Reeves Defies CCA, Is Re-Elected Mayor

The Cambridge City Council re-elected Kenneth E. Reeves '72 as mayor this January in a vote marked by political bickering and an unusual alignment of the council's traditional factions.

Reeves, who was endorsed in the November council election by the progressive Cambridge Civic Association (CCA), was voted in not by other CCA councillors but by their perennial political opponents, the Independents.

In the 1993 elections, voters elected five CCA-backed candidates and four Independents.

Reeves sought support outside the CCA because the party has a policy of rotating the office of mayor among its councillors every two years.

If that had happened, Reeves would have been out and CCA-backed Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55 would have become mayor.

So Reeves solicited--and got--the votes of all four Independent councillors. None of the four other CCA councillors voted for Reeves.

In return for the mayorship, Reeves joined the Independents in successfully backing Independent councillor Sheila T. Russell for vice mayor.

Reeves' deal with the Independents caused a rift that, five months later, has still not healed.

While Reeves and the CCA have kept in contact since the mayor's defection, the dialogue has produced little more than more rancor.

"The CCA...is a paper tiger," Reeves said in an interview after the election. "It wants to roar like a big lion, but it is not. Certainly [it is] not a representative one."

Reeves' unusual positions threatens to tip the balance on several key issues in Cambridge. The CCA has traditionally supported government outreach and controversial programs like rent control, while Independents oppose such measures.

CCA President R. Philip Dowds says Reeves' political ambition out-weight the mayor's desire to maintain the CCA coalition.

"[Reeves'] need to be mayor exceeded all considerations," Dowds says.

A councillor who accepts CCA endorsement signs an agreement which says the CCA councillors should reach a consensus on four key city posts--the election of mayor and vice mayor and the hiring of the superintendent and the city manager.

Reeves says he did not consider the agreement binding when he sought to remain mayor.

"The CCA platform is to agree on [the four positions] `if at all possible,'" Reeves said. "That `if at all possible' is very germane."

Reeves also acted independently of the CCA councillors two years ago when he voted for the reappointement of City Manager Robert W. Healy. Dowds calls that vote "a watershed event" because the issue split the CCA majority.

Still, many Cambridge political observer say they do not believe the mayor's agreement with the Independents will change the progressive ideology of Reeves, the first Massachusetts city chief executive to be both Balck and gay.

"I don't think that Ken is the sort of person who would put aside his basic beliefs to be elected mayor," CCA councillor Kathleen L. Born said in an interview after the election.

Added Born: "Ken Reeves is a progressive person, a progressive councillor and a progressive mayor, and I am counting on him to vote that way."