These are just some of the municipal meetings and civic events for the coming week. More are on the City Calendar and in the city’s Open Meetings Portal.
Social media, food insecurity
City Council, 5:30 p.m. Monday. The budget for the 2027 fiscal year starting July 1 grows ever so slightly – to $1,033,209,502, which is an increase of $41 million and 4.1 percent from the current fiscal year’s budget – with some late additions by the city manager: $200,000 to the Housing Department to explore social housing and a Cambridge Community Land Trust; $50,000 to the Equity and Inclusion Department to meet growing demand for immigrant legal services; and $250,000 more to offset municipal employee health insurance, dental and life insurance costs. City staff also have a report on surveillance technology impacts – arriving alongside city councillors’ clarification that the council disapproves further use of the ShotSpotter gunfire-detection system, as is its “direct authority”; and on city social media use policies. Cambridge has dropped use of Twitter, known as X since the app’s takeover by tech oligarch Elon Musk, at the request of the council. The report gives a rationale for the city’s remaining seven social platforms and a framework for their use across departments.
Among other council policy orders are two more from Ayah Al-Zubi calling for “know your rights” materials to be posted prominently in police department facilities so they can be seen and understood by immigrants and others in custody; and a report on food access. “Given the scale of public need and ongoing municipal and philanthropic investment, and continued uncertainty around the future of Snap benefits, the City Council seeks a comprehensive accounting of existing programs, expenditures, outcomes and unmet needs,” writes Al-Zubi, whose run for office last year included hopes for a city-run grocery store.
The council meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable online and by Zoom videoconferencing.
Ellery Street multifamily plan
Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Conservation District Commission, 6 to 8 p.m. Monday. The final hearing of plans for 88 Ellery St., where the existing two-story, single-family 1873 home of 4,006 square feet would get a partial demolition and a rear addition of six stories and 47,692 square feet – more than 30 homes not needing a special permit, because the project falls under the multifamily zoning enacted Feb. 10, 2025. It would be next door to another six-story multifamily development at 84-86 Ellery St., a block north of a six-story project at 60 Ellery St. and around the corner from a six-story project at 406 Broadway. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Cambridge Street zoning change
Neighborhood & Long Term Planning, Public Facilities, Arts & Celebration Committee, 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday. This committee run by city councillor Cathie Zusy possible changes relating to setbacks, stepbacks, open space and wet labs to the recently adopted Cambridge Street zoning. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable online and by Zoom videoconferencing.
Municipal voucher program
Cambridge Housing Authority, 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. The board advances a municipal voucher program; considers the purchase, moderate rehabilitation and sale of a condominium in the building at 12 Prince St., Cambridgeport; and moves to change its executive director to chief executive. Then comes a closed-door session to discuss legal strategy and “to discuss the reputation, character, physical condition, or mental health of an individual.” Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Combined Sewer Overflows
Public meeting, 6 p.m. Tuesday. Cambridge, Somerville and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority have submitted a draft control plan to the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Environmental Protection to end the release of waste in public waterways when sewer and water systems get overwhelmed by rainfall. Watchable online.
Motion for welcoming schools
School Committee, 6 p.m. Tuesday. The superintendent presents on the district’s Controlled Choice policy, which is how families choose schools, including common misperceptions and recent school assignment data trends. The agenda notes that the presentation is an introduction to the policy and doesn’t include recommendations for changes. There will also be a short update on the future of 158 Spring St., once the Kennedy-Longfellow School, making clear that there’s no information due about the adjacent Ahern Field. Member Arjun Jaikumar has a motion to create a welcoming communities ordinance for the district to match a municipal version, as “this is an issue about which there is considerable anxiety among Cambridge Public Schools stakeholders.” The committee meets in the Dr. Henrietta S. Attles Meeting Room at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, 459 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Televised and watchable online.
‘Active uses’ along corridors
Planning Board, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Members look at zoning petitions that strengthen “active-use” requirements – the businesses and other things that keep streetscapes lively at the base of the residential construction that recently got zoning updates on North Massachusetts Avenue and Cambridge Street. Healthpeak, the life-sciences developer that plans a 42-acre neighborhood, asks to put off its second appearance before the board to Oct. 30. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Apartments at 350 Rindge Ave.
Community meeting, 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday. An all-affordable, no-fossil-fuel tower with 92 homes is proposed for 350 Rindge by Boston Communities, which says it expects the Ferro’s Foodtown grocery store to return after construction to be its ground-floor retail. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Wyman Road conservation asked
Historical Commission, 6 to 10:30 p.m. Thursday. Members consider making Wyman Road in West Cambridge a neighborhood conservation district, a response to a petition the commission received with the signatures of more than 100 registered voters. The petition argues that the cul-de-sac of six homes was created intentionally by an architecture firm – “a deliberate response to what was seen at the time as the overstated and extravagant display of wealth of the Avon Hill and Brattle Square mansions” of the 1920s. And it notes what sets the area apart, including famous residents that include Nobel laureates, academics and the poet E.E. Cummings and Marion Morehouse, considered by some to be the first supermodel, who lived in 6 Wyman St. for a year in the 1950s. (Cummings’ childhood home is on Irving Street in the Baldwin neighborhood.) The petition comes after a proposal that a six-story, 56-home building replace 9 Wyman Road, a project of the Multifamily Housing Ordinance passed Feb. 10, 2025, to allow six-story multifamily buildings anywhere in the city if they include affordable housing. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
No-questions-asked gun buyback
Safer Homes, Safer Community gift cards for guns drop-off, 10 a.m. to noon Saturday. Past drop-offs have run with no questions and no ID required to safely drop off unwanted unloaded guns with the safety engaged in a bag, box or case and in exchange for grocery gift cards ranging from $50 to $200 in value. At the parking lots of Reservoir Church, 170 Rindge Ave., North Cambridge, and Pentecostal Tabernacle, 77 Columbia St., Central Square.
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