Category Archives: Previous Years

CAN Meeting – Thursday, July 11 – 7 pm

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This is a friendly reminder that the July meeting of the Cambridge Association of Neighborhoods (CAN) will be held this Thursday, July 11, at 7:00 pm in the WHCP meeting room, located at 516 Race St.

City Council Commissioner Steve Rideout will be CAN’s special guest at the meeting, Steve will speak about issues in Cambridge and take questions from those in attendance.

This is a great opportunity to learn more about what’s going on in the City and make your opinions known.

As always, the meeting is open to the public, and everyone is invited to attend and participate.

Hope to see you at the meeting!!

May 9 CAN Meeting – Discussion of City Budget & Proposed City Charter Changes

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Dear CAN Members (and Potential CAN Members) —

Cambridge is facing some “interesting” issues in the coming weeks, and the CAN Board would like to get your input about them.

The first issue concerns the City budget, which is facing some formidable challenges.

There have been very large increases in workers’ compensation costs for job-related injuries, and overall employee healthcare costs are also rising significantly.
There is also a great need to raise police officers’ salaries, which are as much as $16,000 below what other Eastern shore communities are paying. As a result, Cambridge is spending large sums of money to train new police officers, only to have them move at the earliest opportunity to neighboring towns and cities where the pay is higher and the workload is lighter.
Cambridge also needs to purchase a new ladder truck for our volunteer Fire Department, which the City has been postponing for years.
The City’s probable response will be to (a) cut the budget dramatically, and (b) increase property taxes by ten cents, which would result in roughly a 12% increase.

A second issue is a proposal by Commissioners Foster, Sydnor, and Cannon to change the City Charter as it pertains to the City Manager’s personnel authority. The proposal would give the City Council much greater involvement in decision making in personnel matters. There are a lot of factors to be considered relative to this proposal, and we should all be well aware of these factors and their consequences before voting on the City Charter changes that his proposal would require.

So there’s a lot going on and a lot to discuss.

Please join us at our meeting on Thursday evening, May 9th, at 7:00 pm in the WHCP meeting room, 516 Race St.

Chuck McFadden, President, CAN

CAN Meeting – Thursday, March 14, 7:00 pm

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Just a reminder that the next CAN Meeting is next Thursday, March 14th at 7:00 pm in the WHCP meeting room at 516 Race St.

Mary Losty is giving a short presentation on the Empowerment Center, and then George Vojtech and Herve Harmon will speak on the new processes of the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) for the West End.

The HPC has been working extremely hard to improve the process, to ensure that HPC requirements are clear and understandable, and to make it quicker and easier to apply and obtain approval for proposed projects. George and Herve will take questions from the audience.

We all have stories about former HPC commissions and their actions, but it’s a new day and a new attitude for the current HPC. George and Herve cannot change the past, so please focus on the new HPC process, existing building codes, the façade improvement program and any other ideas that will improve the look of our City.

Please attend and bring a friend, all are welcomed.

— Chuck