The Issues

I'm running for Mayor of Somerville to bring collaborative, transparent, and accountable leadership to the city's most pressing challenges. My approach is rooted in community engagement, data-informed decision-making, creative problem-solving, and a deep commitment to equity and public service. Our campaign is about building a Somerville that works for everyone. We invite all residents to join the conversation and help shape our city's future. Get in touch!

Housing

Somerville is in a housing crisis, and we’re not alone. It’s a problem across the greater Boston area. Both long-term residents and new ones are being displaced from Somerville. Many of the people who keep our schools, libraries, and small businesses running can’t afford to live here. In an urgent situation, we need urgent action. I want our population to continue to grow, not shrink; for families to be able to thrive; for young people to come live here and for seniors to stay here.

I’ve taken bold steps to increase the amount of affordable housing by partnering with our state and neighboring cities. In 2022, I introduced and achieved passage of a zoning ordinance amendment that removed site plan approval for backyard cottages, making them an easier option for property owners looking to add an accessory dwelling unit. In 2023, I voted in favor of the common-sense home rule for local rent stabilization. For four years, I’ve been heavily involved with the 299 Broadway site, the Somerville Redevelopment Authority’s urban renewal plan. The final numbers for the project include 319 new housing units, with 136 of those being affordable units. These steps are important, but to make major progress, we need a Mayor who will move on day one with the urgency this situation requires. I have reviewed the excellent work of the Anti-Displacement Task Force, but since January, little has been done to advance their recommendations.

Check out my full housing plan here. As Mayor, I will:

Stabilize rents and protect against displacement by advocating for rent stabilization, just-cause eviction protections, and relocation fee requirements for no-fault displacement, ensuring residents can stay in their homes.
Support upzoning near transit areas to increase housing supply and reduce displacement with the creation of permanently affordable units.
Incentivize affordable housing by expanding Somerville’s Inclusionary Zoning Law through financing tools and tax incentives like Urban Center Housing Tax Increment Financing (UCH-TIF) and growing the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
Create a first-time homebuyer program modeled on the City of Boston’s, providing grants for households who rent in Somerville to buy here, stay, and continue as part of our community.
Relieve property taxes for seniors and residents with low incomes by expanding relief programs already offered by the City, including water bill assistance, CPA exemptions, property tax deferrals, and work-off programs.
Ensure effective, efficient government by streamlining permitting for affordable housing, reviewing the Office of Housing Stability, and improving coordination across departments to reduce red tape.
Invest in social housing by partnering with Rep. Connolly, Governor Healey, and state leaders to build deeply affordable, high-quality housing that keeps Somerville accessible for generations to come.

City Services

Our municipal workforce has suffered a difficult last few years. Prolonged collective bargaining sagas with municipal unions and drawn-out compensation studies have contributed to a drain of good employees at all levels. As your mayor, I will:

Resolve contract delays and rebuild trust with municipal unions
Prioritize recruiting to fill vacant roles
Foster a strong working culture in City Hall
Make Somerville an employer of choice again

Infrastructure

Like our state and country, Somerville hasn't kept up with our infrastructure. As a result, we're now facing three separate $1 billion-plus problems: our crumbling street surfaces, our old and waterway-polluting sewers, and our aging municipal buildings in need of renovation or replacement. The good news is that good financial stewardship has been recognized with a AAA bond rating that will allow us to borrow at lower rates, increasing our capacity for borrowing. We need to:

Create and publicly share Capital Investment Plan to outline a clear strategy for the large backlog of infrastructure projects large and small
Use Somerville’s AAA bond rating to fund long-overdue upgrades
Coordinate projects across departments & neighboring cities to minimize disruption

Streets Safety

I've long maintained that walking around one's own city shouldn't be a high-risk activity and that we need to do better to keep people safe using all modes of transit. I'm a strong supporter of street safety infrastructure based on best practices to prevent reckless operation on our streets. I've been particularly focused on reducing cut-through commuter traffic by disincentivizing people using our neighborhood residential streets as an alternative to MBTA Commuter Rail and highways. I've pursued camera traffic enforcement legislatively and have an opinion from the City's law department supporting the legality of this approach, and I've made it one of my top budget priorities last year and again this year. I've also advocated for establishing a hybrid Traffic Safety Officer position to perform traffic detail, crossing guard, and parking enforcement duties.

As your Mayor, I will:

Increase enforcement activities and introduce camera-based traffic enforcement to prevent reckless driving
Continue to push for signage & lighting improvements and better regulation of the Community Path
Dedicate a hybrid Traffic Safety Officer position to perform traffic detail, crossing guard, and parking enforcement duties

Climate Change

Climate change and the extreme weather that comes with it are realities already impacting our city, not some far-off, distant concern. Flooding and combined sewer outfalls are an increasing problem with a growing number of extreme rain events, so I'm prioritizing solving both of these issues. Somerville missed our chance to be one of the communities to take part in the Municipal Fossil Fuel Free Building Demonstration Program, so I'll work with the City Council to make sure we don't see any further opportunities like this get squandered. We will also:

Work with utilities on upgrades to our electric grid and increase the number of EV charging stations in the city -- including expanding on-street EV charging
Pursue decarbonization goals for municipal buildings and work on making our city's vast inventory of rental units energy efficient
Upgrade stormwater and sewer systems to prevent flooding
Expand EV charging access and pilot on-street charging
Improve energy efficiency in rental housing and reduce construction emissions

Rats

I've made addressing our rodent problem a top priority since my first campaign years ago, when I did a campaign text on rodents targeted at people living in rodent hot spots in the city. My administration will wage a two-part war on rats starting with an educational campaign making sure people know how food in trash bins and trash bins left open, overgrowth, and standing water create perfect breeding grounds for rodents. We also need to:

Increase citywide composting and waste management to reduce food sources
Scale up innovative control methods like rodent birth control and explore other non-toxic solutions
Ban harmful second-generation rodenticides that endanger pets and wildlife
Launch a public education campaign and a reporting system to engage the public in efforts
Coordinate across departments - Public Works, Inspectional Services, and Health - to ensure consistent, proactive rodent control citywide

Check out my full rodent plan here.

Education

All Somerville Public Schools (SPS) students and staff deserve the funding and facilities required for quality learning. Back in 2021, I called for new school construction, pointing out the alarming condition of the Winter Hill Community Innovation School (WHCIS) and Benjamin G. Brown School buildings. When the ceiling collapse at 115 Sycamore displaced the WHCIS community in 2023, I apologized for the City failing them with inaction. I've worked relentlessly on accelerating the timeline for constructing a new school and advocating for the WHCIS community in their interim location. I've worked with the School Committee to ensure critical needs are being met in the budget, and I've long supported living wages for paraprofessionals in our classrooms and competitive salaries for SPS teachers in our collective bargaining.

Prioritize construction of a new school
Ensure our School budget meets real classroom needs
Advocate for competitive pay for teachers and paraprofessionals
Strengthen collaboration between the City of Somerville and Somerville Public Schools

Public Safety

I've stood alongside our firefighters in their opposition to lateral hires for the Fire Department that would bring in firefighters from outside fire departments instead of hiring Somerville residents who badly want these jobs. And I've fought for better conditions in our decrepit fire stations and a badly-needed new home for Engine 3 for improved response coverage. As mayor I will:

Implement the recommendations of the Public Safety for All task force, including the establishment of civilian police oversight, the implementation of body-worn cameras with a best-in-breed policy around these cameras and the resulting video, and the creation of an alternative emergency response (AER) program in our city
Address morale issues in the Police Department impacting recruitment and retention and pursue departmental policies of increased traffic enforcement and monetary citations for moving violations

Community Health

We're feeling the impacts locally of regional and national homelessness and substance abuse disorder crises. It's important to recognize these as two separate but often-related issues. We've seen encampments of unhoused folks on both the east and west sides of the city, and the effectiveness of the City's responses has varied. We can never lose sight of the fact these are human beings going through a hellish experience, and we also can insist on a baseline level of behavior from everyone in our community. We have wonderful community non-profit partners and we need to work seamlessly with them while pursuing permanent supportive housing as the long-term solution to homelessness. We currently are in a holding pattern with establishing an overdose prevention center here.

In the meantime, we need to:

Provide third-party harm reduction strategies to keep our residents alive until they're open to receiving help
Improve coordination between our municipal social workers, healthcare providers and local nonprofits to help residents
Collaborate with neighboring municipalities to ensure we’re on the same page with programs, services, and policies

Immigrant Protections

Somerville has long been a city of immigrants. Now our immigrant population is under attack from the Trump regime. The federal government wants immigrants and welcoming communities like Somerville living in fear, so it's important to stay calm but vigilant. While interfering with actions by federal agents is illegal, we can make sure everyone knows their rights and what to do if they see Immigrations & Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in Somerville. The SomerViva Office of Immigrant Affairs (SOIA) has been working with community groups to hold Know Your Rights seminars and we need to continue this work. The City also can help foster community and promote immigrant-owned businesses that are enduring a tough time due to lower foot traffic. As Mayor, I will work to:

Strengthen existing bilingual outreach conducted by SomerViva Office of Immigrant Affairs (SOIA)
Expand Know Your Rights workshops with community partners
Do a citywide mailing of Know Your Rights materials in multiple languages
Support immigrant-owned small businesses through promotion and local initiatives

Working Families

As a parent, I know Somerville needs to get back to being a family city by supporting working families. We have a large number of licensed daycare providers in this city, and we should be connecting them with families looking for childcare and making sure families have access to resources to help pay the high cost of childcare. I'd love to see Somerville explore setting up a childcare cooperative. To support working families, we need to:

Connect families with childcare providers and payment assistance resources
Ensure out-of-school programming covers the full workday year-round
Ensure family-sized units are included as a significant part of new housing developments in the city

Local Business

Our locally-owned businesses keep money in our community. It’s easy to say we love local business, but our business community in Somerville feels frustrated and like an afterthought. We have to communicate with businesses about street and sidewalk closures and construction impacts, so they know what’s coming. We should be working with them to determine their parking needs and making our curbside parking smarter so it meets their needs. And we need to be making it quicker and easier to get licenses and permits to help new businesses get off the ground and keep existing businesses going.

Labor

Everyone deserves a union and there is power in a union. With Somerville becoming increasingly unaffordable, it's more important than ever to bring good, quality union jobs to our city. When union laborers get onto job sites, they're often able to turn those opportunities into careers and make a living wage while being protected from wage theft. As your Mayor, I will:

Continue to push developers to use union labor so that Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) become the norm in Somerville as they are next door in Boston
Show greater urgency in preventing municipal unions from working without a contract and work with union leaders on shared goals.

LGBTQ+ Rights

Following really encouraging gains over the past 50 years, the LGBTQ+ community now is facing renewed oppression. The Trump regime is going after trans people explicitly and attacking pride in general. As mayor, I'll be an ally and stand with our LGBTQ+ community in the face of this targeting. Somerville will continue to be a welcoming community for LGBTQ+ residents and visitors, and we'll make certain our police aren't cooperating with any other jurisdictions with inquiries around gender-affirming care.

Inclusive Recreation

In a densely-populated city, we need to be making the absolute best use of our limited recreational space and looking to increase that space wherever possible. We must maximize usage of indoor spaces, like our schools (particularly our gyms) and indoor facilities. There are a number of developers promising or already obligated to build community space and we have community partners planning to create these spaces. We also need to:

Create a planning group or task force doing the important coordination work to determine community use needs, ensure they are being addressed, and guard against duplicative efforts.
Work to implement community hours on our synthetic turf fields that don't need to close when it rains and can sustain additional use.
Work with our Parks and Recreation Department to complete a representative survey of the community's recreational needs and then address those needs with expanded and enhanced programming.

Quality of Life

In our effort to make Somerville a city where people want to live, work, and play, we need to get serious about enforcement of laws and ordinances that have a real impact on quality of life. Whether it's enforcing the noise, anti-idling, or leaf blower ordinances or ensuring housing is up to code, we need to up our code enforcement.

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