Net Zero Crowds Out Shutdown at Council Meeting

Despite Cambridge Vice Mayor E. Denise Simmons’ tweet Monday afternoon alerting her followers to that night’s policy order on the impact of the government shutdown on subsidized renters, it was the net zero petition that dominated the public hearing at Monday night’s City Council meeting.

Supporters of the new environmental initiative—a group varied in age, gender, and occupation—gathered at the meeting to listen to City Manager Richard C. Rossi’s plan for the newly established task force’s appointments.

Attendees expressed a general concern that once the task force was created, the energy behind the petition would dissipate and the planning stage would be dragged out ad infinitum.

Net zero advocate Patty Nolan acknowledged this sentiment when she quoted Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Such an attitude [of waiting] stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively.”

Amongst the city councillors, only Councillor Minka Y. vanBeuzekom addressed questions and concerns to Rossi regarding the timeline and purpose of the task force.

“A good editorial in the NYT was talking about a carbon budget, and I would like that concept to be included in the conversation going forward,” said vanBeuzekom. “We are going to grow—that is true—and in order for us to stay within a carbon budget we need to become even more efficient.”

Addressing vanBeuzekom’s concern that the task force would not have a permanent chair, Rossi proposed that the task force be chair-less, and instead led by a group of experts that would work closely together with city staff in additional areas, such as the committee on Cambridge’s resilience and adaptation capacity in the face of climate change.

Both Rossi and vanBeuzekom agreed that they want the task force to have an action plan ready by December 2014.

As the focus of the meeting turned towards the government shutdown, Councillor Craig A. Kelley opened the discussion on Simmons’ policy order to develop a contingency plan to ensure that Cambridge residents receiving fully or partially subsidized rent from federal grants would not see their housing jeopardized in the event of another federal government shutdown.

All councillors voted to adopt the order, but expressed a desire to learn more about the effects of another federal government shutdown on city operations.

“Is it possible that people [will] wind up getting evicted? I realize that the eviction process can take a while but we would find ourselves, if that were the case, with a flood of eviction concerns,” Kelley said.

—Staff writer Anja C. Nilsson can be reached at anja.nilsson@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @anja_nilsson.