Former Cambridge City Councillor Dies

William H. Walsh, a former Cambridge City Council member and influential local figure in the 1980s, died suddenly in his home in Maine on Oct. 15. He was 65.

During a time when rent control was a prominent issue in local government politics, Walsh—described by local pundit Robert Winters as the “janitor’s son who grew up on Hurlbut Street”—was elected to the Council in 1985 and served until he was convicted of 41 counts of bank fraud and sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1994.

His law firm, Ferraro and Walsh, was a prominent force in the midst of Cambridge’s frenzied real estate market in the mid-1980s. As an outspoken opponent of the rent control laws that governed Cambridge at the time, Walsh made a slew of both friends and enemies whose opinions of him shifted depending on the profitability of their real estate investments, according to Winters, who bought real estate from Walsh.

Sheila T. Russell, a former mayor of Cambridge who was elected to the Council in the same year as Walsh, remembers his “strong presence” in City Hall and his pranks as a practical joker.

In 1991, when the Cambridge City Councillors were told that a Christmas tree would not be permitted in City Hall because it was “connotative of Christian beliefs,” Walsh and other sought the biggest tree in the lot and placed it on the first floor the building.

Walsh and company placed flags from every country in the world on the tree so that no one would object to its presence in City Hall.

Instead of a Christmas tree, this was a “Tree for the Holiday Season,” Russell said.

“He was a very bright guy, very intelligent,” said James J. Rafferty, an attorney in Cambridge who served on the Cambridge School Committee when Walsh was a city councillor. “He did have a certain charm to him; he had a very welcoming attitude; he loved being around people.”

One of the most memorable moments for both Russell and Rafferty took place in 1995, when Walsh responded to a complaint of an art exhibit that contained “obscene” images.

Taking matters into his own hands, Walsh destroyed the art exhibit, which, according to The Crimson, contained “anatomically explicit dildos,” and was later found not guilty to charges of malicious destruction of personal property.

“He had friends from all walks of life,” Rafferty said. “He had a great passion for people. [He was] a man of great faith.”

A bachelor into his late 50s, according to Rafferty, Walsh is survived by his wife Mary, whom he met after hiring her to take care of his mother before she died.

“There wasn’t a more devoted son,” Rafferty said. “It’s one less person who really cared about other people.”

—Staff writer Xi Yu can be reached at xyu@college.harvard.edu.