The November election includes a ballot question asking voters, “Shall an Act Establishing a Charter for the City of Cambridge be accepted?”
What does it mean and what are the implications?
In 2021, voters passed a change to the charter to establish a decennial charter review committee. The City Council chose the membership, and the committee met from August 2022 to January 2024, producing a final report to the City Council. The committee unanimously agreed that Cambridge’s 1940 “Plan E” charter was not written in language of modern charters and ought to be updated; spent substantial time debating whether to recommend a switch from a City Manager system to a “strong mayor” system (a supermajority of two thirds was required for all changes and the strong mayor system did not receive that supermajority, although it did receive a majority); and made various controversial recommendations like adopting a citizen assembly and allowing 16-year-olds and non-US citizens to vote in municipal elections.
The City Council then debated the recommendations for the next year, deciding ultimately to drop the controversial recommendations out of a concern that the state legislature would not approve them (the legislature has previously denied home rule petitions for youth and non-citizen voting). In April 2025, the Council sent the new charter to the legislature; it passed on September 11 and was signed by the Governor on Sept. 16.
The proposal takes the charter from 4,500 words to 12,600 words, and is a massive structural change, organized into chapters. It also includes the rules that govern Cambridge’s proportional representation elections that were previously incorporated by reference to a now-repealed chapter of the Mass. General Laws still in effect in Cambridge by court order.
Although not every word was changed, the structural changes make a word-by-word comparison of the two documents nearly incomprehensible.
A result of the structural changes, if passed, is that future changes to the charter, such as anything that comes out of the 2032 decennial charter review committee, will have a much easier time being clear and understandable. The proposed charter does the enabling work to make future changes possible.
Beyond structure, the most significant change to the proposed charter is to permit the School Committee to elect its own chair. Under the current charter, the Mayor (who is selected by the councillors at the beginning of the two-year term) presides over both the City Council and School Committee. In the proposed charter, the Mayor would sit on the School Committee but would not automatically be its chair.
The new charter also broadens the City Council’s authority to confirm the City Manager’s nominees to multiple-member bodies. Since 2021 the Council has had that authority for all board and commissions (including the Planning Board, Historical Commission, and Board of Zoning Appeal), but lacked it for other entities such as the Arts Council; Central, Harvard and Porter Square Advisory Committees; the Community Preservation Act Committee; the Committee on Public Planting; and twenty other bodies.
A downside to the new charter proposal is that it codifies so many things and changes so many words that there could be unintended consequences that drafters did not anticipate. But the Cambridge Election Commission noted at its September 9 public meeting that it was unable to find anyone to write the official argument in opposition to the ballot question; instead it asked the City’s Law Department to draft the argument against the ballot question.
A stronger
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Thanks for the article on this important ballot intiative. NOTE: there is a lot of misinformation about the proposed charter being sent out. Statements like the proposed charter would change the timeline for elections: WRONG. That it “removes current citizen rights for public comment at Council and other City meetings” : WRONG. That “makes it harder for individuals to run for office”: WRONG. That it changes how the City Clerk andAuditor are hired: WRONG. That it changes periodic charter reviews: WRONG. That it “make processes for public engagement and professional hires way more difficult and subject to the political interests of the current elected officials”: WRONG.
The fact is, the proposal updates the charter based on good governance and best practice from the Collins Center advice and the citizen review committee. It has some substantive updates, and keeps most of the current structure in place, so as not to have a radical change.
For anyone in Cambridge who bothered to pay attention or tried to participate in this prolonged, but fake “process,” it was – like so much government-run “community engagement” in Cambridge – rigged from the start. In, at least, two important ways: First, rather than choose the albeit potentially more onerous, but far more democratic, community-led process, a group of four City Councillors hand-picked the individuals to be appointed – not elected – to the Charter Review body. (Control, Control, Control.) A cursory examination of those who were appointed reveals the number who were eager to “participate” (and were appointed) because they represent vested interests in “business-as-usual” – like the current configuration of the so-called “Affordable Housing Trust” – and were committed to blocking ANY reform that might risk a meaningful “shift of power.” Hence, when a straw vote on an “elected strong mayor” hinted at real change, the forces of reaction rallied. Save Our Democracy.
Vote NO.
I guess Councillor Nolan read a different version of the proposed charter than I did. The timetable for nominations is absolutely moved earlier, with variable start and end dates keyed to election day. Unless her calendar shows July 1 always being 18 weeks before election day and July 31 always being 14 weeks before election day, she’s just wrong.
Until she can cite the section that guarantees the residents’ right to public comment, I’ll stick with my reading. Of course public comment may still happen, and she personally makes sure that committee meetings she chairs have it, unlike some of her fellows, but without a guarantee, it’s not, you know, guaranteed. We’re living through an object lesson in how relying on norms can make really bad things very possible.
And “best practices” is not some magical incantation that makes decisions made by humans unassailable. It sounds a lot better than it often is in practice.
Please vote based on the content of the charter, not all the noise and misinformation around it. If you don’t like how it took shape, lobby for better City processes.
The old charter is outdated. If you think the content of this update is less appropriate, vote against it. I think it’s a modest step forward. To me, allowing the election commission to tabulate rank-choice votes using modern methods is reason enough; it’s unacceptable to me that our outdated method can produce different results on successive recounts. (That said, I’m Patty’s husband and have been lobbying her and the City to review the charter for 4+ years.)
Here’s a link to the election commission’s page with a link to the charter: https://www.cambridgema.gov/Departments/electioncommission
Here’s the cover letter to MA for approval to put the proposed charter on the ballot:
https://pattynolan.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/06.23.25-Charter-Letter-PO.pdf
The entire charter reform movement was a farce.
The only meaningful changes would have been to scrap the nine at large counselors and change it to one counselor for each of the eleven wards in Cambridge. Nine at large counselors, essentially answering to no one, is the wrong way to govern.
The other change should have been to elect a mayor. Under Plan E we have a city manager who answers to only the council members if he wants to keep his/her job. Not a way to run a city.
The absurd municipal structure is one of the reasons this city is going downhill from a financial standpoint. Ms. Nolan and the others only know how to spend. And as Mr. McGovern told me, he really had no interest in looking closely at the off balance sheet liability for post retirement pension and health benefits which are using faulty assumptions so the city doesn’t have to pony up additional funds to make it whole.
This is similar to believing that the growth in bio labs would last forever.
I will be voting for the charter update. I think the school committee should be able to chose its own leader. And I agree it’s important that vote tabulations should give the same result each time. I think it’s good for the Council to have more say about who the Manager appoints to committees.