Cambridge City Council Elects Maher Mayor

The Cambridge City Council elected Councillor David P. Maher as the mayor of Cambridge for the 2010-2011 term yesterday, after seven deadlocked attempts.

The Council also voted unanimously to elect Councillor Henrietta J. Davis as vice mayor.

Before the final motion to make the votes unanimous, Maher received six votes, more than the majority necessary to be elected. Davis followed with three.

In his inauguration speech, Maher emphasized the large impact that the current struggling economy is having on both individuals and businesses in the Cambridge community.

"Immediately, we have to get the city financial situation straightened right away," Maher said in an interview during a brief recess after the election.

As mayor, Maher will also chair the Cambridge School Committee, where he said he is ready to address an outstanding proposal that Cambridge ought to establish a middle school. Cambridge currently has kindergarten through eigth grade schools, but no middle school system.

The mayoral election process was expedited last night when Councillor Marjorie C. Decker motioned to move the voting process to the top of the agenda.

"We have to ask ourselves, if there is no mayor, and there [are] no committee assignments to chair, then what does the City Council do?" Decker said. "We cannot effectively advocate for public policy."

Prior to the formal elections, Decker gave a speech during which she publically explained her decision to change her vote from Councillor Kenneth E. Reeves ’72 to Maher.

Decker said she had previously described the mayoral election process as a "combination for the game of chess and the T.V. show "Survivor."

"It’s not pretty," she said of the procedure governing the mayoral election process, “but these are the rules that have been given to us.”

Former Mayor E. Denise Simmons followed Decker in acknowledging that the complicated procedures has its benefits.

“Although the process seems a bit difficult, it is the process, and it is democracy, and it gives us an opportunity to continue to discuss with each other in an informal context,” Simmons said.

“When someone wins, someone loses; I want to say that we all win because we have outstanding individuals that [ran] for mayor.”

Simmons added that because she has had experience serving as mayor, she recognizes that the person to take on the position has taken on both responsibility and privilege.

Maher said that despite the long race, he still believed he “did it the right way.”

In his inauguration speech, Maher reflected on his first political campaign in 1987, when his slogan was “a young and energetic voice for the future of Cambridge.” But, Maher said, that time of youth has passed and it is the force of experience that has gotten him this far.

—Staff writer Xi Yu can be reached at xyu@college.harvard.edu.