With no political experience and a lack of funds, Joseph F. Tichanuk describes his campaign as "the run of the common man" for the city council. Born and raised in Cambridge, Tichanuk has been a motor equipment operator in the city water department for the past 25 years.
His political experience includes 18 years as union president of the water department employees and participation in state house lobbying efforts for rent control.
Tichanuk shares the concerns of Cambridge's liberal political groups even though he has not sought, nor received, their endorsements. He calls for an extension of rent control and said the current rent control board is "inadequate and slow to provide service."
In addition, he favors an increased control of development within Cambridge, adding that there is a problem with the University's grabbing land and getting free services."
Tichanuk's lack of political experience has been a hindrance to his campaign. Tichanuk himself concedes that he has little chance of getting elected and commented, "I guess my campaign is a little like fighting windmills."
Alfred Vellucci +
Alfred E. Vellucci is a consummate political chef--every two years he stirs the ethnic stew of East Cambridge and gets re-elected to the Cambridge City Council The secret, says Vellucci, is Harvard--the most obvious representative of untaxed wealth, power and privilege in Cambridge, and an easy target for Vellucci when he feels like being a populist demagogue--"I ask people on the street, do you hate Harvard? They say yes, so I say vote for me, I hate Harvard."
Vellucci says he isn't campaigning very hard, because "all the incumbents will win." The only issues in the campaign, according to Vellucci, are that David Rockefeller owns the Real Paper and Gulf Oil owns The Crimson. Other than that, Vellucci said, "we all voted to down-zone mid-Cambridge-we're all for down-zoning." Vellucci now agrees with most of the council that rent control should stay as it is. He had been supporting vacancy decontrol, a measure aimed at students and a transient population, but he said he now believes that "the economy is changing, the squeeze is on, we got to keep rent control like it is."
As for the current imbroglio between independent councilors Daniel Clinton and Thomas Danehy and city manager James L. Sullivan, Vellucci refuses to get involved--"Never get mixed up in an Irish fight," he said. "Man, there've been Irish wars!"
Vellucci will keep on roasting Harvard every chance he gets--and because he plays the role of populist demagogue well, he will be back on the Cambridge City Council next year, and for many years to come.
David A. Wylie * +
Amid the propaganda of ITT Tech and the limpid claims of innumerable steak and bres, a smiling face on a subway car poster beams somewhat cryptically, "If your city government fights for you, you don't have to fight back." David A. Wylie, a lawyer and candidate for his second term on the City Council, thinks of himself as a fighter.
The opponents Wylie takes on are not exactly what you would expect from a Boston Corporate lawyer with roots in Louisville, Ky., and University of Chicago. To protect Cambridge's "unique neighborhood flavor" from the kind of high-rise over-development that has turned Harvard St. into "apartment house row," Wylie takes on the real estate developers and investors.
Wylie has also struggled to keep rent control, opposing the landlords "to protect the elderly and low income renters." To prevent Cambridge residents from being swallowed by a "sea of signs," Wylie has taken on much of the business establishment.
Two years ago, when police brutality was a much hotter issue, Wylie delivered a blistering speech from the floor of the City Council chambers, condemning the excesses of the police department, "as half the force and their wives sat dumbstruck in the audience."
And when Harvard officialdom tried to encourage students not to register to vote in Cambridge, first, last spring, when a letter from general counsel Daniel Steiner '54 warned that doing so would subject the newly enfranchised to a multitude of tax liabilities, and then, this fall, when an OCS-OCL newsletter warned pre-meds that it could hurt their chances of getting into home-state med schools, Wylie took on the University.
The voter registration issue was an especially sensitive one for Wylie. He estimates that nearly half of his support comes from the new, younger, voters--again, not what you would expect for a middle-aged corporate lawyer.
The profiles of the candidates were written by: Thomas S. Blanton, David N. Carvalho, Stephen J. Chapman, James J. Cramer, Henry Griggs, David B. Hilder, Thomas W. Janes, Daniel E. Larkin and Charles E. Shepherd.
Two candidates, Alan Harrington and William C. Jones, were unavailable for interviews at presstime.