought before because Plan E means his finish."

Dean Landis accepted the job of heading the Committee of Fifty.

McLaughlin was right. Mayor Lyons, Paul Mannos, his chief contractor, who was being investigated by the district attorney and the members of the city council woke up screaming.

The first moves of the opposition made them laugh. James McCauley Landis was going around Cambridge, dropping in at taverns and saloons, chatting with truck drivers and bartenders, talking to them about Plan E, explaining it, discussing it, sounding them out. James Michael Landis, they called him, a comparison to James Michael Curley that they knew he would not like.

A Machine of Nonpoliticians

Nevertheless the new kind of machine that was growing in Cambridge bewildered Mayor Lyons. Its leaders were not politicians. None of them had ever been elected to public office; they were a collection of educators and businessmen swelled by an assortment of nobodies from all wards. They sponsored no candidate, but he knew they were out to defeat him. They didn't say so. They held political rallies, advocating the adoption of a new and fantastic form of city charter. Dean Landis, the three lawyer McLaughlins, George, Walter and Charles, were a flying squadron buzzing around to clubrooms, the Y.M.C.A. and church groups explaining it in detail, while speakers from the League of Women Voters were missionaries among the women.

Mayor Lyons examined the proposed city-charter and was astonished. It deprived a mayor of all power and made him merely the ceremonial head of the city. It would end a system of contract awards and city contractors. It would make the city council a board of directors of the city corporation and pay each one of them an unheard-of $4,000 a year. It did away with the system of marking a cross on a ballot and permitted every voter to vote for every candidate in a system known as proportional representation. The voter simply put a number one after his first choice, number two after the second and so on down the list.

It was election year and the proponents were trying to get the charter on the ballot. That required the signatures of 10 per cent of the voters —5,000 persons. The mayor and the city contractors were determined to keep it off the ballot at any cost.

"This is a bold and barefaced attempt to overturn our form of government," the mayor shouted from platforms and street-corner rostrums. "This is Communism. This system was designed in Moscow and approved by Stalin. This is a pernicious attempt by the Harvard Reds to destroy the American way."

The brothers McLaughlin, Charles, George and Walter (left to right), were ringleaders in the fight to organize a group which could oust the political machine. All lawyers, they handled their forces like generals

"There's nothing Communistic  about it," the McLaughlins, Dean Landis and a growing corps of speakers answered from the same and other platforms. "It was adapted from democratic systems in Ireland and England by Charles P. Taft to cure corruption and mismanagement in Cincinnati 15 years ago. He added American improvements and refinements and it put Cincinnati back on its feet." As Election Day came nearer, the fight became hot and bitter. Public speakers for Plan E making whirlwind campaign tours around the city came out of meeting places to find the air let out of their tires. A paving block was hurled through the window of the home of one of the speakers. But the Civic Association, which had grown out of the Committee of Fifty, kept on growing.

Already there were more than enough signatures to put on the ballot the question: "Shall Cambridge accept Plan E?" The signatures were filed as required with the State Ballot Law Commission, and verified. There was a deadline established by law —Saturday, October 8th, midnight— when all legal election forms must be completed in time to have ballots printed and distributed. Time was running out and suddenly the Committee of Fifty spotted an unintended booby trap in the state law covering referendums. This was a provision that "the city clerk upon the vote of the council" must transmit a petition for a referendum to the Secretary of State.

"How do we lick this one?" George McLaughlin asked the dean of the Law School. "How can we compel a hostile council to vote a proposal to wipe itself out?"

"A writ of mandamus?" the dean suggested.

"A writ of mandamus is an instrument to compel an official to do a purely administrative act, like making a police chief appoint a cop from a civil service list. Has a writ of mandamus ever been issued to compel a legislative body to pass a yes or no vote?" McLaughlin asked. "I doubt it."

"The courts never interfere with the legislative branch of the government, I'll agree," Landis said, "but in this case it can be argued. Is this particular vote a legislative or administrative act? You'll have to reason your way through that one."

On the Tuesday before deadline, the city council met and adjourned without taking any action on the petition. Its next regular meeting would not be held until the Tuesday after the deadline had passed; but Boston and Cambridge newspapers were so scornful and there was now such an impressive number of Plan E supporters throughout the city that the council became uneasy. The president of the council announced that he would call a special meeting to act on the petition on Friday, 24 hours before deadline.

On Friday the strategy of the opposition became clear. Groups of citizens appeared at the Ballot Law Commission to question the validity of signatures on the Plan E petition, alleging wholesale forgeries. The commission protested the lateness of the hour and inquired indignantly why the objections had not been made earlier; but the charges had to be investigated. The commission set ID o'clock next morning for a hearing.

That night the council met again and refused to vote to send the petition along to the Secretary of State.

"We couldn't," members said. "The petition is now in litigation. It may turn out to be invalid."

Writ of Mandamus Sought

There was a council of war in the cellar of George McLaughlin's house. "What do you suggest now?" McLaughlin asked Dean Landis. "You're the chairman of this committee."

"We'll go after the writ of mandamus."

"Good!" McLaughlin agreed. "I've been canvassing that possibility all week. I can't find a single important legal mind in Boston or Cambridge who thinks it can be done. They all say you can't get a writ of mandamus for that purpose and they all say there isn't time. The courts move too slow."

Landis nodded. "Let's speed them up."

Harvard Law School’s Dean Landis was a hard man to convince, but finally he got mad

Organization began right away. Judges were consulted and lawyers enlisted that night. At five o'clock the following morning, the three McLaughlins were in their office facing Suffolk County Courthouse in Boston typing out subpoenas for every person who filed an objection to signatures and for all thirteen members of the city council. There were two jurisdictions involved, Suffolk, which is Boston, and Middlesex, Cambridge. Fifteen lawyers with 15 constables attached were deployed in strategic places around the city, at the Statehouse, the two courthouses, in a district attorney's office, in drugstores by pay stations and in police stations.

It was their job to channel and chart the case through the Ballot Law Commission and all of the courts to the Supreme Court before the stroke of midnight. In the early morning hours, constables and lawyers were combing Cambridge picking up the objectors and city councilors, and by 10 o'clock that morning they had all been herded before the commission—all except those objectors who apparently lived on vacant lots or were unknown at the addresses given. Some who were awakened in their beds or were disturbed at breakfast didn't know what their objections were nor how to sustain them.

Justice on the Move

Three lawyers had been assigned to the Ballot Law Commission, and as they called witnesses, one by one their objections dissipated. By 11 o'clock in the morning, the petition was cleared and made legal. The wheels of justice had been speeded up as they never had been in local judicial history. While the ballot law hearing was going on, three more lawyers were piloting the petition for a writ of mandamus through to the courts.

According to the timetable, the court orders directing the councilors to appear should have been in Boston in time to serve them upon the city councilors as the Ballot Law Commission hearing broke up; but the orders were late, or the hearing ended too soon, and the councilors got away. Not far, though. The legal squadron knew where to pick them up from hour to hour.

By 1 o'clock the preliminary hearing on the writ of mandamus before a single justice was over, and he agreed to convene the full bench of the Supreme Court by 3 o'clock. Once again the three lawyers opposite the Boston courthouse began typing—this time turning out writs for the other 12 lawyers to serve on the councilors.

Harvard was playing Princeton that afternoon. Each Cambridge city councilor is entitled to two seats for every Harvard stadium game. As each councilor walked over the Larz Anderson Bridge that afternoon, a lawyer spotted him, pointed him out to his constable. The constable stepped up, saluted the councilor with "Greetings!" and slapped the writ in his hand.

At 3 o'clock a disappointed, dejected and bewildered city council was standing before Supreme Court Justice Dolan. The full bench had already reviewed the petition and Justice Dolan had been assigned to hear the arguments and dispose of the case. City Solicitor Richard C. Evarts, a good lawyer, represented the council, but he had had no time to prepare his case. Justice Dolan issued the writ directing the council to meet before midnight.

There was still one loophole. The councilors might refuse to hold a meeting because they had not been served legal notice of the court's order. Once again the typewriter battery of lawyers went to work, and that evening, while the councilors were home for dinner, notice was served upon each of them.

The council met at 7:30 that night, and although there was nothing the members could do but pass the order, they debated it for two and a half hours. The deadline was then two hours away and the order still had to be written and signed. The city clerk was a trustworthy and efficient official, but the eyes of a company of lawyers were upon him from the moment he received the document until he left the building. When he came out of City Hall to drive to the Statehouse, he found himself boxed on all sides by accompanying cars. The Plan E committee was taking no chances that something untoward might befall him. He arrived to deposit the document with the Secretary of State exactly 15 minutes before deadline.

Early in the morning after election, when the last vote had been counted. Dean Landis was sitting on a table in Plan E campaign headquarters, swinging his legs idly, drinking a cup of stale coffee from a near-by urn, looking down at the floor thoughtfully, surrounded by a group of disconsolate campaign workers. Plan E had lost.

"What do we do now?" one of them asked.

The dean got down from the table. "Now we start working to put this over two years from now. Get out the cards. Organize the mailing list. Announce the next meeting and arrange it. We lost fairly. We weren't counted out. We didn't have enough voles. Next time we'll have enough votes."

Before the next campaign had arrived, District Attorney Robert Bradford had closed in on Mayor Lyons and Contractor Mannos and sent them to jail for soliciting bribes, a conviction that helped make him governor. The Cambridge Civic Association had swelled to overwhelming proportions, and the campaign was even more bitter. On a night in late October, Dean Landis and George McLaughlin were sitting in an automobile on the fringe of an opposition rally, listening to a councilor plead and fight for votes. The councilor espied Landis and pointed him out to the crowd.

“There's Dean Landis in an automobile over there with Georgie McLaughlin," he said. "James Michael Landis. He came to me the other day and he said to me: 'If you'll support Plan E, I'll deliver to you the support of the Cambridge Civic Association,' and I said to him, 'No, Dean. You can't bribe me.' "

Accusation Stirs Landis

The dean was reaching for the door and at the same time shucking off his coat. "He can't get away with that," he said.

McLaughlin pulled him back. "Wait a minute! Cool off."

"He's a bar," the dean struggled to get loose.

"The people he's talking to know that. What are you going to do? Mix it up with him? Clip him on the chin? That'll give you a lot of personal satisfaction tonight, and tomorrow you'll be all over front pages for having a brawl with a candidate." The dean subsided and McLaughlin drove away.

Plan E won that year, and the following year the Civic Association put the plan into operation. The first board of directors, which took the place of the city council, hired as city manager John B. Atkinson, World War I veteran, Boston College graduate and an experienced executive in the shoe business. He had never been in politics and had never managed a city. The first thing he did was to throw all of the city contractors and hangers-on out of City Hall. Then he called all city employees before him.

"The city," he told them, "is now under new management. No city employee is going to be fired. From now on, you don't need any political influence to hold your job and political influence won't get you advancement or more money. What you're going to be paid depends upon what you do and how you do it. Everybody working for this city is getting a raise in pay right now. The cost of living is going up—and you need it—but you're going to earn it.

"From now on you're going to do all the work that has to be done in this city - including the work that has been done in the past by city contractors and subcontractors and their employees. From now on, you'll get a raise every year until you're the best-paid city employees in the country. From there on, the size of your salary is up to yourself."

The employees liked that. The local unions did not; but they couldn't do much about it. Atkinson needed a number of specialists in city administration and picked them among city employees, even sending them to colleges for special training. The new city road builders got their fundamental training in techniques in road building and surfacing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose professors and instructors had a stake in Cambridge city government. He appointed college professors, specialists and instructors to nonpaying advisory posts. The city's postwar plan, advanced and ambitious, was designed by Professor Frederick J. Adams of MIT, who became the head of the Cambridge Planning Board.

During the past seven years every job done in Cambridge has been done by its own hired hands with this result: Since 1941 the city reduced its debt from $12,000,000 to $3,000,000, and at the same time raised the salaries of all of its city employees $1,300,000, actually making them the best paid in any city of comparable size in the world. It reduced its tax rate from $48 to $35.50 without raising the values of its taxable properties. While cutting the city's debt 75 per cent and reducing its tax rate—unheard of and considered to be impossible during war and postwar years when all costs were climbing—the city also did this:

Built eleven playgrounds and a new bathing beach; junked all of its obsolete fire-fighting and police equipment, replacing it with the latest and best apparatus obtainable, including the last word in two-way radio transmitters and receivers; modernized, re-equipped and enlarged its City Hospital, including the latest and most elaborate X ray; bought a fleet of sanitation trucks that are washed down daily and repainted white frequently; hired architects for G.I.s and built 1,200 modern housing units for them (not obsolete barracks, jerry-built shacks or Quonset huts); resurfaced more yards of streets in five years than all other cities of comparable size in 15 years.

Cambridge has its own printing plant, manned and operated by city employees. It prints everything for the city from stationery to books. It has its own photostat plant, which turns out copies of documents, plans and blueprints for city departments. The city incinerator was always an expensive loss, as was the garbage-disposal plant. The incinerator now pays the city a profit of $36,000 a year, while the garbage-disposal plant turns in a profit of $8,500. By businesslike methods, it increased the income of its City Hospital from $121,000 to $360,000 a year.

City employees do everything: painting, paper hanging, plumbing, repairing and building. The city furnishes the materials; the employees do the rest. Cambridge employs a staff of buyers who roam and scour the country picking up supplies in competition with contractors and private business. For $200,000 recently these roving purchasing agents picked up from Army and Navy surplus stores supplies that would otherwise cost $2,000,000.

The Cambridge City Corporation is hardboiled and tough with its debtors. Its crack law department collects every penny owed the city by the State of Massachusetts and by surrounding cities and towns in water, electric, transit and other tax adjustments. The law department fights rather than settles all doubtful claims against the city. For example, claims from people tripping over sidewalks have dropped from $48,000 a year to $15,000 a year because the city lawyers will fight the full distance to the Supreme Court if necessary. The city is just as tough with its own delinquent taxpayers and collects 99 per cent of its taxes from them. On last August 1st, it had less than one per cent miscellaneous taxes outstanding, and a phenomenal zero outstanding real-estate and personal taxes.

Speculators and Rent Gougers Hit

Valuations of homes, industrial and business establishments were left severely alone, except when speculators and rent gougers were involved. When a man sold for $12,000 a place that was worth $2,500 on the city's tax books, they looked into it right away. If it was worth $12,000 to the new buyer it was worth almost that to the tax collector and the speculator was promptly slugged with the new tax bill. If a property owner raised rents, he was treated the same way. New businesses and new industries have been crowding Cambridge so fast that it's a problem to find quartet's for them.

The city doesn't borrow any long-term money. It saves the interest. Its credit is probably better than that of any other city in the country.

Cambridge has become a phenomenal experiment in city government. The resources and laboratories of MIT test all of its building and road materials, equipment and machinery. Problems in physical improvement are for MIT students to solve. The Littauer School of Government, with Professor Morris Lambie as adviser, helps on problems of government and city betterment.

Hand in glove with the Civic Association is the Cambridge Research Association to examine all aspects of city government. Dr. Karl T. Compton, president of MIT, his administrative assistant, Robert Kimball, and Bernice Cronkhite, former dean of Radcliffe College, are members of the board of directors of the Research Association while President James Bryant Conant of Harvard is an ordinary, dues-paying member of the Civic Association.

Meetings of the Civic Association are almost unbelievable. A federal judge sits between a truck driver, and a housemaid, and a professor of archaeology drapes himself over a radiator next to a cop.

The old system dies hard, but in Plan E, according to Professor Lambie, the entrenched politician skilled in yesteryear's technique can see the curtain falling on the city-boss type of government. "A political machine can't operate under Plan E," says Lambie. "Good or bad government originates with the people of any community, but the fact that the people of a community want good government doesn't mean that they'll get it. They'll get good government only if there is a charter and an election system in power through which they can function."

THE END

All Things Reconsidered... at the Sept 21, 2020 Cambridge City Council meeting

Here are a few items of note up for consideration (or reconsideration) at this week's meeting:

Reconsideration #1. That the city council extend the current contract with city manager Louis DePasquale for a period of 18 months.
Reconsideration Failed 3-6 (Nolan, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zondervan - YES)

Communications & Reports #2. A communication was received from Councillor Nolan, transmitting a memorandum on Filing for Reconsideration.
Placed on File 9-0

Communications & Reports #3. A communication was received from Anthony I. Wilson, City Clerk, transmitting a communication from the City Solicitor with a red-lined corrected version and a clean corrected version of the proposed contract that was before the City Council at its meeting of Monday, September 14, 2020.
Contract Approved 6-3 (Nolan, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zondervan - NO); Reconsideration Fails 9-0

Reconsideration of a hasty vote is entirely proper. However, regarding taking a raise during a pandemic, there's this (as of July 1, 2020 - during pandemic - according to Open Data Portal):

Councillor salary increased by $2,253 to $85,844 (2.7% increase)
Mayor's salary increased by $3,365 to $128,194 (2.7% increase)
Council Aide increased by $14,890 to $67,831 (28.1% increase) - partially deferred due to COVID
plus benefits for all.

The rhetoric from Councillor Nolan and some activists suggests that there was great confusion associated with the final contract proposal introduced only very late and approved during last Monday's meeting. It's true that those details should have been available long before that - maybe even weeks before - but almost all of the proposed contract is the same as the previous contract, including the annual 2.5% raises on July 1 of each year - the same as other City employees, including city councillors (see above). The only deviations are (a) that there should be a 2.5% increase at the signing of the contract; (b) the end date of the contract is July 5, 2022 (just 5 days after the final 2.5% raise); and (c) the removal of the provision for annual evaluations - which is not surprising given the fact that all indications are that this is a terminal contract extension.

My sense, and I have not spoken with anyone about this, is that the additional increases are more like consolation for an incredibly qualified city manager who is receiving a terminal contract extension for the most superficial of political reasons. There will be another municipal election a year from now and we can only hope that (a) some better candidates emerge who are more than just single-issue revolutionaries; and (b) that Cambridge voters somehow come to realize that City government is about more than just a few predictable hot-button issues. Maybe a big jump in residential property taxes will wake some voters from their slumber, but that likely won't raise even an eyebrow among other voters not actually writing the check to the City - even if the increases are factored into their rent.

Charter Right #1. A communication transmitted from Louis A. DePasquale, City Manager, relative to Awaiting Report Item Number 20-39 and 20-40, regarding contacting the new owners of Jerry's Pond and discussing next steps in the potential restoration and improvements to Jerry's Pond and its surrounding areas. [CHARTER RIGHT EXERCISED BY MAYOR SIDDIQUI IN COUNCIL SEPT 14, 2020]
Referred to NLTP Committee 9-0

Charter Right #2. That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to confer with the Traffic, Parking and Transportation Department, the Economic Development Department, the Harvard Square Business Association, the Harvard Square Neighborhood Association and Harvard University on the implementation of closing several blocks of streets in Harvard Square as soon as possible to vehicular traffic, with the exception of deliveries, using the attached map as one possible vision. [CHARTER RIGHT EXERCISED BY COUNCILLOR SIMMONS IN COUNCIL SEPT 14, 2020]
Adopted as Amended 8-0-0-1 (Toomey - PRESENT)

By the time any such changes might be implemented it will be late Fall or early Winter and any advantages for Harvard Square businesses will be moot. Maybe these might make sense in the Spring, but hopefully things will be better by then on the COVID front. Also, the particular plan proposed leaves a lot to be desired.

Applications & Petitions #1. A Zoning Petition Has been received from Cambridge Redevelopment Authority regarding a Zoning Ordinance to reflect the proposed changes to the KSURP.
Referred to Ordinance Committee & Planning Board 9-0

The proposed changes are related to the alternate site within the MXD District for the electrical substation that was the subject of much controversy over the last couple of years. In addition to the siting of the substation, the proposal also adjusts the timing for when previously planned housing will be delivered, increases permissible heights to 250 feet throughout the MXD District with the allowance of up to 400 feet for one residential building, plus other changes.

Order #2. Support for Extended Outdoor Dining PO.   Vice Mayor Mallon, Mayor Siddiqui, Councillor Simmons, Councillor Nolan
Order Adopted 9-0

This Order is about easing the permitting process for the use of outdoor heat lamps in order to allow restaurants to maintain their outdoor operations later into the season.

Order #3. That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to confer with Claude Jacob, Chief Public Health Officer, as to the feasibility of creating such a program [antibody testing for COVID-19] and report back to the City Council on this matter by Oct 12, 2020.   Mayor Siddiqui, Vice Mayor Mallon, Councillor Carlone, Councillor McGovern
Order Adopted 9-0

I'm not so sure what the added value of extensive COVID-related antibody testing will be at this point, but I look forward to the response from Claude Jacob. Information is great, but primarily if it can be used for a good purpose.

Order #6. That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to notify all tenants of abutting properties whenever property owners are notified, addressing them by name if known or as “RESIDENT” if not.   Councillor Zondervan, Councillor McGovern, Mayor Siddiqui, Councillor Nolan, Vice Mayor Mallon, Councillor Carlone, Councillor Simmons, Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councillor Toomey
Order Adopted as Amended 9-0

I'm sure my tenants will be absolutely captivated by this information judging from all those copies of glossy City publications that go sight unseen into the recycling bin.

Order #7. That the City Council go on record in support for requiring large sources of stormwater pollution to obtain permits under the Clean Water Act.   Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councillor Nolan, Councillor Zondervan, Councillor McGovern
Order Adopted 9-0

Good idea, but I think the main sources of pollutants that lead to cyanobacteria blooms are most likely upstream from Cambridge.

And then there's this:

A Special City Council meeting is scheduled for this Wednesday, September 23 at 5:30pm "to discuss a charter review with representatives of the Collins Center." A number of Cambridge listservs are now actively commenting on the notion of possibly changing the city's Plan E Charter. I have no idea if there are five votes on the City Council to pursue such a thing, but it does strike me as a strange pursuit based primarily on some city councillors simply not getting their way on every little thing.

I have some questions currently about whether our Proportional Representation election system is actually now producing a representative City Council and School Committee, but I lay the blame for that primarily on the laziness of voters rather than on the election system itself. It's also a big problem that we typically get candidates for City Council and School committee who are more interested in inflammatory single issues or ideology than they are in helping to effectively guide city government or the public schools. This, of course, has become a problem here and elsewhere regardless of the election system.

Regarding the matter of having professionally managed government with the City Council setting general policies versus a "strong mayor" system, I will simply suggest that you should be careful what you wish for. Strong mayor systems, like Boston, inevitably mean even weaker city councils and if a mayor owes his or her election to a slim majority in a popular election it's not at all uncommon that those who didn't vote for the mayor may be entirely shut out. It's also quite common that once elected, a mayor becomes "mayor for life" - in contrast with our tradition of having the Chair of the City Council and the School Committee turn over with some frequency.

In short, I think it's good to have an occasional review of the pros and cons of our Plan E Charter, but I wouldn't trust this current City Council, or the advocacy groups to whom some of them seem to be accountable, to decide on what, if anything, might preferably be changed. - Robert Winters

Comments?