City Council Approves Budget, Adds Funds for Health Clinics

The Cambridge City Council passed a $78.8 million 18-month municipal budget by a 5-4 vote last night.

The Council defeated a motion to cut the budget 5 per cent across-the-board by a 6-3 vote.

"This thing [the budget] is so tight right now that some of these departments won't be able to last 18 months," Walter J. Sullivan, a Council member, said last night.

An allocation of $52,140 for two new neighborhood health clinics was the only change the Council made in the budget proposed by John H. Corcoran, Cambridge City Manager.

The clinics will be located at Cambridgeport and Riverside. The Cambridgeport clinic will be operative by July 1973 and the Riverside clinic at a later date, Saundra Graham, a Council member, said.

City Assessor Charles R. Laverty Jr. said that there will "probably be an increase of $6-$10 in the city tax rate." The tax rate is currently $149 per $1000 assessed valuation.

Laverty said that the tax raise would be necessary because of a decrease in the city's tax base and anticipated increases in demands on the city from MBTA, the Middlesex County government and the Metropolitan District Commission.

During a Monday session of the budget hearings, Jerry R. Cole, chairman of the Democratic City Committee's Subcommittee on Municipal Services, presented Corcoran and James Reagan, Chief of Police, with a list of criticisms of the Cambridge Police Department.

At the Council meeting last night Corcoran said that he did not have a statement. "I do apologize for not having that as I had promised I would get it," he said.

"I don't know what happened with the Chief and I just didn't pursue it later in the afternoon," Corcoran added. He said he would present the reply to the Council within a week