Charter review themes: Longer councillor terms, maybe electing Cambridge leaders ward by ward
A display of campaign signs from 2017 at Chester Street in Cambridge. (Photo: Marc Levy)
The next version of Cambridge’s charter may well call for four-year City Council terms rather than two, staggered elections, a new way of choosing mayors, term limits and even a ward system in which councillors run and represent distinct parts of the city – all ideas discussed Oct. 25 in the third meeting of a Charter Review Committee.
Underlying much of the so-far very theoretical conversation was concern about the relationship between the city manager and council, with debates that will sound familiar to anyone following local politics over past years, as well as about how the city manager form of government reflects the values of Cantabrigians.
Any eventual changes would be among the first major updates in 80 years to the city charter and its “Plan E” form of government, which establishes that there will be a city manager appointed by a relatively weak city council, which picks a mayor from among its own ranks to chair meetings and represent the city ceremonially.
The exploring of options was approved by voters in the November elections. To a ballot question testing interest in having a charter review process every 10 years, starting with this year, 15,251 were in favor and 5,305 were opposed – or 74 percent to 26 percent.
After getting the 15-member group organized, chair Kathleen Born and advisers from the Collins Center for Public Management at the University of Massachusetts at Boston used the meeting last month to gauge the topics of most interest – “what this charter process should be about,” in the words of the Collins Center’s Elizabeth Corbo. “The things that you think are working well in Cambridge, and the things that maybe are not working so well.”
The first members to speak, Mosammat Faria Afreen and Kai Long, captured much of the next hour’s biggest points. While Afreen focused on the “power imbalance” between the city manager and council in setting the city’s budget, Long expanded that to resetting decision-making in Cambridge more broadly. “Everything we do can’t just be around how much money you have,” Long said, pointing to both the means needed to become a councillor and “being on committees like this – if it has to be volunteer time, only people with money can have the time to volunteer.”
Expensive campaigns
The city manager power imbalance was the more diffuse of the conversations, but members homed in quickly on the expense of running a citywide campaign vs. one that was limited to a neighborhood, and how going on to represent one neighborhood and host the meetings affecting it created a clearer connection to government.
While decades of strong financial management allows Cambridge to undertake programs and projects that would be impossible in most communities, “there is definitely a challenge with how decisions are made and how residents understand them,” member Patrick Magee said. “Geographically elected councilpeople will help that. Somerville has a nice tendency where meetings are held by both the local councilperson as well as city staff, and it allows the residents to understand what’s going on and how those decisions are being made.”
Though a supporter of the city manager form of government, Magee said he was aware of problems arising with a lack of “transparency around how the city manager is making decisions and how they align with what the council is asking,” Magee said.
Future meetings should say more about how a strong-mayor form could differ and how to give the council more consistency and effectiveness than with the current two-year terms, Magee said, especially considering that “eight years ago, it took the better part of three months for us to elect the mayor.”
One possibility: electing the entire council every four years instead of two, or staggering terms so half the council is elected every four years, or a third of them every three years. There were easy solutions for choosing a mayor as well. “There’s about six systems that can allow for mayoral election to be decided the day after the council is chosen,” member Jim Stockard said. “It could be the councillor with the most No. 1 votes. It could be the councillor who’s been [there] the longest. It could be a rotation by alphabet. There are all kinds of ways.”
It was worth considering changes if it ended in “reducing the costs of running every two years,” member Kevin Chen said.
Insider perspective
Born, a city councillor between 1992 and 2001, said she was glad that the expense of running for office came up. “It’s, frankly, why I just stopped,” Born said. “After eight years, I never wanted to be in the position of having to pick up the phone and raise funds. I saw other people doing that – I saw state reps and state senators having whole afternoons of just sitting on the phone asking for money. And in ideal democracy, this shouldn’t be the focus.”
Cambridge’s proportional representation form of election deserved some blame – Born quoted former state Rep. Alice Wolf as calling it “a wonderful form of election, but a really lousy form of government” – by making collaboration among councillors difficult and forcing biennial elections, she said. But it also meant that councillors represented the entire city, while ward-based elections held a danger: “I’m just terribly afraid that it would favor the wealthier areas in the city.”
Similarly, she appreciated the stability of having a city manager, fearing that a strong mayor form of government would lead to “the ups and downs you see in cities that are very personality driven,” while agreeing that Cambridge had seen a “lack of clarity” in the council-city manager relationship. “There are people who think that the city manager runs the city, when in fact, the way it’s supposed to work is that the City Council makes the policy and hires a chief executive to implement the policy,” Born said.
- The next meeting of the Charter Review Committee is expected to be held online at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, when Collins Center staff will sum up themes and lead a discussion about a values statement. Information is here.
A ward system would empower local NIMBYs to the detriment of citywide improvements. Important changes like the 100% Affordable Housing Overlay and Cycling Safety Ordinance would be impossible in a ward system. Racial and economic differences, highly variable among Cambridge neighborhoods, would become structural impediments. Campaign costs are better addressed with public financing or matching funds—and the relationship between spending and electoral outcomes is unclear at best, with many confounding factors. Cambridge also has a brand new system of campaign finance regulation.
The relationship between the Council and the new City Manager is already much more collaborative. We should not make significant changes before we allow time to see the results of that partnership.
A ward system would not work to the detriment
of citywide improvements. Representatives from various parts of a city is the norm in many places.
It gives voice to those who live in a particular area because the elected official must really pay attention to their constituents.
This city can have collaboration between the council and the city manager (we’ll see how it works out this time). However, until we scrap Plan E, Cambridge will suffer because we do not have an elected mayor as do almost all other cities of our size. We should not have power invested in an unelected city manager.
“It gives voice to those who live in a particular area” … by taking voice away from those who identify with literally any other way of associating with their neighbors.
Replacing our PR system with a ward system would disenfranchise every community of interest that does not happen to cluster geographically – whether that may be racial minorities, sexual minorities, religious minorities, ideological minorities, pet owners, seniors, etc., etc.
Our PR system ensures better than almost any other possible system that any group of citizens, if sufficiently motivated, can elect the candidate of their choice to represent them alongside candidates representing other groups of citizens.
Strongly opposed to any sort of ward system. The other posters are right that this would simply empower NIMBYs to stop changes that are popular at a population level but whose support is diffuse over the city.
“Replacing our PR system with a ward system would disenfranchise every community of interest that does not happen to cluster geographically – whether that may be racial minorities, sexual minorities, religious minorities, ideological minorities, pet owners, seniors, etc., etc.”
That’s why this city continues to be so screwed up. We’re focussing too much on interest groups e.g. racial minorities, pet owners, sexual minorities, bike riders (of which I’m one) religious minorities etc. Don’t lump me and others with groups. We’re individuals. I worship with a certain religious group; I am of a certain sex. I. have a certain sexual preference. What do any of those things, for me or others, have to do with good government. For a very long time, my family and I have worked to see that all individuals are treated equally. We focussed on individuals, not groups.
Yes, we should be focussing on individuals. Making sure that individuals who live in this city have adequate housing; have adequate food for their families; have schools with excellent teachers so that all students can learn to read and do math at least at grade level (something which is currently lacking). I want the city to focus on my family, making sure that roads are safe, that there is adequate police protection, that the fire department is well funded, and yes making sure that potholes are fixed. This means everyone benefits and is not singled out by inclusion in a group.
Most of us want all people to be treated equally. That means we have to stop categorizing people as “this” or “that” or “this.”
The way Plan E is set up means that the city is run by an unelected official. And the non ward system of elections means that individuals in areas of the city are overlooked, while the council goes for “the groups” which ensures their election.
We already have many wards in this city re voting. Representative Clarke has
Cambridge: Ward 3 Precinct 2A, Ward 4 Precincts 2 and 3, Wards 6, 7, 8 and 9, Ward 10 Precincts 1 and 2, while Representative Pressley has the others wards.
Let’s be sensible and let each geographic area in
the city be represented by a councillor who will focus on his or her constituents…individuals rather than groups.
The current council is responsive to individual concerns, and many members spend extensive time on constituent services. Cambridge residents are highly progressive and want the Council to focus on historically disadvantaged communities, not on maintaining the existing privilege of existing highly exclusionary neighborhoods.
Wards are like the existing neighborhood associations, several of which have revealed themselves to be out of step with the views of most Cambridge residents on numerous occasions, opposing protected bike lanes, affordable housing, etc. Just look at the balkanization and sclerosis with the ward system in Boston—not a direction Cambridge should go.
Plan E versus Strong Mayor is a good topic for the committee to discuss but has nothing to do with wards.
“Cambridge residents are highly progressive and want the Council to focus on historically disadvantaged communities, not on maintaining the existing privilege of existing highly exclusionary neighborhoods.”
The Council should not be focussed on historically disadvantaged communities. It should be focussed on all residents. To use the pothole metaphor… potholes don’t know anything about disadvantaged communities, “existing privilege of existing (sic) highly exclusionary neighborhoods”, or protected bike lanes.
The City Council should stop being so progressive and move into the reality of properly governing for all people living here. We have councilors who have never closely looked at the City’s financial statements and have continued to think that the city is in such good shape that it can spend freely on “fluff” and that it can stymie lab growth in an area that is basically desolate . Wake up. This city is spending much more than it should, and in a few years either taxes will need to substantially increase or the city will be forced to cut services.
I know it’s too much to ask of people, but take a look at the off balance sheet liabilities for post retirement costs.
If we had a ward system, perhaps one or two councillors would be elected who would not be bound toward seeking citywide progressive votes
and would instead inject a dose of reality in running a modern city.
🙄
I see. You want a ward system to elect Republicans and to ignore disadvantaged communities because you value road repair more highly.
If such regressive views had any electoral viability in Cambridge, ranked-choice voting would already permit that interest group to run candidates and get elected.
When people like you jump to conclusions about my party affiliation, then we see what the problem is. Do you always make statements without having facts to back them up ?
Guess the best thing to say is that you’re wrong.
And you know, don’t you, for city elections, we don’t have party affiliation in Cambridge. Wake up and realize that there are difficult choices to make in Cambridge and progressivism works some of the time, but not all of the time.
Spend 5 minutes looking at the city’s financial statements and then tell us what you think about our future ability to fund subsidized housing.
It doesn’t matter how it’s labeled, RCV shows there is no constituency for it.
And I’m sure you know better than the ratings agencies.
Are you, or were you, a professional in the field of finance, as I was?
Rating agencies have had a terrible record in evaluating municipal finances and other financial entities. Are you familiar with their absolutely rotten record with regard to sub-prime mortgages from 2005-2008. And what about Lehman’s debt? And Bear Stearns!
Cambridge finances are heading for a fall. And it’s almost all off balance sheet. Get someone to explain it to you if you’re not familiar with it.
And… RCV is, in my opinion wrong. Every vote should count. Voters should not accept that their votes might, in effect, be discarded.