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.
Overdose Awareness Day event
International Overdose Awareness Day, 1:30 to 4 p.m. Thursday. Remember loved ones lost to addiction and get materials on harm reduction and health promotion from the Cambridge Public Health Department, the Access Drug User Health Program, the Cambridge Care Team – part of the city’s unarmed responders known as the Community Safety Department – and Cambridge police at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square.
Effects of Labor Day holiday
Labor Day closings and service changes, Monday. In observance of the Labor Day holiday, city offices, libraries and senior centers will close and payments won’t be needed at parking meters and parking meter pay stations. Curbside collection of trash, recycling, compost and yard waste will be suspended on the holiday and run one day behind schedule for the rest of that week; street cleaning routes scheduled for the first Monday in September will be swept on Aug. 29 instead. The gates at Cambridge Cemetery, 76 Coolidge Ave., West Cambridge, will be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Voting in primary elections
State primary, 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. Tuesday. Democrat and Republicans should find their polling places for in-person voting for U.S. senator, U.S. representative, Governor’s Council member, state senator, state representative, clerk of courts and register of deeds. Democrats have races only for third district councillor (Marilyn Petitto Devaney or Mara Dolan) and in the 25th Middlesex District (incumbent state Rep. Marjorie Decker and challenger Evan MacKay). Libertarians have no one nominated this year, according to Election Commisson documents, and Republicans have candidates only for U.S. senator as they seek to challenge Elizabeth Warren in the general election. The commission has a vote count planned to start at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Citywide Senior Center, 806 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square, picking up at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday for a review of provisional ballots in its offices second-floor conference room of 51 Inman St., Mid-Cambridge.
Cambridge Public School talk
Community conversation, 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Interim Cambridge Public Schools superintendent David Murphy sits to discuss progress, challenges and concerns in the district. The event is sponsored by My Brother’s Keeper Cambridge and moderated by Tony Clark in the theater of the King Open/Cambridge Street Upper School & Community Complex, 840 Cambridge St., Wellington-Harrington, Cambridge.
Democracy Center landmarking
Historical Commission, 6 p.m. Thursday. A resident petition to initiate a landmark study returns from the July 11 meeting, picking up a conversation about the fate of the former Democracy Center at 43-45 Mt. Auburn St., Harvard Square. The addresses include an 1846 double house and 1928 clubhouse addition; the owner, the Foundation for Civic Leadership, closed the meetinghouse and rented office space to prepare for eventual renovations, but members want to hear more about what that entails and need to understand their powers since changes to rules about neighborhood conservation districts. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
The commission meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square.
Bye, boba, hello to more bowls
Board of Zoning Appeal, 6 to 11:30 p.m. Thursday. It looks like the boba tea wave may have crested, as members are being asked to support replacing the Tiger Sugar drink shop in 776 square feet of the Abbot building at 5 John F. Kennedy St., Harvard Square. The replacement? A smoothie bowl joint run by SoBol, a chain with about 70 locations (and a “formula business” needing a special permit to operate). The closest SoBols are nowhere near – Beverly, Duxbury and North Andover – but Cambridge already has Life Alive locations, Kwench, Playa, Vitality, Beraka, Gypsy Place and Mother Juice, and a Zoe Acai Bar & Juicery closed in Porter Square in early December after being unable to attract enough business. The Tiger Sugar lasted less than two years, having opened in November 2022. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
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