City Sets Date to Convene Resident Assembly on Surveillance Technology

Nearly a third of Cambridge households will be invited to join a resident assembly to weigh in on surveillance technology in the city next week, according to a Wednesday announcement from the city.

The city is slated to send 15,000 invitations next week to randomly selected households across Cambridge to solicit interest in joining the assembly. By Oct. 10, the city will formally select the 40-person panel, while ensuring the body reflects the city demographically, reflecting a variety of “lived experiences related to the assembly focus.”

Residents chosen will meet four times between Oct. 24 and Dec. 5, joined by “independent experts,” to discuss the city’s surveillance technology and prepare recommendations for the Council on its existing technologies — like ShotSpotter, the gunshot detection system, and “the future of public safety.” Each participant will be paid a $1,000 stipend, with accommodations for childcare and interpretation.

The assembly comes in response to the Council’s back-and-forth on allowing the Cambridge Police Department to use ShotSpotter, which uses a network of acoustic sensors to detect and notify police of potential gunfire. The Council voted to remove ShotSpotter in May, citing concerns over data privacy and the technology’s effectiveness. But it was temporarily reinstated in August, a month after the fatal shooting of 32-year-old Cambridge Public Works employee Xavier Bautista.

Residents criticized the Council’s decision making for failing to represent public opinion as ShotSpotter went live again. And as the city weighs a permanent reinstallation, officials have also been tasked with bringing more residents into policy decisions beyond their two existing channels — public comment and individual meetings with constituents.

City Councilor Timothy R. Flaherty, who co-sponsored the order to establish the assembly, said the group “could be fruitful,” but said he would prefer more city-held meetings in neighborhoods that “are most impacted by urban violence.”

Still, Flaherty applauded the city’s commitment to ensuring the body holds a diverse perspective of experiences, and said that making recommendations on surveillance technology use “requires an intimate understanding” of the impact of violence in the city.

But City Councilor Catherine “Cathie” Zusy, who supported the August order, said the resident assembly still wasn’t a sufficient solution.

“The Council/the City should have engaged proactively in public outreach, especially to the communities most impacted by violence, before the votes,” Zusy wrote. “Creating a Citizens Assembly will be a lot of work and will just kick the hard decision about ShotSpotter down the road.”

City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 defended the city’s plan to bolster engagement in the Wednesday announcement, writing that having a representative resident body was “a practical way to bring diverse voices together to learn, discuss, and advise on complex issues.”

“Having members representative of our community set the direction for technologies that have generated widespread discussion is very compelling to the City,” Huang wrote.

The city contracted an outside nonprofit, FIDE North America, to design and implement the panel. The group has helped design, advise, or evaluate similar citizen assemblies in Richmond, Va., Boulder, Colo., Dayton and Akron, Ohio, and Victoria, British Columbia.

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at shawnb.18. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.

—Staff writer Claire A. Michal can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at ClaireMichal.154.