Sumbul Siddiqui Elected Mayor of Cambridge for Third Term

The Cambridge City Council unanimously elected Sumbul Siddiqui to be the city’s mayor on Monday, handing the fifth-term councilor her third stint leading the city in just six years.

Siddiqui will take office alongside Burhan Azeem, whom councilors voted in as vice mayor at the Monday morning inauguration. Siddiqui, who was first elected in 2017, was tapped as mayor in 2020 and 2022.

She replaces E. Denise Simmons, a 13-term councilor who completed her third term in the City Council’s top job in December.

Siddiqui will also be the only councilor to serve on the Cambridge School Committee, which oversees budgetary and policy issues for Cambridge’s public schools.

But unlike previous mayors, she will not automatically chair the body: Voters overwhelmingly approved an amendment to Cambridge’s charter last fall allowing School Committee members to elect a chair from among themselves, mirroring the City Council’s process.

Though councilors denied Siddiqui a third consecutive term leading Sullivan Chamber two years ago, Monday’s vote marks a rapid comeback for a councilor whose last term as mayor ended in scandal.

A Boston Globe investigation published just weeks before the city’s 2023 local elections unearthed yearslong allegations of bullying and workplace toxicity against Siddiqui by members of her staff. Eight women interviewed by the Globe accused Siddiqui of berating them and harming their future job prospects. (Siddiqui has denied the allegations, but said at the time that she would work to “reflect and improve my supervisory skills.”)

Siddiqui has spent much of her time on the City Council advocating for affordable housing and accessible childcare. She previously served two terms as co-chair of the Council’s housing committee, and in an October interview with The Crimson, said she intends to focus on tax incentives and inclusionary zoning this term.

As mayor, Siddiqui also emerged as the face of Cambridge’s Recurring Income for Success and Empowerment initiative — a pilot program of guaranteed income, in which certain low-income, single-caretaker households in Cambridge received monthly payments of $500.

RISE became the country’s third-largest direct income initiative after Cambridge infused the program with $22 million in federal funds in 2022. Funding for RISE ended last February, though councilors voted in September 2024 to explore a successor program.

Monday’s meeting also included the inauguration of two new city councilors: Ayah Al-Zubi ’23 and Timothy R. Flaherty.

Al-Zubi, who first moved to Cambridge as a Harvard undergraduate, became the youngest person ever elected to the City Council at 24. She came in third on the ballot last fall after running a campaign backed by the city’s Democratic Socialists branch.

Flaherty is a lifelong Cambridge resident and former prosecutor. He rose to prominence as the defense attorney of former councilor Paul F. Toner, who was charged by Cambridge police last year for allegedly patronizing a high-end brothel based in North Cambridge.

The incumbents include Siddiqui, Azeem, Simmons, Patricia M. “Patty” Nolan ’80, Catherine “Cathie” Zusy, Jivan G. Sobrinho Wheeler, and Marc C. McGovern. Monday’s ceremony was Flaherty and Al-Zubi’s first meeting as elected officials.

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.