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Last modified: Tue Nov 8 00:13:40 EST 2005 My Cambridge Election Slate, 2005 |
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Cambridge will hold citywide elections on November 8th, electing City Councillors and School Committee members. As I learn more about the candidates I'll put together my own "slate". I'll also be posting my ongoing thoughts as the slate develops.
The content below contains links to, and borrows images from, Robert Winter's extraordinary Cambridge Civic Journal web site. Robert has been an astute observer of Cambridge politics for many years; his site is a rich lode of factual information about Cambridge political life. I urge you to check it out.
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Brian Murphy has my unconditional support and number 1 vote. See details below. Brian likes to call himself a "practical progressive," and I think the tag is appropriate. He's sensible, intelligent and refreshingly soft-spoken. The City can't afford to lose his presence on the Council. |
[Updated on election eve]
OK, time to stop waffling and make decisions. Here's my ballot:
I've finally done some reading. I don't really like any of the candidates. But it would be a cop-out not to at least try to make a selection. SO:
Election eve. Decisions made. Boy, this is hard. I suspect that none of my votes after Brian Murphy will matter; I think he'll need all the number 1 votes he gets. My fear is that my subsequent votes will count because Brian won't make quota at all; that would be a bummer...
I walked around my neighborhood this evening with "get out the vote" flyers, with a plug for my slate on the back. A lot of candidates' campaign workers had already been out, and a Gordon worker was out at the same time I was. Nothing like good old shoe leather as a campaign strategy...
I'm really looking forward to this being over.
The October 31st City Council meeting was more-or-less a success from the perspective of saving the VFW hall; Brian Murphy's order passed, so the City Manager has to pay at least a little attention to us. Also, Henrietta Davis expressed unambiguous support, as did Marjorie Decker. I've been told that Denise Simmons is on board as well. So, if there's no turnover on the council, we have 4, maybe 5 (Michael Sullivan?) votes.
I had a nice chat with Sam Seidel on Thursday evening. I asked him to call me regarding the VFW hall, and we discussed it at length. Sam asked good questions and made me think about this issue in new ways. In particular, he emphasized the importance of finding daytime uses for the hall.
The impression I had at the end of the conversation is that Sam would support having the architects on the project do enough preliminary programming and design to understand the actual cost of retaining in the hall while still providing the Youth Center with the full range of facilities it needs. Then the City is in a position to evaluate whether the income from dances and the benefit of having the hall available to the community balance the increased construction costs. This sounds reasonable to me.
I had a long phone conversation with Jesse Gordon this afternoon. He and I have simply been miscommunicating (by NOT communicating...) about the VFW hall. I think it's fair to say that he was simply not aware of the group of dancers who've been meeting for the past few months about this; he is now. Similarly, we've been largely unaware of Jesse's efforts (he's been distributing flyers outside the dances and trying to get signatures on a petition). Jesse also has a somewhat different perspective than we do; saving the hall is something he supports, but he is also running for office, and is making this a campaign issue. Since we're dealing with the current power structure, we're trying not to politicize the issue (at least not in the sense of explicitly endorsing candidates). So our outreach efforts have a somewhat different focus.
Anyway - talking to Jesse reminded me why I liked him in the first place! We agree on most issues, and I can't really begrudge a candidate for picking campaign issues and running on them. So he's back on my slate.
Over the past few weeks I've had a chance to get a much closer look at some of the councilors as I've worked on the VFW hall issue. What I've found is that they're all more complicated than they appear to be from the distance of newspaper (and web...) articles and televised council hearings.
I've been particularly impressed by Brian Murphy. He is passionate about the quality of life in Cambridge for all of our neighbors, and that passion is matched with a clarity of vision, intelligence and sense of what does and doesn't work that is extraordinary. I don't agree with him on every issue, but I deeply respect his opinions and believe that he listens with an open mind to the opinions of others. He has earned my number 1 vote, and I think he deserves yours. We need more councilors like him.
Anthony Galluccio has also impressed me, to some extent against my preconceived notions of who he is and what he's about. He has not been especially supportive of my own key issue - saving the VFW hall for dances - but he has given me time and listened to me. I'm still hopeful that he'll come around. I believe his council position is secure, so he'll be a good ways down my list, but he'll be there.
Councilor and Vice Mayor Marjorie Decker shares my belief in the power of community, and she's an eloquent speaker. Again, I think her position is secure, but she'll have a place on my ballot. I haven't had a chance to meet with her personally, so I know much less about ther than I wish.
I don't know quite what to make of Henrietta Davis; on the one hand, she seems genuinely supportive of saving the VFW hall, but she's consistently cautioned against "false hopes" and has, frankly, been rather discouraging to talk to. I like her, and she'll be on my ballot, but I wish she'd be more willing to take a stand.
I had a bit of a set-too with Ken Reeves. He's never been out to see the dances at the VFW, but he seems to feel that his experience with other dances allows him to know what these dances are like. I think he's mistaken, and that he underestimates the sense of connection these dances provide, and just how important a sense of place is. I'm disappointed by this.
I just don't have much of a sense of the remaining councilors. Katy and RuthAnne met with Councilor and Mayor Michael Sullivan, and liked him; he seemed to her to be very open to a somewhat broader vision of what a youth center could be. Councilor Toomey, on the other hand, seemed to have little time for this issue. I have no useful information about Denise Simmons (other than that she seems like a very pleasant person...) or David Maher (who has rebuffed repeated requests by Katy for a meeting). I'll be looking for more information about them in the remaining days before the election.
I know even less about the challengers, with the notable exception of Jesse Gordon. I first met Jesse on the front porch of my house back in August, when he was distributing campaign literature in person. We spoke at some length, and I found myself agreeing with many of his stated positions. Until this evening he was on my slate.
In the past few days, though, he and his campaign have just ticked me off. I got a call yesterday from a campaign worker advising me that jessegordon.org was hosting a petition calling for the Council to "save the VFW hall"; I checked out the web site, and I feel that the language it uses promotes exactly the sort of "dancers vs. youth" dichotomy that we've been trying so hard to dispel. I sent mail to the campaign and received a response from Jesse. In my opinion, his response seems to reflect a lack of understanding of what's been happening with this issue. In particular, he seems to be completely unaware of the efforts of other Cambridge residents. I've tried calling him and left a message for him to call me, but have not yet received a response.
This isn't the model of civic engagement I want in a City Councilor.
[Note: Please see the update I posted the following day about this. I've since written this off as a difference in perspective and miscommunication.]
I continue to expect that I'll vote for Craig Kelley, but I just haven't been paying close enough attention to what he is saying this time around to be able to offer any more definitive statement. I continue to be impressed with his experience and stated positions.
I'm still clueless about the school committee candidates.
I've created a new Cambridge VFW hall page for continuing updates on the status of the City's plans to purchase the hall for use as a youth center. I suspect this issue will continue to drive my perspective on the elections; look for updates to my endorsements in the wake of the meeting on the 18th.
I'm finally starting to dig into this a bit more, encouraged in part by my attendance at the Cambridge City Council meeting last night. My attendance was prompted by an issue that really hits home with us - the VFW hall on Huron Avenue. The City is planning to buy the hall and renovate it for use as a youth center for West Cambridge - a project that Councillor Galluccio in particular has been working on for years.
Why do I care? Simple: the VFW hall is home to the Thursday night contra dance, a dance institution that dates back to 1982. Katy and I did some of our early courting at that dance; our kids are among the enthusiastic crowd of teenagers and young adults who frequent the dance, along with us olde fartes. The hall is about as close to perfect for contras as one could ask for. It has an outstanding wood floor, it's conveniently accessible by public transportation and bike lanes and has plenty of free parking, and it's air-conditioned, a crucial factor that allows the dance to run through the summer. In addition to the Thursday night contras, the hall is used weekly by swing and tango groups, and it also hosts events like wedding receptions, birthday parties and the like. It's a wonderful community resource.
The youth center, as currently envisioned, would destroy the hall, replacing it with office and meeting spaces for the youth center.
This is crazy. While West Cambridge may well need a youth center, it seems wrong to me to uproot a vibrant, long-standing community focal point for this purpose. I believe that there simply has to be a way to renovate the building without eliminating this hall.
Over the past few months a group of dancers have been working hard to get the attention of the City on this issue, and last night the dancers had their say before the City Council. About a dozen people (including yours truly) spoke about the dance, what it means to them, and why the City should preserve the hall. Nearly all of the councillors were supportive, with the notable exception of Galluccio, who seemed outright hostile towards us.
Councillor Davis agreed to meet today with several dancers to discuss the situation, and the Council passed an order directing the Public Facilities, Art and Celebrations Committee to meet with dancers to discuss the issue. The meeting is currently scheduled for Tuesday, October 18, 2005 at 5:30 PM at City Hall in the Sullivan Chamber. I hope to attend.
Anyway - this got me thinking again about who I want to support for City Council this year.
I have a friend running for City Council this year: Bill Hees. Bill is the current president of the investment club I belong to; he's a nice guy. Bill's a long-standing Libertarian , so we disagree on a lot of issues, though perhaps less than one might expect. I generally consider Libertarians to be insanely optimistic about human behavior; I like that optimism, but I just think it's terribly naive.
[At Bill's request I have removed the remainder of the text that used to be here. Bill feels that I misrepresented his views, and for that I apologize.]
I met Jesse Gordon last weekend when he braved the wrath of our "no solicitors" sign and knocked on our front door. We've since traded email a couple of times, discussing various issues.
Jesse immediately connected with me by virtue of living in the Cornerstone cohousing community. Before Katy and I moved into our current home, we worked for several years with a number of friends to try to establish a cohousing community in Groton, MA. We ultimately failed, but some of those friends now live in Acton's New View community. Cohousing is a terrific idea, and our failure is one of the great disappointments of my life.
Anyway - I agree with Jesse on many, but not all issues. A few:
Jesse told me that he supports the progressive voucher system described by Robert Reich. (I don't see a statement to that effect on Jesse's web pages, though.) This system essentially offers vouchers to all students, with the amount determined by family income. This makes a lot of sense to me - especially if it includes homeschooled children, like mine.
Jesse also believes that the City web site should contain information about all of the educational opportunities - public and private - available to Cambridge families, at least to the point of providing contact information. He's backed this up with his own Cambridge schools information page, which includes homeschool contacts.
Jesse also stated that he would prefer, in the long run, to see local government funded by income taxes, rather than property taxes (which he and I both consider inherently regressive). However, that's not going to happen anytime soon, so he's promoting a graduated property tax rate based on valuation, which would evidently require a change in state law. I don't see this as anything more than a band-aid; unless the graduation is indexed to property values; it provides only short-term relief. But at least the issue is on his radar.
I'll be watching this campaign closely; I think there's a good chance Jesse will get my #1 vote in November.