ISSUES

HOUSING

Despite years of effort to combat displacement, our neighbors are still being priced out of Somerville. I have experienced this personally, moving five times in my first six years in Somerville, all because of rising rents. For a brief period, I was even forced to live outside the city that I love!

In my years on the Somerville City Council I consistently supported measures to fight displacement, speed the creation of affordable housing, and provide direct protection to tenants.  I voted to create the Affordable Housing Overlay District in our zoning code, which simplifies and incentivizes building more affordable housing. I voted to strengthen the Condo Conversion Ordinance, which among other tenant protections includes a right-of-first-refusal to purchase their home if the landlord decides to put it on the market. I supported tighter regulation of short-term rentals, and my vote helped to create and fund the Office of Housing Stability.

MY VISION FOR HOUSING In Somerville:

  • Increase city funding of legal services to tenants facing eviction 

  • Continue eviction protections to protect our neighbors who are still experiencing the economic impact of COVID-19

  • Collaborate and build on regional efforts to bring back an updated version of rent control

  • Require landlords to apply for rental assistance and enroll in an eviction diversion program before filing to evict a tenant

  • Update our zoning to increase the 20% affordable housing requirement for large development projects.

  • Work with surrounding communities to pressure the state legislature to pass our home rule transfer fee on real estate speculation and short sales.

The fight for racial justice and equity

The men who murdered George Floyd have been convicted of their crimes, but we are nowhere near done with our struggle. As a Black man, an immigrant, and a person who speaks English with an accent, I know what it feels like to be unfairly targeted, singled out, and discriminated against. For four years, I was the only Black person on the Somerville city council. It should be no surprise that I led the council’s charge on equity and police reform.

Racism shows up in every aspect of our society, so we must fight it everywhere. I will continue to work to reduce discrimination, fight the injustices of our carceral system, and ensure no one is unfairly targeted by any department or function of our city, particularly the police.

In 2020, I pushed for the creation of a civilian oversight of the police board and passed ordinances to forbid racial profiling. I was among the few councilors at the time who voted to significantly cut the police budget. I also pushed for equitable hiring practices in civil service jobs and fought hard to commission a study of tracking the impact of development and gentrification on businesses owned by people of color. 

MY VISION FOR RACIAL JUSTICE AND EQUITY In Somerville:

  • Eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline. Build on the School Committee’s recent decision to remove police from our schools. Divert money from the police budget to the school budget to hire additional career and guidance counselors.

  • Diversify Somerville’s police force by hiring more Black and Brown officers even as we reduce the budget, to better reflect the community it is tasked with protecting.

  • Fully fund and empower a Civilian Oversight Board to hold our police force accountable. 

  • Work with the Department of Racial and Social Justice to reform city hiring practices to produce a more equitable and representative city government.

  • Demilitarize our police department, removing weapons of war from our streets.

  • Reimagine both emergency response and enforcement to reduce the risk of escalation and violence by creating unarmed response teams and using “contactless” policing for nonviolent offenses.

TRANSPORTATION and safe streets:

Residents should be able to get around the city safely and cheaply without being completely reliant on cars. 

When I first moved to Somerville, I did not have a car. Using public transit meant that many days I spent more time commuting than I did with my family and friends. This is still the reality for too many residents, with the worst burden falling on low-income people and communities of color. Public transportation must be effective and cheap, I believe that it should be free if at all possible. While the troubles of the MBTA are mostly beyond the powers of a city councilor to address, there are many measures that we can take at the city level to reduce barriers and increase safety.

I was a founding member of the Somerville Alliance for Safe Streets (SASS), where I have helped to draw attention to and organize around highway justice, including a powerful march and rally that put much-needed pressure on state and federal officials. In my time on the council, I introduced numerous board orders asking for traffic calming measures and more protections for pedestrians in our city. I have also supported projects that prioritize protected bike lanes in the city. The Americans with Disabilities Act has been law for more than 30 years, yet many of our streets remain dangerously noncompliant. This does not just put our disabled neighbors at risk, but also elders and parents of young children.  

MY VISION FOR TRANSPORTATION In Somerville:

  • Continue to push the MBTA to go fully fare-free, particularly in environmental justice neighborhoods.

  • Continue the pressure, through SASS and others, to get MassDOT and DCR to manage state roads through our city (Mystic Ave and Alewife Brook Parkway) like streets in people-oriented neighborhoods instead of like highways.

  • Push the mobility department to install curb cuts, ramps, traffic islands and other features to make Somerville a truly accessible city for all of us, not just the athletic and able-bodied.

  • Push developers to include electric vehicle charging stations in all new development.

  • Support efforts to reduce car dependency by making transit more efficient and biking safer, including additional protected bike and bus lanes.

  • Support traffic calming measures like reduced speed limits and thoughtfully designed streetscapes to achieve our city goal of having no traffic fatalities or injuries (Vision Zero).

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE:

I saw firsthand how the fossil fuel industry devastated the ecosystems of my native Cameroon. It motivated me to study how we can protect and restore the environment in college and graduate school. When I first moved to Somerville, I volunteered with Community Assessment of Freeway Exposure and Health (CAFEH), a research project that looked at the impact of highway pollution on people’s health. During that work I learned that the neighborhoods with the worst pollution and air quality are also disproportionately home to our low-income families and people of color. My goal is to use my expertise in environmental studies and my lived experience here in Somerville to push our city to be a regional and national example of environmental justice and sustainability.

My roots in environmental activism date to my time as a student in Cameroon. After I graduated from the University of Buea, I volunteered in various community advocacy groups in Buea, Limbe, and Yaounde, always working on environmental awareness. We worked to improve the health of residents, and also tried to protect our regional biodiversity. On the Somerville City Council, I served as Chair of the Open Space Energy and Environment committee and led the effort to regulate and reduce the usage of plastic straws and various other single use plastics. We cannot sacrifice the environment for our comfort. I was also an ardent advocate for our tree canopy, advocating for both the tree preservation ordinance and a native plant ordinance, which was the first of its kind in the nation.

MY VISION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE In Somerville:

  • Act urgently on climate issues, with a constant focus on effectiveness rather than performative actions.  

  • View and advance Somerville’s Climate Change plan around the values of Environmental Justice.

  • Focus on job creation and workforce development for a clean energy economy.

  • Encourage the Mayor to renovate our municipal buildings to reduce and eliminate carbon emissions.

  • Build and maintain a strong community response system to protect our neighbors during heat waves, floods, and other extreme weather events.

  • Push to divest city funds from fossil fuels.

  • Rapidly implement and enforce the new statewide specialized energy code.

  • Add green stormwater infrastructure to streetscapes wherever possible.

  • Insist on programs that bring tenants into the picture of carbon reduction, including requiring a disclosure of energy usage as part of licensing rental properties.

  • Partner with residents and neighboring communities for city-supported “community” solar power that would be generated and used locally.

  • Decrease noise and air pollution starting with our environmental justice neighborhoods.

  • Protect and expand green spaces, including community gardens.

EDUCATION:

The racial disparities that exist in Somerville’s public schools are real and measurable, and the COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated them. We must ensure that Somerville schools give every child the tools they need to succeed. Budgets are value choices, and we need to make big investments across the board from fixing our crumbling school buildings on up. 

The city council does not directly shape the school budget, nor does it have oversight of the running of the schools. As a councilor, I have used my voice to bring forward important issues, including supporting our paraprofessional educators, the majority of which are people of color, as they successfully negotiated for a living wage. I also passed board orders to look into the problem of teenage homelessness in our community. 

MY VISION FOR EDUCATION In Somerville:

  • Find creative ways to move towards universal Pre-K for all Somerville families. Children who receive a high-quality early childhood education have improved grades, cognitive, and socio-emotional skills. Univeral Pre-K also helps to shrink the racial achievement gap.

  • Eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline by diverting money from the police budget to the school budget so we can hire additional career and guidance counselors.

  • Continue to expand the school budget to add extra support staff: more reading and math interventionists, on-site translators and interpreters, etc.

  • Continue to support student access to technology rather than rolling back to pre-pandemic standards.

  • Ensure the safety and well-being of undocumented families and students.

  • Diversify our school staff, especially teaching staff and school leadership.

  • Address inequity of class sizes across the district.

  • Add opportunities for students to learn a second language at a younger age, in elementary school if possible.

  • Insist on resources and structural changes to support equitable delivery of services for students with disabilities.

  • Adopt authentic and comprehensive Restorative Justice Practices in schools.

  • Make our schools safe for people of all racial, ethnic, religious, and gender identities.

  • Press for a home-rule petition to add direct student representation on the Somerville School Committee.

  • Create vocational and job-training options for students who are not college-bound out of high-school.

  • Climate change curriculum to help make the student body environmentally literate.  

  • Maintain safe and healthy school buildings, especially the Winter Hill and Brown schools.

  • Support students and families facing evictions.

DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT DISPLACEMENT:

We must choose people over profit. The city of Somerville continues to be a hotspot for development and the arrival of the Green Line extension has only increased the pressure. We need new ordinances that ensure community benefits and a community impact report are part of any new development. We need balanced and oversight so that all this development benefits our community rather than merely making space for a new one.

This issue has been central to my time in office. Since my very first run for office in 2017, I have refused donations from for-profit developers. I have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with groups like Union United as we fought for a community benefits agreement with the developer in Union Square. As a city councilor, I supported the creation of the democratically elected community group Union Square Neighborhood Council to negotiate with the developer and have voted for broader community representation on city planning boards.

MY VISION FOR DEVELOPMENT In Somerville:

  • Encourage new commercial development projects that are exclusively for worker-owned co-op businesses. Imagine the next Bow Market, but filled with thriving worker-owned businesses. 

  • Propose and pass a citywide Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) Ordinance that would require residential, commercial and mixed-use developers proposing developments of a certain size to negotiate a Community Benefits Agreement with a group of community residents that includes those most at risk for displacement.These agreements could include more affordable housing; access to jobs and training; small business protections; green and open space; sustainability; arts, creative and civic space; and procedures for monitoring and enforcement.

  • Require that proposed large developments in any part of Somerville undertake Community Impact Reports (CIR) as a mandated part of new commercial, residential or mixed-use development approval processes.

  • Have developers fund training opportunities for residents, people of color, and women, and ensure local hire.

SUPPORT WORKERS:

As a union member myself, I know how important it is to have worker solidarity and the positive impact it can have on wages and workplace conditions. I have marched shoulder-to-shoulder alongside the Somerville paraprofessionals and the CHA nurses as they have fought for living wages and improved working conditions. I will encourage the Mayor to use the city's authority to protect and empower workers, to vigorously enforce wage theft protections, and to prioritize unionized vendors for city services. 

I was proud to partner with labor as a city councilor to pass our wage theft ordinance, the strongest of its kind in the state. I have used my voice as a public official to support the paraprofessionals and nurses in their fights to get deserved wage increases and better working conditions, and I have fought for better workplace protections in development projects.

MY VISION FOR LABOR in somerville:

  • Fund and vigorously enforce the wage theft protections 

  • Fund the Somerville Worker Center 

  • Prioritize unionized vendors for city services, as well as those who commit to living wages and benefits for their employees

  • Seek enhanced protections for workers in all negotiations with developers

  1. Encourage the Mayor to double the number of youth jobs in the Mayor's Summer Jobs Program

Health Equity

COVID-19 has brought to light numerous inequities that residents of Somerville face, especially when it comes to health equity. We must prioritize putting people’s health and well-being first. 

MY VISION FOR HEALTH EQUITY:

  • Work to bring back an emergency room for Somerville that was closed by Cambridge Health Alliance.

  • Improve transportation systems for seniors and residents with disabilities.

  • Increase the number of housing options available to seniors and low-income families.

  • Prioritize drug treatment options to residents suffering from addiction, including the proposed safe consumption site.

  • Add additional community gardens and green space throughout the city.

  • Use police budget to create an unarmed response team for mental health emergencies.

  • Identify locations and support for additional community fridges and food pantries like those established by Mutual Aid Medford and Somerville (MAMAS).

gender equity

As Councilor, I’ll ensure that Somerville does not just treat its residents equally, but also equitably. The pandemic had a disproportionate impact on working women, especially women of color. Many mothers had to put their careers on hold so that they could stay home and take care of their children who were held out of school and daycare. As Councillor, I’ll work to ensure these women have the resources they need to return to their careers and ensure their children are taken care of. 

MY VISION FOR GENDER EQUITY

  • Fully fund and empower the Somerville Women’s Commission so that it has the resources to support women in our community, including appointing a full-time Director.

  • Work with the Women’s Commission to identify resources to support the women whose childcare responsibilities reduced their ability to work for pay.

  • Gender pay parity among Somerville’s city employees.

  • Only hiring city contractors that demonstrate gender pay parity.