Cambridge doesn’t write checks it can’t cash, but its officials and institutions aren’t shy about putting a pin in a calendar square and moving it when a date has come and gone without action.
Cambridge doesn’t write checks it can’t cash, but its officials and institutions aren’t shy about putting a pin in a calendar square and moving it when a date has come and gone without action.
Surely the most egregious missed deadline in the past year was city councillors’ flop of a “short-term process” to replace Robert W. Healy after three decades as city manager. Councillor Craig Kelley tried as far back as 2010 to get his peers thinking about a process, but they ignored the issue until Healy actually gave notice, adding nine months to buy time, then opting simply to promote Healy’s longtime deputy when it turns out they’d made no progress.
Lack of action on medical marijuana also raises questions about foot-dragging. Voters last year made pot legal as of Jan. 1, but the state put off action until its Department of Public Health issued regulations on dispensaries. It missed a May 1 deadline by seven days, but Cambridge, which had the largest pro-pot voting majority in the county (and among tops in the state), only started its own 180-day ban as of the issuing of the state’s rules. That deadline: Nov. 4. Will a six-month delay on top of the state’s four-month delay be enough? City Manager Richard C. Rossi promises nothing, telling the Cambridge Chronicle only that “The Health Department is working with other city departments to prepare zoning recommendations, which we hope to have to the City Council sometime this fall.”
Here are three more issues for which officials don’t seem too stressed about meeting the dates they used to sell policy to each other and the public:
Three new missed deadlines in Cambridge issues
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Surely the most egregious missed deadline in the past year was city councillors’ flop of a “short-term process” to replace Robert W. Healy after three decades as city manager. Councillor Craig Kelley tried as far back as 2010 to get his peers thinking about a process, but they ignored the issue until Healy actually gave notice, adding nine months to buy time, then opting simply to promote Healy’s longtime deputy when it turns out they’d made no progress.
Lack of action on medical marijuana also raises questions about foot-dragging. Voters last year made pot legal as of Jan. 1, but the state put off action until its Department of Public Health issued regulations on dispensaries. It missed a May 1 deadline by seven days, but Cambridge, which had the largest pro-pot voting majority in the county (and among tops in the state), only started its own 180-day ban as of the issuing of the state’s rules. That deadline: Nov. 4. Will a six-month delay on top of the state’s four-month delay be enough? City Manager Richard C. Rossi promises nothing, telling the Cambridge Chronicle only that “The Health Department is working with other city departments to prepare zoning recommendations, which we hope to have to the City Council sometime this fall.”
Here are three more issues for which officials don’t seem too stressed about meeting the dates they used to sell policy to each other and the public:
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