"The tenor of the council is improving--discussion is becoming more substantative and there is a growing ability to work with Bob Healy," says Edward N. Cyr, a first-term councillor from North Cambridge who proved one of the fall's most popular candidates.

And while the council has taken almost no action to curb development in the city, CCA backers say that one of the key problems they face lies in the composition of city boards and commissions--an area of government over which the council has no direct control.

"You just don't say fire this person and hire this person." says Councillor Jonathan S. Myers "These changes have to be done on a policy basis."

But while change has been slow to come, CCA backers still maintain that the new majority has vastly improved on its predecessor.

"It has been very responsive on all sides," says Gladys P. Gifford, president of the anti-development Harvard Square Defense Fund.

"A majority of the new City Council is taking on the tough issues, which hasn't been the case in the past," Gifford says. "Alice is proving to be a superb leader, and they are working together, which hasn't always been the case."

And Howard P. Ramseur, co-chair of the grass-roots Working Committee for a Cambridge Rainbow, says it is too early for an accurate analysis. But like Gifford, he says he sees positive signs.

"It doesn't feel like a slow start," says Ramseur.

And while some CCA-backed councillors acknowledge that their first five months have not seen the type of drama that was the hallmark of their predecessors, they say that their accomplishments have more substance and less flash.

"All of those things have an emphasis that wasn't really there before," says Francis H. Duehay '55.

"It is all incremental," says Cyr. "The nitty-gritty stuff does not make for great headlines. Point-by-point you see the direction of government change and I think that is what you are seeing."