Four re-elected Cambridge City Coucillors clapped their hands to the sounds of a gospel choir. Councillor Michael A. Sullivan and outgoing Councillor Sheila T. Russell joked about Russell's age.

A Cambridge City Council meeting is normally a businesslike proceeding, but last night's, the first since the Nov. 2 election, was unusually loud and lighthearted.

Still, council members managed, amid the songs and jokes, to pass two measures to improve the quality and amount of public open space in Cambridge--and to approve $5,000 to buy 1,000 Thanksgiving turkeys for the poor.

The council voted 9-0 to spend $1.5 million to restore playgrounds and playing fields at Magazine Beach in Cambridgeport, following a bill that was co-sponsored in the state legislature by Barrios and Travaglini.

The renovations will include a complete overhaul of its athletic fields, playground repair and replacement, landscaping improvement and new sidewalk lighting, Barrios said.

Proponents of the plan emphasized that it will give three refurbished playing fields to a city neighborhood that does not have much open space. Preference will be given to youth-oriented activities on the site, they said.

"This is an opportunity that hasn't literally come before the council in decades," Bruce A. Houghton, fields manager for Cambridge Youth Soccer, said before the vote.

And the council seemed equally thrilled by the developments. For about a half-hour before the vote, councillors complimented State Rep. Jarrett T. Barrios '90, State Sen. Robert E. Travaglini, the city manager, and the Friends of Magazine Beach for completing a new joint management and license agreement between the city and the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) to renovate facilities at the beach.