Worst of 2020 was the town hall held for business before any meeting held for struggling residents
A flyer at 1369 Coffee House in Central Square called for help for staff in March. (Photo: Marc Levy)
My “worst” of 2020 came at the beginning of the pandemic.
It was an insane few weeks for me. My phone rang constantly with people pleading for help: distant relatives of elderly residents asking me to help their loved ones; elderly or disabled residents asking me to run errands – picking up needed medicine, groceries, even batteries for hearing aids. It was an exhausting, highly stressful time. Not only for the constant running around East Cambridge, but for fear of infecting my own family and neighbors, or myself.
I would email our City Council, including the Mayor’s Office, pleading for assistance. No reply.
Then I learned that Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and vice mayor Alanna Mallon decided to hold a town hall for local businesses, before holding a similar event for residents. I took part, but after 45 minutes of self-congratulatory comments from city officials and even members of Congress, I became disgusted. As I said in March, for city elected officials to put businesses before residents is simply negligent.
Of all the 20-plus opinion pieces I’ve written over the years, what I wrote about that town hall brought the second-most comments via email, social media or texts (topped only by a piece about the School Committee N-word controversy in 2019). Yes, I kept records.
If one single person in city leadership simply said it was wrong or a mistake to have held such a town hall for business first, I would have long ago let this go. It still makes me angry that those in positions of such importance don’t seem to get that people should come before the city coffers.
Emmanuel “Manny” Lusardi is a longtime immigrant advocate and former liaison for immigrant affairs to the Cambridge Mayor’s Office.
I have so often echoed your last sentence in public testimony. I have recently started to wonder if this is a lingering effect of the early days of the Healy administration, when the City was in financial trouble, and his policies pulled it out. It seems to me that the City has ever since prioritized pulling in tax money over everything else, no matter what they say publicly. I hope local historians will tell me if my hunch is right or not.
Peace Be Unto You,
My friend where have you been? The city policy makers have been turning a blinded eye towards it’s citizens and residents, for decades and as of today it hasn’t ended. Take for example the poor and black segments of Cambridge, nothing significant in the way of economic and racial equity has been extended out to them in years, only piecemeal and token considerations issued. Look at the homeless, their still getting sick and dying out in the streets with no permanent housing, and the beat goes on, that is the turning a blinded eye treatment is still being played into effect.
Yours In Peace
Hasson Rashid
Concerned Citizen