Word: council
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Other council candidates spoke out against city investments in South Africa-related banks, non-binding referendum question that will be on the ballot November 6. The Cambridge Anti-Apartheid Coalition, which merges Harvard and city groups concerned with the issue, promised to redouble their efforts as the election approached...
...each side, clearly defining their stands--the Rent Control Task Force boosts tenant's rights, The Cambridge Home Owners and Taxpayers Association demands that everyone on its slate of candidates vote against rent control. And the system works. For ten years, liberals have held tenuous majorities on the council, just enough to insure that rent control continue, with many compromises to protect landlords...
Last week, though, this system, which must elect a new city council in ten days, was threatened. A new group, calling itself the Concerned Cambridge Citizens (CCC) endorsed a slate of candidates for the office. What it didn't release were position papers or issue stances. We are "dedicated to dynamic government," they said, issuing calls for "intellectual open-mindedness." But they offered no position on rent control, no mention of condominium conversions. "We have no plans to issue a platform," Nancy Goetz, treasure of the CCC said last week...
...story of the CCC actually begins last summer, when, according to Goetz, "a bunch of us got together to talk about Cambridge." The group particular about issues, instead it wanted to "depolarize" the city council. "There at least two sides to all these issues," Goetz reasons, adding that "city councilors aren't even willing to talk to each other." With the hope of getting Cambridge City government out of deadlock, they endorsed a "moderate slate, filled with people willing to talk and talk until they reached fundamental agreement...
...premise is as wrong as the solution is unlikely. The councilors are not divided on anything except the issues, on which they represent their constituents. They laugh, they dance, they eat, they even talk together, sometimes until 2 a.m. at council meetings. But all the jovialty and talking does not shift their positions, and it shouldn't. Walter Sullivan piles up votes year after year in large part because his constituents don't want rent control at all. If Mary Ellen Preusser ever "moderated" her pro-rent control stand, she would be stealing the apartments away from those who elected...