Voting is good and important because you love America. These nine people manage a $991M budget and voter turnout is about 30% so it's like your vote counts 3 times. Many things about Cambridge are great, but the city is held back by old policies that no longer work. There are some really great candidates, but also many candidates who will fight to oppose change. The balance of these groups in city governance will have real consequences.
Fun voter demographics fact: while people under 35 have a 25% turnout rate in municipal elections, voters over 70 turn out at about 60%. This isn’t good or bad, but you should consider if this is likely to represent your interests.
You can vote early for a whole week starting 10.25 - see here
On the city council I value housing development, transit investment, and pragmatic social services.
On the school committee I value a commitment to academic rigor and outcome focused policy.
Below is how I am ranking candidates balancing my preferences with making the most of my vote
City Council Ranking ( * for incumbents ) | School Committee Ranking ( * for incumbents ) | Ballot Issue #1 ( Accept revised City Charter ) |
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If this has inspired you feel free to share the link https://ggl.link/cambridge2025
The rest of this doc is context on the election, my general policy thoughts, and my ranking justifications
If you think you already know all the answers skip straight to the quiz
The nine person council oversees a $991M budget for a city of 121,186 people. Besides being home to a few notable academic institutions, Cambridge is a productive, growing, and cutting edge economy. All of this is shaped in some form by local policy, set by nine people, each elected by just 2400 votes. City Council politics is 60% housing policy, 30% bike lane disagreements, and 40% parking concerns. The math nerds will notice this adds up to more than 100%, this reflects the fact that it’s hard to fit all these things at once.
In the last few years the city council has made real, meaningful changes:
For context on how insane the previous zoning is, the vast majority of buildings in Cambridge were built before 1925 (a century ago for the math nerds), and something like 95%1 of those buildings would be illegal under the 2024 zoning! So the neighborhoods that some candidates are claiming to protect wouldn’t even be legal to build! And while neighborhood defenders defiantly ask “How much growth is too much!” they conveniently don’t mention that Cambridge has the same population today that it did in 1950! I feel like I’m going crazy!
Still a dozen candidates are running with the goal of reverting the recent zoning change. Cambridge has an opportunity to grow as a world class city, but it needs good governance to do it, and each vote here has a shockingly large impact.
1 You can take a look at this map that shows non-conforming parcels. I’ll bet you $100 you live in a red parcel. I accept Venmo.
Six members oversee the Cambridge Public Schools serving 7,027 students with a budget of $288M. The turnout here is even lower and the 6th candidate in 2023 was decided by only 8 votes! CPS is a very well funded school system spending $38k per student compared to the MA average $24k, but outcomes are mixed. The schools struggle handling a student body that is very diverse with respect to family income, parental education level, and even language spoken at home. In recent years a botched superintendent selection and an unexpected school closing have cast doubt on the leadership. I think the overall performance of the schools is not as bleak as some people paint it to be, but the amount of unrealized potential here is both extraordinary and tragic.
The changes seem to be minor, mostly procedural, and mostly uncontroversial. I have been told it is unanimously supported by the current council. Vote yes and probably don’t worry about it too much.
Cambridge does ranked choice voting for both the city council and school committee, where you can rank as many candidates as you like. I apologize in advance that this is somewhat confusing, and honestly the rest of the details aren’t super important.
For each election a quota is determined as (number of votes cast) / (number of seats + 1). The voting proceeds in rounds and the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated in each round. The ballots of eliminated candidates are redistributed to the next highest ranked candidate on each ballot. If a candidate meets the quota they are considered elected, and surplus ballots are redistributed. The main strategic takeaway is that ranking more people has no downside and ranking less likely to win candidates highly can actually make your vote matter slightly more with little risk.
Register to vote before Friday 10.25 and you can vote early for a whole week starting 10.25 - see here
If you’re a student or new here you can still register, but without an MA ID you may need to mail a form or go in person to the Election Office at 689 Mass Ave Tue - Thur 8:30am to 5pm, or Fri 8:30am to 12pm
I’m just a regular guy that got frustrated with national politics, read about local politics, and immediately got all worked up about it. Just like a totally normal person.
If you would like to give me feedback feel free to tell me what you reckon at alex.lesman@gmail.com using the subject line “me and my important thoughts.”
Also feel free to email me to let me know how smart and helpful I am.
But most importantly, this is just like, my opinion man. Links at the end so you can do your own research
ABC | A Better Cambridge - A pro housing development organization supporting both affordable and market rate construction. This is one I value highly. |
CBS | Cambridge Bicycle Safety - A pro bike safety and bike infrastructure group. I think bike safety is good but not critical, so I value their endorsement moderately. |
CCC | Cambridge Citizens Coalition - Their primary purpose is to “protect” neighborhoods by restricting development. They claim to support housing and infrastructure as long as it’s “smart” and “preserves city character”, but in practice they mostly oppose everything. |
DSA | Democratic Socialists of America - The DSA is a national political organization. I agree with plenty of their ideas, but I sometimes find their approaches counterproductive and I prefer less national politics in my local politics so I see this as a mild negative. |
Dana Bullister | She is a second-time candidate and probably less likely to win so a little extra bang-for-your-buck ranking her highly. Her focus is what she describes as "empirically effective policy”. One of these policies is land value tax which is literally under “Optimal Taxation” on Wikipedia. Can’t say no to that. |
Ned Melanson | A first time candidate so also nudged up in my ranking. A bit lighter than some on concrete policy, but he is endorsed by ABC and CBS, I have had a few conversations with him personally, and I trust he will vote for good things. |
Burhan Azeem * | He is a current 2-time city councilor who sponsored, pushed, and compromised to pass the recent Multi Family Zoning ordinance which will enable significantly more housing. In addition to good policy I have been very impressed by him and by the people he surrounds himself with. Easily my true #1 pick, but he is quite likely to win so I’m playing games and ranking him 3rd. |
Marc McGovern * | He has served 4 terms in the School Committee and now 6 terms on city council, so he is deeply knowledgeable and involved in the city. He’s a practical ABC and CBS endorsed candidate and also a born-and-raised lifelong Cantibrigean which some people appreciate. |
Sumbul Siddiqui * | Co-Sponsor with Burhan of the 6-story zoning plan, so huge credit there. Also endorsed by ABC and CBS |
Jivan Sobrinho- Wheeler * | Seems like a nice guy, endorsed by ABC and CBS, but supported a more restrictive version of the recent zoning change. Also endorsed by DSA. |
Patty Nolan * | Long time councilor, sometimes kinda reasonable which is better than always completely unreasonable (which is an option with some other candidates!). |
Catherine Zusy * | Cathie has opposed every single housing proposal in living memory. She also recently dropped this gem at a city council meeting: “I feel like we're in cancel culture, and now we're canceling white, educated, outspoken residents, and we're really doing a disservice to the city by not considering their feedback as well as everybody else's.” |
John Hanratty Elizabeth Bisio Peter Hsu Zion Sherin | These four are running as the “Repeal Slate” with intention of repealing the recent up-zoning changes. Of course they all say they are pro-housing and it’s just a coincidence that they find a reason to oppose any proposed development. Don’t care for their policy, but really hate the bad-faith politics. |
Tim Flaherty | Also a fake pro-housing guy, Tim was also suspended from practicing law for a year in 2016 for pressuring the victim of hate crime not to testify against his client. His policy stances are mostly vague platitudes and he has also somehow raised $130k for his campaign, mostly from outside of Cambridge. |
Denise Simmons * | As mayor and chair of the school committee Simmons appears to be largely responsible for the disaster of a superintendent search. This includes hiding information from other school committee members and a potentially illegal contract with an executive search consultancy. She is pro-housing, anti-bike, but this superintendent search thing is fucked. |
Ayesha Wilson * | Somehow endorsed by both the pro and anti housing groups. Mostly voted pro-housing, but also voted against all bike lanes. There are worse, but I think ranking 7 people is enough. |
Ayah Al-Zubi | Supports a lot of housing affordability programs, but generally less supportive of market rate housing which I think is a critical part of the housing solution. |
CALA | Cambridge Advanced Learning Association - an advocacy group focused on preserving advanced education options in CPS. While this doesn’t address many of the challenges of CPS I broadly believe students are best served by holding them to higher standards. |
ORC | Our Revolution Cambridge - a local wing of the national progressive organization “Our Revolution.” While I sympathise with their cause I don’t think they are correctly diagnosing root causes or proposing effective solutions. They also oppose standardized testing which I think is very important, flawed as it may be. |
Eugenia Schraa Huh | Endorsed by CALA, previously taught at a public school in the Bronx, now works in city governance. I have heard her advocate her positions for effective education policy and she is smart, thoughtful, and pragmatic. I am very impressed by her and it’s an easy #1 vote for me. |
Elizabeth Hudson * | She has the most thorough list of concrete policy thoughts and proposals that I have seen. She gets flak for opposing budget increases, but honestly she’s right that CPS doesn’t have a budget problem. She is also critical of reduced standards in the name of equity, which I also strongly agree with. She does have an endorsement from CCC which I consider bad for City Council, but for School Committee I can look past it. |
Richard Harding * | Endorsed by CALA, seems reasonable from the interviews I saw. Along with Hudson pushed to get Algebra back in middle schools. Also CCC endorsed, and while I hate them for City Council, I am neutral about their School Committee endorsement. |
Arjun Jaikumar | Someone I have had several conversations with and while I generally find him smart and well intentioned we don’t see eye-to-eye philosophically. That said he is softly endorsed by CALA and I would trust him to put in the work to do right by the students. |
Alex Bowers | Endorsed by CALA, has been heavily involved in Cambridge schools as a parent, volunteer and local journalist so she is well informed and deeply invested. Her positions all seem quite reasonable and she is well spoken from the interview I saw. |
The changes seem to be minor, mostly procedural, and mostly uncontroversial. I have been told it is unanimously supported by the current council.
I will be voting yes to accept the revised charter.
The most significant change to the charter is related to the chair of the School Committee. Previously the mayor was chair of the School Committee, but the new charter will have the School Committee select a chair from among its members. In Cambridge the Mayor is not elected directly, but rather elected by the council itself. Because of this structure the mayor is not uniquely accountable to voters, nor specifically selected for their interest or knowledge of the school system. Compared to cities with directly elected mayors the existing structure doesn’t offer much additional accountability. Overall this change seems reasonable to me.
There is also a change that allows for updating the ballot counting process for the council election. Currently the redistribution of ballots for candidates meeting quota is affected by the order in which ballots are counted, which means the outcome is not deterministic. This charter change would allow alternatives like fractional ballot counting that would make the process deterministic. Sounds objectively good to me.
There are other miscellaneous changes that seem too boring and niche for me to care about, but people I think are reasonable say they think that those changes are reasonable too.
The ballot measure text can be found here
This standardized worksheet will be used to evaluate your mastery of this material. Due to complex and multifactorial reasons it will be impossible to use these results to evaluate the instructional performance of the author of this document.
Please submit your answers to alex.lesman@gmail.com using the subject line “me and my important thoughts”
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( a ) Yes
( b ) All of the above
Bonus Question:
You might know what NIMBY and YIMBY mean, but do you know what AHTIHOTF stands for?
Bonus Question: All Hail The Invisible Hand Of The Free Market (AHTIHOTF)
