Council Passes Job Training Program; Delays Action on Housing Appointments

The Cambridge City Council passed last night by a 7-2 vote the Public Service Careers Program to provide training for 94 Model Cities Neighborhood residents.

The program passed despite a recommendation from City Manager John H. Corcoran that the council wait and adopt a better service program.

The Public Service Careers Program-which will be funded by a $182,000 grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development-will provide education through the Model Cities Agency for neighborhood trainees to work within city agencies in positions such as nurses' aides, police aides, and teacher aides.

The career program originally came before the City Council on October 5, but it was tabled to give the councilors time to study the proposal.

Alternative Program

Corcoran, who originally endorsed the program in August, proposed an alternative city-wide manpower planning program which he expects will be passed by this session of Congress and signed by President Nixon.

But Carl Briscoe, HUD senior program officer in Washington, argued for passage of the Careers Program and stated that it was not designed to circumvent regular civil service appointments.

He pointed out that trainees would be eligible to take civil service exams upon completion of their training.

City Solicitor Philip M. Cronin '53 repeated his earlier legal opinion that the Careers Program would conflict with existing civil service regulations.

Not heeding the advice of the City Solicitor and the City Manager, the council passed the program with only Councilors Thomas Coates and Thomas Danehy voting no.

Action on the City Manager's appointments to the Cambridge Housing Authority and the Cambridge Redelopment Authority, two of Cambridge's boards which deal with low rent housing, was delayed another week when Councilor Coates was called away from the meeting by an unexpected family emergency.

An order introduced by Councillor Barbara S. Ackermann to hold a public meeting next week with Cronin in his capacity as temporary rent control administrator was also put off when Councillor Danehy exercised his charter right to delay voting on the order for one week.

Ackermann's order would have asked Cronin to state before the public meeting when and in what circumstances he plans to implement the rent roll back provision of the rent control act, whether he will establish an escrow account for tenant rents pending the Supreme Court litigation regarding rent levels, and whether he will refuse to issue eviction certificates to landlords whose tenants refuse to pay November rents or put them instead into an escrow account.