Nomination papers taken by a dozen candidates on Day 1 include Wilson and two City Hall aides
Cambridge School Committee member Ayesha Wilson takes out nomination papers Monday to run for City Council. (Photo: Kate Wheatley)
Nomination papers for the Nov. 7 election becoming available affirmed the feeling it would be a quieter than usual campaign season in Cambridge, but with some surprises.
There are nine City Council seats and six School Committee seats, all at-large and on two-year terms, that will be decided at the polls.
Eleven nomination papers for council seats were taken by the time Election Commission offices closed Monday, the first day of availability, and only one for School Committee – the already announced Eugenia Schraa – though there will be two available seats. One is being vacated by member Fred Fantini, who said Tuesday that he is retiring after serving for 40 years.
The other emptying seat: committee member Ayesha Wilson, who has taken out papers in a bid to switch to the council.
There will be at least two new faces on the council too, as two incumbents have decided against running: vice mayor Alanna Mallon and councillor Dennis Carlone.
Robert Winters takes out City Council campaign nomination papers Monday at Cambridge’s Election Commission offices. (Photo: Kate Wheatley)
Challengers in addition to Wilson who took out papers Monday for a council run: Robert Winters, a math lecturer and longtime politics watcher who runs the Cambridge Civic Journal website and ran unsuccessfully for the council in 1993 and 1995; Dan Totten, a longtime aide to councillor Quinton Zondervan who could now be either an ally or replacement; James Williamson, a City Hall gadfly and unsuccessful council candidate in 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2015; and Joan Pickett, who has spoken out frequently in the past months over problems resulting from the installation of separated bike lanes.
The challengers for a council seat also include: Vernon Walker of Kendall Square, a program director at the organization Communities Responding to Extreme Weather; English-as-a-second-language educator Ayah Al-Zubi of Mid-Cambridge; and Adrienne Klein of Porter Square, director of constituent services for Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, who served on the council 2020-2021, has announced a run but did not take out papers Monday, while Joe McGuirk, who ran unsuccessfully for a council seat in 2019, was the first council candidate in the commission’s offices Monday.
Four council incumbents have declared for reelection runs: Siddiqui and councillor Marc McGovern, who took out papers Monday, and Burhan Azeem and Paul Toner. Incumbent Patty Nolan said on Monday that she would announce her intentions soon. Zondervan and E. Denise Simmons, the longest-serving councillor, have yet to declare too.
The deadline for nominees to file their papers is 5 p.m. July 31. Nominees must file no fewer than 50 and no more than 100 certifiable signatures of registered Cambridge voters to be on the Nov. 7 ballot.
At this time two years ago, there were 18 nomination papers taken out for the council and four for the committee, ultimately becoming 19 council candidates and nine committee candidates on the ballot.
Past races have seen candidates declaring as early as a year before Election Day; in this case, the first official notice for the campaign season was in June, and it was Mallon’s decision not to run.
This post was updated July 5, 2023, to correct the spelling of Ayah Al-Zubi.
On behalf of City Council Candidate James Williamson – “It’s rather shocking to see years of conscientious and determined civic engagement (in a city noted for complaints about complacency and apathy, and widespread alienation from government) described in the manner above. One would hope for better from the editor of this publication. Anyone who has ever stood for public office knows all too well how easy it is to be the target of a cheap shot. I look forward to the opportunity for voters to judge my ideas, personal integrity, and commitment to a much more democratic Cambridge for themselves as this campaign progresses.
But for my first “campaign” (when my only contribution was an unsolicited check for $500 – the then legal maximum – from Professor Cornel West) I neither raised nor spent a single penny in any of my previous “campaigns.” Yet, despite that fact, I did quite well in each instance and succeeded in raising important issues and pointing the way toward common sense solutions. I believe I’m easily as qualified as any of the other candidates this time around. I’ve seen other candidates (and carpet baggers) come and go over my more than 50 years in this city. I’m still here, while many of them have “moved on,” taking their pensions with them and leaving an increasingly unlivable city in their opportunistic wake. We’ll see. As we used to say in SDS (Students for a Democratic Society): “Let the People Decide.”
Finally, we have some fresh blood and better options! Cambridge residents need to turn out the vote, and do the research to find out how we have gotten to where we are now and how to turn it around.
Poor Bono Publico–I had the same reaction when I read Marc’s dismissal of you as a “gadfly.” However, there are two definitions of gadfly. (1) A nuisance (2) A person who interferes with the status quo of a society or community by posing novel, potentially upsetting questions, usually directed at authorities. Which one did you mean Marc?
If we’re being that picky, I wouldn’t say Joan Pickett has “spoken out frequently in the past months over problems resulting from the installation of separated bike lanes” so much as she has wasted the city’s time and money on a silly lawsuit against bike lanes, which she lost.
But I don’t think we need to be that picky. Overall it’s a fine article. Everybody get ready for a chaotic summer and fall! That’s democracy for ya
Many, many years ago I read an article about gadflies in my Michigan State alumni magazine that has stuck with me all this time. It was a profile of three former professors who had been considered gadflies at the university. I had been lucky enough to see two in action; the third was no longer at the university by the time I came along. The point of the article was that gadflies are necessary to the proper functioning of a large organization (and maybe not so large, for that matter). I know that gadfly is not always meant as a compliment, but I have immense respect for real gadflies. Yes men, not so much.
There is no shame in being called a gadfly! From Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail:
“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”
Hasn’t Robert Winters also run unsuccessfully four times?