By Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

Excerpted and adapted from Mayor Curtatone’s State of the City address given on Monday, Jan. 19, 2015.

One of the many accolades we’ve earned together over the past decade and that we can rightly be proud of is “The Best Run City in Massachusetts.” But our community’s aspirations have always been more than simply having an efficient and effective government. We know that government can do more. It can change people’s lives for the better.
Cities cannot be led by mere managers, seeking the highest rate of return. As Robert F. Kennedy pointed out in 1968, our Gross National Product “measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” Government has a critical role to play in the shaping the future of every person who lives in our community. When it comes to improving the lives of our people, government is not just an essential player—it is the essential player.

One year ago, at the inauguration, I vowed that we would intensify affordable housing efforts and that we would do what few cities have done: we would expand those efforts to include middle-income families so that our working middle-class is not squeezed out of the city. We then launched the Sustainable Neighborhoods initiative, and we submitted a proposed zoning code that goes beyond a simple expansion of our housing efforts. Our proposed code includes some of the most ambitious inclusionary housing requirements in the nation – and that includes requiring the creation of homes permanently affordable for middle-income households.

I said we would preserve artist and maker spaces and live-work buildings through new fabrication and arts districts. We then submitted a zoning ordinance overhaul that accomplishes just that, and that goes further to require that new buildings in transformational districts like InnerBelt and Brickbottom reserve 5 percent of their floor space as leasable creative and maker space.

I said we’d launch a program to link local jobs with local people. We then launched our First Source jobs program with our partners at the SCC. We partnered with Federal Realty & SCC on job fairs at Assembly Row and as a direct result close to 50 percent of all new hires were from Somerville, exceeding national local source standards. We launched our Pocket Change program and Help Around Town online job board to connect local businesses with local job seekers.

I said we would expand our City’s ethics ordinance so that Somerville has the toughest ethics laws in Massachusetts, and I am working with the Board of Aldermen to do just that. I announced a community budgeting process and then based on the priorities you shared through that process, we increased our investments in education, arts, culture, recreation and public health.
One year ago, we said. And then we did. We followed through on each promise.

We also looked back at what we accomplished together over the past decade—the establishment of Somerville’s new legacy as a model of smart, efficient and effective government. We established that legacy by measuring, and then managing. But budgets do not tell whole story of a community. If we hold Kennedy’s words dear to us, we cannot be satisfied with good management.
We’re going to aim higher. We aim to tackle not just issues that we face in Somerville, but the seemingly intractable questions that plague every city. Affordability. Education. Climate Change. Mobility. Public Health. The social progress of all our people. We’ve learned how to think different. Now, we need to challenge ourselves to think bigger. We have to. Our nation is undergoing the greatest demographic shift since the 1950s with a historic return to the urban core. The cities that plan and build for that future are the cities that will be successful.

Our community faces a number of challenges. We want to keep our community diverse and open to all people. An opioid addiction epidemic threatens the nation, and we are not immune. As we build a transportation infrastructure for the 21st century, we must address water, sewer and building infrastructure that was built for the 20th century—and is aging rapidly. And in the midst of the greatest demographic shift since the 1950s, when people fled cities for suburbs, there is change coming that we must collaboratively manage, so that we dictate how our community evolves, instead of allowing outside forces shape our future.
In all these challenges, I know that Somerville will be successful. Why? Because we have always dreamed big. Because, as Kennedy also once said, we dare to fail greatly, so that we can achieve greatly. We have an entrepreneurial spirit. We have a passion for curiosity. Somerville is not a community satisfied with pat answers. We understand that there is no such thing as a simple answer to these complex questions. Systemic problems require systemic solutions. We must do the hard work to solve our complex challenges if we are going to realize our shared hopes and dreams. We aim higher.

Together we have achieved a level of success that nobody outside these 4 square miles thought we could—but we knew we could. We all fought for the Green Line Extension. We fought for Assembly Station. We fought to bring more businesses and jobs to our city. We are succeeding. That makes things more complex, and new challenges arise. But we have achieved today’s successes together. And we will tackle these new challenges together. We will continue to invest in our community, and invest in people. People are what make a city great. You make this city great.

A year ago at the inauguration ceremonies, we celebrated a decade of progress together. Now, we challenge ourselves to achieve another decade of progress together – and for all of Somerville. Let’s aim higher.