Competitive Council Race Begins To Take Shape

Though Cambridge is a town where being on the city council comes with the job security of a tenured professorship, this November’s race could put two new faces on the nine-person city council—and that’s assuming that all the incumbents win reelection.

Seven-term City Councillor Michael A. Sullivan announced two weeks ago that he would not run for reelection this fall and would instead focus on his position as clerk of the Middlesex County courts. And fellow seven-termer Anthony D. Galluccio, the frontrunner for the state senate seat being vacated by Jarrett T. Barrios ’90, has said that he will leave the council if he is elected to the senate.

The developments could set the stage for an especially competitive race this fall, but it is unlikely that they will produce a dramatic ideological shift on the council.

Edward “Eddie” Sullivan Jr. declared his candidacy upon the retirement of Michael—his cousin—and former City Councillor David P. Maher did so earlier this summer. Maher, who was defeated in the last election cycle, served three terms as a councillor.

According to local observers, the two could be the biggest beneficiaries of a dual retirement by the current councillors.

In 2005, Maher received the third largest share of Galluccio’s transfer votes. His strongest showing was in West Cambridge’s Ward 9, a ward Galluccio won and in which Sullivan also did well.

“The word was that if Michael or Anthony were to retire, David would be the replacement for either of those two,” said Robert Winters, the editor of the Cambridge Civic Journal. “Both are potentially out of the game, and that’s added to the fact that David has a good base of support from his previous runs.”

Winters added that though much of the Sullivan vote would transfer from one cousin to the other, “that’s not enough to elect [Eddie], so he’s gotta hustle.”

“Michael’s voters are not the same as his father’s voters,” Winters said, noting that many people who voted for Michael Sullivan were more impressed by his effectiveness rather than loyal to his family.

Sullivan is the scion of a local political dynasty that has continuously occupied a city council seat since 1936. His uncle, Edward J. Sullivan, held the clerk of the courts job from 1958 to 2006, when he was replaced by his nephew. The elder Sullivan died two weeks ago at the age of 89.

Michael Sullivan said in an interview last week that his family has built good-will among Cambridge voters because of its history of “responsiveness to our constituents,” and that the phrase “Sullivan service” has become a part of the local political vocabulary.

While acknowledging that anyone running for office “has to be able to stand on your own two feet,” Sullivan expressed confidence in his cousin, noting that he is known to Cambridge voters because of his short service as a Middlesex County Commissioner a decade ago.

The county government was dissolved by the Commonwealth a few months after Eddie Sullivan was elected to the county board.

Prior to his decision to not run for reelection, Michael Sullivan had come under some fire for holding both the clerk and the city council position. A state judicial ethics panel ruled that holding both jobs simultaneously was “problematic” because, as of last December, 13 cases involving Cambridge were pending in the Middlesex courts.

Despite the panel’s opinion, Sullivan insisted in his farewell speech that he could legally hold both positions, and that he was leaving the council because “serving in the dual positions has meant some extremely long hours away from home.”

Whatever his motives, at least one critic of so-called “double-dipping,” city council candidate Sam Seidel, praised Sullivan for giving up one job.

“While I’m sure that it was a difficult decision for Michael to step down from the city council,” Seidel said, “I think in the end it’s the right decision for him and the city he cares so much about.”

—Staff writer Paras D. Bhayani can be reached at pbhayani@fas.harvard.edu.