And, some neighborhood activists add, Healy is already calling the shots on policy issues--particularly those involving development. But the city manager says he just follows the council's plans, despite an occasional communication gap between his office and the councillors.

"I work with the tools that the city administration has in shaping policy, but it's not my job to shape policy," Healy says. He says that in many cases, the distinction between making policy and following it gets blurred.

And that is exactly the comment Healy's critics make. They say the pro-development policy may have gone too far, adding that the plan may have been needed 11 years ago, but today it deserves to be reexamined.

From Definition to Practice

Healy began his career in administration as Sullivan's assistant, first in Lowell, and later in Cambridge. He says he still follows Sullivan's plan of broadening the tax base to fund city services.

But Duehay says Cambridge's finances have changed over the last decade, thanks to the efforts of the two city managers. Today, the city is on a sound footing.

"What we're seeing now is going from a bust to a boom, going from nothing going for us to everything for us," Duehay says, adding that Sullivan's plan does not fit the city in 1989.

Opponents of a garage being built on Binney St. as part of the One Kendall Square development say their cause is a perfect example of how Healy's pro-development attitudes today infringe on neighborhoods.

Last May, East Cambridge resident Debra McManus looked out in her backyard and saw workers preparing to build a 1530-car garage only nine feet from her property. When McManus and other residents started looking for ways to stop the project, they uncovered a legal nightmare.

The Athenaeum Group, the garage's builders, is required by law to provide a certain number of parking spaces for its One Kendall Square Development. But the Federal Clean Air Act of 1973 froze the number of commercial parking spaces allowed in Cambridge.

Since 1984, the city has had the power to grant exemptions to the parking freeze, but McManus contends that the Binney St. garage should not have received an exemption because the developer will charge for the facility's use. If opponents win the suit they filed against the developer, commercial parking lots built since 1984 may become illegal.

City officials have met repeatedly with the state Department of Environmental Quality Engineering and the federal Environmental Protection Agency to resolve the dilemma, and the city contends it can still grant exemptions.

But McManus and other garage opponents argue that Healy and his staff are granting the exemptions without keeping the City Council informed.

Because the city manager does not appear to be telling the City Council everything that is going on, my guess is that he is either making policy himself or not bringing it to the attention of the full council," says McManus.

Several councillors--notably Vice Mayor Alice K. Wolf--hold similar views.