"[Reeves] hopes the City Council will work more like the school committee did in the last two years," says Richard R. Buery '92, executive assistant to the mayor.

But CCA officials say that Reeves' separation from the CCA will hinder non-partisan cooperation on the Council.

Dowds says Reeves' offense during the election was not that he sought votes with the Independents, but rather that he failed to make "suitable deals with the other CCA councillors." The effect, Dowds says, was to "trash working relationships" within the Council.

"There has been any number of cases where the election of mayor has crossed party lines," says Dowds. "But it's been very, very rare that the CCA splits on a matter of this importance."

Reeves was the only one of the five CCA-endorsed councillors who supported his reelection as mayor.

By doing this, Reeves broke the agreement he signed with the CCA, which states that CCA-endorsed councillors should reach a consensus on the election of mayor, city manager and superintendent.

"The CCA platform is to agree on [the three positions] 'if at all possible,' Reeves says. "That 'if at all possible' is very germaine."

Reeves says that although several of his colleagues told him he could have been reelected with more than the five votes he received, he "absolutely [does] not believe that."

"It was my own decision to accept the first five votes," Reeves says.

"I don't think that he deliberately didn't seek the votes of the people who supported him," says Charles R. Colbert III, a long-time Reeves supporter. "The people on the Independent side came through first."

But CCA-endorsed councillor Francis H. Duehay '55 says that although it is premature to assess the implications of Reeves' shift, the breach of agreement cannot be easily dismissed.

"This matter is a serious one because we expected that we would work together to elect the mayor, and we didn't do that," says Duehay.

Councillor Kathleen L. Born, who is CCA-endorsed, says that the lack of consensus among the CCA councillors could affect Reeves' relationship with them.

"Ken is no longer in the CCA loop. He's more in the Independent loop of information," says Born. "Or he's in his own loop."

And Born adds: "The CCA councillors don't have the same kind of relationship with Ken that they have with each other."