Word: council
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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There has been speculation in the City, but no confirmation from any councillor, that the council would ask the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth for an advisory opinion on whether passing a rent control ordinance is within the powers of the City of Cambridge, or its voters under the state's provisions for home rule...
...time of the election Cambridge is likely to have around 42,000 registered voters. In the City Council elections two years ago, about 31,000 voters turned out. Thus, if the turnout is the same this time, and all voters in the council election also vote either "yes" or "no" on the rent control bill, the required simple majority of those voting would be about 15,500, which would also be more than one-third of all the registered voters in the City
...debate within the council chambers was much the same. Discussing rent control as an issue of public policy is difficult at best, for its consequences are highly ambiguous and an overall evaluation depends mostly on the weight one places on their various aspects...
That is about 90 per cent of what one can say about the economic consequences of rent control. All of it was said, to be sure, repeatedly in the council chambers, but the discussion of the policy occupied but a small portion of the debate. Most of it focused on a simple, symbolic theme. Tenants--usually pictured as long-time residents of Cambridge--were being thrown out of their homes by rapacious landlords grasping for the higher rents students and other transients could pay. Eviction lists, tales of widows and amputees, and even skits were used to hammer...
...showdown in every sense of the word. Scuffles erupted in the council corridors between opponents and supporters of rent control. Women wept. Men cursed. Some women cursed. When the council, for the second time, voted down the convention's bill, for its supporters it was as if the guys in the black hats had shotgunned the guys in the white hats and had then ridden off into the sunset...