This is not an ordinary political moment, and we cannot pretend this is an ordinary local election. The Trump Administration is attacking our low-income and immigrant neighbors by slashing vital social programs, sending ICE to terrorize our community, and actively moving our country towards autocracy. Cambridge has the resources, unique intellectual capital, and ability to not only support our residents through this emergency, but to become a national leader in the resistance to the Trump administration’s assaults. This must be our top priority.

We need bold and urgent action to fight back, including:

• Establishing legal aid support to Cambridge residents who come under attack for their documentation status, free speech, or free exercise of the press.

• Issuing municipal ID cards that allow undocumented residents to more safely move around the city and utilize services—including reporting crimes, getting healthcare, signing leases, and opening bank accounts.

• Sending city-wide alerts (like amber alerts) when ICE presence is detected in a particular area of Cambridge.

• Dramatically expanding support for our heroic nonprofits who provide vital assistance to our immigrant and low-income communities.

• Training every city staff member and contractor not only on their own rights, but how they can serve as an ally to vulnerable populations in their work and community.

• Establishing a paid commission of the leading experts on resisting autocracy to actively monitor the Trump administration’s assaults and continuously propose additional strategies for resistance—not only in Cambridge, but for cities around the country. With the greatest number of Nobel laureates per capita in the world, we are uniquely capable of developing such strategies.

City Council is supposed to provide oversight, ensuring our tax dollars are used efficiently, that residents are well served, and that policies are based on our values of fairness, decency, and opportunity. This is currently impossible because the City Council barely has the resources to engage with constituents, much less serve as a check and balance for how the city is run. The result is a truly unaccountable administration, poorly written legislation, and a failure to imagine an ambitious vision for our city’s future. I will fight to provide City Council with the resources, leverage, and mandate to actually do its job: to ask tough questions, thoroughly evaluates policies, hold officials accountable, and drive a vision for Cambridge that reflects the democratic will of voters.  

Most pivotally, I will doggedly pursue public financing for our municipal elections, ensuring that corporate and special interests can no longer run Cambridge politics, and that public office is accessible to all. In keeping with this commitment, I will not accept any funds from lobbyists, developers, or PACs. I fully believe we can achieve a public campaign financing system in Cambridge, ensuring the government finally serves all residents rather than the wealthiest among us. 

I will also strongly pursue term limits in any future charter reform, in order to encourage a greater variety of voices to join our democratic conversation; contribute new energy, ideas, and perspectives; reduce stagnancy in our governance; and provide alternatives to a vision for Cambridge that is often exhausted by the time a councilor seeks a 5th term in office.  

Nearly every council candidate claims to support the creation of well-planned and affordable housing, but when corporate lobbyists, private speculators, indifferent legislators, or party colleagues stand in the way, too many City Councilors lack the courage to stand up to power.

We need champions to advocate for affordable housing across the entire region, reducing pressure on communities like Cambridge. We also need advocacy for reasonable rent stabilization at the state level and campaign finance reform to diminish the toxic influence of speculators and lobbyists across all levels of our political process.

The City of Cambridge must lead an ambitious effort to make housing more affordable and accessible to our essential workforce and low-income residents, with a focus on building in transport-rich squares and corridors rather than in the middle of inaccessible neighborhoods.

• To achieve this anytime soon, we cannot just rely on for-profit developers to do what they’ve never done before: build housing for those who can least afford it. And we must vigorously oppose any attempt to lower affordable unit requirements in new constructions.

• Instead, we need bold public investment in community governed and neighborhood-appropriate social housing (mixed-income public housing) and community land trusts, which could set aside deeply affordable units, as well as keep revenue and wealth within the city rather than lining the pockets of private equity investors.

• We need expanded municipal vouchers that allow low-income residents to afford existing inclusionary units that are supposed to be “affordable” but are still too expensive for many.

• We must open and maintain dignified and safe shelters, including dry shelters and those that provide critical harm reduction resources for unhoused folks in crisis and transition.

• And we must encourage homeowners to offer lodging and renting below market, as well as forgo brokers’ services altogether, by reducing administrative burdens and offering tax incentives.

• Finally, we must create a dedicated Office of Housing Stability, providing specialized and robust support for renters who are facing negligent landlords, unsafe living environments, retaliation, eviction, and difficulty finding housing.

As Cambridge’s wealth has grown, its low-and-middle-income families are quickly losing ground, resulting in one of the highest levels of income inequality in the country. I will fight to ensure that the benefits of Cambridge’s wealth are more evenly shared throughout our community, and that all residents have the opportunity to thrive rather than merely fight to survive. This commitment is personal; growing up, subsidized housing and public supports were essential to helping my immigrant family flourish in our country. Now, I am driven to ensure that all Cambridge families have the opportunities and support they deserve. This includes:

• Keeping our food pantries stocked and the nonprofits that operate them supported. And we must incentivize and sufficiently subsidize nonprofit grocery stores, such as the recently-shuttered Daily Table, to provide below-market groceries across Cambridge.

• Affordable housing (see above)

• Universal childcare, expanded PreK, and afterschool programming

• Renewed cash assistance programs such as Rise Up for very low-income families. 

• Municipal broadband network that provides equitable and affordable internet access to all residents.

We must invest in the safety of our community, including data-informed improvements to road design, cycling infrastructure, and public transit in order to improve the transport experience of drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. This should not be a controversial or divisive issue; users of all major transportation methods have good reason to support these improvements.  

We know far too many cyclists who have been killed or seriously injured in car accidents. We’ve seen too often how multiple modes of transport sharing the same lane can create confusion and distraction, jeopardizing everyone’s safety. As pedestrians, we’ve had close calls with being hit by cars, bikes, and scooters at crosswalks. We’ve experienced inconsistency and inconvenience of public transit in our city. And any driver—particularly those transporting family or folks with mobility issues — knows the frustration and paralysis of not being able to find a parking spot near their destination.  

Resolving these problems is not rocket science, but it does require us to work together in good faith. I will prioritize bringing people together around the values of improving safety, equity, and opportunity in our transportation infrastructure.  

This means distributing parking more fairly and efficiently; separating cars from bikes through protected lanes where feasible; implementing traffic calming measures; enforcing speed limits and traffic laws across all modes of transport, and supplementing the MBTA with municipal transit resources.