"This group will throw something ridiculous at the State House and the property owners are going to fight it," he said. "I predict it will die in the state legislature."
"They just don't get it," he added Monday.
Walsh compared Question 9, which repealed rent control for the 14,415 controled units in Cambridge, to a baseball game: after nine innings, the score was close but the game is over.
Walsh's political foes responded angrily. "I'm a little tired of that kind of talk," Councillor Katherine Triantafillou told the council. "This is not a spirit that I think is productive and useful in this chamber."
With the three other Independent councillors--Vice Mayor Sheila T. Russell and Councillors Michael A. Sullivan and Timothy J. Toomey Jr.--Walsh sponsored his own proposal Monday, to keep rent control for low-income, elderly and handicapped tenants for a maximum of three years.
The Independents later agreed to extend the proposal to protect these tenants for five years, after which rent control would be completely ended. The CCA-endorsed councillors favor permanently keeping some semblance of rent control.
Election Dispute
Even Walsh's removal has generated another controversy, as two men began a tense fight this week over who will succeed the councillor.
The Cambridge Election Commission had originally been instructed to begin a recount of Walsh's ballots on Monday.
Under the city's proportional representation voting system, voters rank nine councillors--who represent the city at large--in order of preference. When a seat is vacated, only those ballots whose voters had ranked that councillor first are recounted, and the candidate with the most votes wins.
Anthony D. Galluccio, who finished 12th in last November's council race, is likely to succeed Walsh under this system. But James J. McSweeney, who actually finished 10th in the election, obtained a restraining order from Middlesex Country Superior Court yesterday, preventing the election commission from holding a recount until the court can settle the dispute.
"There are currently no guidelines for filling the current, vacancy and it is incumbent upon the Board [of Election Commissioners] to come [up] with the fairest method possible," Dennis Newman, McSweeney's attorney, wrote Wednesday in a letter to the board.
Newman suggested that the only two fair ways to determine Walsh's successor would be to appoint the candidate who came closest to winning or to redistribute all unallocated ballots, including the 2182 ballots cast for Walsh. Both methods would result in McSweeney's selection.
Teresa S. Neighbor, executive director of the Election Commission, confirmed yesterday that no recount of the ballots has been planned yet.
Galluccio last night vigorously defended his right to the council seat. "This is not a principled objection to the voting system," he told The Crimson last night. "It's not liking the results so he's proposing other methods to win by."
He acknowledged that the proportional system "will continuously be questioned." But he said that the system is designed to replace councillors with candidates similar in ideology.
"Bill Walsh's voters don't care that Jim McSweeney finished ahead of Edward N. Cyr or Anthony Galluccio," Galluccio said. "The principle is that the candidate who is most compatible with the candidate that's vacated the seat, will replace him."
McSweeney and Newman did not return repeated messages left yesterday.
The court injunction will virtually insure that no replacement is picked in time for Sunday's vote on the city's response to Question 9, Galluccio said.
"Basically what his action has done has prevented there being a full-seated city council in place to vote on the home-rule petition," he added.