City Manager’s Absence Sparks Controversy at Cambridge Public Safety Hearing

The Cambridge Public Safety Committee convened a public hearing Wednesday afternoon to address matters related to emergency response alternatives in Cambridge — though some city officials received criticism for not arriving on the scene themselves.

Several attendees, including Councilor Quinton Y. Zondervan, criticized City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 and Cambridge Community Safety Department officials for not attending the hearing. Chaired by Zondervan, the Public Safety Committee is a body within the Council that considers matters of policing and public safety in Cambridge.

The session featured updates and discussion on the work of two local non-police public safety alternatives: the Cambridge Community Safety Department, which the city has allocated $3 million in funding for in 2023, and the Cambridge Holistic Emergency Alternative Response Team, also known as HEART. The Public Safety Committee also fielded public comment and questions.

“It’s not a good look when the Community Safety Department doesn’t attend a public safety hearing,” said Spencer Piston, a political science assistant professor at Boston University. “It’s certainly not a good look when the City Council passes a policy order for the city manager to do something and then the city manager doesn’t do it — and eight months later, doesn’t even show up to report on it.”

“They’re stringing along Cambridge HEART. They’re playing games,” added Piston, who researches alternatives to policing. “If they weren’t, they would have funded Cambridge HEART by now, and they would have showed up to talk about it.”

Cambridge Police Department spokesperson Jeremy C. Warnick wrote in an email to The Crimson Wednesday that the city has made “significant ongoing efforts to providing and supporting alternative response” on the “investing, staffing, training, and building out” of the CSD and “allocating substantive time and resources to building a successful partnership with HEART.”

Warnick did not provide comment on specific criticisms. The Community Safety Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Former Mayor and Councilor Marc C. McGovern said he “was on the task force that helped create” the Community Safety Department and underscored its value.

“I have great hopes for the Community Safety Department,” McGovern said. “I don’t think it helps to say the Community Safety Department is not going to be any good because then people will erode trust in it.”

Due to Huang’s absence, Zondervan read emailed updates on HEART provided by Huang.

“The team is in a very busy period of training, developing protocols and policies, building an IT system and preparing for a 2024 warm line for when civilian responders are taking 911 emergency calls,” Huang wrote.

In a Monday statement to The Crimson, HEART co-director Corinne Espinoza wrote that the group is “still fighting for a contract for services with the City to fund our work, which we provide at no cost to the community member.”

Via a city contract, HEART currently receives federal funds through the American Rescue Plan, which has provided special, emergency funding in the wake of the pandemic. The group has requested and been reimbursed approximately $30,000 as of early November.

“Currently, the City’s Community Safety Department (CSD) has $1.5 million budgeted to share with local grassroots orgs doing this type of work,” Espinoza wrote. “We want the City to invest funds in Cambridge HEART’s work.”

McGovern said at the hearing that the city cannot provide funding to HEART without first having a signed contract with the group, noting that it is easier to fund the Community Safety Department as a city department.

“You ask this question of, ‘Why can the city fund the Community Safety Department but hasn’t funded HEART?’” McGovern said. “We cannot give money to HEART without a contract.”

—Staff writer Jina H. Choe can be reached at jina.choe@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Ryan H. Doan-Nguyen can be reached at ryan.doannguyen@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @ryandoannguyen or on Threads @ryandoannguyen.