With the strong showings of Davis and first-time council candidate Marjorie Decker, it looks like Cambridgeport voters showed out in force for this election.

Davis, who has lived in Cambridgeport for more than thirty years, says other major issues she will focus on in her third term on the council are affordable housing, development which retains Cambridge's neighborhood scale, traffic management, and open space.

She was an administrator at the Agassiz preschool near Porter Square in the late 1980s when she first considered running for office.

"I thought, Gee, I can do that," she says. "I really cared about the schools because I had kids [Daniel, now 19, and Aaron, 17] in the schools."

Davis was elected to the School Committee in 1988, a position she held until 1995.

She was a freelance journalist for National Public Radio and other organizations from 1975-85 and as a social worker and community planner from 1967-74.

"My professional background is different," she says. "It gives me a particular perspective about public service."

--Edward B. Colby