At a meeting last night the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) outlined its plan to regain the majority of city council and school committee seats.
About 100 members of the of the progressive political organization attended the group's annual meeting at the Central Square branch of the Cambridge Public Library to discuss the CCA's goals for the coming year.
"We wanted to have a mission that tells what we're all about--and fits on a bumper sticker," CCA leader Nancy Woods said in a presentation.
Woods outlined four CCA goals for the 1997 election.
According to Woods, the CCA will work to improve city government, elect progressive officials, increase turnout of CCA-supporting voters and increase CCA membership from its current roster of 300 to a total of 1000 members.
Woods added that the CCA will campaign to add one CCA member to both the City Council and the School Committee, as well as to reelect the seven current CCA-endorsed members.
CCA President Geneva T. Malenfant said that the CCA has not chosen specific independent councillors as "targets" for replacement. The independent councillors organized into the Alliance for Progress in 1993.
One more CCA-endorsed councillor would most likely return a CCA candidate to the mayor's seat in 1997. This year, with the council divided between four Alliance member and four CCA members, Alliance member Sheila T. Russell was elected as mayor.
"It was a big disappointment," Malenfant said.
Malenfant added that the Alliance relied mostly on lifetime Cambridge residents for support, and that she expected the Alliance's voter base to shrink as new people enter the city.
"It's my opinion that the independents'--the Alliance's--voter base is stagnant," she said.
School Focus
According to Malenfant, the CCA will focus on three main issues for the coming year: the city budget, education and housing.
Most important will be educa- In the spirit of the CCA's educational focus, the meeting featured a panel discussion titled "Improving Educational Performance in At-Risk Students." Panelists, including Graduate School of Education Professor Lowry Hemphill, agreed that parental involvement and high expectations are two keys to improving student performance
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