Charter advice: It’s time to ‘look under the hood’ of Plan E, but consensus is needed for changes
Longer terms for city councillors, direct elections of a “strong mayor” and various other options for forms of government came up Wednesday during officials’ first step toward modernizing Cambridge’s charter. But then a basic question got asked: Was the current charter working as intended?
Council decides city manager contract extension in the fog of a false deadline, fearing to ‘lose him’
An 18-month contract extension offer for City Manager Louis A. DePasquale was approved Tuesday late in an eight-plus hour meeting, with city councillors arguing over a document that included typos and unanswered mysteries despite not being under an actual deadline to do so.
Denied official report of police tweet discipline, councillors issue their own censure for incident
After the city solicitor doubled down on the legal theory that the City Council can’t ask about the discipline of municipal employees, the council passed its own order expressing “disappointment” in a police superintendent’s tweet that was “unprofessional, disrespectful and vulgar.”
City councillors can’t know of police discipline, they are informed by head of Law Department
Three city councillors entered their meeting Monday prepared to hear about discipline of a police officer “in executive session if required by state law,” only to discover that some of their peers, and the city solicitor, believed they weren’t allowed to know anything, even behind closed doors.