The Cambridge Day's Danielle Howe published a piece about the current advocacy bubbling up in the Kennedy community, and the City of Somerville's inaction, on the stalled Front Lot redesign and rebuild project. Funding was secured for the redesign back in 2019, after years of public enagagement and advocacy, and has been languishing since, first due to a Covid-related deprioritization in the queue of building projects, then likely due to personnel changes and shortages in the City's office of public space and urban forestry (though this has not been publicly acknowledged by the City).
“For the sake of accountability and transparency – two values the current administration has prioritized since taking office – it would seem important, and possible, to at least give a sense of the time frame for these first steps. We look forward to learning in the short term when the RFP will go live on the city’s procurement site and then to learning what the approximate timing will be for review of the responses to the RFP, interviews and hiring of the design firm..." (Andrew Sessa, Kennedy PTA Advocacy Chair)
Thank you to Kat Mundorf Johnston for helping get this the attention it deserves and to Kristen Cox for years of advocacy so far. The PTA's Advocacy Committee will continue to gather and share information and be at the ready to activate the community to put pressure where and when it will be most effective. We look forward to the City of Somerville sharing the RFP and responding to our requests for a published timeline for the process.
Read the Cambridge Day piece here.
(Photo credit to Cambridge Day.)
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