Cambridge Election 2024 Mayoral candidate Andrew Bradshaw

Editor’s Note: On Oct. 19, 2024, voters in the City of Cambridge will select from a field of candidates for City Council and Mayor.

CAMBRIDGE -In August, the Banner reached out to each candidate with questions and will be posting their answers in full on Bay-to-Bay New.

 What inspired you to run for mayor in 2024?

I served as Mayor in 2021, having decided to run in 2020 following discussions with several friends and neighbors who had experienced a lack of satisfaction in their interactions with the City of Cambridge. During my time in office, we were just able to begin making the kinds of adjustments and changes needed to improve Cambridge. In policy, responsiveness, and in capability, improvements had started to become apparent as that year continued, up until the time I left office.

I had given little to no thought subsequently to running in this election, but I was drawn back into the discourse regarding City issues during the spring of this year. As I exchanged thoughts and ideas online and in person, the need to be engaged on issues here crystallized. Residents began reaching out on social media asking that I consider reentering the political arena, then others began approaching me in restaurants and stores, and I even received a few pieces of mail asking that I do so. The encouragement of so many residents, coupled with a feeling that the work I had begun on behalf of the people of Cambridge remained unfinished drove the decision.

I feel an obligation to my City and a responsibility to the residents. Those feelings of obligation and responsibility led to my entering this race, with hope that the support of voters will allow us to work together to free Cambridge from a quagmire of stagnation and ineptitude.

What unique qualifications and background do you bring to being mayor?

I previously served as Mayor, and during that time brought a level of transparency, capability, and accessibility that had been unseen in the office for years or even decades prior, and that has also not been seen subsequently. At the time, even staff commented informally on the level of engagement I provided and the encouragement I gave to them seeking the improvement of the City’s organization and provision of services to citizens.

For citizens, I was active, engaged, and present. There was no question whether I was available to attend to the needs of Cambridge. I bring those same qualities now, but with the benefit of personal growth derived from the passage of time and from the experiences I have had over the past several years. I better understand the need to remain grounded and humble as I seek to give of myself for this City and its residents. I also bring an analytical mind to the role that is needed. Setting policy, examining information, and determining outcomes in government can be complex and confusing. A necessity exists to have leaders with the ability to understand just what kinds of decisions they are making based upon the legislative language before them, and numerous examples from my time in office, and the time since, exists of my capacity for this.

Anecdotally, only days ago I attended a Planning and Zoning meeting, listened to the staff presentation regarding a proposed text amendment to the City’s Unified Development Code, and then stepped to the podium with questions regarding the impact of some of these textual changes. The members of staff present at the meeting and the City Attorney thought for a bit and could not answer several of the questions posed. The potential impact of the changes being made, and the question I had related to it could be significant, and my having asked the question was the first time the thought had been presented to City staff on the topic. This kind of analytical thought and engagement can make a difference in our City and should be viewed as a necessity for the leaders we select.

Please name one (or more) areas of personal and professional growth you’d bring to being Mayor of Cambridge?

I grew up in Cambridge, have parents who struggled with addiction, was raised primarily by grandparents and an uncle. I’ve made personal errors that led to significant personal and professional setbacks. My experience is, unfortunately, like many in our City.

Yet, I have overcome, found success and happiness in life, and persevered when facing those failures and setbacks. That, too, should be the story of Cambridge. Many residents in our City lack in hope and hang on in quiet desperation. In addition to being a leader in setting policy, my goal is to be an example for people in this City that a failure does not define, and a setback is not permanent.

What do you consider the top issues facing Cambridge in 2024?

Cambridge’s top issues remain unchanged over the last several years: housing quality, crime, career development, and the Cambridge Harbor development. I believe our housing issues, crime, and career development shortcomings are all deeply intertwined, and have a strong relationship to the added issue of an underperforming school system. All these lead to a level of hopelessness in some of our neighborhoods, but the impact is felt across the entirety of Cambridge.

Unfortunately, the City has an extremely limited ability to impact educational outcomes, but I believe we can support our children in their scholastic pursuits through improved support for afterschool programs and alternative educational opportunities. We can also provide additional support for educators in our community outside the classroom, and I expect we will explore all avenues available to aid the County and the school board in their goal to turn the tide on educational outcomes.

Please comment on any or all of the following: (feel free to add any topics not mentioned below)

1. Juvenile Curfew, Youth Initiative. I was initially opposed to the curfew program. I felt it was not a well-developed plan, it failed to address the actual problems leading to juvenile crime during overnight hours, and it would be limited in its enforcement. With adjustments that have been made, and after discussion with Cambridge Police officers and leadership, I have modified my opinion. As part of a larger collection of available tools to address youth issues, the curfew can be applied in a thoughtful and discretionary fashion, and that should be the goal in its use. We should not be using it to arrest first-time violators, but it should instead be a path to engaging with the youth in violation. In practice that has been the case. Knowing that, however, additional tools need to be set into place. The Teen Court program that Cambridge Police is developing will help, as will additional efforts to engage with the City’s young people through an Office of Community Engagement. Beyond the curfew and engaging with young people in that regard, the Office of Community Engagement will work to match Cambridge’s nonprofit organizations that have parallel missions to further their missions and assist in cross-organizational cooperation. It will assist in seeking funding for these programs and in matching potential participants to the programs. Finally, it will administer a program established through the City of Cambridge to grow youth mentorship at the middle school and high school levels, with those mentorships evolving into internship opportunities in late high school. These efforts will significantly increase the engagement the City has directly with youth, as well as indirectly through program support.
2. Cambridge Waterfront and YMCA - Cambridge Harbor is the most important economic development program in the region, with an impact that will go far beyond Cambridge and Dorchester County. However, the project continues to falter. When I served as Mayor previously, I engaged with Cambridge Waterfront Development Incorporated (CWDI) and with potential development partners in efforts to move the project forward, and I look forward to cooperatively doing so again. As it stands, CWDI has very little funding available for operational expenses, so a reexamination of their practices over the past several years is necessary, and short-term, intermediary, and long-term attainable goals have to be set that reflect the elaborated mission they have: engaging with a development partner or partners who carry the expertise and ability necessary to move forward a successful project. What is not a workable proposal is the relocation of the YMCA to that site. Downsizing the YMCA’s available land area by roughly seventy percent, while at the same time placing a non-tax generating facility that will not generate job growth on the waterfront parcel is a nonstarter. It does not reflect the project goals, it does not contribute to additional development and growth, and it does not meet the needs of the community. This project, when completed properly, will be the gem of Delmarva. To be such, however, strong cooperation between all parties is key, with unified and decisive action moving us forward.
3. Affordable, safe housing - When I was elected in 2020, housing was the topic of the moment, and the one for which the most momentum for change existed. Since I left office, one significant effort that began during my time, the Cambridge Land Bank, has been enacted, but no other policy changes to improve our housing condition have moved forward. The Land Bank legislation, though enacted, has not led to the actual establishment of the program. That too needs to occur. Several additional housing policies were on the table and need to be brought back to the fore. A minimum livability standard for the City of Cambridge that goes beyond the State of Maryland minimum is a start. I began to develop policy toward that, but it was not concluded when I left office, and the Council has failed to continue the effort. A tiered rental registration system had been proposed by Commissioner Roche and I support that effort, but it has not proceeded, either. Additional registration requirements for abandoned or derelict property were being explored but remain unaddressed. Some discussion regarding rental unit inspection had begun, too, but was not yet being explored with any depth, and that remains unresolved. All these are policy areas I am committed to moving forward. Cambridge’s housing quality lags behind that found in our neighboring peer municipalities because efforts to improve and enforce stagnate and die, and I will not allow that to happen while I am in office.
4. Flooding mitigation - The Cambridge Shoreline Resiliency Program continues forward, and I plan to meet with the engineers and scientists involved in planning this effort to learn more about the present situation. I am no expert in this policy area so will defer to those who are, but I will also be an advocate for the affected property owners so that we can work toward a plan that alleviates as much of the flooding as possible while also minimizing the impact on property owners and residents. In that role, I will support the ongoing research and planning, while also serving to advocate for potentially effective alternatives, and I will also be an advocate to state and federal partners for assistance in engineering and funding on this project. The support of these partners at other levels of government will be integral.
5. Infrastructure (sewer, road repair) - As the West End sewer replacement is completed, I will work with staff to review other ongoing issues with our underground and street-level infrastructure. One area that will receive immediate attention is the ongoing wastewater overflows occurring in the Longboat Estates neighborhood, leading to discharge of waste into waterways. Leaders from their homeowners’ association have spoken at City Council meetings on multiple occasions, yet no conclusive plan to address the issue has been forthcoming. A street condition inventory exists that the City has followed since it got back to the practice of paving streets. This core task of the City had been deferred by City Manager Patrick Comiskey during his time in that role. As a result, the City of Cambridge is behind schedule on paving, and a review of the inventory would be appropriate. Because we are behind schedule on this because of the practice of deferred maintenance, I will seek additional funding assistance to bring us back onto schedule. Many areas of Cambridge remain dangerous for pedestrians due to a lack of sidewalks or sidewalks that have obstructions. Though a significant cost exists to install sidewalks, we need to move forward on making our City a safer place both for pedestrians and drivers. I will seek funding assistance and work with the City Manager to grow our available dollars to increase our sidewalk inventory as well. The most notable example of this need is on Leonards Lane, where discussion has been ongoing for years about the number of pedestrians dangerously walking in the street. Though the Council finally funded this basic need in the FY2025 budget, construction still has not begun. I identified this as a priority need in 2021 and had sought to use federal funds the City had received to engineer and construct these. Well over a million dollars of those funds have been allocated but remain unspent and could have been used over the past several years to fund construction. On Leonards Lane and across the City, let’s make it safe for our kids and for ourselves to take a walk without chancing walking in the street.
6. Sustaining and growing Main Street, Pine Street business - Business development is a cornerstone of my efforts in this campaign and will be foundational to my serving as Mayor. The City of Cambridge has historically maintained an Economic Development Director within the City organizations whose purpose was to liaison with existing businesses and to aid in the recruitment or development of new businesses. Over time, the role has been filled with people of varying qualification and quality, and as of now is merged into the general responsibilities of the Assistant City Manager. Our Economic Development Directorship is too important to be a secondary function to a member of staff, and instead needs to be broken out once more as its own department-head level role in the City’s organization. A full-time focus on bringing jobs to Cambridge and on supporting our existing businesses is needed, and keeping the role within the Assistant Manager’s portfolio is not sufficient. Going beyond that basic organizational adjustment, we as a City need to make business growth a fundamental goal of our City’s function. For my part, I will work to set business friendly policies, and I will also work with our Chamber of Commerce, economic development staff, the Small Business Development Center, and other partners to recruit employers to the area and to hear the needs of those already in place. Finally, from a policy perspective, I have proposed partnering with Dorchester County and additionally expanding under City auspices our small business incubation capacity. This would include incubation space, business development assistance, and basic management training opportunities. The goal would be to assist local entrepreneurs over the course of a year or eighteen months as they develop their plan and customer base, before then allowing them to transition to a self-sustaining model. I have also proposed a mentorship/internship program for middle and high school-aged residents that will provide exposure to successful business owners in our community. Through this, the motivation and expectation to succeed can be developed for our next generation.

Lastly, the City previously instituted a tax abatement program for commercial real estate in our Downtown. I would expand this to include the entire Main Street district, which also overlays Pine Street, revamp the qualifications for the program, and expand its visibility and applicability so that business owners in Cambridge can take advantage of the program’s benefits.

How would you help contribute to moving Cambridge forward? Addressing the past? Bringing the city together?

Moving Cambridge forward is about more than rhetoric or self-promotion, it requires plans and policy knowledge. Creativity and dedication are key. Understanding the struggles of some who call our community home, while also having experienced successes will aid, too. We as people, and we as a City, must acknowledge our individual and our collective pasts, but we must not be defined by the past. When we can do these things, and when we can also both celebrate our successes and mourn our losses together, we can unite as a community in a way that has not always occurred in Cambridge. I make it a goal to be present for our citizens. I will be there for Cambridge in good moments and bad. I will never ignore our City’s needs, even in the most frustrating moments. I will never use the office I hold to attempt to penalize those with whom I disagree but will always try to uplift those who live in this community, regardless of their support of me in this role. Through those actions we will move Cambridge ahead and bring all our people together, regardless of background and experience. We will be 13,000 individuals, but we will be a united Cambridge