City Council Proposes Amendments to Update City Charter, While Avoiding Most Contentious Ideas

Cambridge City Councilors approved a draft of amendments to the city charter on Monday as part of the city’s first decennial charter review, even as they avoided some of the most contentious recommendations that emerged from a committee appointed to kickstart the process.

One of the most notable changes, which must still go through several rounds of approvals before it becomes official, included establishing a process for residents to put an initiative up for vote on the municipal ballot if they gather signatures from 15 percent of voters, and to put it up for a Council vote if they gather signatures from 5 percent of voters.

Another amendment would revoke the mayor’s status as the automatic chair of the school committee, allowing school members to instead elect their chair from among themselves. The mayor would remain a member of the committee.

The Council also proposed amendments expanding the number of personnel appointments they must approve and codifying their annual performance review of the city manager.

Cambridge’s form of municipal governance relies on an elected city council to hire a city manager, who acts as the city’s chief executive. The mayor, who councilors elect from among themselves, presides over the council.

The proposals were less historic in scope than some of the recommendations issued by a committee that was assembled to study what amendments should or could be made to the charter at the start of a new, once-in-a-decade review process required by a 2021 referendum.

Those recommendations included expanding voter eligibility to non-citizen residents, lowering the voting age to 16, and establishing a “Resident Assembly” to consider controversial issues in the city.

While many of those ideas have been discussed by the council in meetings since the recommendations were released early last year, the final draft of the charter review approved by the Council on Monday did not take up any of them.

In a prior meeting, Councilor Sumbul Siddiqui apologized to charter review committee members for not having their recommendations substantially discussed in the Council’s debates.

The committee’s proposals, though significant, drew little public attention and are now effectively dead.

The charter review began in 2022 after a voter referendum requested the city establish a process to review and change the charter every 10 years.

The Council’s slate of proposed amendments will now advance to the state legislature to get approval, before going on the ballot in November for final approval from the city’s voters. It is expected that the charter will pass the legislature without issue.

Most of the amendments announced are updates in the document’s language to improve clarity, largely at the suggestion of the city’s legal department. One further amendment will designate the longest-serving councilor as the acting mayor in the interim period between when the councilors have been elected and their formal vote to select a mayor.

During Monday’s meeting, councilors said they were looking forward to seeing the amendment advance.

“It is really, really exciting and a culmination of years and years of working to update our city government,” Councilor Patricia M. “Patty” Nolan ’80 said.

​​— Staff writer Jack B. Reardon can be reached at jack.reardon@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @JackBReardon.

— Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at shawn.boehmer@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.