Photo: Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association board members lined up for a photo, along with Cambridge's newly named Mayor Henrietta Davis (left) and State Representative Martha Walz (at right in back) after the CNA Annual Meeting February 15. Board members from left to right are Leslie Greis (at right of Mayor Davis), Treasurer Jay Shetterly, Cathie Zusy, Marge Amster, President Bill August (in back), Colleen Clark, and Carolyn Shipley (in front on the right).

Four candidates running for two-year terms on the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association’s Board of Directors were unanimously elected February 15 at the CNA Annual Meeting in the community room of the Woodrow Wilson Court Apartments on Fairmont Street. Leslie Greis and Cathie Zusy were re-elected; Marge Amster and Colleen Clark are new to the board.

The meeting featured a presentation by Cambridge City Councilman Kenneth Reeves (photo, left) on the recently released report by Mayor David Maher’s Red Ribbon Commission: "Central, Squared: the Delights and Concerns of Central Square." Reeves chaired the project, and at the meeting he discussed some specifics of the report.

“Central Square is a very complex, exciting, dynamic place. You could study it for 20 years and not get it all right,” he commented.

The report was issued in December after a 16-month study. According to the introduction, the project involved more than 120 participants including residents, city institutions, planners, developers, landowners, and business operators. Among those working with the Commission on the report were Brent Ryan, Asst. Prof. of Urban Design and Public Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Goody Clancy & Associates, a Boston architecture and planning firm.

The area defined as Central Square has changed and spread out over the years, Reeves said. The map included in the Red Ribbon report shows the area as extending several blocks northwest and southeast along Massachusetts Avenue between Clinton Street on the west and Albany Street near MIT on the east. It is characterized as an entertainment zone, an emerging science/technology district, and a “former” downtown shopping district where businesses have changed rapidly since the 1950s. It is also a dining destination, a place to access social services, a diverse residential neighborhood, a transit hub, a college town, and an emerging arts district.

Reeves said he was amazed to learn that half of MIT's $1.5 billion real estate holdings are in Central Square. Previous planning efforts have not produced a coherent vision for the area, he said.

(Photo, below: "Central Square, Cambridge" by Ethan O'Connor)

The plan endeavors to determine what opportunities and actions might be needed to ensure and enhance the area's future social, economic, and residential vitality and viability. It proposes improvements in the city’s communications, its public image, its safety and maintenance, and the interconnections between residents, property owners, businesses, and all others who have a stake in the area.

Contributors to the planning discussion included Rachel Gunther, who spoke for the community group Vision Central Square, and Saul Tannenbaum, who represented Cambridge's Central Square Advisory Committee 2011. The CSAC is part of the city's Kendall Square Central Square (K2C2) Planning Study, which is formulating proposals for the area that includes the two squares and the transitional area between them.

Gunther said Vision Central Square’s concerns emphasize community-building and also quality-of-life issues such as litter, lighting, snow removal, and public drunkenness. Tannenbaum noted that these issues are not necessarily addressed by long-term land-use planning, and he stressed the importance of keeping pressure on city officials to make sure their budget priorities reflect such day-to-day concerns.

The meeting also featured a discussion of proposed fare hikes and service cuts by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). Leading the discussion was Jeff Rosenblum, Transportation Planner with the city's Community Development Department. The MBTA has no legal alternative but to balance its books, Rosenblum said, and it faces a $161 million deficit for next fiscal year.

Rosenblum (at left, standing) described two possible scenarios the MBTA is proposing to address the problem:
 

• Scenario 1: pay more, get more. Fares rise overall up to 43%; ridership is cut back by 34 to 48 million annual trips.
• Scenario 2: pay less, get less. Fare increase is only about 35%, but ridership is cut back by 53 to 64 million annual trips.

Mayor Henrietta Davis urged residents to express their views on the fare hike at a meeting February 29 from 6 to 8 pm in the Sullivan Chamber (Council Chambers) at Cambridge City Hall. (Originally scheduled at the Cambridge Senior Center, the meeting place has been changed to City Hall to accommodate more people.) The fare increase as it relates to Cambridge is treated in detail in the Community Development Department report, available on line at http://www2.cambridgema.gov/CityOfCambridge_Content/documents/MBTAfarein....

From the floor, State Representative Martha Walz (D 8th Suffolk) commented that an increase in gas taxes would play a part in the long-term outcome of the fare issue, because higher gas prices would tend to increase the use of public transit.

Other business:
- CNA President Bill August opened the meeting with a remembrance of long-time member David Peterson, who died in November 2011.
- Treasurer Jay Shetterly reported that the organization had received grants in the past year amounting to about $5,500 for revitalizing Magazine Beach, including Powder House renovation, and for Cambridgeport History Day.
- Cathie Zusy gave updates on the Earth Day Clean-Up scheduled for April 21 at Magazine Beach and on the Powder House rehabilitation. Marilyn Wellons reported on a trip she made with Zusy and Nina Cohen to observe renovations at another powder house in Newburyport.
- Zusy presented a petition seeking support for industrial arts courses in the Putnam Avenue School. School Committee member Alice Turkel spoke in favor of the petition and advocated making the hands-on vocational and technical training available to adults. The petition obtained 28 signatures.
- Sue Reinert announced a proposed GreenPort meal-sharing program, with a group of people getting together to prepare and serve a communal dinner once a month. It was to be discussed at a meeting February 21 at Cambridgeport Baptist Church.
- Carolyn Shipley circulated petitions seeking support for Funding for Community School Programs and for Afterschool Services and Safe Transportation for Amigos Students.