Mayor Miffed on Rent Control

Cambridge Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72 said the city needs a proactive program to assist people who will be affected by the abolition of rent control, which may take effect as early as January 1.

Speaking at last night's city council meeting, Reeves also criticized the city councillors and rent control board for not responding to the issue with more urgency.

"It's probably the biggest change that has ever happened in the city in multiple decades," the mayor said forcefully.

Even though rent control was voted down in a November 8 referendum, there are currently two measures that could potentially work around the voters' decision and allow rent control to remain in effect.

The legislature could override the veto of Governor William F. Weld '66, which blocked Cambridge's homerule petition, which would allow Cambridge to be exempted from the results of the election. But observers say Senate Democrats will likely be unable to round up enough votes.

The petition, endorsed by the council, called for the state to exempt Cambridge from the referendum.

Rent control could also survive if the state Supreme Judicial Court upholds a lawsuit charging that the referendum questions were not explained properly.

Reeves said that since the outcome of these measures is unclear, the city must prepare for the possibility that rent control will be eliminated.

"This is an emergency and we have to treat it that way," he said.

"It's very clear to me that 30,000 people in Cambridge are not just going to wait for the landlord to evict them...so many of them are going to begin planning to move. And I don't think it's very good public policy myself to, in a city where someone else's decision is going to determine that one-third of the people ought to move, that we just sort of let them move, without any assistance of a real type."

Reeves said the council's apparent sense of non-urgency and the rent control board's lack of true assistance to people who face such "disruptions" were disturbing responses.

"It's not real in my view...where you simply tell people, "Well, here's a list of apartments in Everett and Malden that you might move to," Reeves said. "In fact, if that's what we're going to, I would beg you not to do it because people don't need that kind of help--that's useless to people."

Councillor Katherine Triantafillou said people's anger over facing eviction should be directed toward Governor Weld.

"People ought to go to [Weld's] house--send their increases, copies of their rent increases to him with a 'Merry Christmas' card," said Triantafillou.

"I think that every tenant who gets one of those rent-control notices ought to go sit in on his lawn this Christmas and wish him a Merry Christmas," she added.

Councillor Timothy J. Toomey Jr. also said he disagreed with the Governor's decision.

"We have done everything humanly possible from our end to attempt to address what's going to happen January 1, and I don't think the Governor gives a damn about the tenants of Cambridge."

Triantafillou also said she advocated a "purely academic answer" to the question of finding affordable housing for tenants who are evicted. Such an answer could be sought at universities such as Harvard or MIT, she said.

Reeves said government was failing to do its job.

"The one thing that government should provide people is stability! It is our job to provide stability so people can plan," he said.