I am a bad Massachusetts state resident. I keep postponing my jury duty date, I don’t have a state ID or license, and I didn’t register on time to vote in the midterm elections. But, I took my first step Monday night to becoming a better resident of the Bay State—because it was a homework assignment. I have to cover the municipal governing of the city of Cambridge for a journalism class. On Monday night I attended my first city council meeting, at Cambridge’s City Hall.
The meeting, which lasted 3.5 hours, opened with comments by the public. All of the people who spoke were very informed residents of Cambridge who attended to present their grievances about various issues—Comcast’s contracts, too few residential parking spaces, among other things. Daily annoyances which everyone seems to complain about but few actually do much about. Although I am not sure what exactly was done to fix their grievances. Mayor Maher (what a repetitive name…) just nodded his head at their suggestions, as he did throughout most of the meeting.
The rest of the meeting covered every day issues from snow to parking to future issues like Cambridge’s economic development. After receiving complaints, the city manager explained how they were responding to the snow plowing problems, even though Cambridge’s response seems to be much quicker than that of Boston or Brookline. They said they couldn’t just dump the snow anywhere: if dumped in the Charles, contamination problems could arise; if dumped on a baseball field, Little Leaguers won’t be able to play come spring. The city manager admitted that not all of the snow problems could be fixed.
A lot of the conversation focused on the move of a Cambridge-based pharmaceutical company, Vertex, to Boston’s Fan Pier neighborhood. The Council estimated that this move will cause the loss of 1,600 jobs as well as commercial tax revenue from the vacant office space. Many of the workers at Vertex were eating, shopping and walking around the mom and pop shops in Central Square, who will face a blow to their business.
This relocation sparked talk of the Boston-Cambridge rivalry. One of the councilmen blatantly said, “I’m concerned with the residents of Cambridge, not of Boston.” Another councilman blamed Mayor Menino for being really desperate for commercial tax revenue.
“And what do desperate people do? They steal,” the councilman said.
This 45 minute discussion about Vertex and the need to discover what incentives were given to them to relocate was probably the most interesting part of the extremely long meeting. The rest was frankly boring and filled with discussion of broken sidewalks and the future of Kendall Square, all in a jargon I hope to pick up.
Even though the meeting was long, I suggest everyone to attend at least one such meeting so they understand the intricacies of how their city works and not play the blame game on any specific person. Although for you it may be a one time deal, I have the great pleasure of attending at least three more of these this semester!
