Andre Green
2005 Candidate for Cambridge City Council

Home address:
56 Plymouth St. #3
Cambridge MA 02141

Contact information:
Telephone 617-201-9512
e-mail: andre@andregreen.org 
website (background): www.andregreen.org 

Send contributions to: 
Friends of Andre Green
17-A Bigelow Street
Cambridge, MA 02139

    Currently working as an IT consultant specializing in non-profits and schools, Andre spends his days immersed not only in the cutting edge of high tech that is increasingly Cambridge's life blood, but also the social compassion that is Cambridge's soul.

    But more importantly, Andre Green has been there himself. The child of a single parent who worked overnight shifts to put him through school, he knows firsthand the struggles that Cambridge's working class endure to provide for their families. And, as the first person in his family to graduate from college (which he did at age 19), Andre knows the difference that a quality education can make in the life of a child. With your support, Andre will fight to make sure every child in Cambridge receives the city services they need to grow up to be healthy, productive citizens of this great city.

   “I'm running for City Council based on the radical notion that the purpose of the Cambridge City Council is to govern Cambridge. I believe most Cambridge residents care more about snow removal than a City Councilor's stance on Cuban trade policy. I believe Cambridge voters are more worried about rising crime rates than the Cambridge Nuclear Disarmament Commission. I believe that - especially in light of the massive increases in property taxes - when it comes to City government, Cambridge residents have been paying entirely too much for too little.”
   “With your help, that trend will be reversed. We can make the difference between common-sense reform in Cambridge, or the same failed policies of the past.”

Top Priorities:
Property taxes, quality schools, responsive government.

Quality of Life and Public Safety:
Cambridge is the best city in the Commonwealth but that’s despite not because of it’s government. Far too often City Councilors seem more interested in events in Columbia than events on Columbia Ave.

Meanwhile, basic city services deteriorate. Crime is up, especially in neighborhoods like East Cambridge and Area 4 that can least afford it. Meanwhile police hiring is flat. A strong proponent of community policing, Andre will work to hire more police officers and put them on the streets where they belong.

Residential streets went all winter without a proper snow plowing (and even some that were plowed found the snow merely piled up in driveways). And throughout the city you can find potholes that should have been fixed months ago.

Cambridge deserves a City Councilor who will devote as much time to seeing that citizens get the services they pay so much in taxes for.

Traffic, Parking, and Transportation:
As a practical matter Andre knows that traffic will be a problem as long as there are so many cars in the road. Cambridge runs a fairly good city bus line, but we should upgrade the stops and better advertise routes and schedules to make it both more popular and more convenient, as well as explore alternate revenue streams to lower the cost of it’s use.

We also need to re-look our relationship with the MBTA. We should encourage Subway expansion wherever feasible, and hold the T more accountable for delays in service, capital projects (like the Green Line), and handicap accessibility.

Municipal Finance, City Budget, Assessments, and Property Taxes:
The only thing worse than a tax increase is a needless tax increase. Cambridge, already having financial resources that are the envy of Greater Boston, nonetheless raised tax rates knowing that they’d be required to reassess houses. Both the tax increase and the reassessment were wrong, and Cambridge found itself sitting on an almost $30 million surplus.

Every time we raise property taxes, we make it more expensive to live in Cambridge. Spending that money on “affordable housing” is akin to give yourself a transfusion of your own blood…with a leaky tourniquet. Though it won’t gain any of us politicians headlines, the best solutions to housing often don’t involve government doing more, but rather doing less, and letting the market do more to lower artificially high housing costs. The cheaper we make it to own and/or build in Cambridge, the cheaper we can make it to live in Cambridge.

Land Use, Planning, Economic Development:

Human Services Programs:
As a former Case Manager for DYS, I have a committed interest in how government serves the weakest among us. To that end I have two main priorities as City Councilor. 1) To increase access to the full range of resources to all residents. No citizen should be unable to partake of the full range of relevant services because of lack of access.

Secondly, Cambridge has done extensive work to make it easy to be poor in Cambridge, we need to do more though to make it just as easy to stop being poor in Cambridge. Gentrification need not be the enemy in Cambridge; a human service program that saw economic development for the residents as an integral part of alleviating poverty could go a long way towards ensuring that all Cantabrigians can partake of rising prosperity in the city

Open Space, Parks, and Recreation:
Open space issues are a place where a little money goes a long way. Unfortunately a little money is all we’ve been willing to expend on it. Unlike many of Cambridge’s ails, there’s no way to work with the market to promote public open space. If we want it, we’ve got to pay for it.

However, as in most things the money is there. A shift of a mere 10% of the Cambridge’s Community Preservation funds would go along way to preserving and perhaps expanding Cambridge’s valuable open space

I also support a shared-use Dog park plan similar to the one implemented to national applause in Brookline.

Mr. Green has not yet provided statements on the following topics, but has promised to do so shortly.

Energy, the Environment, and Public Health:

Housing:

Arts and Public Celebrations:

University Relations:

Civic Participation:

Cambridge Public Schools:

Other: