Robert Winters – Cambridge City Council Candidate – 2023

Cambridge Municipal Election - Tuesday, November 7, 2023

A Different Kind of Candidate

Now It’s My Turn To Speak — by Robert Winters

I’m not here to promise you the world or to slay any dragons. I simply want to be your representative.

I have been actively involved in civic affairs, voter education, and advocacy for over three decades and I would like the opportunity to have a vote in matters of consequence. This is a time when many residents have come to feel that most of the city councillors are too busy pursuing their own private agendas to actually take the time to listen to people. A heartfelt petition sent to the City Council signed by nearly a thousand residents was simply “Placed on File” without discussion or referral to an appropriate subcommittee. Apparently, the only available “Means of Redress” is the municipal election - and that’s not really a good mechanism for matters that come up during a City Council term.

I first became involved in civic affairs when I was appointed by Mayor Al Vellucci to a “Water & Sewer Advisory Committee” in the 1980s. I can’t say that we accomplished much of anything, but I learned a lot about the city’s infrastructure and I have been an “aquavangelist” ever since. I also met a lot of people who remain friends to this day. That’s one of the rarely mentioned benefits of serving on City boards - building relationships with other civic-minded people. This is something most of the purely political people will likely never understand or appreciate.

In the late 1980s I joined with a small group of residents to organize Cambridge’s all-volunteer drop-off recycling program that eventually became the curbside recycling program that we have today. At its peak we had almost 500 volunteers and we successfully lobbied to make recycling a permanant part of the Public Works Department. This was brutally hard work, but it led to lifelong friendships among the volunteers - especially the core group who did most of the organizing and handled all the logistics. My orange and brown VW Bus served as the supply vehicle and the place where volunteers could grab some food and coffee during our long work days at the Sherman Street site.

I was the guy on the other end of the Recycling Hotline for five years after the curbside recycling program was successfully established and handled lots of calls every day. We used an answering machine in those days that was located in the radio tower at DPW. I also was appointed to the Recycling Advisory Committee and served for the next 22 years.

In the early 1990s I also took on my next project – promoting backyard composting and distributing compost bins. In order to do this I created the nonprofit Cambridge Recycling, Inc. for the primary purpose of purchasing compost bins from the manufacturers and selling them at cost to residents. During those years my basement often looked like a warehouse, but we got the job done. My home phone number was at the desk of DPW and on the recycling information distributed by the City, and I received countless calls from people wanting to know about composting or compost bins. I enjoyed being “Compost Man” and made a lot of friends along the way. We distributed ~2000 bins before turning the job over to the good folks in the Recycling Division at DPW. I still occasionally get calls about composting and composters.

My next major involvement in the 1990s was the promotion of proportional representation (PR) and ranked-choice-voting. Cambridge had been using PR since 1941 but we were the only place in the USA still using it - even though some form of PR is used in most democracies around the world. We understood that no other municipality would ever adopt our system when they discovered that “The Count” took nearly a week to complete, so we got the bright idea to advocate for the computerization of the Cambridge elections. David Goode and I convinced Sheila Russell to submit a City Council order to explore the idea, and this led to the creation of the Technical Working Committee for Computerization of the Cambridge Elections (TWCC) on which I served and which led to the first computer count in 1997. I have served in an advisory capacity to the Election Commission ever since.

I have to admit that during the 1990s I was also a City Council candidate. In fact, in 1993 I got the #1 endorsement from the Cambridge Chronicle and the Cambridge Tab. That was a good education for me about the political side of Cambridge (as opposed to the civic side). I am actually using the buttons, bumper stickers, and yard signs this year that we ordered 30 years ago. How about that for Reduce, Reuse and Recycle!

In September 1997 I got the bright idea early one morning after a sleepless night to create the newsletter “Central Square News” which I soon renamed the “Cambridge Civic Journal”. That started out as a printed newsletter that was also distributed via email. It later became an online publication (curiously located at rwinters.com because that was the domain I claimed in my later days as a candidate). This year I re-claimed the subdomain http://vote.rwinters.com as my candidate site. It’s sobering to think that I have now been maintaining the Cambridge Civic Journal for more than a quarter-century.

By the way, someone recent raised the issue of whether someone who maintains a website coving Cambridge could also be a candidate. For that, I simply note that Edward J. Sennott was the editor/reporter for The Cambridge Reporter and was later elected as an at-large city councillor for Cambridge. He died unexpectedly on the eve of the 1933 municipal election. It is a remarkable coincidence that at that time his address was 366 Broadway – the triple-decker I have owned since 1985 and where I have lived since February 1978. I don’t yet know for sure, but Ned may even have lived in my apartment. Sennott Park in The Port is named for Ned Sennott.

I have taken on countless tasks with the Cambridge Civic Journal over the years - all in the quest for education about civic (and occasionally political) affairs in and around Cambridge. I have a particular penchant for all things historical in Cambridge, and that included compiling a record of all of the candidates and all of the elections since 1941 including all the details of each of the PR Counts which I update every two years. This is now THE place where everyone goes to access that information. Even though Cambridge operates under the Plan E Charter, there didn’t used to be anywhere on the City’s website that actually spelled out the Plan E Charter or the law governing our PR elections, so I created web pages and documentation for these. [My documents were later downloaded and made available on the City’s website - with my blessing.]

One thing that always disturbed me was how there was no level playing field for candidates in our municipal elections. That’s why I created the Cambridge Candidate Pages - to create a uniform interface and gallery where voters could find out about all the candidates - in their own words and with links to their own candidate sites. I never expressed opinions or preferences on the Candidate Pages. In recent Cambridge elections, they have received as high as 21,656 unique visitors and 150,374 individual pages viewed in the days leading up to the municipal election. Strange as this may seem, I am still maintaining these pages for all candidates - even though I am now a candidate myself. Worry not – it rarely takes me more than a few minutes to upload the information and images for any candidate, though I sometimes wish I had some help. Nevertheless, I see this as my duty and responsibility.

Starting in 2013 I have been hosting Cambridge InsideOut on Cambridge Community Television (CCTV). We have now broadcast almost 600 half-hour programs. The name is borrowed from the original Cambridge Inside Out show created and hosted by Glenn Koocher with regular panelists Barbara Ackermann, Saundra Graham, Tom Rafferty, and Marty Foster.

I also served on the City’s Green Ribbon Open Space Committee as well as the Library 21 Committee. In addition to generating good ideas, these endeavors also led to some great friendships. I can never recommend enough the many benefits of serving on City boards and commissions. It is perhaps unfortunate that they have been subject to political influences more recently – and objectivity, creativity, and responsiveness to city residents may be a casualty of this trend. [My current wish is that they take most of these meetings out of Zoom and reserve that option only for remote access for those unable to attend in person.]

I have served on the Central Square Advisory Committee since 2001 and have been its most active participating member. I hope the only reason that may end will be my election as a city councillor.

I also served on the Envision Cambridge Advisory Committee as well as its Housing Working Group. This was a “learning experience” in how City staff has come to dominate and in many ways direct the outcomes of what are supposed to be collaborative efforts between residents and other essential parties.

I also wanted very much to serve on the current Charter Review Committee – since I felt I was perhaps the most qualified person in the city for that role, but that’s an intriguing story perhaps best told elsewhere – and a good indicator of how the current City Council now often acts privately in ways that they’ll never acknowledge publicly. Nonetheless, John Pitkin, Gregorio Leon, and I researched and produced (with a few voice-overs by Jim Braude) the half-hour video “The Cambridge City Charter: From Town Meeting to Plan E” in order to provide some historical context on how we eventually came to adopt our current Charter. We are planning additional episodes – though the municipal election is definitely competing for our time.

By the way, I also have a Ph.D. in Mathematics and teach Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Ordinary Differential Equations courses at the Harvard Extension School and Harvard Summer School. I have previously held various faculty positions at Boston University, Wellesley College, Harvard University, Brandeis University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I also have a vast collection of underground comics and the complete run of the National Lampoon. I also created the National Lampoon Covers page. [This may at least partially explain my iconoclastic sense of humor.] I am also the webmaster, Board member, principal walk leader, and publisher of the Towpath Topics newsletter for the Middlesex Canal Association.

As I mentioned above, I am neither a dragon-slayer nor someone who would ever feel comfortable making big promises that only a majority of city councillors and the cooperation of City staff could ever possibly deliver, but I can list a number of statements, principles, priorities, and ideas that may either distinguish me from other candidates or make me sound just like the other candidates. Here’s a list (more to come as the spirit moves me):

• The job of a city councillor is to listen to residents and to represent them - first and foremost.
• A “90% solution” is almost always better than a “mandate” that either does damage to some residents or greatly angers a sizable number of residents.
• Incentives and education are generally better than mandates.
• Though my principal mode of transportation during my 45 years in Cambridge was my bicycle, I am very sympathetic to the concerns of residents, motorists, and business operators who have been subjected to “quick-build” separated bicycle lanes that in some cases have turned relatively quiet roads into obstacle courses. Some of these have been improvements, and some have not. All policies need to be regularly reviewed and possibly amended, and I would never sign a “pledge” swearing to never reconsider any given policy or ordinance, including the Cycling Safety Ordinance.
• I have provided housing at affordable rents to my tenants for over 35 years. I want there to be housing options that are affordable to people with a broad range of incomes and circumstances, but I do not believe that simply declaring an emergency should give City appointees or developers - nonprofit or otherwise - unfettered license to do as they please and in a manner that is dramatically contrary to prevailing development patterns or the base zoning for a given area. We have Special Permit processes that grant some reasonable additional height and density if certain criteria are met and subject to approval by the Planning Board. That kind of process is greatly preferable to the current or proposed revisions to the so-called “Affordable Housing Overlay”. Simply saying “we have to do something” should never provide license to do something you may later come to regret.
  • Here’s an excerpt for the notes of the October 11, 2018 meeting of the Envision Cambridge Housing Working Group. The “One member” referenced here was me and my views on this subject have not changed:
    “One member expressed his frustration that the group was focusing as much as it was on policies and targets related to regulated affordable housing, rather than addressing general housing affordability. He said that he hoped the Envision process would help address housing affordability. He said that while he would support increasing density throughout the city, he expressed concerns about the affordable housing overlay which he thought would unfairly advantage one type of developer over another. He suggested that it might not be legal to provide zoning benefits to developers of affordable housing over any other type of developer. He said that he believes that if the community wants more regulated affordable housing, the City should use tax dollars to pay for that rather than through zoning. Several members pointed out that there were several other actions in the group’s recommendations designed to address general affordability issues and that the overlay is just one approach to help solve the affordability problem in Cambridge. It was also noted that there are other ways to expand the existing stock such as additions, basement units, accessory units, and the like.”
• I completely agree with the goal of weaning people off fossil fuels as one part of combatting problematic climate changes. That said, I also believe in allowing people to make choices based on economic, aesthetic, and practical considerations. Altering building codes to have new buildings meet new standards is desirable, but we should never sweat the small stuff like forcing residents or houses of worship to pay for exhorbitant retrofits that yield minimal gains. In addition, policy-makers need to take into account what the existing regional infrastructure can actually deliver and at what cost.

I have been known to express some points of view on our Cambridge InsideOut show. Here are several of our most recent programs (Sept 5 and Sept 19, 2023):

Here’s a sampler of pieces posted on the CCJ Forum [all postings listed here]:

• An Idea Whose Time Has Come Again – Redress of Grievances (1/26/2023) by Robert Winters
• Completing the Square [June 11, 2013] by Robert Winters
• Sheila Doyle Russell – City Councillor, Mayor, and Friend (12/13/2022) by Robert Winters
• A word or two about Cambridge property tax increases (11/1/2022) by Robert Winters
• Cambridge City Charter Review – Resources (10/27/2022) by Robert Winters
• April 1 Cambridge News – Somerville Invades Cambridge! (4/1/2022) by Robert Winters
• Plan E Cambridge School Committees (and Mayors) At A Glance (1/21/2022) by Robert Winters
• Plan E Cambridge City Councils At A Glance (1/21/2022) by Robert Winters
• Election Method Comparison – STV/Cincinnati vs. Fractional Transfer – 2021 Cambridge City Council Election (1/15/2022) by Robert Winters
• Final 2021 Cambridge Election Results (11/13/2021) by Robert Winters
• HOW TO BREAK A POLITICAL MACHINE – Collier’s Magazine, Jan 31, 1948 (3/27/2021) by Robert Winters
• A few observations on density (2/16/2021) by Robert Winters
• Cambridge Growth Policy – Toward a Sustainable Future (10/31/2018) by Robert Winters
• Civic Nerdiness (1/14/2018) by Robert Winters
• The Shifting Demographic (11/23/2017) by Robert Winters
• 2017 Cambridge Election Results – Bar Graphs (11/13/2017) by Robert Winters
• All the News That’s Printed to Fit – April 1, 2017 (4/1/2017) by Robert Winters
• Catching Up on the Cambridge News – April 1, 2016 (4/1/2016) by Robert Winters
• April 1 Cambridge News (4/1/2015) by Robert Winters
• The Advent of PR in Cambridge (11/10/2013) by Robert Winters
• Some thoughts on the 2013 municipal election campaign on the eve of Election Day (11/2/2013) by Robert Winters
• A quick word on another City Council candidate forum (10/9/2013) by Robert Winters
• April 1 Cambridge News (4/1/2013) by Robert Winters
• On becoming a True Cantabrigian (12/29/2012) by Robert Winters

This is the campaign website for Robert Winters and will grow in the weeks to come as time permits. There is also my Candidate Page in the gallery of the full Cambridge Candidate Pages.

Robert Winters
366 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
Tel: 617-661-9230
Robert@rwinters.com

Born 1955 in Astoria, New York City (just like Tony Bennett and Patrick McGoohan!); lived in Whitestone, New York from 1956 until 1977, and Flagstaff, Arizona (1977); resident of Cambridge, MA since February 1978.

More to come, but in the meantime here are some pictures - some embarassing, some not:

My friends refer to this as my Opie phase:
 

I literally grew up under an oak tree. The tree predates the house and it’s still there (and bigger) - over a century later:

My first foray into candidacy - Flushing High School, 1973 (and I plan to go to the 50th Reunion this year)

Then I was something of a “hippie”
 

which I really took to the limit while living briefly in California:

Beginning in 1989, I helped get Cambridge’s recycling program started. In 1992 I formed Cambridge Recycling, Inc. which for many years purchased backyard composters and provided them at cost (and even set them up) to many Cambridge households. My phone number was on the reference sheet at Cambridge DPW for many years.
 

After that, I was urged to be a candidate (back in the 1990s)

In 1997, I started publishing the Cambridge Civic Journal - originally as a print and email newsletter.
   

As part of that effort, I created the Cambridge Candidate Pages in 2003 as a means of leveling the playing field for all candidates, and that tradition continues.

Starting in 2013 we started doing the TV show Cambridge InsideOut (with the name borrowed with the permission of Glenn Koocher who did the original
Cambridge Inside Out show for many years along with panelists Barbara Ackermann, Saundra Graham, Tom Rafferty, and Marty Foster.

I was a Preceptor of Mathematics in the Harvard University Mathematics Department from 1994 through 2001, and I continue to teach Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Ordinary Differential Equations courses at the Harvard Extension School and Harvard Summer School. I intend to continue teaching regardless of the outcome in the municipal election because nobody should give up their regular job in order to serve in elective office.

To be continued.......