Tom Rossi

Tom Rossi '71 was brought up in Cambridge housing projects. He was born into a family of five children, attended the local parochial schools, and then went on to Harvard. But he is not Harvard, he is Cambridge, and his understanding of the people and the city is both comprehensive and compassionate.

Rossi has virtually no "political" experience, but, as he says, the political fever is ingrained deeply in him: "After all, my grandmother did address envelopes for Honey Fitz's mayoralty campaign; something must have been passed on to me."

Rossi's experience at Harvard has given him a perceptive view of the nature of the university's role in the community. "Taxing the university is in no way the answer to the problem of Harvard's isolation from the community; what is important is that ways are found to use and harness the energy that Harvard brings into the community each year," he said. "Harvard should be opened up to the community--the open space can be made far better use of for summer sports programs; extension courses can be expanded by publicizing them in the community; generally university programs should be opened to the community at large."

Rossi's main complaint about the present Cambridge city government is that it is too closed, that instead of informing people about its workings, it has chosen to be silent, to hide itself from the people--whether on purpose or by mistake is in-consequential. "For instance, the only information the city gives out about rent control is a copy of the Massachusetts law and a description of fair net operating income," he points out. "There is no information given about appeal rights, and unless you have a specific question rent control will not be explained to you. Most people see rent control through a legalistic veneer; even though they got screwed on a rent increase, they accept it because it seems to be part of the 'law'."

Rossi would seek to require every department to publish just what their job is and what they do or don't do. If no city departments covered certain problems that frequently come up, Rossi would have the government publish and distribute lists of groups that would provide those services--such as Legal Aid.

Day Care

"The issue of a day care center is an essential one that cuts right to the heart of many of Cambridge's problems," Rossi said. "The first thing is, it's all very well to sit around and talk about a day care center, but the sort of commitment and energy to actually run one is enormous, and the way that people have been conditioned not to work with each other may prevent it from ever happening. You can't just decide to have a day care center and then have one. Secondly, unless the day care center is totally community controlled, I certainly wouldn't want to send any children of mine there. The city hasn't been able to run anything else for the people; there's no reason to expect that it would run this well. Jumping into it would be turning little children's lives over to the same people who are ruining older lives in grammar and high school."