TAC Update #1

After a thorough evaluation process, we are excited to announce the first Davis Square TAC meeting!

The first meeting will be held the evening of Tuesday, August 11th. For the first meeting, TAC members will undergo onboarding, review a past data synthesis, and establish alignment on core values with the goal of preliminary visioning.

TAC meetings are closed working sessions and are not public meetings. To keep the public in the loop, notes and summaries from TAC meetings will be posted on SomerVoice in the days following a meeting.

The TAC will act as a sounding board for the Planning Division as we develop the Davis Square Neighborhood Plan. There are no formal votes or decisions made by or within TAC meetings. Rather, it is a place for the Planning Division to learn from local knowledge and combine it with planning expertise.

We are excited to announce our committee members: Ruby Aidun, Cassandra Arnaud, Angie Byrne, Paul Christie, Jonah Coe-Scharff, Josh McLinden, Jason Rhode, Rachel Rosenberg, Chenoa Schatzki-McClain, Catherine M Venturini, and Stephanie Wasiuk.

Other Ways to Get Involved

The TAC is just one of the many ways to get involved in shaping the Davis Square Neighborhood Plan. We have several other community outreach and engagement events on the horizon, including public workshops, open houses, surveys and more. We expect to announce dates for our first event in the coming weeks.

Join the Davis Square Mailing List: We recommend you join the Davis Square mailing list. Here is where we will send all major updates and share project events. http://eepurl.com/SXnFT

Join the Planning Division Newsletter: To stay in touch with all things Planning Division, (including Davis Square Neighborhood Plan), you may join the Planning Division newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/somervillema.gov/bxithf5lws

How We Selected TAC Members

Our goal was to build a well-rounded team that balances personal, lived experiences with professional expertise.

What We Looked For

We evaluated applications based on a geographic connection to Davis Square, a commitment to neighborhood equity, and how an applicant's background fit into four core categories:

Neighborhood & People Advocacy: Experience in housing affordability, tenant organizing, or senior and immigrant services.
Local Business & Economy: Small business operators, commercial tenants, or property managers.
Public Realm, Mobility & Infrastructure: Daily transit users, pedestrians, and safety advocates.
Arts & Culture: Local artists and cultural non-profits.

Note: Applicants did not need to meet every single qualification to be chosen. For instance, living directly inside the square wasn't a requirement if a strong connection to the area was clear, and personal/lived experience was weighted just as heavily as professional experience.

The Evaluation Process

Applications were reviewed in three distinct stages:

Baseline Review: We checked for baseline completion and that applicants were available to attend all mandatory meetings.

Qualitative Ranking: We reviewed the application with an emphasis on short-answer responses. Applicants were evaluated on their local insights, their alignment with community collaboration and equity values, and their vision for the future of Davis Square in line with SomerVision 2040.

Final Selection: The project team reviewed the top-ranked applications and made final selections.

Invited Stakeholders

To ensure key local perspectives were represented, we sent asked some established neighborhood organizations to apply. Invitations to apply did not grant automatic selection. While applicants who represented a target organization were pre-vetted as having a direct local connection to the study area, every applicant was evaluated using the same criteria for their core values, collaboration style, and community perspective.