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Summers in Massachusetts are long, heated, and at times uncomfortable — and the Cambridge City Council’s sole summer meeting was no different.
During the Monday meeting — which lasted more than six hours and ended just before midnight — the Council reviewed 85 agenda items. Councilors discussed ongoing lawsuits against the Cambridge Police Department, citywide efforts to make commercial buildings more environmentally friendly, and zoning and land use regulations.
The meeting took a turn for the personal when Councilor E. Denise Simmons took a shot at her outgoing colleague Quinton Y. Zondervan as he attempted to state a point of order.
“I’m sick to death. I don’t care if you speak or not,” Simmons said. “You do this all the time. You use a point of order to hijack the process.”
Simmons continued, remarking that “it’s time for us to reign some folks in” and told Zondervan he was “finished now.”
In response, Zondervan raised a point of personal privilege.
“I do not appreciate the way my colleague just spoke to me,” he said. “That was very rude and inappropriate.”
Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui quickly shifted the meeting towards the next agenda item, telling Simmons and Zondervan to resolve their conflict outside of the chambers.
The brief commotion came as the Council discussed a policy order — sponsored by Zondervan — requesting that City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 work with the Cambridge Law Department and the Cambridge Police Department to inform the Council of all “outstanding and recent” lawsuits involving the police department or its individual officers.
The policy order states that the Law Department is “in some cases expending resources to defend or support members of CPD who are named as defendants in some lawsuits,” of which the Council “has a right to be informed.”
Councilors said they were made aware of this issue by an anonymous email from a person who claimed to have an ongoing lawsuit against a police officer in which the city solicitor — who falls under the Law Department — was involved.
Simmons opposed the policy order and questioned whether the Council should act based on an “unsubstantiated” claim from an anonymous source. She also suggested that the scrutiny placed on lawsuits should extend beyond CPD to other departments across the city.
The policy order was ultimately passed later in the meeting in a bulk vote with seven in favor and two absences. Councilors Dennis J. Carlone and Alanna M. Mallon — neither of whom will be seeking reelection — left the meeting before the vote.
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Still grappling with the aftermath of months of citywide reckoning over the police killing of Sayed Faisal in January — Cambridge’s first in more than 20 years — the Council also discussed a long-awaited report recommending guidelines for releasing an officer’s name following a “critical incident.”
Released by the Police Executive Research Forum — a national police research and policy organization — the report found that CPD would not have violated legal or ethical guidelines by releasing the name of the officer who shot Faisal in the weeks immediately following the incident.
Protesters have repeatedly called on the city to release the names of all officers involved in the shooting — though Cambridge officials have maintained they cannot do so until after the completion of an investigation by the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.
Councilor Patricia M. Nolan ’80 remarked that no other police departments in Massachusetts have written policies regarding the release of officer names.
“We do need to move forward with urgency, and yet we will be building new ground,” Nolan said.
Calling on the State House
The Council also reviewed a series of initiatives calling on wider state-level support.
Zondervan sponsored a policy order that called on Huang, the city manager, to meet with Governor Maura T. Healey ’92 and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation to “discuss resuming Saturday closures to traffic this summer and mitigating the traffic impacts, including by making potential traffic signal adjustments.”
Efforts to close Memorial Drive during both Saturday and Sunday have been a longstanding priority for the Council and Cambridge at large. For the past three years, the road has been closed to traffic across the entire weekend — a policy that was changed in April, limiting closures to Sundays only.
This latest policy order was presented in response to a trove of internal documents regarding the state’s decision to end Saturday closures of Memorial Drive that were released last month.
One of the documents — a memo from Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Rebecca Tepper to Healey — contained multiple factual inaccuracies. The memo stated that it is “not clear” whether DCR has authority for the closures, despite an earlier email from the department’s general counsel Tom LaRosa stating the opposite.
In response to the errors found in these files, Zondervan urged the state to reevaluate the decision to roll back Saturday closures of Memorial Drive.
“The new records reveal extensive misinformation,” he wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, about the policy order on Wednesday. “The decision needs to be reconsidered!”
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The Council also went “on record in enthusiastic support” of the Philippine Human Rights Act and urged U.S. Representatives Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) to co-sponsor the bill.
Zondervan — voicing concerns also expressed by several Cambridge residents during public comment — condemned the presence of Elbit Systems, an international defense electronics company, for its role in supporting “the U.S.’ neocolonialist interference in the Philippines” and “human rights abuses against the Filipino people.”
“This policy order is a request to our congressional delegation to sign on to a bill that pushes back against these horrible actions carried out in our name, using our tax dollars, by a company operating in our fair city,” Zondervan said.
Nolan objected to the inclusion of Elbit in the order, noting that the military equipment supplied to the Philippines originated from Elbit Systems Israel, which she says is “separately incorporated and has a completely separate board” from Elbit Systems America. She added that Elbit’s Cambridge office currently has “15 all-medical engineer employees” and that their work is intended to be primarily medical.
“If we want to criticize the Philippines and their human rights record, let’s do it openly and be impartial and consistent,” she said. “We can do that without naming any individual company.”
Nolan proposed an amendment to remove Elbit from the order, which passed 6-2-1, with Zondervan and Siddiqui voting against and Burhan Azeem voting present. The order passed 7-0-2, with Azeem and Paul F. Toner voting present.
Cutting Cambridge Emissions
Amid efforts to move Cambridge toward net-zero emissions, the Council exempted restaurants from a proposed city ordinance regulating fossil fuel use.
Called the “Fossil Fuel Free Demonstration,” the ordinance would require new buildings and existing buildings undergoing major renovations to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in favor of electrical equipment as part of a statewide program open to 10 qualifying municipalities.
Councilors debated a flurry of amendments concerning the details of how the ordinance would impact restaurants, beginning with an amendment advanced from the previous meeting exempting restaurants from the ordinance until 2035.
Nolan proposed a change to the wording of the amendment — whose language was provided by the Cambridge Community Development Department — that would subject restaurants to the same requirements as other buildings.
“We would not be the only one to not exempt restaurants,” Nolan said, citing Brookline as a city set to enforce fossil fuel restrictions on food establishments. “I think it also sends the message that we are not ready to do this.”
Instead of a blanket exclusion for restaurants, Nolan’s language would allow restaurants to apply for a waiver if the desired electrical equipment is “not available or is unreasonably cost-prohibitive.”
Nolan’s amendment failed in a 4-5 vote, and a subsequent amendment suggested by Carlone — and motioned by Zondervan — that would only exclude restaurants until 2030 failed in a 4-4-1 vote.
“This discussion gets more complicated as each person speaks,” Carlone said.
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The ordinance was ultimately passed with the language proposed by CDD. It will also need to be submitted to the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources for review. Once approved, the ordinance will go into effect either three months later or on Jan. 1, 2024 — whichever date falls first.
Councilors also voted on another policy order seeking to enroll Cambridge in state-funded programs supporting environmentally sustainable equipment.
Launched in July 2020, the Property Assessed Clean Energy — a Massachusetts financial program — helps provide financial support to owners of commercial, industrial, and multifamily buildings to make energy improvements to existing facilities as well as financing improvements for up to 20 years.
The policy order discussed Monday requested Huang work with city departments to determine how Cambridge can participate in the program.
Nolan said it was a “very exciting moment” for the city to be joining the program.
“Many of us have been hoping and working towards this for a long time,” she added. “This is something the Council has gone on record as wanting from a policy order from 2020.”
The order was unanimously adopted with all eight councilors and the mayor voting yes.
Simmons also proposed — and later withdrew — a policy order for the creation of a compliance advisory committee dedicated to helping the city reach its climate goals.
Tied to the Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance — which requires owners of large buildings to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and track and report their annual energy use to Cambridge — the advisory committee would have provided technical assistance for buildings to reduce their emissions to net-zero by 2035.
Though Simmons ultimately withdrew the policy order due to concerns that it would be redundant with measures and services that already exist, she added it was “unfortunate” to be “losing an opportunity to be more responsive to people in the community.”
On Chickens and the National Guard
The Council voted to move forward with an independent appraisal for the city to purchase a 30,752 square foot parcel of the National Guard Armory of Cambridge from the Massachusetts government.
While the city’s own appraisal values the property — currently a parking lot — at $5.38 million, a final appraisal by the Massachusetts Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance will be conducted before the Council votes on whether to move forward with the purchase.
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Nolan said she was surprised by the estimated cost of the property, which is landlocked so as to only be accessible through city or state-owned land.
“It is more than I would’ve thought for a slice of land that no one else can use,” she said, adding that DCAMM has recently assessed armories in Newton and New Bedford for $1 and $10, respectively.
The property is located next to the Tobin School and Vassal Lane Upper School campus, and city staff said it could be used to expand sports fields, create learning areas, and increase open space.
Though the property is landlocked, it is part of a larger parcel that has street frontage, which makes it buildable for development. Nolan has advocated for the city to acquire the entire armory property and use it for affordable housing since her first term on the Council in 2020.
Councilors Marc C. McGovern and Toner said that they would prefer for the city to acquire the whole armory property if possible.
“They’re not making land anymore,” Carlone said. “We have to grab this, it’s as simple as that.”
Following discussion of the armory, councilors left the chamber for a 45-minute executive session to “discuss the purchase, exchange, lease or value of real property.” Huang requested the private session because “discussion in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the public body.”
Upon their return to the chamber, councilors discussed and voted to pass 15 policy orders, including an order requesting that the city manager review a proposed zoning ordinance amendment that would legalize the keeping of chickens in Cambridge.
This is the third time in the past 13 years that councilors have attempted to legalize chicken keeping, which has been illegal since Cambridge’s zoning ordinance was created in 1924. The current proposed amendment is based on language from a 2017 amendment that legalized beekeeping.
Zondervan explained that the impetus for this amendment was a cease and desist letter served to a West Cambridge family that has chicken coops in their yard. The letter did not come from neighbor complaints — in fact, no complaints have been reported and a dozen letters have been written in support — but rather from city inspectors, who noticed the coops when performing an unrelated inspection of the family’s property.
The family is currently facing fines of $300 a day and up to $12,000 in legal fees to appeal the inspectors’ finding.
“This is something that was supposed to be done a while ago, we didn’t do it, and now it’s costing them money,” McGovern said. “The sooner we do this, the better.”
The Council will resume its weekly meetings on Monday, Sept. 11.
—Staff writer Julian J. Giordano can be reached at julian.giordano@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @jjgiordano1.
—Staff writer Claire Yuan can be reached at claire.yuan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @claireyuan33.
