First campaign behind it, Citizens Coalition hopes for a ‘reset’ on overlay proposal, tone
The Cambridge Citizens Coalition congratulates all the newly elected City Council candidates, including our own slate-backed incumbent councillors Dennis Carlone and Quinton Zondervan and newly elected former School Committee member Patricia Nolan. The coalition also shares a number of key values and goals with non-incumbent council victor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler. He ran a brilliant campaign and we look forward to working with him – and others – in the years ahead. We will greatly miss slate member Craig Kelley on the council; he has been a hard-working representative who exercised a truly independent voice. We wish him well and know he will continue to make important contributions to this city.
The coalition also thanks our amazing group of first-time challengers Derek Kopon, John Pitkin, Ben Simon and Nicola Williams, who ran stellar campaigns. Their contributions to the candidate forums and other events helped draw attention to important issues such as a pathway to homeownership, affordable housing displacement, neighborhood engagement, smart growth and government transparency, as well as environmental and green space protection and universal pre-kindergarten.
We thank the dozens of coalition volunteers and contributors, as well as the 100-plus Cambridge citizens who attended our open forum for council candidates Oct. 6 and helped launch this, our initial, election campaign.
CCC is a new civic association, founded in May and adding a political action committee just as the election season got underway. Our goal has been to encourage a broad, citywide vision for Cambridge, including issues important to our diverse neighborhoods. In our campaign literature we made use of publicly available data in our advocacy for financial reform in promoting greater transparency. We appreciate the substantial work undertaken by Robert Winters of the Cambridge Civic Journal, both for publishing ongoing election data and for his long record of civic involvement.
The A Better Cambridge group that we opposed in this election has long enjoyed a majority on the City Council, with five incumbents running for reelection. With the reelection of two incumbent councillors on the coalition slate (Carlone and Zondervan) and the addition of non-incumbent coalition slate victor Patricia Nolan, we hope following the election hiatus that the council will reset core elements of the proposed Affordable Housing Overlay and also the tone of deliberations – on this, and other important issues facing the city.
With our citywide board of 23 directors and our great advisory group members, we hope to have a stronger role in and impact on the city for years to come. We invite other residents to learn more about us at CCCoalition.org and consider joining our efforts. We look forward to strong advocacy engagement not only this coming year, but in future elections.
Cambridge Citizens Coalition Executive Committee
This slate failed on their stated mission to educate voters on the Affordable Housing Overlay and instead focused on negative campaigning and politically driven falsehoods.
Their hubris continues here with this blatant attempt to take any credit for the hard work of these recently elected officials.
Aligning with this PAC in the future will be toxic for any candidate.
Best they just go away.
Ok boomers had their vote and lost. Let’s get on with building.
I’m confused. Is this the Kelly Dolan who was so brilliant and informed as to help readers of neighborhood next door to understand the many issues actually supported by this new group? I’m sure there are growing pains but it will be interesting to see how CCC develops and settles in as an alternative voice to Andrew’s (errr… tagusco) constantly caustic retorts. We will not know how the next council will emerge what with personalities of the new players. Let’s hope there is a more thoughtful, transparent and deliberative process. It should not be “us against them” as tone-deaf Andrew’s comment indicates. If so, there will be no room to look at some of the true consequences and real sticking points in the overlay.
There is also the resurrection of Envision Cambridge which has many contradictory details that need to be ironed out. From the 176 actions identified by the public of what they want to see in Cambridge, 37 goals were gleaned. It will show the need to identify the 55 strategies and actions, determine vision and values, looking at community well-being, urban form, climate and environment, housing, have meetings with public about community “trade-offs” identified in conflicting goals of Envision, and as a long document– find conflicts as written and debate community impact. This will be a long process. So what gets priority in this conflict? it is not a one-size-fits-all. Housing is embedded in all this.
There has not been a land use study since 2015, so how can any of this really move forward cohesively? So “get on with building” (coming from a man who purportedly just bought a single family multi-million dollar house) is totally irresponsible. So no, boomers have not entirely “lost”. The goal is a more sustainable Cambridge for everyone and I appreciate the civic efforts by residents who are trying to hold officials accountable.
To quote Margaret Mead:
“Never doubt that a group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has!”
And to paraphrase Rachel Carson (currently on the side of the Church St theatre)– “Indication of harm, not proof of harm” should be our goal. By the time it has been proven, it is too late…
Idealistic yes, but why not?
As for the next election, that is 2 yrs away.
The evidence for the polarization perpetrated by these two opposing groups throughout the entire election is clearly demonstrated above.
As long as these negative voices dominate the discourse we will be unable to effectively discuss and find consensus on very important issues.
As my public posts have continued to try and emphasize.
I am so sorry that while no doubt your motive is good and basic preface has some truth to it, the tone and language continues to be off-putting and your message is being lost.
It is a shame. You could have some teachable moments instead of being so abrasive. You are contributing to that polarizing lstance. Perhaps if leaders of these groups can take more time looking at the consequenses of
their actions, and you could re-consider your own delivery which is incredibly harsh at times. No one will listen which again would be a shame. Every voice is needed. Thank you for yours.
One comment earlier characterized the members of the Cambridge Citizens Coalition as Boomers which seemed to be meant as a derogatory comment. I doubt if all Cambridge residents between the ages of 54 and 72 are all to be looked down upon as incompetent. Why, some of our City Councillors are old enough to be members of the Boomer generation, not to mention many city administration executives. Furthermore, many members of the CCC are younger than 54 and older than 72. So, it seems it might be nicer not to make such Trump-like comments, but, rather, one hopes that all Cambridge citizens will try to work together in a manner that builds community and promotes benefits for all. Please, let’s stop the name-calling.
Some comments by others above seem to be made based on a lack of knowledge about the Cambridge Citizens Coalition. In all of their publications and internet postings, they always sought to explain the issues rationally. They did not engage in attacking members of other PACs or the public in print media or public discourse. They offered rational explanations of the issues being discussed during the recent election cycle. I’m guessing that anyone characterizing the mission of CCC had not been reading anything they posted or published.
Another PAC in the city attacked members of the CCC via:
Twitter accounts, email, face-to-face confrontations, in the press, on neighborhood groups, and through any other means possible. I may be wrong, but I don’t recall anyone from CCC attacking other people or groups. They simply engaged in trying to educate the public about the pros and cons of various issues and in publishing facts and data. It saddened me to see that the winds have brought the negatively and hate from Washington to our city. It seems that it is not productive or neighborly to attack others here in Cambridge, but rather just explaining one’s political viewpoints with facts should be all that is necessary. It can be done without attacking other fellow citizens in Cambridge who may have a different viewpoint.