After months of meetings, the Charles River Task Force begins the new year working toward a drafted report amid confusion and frustration over project goals and process. The task force, one of the latest efforts to reconcile contention over issues like road closings at Riverbend Park, will provide recommendations to state departments to better engage with local communities. At meetings in November and December, members of the public and task force individuals questioned the group’s methods for community engagement. Tensions over which communities are prioritized as stakeholders ran high at a Nov. 17 public hearing. “This is what failure looks like,” one resident said. “This is a failure: an upset room.”
At a virtual task force meeting on Dec. 1, members raised concern about outreach methods and project materials. Much of the meeting was a debate on internal processes, and members expressed confusion with the project. “What is this grand plan? We do not know the grand design of this mission,” task force member Lawrence Adkins said. “We’re trying to get somewhere where we all know where we’re going.”
Sasha Parodi with Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the consultant for the project, assured the group that the project is still in its initial phase. “We’re at the widest part of this process. We’ve got all this information and now we’re trying to understand it so we can start narrowing.” The final goal of the task force is a report submitted to the state with recommendations to ensure engagement and improve communication with community members, particularly historically underrepresented communities. “How do we ensure voices that have often been marginalized are part of this process?” said state Rep. Marjorie Decker, the task force’s creator. Though echoing the same broad goal, the task force doesn’t clearly define who its stakeholders are. Minutes from meetings in August and September show discussions about who is identified as a stakeholder and how people or institutions requesting to be stakeholders could be considered. That confusion played out at the Nov. 17 hearing and sparked similar conversations from past meetings on Riverbend Park about who is prioritized in decisions about river access.
Familiar themes
Task force co-chairs Jonathan Guzman and Monika Roy, who work in environmental justice for the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and DCR, respectively, led November’s second of three public hearings. “All of your lived experiences help to shape this task force and what comes forth in the spring,” Roy told the crowd of nearly 200 people gathered at Cambridge Community Center. Some attendees disagreed on whose voices and experiences should be prioritized. Chris Cassa of the Memorial Drive Alliance noted that some possible stakeholders, particularly Harvard University, were not present. That drew objections from others in the crowd.
“This is the time for us to talk, because we were not allowed to talk,” one Riverside resident said. Another emphasized that Riverside voices should be prioritized over students who would someday leave the area she calls home: “It’s recreation for them, it’s quality of life for us.” Nearly all the speakers who addressed city staff from the audience were Black.
“Some of the frustration expressed at the hearing stemmed from the lack of clear communication in both DCR’s and the City of Cambridge’s outreach for the event,” Decker said by email Dec. 5, referring to the state Department of Conservation and Recreation. “Public materials – such as emails and flyers – simply invited residents to provide ‘community feedback on Memorial Drive’ without making clear the specific charge of the task force.” For example, a notice by the city of Cambridge sent Nov. 13 called for any “resident, commuter or visitor who uses Memorial Drive” in the defined area to go to the meeting and give feedback. Decker’s newsletter to constituents from the next day said the meeting was about “bringing residents from subsidized housing and communities of color to share their experience and expertise.”
The city’s publicity work took its cues from the state, Cambridge spokesperson Jeremy Warnick said. It was DCR flyers that first welcomed any “resident, commuter or visitor.” The budget act that created the task force is comprehensive. Decker’s publicity and the publicity for meetings done by state and city appear to pull from different parts of the act. In emails to Cambridge Day, Decker captured what she considers the specific charge of the task force in three bullet points: addressing equitable access to the Charles River between the Longfellow and Eliot bridges; ensuring inclusive engagement with all relevant stakeholders in decisions affecting the Charles river area; and improving communication with those stakeholders.
The task force’s website describes those goals in similar language, with the addition of “improving programming along the Charles River to benefit a diverse range of stakeholders.” Decker’s specific charge doesn’t mention programming.
The stretch of Charles River land defined by the state and Decker, between the Longfellow and Eliot bridges, begins in West Cambridge, passes through Riverside and Cambridgeport and ends in Area II at Kendall Square.
The state’s task force website says it wants engagement from “stakeholders” along that river area – “a diverse range” or “a wide variety.” Decker’s clarification of “relevant” stakeholders in her email newsletter reflects the statute’s parameters for task force membership: “not less than six individuals whose primary residence is within a half-mile of the Charles River and who are members of an environmental justice population or live in subsidized housing; provided, however, that at least two [live] in the Riverside neighborhood,” which is historically predominantly Black and immigrant. The statute does not define “relevant stakeholders” as it does task force membership.
“The purpose of the task force has not changed, to ensure that all voices are represented,” Decker said. In shaping membership, “I was very intentional in ensuring that these voices were included, so they would play a meaningful role in shaping the process and developing the Task Force’s recommendations.”
Most of Cambridge is considered an environmental justice population, though part of West Cambridge closest to the Eliot Bridge is excluded, according to a state map. But the focus is to “meaningfully engage communities that have historically been marginalized and underrepresented,” Decker said.
“The statute does not clearly articulate the task force’s primary goal, which has led to some understandable and unfortunate confusion,” she said. When the November meeting split up for small discussions, though, questions drawn from the task force’s survey focused on issues such as Memorial Drive, and when it closes to motor traffic to become “Riverbend Park,” rather than the community engagement Decker described.
That the affected area in the statute includes Cambridgeport but task force membership doesn’t name the neighborhood perplexes state representative Mike Connolly, whose district encompasses Cambridgeport. Noting the discord at the Nov. 17 meeting, Connolly said: “I have a lot of concerns about how this came to be.”
Engagement concerns
Since the first hearing on Nov. 10, Metropolitan Area Planning Council staff door-knocked along River Street and Putnam and Western avenues to make contact with neighbors. They focused on homes, staff said, and didn’t reach apartment buildings in the area. Decker and multiple residents noted Nov. 17 that there were specific areas to be engaged with that weren’t reached by these methods, including areas of Riverside and lower-income and assisted-living apartment complexes.
“Historically, DCR’s been terrible at engaging communities,” Decker said. She expressed frustration, saying she was not told that certain areas weren’t reached. “There have been 40 years of conversations where Riverside has been excluded,” Adkins said at the hearing. “For whatever reason, process stopped at River Street… open the means of conversation, open the means of planning!”
“Surveys and word of mouth is insufficient,” another audience member said. There have been complaints from previous Riverbend Park meetings about late notices and a lack of communication with affected communities.
MAPC staff assured there are meetings scheduled with properties along Memorial Drive and are working to connect with the Cambridge Housing Authority. The group will continue organizing small group meetings, one-on-one conversations and focus groups, staff said.
A big effort
The task force is made up of 17 city officials, local organization representatives and residents. The group has completed five meetings between August and December, two public hearings in November, a site visit, various outreach efforts and a public survey. At the Dec. 1 meeting, MAPC staff reported 462 responses to the survey. The effort, which got no specific state funding, began in August. In November, the task force said it would begin to draft a report the following month and have it ready to publish in early spring.
The task force will meet in January to continue reviewing data and community feedback. Since recent meetings, Decker noted in an email that she has extended the deadline to “ensure the team has the time needed to achieve its goals thoughtfully without rushing.” That report draft will then be circulated and a final hearing will be held. After the hearing and the 30-day written comment period, the task force will hold a concluding meeting, then finalize and submit the report.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.