"There has been what I would say is an unparalleled level of arrogance," said Vice-Mayor David P. Maher. "No longer can this council sit back and let the crumbs be thrown at us."

All of Harvard's development projects in Cambridge must receive City Council approval. Last night, councillors offered thinly veiled suggestions that the council should consider halting future development--thereby upping pressure on the University to make overtures to the city.

"Maybe it's time for the freeze," said Councillor Michael A. Sullivan.

Anger and resentment boiled over at the council meeting last night. But ill feelings had been simmering ever since the Boston afterschool initiative was announced last week.

Last Thursday, a day after Harvard officials announced the Boston afterschool initiative, Mayor Galluccio sent a letter to University President Neil L. Rudenstine saying he felt "very unclear" about Harvard's relationship with the city. In his letter, Galluccio worried that the inequity in education funding could cause "great harm" to relations between the University and the city.

Rudenstine responded the next day, writing that "our involvement in the Boston program arose out of a long process of consultation and collaboration." He wrote that "all of us should work hard to keep any and all individual events in perspective."

In his letter to the mayor, Rudenstine also said "Harvard is embarked on a course of steadily deepening involvement in the life of our cities," adding that "I hope this is welcome."