King Seeks To Bring New Voice to Council

Ethridge A. King is a man with a plan.

One of 19 candidates for 9 City Council seats, King—who pundits rate as a man to watch, though not a sure winner—has a three-part plan to nab the votes of Cantabrigians on Election Day, although he keeps his get-out-the-vote strategy under tight wraps.

“We have a plan that no one is going to bank on us having,” King says. “In three weeks, you’ll be calling me Councillor.”

Eloquent and confident despite his newcomer status on the Cambridge political scene, King is extremely businesslike.

His campaign insignia—a flashy design with the number “1” formed out of his name on a bright red background—and his flawless dress of crisp gray suits epitomize his optimistic approach to city politics.

A New Man in Town

King literally represents the newest generation in Cambridge. At the age of 9, King immigrated to Cambridge from Barbados with his parents. And last December, he married Astrid King, a Dutch native.

The couple made the decision to run together—which involved putting off having a child until after the election and more generally clearing their calendars to prioritize campaigning, King says.

He and his wife started going door-to-door as a team this summer, talking to Cambridge voters. But the first big project was finding a hard-core staff.

“Getting people committed to helping out at no pay, which is huge, huge,” was the first thing he did last spring, King says.

He’s not your average Cambridge politician—and although current involvement in the political system has been brought up at election forums by incumbents as key to being an effective councilor, King says he thinks the city needs a fresh voice.

“Do you think you have to be an activist or an experienced councillor to make good policy?” King asks with a smile. “We have so many activists in Cambridge that sometimes they work against one another.”

For example, King brings up state funding for the Community Preservation Act—which will bring about $5 million to the city for affordable housing, open space creation, and preservation of historic buildings if voters approve the measure Nov. 6. King says there will likely be quite an activist skirmish over how much money will go to each purpose.

“Whoever has the most stamina will come out the victor,” King says. “I’m not going to shy away from my lack of activism.”

Independent Politics

Once registered as an independent, King switched his registration to Democrat so that he could vote for Gore in last year’s presidential primary.

As a management major who graduated in 1992 from Boston University (BU), many of King’s concerns are fiscal. His alma mater’s assistant director in development and alumni relations, King frequently refers to his unique financial background in candidate forums.

“I’m very concerned about our economy,” King says.

Although Cambridge is generally considered to be in good financial shape—boasting a triple A bond-rating, the highest available— its financial future is less than assured, King says, although it might look strong.

“So did the United States 6-7 months ago—we were fighting over what to do with the surplus,” King says. “I’m concerned about the lax approach to our financial future in Cambridge.”

King says he never favored rent control, which was a hot-button issue in Cambridge until a statewide resolution in 1994 ended the city’s system which limited the rent landlords could charge.

Nevertheless, King sought and won the endorsement of the Cambridge Civic Association—the local party whose heart issue was once rent control—because he agrees with the party on issues such as preserving open space and the importance of reserving some land for new housing.

“I’m not a Republican or anything,” King says.

King has opposed rent control since his childhood, he says.

“I saw what my parents had to go through to buy their house,” King says. “My mom worked two jobs, my father worked two jobs, they saved, saved, saved saved. And they kind of bought a fixer-upper.”

Rent control didn’t always benefit those who needed the financial boost, King says.

“There were a lot of affluent people living in rent-controlled apartments,” King says.

What King would support, he says, is a plan to have the city help people buy houses.

“Cambridge can guarantee loans above and beyond what the bank can,” King says.

Helping residents to actually purchase houses is a better plan than attempting to re-establish rent control, because it would not create the same “dependency atmosphere” Cambridge had when the city mandated rents, King says.

“It was like a dust storm” in Cambridge when rent control ended because so many people suddenly couldn’t pay the rent and had to leave the city, King says.

And the city’s current tactic to prevent some rents from skyrocketing—making deals with contractors that a certain number of units in new apartment buildings be “affordable” for low-income people—is somewhat counterproductive, King says.

“The costs to subsidize these few units are shifted to the market-rate units,” King says, adding that the cost shift means that middle-income people can’t afford the other apartments in the building.

“We are turning Cambridge into a city of the haves and have-nots,” King says.

He suggests hammering out a two-tier system, in which contractors make some housing for low-income people and some for middle-income residents.

A Complex View of Harvard

Like all of the current city councillors, King approved of the living wage sit-in at Massachusetts Hall last spring.

And—like decades of Cambridge city councillors—King has general objections to Harvard.

“I don’t agree with a lot of things they do,” King says, adding that “in their zeal to raise money” Harvard sometimes loses its focus on education. When asked about the fundraising aspects of his job, King demurs.

“Leave BU out of this,” he says, smiling.

But King doesn’t approve of the way the council has dealt with Harvard in the past.

“The bottom line is, I don’t thing Cambridge should be constantly haggling about Harvard and their wealth,” King says. “I think Harvard is one of the most ingenious universities in the world.”

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