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Denise Simmons Home address: Contact information: Send contributions to: |
Background and Experience in Public Service I’m a proud wife, a mother, a grandmother, a small business owner, a member of the LGBTQ+ Community, and I’ve been engaged in public service for decades – as Executive Director of the Civic Unity Committee in the 1980s, as a member of the School Committee throughout the 1990s, and since 2001, as a member of the City Council. It has been an honor to help lead the community that I love. Cambridge has faced many challenges in recent years – from the affordable housing crunch, to debates around how to best keep our community safe, to striving to find the balance that allows bicyclists, pedestrians, and motorists to peacefully co-exist, to weathering the Covid-19 pandemic – and there is no shortage of work facing the next City Council. I hope to continue tackling these challenges head on in the coming term. Below are just some examples of my recent work and priorities: Affordable Housing The biggest items we passed this term were the citywide Affordable Housing Overlay district, which will make it easier for developers (such as the CHA, Homeowners Rehab, or Just a Start) of affordable housing to acquire land and build units throughout the city; we also established the position of the Housing Liaison to the City Manager, and significantly increased the amount of funding for rental assistance and legal assistance to those tenants most at risk of being evicted due to the pandemic. Going forward, I want to continue working to implement more elements of the Comprehensive Housing Plan that I first released to the City Council in September 2017 – chief among these are strengthening tenant protections, looking to review and revise the tenant selection preferences for Inclusionary housing, and urging the City Manager to invest an additional $100 million towards the creation and preservation of affordable housing over the next five years. I also continue working with countless numbers of constituents in their search for affordable housing – and I’ve done this so often that I’ve put together an Affordable Housing Search Guide for people to use as a tool. Economy I have also continued working to strengthen our local job training and job placement programs, working to help establish links between our Office of Workforce Development and Boston's "Building Pathways" program, which is a fantastic entryway into the local building trades. I’ve also worked to call out the large, multi-billion dollar corporations in Cambridge& who have sought to cut corners on the backs of their lowest-paid workers, and I’ve urged for these businesses to reconsider these cutbacks. I also continue to stand in staunch support of those who wish to bargain collectively for fairer contracts, and for easier, clearer guidelines to report and resolve issues around workplace harassment and discrimination. Seniors/Bicycles I also continue to meet regularly, via Zoom, with my Senior Advisory Group members, who serve as my eyes and ears on the ground for any issues that may be of particular concern to Cambridge seniors (similarly, I must note that I continue to hold regular Zoom calls with members of the city’s Interfaith Community – both of these groups have always helped me gain critical insights into providing better service to members of our community, and both groups have proven particular vital during this pandemic period). Public Safety With violent crime and gun violence on the rise earlier this year, I have continued to host my periodic "Safe Streets, Safe City" meetings to bring City officials, the Police Department, business owners, members of the interfaith community, and other neighborhood stakeholders together to determine what steps we must take to tamp down on the violence and how to address it at the root causes. These meetings have yielded good ideas and strengthened the collaborations between critical community partners. I am also mindful of the fact that the various social service programs across the City, which provide essential stabilization services, are perpetually overburdened and underfunded (I was proud to lead the charge in our last term urging the City to help fund Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services – and to support these efforts again just this past June). We must continue offering services to the most fragile members of our community, and that means supporting these important programs as much as possible. Preserving Our History I wish to thank Robert Winters for providing this informational site, and to thank anyone who takes the time to review all the candidate profiles and educate yourselves on this election. I invite you all to follow my daily activity on Facebook (Denise Simmons) and Twitter (@E_DeniseSimmons), and again, I am humbly asking for your #1 Vote on Tuesday, November 2. CCTV candidate video (2021) 2019 Candidate Page CCTV candidate video (2019) 2017 Candidate Page CCTV candidate video (2017) 2015 Candidate Page 2013 Candidate Page 2011 Candidate page 2009 Candidate page 2007 Candidate Page |
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Page last updated Tuesday, October 5, 2021 12:55 PM | Cambridge Candidates |