Fwd: comments attributed to me during last evening's DSNC event
Elaine Almquist
From: Thomas Galligani <tgall...@somervillema.gov>
Date: Tue, Oct 14, 2025, 6:55 PM
Subject: comments attributed to me during last evening's DSNC event
To: dsnc-bo...@googlegroups.com <dsnc-bo...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: elaine....@gmail.com <elaine....@gmail.com>, bel...@alum.mit.edu <bel...@alum.mit.edu>
Tom
Thomas F. Galligani, Jr.
Executive Director
Office of Strategic Planning & Community Development
93 Highland Avenue, Somerville, Massachusetts 02143
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gregn...@gmail.com
As the person who made the comments at the Oct 13 meeting at Tufts, I not only stand by what I said but I also urge you to re-read Tom’s letter to the DSNC carefully. Close examination will confirm that Tom makes no statement directly refuting my comments.
The good news is what Tom does state: “the City is eager to return to long-term planning work in Davis Square in 2026.” Whether under his leadership or a new Department head under a new Mayor this should now be our expectation. Work should begin immediately.
The Somerville Foundation had our first spaghetti dinner planning session Oct 17 with individuals active in DSNC, Davis Square Merchants Association, and Davis Square Village. While different perspectives and priorities remain, there is much more agreement than disagreement than what would seem in forums and in formal meetings. I believe we could get to agreement on a new plan for Davis Sq if we just sit down with each other, listen, find areas of common ground, and work towards areas of compromise from that common ground. I believe this is best done face to face and is easier when we break bread and share a meal.
Please contact me directly if you would like to participate or host such a spaghetti dinner planning session.
g.
|
Greg Nadeau President |
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Davis Square Neighborhood Council · https://DavisSquareNC.org · https://linktr.ee/DavisSquareNC
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Christopher Beland
> Close examination will confirm that Tom makes no statement directly
> refuting my comments.
he did explicitly refute the comments that were attributed to him, and
found the whole sentiment of what he supposedly said upsetting. I think
this was just a misunderstanding where different things that came up
over the course of a conversation were combined in a way that added up
in the mind of the listener to reach a conclusion very different than
what the speaker was actually thinking.
I think both parties have good intentions for the neighborhood, and I'm
looking forward to continuing to collaborate. In that spirit, I went to
a spaghetti dinner at Greg's house, where the discussion was productive
(and the bolognese was amazing). Unfortunately, the same thing happened
to me after this conversation: there were misrepresentations about what
participants had agreed to - not publicly, but I found it alarming
nonetheless. I too am curious about where consensus in the neighborhood
lies on various planning issues; perhaps the discussion process could
be improved to run more smoothly. It's a bit unclear to me what the
work output of a spaghetti dinner is supposed to be, and how it's
supposed to manage disagreement.
If it's supposed to be a consensus compromise that might not be
everyone's first choice but is something everyone could live with and
would support in front of the city, one thing that would help is
actually allowing everyone to give a yes or no on points that we're
supposedly agreeing to. I'm not sure all the elements that came back in
the readout from our dinner as having general agreement represented a
majority of opinion in the room, much less unanimity. It might help if
the points being agreed to are written down, so there's no room for
confusion or misrepresentation in a readout that feeds into a planning
process, and there won't be disavowals from participants later. I'm not
sure how else to prevent later misrepresentations without taking an
audio recording, which feels like it could inhibit open brainstorming
and honest opinions.
Likewise, if it's supposed to be feeling out what a supermajority or
majority of local stakeholders would support, I think it would be
helpful to make it clear unanimity is not the goal, and still get a yes
or no from everyone on proposed points. Maybe some participants have
some ideas which are just unpopular and shouldn't make it into a city
plan (I know I do); it would be nice to know which ideas those are and
that dropping them is the expected outcome. But I'm not sure a dinner
table is actually a big enough forum to know whether an idea is just
one person being weird or if they are representing a large group of
people who literally aren't at the table. It's also unclear how the
output of these dinners would be aggregated.
With official city planning, often there's no vote taken during the
public engagement phase because input is collected in a series of small
conversations. But everyone is generally allowed to express an opinion
on every issue with no time constraints (because comments are accepted
in writing, or there actually is a vote of a whole room). There's also
a party which is generally trusted to objectively gather and aggregate
opinions, and not drop some of them (whether intentionally or
subconsciously) because they personally disagree. That's hard to do
when the opinion aggregator is also the main advocate of a specific
solution, which was the case at our dinner. With an official process,
there's also often a public record of all the input received, so it's
clearer if what the decision-makers propose is aligned with public
sentiment. They often give a written response to rather than simply
ignore ideas that were substantially supported but which are infeasible
or which they disagree with for some reason.
-B.