Vellucci, Cambridge and Yale

In an effort to speed up its operations, the Cambridge City Council appointed an ad hoc committee to revise its rules last January. Under the leadership of Councillor G. d'Andelot Belin, the committee introduced new rules of procedure, and got rid of some unnecessary regulations and procedures.

One of the committees dropped was Councillor Alfred Vellucci's on Roads and Bridges. The committee hadn't reported out a bill for months, but Vellucci exploded. Since then he has been furiously engaged in revenging himself; with characteristic breadth of vision, he has flaunted the new rules and generally made a nuisance of himself at Council meetings.

Week after week, Vellucci has sprung new resolutions on the Council at its Monday sessions, completely ignoring a rule which requires prior filing of all business. He has labeled as "emergency situations" (which are exempt from the rule) such matters as the "problems posed by burnt-out streetlamps in East Cambridge."

This behavior is, of course, most reprehensible, but Vellucci seems to have had a crise de conscience: at yesterday's meeting, he proposed a motion to honor the memory of Elihu Yale by naming the intersection of Bow and Mt. Auburn Streets "Yale Square." Some memorial to Yale is long over-due in the city of his birth. Vellucci may have had some thoughts of embarassing Councillor Belin (Yale '39) by the measure; the fact that he didn't later his irresponsible style in submitting the measure leads one to suspect it. But if so, Cambridge is for once the gainer by Vellucci's petulance.