These are just some of the municipal meetings and civic events for the coming week. More are on the City Calendar and in the city’s Open Meetings Portal.
Homes to replace a bodega
Board of Zoning Appeal, 6 to 11:30 p.m. Thursday. The continued cases agenda includes a plan for a two-family home that would use the corner space of the former Dudley Street Market at 75 Dudley St., North Cambridge. Also, more at 38-40 Banks St. and 54-56 Banks St., in Riverside near Harvard Square, from Lubavitch of Cambridge, which operates the Harvard Chabad for services to Jewish members of the university community. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Negotiating with superintendent
School Committee special meeting, 1:30 p.m. Friday. By the time of this meeting, which is public only long enough for the committee to go into a closed-door session, it will have been more than five weeks since the community was told news about superintendent Victoria Greer would arrive “in the coming days.” Since then word leaked that the committee asked Greer to resign and that much of previous closed-door meeting was overheard by a parent when the Zoom link was left open. This is a fourth session of “contract negotiations with nonunion personnel,” meaning Greer, whose evaluations declined with a series of eyebrow-raising hirings; leading the Graham & Parks School into conflict and investigation; and a survey finding a dispirited and demoralized workforce. Watchable online.
Digging into proposed budget
Finance Committee, 9 a.m. Tuesday. This committee run by city councillors Patty Nolan and Joan Pickett has a hearing on a proposed $955.6 million city budget for the 2025 fiscal year, which starts July 1. There’s a still a lot to dig into in this third session, which allows questions on the Cambridge Health Alliance, cable television, capital building projects, Community Development, debt service, the Historical Commission, housing, the Office of Sustainability, Public Works, Water Department, Women’s Commission, Human Rights Commission, human services, the library, veteran services, the state-funding “cherry sheet” and more. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing. Finance Committee, 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Affordable homeownership plan
Cherry Street housing community meeting, 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. The nonprofit housing developer Just A Start offers information on a 100 percent-affordable homeownership development at 35 Cherry St., The Port, a lot given to the city by MIT in 2013 and empty since then. The project is under Affordable Housing Overlay zoning. The meeting is at 55 Norfolk St., also in The Port near Central Square, a one-story storefront that Just A Start recently renovated into a Financial Opportunity Center. A Zoom videoconferencing link will be provided for those unable to join in-person by emailing MadelineLee@justastart.org.
A just-in-case budget session
Finance Committee, 9 a.m. Thursday. This committee run by city councillors Patty Nolan and Joan Pickett has socked away this hearing time in case there’s more to dig into on the proposed $955.6 million city budget for the 2025 fiscal year, which starts July 1 – but in recent years the previously scheduled meetings were enough. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing. Finance Committee, 9 a.m. Tuesday.
A stronger
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Regarding the lot at 35 Cherry Street, the City negotiated receiving the lot as a “sweetener” to the MIT upzoning of over 2,000,000 square feet of development potential in 2013. MIT had “landbanked” this lot for decades and refused community efforts to even discuss its use for affordable housing. The lot itself was allowed to deteriorate with broken fences and trash until the time it became part of the massive MIT
zoning deal. The lot has remained vacant for more than a decade since the City took control. Early community meetings with the city about its use were ignored and forgotten and records of the meetings were lost. Finally the Area 4/Port community is being taken seriously (hopefully) as affordable housing discussions are once again moving forward.