City Council

To the Editors of The Crimson:

At the Cambridge City Council's January 23 meeting, in its haste to deliver the Harvard Motor House easement to Harvard and the Carpenter Company, the pro-development "concrete block" within out City Council disgraced Cambridge three times:

(1)The council reduced important policy issues to clown-show theater. Councilor Tom Danehy ridiculed some of Cambridge's most dedicated and hard-working citizens. Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci wasted much time rambling about mud in basements and textbooks for schoolchildren, as if these topics were pertinent to the issues at hand.

(2)The developer called the tune, and the council danced as fast as it knew how. The council, in a moment of befuddlement, adopted some easement deal amendments which it thought were harmless. But when the developer protested, the council entered into a complex rigamarole to excise those amendments.

The most important vote of the evening was the vote to reconsider--reversing prior decisions the developer didn't like. Reconsideration requires six votes; supporting reconsideration were Councillors Danehy, Saundra Graham, Sheila Russell, Walter Sullivan, William Walsh and Vellucci.

(3)Under enormous pressure to dispose quickly of a complicated issue, the council demonstrated its confusion and ineptitude. Vellucci voted against his own proposal for negotiations. Danehy amended not the deal with the developer, but a line item estimate in an appraisal report. Graham totally lost track of what she was voting on. Overall, most councilors showed a low level of understanding of real estate economics, and therefore were unprepared to negotiate aggressively on behalf of the city.

As a result of this sorry process, our council handed over valuable real estate to the developer for less than half its worth; supported continuing Harvard expansion into the commercial real estate market; helped pave the way for an oversize building much protested by area residents; and established precedents that will do harm to Harvard Square and Cambridge as a whole.

The members of the Cambridge Citizens for Liveable Neighborhoods conclude that most City Councillors have neither enough integrity nor technical skill to define and defend the public interest in matters of urban development. R. Philip Dowds   Member, Steering Committee   Citizens for Liveable Neighborhoods