The Cambridge Civic Association is a 58-year-old civic organization committed to honest, efficient, progressive government. Its mission is to build a city government that is open and understandable and to make city services available to everyone.

The City Council is responsible for setting policy. It must work closely with the City Manager to see that the departments of City government carry out the Council’s goals by developing suitable programs and efficiently delivering services throughout the city. The Council must conduct systematic, ongoing oversight and regularly measure progress towards its goals. The City Council also needs to work with appropriate state and federal officials to increase the resources available for city projects.

The CCA calls for the City Council and the City Manager to create, fund and evaluate policies that:

SUPPORT ALL CAMBRIDGE CITIZENS 
One of the City Council’s highest priorities must be to increase affordable housing, especially for middle-income residents with limited options. Escalating housing costs threaten to make Cambridge a city of only the rich and the poor with dire consequences for the school system and the social fabric of the city. The City Council must:

• promote policies that encourage the development of new housing at reasonable densities.
• continue to preserve affordable units through incentives or acquisition.
• design zoning incentives for creating and maintaining affordable housing units, including units accessible to middle-income residents, in every neighborhood throughout the city and in areas previously not zoned for housing.
• seek resources from state and federal agencies that yield affordable housing units.
• support housing proposals brought forth by the non-profit housing community in Cambridge.

The City must maintain a safety net of support services and programs for our most vulnerable residents, including poor families, older people on fixed incomes, and immigrants facing ever-more-restrictive eligibility requirements. The City Council must:

• support Cambridge youth programs, including improved accessibility to the wide range of services, programs, and facilities offered by the School Department, the Department of Human Services Programs (including the Community Schools Program and Agenda for Children initiatives), the Health Department, and the Public Library.
• find a permanent site in which to continue the mission of the Community Learning Center.
• support a rich variety of programs and services for the elderly.

The Education Platform of the CCA addresses specific educational issues that are the responsibility of the School Committee. The City Council approves the School Department budget, however, and the Mayor serves as Chair of the School Committee. The CCA calls upon the City Council to support the schools with adequate funding and to work with state officials to obtain additional resources for the school system.

KEEP CAMBRIDGE LIVABLE FOR ALL CITIZENS  
The City Council must address the potential threats to quality of life associated with growing traffic volume and congestion in Cambridge. The City can address these by:

• negotiating with the MBTA and surrounding towns and cities to improve routes, schedules, and level of service.
• promoting transit for elderly persons who cannot drive and for children going to libraries, sports events, and other activities.
• actively promoting alternative forms of transportation and making streets more safe for pedestrians and cyclists.
• promoting vehicles that use alternate fuel wherever practical.
• continuing support for the traffic reduction and parking measures in force for current commercial development.

The City Council must find ways to preserve, maintain, and increase active and passive open space in Cambridge by:

• determining which areas of the city are in greatest need of additional parks, athletic fields and playgrounds; and setting priorities for acquiring and preserving open space that it is fairly distributed across all residential areas; fairly allocating resources among competing recreational uses.
• enacting zoning provisions that lead to additional publicly accessible open space.

The City Council must create policies that balance a healthy commercial environment with a healthy quality of life for residents. The City Council must:

• lead the discussion about how best to make the tradeoffs between these competing interests.
• continue zoning reforms that moderate growth and which promote a balance between new residential and commercial development.

The City must address growing concerns about violent crime and other threats to quality of life. To this end, the Police Department must develop more effective approaches to community policing.

UNIVERSITY RELATIONS 
The City Council and City administration must develop a constructive collaboration with Harvard and MIT. These universities are by far the city’s largest employers and largest landowners. They provide extraordinary benefits to the city as well as extraordinary pressures on housing and quality of life. The City Council must find ways to work with the administration, faculty, students, and alumni of these institutions to address the myriad issues facing Cambridge in development, housing, schools and open space. The futures of Harvard, MIT, and Cambridge are intertwined, for better or worse, and the only rational course is to find that elusive common ground that equitably benefits all partners in this permanent relationship. This common ground should include:

• improved planning and land use regulations.
• appropriate payment-in-lieu-of-tax (PILOT) agreements.
• a greater role for each of the local universities in the Cambridge Public Schools.

MAKE CITY GOVERNMENT OPEN AND ACCESSIBLE 
The City administration and City departments must hire, retain and promote employees that reflect the racial and socio-economic make-up of our city. The City Council must ensure that:

• every City department provides a welcoming and tolerant work environment free of discrimination.
• City employees who serve the public receive ongoing direction to treat all residents with equal courtesy and respect.
• domestic partner benefits are made available to all eligible City employees.
• all City employees have regular performance evaluations which identify strengths and weaknesses and determine training needs.

Make access to City services as simple and equitable as possible. Such efforts should include:

• making the City’s web-based resources more effective for obtaining accurate and timely information, paying bills, and other routine tasks.
• increasing outreach to the under-served.
• ensuring cost savings through departmental restructuring while improving quality of service.

BUDGET AND FACILITIES
The City must establish an efficient facilities plan for all City departments and a capital plan to implement it. In particular, the CCA would like the School Committee and City Council to work with the Superintendent of Schools and the City Manager to make the necessary decisions to complete the library expansion, to determine the future use of vacated school buildings, to determine what to do about the police station renovation/replacement, and to make necessary renovations to City Hall.

The trends in the state and federal budgets will continue to make less money available on the local level. Consideration should be given to how to do more with fewer people via consolidation/reorganization of services (e.g. merging of City and School Department purchasing), better use of technology, methodical evaluation of all city jobs, and annual review of employees.

CITY COUNCIL PROCESS
The City Council must ensure the election of a mayor during the first month of the new Council term using criteria that reflect the wishes of the majority of the voters and which best serve the interests of the people of Cambridge. The CCA continues to support the fundamental structures of the Plan E government and places a very high priority on the timely election of the mayor so that the City Council and the School Committee, chaired by the Mayor, can attend to the business of the people without delay. The CCA also strongly believes that all city councillors, CCA-endorsed or not, must work together in an environment of mutual respect for the interests of the people of Cambridge.

The City Council and administration must look for means to empower neighborhoods in decision-making where possible and appropriate. This should include the support of City staff, where appropriate, to representative neighborhood groups working in the interest of residents.

In the event that the City Council must hire a new City Manager, the CCA urges that the City Council undertake an exhaustive hiring search that should include consultation with a search firm and which promotes community participation in the process. The CCA also endorses annual evaluation and feedback for each of the employees directly hired by the City Council: City Manager, City Clerk, Deputy Clerk, and Auditor.