Word: cyr
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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First-time challenger Ed Cyr says he is "trying to bring the Al Vellucci phenomenon into the 1980s." The former student activist favors rent control--but brags of his French Canadian ethnic roots in North Cambridge and calls the CCA a "wine-and-cheese organization...
Amidst a group of independents--who are generally older and oppose rent control--and a slate of younger, more progressive, candidates who favor rent control, sponsored by the Cambridge Civic Association, Ed Cyr stands alone. The question is, how alone will he be come election...
...Cyr could have tried to win the endorsement of the progressive Cambridge Civic Association, which dates to the mid-1940s. Like many CCA candidates, Cyr is definitely a young progressive. He is a strong supporter of rent control, which for years has been the main political issue in city politics, and he also has been active in a number of local causes. He founded a group called Toxic Alert which he says chased Arthur D. Little Co. out of the nerve gas business. He has opposed the Seabrook Nuclear Plant. Currently, he is the director of the Community of Elders...
...Cyr believes that Cambridge politics centers on class. He maintains that the CCA has been buoyed by wealthy Cambridge liberals who have no contact with Cambridge's blue-collar ethnic base. He notes that he recently ran across one elderly woman who told him straight-faced that Harvard ran the CCA. "She really thought President Bok was making the decisions for them," he says. And Cyr says that impression reflects the estrangement of Cambridge blue collar ethnics from the CCA. As a result, Cyr shunned requests asking him to seek the CCA endorsement...
...Executive Director J. James Marzilli says that Cyr's decision was not as principled as he would have people believe. "He's got a lot of friends who have a negative gut reaction to the CCA. If he joined with it, he'd lose their votes." But that gut reaction is precisely what Cyr is trying to capitalize...