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.
Get rid of unsafe drugs
Medication takeback day, 1 to 3 p.m. Monday. Police, the Council on Aging and the city’s Public Health Department accept unwanted prescriptions, vitamins and over-the-counter medications for disposal. Drop off the items at the North Cambridge Senior Center, 2050 Massachusetts Ave.
Handling growing hunger
City Council, 5:30 p.m. Monday. Along with the city manager’s usual report on how Cambridge handles various forms of federal hostility, there’s a request for $500,000 to address hunger resulting from new food aid restrictions (up to 203,000 people could lose benefits statewide as of the new year, including 2,400 in Cambridge), and councillors urge more state hiring to the Department of Transitional Assistance to help people being cut off. A report on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in the six months from February to August shows a half-dozen police interactions with agents – with local officers providing no information about any person – and zero other actions. In response to a council order asking if police could refuse to hire applicants who have engaged in federal anti-immigrant work, the Law Department advises that generally the city must work from civil service lists. Still, the city can look to see if there’s “evidence that character deficiencies or past misconduct raise legitimate concerns about the candidate’s fitness.”
The city has begun work with the Collins Center at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, to explore letting voters elect a mayor directly, the city manager said. Currently, city councillors elect a mayor from within their own ranks. (There’s also an order to negotiate a contract with longtime deputy and interim city clerk Paula Crane and promote her to clerk permanently; Crane resisted the call since searches began in 2024 to replace retired clerk Diane LeBlanc, but no winning candidate emerged, and Crane has finally expressed interest.)
There’s a policy order to look at how to improve and streamline permitting and licensing processes for small businesses – and a call to report back on what happened to recommendations from a Small Business Permitting & Licensing Efficiency Review in 2021, which seemed to disappear under a previous city manager. (Meanwhile, councillor Patty Nolan is calling to reconsider seeking permission from the state to offer adult beverages to-go, as the city did during World Cup soccer finals.)
The annual report of a Transportation Demand Management Program suggest that in-person workers commute alone in their cars 45 percent of the time, the biggest percentage; transit use follows at 31 percent, followed by walking at 11 percent, biking at 10 percent and car pooling at 3 percent. Another report explains a “significant decline in traffic enforcement since 2015,” confirming that numbers declined going into the Covid pandemic (with 1,994 citations issued in 2021) but have been fairly stable since (last year, 4,149 citations). Staffing shortages since 2019 and fluctuating grant funding have affected the ticket writing, but transportation experts have “also made effective traffic-calming infrastructure changes throughout the city,” acting police commissioner Pauline Wells said. “As a result, speeding in the city has declined.”
Community Preservation Act Committee disbursements are presented, including $1.4 million appropriated to Russell E. Hoyt Field, the largest community park in the Riverside neighborhood, which hasn’t had a major update since 1995; $500,000 for facade restoration at The Dance Complex, which is in a historic building called Odd Fellows Hall; and $150,000 for restoring the “Gift of the Wind,” the fading public art in Porter Square.
City leaders are establishing a 10-month task force charged with identifying policy solutions to expand supports for families with young children by increasing access to childcare for infants and toddlers.
The council meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable online and by Zoom videoconferencing.
Future of 158 Spring St. school
School Committee, 6 p.m. Tuesday. Superintendent David Murphy presents on the future of 158 Spring St., which was once the Kennedy-Longfellow School. The 220-student school serving prekindergarteners through fifth graders was closed at the end of 2025 to resolve a problem bringing together a disproportionate number of high-needs students (which led to disproportionately low test scores). He has said it’s “essentially inevitable” that if one school moves in, it will be the Amigos, which teaches preschoolers through grade eight in a Cambridgeport building. With no timeline so far communicated to district families, there’s a motion on the agenda giving the issue a push toward finality – calling for a vote by Oct. 15.
Members also consider motions about making sure all students get equally good recesses, and getting a comprehensive review of the Rindge School of Technical Arts, the city’s school focused on vocational and technical arts. 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 and by Zoom videoconferencing.
Healthpeak neighborhood project
Planning Board, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. The life sciences developer Healthpeak returns with a plan to turn a largely industrial Alewife Quadrangle area in the Cambridge Highlands into a new neighborhood of 20 buildings, including 2,076 homes in buildings of up to 12 stories, retail and a pedestrian and bike bridge over rail tracks that brings residents near the Alewife red line T stop. Many want a commuter rail stop nearby too. The board first heard this April 28. At City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Multifamily zoning law changes
Housing and Neighborhood & Long Term Planning, Public Facilities, Arts & Celebration committees, 11 a.m. Wednesday. These committee run by vice mayor Burhan Azeem and city councillor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler and councillor Cathie Zusy, respectively, continue discussion of possible changes to the Multifamily Zoning Ordinance passed in February 2025, which led to a spate of property turnovers, demolitions and project proposals that has roiled the city. Because this is considered the continuation of a hearing from June 25 that took public comment, this meeting will take none. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Resiliency hub; shared kitchen
Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. There’s a motion for a grant of $993,132 to create a resiliency hub at the Cambridge Community Center, 5 Callender St., Riverside, so people can shelter in a crisis; discussion of a community engagement plan for a housing project at 2400 Massachusetts Ave., North Cambridge; and talk of authorizing lease negotiations with the owners of 1075 Cambridge St., Wellington-Harrington, one of the former Clover fast food locations, to secure a site for a shared kitchen. At The Foundry, 101 Rogers St., East Cambridge, and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Bike lanes for Kendall Square
Bicycle Pedestrian Transit Advisory Committees joint meeting, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. The groups gather for a 50-minute session about the Main Street Safety Improvement Project adding separated bike lanes and related street safety improvements on Main Street in Kendall Square, from Technology Square to Ames Street. On the fourth floor of City Hall Annex, 344 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Harriet Jacobs hotel and homes
Harvard Square Advisory Committee, 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday. A proposed Harvard Square hotel-and-homes project checks in on its way back to the Planning Board on Sept. 24. The Harriet Jacobs House, where an author who escaped slavery ran a boarding house for Harvard students and faculty in the 1800s, would be reoriented at Mount Auburn and Story streets, refurbished, given a museum and connected with eight stories of units to be built behind it, with a three-story structure on the lot torn down to make room. The project seeks to move closer to sidewalks – and therefore farther from the homes of neighbors who are conflicted about the project going up.. The board meets on the second floor of City Hall Annex, 344 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
More açaí, matcha and Momma’s
License Commission, 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Thursday. Looks like we’re not done with either the açaí or matcha fads: BoostBerry Acai & Smoothies bids to come to a small space within 99 Mount Auburn St., Harvard Square, and Kyo Matcha to open its second location after one in Brookline at 580B Massachusetts Ave., Central Square, to compete with the Mizu Matcha steps away at 605 Massachusetts Ave. It’s come time for the Momma’s Grocery + Wine expansion to 1175 Cambridge St., in the Wellington-Harrington neighborhood near Inman Square, bringing its soft-serve ice cream specialty from North Cambridge as reported in July; and for the Pura Vida Miami restaurant chain to open its first Massachusetts location at 95 Mount Auburn St., Harvard Square, with its all-day breakfast; salads, wraps and sandwiches; bowls; and coffee, tea and baked goods. As reported all the way back in March, the 4,151-square-foot space it expects to fill is a former Verizon store across from Winthrop Park. Verizon relocated within the square. There’s also a listening session scheduled for feedback on the updated working draft of proposed changes to the licensing rules and regulations, the first in a decade. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Free document shredding hours
Cambridge Consumers’ Council, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. A mobile shredding truck accepts documents to recycle until it’s at capacity – a service that’s first-come, first-served and limited to five paper-size boxes per household or the equivalent. Parking for this event is on Bigelow Street alongside City Hall; shredding is in front of the Citywide Senior Center, 806 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square, Cambridge.
