Campaign Rhetoric Bashes Universities

"The poor, poor people are upset and mad and teed off about the high rate of taxes and the high rate of sewer fees," declared Councilor Alfred E. Vellucci last night--prompting a colleague to approach the press table and whisper, "Is there an election this year?"

It appears Velluci is disturbed because Harvard and MIT do not pay their share of the $1.07-per-household charge for removing liquid waste. Even so, City Manager Robert E. Healy indulged in a rare editorial comment, observing, "that's the beauty of it--you can get Harvard and MIT with the sewer usage charge"--from which nonprofit organizations are not exempt.

It's almost election time, and the Cambridge City Council is back to one of its favorite sports. University-bashing. Vellucci, as always, is in the lead.

Calling both Universities--but especially Harvard--ugly names is an old tradition, far older than Vellucci's suggestion in 1956 that the city turn Harvard Yard into a bus station. For Councilors seeking the working-class vote--like Vellucci of East Cambridge and Thomas W. Danehy of North Cambridge--the dislike of town for gown is the Cantabrigian equivalent of log cabins and hard cider.

Past experience has proven Vellucci will turn any subject into a cause against the universities, which bear down in his imagination like the two weights of a barbell on the neck of the city.

"Things have been changing," declared Vellucci at last week's City Council meeting. "All I hear from Councilors and politicians in this city is that we must find new sources of revenue--but we mustn't touch Harvard or MIT...I assure you that they are doing research in those tax-exempt buildings to make money."

Vellucci often claims credit for the fact that both universities give the city payments "in lieu of taxes" based on the value of their tax-exempt properties in the city. Harvard pays about $850,000 each year, and MIT a little less.

And last week, the silver-tongued son of East Cambridge was trying to raise the bill. "It's up to you," he told City Manager Healy, who is used to serving in the role of punching bag on Monday nights.

"It's up to you, Mr. City Manager, a two-fisted City Manager, to walk into the doors of Harvard and say, 'come on, get out with it.'... Beef up the bill! Add a one to that eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars! Make it one million, eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and send it to them, and see what they do about it!"

Councilor Saundra Graham provided a counterpart to Vellucci's accomplished ravings last Monday, when the ostensible topic of discussion was a firehouse in Kendall Square that the city recently sold to MIT, against the wishes of some Councilors who had wanted to sell it to a taxable business.

"If you say the [tax] return on the land isminuscule," said Graham, "can I have thoseminuscule dollars to fix up my community?

Of course, in discussion of a proposedlaboratory animal ordinance, the universities areportrayed as prime offenders, and Vellucci,whenever possible, recalls the days when dog-andcat-nappers stole the city's pets and sold them toHarvard for the dubious benefit of research.

Last Monday Vellucci declared, "I am not amember of the intellectual community and I am nota member of any education community. I am just alayman from a community in East Cambridge and Ibelieve in animal protection and that's all I careabout.