Cambridge City Council Gives High Marks to City Manager Huang, Seeks Contract Renewal

The Cambridge City Council gave City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 high marks in his second annual performance review released last week, praising him as “a collaborative leader who has a strong work ethic” in its final report.

The review’s approval by the council on Monday night was followed by a unanimous vote to begin negotiations for renewing Huang’s contract beyond 2025, indicating support for extending his tenure for at least another two years to come.

Huang earned an overall rating of 3.29 on a four-point scale, with especially high ratings on his fiscal management — which is sure to remain in the spotlight as the city faces a budget crunch — and on his relationship with the council. The score represents a slight improvement from last year, when he earned a rating of 3.14.

Councilor Paul F. Toner, who co-chairs the finance committee, praised Huang for effectively managing Cambridge’s increasingly overstretched finances.

“You may be the first captain in 30-plus years that might have to sail into some — I won’t say troubled waters — but choppy waters, as we go forward. And I think you’re approaching that well,” he said.

Although the council was satisfied overall with Huang’s work so far, the group faulted him for his limited communication with them over sensitive negotiations with unions and, more recently, with local universities over the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program.

Such negotiations — over police and teachers’ union contracts, for example — are often of high interest to the public. But councilors said they were sometimes unable to respond to advocacy or questions from constituents about ongoing talks, because they lacked up-to-date information from the city manager.

“We can really only support the role of the city if we’re in the loop and being brought along,” Councilor Ayesha M. Wilson said. “So without any communication on that, it really leaves us to be in a real stuck spot.”

Huang argued that the sensitivity of such negotiations required that their progress be kept from the council until the city was ready to go public.

“The reality is that some of the negotiations the city is engaged in are fundamentally private and can’t end up being public,” Huang said. “Once you’ve told nine councilors, the mayor, the vice mayor, and everybody else, it basically becomes a public piece of information.”

Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern was also complimentary of Huang, but expressed concern over the city’s reliance on drawn-out studies, task forces, and reports to address pressing issues, saying he sometimes wished “we moved things a little more quickly” — “particularly around homelessness and the opioid crisis,” he added.

“I’d like to find that balance between doing our due process,” McGovern said, “with also making sure that we’re moving aggressively, particularly on issues that are literally life and death.”

Huang ultimately asked that councilors put their trust in other officials managing negotiations and new city policy, who remained “willing to take political direction from the council” and adapt to the will of constituents.

“In the other direction,” Huang said, “we are looking for the council to trust that city leaders are doing their best, that we are bringing professional expertise, that we’re working hard, and that when we say something can be done in this amount of time — and you push us a little and we do it a little quicker — that that’s really as quickly as we can handle it.”

Still, Councilor Patricia M. Nolan ’80 praised Huang for navigating Cambridge politics while “not having favorites, not giving special treatment to any one of us.”

“I remain grateful that the city manager applied for this job, that he accepted the job, and that he’s in the job,” Nolan said.

“There’s always growth to be had. If there wasn't growth to be had, we wouldn’t be human,” she added.

— Staff writer Benjamin Isaac can be reached at benjamin.isaac@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @benjaminisaac_1.