These are just some of the municipal meetings and civic events for the coming week. More are on the City Calendar and in the city’s Open Meetings Portal.
Cambridge has Water-by-Bike interns as well was more intensive work toward aiding green jobs. (Photo: City of Cambridge via social media)
How green jobs effort is going
Health & Environment Committee, 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday. This committee run by city councillor Patty Nolan reviews and discusses Cambridge’s first annual green jobs report – involving any work that preserves or restores the environment qualifying and the city providing recruitment, information, referral and support services to eligible residents to get trained. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Central Square Lots Study
Planning Board, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. The board considers the Central Square Lots Study, the result of an inventory of city-owned property that showed so much of it in and around Central Square – a baker’s dozen of unused, overused and empty lots and buildings – that it got study of its own. Five of the sites are parking lots where councillors have called repeatedly for affordable housing to be built. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Improving tenants rights
Ordinance Committee, 1 to 3 p.m. June 20. This committee run by vice mayor Marc McGovern and city councillor Paul Toner holds a hearing to talk about changes to a tenant’s rights law that have been recommended by city staff. More free legal aid and rent help and better information around evictions and tenant rights are embraced by the Office of the Housing Liaison and the city’s Multi Service Center in an April 3 letter. In the current fiscal year, $315,000 in city money is going to helping tenants with back rent and other housing costs, and $2 million in federal Covid-relief funds at least temporarily boosted each household’s possible relief to $7,500. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Harvard social club eviction
Board of Zoning Appeal, 6 p.m. June 20. The board hears appeals from the owner of a home at 6 Francis Ave. in the Baldwin neighborhood and her evicted tenants: The Fox Club, one of Harvard’s so-called final clubs, who moved in because its own 44 John F. Kennedy St. clubhouse is getting renovated. Zoning for the residential area bars use as a “club, lodge or other fraternal or sororal meeting facility,” and after noise complaints led to an April 24 eviction the matter of fines arose. Homeowner Emma C. Wolbach puts blame on the tenants, who signed a lease promising to follow the law; The Fox Club’s appeal letter doesn’t make any arguments, but “respectfully requests” that fines be paused during the appeal to allow time for the club to find another place to settle. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.