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Independents Win Majority On Council

Election pundits predicted that a storm was brewing in the Cambridge City Council race, and they appear to have been 100 per cent correct as final tabulation of the results continues today.

Tuesday was a quiet, cold, almost apathetic day as Cambridge voters turned the scales, throwing out a liberal majority and replacing it with a coalition of Independents.

With the loss of the liberal majority, City Manager John Corcoran seems doomed to go job hunting, rent control is likely to be severely weakened, and real estate developers appear to have new friends on the city council.

Finally wise to Cambridge's electoral tom-foolery--a complicated voting system called proportional representation in which voters rank their choices numerically--the Independents banded together forming a slate of candidates for the first time.

As always, Walter J. Sullivan led the tally, garnering 13 per cent of the first place votes from a congested pack of 34 candidates.

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Independents following Sullivan's powerhouse were incumbents Thomas W. Danehy and Alfred E. Vellucci, as well as Leonard J. Russell.

Saundra Graham, a vocal representative of the Riverside community, breezed to a surprisingly strong third place finish, though her newly formed Grass Roots Organization failed to carry any other candidates through the maze. Even John Brode '52, whose highly publicized campaign was expected to make inroads this year, won a meager 261 first place votes.

Mayor Barbara Ackermann, leader of the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA), returns to City Hall as Councillor Ackermann with only one other CCA candidate, David F. Wylie, sure to join her, as he successfully moved over from the school committee.

The undecided three-way race for the final two council positions pits Independents Donald A. Fantini and Daniel J. Clinton against CCA's Francis H. Duehay '55, dean of admissions and studies at the Ed School. If both Independents squeeze by, the storm that surfaced on a calm Tuesday will be complete, giving liberals a 6-3 majority.

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