Marc McGovern
2021 Candidate for Cambridge City Council

Home address:
17 Pleasant St.
Cambridge, MA 02139

Contact information:
Tel: 617-642-1731
e-mail: Mcgovernforcambridge@gmail.com
website: www.marcmcgovern.com
Facebook: facebook.com/McGovernForCambridge/
Twitter: twitter.com/MarcGov

Send contributions to:
Committee to Elect Marc McGovern
17 Pleasant St.
Cambridge, MA 02139
OR
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/marc-mcgovern-1

Background
Marc was born and raised in Cambridge, attending Cambridge Public Schools and graduating from Cambridge Rindge and Latin. Growing up in a family of activists, Marc frequently attended community meetings and campaign events, and politics was always a topic around his family’s dinner table. Seeing the positive impact that his grandmother and parents had on their community through government, Marc was inspired to go into public service, becoming a social worker.

For the past 25 years, Marc has worked tirelessly with at-risk children and families, advocating, problem solving, and working to ensure that those facing challenges have an equal chance at success. In 2003 Marc was elected to the School Committee, and in 2013 he was elected to the Cambridge City Council.

In elected office, Marc's ability to mediate, work effectively with those of different backgrounds, and listen to and understand the needs of families has proven invaluable. Throughout his time serving on the council, Marc has taken concrete action to create more affordable housing, protect our region’s immigrant population, end hunger in our public schools, and prioritize harm reduction as our city navigates the opioid epidemic.

Marc currently lives in Central Square with his wife, children, and their rescue dog Bunker.

Top Priorities

1. Expand low- and middle-income rental and homeownership opportunities

2. Address income inequality

3. Improve educational and job opportunities for our children and young adults

4. Universal Pre-K

5. Address infrastructure needs and create safe streets for all

6. Support local/small business in Covid recovery

Housing
Since joining the Council I have been a leader on addressing our affordable housing crisis. From more than tripling the amount of money commercial developers must pay to the Affordable Housing Trust, to increasing our inclusionary zoning percentage to 20%, the highest in the state, to most recently, being the lead sponsor on the Affordable Housing Overlay which in less than a year is responsible for close to 400, 100% affordable units in the pipeline. I take concrete actions that lead to tangible results.

In addition to building more housing, we also need to protect those who live in that housing. As Mayor, I launched the Mayor’s Tenant Protection Task Force, which made several recommendations to assist tenants facing displacement. As a result, this term, we increased funding for legal aid services, we created a “Know Your Rights” pamphlet so tenants know what their rights are, we increased funding and positions in our Housing Liaison office, and we are now looking at our condo conversion policies.

We also need to look at homeownership opportunities. We need to incentivize the building of smaller, 'starter homes’ that will be less expensive, so that moderate- and middle-income folks can build equity. We need to revamp our HomeBridge program to assist low-income residents in entering the homeownership market.

The question we need to ask is not, “Do you support affordable housing?” The question should be “Do you support affordable housing ENOUGH?” Too often we talk about how affordable housing is the top priority and then when it comes time to vote or support it, we prioritize aesthetics, traffic, or parking instead of homes. These are “gut check” moments. It’s easy to vote for things when everyone agrees, but where do you stand when there isn’t agreement? People can’t live in sentiments of good will. They need homes.

Environment
As a father, I am terrified at the world my children will inherit. Over the past four terms I have worked to take action on the environment, working with my colleagues and environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Mothers’ Out Front on issues, including banning single-use plastic bags, identifying gas leaks, moving Cambridge toward 100% renewable energy, creating a solar incentive program, expanding charging stations for electric vehicles, and requiring green/bio-solar roofs. To cut down further on emissions in our city, we need to take more action on Smart Meters, public transit investment, and converting the city’s fleet to electric vehicles. The biggest action we need to tackle is clear — requiring new buildings to be more sustainable and look at how we retrofit and renovate current buildings — to start cutting down on the 80% of city emissions that come from our labs.

Public Health
The Covid pandemic has only exacerbated public health issues that existed pre-pandemic. Our medical and mental health systems have been pushed to the brink. We have seen increases in anxiety disorder, depression, and suicide, not just in adults, but in our children. It would be easy to say that these issues are beyond our scope or too big for us to tackle, but that is not acceptable. We must do more and fast.

As a social worker with close to 30 years of experience, working to support those with mental health issues has been my life’s work. We need to expand mental health services to ensure everyone who needs mental health support can access it without long waiting lists. We need to invest more in housing our unhoused residents, because without housing, it is almost impossible to address medical and mental health issues. We need to provide more mental health support in our schools. We need to address substance use disorder, by opening a safe consumption site and opening in-patient beds for those seeking treatment. These are not easy tasks, and they will cost money, but the mental health of our residents must be of the utmost importance.

Public Safety and Intervention
The first thing the Council needs to do is stop politicizing and polarizing this conversation. The Cambridge Police are neither all perfect nor all bad. As someone who has worked with many Black and brown children and adults in Cambridge, I can tell you that we have issues of racism in our police department, as does every community. I can also tell you that the CPD is exceptional and light years ahead of other police departments around the country. It is possible to simultaneously have room for improvement, while at the same time, be a role model.

A few months ago, an unhoused gentleman rang my doorbell at 5:30 am. It was pouring rain outside, and the shelters were full. He asked for my help. The only thing I could offer him was to call 911. He didn’t want to involve the police. I should have had another number to call. We need to have a non-police response.

I had the honor of serving as the co-chair of the City Manager’s task force on re-imagining public safety. We brought together community members, mental health professionals, city leaders, clergy, and experts in police reform together to create a series of recommendations on how to create an alternative response to police involvement in these types of calls.

In addition, The Black Response, a community group, developed the HEART proposal through a separate, community-oriented process. Although there are differences in these two proposals, they both demand a new and different way of addressing calls now being handled by the CPD.

I support both proposals and think they can work in parallel.

Human Services Programs
Cambridge spends a great deal on human services programs. Sometimes, however, our implementation can be better. Most recently, parents did not find out if their child(ren) had an after-school placement until two days before school started. Not acceptable. It put families in turmoil. And those families without the resources to find a private program, were hurt the most. Cambridge has the resources to ensure that every child who needs an after-school program can have one. It doesn’t have to be free, but it needs to be available.

We also need to do more to support our young adults. We have a job corps program that has helped many, but not enough. The jobs are also not ones that pay enough for people to live in Cambridge. We need to build better connections with the companies in Kendall Square. For example, the Rindge School of Technical Arts (RSTA) has two, metal fabrication machines that can lead to jobs that pay over $70,000 to start. When I asked if our DHSP job corps program trained their young adults on these machines, I was told “those are a school thing.” How can we have two machines that can lead to well-paying jobs, sit unused? We need to do better.

We need universal, affordable, high quality, Pre-K. Period. It is long past time. Other communities have figured out how to do this. While we “study” and “process” children suffer. Creating a universal Pre-K system must be a top priority for the Council and the City. Our children deserve it.

Education
As a graduate of the Cambridge Public Schools, a parent of 2 current students and 2 graduates of CPS, and a 4 term Cambridge School Committee member, I have a deep knowledge of the CPS system and am deeply committed to public education. Over the last four terms, I’ve been able to take concrete steps to improve CPS, through providing free breakfast for all CPS students, increasing CPS funding for staff positions, including social workers in every school, and working with Mayor Siddiqui and Vice-Mayor Mallon to create a children’s savings account program to help our students with financial resources post-high school.

We know, however, that our public schools do not work well for all students. Low-income students, students of color and those with learning challenges, do not have the same outcomes as their peers. This is unacceptable anywhere, particularly in a city with our resources. One way to level the playing field is to ensure that all young people have access to an affordable, high quality early education experience, because the opportunity gap starts before children enter the Cambridge Public Schools.

While on the School Committee I co-chaired an early childhood education task force with our current State Representative Marjorie Decker, leading to additional funding for professional development and staffing of two social workers to work with both home day care providers and city programs so that we could address the social-emotional needs of our children. Once on the City Council, I called for the creation of an Early Childhood Education Task Force, which to date, has provided additional professional development to strengthen programs, opened additional preschool classrooms run by the City and invested over 5 million dollars to offer scholarships to low income families. These have been positive outcomes, but we must do more and expand early childhood education for all.

Government
As with any system there are good things and bad things about our Plan E form of government. Overall, I think our form of government has served the city well. Our financial stability allows us to do things other cities can only dream of. With that said, we also could be doing more. If it were up to the Council, we would be moving forward with municipal broadband and expanding early childhood education. These have not been priorities of our city manager, and as a result, they have sludged along. I would like us to look at Worcester that has a directly elected Mayor who has more power and a city manager.

In terms of the charter questions on this year’s ballot, two of them (evaluating the City Manager and reviewing the charter every ten years) are things we can already do. I will vote “yes” on those, but even if they fail, we should do them anyway. The other question, about giving the Council more say in the appointments of boards and commissions, I will also support. Although we must be careful that these positions do not become patronaged positions, the Council is the elected body, and we should have more input into these important decisions. This is not the fault of those who serve on our boards and commissions, but the reality is, our boards and commissions are not representative of our community. The result is that many of these boards, especially those who approve affordable housing, are often not in touch with the people who would benefit from those homes. This can lead to decisions that place aesthetics ahead of homes. If our boards and commissions were more representative, we would have more diverse opinions and discussion. That would be a good thing.

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