"I think the Council would have been foolish to give notice to a perfectly competent City Manager who's done a good job," Winters said. "This way it works out better."

The second major issue of the meeting was the issue of whether or not to put links on the City of Cambridge's Web page to the Web pages of candidates running for citywide election. The order had two major provisions.

"One facet called for the city to provide links to any candidate," while the other prohibited all links on other Web sites to candidates, he said.

The Council voted 6-3 in favor of providing the links, with Councillors Kathleen L. Born, Michael A. Sullivan, and Russell voting against the order.

"It was a very bizarre vote," said Winters, who said the Council was voting for both incongruous provisions at once.

Winters said his online publication Web site, home of the Cambridge Civic Journal, is currently the only site which has links to candidates. He added that he publishes the links "exclusively as a public service."

"It's taking away the only site that has those links," Winters protested.

Davis, who voted for the order, said it was more an issue of "how we can get more people to vote."