THE PEOPLE at the Cambridge Model Cities Bureau have the somewhat annoying yet highly infectious tendency to see themselves as enlightened visionaries battling valiantly against the power-hungry forces of Cambridge City Hall.

The people at City Hall, in turn, see themselves as the last outpost of fiscal responsibility combatting narrow-minded self-interest on the part of local factions. They view Model Cities as a group that doesn't have to return regularly to the electorate, and therefore is free to spend federal money on any proposal designed to benefit people in the Model Cities area.

Two weeks ago forty staff workers and a dozen members of the Cities Demonstration Agency (CDA) Board invaded City Hall, hoping to confront and pin down City Manager John Corcoran and City Solicitor Philip M. Cronin on three specific issues-two contracts and Model Cities pay raises-that illustrated the clash of power over the program.

The concept of Model Cities was introduced as an early "War on Poverty" scheme to infuse large sums of money into eight selected cities. Logrolling in Congress modified that original idea, transforming it into a less-intensive aid program to more than 150 cities. The enabling legislation was approved and Cambridge was one of the first cities to enter the program.

In its first one and a half years, Cambridge Model Cities has originated a wide variety of programs, including rehabilitation and construction of housing units, job training, a family center, a free dental clinic, services to the elderly, two day care centers, adult education and a pre-teen center.

The basic hope of the planners was that depressed neighborhoods could improve themselves with a minimum of outside professional direction. Model Cities is a confrontation-oriented structure, designed to experiment with a wide range of neighborhood assistance proposals, spin off the ones that work, and let the people of a selected area run the organization itself.

Ostensible control over Model Cities is vested in a 24-member CDA Board. Sixteen of the Board members are residents of the model neighborhood, elected for two-year terms. The remaining board members are drawn from various constituencies outside the neighborhood. The relevant portion of the CDA enabling legislation empowers the board to "hire, fire, select, and set the terms of employment for its staff, with the approval of the City Manager."

The Model Cities Board in Cambridge contains some fiery people who are not the least bit intimidated by Corcoran's intransigence or Cronin's retorts during the sit-in. The real issue, it seemed, was deeper than the two contracts and the pay raise that had been lying dormant on Corcoran's desk for weeks. To them, it was a question of power. Conflicting interpretations of the CDA enabling legislation asked "Who is going to exercise the authority over Cambridge Model Cities, the Board or the City Manager?"

In response to Cronin's opinion stating that "the Board acts merely in an advisory capacity. The City Manager is not a rubber stamp. He has the power to eliminate the Board at any time," the CDA personnel have quickly mobilized.

For the past week, virtually the entire staff has been going door to door in the model neighborhood, trying to rally constituent support for their power clash with City Hall. They have been ringing doorbells, collecting signatures on a petition backing the CDA board, and talking to the people they are trying to serve, finding the problems they are supposed to combat. And in the process of campaigning for "Resident control for Cambridge Model Cities," the staff members are uncovering some interesting facts.

First of all, there is no resident control for Cambridge Model Cities. There never has been, and there probably never will be. The program has been directed from above, like all other bureaucracies, and the overwhelming majority of the people who supposedly "run" the program have returned a verdict of massive indifference and ignorance concerning Model Cities.

They know nothing about the program, expect nothing from it, and are generally unaware of any of the numerous CDA services, with the interesting exception of the 60,000 plastic garbage bags distributed free throughout the area.

The professional staff members (who, incidentally, are already well-compensated, the pay raise issue notwithstanding) are excellent people. By and large, they are as creative, as socially concerned, and as sensitive a group as could ever be assembled in city government.

But the fact remains that they are not products of the area they serve. They have been imported with their carpetbags, and in spite of claims that the CDA Board members are the guiding force, it is the top staff personnel who run the show.

This probably is the way it ought to be. I can hold little hope for any attempt for true full-time neighborhood control over programs to serve the neighborhood. These are working class people who have neither the time, the inclination, nor the training to pilot a comprehensive program of day care or job training or youth counseling toward a desired abstract goal. Furthermore, it is always risky to turn the public purse over to a small group, telling them to help themselves.