Patty Nolan
2019 Candidate for Cambridge City Council

Home address:
184 Huron Ave.
Cambridge MA 02138

Contact information:
Tel: 617-661-0729
e-mail: patty@pattynolan.org
website: www.pattynolan.org

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Committee to Elect Patty Nolan
184 Huron Ave., Cambridge MA 02138

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Background
I first came to Cambridge for college – the first in my family to attend Harvard (quite a change from my mother who had to fight to go to commuter college and my father who went to night school since he was helping support the family with a father disabled by MS). I stayed after college doing women’s history research, then moved to New York City to work in work and family policy and local politics. I decided I needed more skills so I went to Yale School of Management for my master’s degree. Since then, I have worked in the public sector, nonprofit and for profit. I worked in a corporate setting including McKinsey, at smaller companies, including leading an environmental firm and a telephone reseller. I’ve worked with several worker-owned and community based enterprises. And several non profits. Now I am ready to use my skills and experience to help lead the city.

How did I get involved with politics? When my oldest child was entering Kindergarten, I found myself drawn to school issues and eventually ran for School Committee. Now, after years of School Committee-loving the opportunity governing the school district- I want to be involved with the wider set of issues the Council deals with. A key reason I decided to run was seeing the Envision process unfold. Millions of dollars and hundreds of collective hours of meetings, yet the plan was not really a plan – with specific goals, priorities, acknowledgment of inherent tensions and tradeoffs. AND input from the community was not strong in the report – which was disheartening and disturbing. For example, in the Alewife area the plan had NO public buildings –school, preschool, public works, community center. I had attended a number of meetings on Alewife, and from my School Committee work I knew there was strong interest in public facilities. Yet despite thousands more units of housing, no public facility was planned. I wanted to be at the table to ask questions and push for inclusion of different ideas. It’s the same reason I first ran for school committee – I thought my set of skills would be useful and I had a passion for positive change. Plus, I believed it is time for new leaders & a new challenge and growth for me.

I have lots of ideas I would like to explore if elected – from bringing together people on how to enable multi-modal transportation, to acting on the climate emergency declared ten (!) years ago, seeing if ideas like paying to put solar on every roof in the city of any household making less than $75K/year and recouping costs when/if the house sells. To using underutilized spaces for affordable housing to looking at models of cooperative housing. To having many schools be open longer and serve as adult learning centers at night. My dream is that every student in Cambridge be bilingual by the time they graduate, so every student is more culturally aware, and better prepared to be a citizen in our diverse world, and have a valuable skill.

I have direct and deep experience making positive change on School committee. My experience helps me every day in my SC work and would be even more relevant on the Council.

My record on SC is clear: I was instrumental in the district’s upping its commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility. Expectations for students are higher since I kept the focus on monitoring the results. CRLS building project is just one example of how my collaborating with a range of stakeholders led directly to a better building – from environmental, working conditions AND cost. My advocacy for research based evaluation of programs led to ending two programs that had not been effective and initiating closely monitored programs that show results. My background in management, analytical approach and willingness to hear diverse perspectives have made a difference and I hope to have greater impact on a wider range of issues if elected to the Council.

Top Priorities

• Good Governance
• Cambridge is one of the richest cities in one of the richest states in this entire country yet we continue to fall short in numerous areas. We have not achieved our own climate change goals, much less the municipal greenhouse emissions standards. Furthermore the growing population requires that we build more schools. Our cities leaders failed to request a preschool as part of the Volpe development, when that was set out as citywide goal. City leaders also failed to purchase a 25,000 SF site in the alewife quad area, for a school that our city will soon need. The lack of accountability in the city government has prevented us from achieving the goals we have laid out for the city. We need City councillors who not only work hard, but also follow up, remember priorities, and commit to accountability. I have earned a reputation for all of these qualities, and plan on bringing a renewed focus of good governance to our city council.
• Climate Change
• Ten years ago, the City Council declared a climate emergency. I was part of a group that followed up with a Climate Congress and hundreds of volunteer labor went into comprehensive plans – including a vulnerability assessment, a climate mitigation plan, work with the Climate Protection Action Committee (which my husband David Rabkin chaired for many years). We as a city have worked hard and done a lot, but most residents I speak to agree that we have not acted as though it is a true crisis and emergency.
• We are not on track to meet the goals that we created as part of the Net Zero Action Plan. In some areas, we are incredibly behind: solar installation goal for 2020 = 60 megawatt and actual installed in 2019 = about 6 megawatt, and our climate dashboard on the city’s sustainability website is not even kept up to date. This suggestion that these goals are not important to the city - a frightening idea considering the fact that half our city is built on former swamps or flood plains. As flooding continues to grow, Climate change will affect all of us directly. We need to approach climate change much more directly.
• A few ideas that would help Cambridge achieve its climate goals:
  1. A very easy one: Cambridge started a municipal aggregation program to supply all city residents with electricity that is GREENER AND CHEAPER than the standard offer from Eversource. Yet most residents don’t opt-in to the 100% renewable option - we should have opt-out to make it easier for residents to participate.
  2. Many households with good solar potential are concerned about the cost of installation. Why not use our city’s health cash position to pay for the solar installation, under just one condition: when the house is sold, the city gets its money back.
  3. Require solar on new buildings wherever feasible [Watertown MA required this in 2018] and incentivize residents to move away from fossil fuels
  4. Require an energy audit when selling a home – Austin TX passed this ordinance in 2008.
• A livable welcoming city
• It is essential that we focus relentlessly to ensure that Cambridge is a livable, welcoming city. This requires that we turn our attention to sustainable development, accessible, affordable transit and inclusion and diversity both in our schools and in our communities. Our city thrives in large part due to the abundance of art programs we offer, we can do even more to expand these opportunities so that Cambridge offers something for everyone.

Civic participation/governance
The City government has demonstrated a lack of accountability in recent years, as it has failed to meet our goals, failed to plan and execute objectives effectively, and has dropped the ball in its handling of the crisis’ we face today. The school committee unanimously passed the order I authored to explore the construction of a school in the Alewife quad area. Nevertheless, the city failed to purchase an adequate site which was on the market for a year. Our City councillors have pushed Harvard University to divest from fossil fuel companies, yet have not asked our City government to do the same. Our government has not remained accountable to our climate goals, as our data is not even up to date, despite the fact that we declared a climate change emergency ten years ago. We have failed to analyze multiple solutions to our affordable housing crisis and have instead put all our effort into the affordable housing overlay, a proposal that is both highly disruptive and minimally effective. I will work hard to renew the city government’s commitment to accountability, responsiveness, and Inclusion.

Energy, the Environment, and Public Health, open space, tree canopy
I have been a climate activist from a very young age, and the creation of climate change solutions has been one of the defining reasons I have pursued elected office positions. If elected, I will push the city to address climate change aggressively, and become an example for other cities. We can do this by implementing as many of the Green New Deal’s solutions as possible. My vision is to power the world with wind, solar and other renewable energy sources with an emphasis on conservation.

The continued use of fossil fuels results in numerous threats to livability. Not only will rising temperatures result in increased flooding and the extermination of our tree canopy, the ever growing abundance of plastic waste will present numerous problems as we run out of landfill space.

We are not on track to meet the goals we have set out in the Net Zero Action Plan, and the fact that we lack up to date climate data suggests that we are not committed to these goals - goals that are not aggressive enough. We need to install solar infrastructure and o retrofit existing buildings faster. We need to follow Berkeley California’s lead and require all new building construction to be fossil fuel free. We need to subsidize residents to move away from fossil fuels, and we need to divest the City’s investment in fossil fuel companies.

Housing & Development - are being priced out.
It should come as no surprise that we are facing a housing crisis in Cambridge, and the entire Boston metropolitan area. We need to brainstorm, analyze, and evaluate a wide range of affordable housing solutions if we want to stand any chance of tackling this issue. I don’t support the Affordable housing overlay as currently written because It is both ineffective and an inadequate solution to this problem. City documents show that the overlay by itself would result in the construction of zero to very few affordable units – since the only way to increase the number of units built is with more funding, or using mechanisms like inclusionary zoning, where developers pay. The CDD states that the Overlay ALONE would result in no more than one to two developments per year. Furthermore, the overlay likely requires changes to exterior dimensions, permeable surfaces and our tree canopy, and nothing specific and concrete to increase our need for more environmentally sustainable buildings. IN additional, despite some potential for some units to be middle class housing, there is no mandate to make sure middle class Cambridge residents can stay in our city. Too much time and energy went into marketing this weak proposal, instead of spending time studying and proposing more promising options. We need to develop a wide range of proposals that could combat this problem more effectively.

Those who supported the overlay seem to believe that Cambridge alone can build our way out of the affordability problem. WE cannot. Common sense and the experience of other cities shows conclusively that one city in a large metropolitan area alone cannot solve it. And, if building a lot more luxury units helped, why haven’t our rents gone down, since we’ve added thousands more units? What can we and the state do to incentivize surrounding communities to increase their subsidized housing units – if nearby towns matched Cambridge’s 15% there would be thousands more subsidized units. Old solutions to new problems prompted by the changing economy will not work. And many people leave out the hundreds of units being rented right now below market rents in two and three family homes across the city. Those need to be counted, and work with owners to ensure they stay affordable.

I support the expansion of Affordable housing units through zoning changes that encourage more units, as well as middle class home ownership opportunities such as limited equity coops, and incentivization programs for small landlords to encourage more vouchers used in Cambridge and more units available for voucher holders. Moreover, we can work with homeowners to rent to section 8 tenants since the policy on rents has changed so that Cambridge families could benefit from more stability.

Transportation - what a mess!
Much of the traffic problem in this city is the result of people passing through the city, or commuting to the city for work. Our infrastructure is not sufficient to meet the demands this traffic problem poses on our city. We need to work with the state government to create solutions for traffic tie-ups and our lack of parking. Furthermore our public transit does not meet the needs of our community. The Red Line needs more frequent service and more capacity. Our buses need to be able to bring people all over Cambridge without the need to transfer in Harvard or Central square. And we need to use smart bus lanes and prioritize signals for buses so that people will feel confident that using public transit is a viable, reliable option.

I am an avid cyclist and have pledged to work towards a comprehensive bike safety plan. We need to ensure safety for all modes of transit in this city. Our bicycle plan envisions a network of safe streets and bike routes throughout the city which would reduce dependency on automobiles. And as a cyclist, I know that the roads and sidewalks are better for everyone if we respect each other and recognize we are sharing the same public good. I do own a car and do drive, so I know that traffic is a nightmare and is only getting worse. The more we can ease the way for people to leave their cars at home the better for everyone. I have served on the board of Green Streets Initiative for many years – and that is the mission: to encourage car-light transportation and celebrate multi-modal transit options, recognizing that it is better for the city, and our personal health and the planet’s health if we use cars less.

Fostering neighborhoods and a sense of community
Too many Cambridge residents feel disconnected from the city, especially those who are not benefiting from the massive economic development that is occurring. All too often neighborhood groups come together about a particular issue, but then feel discouraged and defeated when it seems like the City isn’t listening to them. We need to create a dialogue between residents, neighborhood groups, and city officials. A potential solution would be to give city councilors neighborhood ambassador responsibilities. Each counselor could be assigned to a few neighborhood groups’ meetings on a regular basis. This would allow the city council to hear individuals’ ideas on how to foster community, and then work to implement these ideas.

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