City Bitties

Superintendent Robert J. Peterkin last week released his plans for the Cambridge School District's budget for fiscal year 1986 it carries a $50.9 million price tag. Four million dollars more than last year's budget, the proposal calls for $446,200 to be spent on new of expanded program designed to improve local school children's educational performance Peter in said.

A sizable in staff salaries also projected the year's projected budget, collecting the 9.5 percent pay increase the school committee awarded teachers several montly are and a controversial 18 percent pay hike the committee granted three administrators recently.

Peterkin's plan goes $1.6 million beyond City Manager Robert W. Healy's estimated allotment for the schools in the city's overall budget.

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Even historical sites need gunmicks to draw people. This year curators of the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow home, located on Brattle St. just beyond Radcliffe Yard, have decided to invite people to four the 226 year old house in celebration of the poet and former Harvard professor's 183rd birthday.

"We don't have much of a visitation during the winter," said an employee of the home, which has been run by the National Part Service since 1971, when the historically-furnished home was donated by the Longfellow family During the summer, the landmart which was also the first headquarters for George Washington's troops gets about 75 visitors a day, but that figure drops to as low as 20 a day on winter weekends.

Longfellow first began living in the Georgian-style home in 1837 as a boarder but later bought the home. He lived there for the last 45 years of his life.

Guided tours of the house, located at 105 Brattle St., are offered daily between 10 a.m. and 4.30 p.m.

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The traditional liberal-conservative split on the Cambridge City Council and School Committee between members of the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) and independents may be threatened by a third slate this fall. Daniel Crane, a local lawyer and son of the kite Edward Crane, long-time Cambridge mayor, has said that he may run for the 9-member governing body under a moderate pro business tag.

The Cambridge Tab quoted Crane, a member of the Association for a Better Cambridge--a loosely defined moderate, pro-reform group as saying that if he does "get a slate together, the basic thing we will be most committed to will be the streamlining of operations at the council as well as instilling some more businesslike behavior at the council...we will want to make it less like a circus."

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A year from now Harvard Square will be the site, of the first of three Cambridge Discovery, Inc. information booths--the result of City Councilor Francis H. Duchay's effort to increase knowledge of the city to both residents and tourists. According to a descriptive report of the project, "the groups benefitting from this integrated program include tourists and local residents and the business community and municipality."

The report praises Cambridge for its complexity and diversity, calling it "second only to Boston in terms of Massachusetts tourist attractions," but chides the city for not having an information center. The nonprofit organization will, among other services, provide walking tours given by high school students and develop and revise guides to the city.

Out of a total annual budget of about $100,000, taxpayers will pick up about $20,000, with the remainder coming from private donations.