Word: council
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...many respects the council's power is more negative than positive. It can block projects initiated by the City Manager. but it has relatively little authority to begin them on its own. Only the manager can propose appropriations: he also retains the power to appoint most of the important administrators in the City...
...past, informal coalitions-either along CCA-independent lines or split by personalities-have lessened somewhat the centrifugal forces inherent in the council. But during the past four years, fights over the firing of two city managers have broken down most of these coalitions. Now, more than ever, the council is a fragmented group of nine individuals; it is never easy to get five of them to agree on any given issue...
...council's negative power stems partly from authority granted it by the City Charter, such as a veto over most appropriations. More important, however, is a fact of Cambridge political life of which any City Manager is aware: the council can fire the manager at any time and, indeed, has done so twice in the past four years. This makes a City Manager receptive to policy guidance from the council on crucial issues: at least informally, he wants to make sure he has five council votes backing him before he proceeds on an important question...
...structure of politics which evolved under Cambridge's PR-Council-Manager system was one admirably suited to its chief problems of five, ten or twenty years ago, which were to maintain peace among the sometimes antagonistic groups making up the City to give each its fair share of services, and to make sure that taxes did not increase over-much...
Though many of these tasks still remain important in City politics, the current period of change is making new demands on the political system. The housing convention, for example, has in essence been asking the council to take some decisive action against the forces which appear to be transforming-Cambridge into a new, predominantly middle-class city. Such demands for more active political leadership are something new in Cambridge...