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A 'Stumbling,' 'Mumbling,' 'Kangaroo Court': The Cambridge Rent Control Board

Michael Turk has served for more than a year as the "coordinator" of the Harvard Tenants Union, a fledgling group of tenant activists who came together in 1981 to oppose what they consider "heavy-handed" treatment by their landlord. Harvard University.

"Most people are shocked by their first experience at the rent control board," he says. "They go in expecting, because it is the rent control board, if not outright advocacy, then at least tenant protection. But they find it' not even that, even though that's their [the rent board's] mandate."

"The first thing you have to deal with is the actual dynamics of the board. A lot of tenants complain about the fundamental rudeness of the board. It has its own procedures for operating, and they're not made evident to anyone present, you might even say they're obscured. A lot of people talk about how tense they are when they go in there. The cues--when to talk, etc., are left out. You're made to feel as if your complaints aren't legitimate."

Because the rent board maintains no systematic record of case precedent. Cohn, the only member who has served since the beginning of rent control, "is the repository of a lot of information on how the board works." "It falls to Cohn to say, 'Oh, yeah. I remember that,'" Turk explains. "His memory can be selective and it gives him even more power. There should be some way of allowing some one who's fresh to know what's going on."

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William Cavellini has been active in rent board cases for about eight years. Although he does not hold a law degree. Cavellini has spent most of his time before the board as an advocate for other tenants.

Even at meetings chaired by past rent board chairman. "The atmosphere was never cordial," Cavellini says. But there were other chairmen Callaghan and who had "less of a short face." With previous chairmen, Cavellini says that both tenant and landlords "got more respect." "There is a certain impatience," he says of Callaghan, pausing to explain that he "doesn't want to make any personal attacks." But he says. "The chairman sets a tone." "Previous boards have been more courteous and treated both adversial parties with move respect."

Cavellini says that especially when the board decides a case by consensus, "a lot of times the tenants and landlords have to ask what happened." "When you do things by mumbling," he says, "a lot of people don't know what's happening." "It's an argument in almost any activity in our society that being more open and more accessible is being more equitable and tairer."

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Lynn Weissberg acts as chairperson of the legal committee of one of the city's largest tenant lobbying groups and frequently appears before the rent board on behalf of residents. She also maintains a private law practice and attends rent board proceedings with her tenant clients.

"I understand they [rent board members] serve without pay, but that's no excuse for rudeness. There's no other way to describe it. Most of them make no effort to explain to the parties what's going on "Weissberg explains that because of the lack of a volume of case precedents "for someone in there [at the rent board] for the first time there is no way to get a handle on it. It's not unusual for Fred Cohn to lean back and recall" precedents she says, adding that his status as the most senior board member "puts the parties at an incredible disadvantage. There's no way I can say. 'No, that's not true.'"

Chairman Callaghan also "wields too much power" over other board members, Weissberg says. "The chairman is the only lawyer member, and he's looked to so that the decision is basically his, especially if it centers on a legal issue where the others feel incompetent." She adds that "apart from the merits, the chairman lacks common courtesy I find that intolerable."

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Daniel Polvere serves as chief counsel for Harvard Real Estate and appears in that capacity before the rent board almost every month. Since being hired by Harvard in 1978. Polvere has become one of the attorneys best known to rent board members.

"Everyone I talk to says it [the rent board] is a biased board. The thing is I suppose it does have to do with what you think it's supposed to do." According to Polvere, the rent board" by its nature is a status quo agency it keeps the lid on rents" and trys to prevent the depletion of the housing stock, he says. "It's essentially a conservative--not in the political sense--agency."

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