Public Debate

Cambridge City Solicitor Philip M. Cronin '53 last week issued a legal opinion which prevented a candidates' meeting from being held in the Lincoln Community School. His action is another example of the tactics used by the present city administration to keep progressive candidates out of city government.

The Lincoln Neighborhood Council had invited all the candidates for City Council to speak at an open meeting to be held at the school. Cronin, however, ruled that the meeting could not take place; he broadly interpreted the law which states that no city employee shall contribute to campaigns for municipal office.

Cronin stated that the Council's use of the school building would, in effect, "contribute space free of charge to political candidates and thereby constitute an indirect campaign contribution" by city employees. Further, said Cronin, "Making available public space in a public building is to use such space for a non-municipal function, and worse, a political function." Even though all candidates were invited, he refused to consider the meeting an educational one.

The legality of this ruling is questionable. So is its purpose. Last year Cronin made no move to stop the Peabody-Agassiz Neighborhood Association from sponsoring a candidates' meeting at the Peabody School because the local candidates were running for state and not municipal office. And this week he is allowing the League of Women Voters to sponsor candidates' meetings at the Peabody School, the Morse School, and the Longfellow School. Cronin upholds the League's right to their meetings because, he says, it is an organization independent from city government, unlike the community schools program. But the issue is much simpler than Cronin makes it sound: if one candidates meeting is allowed, all should be.

Cronin has, understandably, not been willing to talk about this matter. He refused to give the Crimson a copy of his legal opinion on the grounds that it is "privileged information." He also refused to discuss the legal basis for the opinion with a Crimson reporter.

The real reason for the opinion and Cronin's subsequent reluctance to release or discuss it was reflected in what finally happened on the day of the meeting.

Most of the candidates for City Council, including the progressive Cambridge Civic Association slate, liberal incumbents Barbara Ackerman and Robert Moncrieff, independent candidates, and Socialist Workers Party candidates showed up for the 'illegal' meeting and spoke to a group in the street. Five councillors were conspicuously absent: incumbents Thomas Danehy, Daniel Clinton, Walter Sullivan, Alfred Velluci, and Thomas Coates. It is clear from this incident that these candidates do not want to discuss in public the present state of the government they run. The interests of these same politicians are served by Cronin's decision.