Key Political Priorities
Keep Cambridge Family Friendly
Cambridge has been a warm, diverse, exciting and supportive community for families. However a variety of economic and social pressures threaten this fabric.
My major focus in running for "re-election" to the City Council is to make sure that Cambridge remains a community that supports families. This means maintaining education, jobs, and housing systems for our young people, and health care and social services for our seniors.
As a father raising three daughters, and a son taking care of my 93 year-old father, I am acutely aware of the pressures on families. Though we need the economic stimulus and job creation of the expansion of high tech industry and the growth of the universities, we have to make sure to protect the Cambridge economic and social fabric that provides a community for Cambridge residents.
As your City Councillor, I will be vigilant in preventing our community from being eaten up by the large institutions—old and new—that surround us. We need to make sure that they all enter in a compact with the City to make jobs, facilities, and technical resources available to Cambridge families and residents.
Education and Schools
To keep Cambridge supportive of its families and youth, we need to continue to press toward a world-class public school system. Continuing to invest in our teachers, schools and educational facilities will be my highest priority.
Though the School Committee
has direct oversight, the role of the City Council is key:
- The City Council sets the school budget and elects the Mayor, who chairs the School committee
- After school and recreation programs are overseen by the City Council
We need to call upon Cambridge high tech industries to provide summer internships for high school students. This needs to be part of the compact between the City and its biotechnology, computer, energy and other technology and science intensive industries.
Though the after school programs provide valuable services, both the level and variety of the programs need to be upgraded. This will require increasing the budget and salary levels for Community School teachers and staffs.
Recreation and Green Space
Open land is under intense development pressure in Cambridge. The city needs to be more aggressive in developing its remaining open space as parklands and playing fields; in negotiating with industries and developers maintenance of open public space will be another of my priorities.
Affordable Housing
Increases in housing costs are making it impossible for some of our residents to remain in Cambridge. For those of us who own our homes, the prospects of our children being able to start households in Cambridge is becoming increasingly slim. I will aggressively press for moderate-income housing development, and work to put in place controls against the displacement of families.
Public housing in Cambridge represents a larger fraction of total units than most other cities in the Commonwealth. These units and complexes need to be maintained and enhanced. The City needs to aggressively pursue and encourage the federal and state housing programs that support these facilities. As a City Councillor I intend to serve as a protector of public housing tenants and their interests. This will include actively lobbying our Representatives in the US Congress to support public housing and housing subsidies such as Section 8.
