Obviously, someone is not telling the entire story.

Sullivan, who is recuperating from a mild heart attack, was not available for comment.

Whatever prompted the debate, it is clear that Commonwealth Day has become intertwined with the other dominant issue in this fall's council race.

Members of the anti-rent control Small Property Owners Association, who have picketed City Council meetings for several weeks with signs urging support for Proposition 1-2-3--a ballot referendum to allow some tenants in rentcontrolled housing to purchase their apartments--and opposition to the CCA, this week had a new sign. "Hypocrisy doesn't end with the Commonwealth Day School," it read.

And in Bell's view, the school's departure is inextricably linked with Proposition 1-2-3, which he says would benefit Blacks if approved.

According to Lee, the debate centers around an attempt to capture the city's Black vote in the upcoming elections. Cambridge's only Black councillor, Saundra Graham, is retiring this year, and several candidates are looking to grab her constituents, he says.

"The Independents are making a big bid for the Black vote, and that's the key," said Lee.

"If any of them were sincere about solving this problem, they wouldn't have allowed it to get caught up in local politics," Lee adds.

Several city residents have argued that the council's sudden concern for the school is misplaced. They say that while the school was still in the city, the council took virtually no action to help it.

In addition, some liberals have questioned whether Walsh was involved in the purchase and sale of the school's buildings. A lawyer in his office, Kathleen McCabe, represented the school for the purchase of the Brattle St. building. Another Walsh employee, A. Frances G. Schwartz, loaned the school $100,000 in November, 1988.

Walsh maintains that he did not profit from the school's property transactions. And as evidence of his ongoing concern for Commonwealth Day, he cites a council order he sponsored last year welcoming the school to the city.

Harvard-bashing and Brattle St.-bashing have long been staples of Cambridge politics, and several have argued that Commonwealth Day fits neatly into the pattern.

Criticism of the neighborhood has often been tinged with anti-Harvard sentiment.

"Are you telling us that Black students cannot be near Harvard University?" one woman asked derisively at Tuesday's vigil, stretching out each syllable for emphasis.

In the midst of the debate, school officials have had little to say. At the September 11 hearing, the school was represented by Jack Gottlieb and real estate broker Mark A. Ostrowsky, who sold the school's Newbury St. property.