City Council Moves To Explore Fossil Fuels Divestment

At Robert W. Healy’s last Cambridge City Council meeting as city manager Monday evening, the Council made a move to look into divestment from fossil fuels.

Council members unanimously approved a policy order resolution from Councillor Leland Cheung requesting that the City Manager “urge the Cambridge Retirement Board of Trustees to review Cambridge’s investment portfolio to consider divestment from fossil fuel companies and report back to the City Council.”

The policy order also resolved that the “City Council go on record supporting the principle of fossil fuel divestment.” Councillor Craig A. Kelley said in an interview after the meeting that the vote on the divestment policy order is a request to look at divestment as a possibility rather than a decision to divest.

The policy order, one of several passed on Monday, did not spur debate from Council members at the time of the meeting.

Several Cambridge residents addressed the divestment policy order during at the start of the meeting during the public comment period, including James M. Recht, a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

“Our city boasts a reputation of leadership in human rights and public health issues, and that reputation for leadership carries responsibilities,” Recht said, speaking in support of the policy order. “Our city has the strongest possible reasons for acting now.”

Also on Monday evening, members of the Council thanked Healy for his decades of service to the city.

Healy, who has served as Cambridge’s chief executive since 1981, announced in March 2012 that he planned to leave Cambridge city government. Last month, the Harvard Kennedy School announced that Healy would serve as a Taubman Fellow at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. Healy will teach as an adjunct lecturer and work with Kennedy School affiliates on a variety of projects.

Richard C. Rossi, the deputy city manager, has been appointed to a three-year term as Cambridge’s next city manager.

At the meeting Monday, the Council unanimously approved a policy order requesting that the new city manager act to commission a portrait of Healy, which will hang in the Manager’s office. The policy order also renamed the office the “Robert W. Healy, Jr. Executive Suite.”

At the end of the meeting, members of the Council addressed Healy with words of gratitude.

“Over the decades that you have served, your name has been synonymous with city hall itself, and your influence on our municipal government is unquestioned,” Vice Mayor E. Denise Simmons said.

"There's nothing complicated to say except thank you," Councillor Marjorie C. Decker said. "You have been an integral part of really shaping the narrative of what the community is."

After the meeting, Cambridge mayor Henrietta J. Davis praised Healy’s work as the city’s Manager.

“He’s had a great long career and has had an influence on everything in the city, especially affordable housing, human services, and putting the city on a strong financial footing,” Davis said.

—Staff writer Madeline R. Conway can be reached at mconway@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @MadelineRConway.