City Council Meeting Convenes

For a few minutes on Monday night, the Cambridge City Council meeting looked more like a poetry slam.

“My love for this UB family ain’t about me. It’s about we,” the enthusiastic high school bard recited. “When the going gets tough and the game gets rough, I can lean on my sisters and brothers.”

The poet made his appearance on behalf of Upward Bound, a program run by MIT and Wellesley which offers a demanding academic program in a college setting for students at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. He and many of his classmates, teachers, and program alumni packed Sullivan Hall to appeal for funding from the city to fill the gap left by federal budget cuts.

Without the City Council, they said, the program must end.

“This is a do-or-die moment,” Council member Kenneth E. Reeves ’72 characterized the decision.

Though some councillors expressed concern about retaining grants that would support the roughly $400,000 annual expenditure in the future, the order to rescue the program carried unanimously, 9-0.

One student, a senior at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, said that she and her fellow students were devastated when they heard the program would be closed due to lack of funding. “A handful of senior girls and myself began to panic in a way I’d never seen before then,” she said, urging the Council to intervene. “Only when we are allowed to learn without restraints are we able to live our lives to the fullest.”

When the poet took the podium, Cambridge Democratic City Committee Ward 1 Chair Joseph Aiello felt moved to speak too. “Try to get these kids some funding because I am sitting over here in tears listening to these kids talk,” he said.

The meeting was well-attended by alumni of the program, including Robin Harris, the principal of Fletcher-Maynard Academy in Cambridge, who credited Upward Bound for her success. “My parents had a little bit of something to do with that, but the MIT/Wellesley Upward Bound had a lot of something to do with that,” she said.

Upward Bound is geared toward low-income students and first-generation immigrants. According to the MIT Public Service Center, historically over 90 percent of graduates of the program have gone on to enroll in post-secondary education programs.

Vice-Mayor E. Denise Simmons moved to suspend the rules of procedure so the policy item could be discussed as one of the first orders of business, allowing the young advocates to hear the debate and the result of the vote.

Reeves, who expressed strong support of the program, described it as one of the first uses of federal funding for urban education to come out of the civil rights era. “This was a nation’s investment in the reality that everyone in America should be able to have the opportunity to make something of him or herself,” he said.

“The proof of the pudding is in the pudding,” he said, referring to the students in attendance. “This is very good pudding!”

The topic of funding for another social program occupied the later portion of the meeting.

Councillor Timothy J. Toomey, a longtime supporter of affordable housing, expressed frustration during the discussion of renewing the 80-10-10 scheme, which appropriates 80 percent of Community Preservation Act funds for affordable housing, 10 percent for historical preservation, and 10 percent for open space.

Toomey urged the Council to vote against renewing the funds, in order to force a more in-depth conversation about the program. “I’ve lost total faith in the affordable housing consortium,” he said.

Councillor Craig Kelley agreed with Toomey’s strong-arming strategy. “If Councillor Toomey’s frustration is that only by pulling the money away can we have an honest and painful discussion of this program, that’s the way I feel” he said. “We can’t seem to get this conversation going because every time the money comes up, it’s approved.”

The other councillors were less interested in continued debate on the program. The appropriation was adopted by a vote of 7-2.

—Staff writer Amanda E. McGowan can be reached at amanda.mcgowan@college.harvard.edu.