What's All This Fuss About? Housing, Finances, Personnel

Rent Control

Tenants who live in the city's 20,000 rent-controlled apartments will be the biggest winners or losers in tomorrow's city council elections. The future of the rent control system, which regulates the amount landlords can charge tenants, is, as usual, on the line.

For the past decade rent control has survived in Cambridge through a precarious one man majority on the city council. Four councilors--members of the Cambridge Civic Association--have pledged to maintain the present system, four would like to at least significantly weaken it, and one--former mayor and long-time councilor Alfred E. Vellucci--takes delight in holding the swing vote. He has never dropped his support of rent control, though.

An Independent majority on the council could spell the end to strong city ordinances supporting rent control, which was adopted 10 years ago to protect low and moderate income families from skyrocketing rents. While a total rent decontrol is unlikely because of the enormous upheaval it would cause, CCA members predict that a significant softening of current city codes would slowly turn many traditional blue-collar neighborhoods into elite bedroom communities for Boston's young paraprofessionals.

Part of the increasing attack on rent control stems from the often inefficient and nearly always painfully slow operation of the rent control board, which oversees the entire system and acts as a final judge in all disputes between tenants and landlords. Even the strongest supporters of rent control--including incumbent councilor David Sullivan, who drafted the primary condo control legislation--agree that rent control board procedures should be streamlined.

But the most serious criticisms continue to be based on a philosophical schism that has divided the council throughout the existence of rent control. While CCA members and Velluci see the need for social constrainst to protect the poor and elderly, many of the Independents continue to resent city codes which prevent landlords from dealing in the free market. Rent control, they say, subsidizes many wealthy professionals, discourages maintenance, and victimizes landlords.

Condo Conversion

While rent control successfully slowed down the increase in rents that has already forced thousands of tenants out of Cambridge, it also created a tremendous incentive for landlords to convert their apartments into condominiums and sacrifice long-term income for a one-time profit.

To prevent rent control from falling apart, CCA members and Vellucciduring the past few years have passed a series of ordinances designed to prevent the removal of rent-controlled units from the housing market.

These anti-condominium ordinances have proven the most controversial during the last few years because they have trapped many tenants in a seemingly no-win situation because the latest set of city codes forbid tenants-turned-condo owners from residing in their homes without special removal permits.

These tenants caught in the middle, high-income condominium owners, and developers who have been shut out of potential windfalls by the anti-condo ordinances form a powerful voting block which has CCA members running harder than ever to retain their council seats.

CCA councilor David Wylie, considered by many to be in the greatest danger of losing his council seat, recently pleaded with a group of tenants seeking condominium removal permits to remember their former plight as rent-control tenants. "Your financial situation has changed," Wylie told the tenants, "but the members of this council pledged to preserve rent control cannot change even if it is only two weeks before the election." Mary Allen Wilkes is the chief standard-bearer of the condo forces.

Tax Assessment

In the case of steadily increasing property assessments, it is Cambridge homeowners rather than tenants who may be forced out of the city.

The property tax picture has been clouded this year by state-mandated 100 per cent evaluation, a process of re-assessing the city's entire housing stock based on its total market value rather than on a fixed percentage of that value. Many city councilors and council candidates are worried that 100 percent valuation, while needed to generate additional income in the face of Proposition 2 1/2, will deal the greatest blow to low income and elderly homeowners who can least afford it. And West Cambridge representatives are concerned that assessments may have grown most sharply in their well-heeled neighborhood.

The process of calculating this year's property tax bills has already been delayed several months and some challengers have charged council incumbents with intentionally postponing the release of property tax bills until after the elections. Others, such as CCA endorsed candidate Wendy Abt, maintain that the delay costs the city thousands of dollars per day, and is an example of poor management on the part of the city council.

A further issue related to property taxes revolves around the bogey of classification, which was created by a new state law allowing municipalities to assess homeowners and commercial property owners at different rates. While CCA candidates favor placing a larger proportion of the total tax burden on the city's commercial community, many of the Independents are strongly opposed to charging business at a higher rate.

City Manager

In most of the toughest choices facing Cambridge, the city council must act through its executive arm, the city manager. It is the city manager who appoints members of the rent control board, who is responsible for insuring that property tax bills will be released on time, who must prepare an austere budget in the wake of Proposition 2 1/2, and who hires and fires all city officials.

The current acting city manager, Robert Healy--who replaced James Sullivan, now director of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, earlier this year--has been put on notice by several councilors that his future as permanent city manager is in jeapordy.

If the city council continues to remain evenly split between the CCA and the Independents, Healy could hang on to the top city administrative post by virtue of a compromise between the councilors. But if either the CCA or the Independents win a clear majority, it is possible that they would take the opportunity to hand pick a city manager would would be more amenable to serving their own predelictions.

Although the city manager holds total responsibility for the daily operation of city government, he may be fired at any time by a majority of the council. Sullivan was fired for political reasons after serving in Cambridge for several years in the late 60s, and not rehired until the political winds turned his way some years later.

So far Healy has attempted to walk a tightrope between the CCA and the Independents, but as a result he has been criticized by Vellucci and others for being too weak and not showing enough guidance for the myriad of city agencies including the rent board, the building and health departments, and others.

Proposition 2 1/2

While it is the city manager who annually draws up the Cambridge budget, it is the city council that must scrutinize the city's finances line by line and answer to voters upset by cuts in essential services as well as personnel.

The process of budget-making has been complicated a hundred-fold by the passage of Proposition 2 1/2, the property tax-cutting measure which Bay State voters approved overwhelmingly last fall. Prop 2 1/2, the property tax-cutting measure which Bay State voters approved overwhelmingly last fall. Prop 2 1/2 reduces the total expenditures of each municipality in the Commonwealth, and thus forces tough choices by local governments. The city council this year passed a budget which significantly reduced funding for the school, fire and police departments without drastically affecting city services. Next fiscal year, however, the choices promise to be harder still, and that means that an even greater amount of political pressure will be exerted on the councilors. The Independents have demonstrated a greater tendency to preserve personnel, especially in the police and fire departments; services to residents seem of more concern to the CCA.

In the campaign this year, all of the incumbent councilors have taken credit for averting what had been dire predictions of essential service cuts. The incumbents maintain that because of their experience they will be better able to cope with the next round of budget slashing, while the challengers charge that thousands of dollars remain to be saved through more efficient management of current resources as well as the elimination of patronage jobs that continue to find a place on city pay-rolls.