Candidates Questionnaire - Andre Green

1. Many residents feel that their property taxes are too high, and that because of this they cannot afford to buy a house or rent an apartment to stay in Cambridge. How can we make sure that property taxes keep the city affordable while providing the city with the tax base it needs?

The first thing we have to realize is that in the short term, the city has a larger tax base than it needs. The last round of assessments have done much to make a bad housing situation worse, all for money the City doesn’t need. I’ve spoken to people who’ve lived and owned in Cambridge for decades, who feel as if they now have no choice but to sell, as they can’t hope to support themselves on rental income without driving their tenants out. Therefore, 100% market based assessment must be repealed.

In the medium term, the only way a city can keep property taxes low is to keep a lid on spending. As a City Councilor, I’ll submit every penny spent to two simple tests: “Does this improve the day to day lives of Cantabridgians?” and “Can this be done for less?” As I’m not angling for higher office, my decisions will never be colored by looking for political advantage, or the quest for campaign contributions

And in the long term, Cambridge needs to take the lead in moving away from the property tax, quite possibly the most regressive tax there is, as a basis for municipal funding. By working with other home-rule municipalities, we can lobby the state legislature for greater freedom to determine how Cambridge is taxed, and then to develop a tax structure that promotes growth and doesn’t punish hard-working families for making Cambridge their home.

2. How can we make public transportation better in Cambridge and what can the City Council do to encourage residents to use public transportation?

The first thing to be done is to use every tool in our city’s arsenal to commit the MBTA to providing an adequate level of service. Which means working elevators in all stations, buses that can be trusted to follow their schedules, and a commitment to finishing capital projects on time and with minimum inconvenience to those who most depend on it. We should also strongly support line expansion, even when it doesn’t directly involve Cambridge, as expanded service anywhere is expanded service for everyone.

And as far as Cambridge’s own Bus system, it needs to be better advertised, with routes and times clearly posted at every stop and available at every public facility and online. Also, we should come to terms with the fact that public transportation does not pay for itself through fares, and explore replacing fares with alternate revenue sources. Cantabridgians are a progressive lot, and will use public transportation to the extent that we make it convenient, inexpensive, and reliable.

3. What can the city do to make sure that future negotiations with the city's unions are fair to workers?

Cambridge has, by and large done well by its employees, with none of the acrimony that marred the last round of contract negotiations in Boston, for example. And like many businesses are learning, Cambridge understands that paying enough for good employees can only make any organization stronger. Furthermore, we must remember that a commitment to good employees involves continuing to train them well, so that as the city evolves, our civil servants can adapt to meet new challenges.

4. Cambridge is one of the centers of high-tech innovation in the country. What can the City Council do to encourage innovation and take advantage of new technology while keeping the city affordable for its residents?

I think this question is a bit misleading, as if we properly take advantage of new technology and support innovation; that can only help make life easier and more affordable for our residents.

Boston has pledged to have city-wide wi-fi within four years. Not only can Cambridge beat this, we can start by making every municipal building and park a wi-fi hotspot immediately. Coupled with cooperating with the city’s colleges and the private institutions which have already adopted wireless technology, and we can and should develop a meaningful citywide wireless, and do so in a way that makes it accessible to the overwhelming majority of residents. Furthermore, we can make meaningful steps to address the digital divide by providing more than token computer usage in our public libraries. The new main library, and the presumed changes to our other existing branch libraries, make this an ideal chance to find ways to use our libraries in new ways to bring the advantages of the opportunities the Internet make possible.

Beyond that, we would be foolish not to see being the home of so many high tech companies as anything but an opportunity. Biogen, in a billboard in Kendall Square, brags about the assistance it gives to CRLS, and the help is welcome; but we can do more. City Councilors shouldn’t try to mandate solutions to everything, but we can , and I do, commit to spending at least as much time trying to arrange private-public partnerships with local businesses as we do trying to finance our re-election campaigns.

5. What will you do to take advantage of the unique educational resources provided by the Cambridge's universities while preventing university development that threatens working families?

Like the above question, though in ways more so, we’re offered a false choice here, one brought about by years of looking at the universities as existing merely to raise as much in PILOT money as possible. In doing so, questions about how to use the opportunities these school present us go unasked. Questions like “Why aren’t there Harvard Education School students working to make CPS better?” “Somerville has Kennedy School students doing unpaid internships in many government agencies, why doesn’t Cambridge?” “How can MIT students show Cambridge students reasons and ways to better study Math and Science.” “How can we leverage the work Lesley students are doing to better help our overworked human services staff?” to name just a few..

In short, we need to replace the historic “Us vs. them” mindset that has too long permeated both sides of town-gown relations and replace them with a partnership that realizes that we both bring unique things to the table that only make each other stronger

Furthermore we can encourage the Universities, who face housing crunches of their own to look beyond large dormitory housing towards the possibility of mixed use housing. As our universities grow, increasing numbers of students will be looking for housing in an already tight market. We need to work with the schools now to deal with this now, in ways that neither take more property off the tax rolls nor dramatically increase the number of people looking at a tight rental market.

6. What can City Council do to ensure that future development is not environmentally harmful?

First and foremost, Cambridge needs to create and implement solid environmental impact standards to serve as benchmarks for development. Secondly, Cambridge needs to lose its fixation on large scale development projects, like North Point that radically alter neighborhoods rather than enhance them. Instead I will encourage new, neighborhood-centric development plans that emphasize smaller, mixed use properties, as part of an overarching plan to develop environmental impact standards that serve as a model for promoting growth that works with, and not against the environment.

Andre Green
andregreen@gmail.com