WHEN I CALLED Saravelas last week to give him a chance to respond to the charges and criticisms that had been levelled at him and at the Bureau, he told me that he could produce "as many positive reactions as you can write negative," and that until I submitted an outline of my article in writing, "you can't talk to us anymore." The outline he mentioned, as explained to me earlier in the week by Ron Silva, the Bureau's program administrator, was to include the specific purpose of my article, the costs and benefits to the Bureau of the time that staff members would spend talking to me, and the specific questions I wanted to ask the staff.

Maybe Saravelas can come up with a host of positive comments. But there are enough negative ones turning in the minds of Cambridge kids, parents, current and former staff, (as well as private and public agency personnel), to offset the forces he can muster--at least in number and significance, if not in political power and prestige. Until I'm proven wrong, I'll have to go with the assessment of Sister Mary Griffin of Croagh Patrick's, a well-known community worker:

"The YRB came, like all other agencies, as the savior agency of Cambridge. They poured workers out on the street who were untrained and had great difficulty mobilizing and working with adults. As soon as they determined the needs of an area, they were never out on the street again. They never addressed themselves to the causes. They said, 'please, don't send the kids away,' but they never addressed themselves to the injustice in the system. They were merely duplicating services: making referrals to Catholic Charities, making referrals to the welfare office.

"When they were needed most of all, the director was plastered against the wall of the police station. They did absolutely nothing. If you go through the projects, you'll see that the kids have never been so bad; they're all still controlled by the institutions. The streetworkers are still seen as outsiders. They come in and they go out. There's no stability or continuity of service."

A 15-YEAR-OLD North Cambridge kid put it this way: "The way things are set up now, the Bureau fucks kids up more than it helps them. They should fire Kerry and get someone in there who can do something. Sure, kids still go there for help. But after they figure the place out, they won't come back."

Joe Tyree and others have laid their jobs on the line by speaking openly and frankly for the record. As this is written, the YRB administration is already attempting to ferret out other staff members with whom I spoke in confidence and without the prior knowledge of the Bureau administration. It is up to City Manager John Corcoran to insure that they will not be punished for their honesty and candor. And--if the city really cares about kids like Larry Largey and Kevin Harris and the kids who hang out on Cambridge streetcorners--it is also up to Corcoran to reassess the city's present commitment to its youth. Corcoran must take the initiative to set up a CYRB board of directors that is truly representative of the community; a board of directors that has the power to hire and fire the Bureau's director; a board that can truly participate in the Bureau's decision-making process