The New Council

DESPITE the liberals' failure to retain their tenuous hold on the Cambridge City Council, the Independents' 5-4 majority is luckily just as tenuous. More encouraging is the prospect of a continuing progressive majority on the school committee, with the apparent election of three Cambridge Civic Association/Common Slate candidates and one unaffiliated moderate, Glenn Koocher.

There is more than one silver lining to the Independent cloud that will settle over City Hall for the next two years. Councillor Alfred E. Vellucci has indicated he would join the liberals to block any attempt to emasculate rent control. In this and other areas, the Independents may not have the six votes they need to work their will.

For a long time, the police were accustomed to ignoring the usual procedure of negotiating municipal employee salaries with the city manager. Instead, they had their inflated pay hikes set by ordinance, which requires the votes of two-thirds of the council. This year, four CCA councillors refused to continue this blatant favoritism and thus helped the city manager hold down both municipal salaries and the city's tax rate.

Similarly, the votes of six councillors are necessary to make any change in the zoning laws. With four members of the council sensitive to the problems caused by high-profit and haphazard real estate development, there is less chance that the face of the city will be drastically altered by outside entrepreneurs.

Beyond that, there is always the hope that the Independents will be unable to agree on a successor to City Manager John H. Corcoran, whom they want to replace with someone more responsive to their commands. Corcoran, while not as aggressive and imaginative an administrator as Cambridge needs, is eminently preferable to any Independent puppet.