"I think it's more of an institutional problem that requires a deeper institutional effort," said Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree Jr., an NAACP member. "It's the level of Commitment to hiring [minorities] that is critical."

Rev. L. Nelson Foxx, rector of St. Bartholomew's Church in Area Four, agrees. Foxx believes that in small cities like Cambridge, truly objective hiring is an elusive goal.

"It's like any other system," Foxx says. "The problem is not what you know, it's who you know. With any city of this size, there's bound to be some nepotism, some favoritism."

Yet other minority administrators think the problem may lie in the profitability of jobs elsewhere.

"It may just be networking, but sometimes I wonder if because of the municipalities' salary structures, minority individuals who are really in high demand by the private sector are being attracted to that sector," says Linda Chin, vice president for planning and marketing at the Cambridge Hospital Community Health Network.

From the city's perspective, the underrepresentation of minorities at the top of the city government hierarchy is a function of few openings and a low turnover rate.

"The core problem is there aren't vacancies that arise all that frequently," says Michael P. Gardner, the city's director of personnel and labor relations. But Gardner adds: "When a vacancy does arise, it's incumbent on us to be sure that the manager has the opportunity to consider a broad range of applicants."

Civil Service

As chief of the city's administration and finances, Healy is often blamed for the for the underrepresentation of minorities in Cambridge's bureaucracy.

Gardner, who heads the city's personnel office and is responsible for all city hiring except for School Department employees, has taken much of the flak.

Under Gardner is William A. Gomes, the city's affirmative action director.

Gomes has been in office since 1985, and oversaw the drafting of Cambridge's second affirmative action plan in 1991.

But neither Gomes nor Gardner has generated widespread support for the program, they criticized the aministrators for their lack of energetic recruiting.

"We have chosen people with the least energy to be responsible for affirmative action," Reeves says.

In defense of their records, Gardner and Healy point out that the city has met its affirmative action goals in six of the eight Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) categories set up by thefederal government.

Minorities are underrepresented particularlyunderrepresented among officials andadministrators, of whom only 11 percent areminority and protective-service workers, 22.7percent of whom are minority.