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 or developers, nor will I accept endorsements from independent expenditure 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.  

Too often City Council fails to use its platform to fight against the Trump administration, the state legislature, and within the metro region for Cambridge’s priorities. Nearly every council candidate claims to be for improving affordability and resisting federal overreach, but when corporate lobbyists, private speculators, indifferent legislators, or party colleagues stand in the way, many City Councilors lack the courage to stand up to power. We need fighters that are able to make a compelling case for Cambridge’s needs, including food security for all, affordable housing development across the region (reducing pressure on communities like Cambridge), rent stabilization, diminishing the influence of speculators and lobbyists on our elections, creating a progressive property tax, and permitting financial support for vital nonprofit organizations; priorities that the vast majority of Cambridge residents support, but will never receive without tougher advocates. 

The City of Cambridge must lead an ambitious but strategic initiative to build abundant affordable housing, rather than merely rely on for-profit developers to do what they’ve never done before: make housing more affordable and accessible for low-income folks. This municipal leadership must include smart investments in social housing and community land trusts, which will keep revenue and wealth within the city rather than lining the pockets of out-of-state private equity investors. It must include municipal vouchers that allow low-income residents to afford units that are supposed to be “affordable” but that are still too expensive for many, and the maintenance of shelters that provide critical services for unhoused folks in crisis and transition. And it includes administrative changes to encourage building, lodging, and renting below-market units by streamlining processes and offering necessary incentives. Just as importantly, we must vigorously oppose any attempt to lower inclusionary unit requirements in new constructions!

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 food access and security (which too many children in our wealthy city still lack), affordable housing, universal childcare, and renewed cash assistance programs for very low-income families. 

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 building more parking and distributing it 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.