Kirkland House Superintendent Kevin B. Higgins wants to eliminate rent control in Cambridge--and he's using student mailboxes as his forum for expression.

Yesterday, Higgins placed letters criticizing Cambridge's rent control policy in the mailboxes of some Kirkland residents, urging students to vote to end rent control in next month's general statewide referendum.

The photocopied sheets, which address the student receiving them by first name, contain an anti-rent control staff editorial which ran in Tuesday's Boston Herald as well as a hand-written note by Higgins.

"Rent Control in my opinion is Illegal," Higgins wrote on the sheet. "This is one of the reasons the City of Cambridge is called 'The Republic of Cambridge.'"

Higgins refused to comment on the record yesterday.

If a majority of locally registered voters vote "Yes" on Question Nine in a Massachusetts referendum in November, rent control in Cambridge, Brookline and Boston will be eliminated.

It is unclear how many students received a letter from Higgins.

One of the students who received Higgins's letter said it was the first she had heard of Question Nine.

"It's made me aware that it's out there," said Sarah E. French '96, who is registered to vote in Massachusetts. "I'll have to think about it now that I've heard of it."

Local Opinion

But local rent control supporters contested Higgins' position on the issue.

"[Rent control] has been challenged several times in court, and has continually been upheld," said Susan Weinstein, the assistant counsel to the Cambridge Rent Control Board.

Matt Henzy, the manager of the Save our Communities Coalition's "No on Nine" Campaign, called the organized movement for passage of Question Nine "perverse" and "infuriating."

"Apparently, they just don't give a damn that there's 100,000 people that will be harmed greatly by the passage of Question Nine," Henzy said.

Cheryl Marsh, a spokesperson for the pro-Question Nine Massachusetts Homeowners' Coalition, was not available for comment