Cambridge council committee narrows solicitor oversight, adopts budget-priority process and forwards charter redline to full council

A special Committee of the Whole of the Cambridge City Council on Thursday approved narrower changes to how the council will engage with the city solicitor, adopted language establishing a formal process for the council to submit budget priorities to the city manager, voted to keep the mayor as a member of the school committee but not as its chair, rejected a proposal to rename the mayor "president of the city council," and voted to send the redlined home-rule charter draft to the full City Council for further consideration.

Councilors adopted two specific changes affecting the city solicitor’s role: (1) the city manager will continue to appoint the city solicitor, but the council will have confirmation authority on the manager’s recommendation; and (2) councilors may submit comments on the solicitor’s work to the city manager for incorporation into the solicitor’s performance review. The first change passed as amended; the second was approved after further roll-call votes.

Why it matters: The solicitor serves as the city’s chief legal officer and advises both the executive branch and the City Council. Councilors who pushed for changes said they sought a clearer mechanism for the legislative branch to register concerns about legal advice it receives without inserting the council directly into hiring or firing decisions. Opponents warned that adding formal review roles could politicize a position meant to represent the whole municipal organization.

Council debate and votes Councilor Sabrina Wheeler introduced the discussion and said the intent behind proposed changes was for “accountability and transparency” so councilors’ concerns about legal advice can be formally considered in reviews. City Solicitor Meghan Bair, who helped draft compromise language, told the committee she was not endorsing the policy but had provided workable text that aimed to protect the solicitor’s ability to represent the entire organization. “As attorneys, we are bound by a code of ethics, and we represent our client to the best of our ability,” Bair said.

Deputy City Manager Owen O’Rourke and other members of the administration urged caution, arguing the city manager is the appointing authority and oversees most of the solicitor’s work. O’Rourke said council review could give “a disproportionate amount of weight to the city council’s performance review” because the council does not see much of the solicitor’s work, such as litigation or contract matters. “If one has a significant issue, then one should be looking at the city manager in terms of his performance in that regard,” he said.

After debate the committee voted on separate items: the committee first approved language giving the council confirmation authority over the city manager’s nominee for city solicitor (the committee also adopted an amendment changing the threshold for rejecting the manager’s nominee). The committee then approved language allowing councilors to submit comments to the city manager for inclusion in the solicitor’s performance review. (The meeting transcript records detailed roll-call tallies for each vote.)

Budget priorities The committee also voted to add a provision for a formal process in which the City Council will develop and submit budget priorities and the city manager will respond in preparing the proposed budget. Assistant City Manager Spinner and Budget Director Jennings told the committee the proposed language reflects an existing practice of collaboration between the council and administration and was drafted broadly to avoid constraining future process changes. Several councilors said enshrining the council’s role in the charter would clarify expectations without transferring budget authority to the council.

School committee membership and mayoral title On a separate question the committee voted to keep the mayor (the city’s council chair/ceremonial office under Cambridge’s charter) as a member of the School Committee but to remove automatic chair authority; the school committee would choose its own chair. That change passed by a recorded vote. A separate motion to change the mayor’s title to “president of the city council” failed in the committee.

Other business and next steps Committee members voted to forward the redlined charter draft, as revised during the meeting, to the full City Council for additional discussion and possible amendments. Councilors and city staff flagged several technical and policy items for additional review — including whether certain rights tied to Plan E procedures (for example, state statutes related to citizen petitions) should be explicitly preserved in the city’s proposed home-rule charter — and asked the law department to prepare edited language for the next round.

Quotes • City Solicitor Meghan Bair: “We represent the entire organization … and we have to take in all of the different viewpoints and goals and objectives of all of those different constituents, but provide unbiased … legal representation.” • Deputy City Manager Owen O’Rourke: “We have the authority to hire and fire the city manager. And indeed, the vast majority of the work that the city solicitor does is in coordination with the city manager.” • Councilor Sabrina Wheeler: The intent of the proposals was “accountability without that really unworkable position of the council being the hiring or firing” authority.

The committee did not finalize an entire home-rule petition at this meeting; instead it voted to move the revised draft and the specific changes it approved to a future City Council meeting where the full council will consider the text, make further edits, and decide whether to forward a home-rule petition to the state legislature and, eventually, the ballot. Staff and counsel said they will return with clarified draft language on outstanding points, including the solicitor-review wording and how citizen-initiative provisions should be preserved in the home-rule charter.