Home Rule Petition Stalled Once Again

In a highly confrontational meeting last night, the City Council once again postponed action on a home rule petition designed to strengthen the enforcement of rent control in Cambridge.

The measure was tabled in a 5-4 vote, with members of the progressive Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) squaring off against the council's four Independents. The swing vote was provided by Independent Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci, traditionally a supporter of rent control.

The petition, if passed by both the council and the state Legislature, would reinstate a provision of the city's rent control ordinance struck down by the Supreme Judicial Court last month.

The court ruled that Cambridge could not prevent owners of a block of rent-controlled apartments from selling them individually. The homerule petition would allow the city again to ban such sales.

"This is necessary for the continued future of rent control in the City of Cambridge," Councillor David E. Sullivan '77 said before the vote. "The law worked. It worked very well. It stopped illegal condominium conversions in Cambridge."

Immediately after the vote, Sullivan asked Vellucci to explain his reasons for opposing the measure. But Vellucci declined to answer. "Mind your own business, Mr. Sullivan," the mayor said.

Sullivan pressed his questions, however, and the two exchanged harsh words. Vellucci accused Sullivan of missing council meetings and roll call votes because of an outside business, which he termed "double dipping" and a "conflict of interest."

"I have never made a personal remark against anyone in this council," Sullivan said in response. "I think those remarks were inappropriate in the City Council and I wish they were not made. That's all I have to say," he said.

Vellucci, who said he had not missed a meeting in his 38 years on the council, said that Sullivan's petition had come up for reconsideration several times in the past month, but had been defeated each time because CCA-backed councillors were absent.

After last night's meeting, Sullivan said he planned to reintroduce the petition again at the council meeting next Monday. Unless a special council session is called, that meeting will be the last chance to send the measure to the state Legislature this year.

In other business, councillors received a report from the Mayor's Green Ribbon Committee to Research and Propose Minimum Rents, but forestalled discussion of the report. Sullivan charter-righted and order that would have referred the report to the city's Rent Control Board and requested that they hold a public meeting to discuss its contents.

The council also presented a resolution of commendation to Stephan Klasen '90, a visiting student at Harvard who directs the University Lutheran Shelter.

Stop-Gap Remedy

For the past eight years, the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) Committee on the Homeless has sponsored a shelter in the basement of the University Lutheran Church.

After the presentation, Director of Emergency Services Philip Mangano praised the PBHA program and others like it, but told the council that shelters are a stop-gap remedy for a problem caused by the shortage of affordable housing.

"Such programs and services only declare an emergency in our community, a symptom that something is wrong in our community," Mangano said. "We need to stop the exiling of families and individuals and bring them back into our city."