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Racial and Social Justice becomes Equity and Belonging

Updated September 21, 2026

What's happening

The department Somerville built after George Floyd's killing has been cut from nine positions to four and renamed. In the FY27 budget the Department of Racial and Social Justice becomes the Department of Equity and Belonging, a unit inside the new Operations & Systems department, with its appropriation falling from $770,543 to $356,453 and its salary line from $763,543 to $346,531 (FY27 budget book).

Five jobs were dissolved outright: public information officer, RSJ investigator, community engagement specialist, commissions coordinator, and deputy director. The ADA Coordinator moved to Human Resources. What is left on the org chart is a director, two coordinators and a project specialist; the department's own web page lists two people, director Catherine Nakato and project specialist Elijah Booker.

Intake of hate and bias complaints — the RSJ investigator's job — has moved to the Human Rights Commission, which spent its August 11 meeting on an unresolved dispute over non-disclosure agreements and complaints data.

The story

Built in 2021, cut in 2026

Somerville created the Racial and Social Justice director post in the FY21 budget under Mayor Curtatone and hired Denise Molina Capers, an attorney and educator, as the first RSJ director starting March 22, 2021. Her charge was to build the office from scratch and stand up community processes for re-envisioning policing. "The creation of this department is a testament of Somerville's continued commitment in action to dismantle systemic racism," she said at the time.

Five years later, director Catherine Nakato explained the rebrand to the Finance Committee on June 9: the department will focus on "embedding equity practices across all departments rather than carrying that work alone." The ADA Coordinator role goes to People Operations, Public Safety for All implementation goes to a dedicated position, community engagement goes to the new Engagement and Neighborhood Services division, and the RSJ investigator position is eliminated with hate/bias intake moving to the Human Rights Commission. Councilors Emily Hardt and Jonathan Link offered cautious support and asked for data points to validate that the restructuring works. Mayor Jake Wilson has pointed to a resurrected SomerStat team to track the metrics.

The equity cuts were not confined to one department. Strategy & Development lost its strategic planning and equity manager; director Tom Galligani told the committee on June 17 that equity work would continue citywide through the equity and inclusion division in Operations & Systems. Luis Quizhpe, who held that job, told the Council on May 28 that his position was "meant to interrupt the status quo," and criticized how the layoffs were structured.

Mbah's resolution, and what happened to it

At-large Councilor Will Mbah moved on June 23 to restore funding for the five cut positions and the department's mission, arguing the renamed "equity and belonging" unit inside operations is too vague compared with the defined racial and social justice mandate created after George Floyd's killing. Because motions to cut require citing a specific line item while resolutions asking for money are nonbinding, his resolution — like the other budget-night asks — passed by acclamation and bound nobody. Scott likened them all to "wishes whispered to Santa while sitting in his lap at the mall," then voted for each. The mayor's amended budget, submitted two days later, acknowledged none of them; the Cambridge | Somerville Independent described the department as "gutted and rebranded."

The money that stayed

The department still controls the Racial and Social Justice Fund. Scott confirmed on June 9 that the $750,000 fund is being spent, with 65 community grant applications received. Part of it is a first-ever public micro-grant round: $100,000 in awards of $250 to $9,999, applications open May 1 through May 29, for projects in diversity/equity/inclusion/belonging, community engagement, and education and training. "Somerville doesn't work without community builders, and those community builders can't work without resources," Wilson said. The fund is also paying for the new police accountability program director, a grant-funded post with an October 1 start that will stand up civilian oversight of the police — see Civilian police oversight.

Who handles ADA now

The vacant ADA Coordinator role was reposted May 20 as an "ADA Coordinator and Investigator" housed in Human Resources. Amanda Nagim-Williams, director of intergovernmental affairs, told the Public Health and Public Safety Committee on July 1 that the position will not absorb the former RSJ investigator's work, and that in the interim the chief administrative officer, engineering staff, RSJ, HR and the mayor's public liaison are covering ADA duties. At the housing committee the same day she said complaints to ADA@somervillema.gov are still being routed, she believed by the CAO, "though she wasn't certain of the exact routing." The Human Rights Commission's August 11 agenda still lists Kimberly Wells — now the CAO — as the ADA contact, and is still headed "Racial and Social Justice Department."

The Human Rights Commission's report, and its data fight

The 11-member commission released its 2025–2026 annual report on July 30, its first comprehensive assessment since regaining a quorum in 2025. Co-chairs Salma Kazmi and Elyse Best named immigrant rights and equitable access to basic needs as top priorities and found that "citywide averages mask significant neighborhood-level disparities": East Somerville, West Somerville and Winter Hill — the neighborhoods with larger Black and Latino populations — show more poverty, worse health outcomes and greater social vulnerability, and seniors face a 20 percent poverty rate, double the citywide figure. The report calls for more rental assistance, more services for older adults in poverty, and a Minnesota-style coordinated community response to immigration enforcement. "When basic needs, immigrant safety and affordable housing are at risk, city leaders must listen to residents and support their solutions," Best said.

The commission is now the body that receives hate and bias complaints. Commissioner Christopher Spicer-Henkel, speaking for himself at the Sept 8 hearing on the ethical procurement ordinance, gave the first public read of that caseload: roughly half of 83 complaints in the city's data related to Jews, Muslims, Israel or Palestine, split evenly between antisemitic or anti-Israel and Islamophobic or anti-Palestinian incidents (Sept 8 digest). Its own August 11 agenda shows it has not settled how to handle them: old business was "NDA Signatures & Remaining Complaints Data," and new business included a "Statement on Complaints Data" and a "Form for future complaints." The same agenda lists a "Board and Commissions Review" item — the commission is one of six bodies awaiting a recommendation from the charter-required review committee (Building out the 2025 charter).

The antisemitism ask

At the city's first charter-mandated community budget hearing on February 10, at least six residents asked the city to fund implementation of the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism's recommendations, citing recurring swastikas at the high school, anti-Jewish graffiti and vandalism at Jewish residents' homes. No line for that work appears in the FY27 budget, and the office that would have run the complaint side of it lost its investigator.

What's next

  • August 11 and August 26 — Human Rights Commission meetings on the NDA and complaints-data question (outcome not in our sources yet); the 83-complaint figure a commissioner cited Sept 8 is the only public number so far.
  • Fall — Hiring update on the ADA Coordinator and Investigator, promised to the Public Health and Public Safety Committee.
  • October 1 — Police accountability program director starts, funded from the RSJ Fund; the oversight body is targeted for a January launch.
  • First Council meeting in December — The Review of Multiple-Member Bodies Committee reports, with recommendations on whether to keep, merge or dissolve the Human Rights Commission, the Commission for Persons with Disabilities and the Women's Commission, all three staffed by this department.
  • Outstanding — Mbah's order for the administration to present the reorganization to the Council (Wilson's City Hall reorganization); the restoration ask returns with the FY28 budget (The FY27 budget).