It was early in 1963, and Francis H. Duehay '55 was trying to decide what to do with his life. He had degrees from the College and the Graduate School of Education (GSE), he had two years' service in the Navy, and he had taught at a local high school. Now, he was an administrator at the GSE, and life seemed a little predictable.

He was serving on a Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) committee that was unsuccessfully seeking qualified Cambridge School Committee candidates, and decided he might as well throw his hat into the ring.

His successful election was to set Duehay on a nearly 40-year sojourn into local politics, which he bowed out of after his final council term ended this January.

For his longevity and focus on the local, Duehay has earned favorable comparisons to former Speaker of the House Democrat Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, another Cambridge politician.

To what end local politics, though? Why did Duehay stay in city government through the course of his political career, even as opportunities in state and national politics beckoned?

The answer for Duehay is simple: his roots.

Close to Home

Duehay, born, raised and educated in Cambridge, kept a close watch on his home throughout his life.

At a December CCA meeting, Duehay explained the city's attraction for him.

"He told a story of being a kid and wondering what this organization was his parents were working for," says Robert Winters, publisher of the on-line Cambridge Civic Journal. "He grew up with that tradition of working for local government as a child."

That much is evident as Duehay lists his influences: teachers, camp counselors, mother, grandfather.

"It seemed to me that education, public service, and politics...would be a good way to affect people's lives," Duehay says.

But why didn't Duehay run for another office during his 28 years on the council?

"I found working at the local level very satisfying," he says, adding that the small nine-person council makes it effective.

"I think that Frank was a great admirer of Tip O'Neill, and that he practiced the act locally," says Robert C. Barber '72, Duehay's campaign manager for his 1983 and 1985 council elections.

Alice Wolf, who served with Duehay on the council from 1984-93 and was mayor in 1990-91, agrees.

"He found [the council] as a satisfying way of contributing to his community," Wolf says.

For the lifelong Cantabrigian, it seems, Cambridge never got boring.

And considering Cambridge politics, perhaps that fact that Duehay stayed in the "People's Republic" is not all that surprising. Three of this year's city councillors--Marjorie C. Decker, Anthony D. Galluccio and Michael A. Sullivan--are native Cantabs.

Duehay says Congress is the only other elected body he would have liked to have served in.

In 1986, after O'Neill retired, he considered running for Congress, but decided against it once Joseph P. Kennedy announced his candidacy.

"It seemed to me that the outcome was preordained," Duehay says.

Juggling Act

Still, the fact that Duehay didn't stray far from home doesn't mean he didn't have his eye on state and national government and issues.

In his career, he acted in several roles at once, developing programs such as voluntary desegregation, school choice, the sister city program and recycling iniatives and promoting them nationally.

"He's seen that Cambridge has the opportunity to be a model for other cities and towns across the country," Barber says.

He did not stop working at Harvard until 1974, when he became executive director of the Lincoln Filene Center for Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University, where he organized local universities' efforts to install magnet schools and programs in the Boston school system following the 1974 court order to desegregate the schools.

At the end of his career, Duehay was still juggling as he served on the Board of Directors of the National League of Cities, as vice president of the Massachusetts Municipal Association and on the Board of Directors of the Phillips Brooks House Association at Harvard.

"You do the best you can at it," Duehay says.

Barber says that Duehay was involved in these organizations in addition to being on the council so he could work on local problems while tying in state and national involvement.

"I think that Frank constantly had his eye on government in the sense of what the limits of local government are and what state and federal governments can do," Barber says.

Duehay explains his various commitments are in line because government is a "seamless web" with interrelated issues.

For example, "the defense budget is very, very important," Duehay says. "The more that's spent on the military budget, the less that's spent on urban programs."

Duehay at Work

Duehay, the CCA standard-bearer, was known for being pragmatic and methodical, bringing two camps together on contentious issues.

Ackermann says the development of community schools in the late 1960s and the expansion of the Red Line are two places where Duehay's approach was key.

"He would identify a goal, and realize that it would take time [to develop the backing and resources necessary to achieve that goal," she says. "He was not a talker, he was a doer, and he was a doer who realized he could not do anything overnight."

Looking back, Duehay says his biggest achievements were the roles he played in stabilizing the city's management and in affordable housing.

When he first arrived on the council, the city had had five or six city managers within a six-year period.

Now, City Manager Robert W. Healy has been in office for nearly two decades. Though the length of his tenure has come under severe criticism recently--councillors Kenneth E. Reeves '72, Timothy J. Toomey and Katharine Triantafillou voted to not give him a contract extension in September--Healy has led the city to become one of the six best financed cities in the U.S.

Duehay's role in affordable housing was more visible, however. A strong supporter of rent control since its inception in 1969, the system was voted out by a statewide referendum in 1994.

"It wasn't the city manager or the mayor or the city council that lost rent control, it was through a statewide referendum," Duehay says.

Duehay also filed state legislation to create the city's Affordable Housing Trust. The city was able to bring together all of its housing agencies' resources because of the Trust, he says.

"[The trust] could allow the city to bid for and take land for housing without going through the normal channels of public bidding," he says.

After the loss of rent control, Duehay developed the CITYHOME program. At a council meeting Oct. 25, Healy said 1,761 units of affordable housing have been created or preserved since the program began in July 1995.

Time for a New System?

In Cambridge's "weak mayor" system, Duehay has been mayor, councillor and citizen.

But for some time, there have been rumblings from Cantabrigians that the weak mayor system should be replaced.

From his unique vantage point, does Duehay think it's time to update the system?

The form of government has strengths and weaknesses just like any other form of government, he says, but it works well.

"I'm not sure there's any other city that is better governed," he says, pointing to the city's economic development, its daycare programs, its teen centers, the new Senior Center in Central Square, its AAA-bond rating and the considerable amount of money the city puts into affordable housing, more than any other city in Massachusetts.

"The system of government has worked and has worked very well," Duehay says. "I don't think there are many arguments [to change the system] I've heard that are very convincing."

Duehay says the burden is on Cantabrigians to push for changes to make their city government better, if necessary.

"It's probably a good idea for people to look at their form of government every once in a while and test it," he says.

Similiarly, Duehay doesn't think the way Cambridge's mayor is elected needs to be changed.

Although it's nearly February and the council still hasn't settled on a mayor (please see below and related story, page 7), Duehay defends the process.

"I think the idea of the council electing a mayor is a good one," he says, because council members are aware of their colleagues' qualifications.

The council does "slow down" until a mayor is chosen, Duehay acknowledges, and the fact that it takes some time is a "decent criticism," but that's not so important in the long run.

"I don't know that lasting damage has been done by waiting," he says.

No Regrets

Duehay says he could second-guess himself but he hasn't looked back on his career in that way.

"I'm sure there are plenty of things I could have done differently," he says. "I worked as hard as I could at it, and I made a number of positive changes."

Like all politicians, however, Duehay has not been immune to criticism.

The complicated and contentious 1998 mayoral election--in which Triantafillou received the necessary five votes for mayor before Galluccio, Sheila T. Russell, Duehay, Henrietta Davis and Kathleen L. Born changed their votes to Duehay, making him mayor--was particularly controversial.

"At 5:15 p.m. today, I told [Duehay] that I heard a rumor that my colleagues were going to do me in,"

Triantafillou told the Cambridge Chronicle at the time. "He looked me in the face and said, 'No. That's not going to happen.'"

In the same issue, Duehay defended the wheeling and dealing, which also resulted in Independent Galluccio being elected vice-mayor.

"It's very difficult to be completely candid in a situation like that, because everyone's strategies depend on what they think other people are going to do," Duehay told the Chronicle.

"There were a lot of people playing hardball behind the scenes, and, as it turned out, I had more secondary strength" he added.

After her mayoral loss, Triantafillou subsequently resigned from the CCA, leading to a further fracturing of the progressive bloc on the council. Reeves disassociated himself from the CCA while he was running for a second term as mayor in 1994, and newly elected councillor Decker refused the association's endorsement last summer.

With Duehay's retirement, the council only has three CCA members--Born, Jim Braude and Davis--making it hard for Born to gather the necessary five votes to get elected mayor. Though Decker has voted for Born so far, she has not yet been able to garner the elusive fifth vote, and Decker's vote is not entirely secure.

A Fond Farewell

Still, Duehay's career was marked by his pragmatic approach--and some funnier moments, too.

His retirement party at MIT's Walker Memorial on Dec. 10 featured much banter and humor.

Recently retired Councillor Russell (a council member from 1985 to 1999), whose concurrent retirement with Duehay's marks the end of an era this year, said that only one time did Duehay "let his hair down."

At a holiday party, Russell said, Duehay was looking "very relaxed." He and a friend gave a rousing rendition of "Marching to Pretoria," finishing with Duehay's "trademark" no-lips whistle.

"That should show you how wild he can get," Russell said wryly.

Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Somerville) spoke of Duehay's tenacity.

"I have always found him to be a real pain in the neck," Capuano quipped. "We'll give you whatever you want, just to shut you up," he added.

And at the party, Duehay laughingly told partygoers of an experience he had on the 1997 campaign trail that made him think seriously about retirement. As he visited with an elderly woman, she said she remembered meeting his "father" when he was running for office more than 30 years ago.

"How is he?" she asked.

The politician she remembered, of course, was a younger Duehay.

As for Duehay's future, he says he'll be doing work in education and public service, just not from the vantage point of an elected official.

"It's very likely that I'll be doing the same kinds of things I've always been doing," he says.