Cambridge Mayor Francis H. Duehay 55, a city public servant for 36 years, has announced he will retire from political life when his term ends next January.

"Term limits have finaly reached me," Duehay joked in an interview yesterday.

"When you've had 18 elections, you begin to realize that it would be better to leave when people are saying, ' Isn't it too bad he's leaving,"'he said.

Duehay says the daily grind of policy negotiations and legislative wrangling have finally caught up with him.

"If I stayed another term, I'd be nearly 69 years old," he says. "There are several things I'm interested in doing. But I don't have time to think about that because I'm too busy."

Duehay, who is still uncertain about his future plans, began his political career in 1963 as a member of the Cambridge School Committee. After four terms, he was elected to the City Council in 1971. He has served on the council since then and has also served three terms as mayor.

He has dealt directly with nearly every major dilemma Cambridge has confronted in the past 40 years, from racial unrest and student protest in the 1960s to economic woes and crime waves in the '70s, through the desegregation wars of 1980 and 1981 to the economic renaissance of the late '80s and '90s.

"When I first came to the city council in the early '70s, rent control had just been adopted, but it was being so poorly administered that it was being completely ineffective," he says.

Duehay, who has supported rent control from its inception, worked to improve the system by streamlining city agencies and making available hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to lowincome families.

After nearly a decade of bureaucratic restructuring, he says,"We reformed the housing board. It's now considered one of the best in the country," he says.

Federal, state and local programs aimed at solving housing problems were placed under one roof with the development of the city's Affordable HousingTrust , which Duehay cites as one of his greatestaccomplishments.

"We brought all those disparate groups together," he says.

Duehay estimates that 1,500 housing units havebeen preserved for low- and middle -incomefamilities following rent control's abolition in1996.

Duehay and others on city council foughttooth-and-nail against the loss of rent controlbut eventually lost the battle.

The end of rent control helped lead tochanging Cambridge. The mayor said his greatestdisappointment is his "failure to dealconstructively with the growing racial and classtensions created largely, but not sloely, by theend of rent control."

"It required greater leadership than any of uswere able to provide," he says.

Single family homes in the city now have anaverage value of nearly $360,000, higher thansurrounding cities .Average home prices inCambridge are estimated to be around $263,000,nearly $100,000 more than neighboringSomeerville.

Lately, long-time residents have complaniedthat out-of-town landlords are squeezing them outof their family homes, forcing them to considermoving to less expensive locals.

Around 6,000 of the city's nearly 100,000residents service some from of welfare assistance.

Still, the news in Duheay's city is not allbad. Unemployment is at recorded lows Averageannual wages for Canta brigians are $37,641, farexceeding the statewide average.

Mayor Harvard

Duehay grew up in the city graduating from thecambridge Rindge and Latin High School. Aftergraduating with a degree in English from Harvard,he joined the U.S. Navy, retiring in 1957 with therank of lieutenant, junior grade. He then returnedto Harvard , earning a master's in English. In1968, he received a Ph.D in education (GSE).During the turbulent year of 1969, he was a GSEassistant dean.

Duehay says town-grown relations have improvedconsiderably since his childhood in Cambridge.

"Since the end of World War II, [an] expansionof universities led to a real industrial declinein Cambridge," he says.

Harvard professor were looked upon as arrogantacademics locked away in ivory towers who feltthey knew every thing about education. When heserved his first term on the School Committee in1963, Harvard "was a favorite whipping post."

But now, after decades of educationalpartnership between phillips Brroks HouseAssociation and city's police departments, andoutreach on behalf of both sides, "It's [now] veryamicable."

But Duehay predicts that one tear in therelationship's fabric will remain: Harvard'sexemption from paying property taxes, which ismandated in the Bay State's Constitution.

Duheay estimtes that Harvard should pay nearly$40,000,000 in property taxes--it now pays around$3,800,000 according to city officals. He suggeststhat Harvard decree that any future property itbusy in Cambridge be taxable--a way to repair thebreach, he says.

A Frank-less Council

Duehay says he pfrobably won't endrose councilcandidates in this November's election.

Once councillors are elected by popular vote,the council itself selects the mayor through whatDuehay calls "an internal process."

IN 1998, councilor Katherine Triantafiloualleged that background political deals had kepther from being mayor--and put Duehay in the hotseat.

As to his rapport with the rest of thecouncil, Duehay says, "I would sy that therelationship has not been terrific to begin withand it's not terrific now, but the acrimony is notthere."

Duehay says his final nine months on thecouncil will be busy--he'll be striving for moremoney to give to lowand moderate income familiesto buy homes, and evaluate a performance review onthe city's programs for families and children .

But on Jan. 2,2000, he will step down.

"It's been a long run," he says. "Now it's timeto say goodbye.