One Civic Act

The City of Somerville has been negotiating with Tufts University for some time now over payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT). Somerville residents are impacted by tax-exempt institutions in our communities that take advantage of city services without contributing revenues. Today, I signed a petition asking the City Council to hold a hearing to review and pass an ordinance governing PILOT.

Today, I joined a call with my State Representative elect to introduce her to the We the People Massachusetts effort to push for a constitutional amendment for democracy reform. We didn’t really have to convince her, as she’s a staunch advocate of democracy reform. But it was valuable to get her up to date on what we’re working on.

Today, I helped a Climate Reality leader who is prepping her presentation for the 24 Hours of Reality on October 10-11.

I’ve supported the Movement Voter Project in the past, because it has such a powerful theory of change: Fund local organizing not only to get out the vote among marginalized populations in battleground states, but also build the power of local organizers to gain influence in their communities and states. Today, I made another donation to the Movement Voter Project.

We’ve been working for the better part of a year on the labor-climate summit, indeed a labor-climate-equity summit, that bring together disparate community groups to work on shared problems. Today, I attended the summit, joining a working group on developing shovel-ready projects. It actually happened, and despite its virtual nature, went off very smoothly.

Tomorrow, the Somerville Labor-Climate Summit is finally happening. Today, I helped to button up some final details with the planning team.

Today, I participated in the fourth workshop for the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Building Electrification Accelerator.