Three Councillors Actively Seek Mayorship

With the mayoral contest about a month away, Cambridge city councillors have begun their political jockeying for the position.

Under Cambridge's quirky political system, the nine councillors will chose from amongst themselves who will be the next mayor. At least five votes are needed to elect the mayor.

There are currently three councillors who are actively seeking the position: Francis H. Duehay '55; Sheila Doyle Russell, the current mayor; and Katherine Triantafillou.

However, Timothy J. Toomey is the only councillor to declare that he is not interested in the mayoral position.

Kathleen L. Born, who was contemplating running for mayor at first, said in a Cambridge Chronicle article that she would withdraw from the race to support Duehay.

"I would like to be mayor myself but with Frank Duehay in the running that doesn't seem possible," she said. "So I have committed my vote to Frank and I intend to keep that commitment as long as he is a candidate."

Duehay, the most senior member of the council, had been mayor previously for two terms.

"If I was a betting man, I would still list Duehay as an odds-on favorite," said Robert Winters, former candidate for city councillor and a math teaching fellow at Harvard.

But Triantafillou said that she believes she has a good chance at winning the title.

"I think I've got a pretty good chance; it's really a matter of going through a consensus process," she said. "I know that [Councillor and Former Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72] is supporting me. I think there would be other councillors [voting for me] if councillor Duehay decided not to continue as a candidate."

If elected mayor, Triantafillou said she hopes "to build a partnership with the neighborhood and to address the concerns of the community around development, traffic and housing, and...mak[e] Cambridge more of an arts city."

Triantafillou had sent a letter to other Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) members stating why she is a viable candidate.

"I asked my CCA colleagues for their support and outlined the reasons it would be beneficial for them to elect me as mayor," Triantafillou said.

According to Glenn S. Koocher '71, a local political analyst, Russell should not be immediately dismissed as a viable candidate.

"There is some speculation that Sheila might be able to garner votes," he said. "The longshot could be Kathy Born. She is among the best-liked of her colleagues."

Citing the fact that the CCA has a four-person majority on the Cambridge School Committee--which takes away the swing vote of the mayor--Koocher said the mayoralty is irrelevant.

"It does not make a difference who the mayor is anymore," he said. "If they [the councillors] cannot elect a mayor, the senior member of the city council acts as mayor."

This clause had existed since the city solicitor in the early 1970s interpreted the city charter to mean that the senior member of the School Committee could serve as mayor in the absence of a vice-chair.

Asked how long the deliberation process could take to decide the next mayor, Russell said, "I could not tell you. Last time it was two months, the time before that it was a day."