In the battle over the tunnel, Harvard followed its old community relations strategy, confronting the neighborhood with a finished proposal—a package deal—then wrangling over it for months.

Now, even as they lobby city officials in a final push for the tunnel, University officals say they need a new game plan for community relations.

Moving On

This July, negotiations between Harvard and Mid-Cambridge broke down.

After about a dozen meetings, the University and neighborhood negotiating teams came up with a tentative deal, including millions of dollars worth of concessions from Harvard, such as the donation of a small park to the neighborhood and a moratoria on future building.

But ultimately, three of the four community representatives turned down the package.

Several months later, the two sides have held no further discussions about a tunnel package.

Pickett does not rule out the possibility of negotiating a tunnel package with Harvard—but only if the University agrees to put modifications to one of the two main CGIS buildings on the table.

Even John Pitkin, the former MCNA president who led the charge against the tunnel, says he has eased up on tunnel work and has not been in touch with the city council for a couple of weeks.

“We’re in touch with them but not actively lobbying,” Pitkin says. “Not to say that we won’t but we’ve got other things on our plate.”

When the city council discussed the tunnel in early October, several councillors made it clear that their positions had not changed since last December. And Cambridge Mayor Michael A. Sullivan says he doesn’t know when or if the city council will finally bring the tunnel to a vote.

Lessons Learned

At a recent meeting of the Cambridge Club, a local membership group, University President Lawrence H. Summers told a crowd of neighbors gathered at the Faculty Club that he was frustrated with the outcome of the tunnel negotiations.

“That was an example of something where we had worked very hard to accomodate [the neighbors],” Summers said in a Crimson interview, reiterating his remarks. “We felt it was a test of the desire to cooperate with Harvard. Harvard had done things it really hadn’t done in the past.”

University officials concede that, at this point, winning permission for the tunnel is unlikely. But so far Harvard has refused to give up.