Still Trying To Push It Through

The General Services Administration this week took action which it hopes will eventually blunt the determined community opposition that has held up construction of the Kennedy Library for almost ten years.

Dan H. Fenn '44, director of the library, asked GSA officials in Washington whether the library could make in-lieu-of-tax payments to Cambridge. The provisional answer: Not without a special congressional act.

Fenn persisted, however, and has asked the GSA to reopen the examination and expand it to consider whether the library can make payments from the museum's admission and sales desk revenues.

If the GSA finds the power to disburse in-lieu payments, Fenn's bargaining position with Cambridge will be greatly strengthened.

An approval would give him the ability to offer the city cold cash as compensation for the possible environmental problems connected to the library.

But Fenn wasn't the only official working this week to get the project moving. The GSA, which will become owner of the library after the Kennedy Corporation completes construction, assisted C.E. Maguire, its newly appointed consultant firm to Harting to prepare an environmental impact statement for the project.

Robert Griffin, a GSA special administrator, visited Cambridge and met with officials from Maguire, the city and Harvard to "open up the relationship" with the new participant in the controversy--Maguire--and the nexus of organizations involved with the project.

The reaction of Cambridge civic groups to the appointment of Maguire has been mild. No one from Oliver Brooks, chairman of the Harvard Square Task Force, to Saundra Graham, the usually provocative city councilwoman, had even heard the firm's name before the GSA announcement.

Brooks said that he, like everyone else, was trying to gather information on Maguire's record and would wait to see what the firm does before making any judgments.

The GSA also released the list of firms who had been competing for the project, including the impressive Arthur D. Little Inc. Griffin commented the selection was made on a purely competitive basis, without consultation with or political maneuvering by the Kennedy Library Corporation.

Preparation of the statement is now underway, and the Kennedy Corporation officials hope the study will give their project a clean bill of health for Cambridge.

Even if the Maguire report doesn't totally blunt the opposition, perhaps in-lieu-of-tax payments can be used to make the library somewhat more acceptable to the community.