City Council Meeting – May 18th, 2026

Have an opinion and want to share it? Contact the Council at council@cambridgema.gov. To be on the record, CC the city clerk at cityclerk@cambridgema.gov. Sign up to speak for public comment here. Signup opens at 9AM on the business day before the meeting.

Meeting Link

Note: Some agenda item links may not work until after the meeting has completed

City Manager’s Agenda

Reports and Communications

  • #1 (CMA 2026-153) A federal update
  • #10 (CMA 2026-141) Creation of the Cambridge Social Housing Task Force

Appropriations and Grants

  • #2 (CMA 2026-154) $322,825 transfer within the School Department general fund
  • #3 (CMA 2026-147) $38,905.18 from the State Executive Office of Public Safety grant to purchase fire department equipment
  • #4 (CMA 2026-148) $30,000 from the MA Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) Land Conservation Assistance Grant for, “field work needed to create a land ‘Baseline Documentation Report’ […] associated with the purchase of approximately 52 acres of land in Lincoln, MA […] for water supply protection”
  • #5 (CMA 2026-156) $450,000 to support the purchase of land located in Lincoln, MA
  • #6 (CMA 2026-149) $350,000 from the MA Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) Drinking Water Supply Protection Grant to support the purchase of land located in Lincoln, MA
  • #7 (CMA 2026-150) $251,320.90 from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) Community Connections Grant to purchase six new Bluebikes stations and expand existing stations by 2 quad dock slabs, totaling 106 (106) docks
  • #8 (CMA 2026-146) $15,000.00 from the Cambridge Food Pantry Grant from the Cambridge Health Alliance to support the Cambridge Food Pantry Network
  • #9 (CMA 2026-151) $5,993.40 from the Project Bread Summer Eats grant, “to enhance promotion and outreach, support activities, and to pay for program related supplies”

Appointments

  • #11 (CMA 2026-152) Social Housing Task Force – Sara Barcan, Philip Dearing, Kathleen Evans, Tom Evans, C. Dale Gadsden, Kavish Gandhi, Trudi Goodman, Jean Hannon, Christopher Herbert, Margaret Donnelly Moran, Carl Nagy-Koechlin, Krissandra Robinson, Susan Schlesinger

Policy Orders

Requests that the city…

  • #2 (POR 2026-105) extend the appointment of Interim City Clerk Paula M. Crane for an additional period not to exceed six months

That the council…

  • #1 (POR 2026-103) support H.968, H.886/S.647, H.1023, and S.570 and S.571 to enact extended producer responsibility and product stewardship

Charter Rights

  • #1 (POR 2026-97) immediately request Empower to resign from the Massachusetts High Technology Council
  • #2 (POR 2026-98) “ensure that there is no new data collected by ShotSpotter devices and all existing data shall be kept, used, or deleted only as required by law”
  • #3 (POR 2026-99) engage the Collins Center to help review policy options for allowing voters to directly elect the Mayor
  • #4 (POR 2026-94) determine the projected fiscal impact of maintaining the current parking permit exemption for seniors
  • #5 (POR 2026-102) conduct a full and complete analysis of the proposed changes to the Rules of the City Council

All comments are from members of our comment team.

Leave a Reply