Cambridge City Manager Asks Annual Budget of $26.8 Million

Cambridge's new city manager, Joseph A. DeGuglielmo '29, presented the 1966 budget to the City Council.

DeGuglielmo asked for $26.8 million in spending, more than $1.8 million more than the 1965 figure. Although the city cannot establish its tax rate until it recieves detailed information on state aid, an increase in the $72 real estate tax (per $1000 valuation) is expected.

In his annual budget message, the city manager asked the Council to set priorities for approximately $52 million worth of capital improvements projected over the next five years. The City is already committed to the construction of a new hospital and a new wing for its library. In addition, the School Committee has begun planning for three new elementary schools. The cost of these five items will be more than $17 million, although the state and federal governments will pay a substantial part of the bill.

Other possible capital improvements range from a $6 million overhaul of the City sewers to the construction of a new $20,000 information booth in Harvard Square.

The blueprint for the City's capital improvements is contained in a 22-page report prepared by Alan McClennen, Cambridge's planning director, and his staff late last year. Although the report envisions an orderly progression of projects, it is unlikely that all the planned improvements will be made according to schedule.

The principle hurdle is higher taxes. "The Councillors are the ones who have to go to the people and justify the tax bill," DeGuglielmo said in an interview Monday. It was for this reason that he requested a definite list of priorities.

Monday, the new city manager made his first extended appearance before the Council, and almost immediately the budget and the City's hiring policy became points of controversy. Councillors Edward A. Crane '35 and Alfred E. Vellucci, both opponents of DeGuglielmo's appointment, exchanged heated words with the new manager.

Crane said that city employees who had supported the former city manager, John J. Curry '19, were "being fingered." Crane singled out one young employee in the traffic department as an example.

An agitated DeGuglielmo replied: "I don't take revenge on kids . . . I take revenge on a man who kicks me when I'm down, stabs me in the back when I'm not looking." He said that it was unfair to discuss an individual in public and added that if the man were unsuited for work in the traffic department, he would be placed in another city job.

Crane also attributed to DeGuglielmo a criticism of last year's reduction in the tax rate from $72.60 to $72. Although there is no explicit criticism of the reduction in the budget message. DeGuglielmo and some of the five councillors who supported him are known to believe that the reduction was unnecessary and that the city could have used the additional money.

Monday's meeting lasted more than three hours, and the new city manager answered questions for nearly a third of that time. After he left, however, the four councillors who had opposed his appointment introduced what may be the first of many motions to have him dismissed. (The four anti-DeGuglielmo councillors are Crane, Vellucci, Thomas H.D. Mahoney, and Walter J. Sullivan.)

In supporting the motion for dismissal, Crane said that DeGuglielmo had agreed not to collect salary pending the outcome of a taxpayers suit against him. Crane predicted that the Court would permanently prohibit DeGuglielmo from collecting salary on the grounds that he receives a city pension, and that a pensioner cannot receive a salary. DeGuglielmo has said he will waive the pension; Crane has said the court will not permit that.

"I don't think the people are going to stand for a permanent volunteer," Crane said. The dangers of "volunteer government," the ex-mayor explained later, are that a man without a salary might be subject to undue influence.

The legal challenge to DeGuglielmo appears headed for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. However, another indirect legal challenge to DeGuglielmo's appointment has been overcome. During the removal proceedings of former manager Curry, three applications for criminal complaint against three pro-DeGuglielmo councillors were brought in East Cambridge Court. Two of these have now been dropped voluntarily, and the third has been dropped.