City Council Hopefuls Debate

Last night’s Cambridge’s Council Candidate Forum brought approximately 100 observers to hear about the issues from the seven incumbents and eight of the challengers who are vying for the city council’s nine seats.

The sponsors of the event, the City Democratic Committee (CDC), served up pizza and soda, as well as three batches of separate candidate panels, which allowed each of the 15 participants a chance to speak.

After the CDC sent out a messenger to quiet an overbearing drum noise from a neighboring room in the YWCA, three consecutive panels—each a mix of incumbents, newcomers and repeat candidates— answered a series of questions on various issues such as whether recent re-zoning had done enough for traffic control and whether the city should directly elect its mayor.

Moderator Marty Foster, former host of the now-cancelled talk show “Cambridge Inside Out,” opened the panel by referring to the Nixon-Kennedy and Lincoln-Douglas debates.

But unlike those famous models of contentious, decisive debates, last night’s forum was—in true recent Cambridge style—marked by agreement more than dissent. Candidates unanimously supported the Community Preservation Act, creative efforts at increasing affordable housing and improving local schools.

One issue that prompted disagreement was whether the city should keep its current mayor selection system—currently, the newly elected council chooses a mayor from within its ranks—or scrap that and adopt a more typical system of citizens electing councillors as well as the mayor.

Generally, current councillors supported keeping the city’s Plan E Charter, which puts the Council in charge of choosing a City Manager who runs the city’s day-to-day business, as well as choosing a mayor who chairs meetings of both the city council and the school committee.

“I don’t think the system itself is broken. I think perhaps the players are,” said councillor Michael A. Sullivan.

E. Denise Simmons, a challenger candidate and school committee member who is seen as a shoo-in for a spot on the council, displayed characteristic diplomacy on the mayoral issue.

“I would support more conversations over whether or not we elect a mayor and whether that person should chair the school committee,” Simmons said.

The other widely favored challenger, Brian Murphy ’86-’87, also endorsed further discussion about city management.

“It’s important that we stop to think about who we want our next city manager to be,” Murphy said, noting that the current city manager—who has held his post for nearly 20 years—could end his tenure during the next council term.

All of the participants advocated stepping up the city’s efforts at increasing affordable housing, and at least two identically cautioned that “we are increasingly becoming a city of the very rich and the very poor.”

The discussion quickly morphed into a discussion of obligations of the universities.

“We need to require universities to house their students,” said current Mayor Anthony Gallucio.

Other councillors and hopefuls elaborated on the mayor’s point.

“We have to put a cap on the number of students they allow in,” said Councillor Timothy Toomey.

And—in typical Harvard-student style— Murphy, an alum, specifically skirted stating his alma mater.

“I came here to go to college and fell in love with Cambridge,” Murphy said.

Kenneth E. Reeves ’72 and David P. Maher—the two councillors seen as most precariously positioned to reclaim their seats, because they finished last among the councillors in 1999’s election—took extremely different tacks in their closing remarks.

Maher emphasized his time on the Ordinance Committee with the extremely popular Kathleen L. Born, who is not seeking re-election. As co-chairs of the committee, Maher and Born finessed historic zoning legislation and built a coalition to pass it through the council.

“The re-zoning is going to come to somewhat of a pinnacle when we we approve the re-zoning of East Cambridge,” Maher said.

On the other end, 12-year council veteran Reeves talked about voter participation. Pundits have said Reeves, who previously had a strong base of black voters, could lose ground to Simmons. There are also other incumbents from his neighborhood.

“I wonder why so few people are voting,” Reeves said in his closing remarks. “We seem to have become very self-satisfied in Cambridge.”

Raising his voice, Reeves said he thinks Cambridge still has problems.

“We have a school system that’s failing kids wholesale and retail,” Reeves said. “If you don’t think everything’s all right, I would appreciate your number one vote.”

—Staff writer Lauren R. Dorgan can be reached at dorgan@fas.harvard.edu.