City Councillor Berates 'Fortunites' as 'Disloyal'

Mark Fortune, who resigned last week as Cambridge's city planning director and Ferdinand Rousseve, chairman of the City Planning Board, refused to comment last night on charges by city councillors of "incompetence," "lack of loyalty to Cambridge," and "lack of cooperation" on the part of certain city planners. Fortune is an instructor in City Planning at the Graduate School of Design.

Councillor Joseph A. DeGuglielmo '29 answered charges Fortune made at a meeting of the Council's finance committee last week, and at the same time leveled some of his own at "the Fortunites and their pets."

Asserting that "the city has never stinted on salaries," DeGuglielmo assailed Fortune's complaint that pay scales are too low by saying that "most of the planners use city jobs as stopgaps while they shop around for better positions." He added that "the whole thing looks like a power play to get higher salaries for his pets. I've no patience with that kind of tactics," the councillor avowed.

Answering the "Fortunites" assertion that city officials are "stalling on the Urban Renewal program," DeGuglielmo said that "going on leave like Fortune did is no way to help the program along. A man like that can't be too interested in the future of Cambridge. Fortune's replacement, you may be sure, will have the qualifications he purports to have."

DeGuglielmo noted that the only concrete complaints Fortune voiced at the committee meeting were his office's need of a paint job and the lack of "some machine at the City Planning Department which the Engineer's Office has at their disposal." Councillor Alfred A. Vellucci also took issue with Fortune's charge of "non-cooperation," saying that it was "ridiculous."

City Manager John J. Curry '19 said yesterday that he tried to persuade Fortune to stay on as planning director, but that Fortune declined to remain.