For six years, the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA), the city's liberal political group, has dominated Cambridge politics with a platform of "good government" and a biennial slate of pro-tenant City Council candidates.
The death of rent control has changed all that.
Politicians, pundits and activists say the demise of rent control--for a quarter century the single issue able to make or break a politician in this city of Democrats--initiated a seismic shift that could alter the face of city politics for decades to come.
State voters decided Election Day to abolish rent control--but the state legislature voted to provide a grace period of up to two years for some elderly, disabled and low-income tenants.
The 24-year-old battle between small property owners who said the system was abused, and low-income tenants who feared the city's gentrification, is over. Finding themselves without a rallying cause after 25 years of battle, Cambridge politicians are scrambling to find a new ideological fault line that will define the next generation of city politics.
For the first time since 1989, Independent councillors are poised to seize control of the council, backed by a two-year-old group calling itself the Alliance for Change.
The Alliance was formed by probusiness interests to resist what it calls the CCA's "dictatorship," and its attacks have weakened an already troubled CCA.
The CCA's slim five-person majority on the nine-member council was thrown into confusion by the defection of Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves, the council's only minority member.
Reeves, who is Black, defied the CCA board and ran in 1993 for a second term as mayor--and won. The CCA had wanted to rotate the mayor-ship among its councillors.
Adding to the liberal group's troubles was the replacement of former Councillor William H. Walsh, following his conviction on federal charges, by Alliance candidate Anthony D. Galluccio. The Alliance now has four councillors and a conservative, probusiness vote to match the CCA's progressively liberal stance.
Before the CCA takeover six years The CCA: A Faltering Group? Board members and politicians say the CCA isnow in the throes of an identity crisis. "People on the [CCA] board really made acommitment to help the CCA, and right now thereare differences on what that vision ought to be,"says board member Charles R. Colbert III. "I thinka lot of that has to deal with the demise of rentcontrol." Even politicians who have benefited from theCCA's support have pointed to internal problemscaused by the changing political climate. "It's been kind of floundering as anorganization," says Alice K. Wolf, who served asmayor from 1990 to 1991 and was endorsed by theCCA. "I think the big political question is, `How isthe CCA going to define itself?'" she says. "Ithink there's a certain amount of disarray now andI think that could have major implications fortheir politics. They've got to get their acttogether." Members and observers of the CCA say thegroup's task now is to redefine both its purposeand its ideology. CCA President R. Philip Dowds admits the grouphad not communicated with the councillors it hadendorsed for the last election--Kathleen L. Born,Francis H. Duehay '55, Jonathan S. Myers andKatherine Triantafillou. But Dowds says the CCA board started to meetagain regularly with them in December. Still, Dowds concedes that lack of focus hasled the Cambridge political institution astray."The CCA goes through periods--and this isone--where there isn't any systematic effort forpeople to get together," he says. "Maybe everybodywas busy. I don't quite know why it was." Dowds says the CCA's current membership isaround 600, larger than in past years. Theorganization is still conducting its 1995membership drive, he says. "Everybody in the CCA has agreed this is a timefor more systematic cooperation," Dowds says."Councillors are meeting with us about every otherweek. We hope to get the same thing with ourSchool Committee members." Still, Dowds denies the CCA is undergoing anidentity crisis. "In terms of the current missionof the CCA, that is largely unchanged," he says."The CCA has for 50 years worked to create honest,competent and cost-effective government forCambridge." The biggest threat to the CCA's politicalhegemony comes from the fledgling Alliance forChange, whose members say the group, in contrastto the CCA, does not support a specific politicalagenda. "The whole idea in forming the group was toform provide a contrast to the CCA," says EdwardJ. O'Connell, the Alliance's chair. "Thatorganization was dictating policy to electedofficials," he says. "Public policy positionsshould come from the bottom up. O'Connell says one of the Alliance's purposesis to break the stranglehold of special interests,as represented by the CCA. "In the CCA, it's a small group of people whoget together and decide what's best for the cityin the name of progressive liberalism, but inreality it's power politics." CCA supporters vehemently deny the Alliance'scharge. "It never happens," says Edward N. Cyr, who saton the council from 1990 to 1994. Cyr says the CCAhas repeatedly failed in its efforts to exert"occasionally inappropriate" influence on itscouncillors' votes. Cyr points to the council's decision in Octoberto extend City Manager Robert W. Healy's contractfor two years. With the exception ofTriantafillou, all of the CCA-endorsed candidatessided with the manager, despite the CCA'sobjections. "The CCA has less control now than ever," saysRobert Winters, who ran unsuccessfully for acouncil seat in 1993 and was endorsed by theAlliance. "It's always been something of a battlebetween the organization and its councillors, asthe councillors try to retain their ownindependence while the CCA organization tries toassert its own control." Minority relations are also plaguing theorganization. Reeves alienated the CCA when he ranfor a second term as mayor in 1993, defying theboard's hopes of rotating the mayorship andinstalling Duehay as mayor. Instead, Reeves allied himself with the fourindependent councillors, and rewarded one of them,Sheila T. Russell, with the office of vice mayor. Despite Reeves' estrangement from the CCA,observers agree he has successfully consolidatedhis support on the council while weathering apolitical storm over ceremonial spending. "The CCA, I predict, will get little supportfrom the minority community, because of the waythey treated Ken Reeves," Winters says. "I don'tbelieve any organization has the right to dictateterms such as that to an elected official." Some have also wondered whether Reeves'departure from the CCA fold may lead the way forother defections. "Ken Reeves obviously feels thatit's safe to run on his own merits, so I don'tknow why Duehay, Born and Triantafillou can't runon their own merits, seek out their constituentsand make a pitch on their positions and issues,"said one city official, who spoke on the conditionof anonymity. Dowds said the CCA is still assembling its 1995board of directors, who will ultimately decide whothe group will endorse. But whoever thecandidates, it is certain they will face stiffcompetition for control of the council. The Alliance: The New Ruling Party? The Alliance for Change was formed in July 1993to promote a slate of candidates for the November1993 City Council and School Committee elections.Of its nine council endorsements, three--Russell,Michael A. Sullivan and Timothy J. Toomey Jr.--wonseats on the council. And the December appointmentof Anthony D. Galluccio to succeed Walsh on thecouncil brought the number of Alliance candidatesto four. O'Connell says the Alliance has between 200 and300 paid members, and that its meetings have drawnaround 40 Cantabrigians a month. Reeves has spokenat an Alliance meeting, but is not a member,O'Connell says. The Alliance advocates no political position,O'Connell said in an interview last week. "Theplatform is found in the positions the candidatesstake out," he says. O'Connell says the group'smission is "to try to end divisiveness andgridlock in City Hall" while engaging in "dialogueand consensus-building." But the Alliance's professed neutrality hasdrawn attacks from many politicians and CCAsupporters, who say the new group is engaging inpolitics as usual. "You cannot be an organization that claims tobe about change without being willing to definewhat that change is," Cyr says. "They have atheory that you shouldn't have an agenda. Itdoesn't make sense. How is a voter to decide whatthe issues are that separate this slate fromanother?" "The statement that we want civility ingovernment is a nice one, but civility is not anend to the purpose of government," Cyr adds."Policy is." Galluccio disagrees. He says the essence of theAlliance lies in promoting non-partisanship. "TheAlliance's biggest goal was to elect andindependent City Council, which means that you'renot tied down to a political platform that'sdictated to you, that you will go in, issue byissue, and decide what's best for the city." Even among Alliance members, however, there isskepticism over the realism of the group's goals. "In the long term no organization like theAlliance for Change, in the absence of a platform,can survive for long," Winters says. "Inevitably,certain common positions will eventually worktheir way into a platform. [The Alliance] has yetto really develop an identity." Indeed, most Cambridge politicos says theAlliance is a group of conservative Democratsallied against the liberal Democrats of the CCA. "I think it's more a question of the centerversus the left, with not a whole of right,"Winters says. The CCA won its majority in 1989--and has heldit since--largely by benefiting from the city'svoting system, called proportional representation. Voters rank up to nine candidates in order ofpreference, and the liberal group hastraditionally endorsed a slate. Thousands of cityvoters have followed the party line, in anoverwhelmingly Democratic city where traditionalDemocratic-Republican politics are mostlyirrelevant. By endorsing a full slate of candidates eachelection cycle, even CCA-endorsed candidates wholost would benefit other CCA-endorsed candidates,because the votes of losing candidates aretransferred to the front runners. Uncertain Future Political pundit Glenn S. Koocher '71, a formerCCA-endorsed School Committee member who now hostsa political talk show, says the Alliance does havea platform. Its councillors have already tendedtoward pro-business, anti-regulation practices, hesays. The Alliance, its leaders admit, was foundedprimarily to establish support for theIndependents. "The Alliance for Change is trying to fill thegap for voters who want an honorable gapgovernment but who either can't tolerated enforcedpolitical correctness or local government that'sgone too far to the left," Koocher says. O'Connell denies the conservative label too. "Ithink we're more centrist, but we're veryconcerned with bread-and-butter Democratic issues:jobs, affordable delivery of services and concernwith our tax base," he says, adding that localgovernment had gotten too big, with manycommissions filling redundant roles. "Their general goals sound very similar tothose of the CCA," Dowds says. "We'll see to whatextent that actually attracts a politicalfollowing," he adds.
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