Council Debates MIT Research Facility

The $100 million Whitehead Institute, a proposed biological research facility affiliated with MIT, ran into City Council opposition last night over issues of jobs for Cambridge residents and tax payments to the city.

In an open hearing, Councilor Saundra Graham questioned city officials about the prospect of Cambridge citizens "bending down and mopping floors behind scientists" instead of having the kind of meaningful jobs the city intended as part of its renewal plans for Kendall Square, the site for the planned bio-labs.

After more than an hour of debate, the Council postponed consideration of the jobs issue for two weeks, pending a formal report on the matter from City Manager Robert Healy and the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority (CRA), a quasi-independent agency which manages the Kendall Square land for the city.

The Whitehead Institute--a joint venture between MIT and businessman Edwin C. Whitehead--was approved by the MIT Corporation last December despite dissent from faculty members who said the facility would violate MIT's academic integrity. Professors who work for the Institute will be tenured at both the Institute and MIT.

In response to Graham's concerns about jobs. Healy said that biological and DNA research is "not a job-intensive operation" and that the Whitehead Institute would someday stimulate manufacturing "spin-offs" and as a result, more positions for Cambridge residents.

"The area of genetic research in the next 25 to 30 years will be to Massachusetts and Cambridge what the micro-chip industry" was 10 years ago for computer manufacturers, Healy said.

But Graham said that DNA research already being conducted in Cambridge has yet to produce any new jobs, saying. "I haven't seen one spin-off at all."

"Twenty-five years is one long time to walt." Graham said, adding that she would like to see an affirmative action plan requiring Cambridge industries to hire local residents.

John F. Tulimieri, executive director of the CRA, said he sympathized with Graham's concerns but that it would be impossible to have such a plan because of industry resistance.

Although the Whitehead Institute will have tax-exempt status because of its university affiliation. Healy said he has nearly completed negotiations that would bind Whitehead to a "substantial" annual in-lieu-of-tax payment for city services.

Graham, however, said she was less concerned with tax revenues than creating opportunities for Cambridge citizens.

"Here we are talking about taxes, and we're forgetting about jobs," she said.