City Solicitor to Speed Up Referendum Court Battle

Andrew T. Trodden, Cambridge City Solicitor, agreed yesterday to speed-up the court battle which will decide whether an anti-Vietnam war resolution can go on the ballot in the Nov. 7 City election.

Leaders of the Cambridge Neighborhood Committee, the local peace group sponsoring the resolution, don't think the courts can come to a decision in time for the Vietnam question to reach the polls in November. Hans F. Loeser, lawyer for the CNCV, said last night that Trodden's decision to hurry may "prove crucial." "We still need a lot of breaks" to get over all the judicial and administrative hurdles before Nov. 7, he added.

Middlesex County Superior Court gave Trodden until Oct. 1 to prepare his briefs for arguing the City's case against the CNCV resolution. Yesterday he agreed to move the hearings up to Oct. 6.

Deliberate Slowdown

CNCV leaders had charged Thursday that the city was deliberately slowing down judicial procedures in order to stall the resolution off the ballot. But Loeser said last night that Trodden's action "showed a lot more cooperative attitude on the part of the City."

Loeser now hopes that Trodden will agree to a "stipulation of facts"--a judicial procedure by which opposing lawyers agree on the facts of the case, eliminating the need for court testimony.

Even with Trodden's cooperation the earliest the courts could render a decision would be mid-October. If the decision is favorable, the resolution still would face a tangle of administrative procedures before it can go on the ballot.