Mayoral Election Spurs Controversy

A general feeling of apathy pervaded the Nov. 4 vote which returned all nine incumbents to the city council. Five of the six incumbent School Committee members were reelected.

But January was witness to a tumultuous mayoral election when councillors elected Francis H. Duehay `55 mayor from among their ranks in a process some councillors and observers characterized as marred by guile and deception within the council.

The November election's low turnout reflected voter apathy: About 16,000 cast ballots--only 17 percent of the city's population and 40 percent of its registered voters, according to the Cambridge Election Commission. By comparison, over 42,000 voted in the peak year of 1992.

But the city's interest in local government was reignited when in the mayoral election--which had been delayed a week until Jan. 26 at the request of Councillor Michael A. Sullivan who was away on his honeymoon--Councillor Katherine Triantafillou secured--and then lost--the five of nine votes needed to become the city's top executive.

In the first balloting of the mayoral election, Triantafillou received the necessary five votes apparently defeating Sullivan, an Alliance for Change party member.

But as soon as Triantafillou supporters began cheering and the voting appeared to be finished, Anthony D. Galluccio, a member of the Alliance for Change party, switched his vote from Sullivan to Duehay, who previously had no votes.

When the vote switching stopped and the dust had settled, Duehay had received a majority of votes and was then sworn in as mayor.

Anthony D. Galluccio was elected vice mayor by a 7-2 majority.

The picture of councillors turning their backs on each other made the governing body look untrustworthy in the eyes of some of its constituents.

"If you can betray one of your own, how can I trust you?" Cambridge resident Lisa Burke asked the council at the Monday meeting immediately following the elections.

Voters and pundits alike attributed the low turnout in November to the lack of divisive community issues. In previous elections, topics like rent control which directly impacted local demographics spurred Cantabrigians into the voting booth. With rent control abolished, the city lacked an issue dear to its heart to motivate voters.

Also contributing to the low turnout was the lack of serious challenges to the incumbents.

The challengers were a motley crew with little experience including Harvard Teaching Fellow Robert Winters, Republican David L.K. Trumbull and arts activist Ian M. MacKinnon.

"There aren't any proven vote-getters [among the challengers]," noted Bill Cavelini, a prominent tenant advocate and Cambridge resident, before the vote.

But in the School Committee elections one challenger managed to garner enough votes to unseat an incumbent.

Robin A. Harris, a sixth-grade teacher at the Benjamin Banneker Charter School in Cambridge and a member of the committee in 1994-95, ousted incumbent Alfred B. Fantini in the election by a margin of only 200 votes.

The election of Harris, a member of the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA), capped a dominant showing for the party in the School Committee elections: The top two vote-getters, Alice L. Turkel and Susana M. Segat, are both CCA members, and Harris' victory gave the party a two-seat majority on the six-member committee.

Harris' stated goals before the election were to increase teaching diversity and school autonomy. She said a more diverse teaching staff and a curriculum geared toward a multicultural perspective could enrich public education and make it more meaningful for the diverse student population of Cambridge schools.

The only member of the committee with teaching experience, Harris said she brings a different perspective to committee members who otherwise would only know about the school system from their own school-age children.