DeGuglielmo Charges Council Complacency

Joseph A. DeGuglielmo '29, a Cambridge City Councillor since 1946, charged the Council yesterday with complacency and said it had not come up with any fresh ideas "for some time."

DeGuglielmo, who has announced that he will not run for a tenth term, said in an interview that the Council had taken many "good, progressive steps" but could have accomplished a lot more. "It's been a fight all the way," he said.

While calling his years of service "a good experience," DeGuglielmo observed that "a change of faces and ideas is good for a democracy." He said he was tired of hearing his constituents' demands and of facing the opposition of the eight other Councillors. He also wanted more time to devote to his law practice, he added.

Mrs. Pearl K. Wise, the only other Councillor not seeking re-election, declined yesterday to expand on the statement she issued last July, giving poor health as the reason for her withdrawal from public life. Observers do not believe Mrs. Wise can win a third term, without the support of the Cambridge Civil Association, which she apparently alienated by her opposition to the Donnelly Field urban renewal project.

DeGuglielmo said he doubted anyone would tire of public life "if it consisted of just going to Council meetings and debating the issues involved honestly, and conscientiously." He said, however, that a Councillor was under constant pressure, "being subjected to a barrage of demands, both reasonable and unreasonable."

"I'm getting older," DeGuglielmo, who is 55, continued. "How much can the human body stand?"

"I like to think I opposed the other Councillors so often because I was on the right side," he said. He recalled the 8-1 vote last August by which the Council instructed City Manager John J. Curry '19 to proceed with the construction of a new hospital.

That order was premature, DeGuglielmo said, because the Council had not yet chosen a director for the hospital or decided whether it should be affiliated with a medical school. "If we were to follow the mandate of the majority of eight," he declared. "we would make irrevocable expenditures to the extent of $6,300,000 which the medical director of affiliated school might turn up their noses at."

The plan DeGuglielmo favored called for the renovation of the present hospital, which MIT engineers say is structurally sound. A Washington, D.C., hospital consultant has estimated that the necessary changes could be made for $3,700,000.

While mayor of Cambridge in 1952-1953, DeGuglielmo successfully defended several Harvard undergraduates jailed during the famous Pogo riots, and he has been known as one of the University's stanchest friends on the Council. Under Cambridge's city-manager system of government, the Councillors elect one of their number mayor, the office being largely ceremonial.

DeGuglielmo has also been active in state and national politics. He was a delegate to the last two national Democratic conventions, and served as chairman of the platform committee at the 1962 Massachusetts convention