Part 10: Public Safety, Infrastructure, and Closing
Part 10 of a series on my priorities as a first-time candidate for Cambridge City Council.
Public Safety
The function of public safety should involve an ongoing process of earned trust among residents, collective buy-in, and collaborative solution seeking. I support many of the ideas expressed in the recently proposed HEART Proposal related to delegating certain mental health emergency calls to social workers, thereby applying specialized expertise in this area and simultaneously enabling our police force to better focus on true public threats. I believe that, through ongoing conversations among citizen activists and city officials, we can effectively integrate these ideas into a community-driven model for safety in Cambridge.
In addition to these formal efforts, a safe community relies on the social connectedness of its neighborhoods. Neighbors who look after each other are neighbors significantly less vulnerable to a variety of dangers. I propose provisioning a community events liaison for each neighborhood responsible for exploring how best to catalyze organic, ongoing hyper local community events. The output of this exploration may be understanding the need to raise modest funding for food or venue, or to perhaps help facilitate outreach. Either way, I believe communities generally want to organize such events, and this resource can relieve any logistical hurdles.
Infrastructure
We must invest in safe, robust, and sustainable water, gas, and utility infrastructure. In doing so, we must also respect the ongoing quality of life for our community. I support updating our guidelines for noisy roadside construction from a 7:00am to a 9:00am start time for the sanity of all residents.
In Closing
Cambridge is a powerhouse of material innovation. We should be a trailblazer in social innovation as well. As we grapple with increasing inequality, public safety, and climate change, we must invest in all our people and in the fundamental processes and services that matter.
Our challenges are substantial. Yet we also benefit from nearly unparalleled diversity of ideas right within our borders and the local resources to achieve real improvement.
Cities are sometimes considered “laboratories of democracy,” since they are places where ideas are generated, tried, and evaluated. Often these bubble up to state and national levels, where they are implemented at large scales.
Let’s use our resources, engage our people, and leverage our political will to achieve truly exciting goals that effectively serve our residents. Things don’t have to be business as usual. This is our chance to lead.
