Candidates Line-Up

Marcy

When John Marcy left high school he graduated from the civil rights movement to the student anti-war movement. When he graduated from Boston University he moved easily into Cambridge tenant organizing, being a renter in Cambridgeport himself. Now, at 25, he is one of this election's younger and more radical contenders.

Marcy, who recently dropped off the Grass Roots Organization (GRO) slate, is also battling the developers who are buying and building "in some perverse celebration of 1976 where they're going to turn the riverfront into a Miami Beach," and the universities, whose moratorium on land-buying will soon expire.

Eaglin

Fulton B. Eaglin is young, black, and a well-educated lawyer. So is Henry Owens, incumbent city councilor and bete-noir of the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA).

Eaglin's platform outlines three areas in need of reform: "First, economic development of the Kendal Square area for the purpose of increasing the tax base; second, rent control which serves all fairly; and, finally, joining with other cities and towns to stop the pollution of the Charles River."

Moore

John Moore guesses that his chances for election are 50-1 against and this is probably a conservative estimate. Without a slate, campaign funds, or a well-known political name, the obstacles to election are almost insurmountable.

The Cambridge election laws, which make access to the November ballot easy (there is no primary), encourage people like Moore to use the race as a forum for their views. Moore, whose background is in computer programming and transportation economics, is stressing the issue of transportation planning in Cambridge.

Savoy

Alice Savoy lives in a world of blown fuses, broken heaters, irresponsible landlords and absentee policemen.

She believes the major issue in the campaign is the need for low-rise low-income housing with options to buy. But an equally important issue in her eyes is police-community relations. "We need a new police station--not to lock up people but to have a nice, birght place where problems can be discussed," she says.

Downes

Brian Downes is an independent with a small i.

A graduate student at Boston State College, the 24-year old Downes lashes out at both CCA and Independent slates--which he terms "cliques"--in his door to door campaign.

He promises to work for the abolition of PR. "The PR system was instituted by the Yanks to get the Irish out of politics," he said. "I think it's a rotten system."

MacDonald

Torbert MacDonald '69 asks voters to ask the question "Paranoid or Pragmatist?" in assessing him as a potential city councilman. The question is well put. The electorate's decision to vote for him will depend on which one of those two ways they see him.

MacDonald is perhaps the most radical of this year's candidates. If elected he will use his seat "as an organizing position" and will resort to non-violent civil disobedience if he feels it is warranted.

Eccle

A bizarre tragedy has cut short Rev. Miriam Eccle's first foray into elective politics this fall.

Her 20-year old son Charles has been charged with accidentally killing his younger brother Alfred when a gun he had taken from a car on Putnam Avenue misfired.

Her solutions to the city's problems take an original approach that some observers label naive and unrealistic. For instance, she proposed to ease the local housing shortage by means of a city takeover of all dilapidated housing.

Socialist Workers Party

The four Socialist Workers Party (SWP) candidates for city council--Carol H. Evans, Jane Roland, Nancy D. Charpentier, and Jane E. Strader--are campaigning on a joint platform rather than as individual candidates. They freely admit that they do not expect to win, but are running "to advance socialism and expose Cambridge to socialist ideas."

The four women call for a complete realignment of the city's tax structure, including the payment of full taxes by Harvard and MIT. Charpentier says the universitys' current voluntary payments are "a token fee to keep the people quiet."

The SWP's second major issue is rent control. Evans speaks for her slate in advocating full tenant control of the city's rent control board, and says that rent should be no more than 10 per cent of a person's income.

"If the landlord says he cannot survive with the reduced rents," Evans says, "he should open his books to the public and, if it's so, the property should be bought and run by the city."