This past week, a group of African-American 9th grade students from Berkeley CA came to Cambridge for a college tour. The teens are part of the Berkeley Scholars program, which strives to nurture students from grade 4 through high school graduation by exposing them to a college-going culture and helping cultivate the habits that result in academic excellence.

Cambridge rolled out the red carpet for the Scholars; they toured MIT and Harvard, took a cruise on the Charles, and visited CCTV. But the highlight of their time in Cambridge was a visit to City Hall, at the invitation of Mayor E. Denise Simmons, who bestowed upon each of them a key to the City and a Council resolution. The Mayor graciously hosted the Scholars in her parlor, joined by Councilors Reeves and Seidel (who had the kids cheering when he told them that he once taught at the MLK School in Berkeley), and praised them for being role models to others throughout the country. read more...

Free Press spotlights the urban digital divide as the FCC considers national broadband plan

This is very timely as CCTV and its community partners discuss ways to expand the Digital Divide pilot project launched in Newtowne Court last year.

check out the Digital Divide blog and this Free Press video.

Stimulus could revitalize muni Wi-Fi, other stalled projects

Colin and I walked over to Newtowne Court today to look at the signal - it was strong outside and in the Pisani Center - any of you residents want to let us into your apartment so that we can see how it is inside? We have heard feedback that the signal weakens in the evening, which is when more people are sharing the bandwidth. We put up a splash page to let people know they are using Cambridge Public Internet, and how to contact us - looking forward to some feedback on that, too.

Hope to see you all at the next meeting of the Digital Divide Committee on March 18th at City Hall Annex....lots to talk about!

Larry W. Ward was declared the winner of the Vacancy Recount held
yesterday to fill City Councilor Brian Murphy’s seat. The public recount was held
at the Cambridge Election Office in front of the Commissioners,
other eligible candidates and friends and family of Mr. Ward. Mr. Ward received
enough ballots to be determined the winner after the First Round. Full results are on www.cambridgema.gov.

I made a mistake in my last post - with proportional representation, one cannot make any assumptions!

The assumption would be that, if a councilor resigns, the person who came in 10th in the general election would be seated - and that would be Larry Ward. But that is not the case - because of the way the votes are re-distributed, a recount is required.

According to Robert Winters (rwinters.org), who is THE expert on PR voting:
"All ballots and only those ballots credited to Brian Murphy in the 2007 election (1364 ballots) will be used to determine his replacement in an Instant Runoff election. These ballots are a public record and it's a simple manner to use the election tabulation software to determine the outcome. Indeed, once the official process takes place, first-time candidate Larry Ward will succeed Brian Murphy in all conceivable scenarios."

So, from the City's press release today: read more...

Cambridge Vice Mayor Brian Murphy announced at last night's City Council meeting that he is resigning to take the position of Deputy Secretary of Transportation with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Vice Mayor Murphy has served seven years on the Council and in the current term served as Vice Mayor, co-Chair of the Ordinance Committee and Chair of the Finance Committee.

The Election Commission will recount votes from the 2007 City Council election to select Vice Mayor Murphy’s replacement. According to Robert Winters, http://www.rwinters.com/ Larry Ward (pictured here) will fill the seat.

You can see Larry Ward's campaign promo here:
http://www.cctvcambridge.org/node/1882

(thanks to Terrence Smith and the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce for this post.)

It was a real pleasure to share a great moment in Cambridge today - the dedication of the new public safety facility, named after City Manager Robert Healy.

Since 1981, Robert Healy has led this City with integrity, intelligence, wit and pure chutzpah (you can google that if you don't know what it is). I know that some people are critical of the City Manager; no one (not even he) would say that he is perfect - but we are fortunate to have as City Manager someone who has always tried to do the right thing, and has come pretty close most of the time. His is a very complex, nuanced task, with a huge amount of responsibility. I think he truly deserves this recognition. Congratulations, Bob!