In Cambridge, Policymaking Ends As Politics Heats Up

The appetizers were pate, salmon mousse, cheese and crackers and wine. The main dish was politics. That, and a cool summer breeze brought a couple dozen city activists to the spacious, woody backyard of a private home just off Brattle St. Wednesday night.

The event was billed as the "Kick-Off Party" for the Cambridge Civic Association's (CCA) election drive held to launch the efforts of the progressive municipal party which has battled for power with the more conservative, neighborhood-oriented Independent organization. Three city councilors were there, one school committee member was there, and a handful of candidates aspiring to join them also showed up.

The two hours of gossip and hand-shaking marked the transition the city always goes through during the early summer of a municipal election year: from one concerned largely with policymaking to one dominated by political fanfare. That transformation was best described Wednesday night by David Wylie, a CCA councilor up for re-election, who said, "the council has acted very responsibly in the past year," which ended when the body adjourned for the summer on Monday night. But he cautioned that when the group reconvenes--for a special meeting in August and regularly after Labor Day--little will be accomplished "The last few months before an election are exceedingly tense--an awful lot of nonsense goes on," he added

Councilors interviewed this week agreed on two major accomplishments of the final weeks of the session. One was the surprisingly quiet passage of a $152 million budget which holds most public service allocations constant with a few possible minor cutbacks, and the reduction through attrition of some public works jobs.

The other was the preliminary but convincing approval at the final council meeting of an amendment mitigating the city's strict condominium conversion code by allowing tenants in some rent-controlled apartments to buy their building as a cooperative, but prevents them from making a profit by it. The idea was to allow low-income citizens to own a home and to insure that the units are always low priced.

The major failure cited by city officials was their inability after repeated haggling, to come up with a zoning proposal for the last large tract of undeveloped land in the city Cambridgeport, which is located between MIT and the Charles River. The council Monday rejected two proposals to zone the area.

And Councilor Francis H Duehay '55 predicted that little would be done on this issue, or any other major concern before the end of the year, "because people's attention will be devoted to re-election."

Some of the political positioning has already begun. In what some have called the biggest internal shakeup in a decade, the CCA two weeks ago decided not to endorse two of its incumbents on the school committee for re-election. The move came after the party drafted a strict set of standards of political positions and conduct, and decided that Henrietta Attles, a two-term member, and Glenn Koocher '71, a five-term member, did not meet those guidelines. CCA members cited specific disagreements, such as the duo's support for the school superintendent, as reasons for the dumping. Koocher insists that the change was motivated by personal antagonisms toward him. Attacking the slate that cut him. Koocher--who did not attend the Wednesday evening affair--yesterday said that "I do feel that not having the CCA endorsement frees us up to exert greater intellectual independence. My own goals and objectives have not changed.

Neither Koocher nor CCA officials felt that the move would have any implications for the organization outside of the specific school committee elections. Elaine Kistiakowsky, the association's campaign director said, "It makes it more exciting. Having a little bit of controversy won't hurt.