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Racial and Social Justice becomes Equity and Belonging

Updated November 10, 2026

What's happening

The department Somerville built after George Floyd's killing has been cut from nine positions to four and renamed, and the hate-bias complaints it used to handle now sit with an all-volunteer commission that says it has no budget. 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.

On November 9 the Human Rights Commission published its first public account of the complaints it inherited, along with a new investigation process (Somerville Times). It got data on complaints filed in 2024 and 2025 only in June, "after many months of advocacy." Of 83 complaints, 40 related to Jews, Muslims, Israel or Palestine: 20 reported as antisemitic, anti-Israel or anti-Israeli, and 20 as Islamophobic, anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian. They include graffiti, vandalism, verbal assault and social media posts. The commission says the department used to resolve complaints privately, case by case, without it. Now it plans to investigate individual cases and also look for patterns across them, taking what it calls a "transformative justice" approach that avoids punitive measures. It is partnering with the city on a program for staff and residents on these and other forms of "violence and dehumanization." It also lowered expectations: "We are all volunteers, and the city has not given us a budget to work with."

What the shrunken department still has is money. On October 20 the Finance Committee recommended 4-0 a $100,000 appropriation from the Racial and Social Justice Fund for the 2026 community grant cycle: 64 applications, 23 picked. Nakato highlighted a Somerville Museum project documenting the Pullman porters and West Somerville's Black community from the 1880s to the 1980s, and a "girls as researchers" STEM program. Grantees are reimbursed on invoice, though the department is working with Finance to front costs for groups without a cash cushion. Ward 2 Councilor JT Scott called the fund, created in 2020, "underutilized and under tapped" (Council Digests summary of the Oct 20 meeting, emailed Oct 21). It goes to the full Council next.

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.

Five years later, 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. 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 $750,000 Racial and Social Justice Fund. Besides the community grants above, the city ran a first-ever public micro-grant round this spring: $100,000 in awards of $250 to $9,999. 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 several offices are covering ADA duties. The Commission for Persons with Disabilities objected on September 30 that the job is still vacant (Before the boards).

The Human Rights Commission and its complaints

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 East Somerville, West Somerville and Winter Hill show more poverty, worse health outcomes and greater social vulnerability, and that seniors face a 20 percent poverty rate, double the citywide figure.

Getting the complaints data took a fight. Commissioner Christopher Spicer-Henkel, speaking for himself at the Sept 8 hearing on the ethical procurement ordinance, gave the first public read of the caseload (Sept 8 digest), and the commission's August 11 agenda carried "NDA Signatures & Remaining Complaints Data," a "Statement on Complaints Data" and a "Form for future complaints." The November 9 statement is that statement, and it confirms Spicer-Henkel's figures. The commission says privacy may keep it from sharing every detail of individual cases. It acknowledged that "not everyone will agree that each of these complaints constitute hate" and urged that Israel–Palestine debates proceed "from the knowledge that we are all neighbors," days before the Council's scheduled November 12 vote on ethical procurement. 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. The commission's planned staff-and-resident program with the city is the first response on the record; its scope, cost and start date aren't in our sources.

What's next

  • Next Council meeting, date not set — the $100,000 community grant appropriation, recommended 4-0 by Finance October 20.
  • Ongoing — the Human Rights Commission takes new complaints under its published process and asks for public input on it; the city partnership program has no date.
  • Fall — hiring update on the ADA Coordinator and Investigator, promised to the Public Health and Public Safety Committee.
  • 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.
  • January 2027 — the civilian police oversight body, staffed by the RSJ-funded program director, is targeted to launch (Civilian police oversight).
  • Outstanding — Mbah's order for the administration to present the reorganization to the Council (Wilson's City Hall reorganization); the restoration ask and any budget for the commission return with the FY28 budget (The FY27 budget).