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CAMBRIDGE ARTISTS FIGHTING BACK AGAINST DISPLACEMENT

Emergency artists meeting at Green Street Studios in Cambridge, MA. Photo by Jason Pramas.
Photo by Jason Pramas

 

Reflections on a new grassroots political movement in formation

 

Another Cambridge arts institution is being pushed out of its longtime home by a greedy landlord. And once again, local artists are mobilizing to “discuss and organize for meaningful political action to support the arts” in that city—as the Facebook event page of Monday’s Emergency Organizing Meeting: Cambridge Arts and 2019 Elections put it.

 

Green Street Studios may soon be no more. According to the Cambridge Day, “The dance space announced its closing Oct. 2, naming Oct. 27 as its last day in operation after Peter Givertzman, president of the Oriental Furniture shop and owner of the building as of April, nearly tripled the organization’s rent, according to the studio’s board.

 

“It joins such recent closings in Central Square—a state designated cultural district—as the Out of the Blue art gallery and Mobius performance art space and the EMF music community and its New Alliance Gallery. Cambridge has also seen the departure of the Deborah Mason School of Dance, Comedy Studio and Bridge Repertory theater company in recent years.”

 

Over 50 people showed up to the meeting at the soon-to-be-shuttered dance studio. Former Cambridge City Councilor Nadeem Mazen ran the hour-and-a-half presentation and provided the diverse crowd in attendance with perhaps the finest and most succinct explanation of how politics works in the City of Squares that I have ever seen. He was joined by Nate Fillmore of Cambridge Bike Safety—who related lessons from his organization’s successful campaign for more bike lanes—and democratic socialist city council candidate Ben Simon of the Cambridge Artist Coalition… who was slated to review the failed fight to save the EMF building, but mainly focused on the uphill battle artists face when trying to push back against capitalist landlords and real estate developers. Points that were well-received by the clearly distressed attendees, and echoed by city council candidate Nicola Williams from the audience.

 

All in all as good a start as any incipient grassroots political movement could ask for. But now the hard work must begin. With the 2019 Cambridge City Council election just three weeks away, the artists have little time to affect the composition of that body in ways that will improve their chances of winning funding for the new public arts spaces that could ease the financial pressure on the area’s remaining independent arts organizations.

 

So, as Mazen indicated, they’re going to have to launch a well-organized campaign to lobby the city’s byzantine political apparatus to get the desired result—whether they have a friendly council and city manager or not. Without getting mollified or marginalized along the way.

 

Given that, as a longtime community and labor activist, I thought I should offer the new formation some relevant reflections. And as an artist. Specifically a visual artist, if not a very active one (what with the whole being a journalist and running a weekly newspaper thing). Moreover as a principal in a short-lived effort (2014-2015) to effectively restart the Boston Visual Artists Union of the 1970s in broader form with a membership organization called Mass Creative Workers. I wouldn’t go so far as to call my meditations here anything so grand as advice—considering that the activist artists group that I helped organize fizzled out shortly after its launch—but I hope it is received in the spirit it is intended nonetheless. As food for thought. 

 

First point: If organizing any group of humans into any kind of political formation can rightly be likened to the sisyphean task of “herding cats,” organizing artists is more like herding a far-ranging group of particularly ornery and single-minded mountain lions. An activity, therefore, not for the faint of heart. While I think that increasingly tough political economic circumstances are going to force artists to work together in their own collective interest more and more, it’s going to be tough going no matter what shape a new organization takes. So activist artists should try extra hard to be kind to each other as they undertake any such endeavor. It will make a difference.

 

Second point: Activist arts organizations often assume that they provide some intrinsic value to the community they work in (saying things like “the arts benefit everyone!”). But other community members may not see it that way. Which can lead to trouble in any political campaign when hoped for community support doesn’t materialize. And the political establishment—seeing no air beneath the arts movement’s proverbial wings—then feels it is free to ignore artists’ entreaties. A good way to forestall such an outcome is for activist artists to make sure that their first order of business is really doing stuff to directly help local neighborhoods and other communities of interest in tangible ways. Be it a nice public arts effort with neighborhood kids, or simple acts of human solidarity like pitching in en masse at a holiday food drive. Then when push comes to political shove, community members will be much more likely to turn out in support of local artists. Because they’ll agree that artists really do provide value to their community.

 

Third point: Strongly related to the previous point, activist arts organizations have to take great care not to fight for gains just for themselves. This issue came up right at the end of Monday’s meeting. If winning more public arts spaces is an important goal for the new group—and I agree that it is—the fight for those spaces should be linked to ongoing fights that benefit all working people in Cambridge. Not just artists. The logical struggle to undertake in this case being the battle to get the city to leverage its own funds plus state and federal money to build desperately needed social housing. When such new publicly funded housing complexes are finally built, they would be excellent places to site new community arts centers. Because the people that will be among the most likely to use them will be living right there. And because the number of people that need decent government-run housing are legion. Yet the number of artists are relatively small. Though many artists are also people that need proper housing. So linking the smaller movement to the larger one makes all kinds of sense. Understanding that coalitions between people with divergent interests can be tricky, and that I wouldn’t suggest activist artists build such coalitions willy-nilly with any random political activist campaign that happens to be around.   

 

That’s enough from me for now. Fellow Cambridge artists should know that I am watching this new campaign with interest going forward. And allow me to reiterate my brief statement at the meeting indicating that my colleagues and I at DigBoston are very interested in publishing opinion articles from artists working to win city funding for public arts spaces in the so-called People’s Republic—and for the arts in general. Since we believe that the best representatives of social movements are always the people who bring them into being—keeping them going against the odds, in the face of often-stiff resistance. Good luck to all. 

 

Apparent Horizon—recipient of 2018 and 2019 Association of Alternative Newsmedia Political Column Awards—is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s executive director, and executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston. He holds an MFA in Visual Arts. Copyright 2019 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

THE POLITICAL MOVEMENT TO COME

Scenes from the 9/9/19 Cambridge City Council hearing on parking space disposition for the disputed Sullivan Courthouse development
Scenes from the 9/9/19 Cambridge City Council hearing on parking space disposition for the disputed Sullivan Courthouse development

How Cambridge can put public need before private greed

 

A five-hour city council hearing can really get you thinking.

 

As I sat watching the latest chapter in the East Cambridge courthouse saga unfold at city hall on Monday, I mulled over what it would take to start moving the city away from dependence on rubber-stamping massive commercial developments and toward Cambridge government advocating development in the public interest based on the needs of its working- and middle-class residents. Who remain a significant percentage of its population even after decades of gentrification and displacement.

 

Because the dozens of locals who testified against city government leasing the 420 public parking spaces that developer Leggat McCall Properties needs to be able to proceed with its plan to convert the publicly owned 22-story Sullivan Courthouse into yet another high rent commercial office building—a clear majority of those who spoke—said one of the biggest problems they see with the contested deal is that neither city nor state government ever considered doing anything with the structure other than trying to sell it off to the highest commercial bidder. Given that Cambridge city government is looking for more easy (if insufficient, relative to the tremendous wealth being made by major corporations doing business in the city) tax money from more commercial developments, and state government is just looking to sell the property with a minimum of fuss. Without trying to get the kind of money that the property is actually worth in the red-hot local real estate market.

 

It’s not bad enough that the now-defunct Middlesex County government dumped the much-hated building on East Cambridge a half-century back, but now both city and state governments are squaring off against the large numbers of Cantabrigians who have long wanted to see the courthouse property used to build more affordable housing units. Something desperately needed by the thousands of people now on public housing waiting lists. 

 

This is because people who believe very strongly that corporations should run the show in our society—neoliberals, as they’re commonly called—occupy most of the positions in all the key departments, committees, and elected bodies that make decisions about development and taxation in cities like Cambridge nationwide. 

 

So my question to myself as I sat watching the fray in the council chamber was: What kind of political movement would it take to ensure that public need comes before private greed in the so-called “People’s Republic”? How can ordinary people make that mocking appellation into a more democratic reality?

 

Based upon the decades of labor and community advocacy that I’ve done (sometimes overlapping my many years as a journalist), I decided that it will take a well-coordinated effort of committed denizens to really change the focus of Cambridge’s development strategy.   

 

Specifically, it will take the formation of a network of people who believe in the importance of a public development focus for the city that has the ability to run neighborhood organizing, education, political pressure, electoral, and public relations campaigns simultaneously. For the years it would take to change the way development is planned and executed. 

 

A quick look at each of these campaign areas is thus in order.

 

Neighborhood Organizing

There can be no successful grassroots political movement without a strong base of active supporters. Particularly when trying to spark a sea change in an area like development policy. So an early initiative of any network trying to challenge the status quo in such a major way has to be recruiting members from every neighborhood in the city. People who are willing to go door to door to talk to their neighbors, donate money to build their organization, and do all the other work necessary to win enough political power to achieve their movement’s goals. Eventually forming neighborhood committees representing every part of Cambridge. 

 

Education

It will take a lot of education to convince residents that changing Cambridge’s development focus to producing public goods—like massive amounts of genuinely affordable housing—is a better deal for the city than the current model of chasing after commercial developers, lightly taxing what they build while keeping property taxes low (placating corporations and wealthy homeowners) then disbursing the still-significant funds collected to provide somewhat better services to residents than most other American cities can. Such education can only take place after lots of research has been done on best practices for public development and debate has taken place among advocates about the right kind of public development to add to the city’s current commercial-heavy mix. This, needless to say, will take a good deal of work on the part of advocates with the appropriate professional backgrounds.

 

Political Pressure

This is the group of activities that most people associate with grassroots political movements. Getting big teams of advocates out on the streets with placards and bullhorns. Filling the city council chamber with testifiers. Facing off with any open opposition. Dogging recalcitrant politicians. Basically all the adventurous stuff. Which is necessary and useful—done carefully. But there’s more to a political movement’s pressure campaign than public standouts. There is also the long hard grind of sending small teams of knowledgeable advocates to the meetings of the kinds of city committees, commissions, and boards that have a lot of power in the development process. Notably, the powerful Cambridge Planning Board. Such specialist teams will need to understand the inner workings of municipal government to inform the political movement’s strategy, to better target tactical street team actions, and to map out appointed positions that will need to be filled with advocates once the movement is ready to take political power—in elections. 

 

Electoral Challenges

If the ultimate goal of the political movement I’m outlining is to change Cambridge’s development orientation from serving commercial developers to serving the needs of working- and middle-class residents, the penultimate goal must be taking over city government. As long discussed by generations of political commentators, this is very difficult to do because of the city’s “Plan E” form of government. With a city council comprised of all at-large seats elected by a byzantine ranked-choice voting system, a weak mayor that is a councilor and a first among equals elected by the other councilors, and a powerful city manager—who is appointed by the council (but rarely challenged by it)—in charge of the budget and many city staffers. Nevertheless, it is possible for a well-organized movement to win a majority of city council seats. Then the new council can use its hire/fire power over the city manager to effect significant change. Even without switching to a different form of government. Which is probably more difficult to do than winning a majority on the council. However, even a majority reform city council is still going to have a very hard time changing Cambridge’s development focus without a well-organized, disciplined, and informed movement behind it. Because city government has many moving parts and is not operating in a vacuum. Commercial developers are among the most powerful political forces in America and are more than capable of blitzing a rebel city government with more lawsuits and pressure from allied politicians at the state and federal level than it can handle. Followed by bankrolling the election of a more “friendly” pro-corporate council. A mere two years after a reform council is seated. So a movement council would not just have to win power once, but stay in power for many terms. A tall order to be sure, but a necessary one. To do that, a political movement for public development will have to win not only the ground war of electoral politics but also the air war of public opinion.

 

Public Relations

As I observed at Monday’s hearing, some East Cambridge residents were stampeded into action on behalf of a powerful commercial developer over the last several days by a suspiciously well-timed scare campaign with a single talking point: that a building—the Sullivan Courthouse—widely known to contain asbestos still contained asbestos. Leading one resident to testify that “we can all die” [from asbestos exposure]. Which would not be the case even if the entire population of the neighborhood worked in an asbestos mine. Such hyperbole is the result of corporate propaganda. Pushed on East Cambridge across a variety of media by the faction with far deeper pockets than its grassroots opposition, according to other testifiers. Naturally, the risk of the empty toxic building to abutters is not zero even if sealed off from the outside to the extent that it is, and must be taken seriously. But to go from that assessment to saying that Cambridge city government must allow the sale of the courthouse to Leggat McCall Properties because only they can remediate the asbestos in the building is simply sophistry. Since the sale has not yet been completed, the courthouse is still owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and managed by the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM). As many testifiers stated Monday, if the building presents an environmental threat to the neighborhood then DCAMM has to take immediate steps to remediate that threat. If it fails to do so, then Cambridge city government is well within its rights to push the state to take appropriate action in defense of public health. Including filing lawsuits, if necessary. The kind of decisive action that city officials have uniformly (and tellingly) failed to take during the years this fight has gone on. All of which is to say that public relations work is much more important to the success of a political movement than it might seem to be at first blush. If the East Cambridge residents against the courthouse sale to Leggat had a team of volunteers with appropriate professional PR skills at their disposal, the latest tempest in a teapot argument in favor of the sale would have been seen as the propaganda it was by all but those most ideologically committed to that outcome. And its political effect would have been neutralized. So the future movement for development in the public interest cannot possibly succeed without just such a team.

 

Until Cambridge residents can build the necessary political movement, all actions against the dominance of commercial development in city politics will be defensive. Which is better than nothing. But not the game-changer that the city’s remaining working- and middle-class families need.

 

Regardless, the Cambridge City Council went into recess on the matter of leasing the 420 public parking spaces to Leggat at the end of the hearing. Kicking the can of the vote that will help decide the disposition of the disputed public property down the road another week or three. Even as residents committed to keeping that property public are threatening lawsuits over alleged violations in the city’s process to lease the spaces and other irregularities. The courthouse fight, then, is far from over.

 

9/11/19 Note: The Cambridge City Council continued the recessed hearing to Wednesday 9/18/19 at 3pm after the print edition of this column went to press.

 

Apparent Horizon—recipient of 2018 and 2019 Association of Alternative Newsmedia Political Column Awards—is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s executive director, and executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston. Copyright 2019 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

QUICK & DIRTY CAMBRIDGE CITY COUNCIL ELECTION GUIDE

collage of 2017 Cambridge City Council candidates
collage of 2017 Cambridge City Council candidates

Because in a race with 26 candidates, you’ll only remember slogans

 

November 1, 2017

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

 

Everyone outside Cambridge thinks they understand why it’s kind of a weird place. But to truly apprehend how odd the city is, you really need to vote in one of its municipal elections. Especially this one. Where else in the area do you have a ranked choice voting system where every candidate is an at-large candidate with a theoretically equal chance of winning one of the nine seats on offer, and every incumbent has to run for reelection in every election? What makes this year’s council race particularly wild is that there are three open seats. Meaning that there are six incumbents running, including the current mayor (a councilor who is elevated by a vote of her peers), and no less than 20 other candidates.

 

Having attended a recent debate with most of the candidates in attendance, I can assure you that it’s no easy task to even remember anything about individual candidates, let alone choose one to give your coveted #1 vote to (and then assign your #2 through #26 votes—although few people bother to go further than picking their top four or five choices).

 

So, as a public service to DigBoston’s Cambridge readers, I’ve put together the following list of all 26 city council candidates with one line or two to three phrases for each that I think encapsulates their campaign material, and a link to their website. Each of the six incumbents is noted with an asterisk. Hope it helps. Just try not to remember that an appointed city manager actually holds much of the power in the “People’s Republic.” (D’oh!)

 

Ronald Benjamin: wants to create community, votebenjamin2017.com

 

Josh M. Burgin: 25 ideas for Cambridge, votejoshburgin.com

 

Dennis J. Carlone*: manage new development, true to community values, denniscarlone.com

 

Olivia D’Ambrosio: arts, but not a one-trick pony, vote-o.com

 

Jan Devereux*: civic engagement, sustainable growth, jandevereux.org

 

Samuel Gebru: entrepreneur, community organizer, gebruforcambridge.com

 

Richard Harding Jr.: advocate for working families, voteharding.org

 

Craig A. Kelley*: vibrant local democratic institutions crucial to US, craigkelley.org

 

Dan Lenke: little city halls, nano city halls, potlucks, danlenke.com

 

Ilan Levy: activist since 2006, fought for the Foundry, critic of the Volpe plan, vote1ilan.net

 

Alanna M. Mallon: prioritize public service by strengthening social safety nets, alannamallon.org

 

Marc C. McGovern*: for collaboration and social/economic justice, gets results, marcmcgovern.com

 

Gregg J. Moree: concerned about lack of options open for our young people, greggmoree.com

 

Adriane B. Musgrave: fight so everyone in Cambridge has economic opportunity, voteadriane.com

 

Nadya T. Okamoto: protect the concept of home for all Cantabrigians, votenadya.com

 

Hari I. Pillai: not selling out values just for more economic growth, cambridge2017.city

 

Jeff Santos: progressive broadcaster, backs affordable housing and a living wage, santosforcitycouncil.com

 

Sumbul Siddiqui: affordable housing, economic development, civic engagement, votesumbul.com

 

Denise Simmons*: understands unique needs of residents in our community, denisesimmons.com

 

Vatsady Sivongxay: bringing diverse voices to the decision-making table, vatsady.com

 

Bryan Sutton: can analyze complex systems and make data-driven decisions, bryansutton.org

 

Sean Tierney: experienced public servant, dedicated to Cambridge, seantierney.org

 

Paul F. Toner: engaging people with a diversity of opinions to find solutions, tonerforcambridge.com

 

Timothy J. Toomey Jr.*: experience and vision to guide Cambridge’s continued growth, timtoomey.org

 

Gwen Thomas Volmar: for affordable housing, against luxury high-rises, votegwen.org

 

Quinton Y. Zondervan: environmentalist, helped create the Net Zero Action Plan, votequinton.com

 

*indicates incumbent