The Alewife

Winters: Check out candidate pages to inform your vote

Our friend Robert Winters sent this over:

Cambridge Candidate Pages - 2007
http://vote.rwinters.com

The biannual Cambridge municipal election is just days away - Tuesday, November 6. There are 15 candidates for 9 seats on the Cambridge City Council, and 9 candidates for 6 seats on the Cambridge School Committee. [Note: State Senator Galluccio's name remains on the City Council ballot, but he has announced that he will not accept a Council seat now that he's been elected to the Senate.]

In Cambridge's proportional representation (PR) elections, you may vote for as many candidates as you please, but you must rank your choices. Give a #1 rank to your top choice, a #2 rank to your next choice, etc. Ranking additional candidates will never hurt your top choice(s). If you assign the same rank to more than one candidate, none of those candidates will receive your vote. To prevent this, incorrectly cast ballots will be rejected and returned to you for correction. This way every vote will count as intended.

Many Cambridge voters have not yet decided who should get their #1 vote in each of these races, and many more voters have not yet thought much about who will get their #2, #3, etc. votes.

Most of the candidates in this year's election have provided responses on a number of topics relevant to the offices they seek.

They have also provided other information on their campaigns such as contact information and candidate websites. New information is added each day and will continue to be added right up until Election Day.

All of the individual candidate pages are accessed by clicking on each candidate's picture in the photo gallery at http://vote.rwinters.com.

Please read as much as you can about all of the candidates and make informed choices.

                                 Thanks,
                                 Robert Winters
                                 Cambridge Civic Journal

PS - Please forward this message to your friends and neighbors who will be voting in the Cambridge elections so that they too can make informed choices.

PPS - If you would like to change your contact information or be removed from this contact list, just let me know by replying to this message.

Cambridge Candidates Page - http://vote.rwinters.com
Cambridge Civic Journal - http://rwinters.com

Winters weighs in on The Replacements

Robert Winters on his Web site Cambridge Civic Journal writes:

Sept 14 - Just out of curiosity....

Neil McCabe over at The Alewife stated: "With Maher filling the Sullivan seat, the next in line is Alewife columnist Sam Seidel."

This is not quite true. I just ran the numbers out of curiosity, excluding newly elected Councillor Maher and Robert Hall (who passed away). Here are the current replacements for the 8 councillors (not including the newly elected David Maher):
Davis: Sam Seidel (beats Jesse Gordon and Larry Adkins 437-340-82)
Decker: Sam Seidel (beats Jesse Gordon 358 to 308)
Galluccio: Sam Seidel (beats Jesse Gordon 175 to 154)
Kelley: Sam Seidel (beats Jesse Gordon, Bill Hees, and Larry Adkins 565-297-132-102)
Murphy: Sam Seidel (beats Jesse Gordon 457 to 342)
Reeves: Sam Seidel (beats Larry Adkins 308 to 285)
Simmons: Jesse Gordon (beats Larry Adkins 335 to 271)
Toomey: Andre Green (beats Sam Seidel 127 to 120)

East Cambridge is a wonderful place..... and a bit quirky. - RW

Winters: Maher to join council

In resignation letter, Sullivan cites Cannon law

On his Web site Cambridge Civic Journal, Robert Winters reports:

News Flash - City Councillor Michael Sullivan submitted his resignation from the Cambridge City Council on Friday, August 17 - effective immediately. The vacancy will be filled using the ballots that elected Michael in 2005. It is expected that David Maher will be elected to fill the vacancy. A date for the official count to determine Michael's replacement has not yet been announced.

Best of luck, Michael. You've been the best of the bunch - one of the best ever.

According to tables also found on the site, Maher would have been the replacement for six of the nine councillors, Michael A. Sullivan, Brian Murphy, Timothy J. Toomey Jr., Denise Simmons, Kenneth E. Reeves, and Anthony D. Galluccio.

Sam Seidel, who finished 10th in the straight vote, is the first replacement for Marjorie Decker, Henrietta Davis and Craig A. Kelley.

Galluccio has said if he wins the Sept. 11 Democratic primary for the open Middlesex, Suffolk and Essex seat in the state senate, he would suspend his city council campaign. There is no Republican running. If he were to resign immediately as Sullivan, Seidel would replace him, since Galluccio's first replacement, Maher, would already be aboard.

Winters: Flaherty demurred on negative campaign pledge

Robert Winters writes:

Wait a minute now.

When the three candidates present (Flaherty, Galluccio, Ross) were asked whether they would pledge to avoid personal attacks, both Galluccio and Ross were clear that they would agree to such a pledge. In fact, Galluccio stated that he had never done it in any political race. Ross flatly stated "I will take a pledge to do no negative campaigning." Flaherty, in contrast, pointed to the example of John Kerry and the swiftboaters to justify why he would respond in kind to any negative campaign he felt might be directed at him (even if it didn't originate personally from one of the other candidates).

Flaherty most certainly DID NOT pledge to avoid negative campaigning. He distinguished himself from the other two candidates by not committing to such a pledge. My notes on Flaherty's response to the question: "I won't allow my name to be besmirched, but I will respond." If anything, that's a pledge to go as negative as he wishes.

Cambridge Ideas by Robert Winters

The rotten fruits of special elections

It is in the nature of special elections that the winner is often the candidate who can conduct the most effective get-out-the-vote campaign to get "their voters" to the polls on election day. In this race, that advantage probably goes to Galluccio who has built up a substantial organization in Everett and elsewhere in addition to his home town.

Other candidates, notably Nowicki and Ross, are resorting to "robo-calls" - pre-recorded phone messages delivered to every available phone number in the district like e-mail SPAM. It's not clear how effective these calls are, but it seems like a popular alternative for candidates with little or no field organization.

Robert Winters

Time will tell how much money is sunk into this  race by the four candidates, but the word on the street is that Mr. Ross has already committed to pulling $100,000+ of his own money out of his carpetbag to buy this seat - a very "progressive" sum indeed.

A most unfortunate outcome in this race would be for the three Cambridge candidates to split the Cambridge vote and hand the election to the other candidate with less than a majority vote.

This most unfortunate side-effect of plurality elections is preventable by having a runoff election (or using "Instant Runoff Voting"), but a this is not an option for this election and will likely never be available as an option as long as our head-in-the-sand Mass. Democratic Party remains comfortable with the devil they know.

Neither the Democratic nor Republican parties in Massachusetts have expressed much interest, if any, in reforms proposed in the name of achieving fair elections. -- RW

Four candidates for Barrios seat

Robert Winters reports on his Web site: Cambridge Civic Journal that four men have secured places on the ballot to replace Jarett T. Barrios in the State Senate seat representing the Middlesex, Suffolk and Essex district.

He writes:

According to the Mass. Secretary of State's Office, four candidates have met the required minimum of 300 certified voter signatures to qualify for the Sept 11 Democratic primary election. They are Cambridge City Councillor Anthony Galluccio, Cambridge resident Tim Flaherty, Jeff Ross (who only moved to Cambridge when Barrios announced he was vacating his seat), and Chelsea City Councillor Paul Nowicki.

At least two other potential candidates filed signatures but failed to meet the minimum. To the best of my knowledge, there are no Republican or independent candidates at this time for the Oct 9 general election, so the winner on Sept 11 will almost certainly be the one to succeed Barrios.

The Alewife is co-sponsoring a candidates forum Aug. 16 at Porter Square's Masonic Hall with Progressive Democrats of Cambridge-Democracy for America and Progressive Democrats of Somerville.  After the candidate make presentations and answer questions, members of PDC-DFA and PDS will vote on their endorsement for the Sept. 11 Democratic Primary.  The forum is free and open to the public.

Sullivan will not seek re-election

Scion of political family withdraws one day before ballot petition signatures due

by Neil W. McCabe

City Councillor Michael A. Sullivan announced at Monday's city council meeting he will not seek another term in that body.

"The most difficult part of my decision is that I truly have enjoyed ever minute of my service on this City Council. When I was in high

school I wrote a paper about my family and my hope one day to serve here and preside at the rostrum, not many people get to live one of their dreams and I was fortunate to be able to do that," said Sullivan, who in 2006 was elected Middlesex County Clerk of Courts.

Michael A. Sullivan

"Last fall I said I would decide at a latter date as to whether I would seek re-election or not. For the proceeding reasons I have decided not to seek re-election. The Sullivan tradition will not be lost, my cousin Eddie Sullivan, former County Commissioner is a candidate for City Council," he said.

"Tonight I foremost want to thank the people of Cambridge for the opportunity they have given me. I hope that I lived up to the trust and expectations they have placed in me. And I will continue to do the same in the future," he said.

On his Web site Cambridge Civic Journal, Alewife columnist Robert Winters has posted Sullivan's full remarks as well as a full update on what candidates have submitted signatures for the November ballot.

Winters on the passing of Sullivan

On his Web site Cambridge Civic Journal, Alewife columnist Robert Winters comments on the death of Edward J. Sullivan:

July 24 - Very Sad News

I just learned that Edward Sullivan, former Cambridge City Councillor, former Mayor, and former Middlesex County Clerk of Courts, passed away today. My condolences go out to his brother, former City Councillor and Mayor Walter Sullivan; to his nephew, City Councillor and former Mayor Michael Sullivan; and to everyone in the Sullivan family.

Cambridge Ideas by Robert Winters

Election Day registration

Thanks to the hard work of you and many other Massachusetts activists, the campaign to bring Election Day voter registration to the Bay State is gaining momentum.

State Senator Cynthia Creem and State Representative Gloria Fox have introduced SB 446 and HB 646, which would make it possible for eligible citizens to register and vote on Election Day. Governor Patrick and Secretary of State Galvin have both gone on record supporting Election Day Registration.

I recently had a discussion with Avi Green, the leader of MassVOTE, about the proposal for election-day registration. I really don'€™t have a firm opinion on this proposal, but I think it's worth discussing the possible unintended consequences.

Here€'s what I initially said to Avi: Though I do, in principle, support the idea of same-day voter registration, there is a potential dark side to it.

Well-financed political campaigns are also the
ones best-equipped for get-out-the- vote  campaigns and Election Day mechanics. Thus it is likely that these well-financed campaigns could be the chief beneficiaries of same-day registration. In short, the rich may get richer.

My focus in almost all elections is the leveling of the playing field in every way so that non-incumbents can compete fairly against incumbents. I'€™m not yet convinced that same-day registration will help to level that playing field. My fear is that it will tilt it even further.

Cambridge Ideas by Robert Winters

In Search of a Progressive Definition

[This column appears in the April edition of The Alewife, which went to press before City Councillor/State Rep. Timothy J. Toomey Jr., D, announced he would not run for the state senate.--Editor.]

It's a municipal election year and already the grapevine is ripe with rumors about who's running, who's not running, and whether any "slates" of candidates will emerge in time for the November election. With Senator Travaglini's recent exit from the State Senate and the possibility that Tim Toomey may seek the seat, it makes the game of musical chairs so much more interesting.

At last count, there were already 6 challengers ready to gather signatures to get on the City Council ballot and at least one challenger (so far) for School Committee. If a vacancy should arise, the numbers will grow.

Robert Winters

Things used to be much simpler in the days when the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) was in the business of building and supporting slates of candidates for the City Council and School Committee. Though imperfect (to say the least), it was possible for a Cambridge voter who wanted to vote "progressive" to know who to vote for without actually having to pay attention - a real convenience for Cambridge's sociopolitical upper crust.

It also served to let many Independent voters know who NOT to list on their ballots. The choice of Us versus Them couldn't have been simpler. But wait! You say it wasn't so simple to tell the good guys from the bad guys? Surely, the CCA was the very essence of "progressive" and, by exclusion, everyone else was "regressive". Having walked both sides of the line, I've long been fascinated by the slipperiness of the Cambridge definition of "progressive".

If this was a battle for a seat at the state house, you might look to issues like abortion, marriage rights, and universal health care to craft a progressive definition. At the federal level, you might look at the Iraq war or campaign finance reform to draw the lines. But in Cambridge sans rent control, and with no major issues to distinguish the candidates, the progressive slope couldn't be more slippery.

There are plans underway again to assemble a "Progressive Democrats of Cambridge" slate (PDC), and the sponsors are searching for a progressive definition to determine who will be on and who will be off the slate.

Their first stab at a definition was that a candidate had to endorse the firing of the city manager in order to gain endorsement, but that proved to be a bit restrictive. The latest word is that being a non-incumbent (or nearly so) will send you to the head of the class - as good a definition as any from where I stand.

Many of us know that until 1994, being a "progressive" in Cambridge meant, with few exceptions, that you were in favor of rent control. You might have advocated the annihilation of polar bears, but as long as you vowed to keep the rent cheap for potential voters, you were a bona fide progressive. During the late 1980's, I used to laugh when I'd see the banner in the window of the Cambridge Civic Association office that read "Progressive Government - That Works!".

Never mind the fact that most of the working class residents of Cambridge were voting for the other guys.

My theory is that the definition of "progressive" in Cambridge is most closely tied to socioeconomic status. If you have an advanced degree or if you went to prep school or a major university, or if you just believe you're smarter than all those Joe Six-Packs out there, then you have a leg up with the progressive crowd.

If you're a cop, a firefighter, or work at Public Works, or if you even know anyone who works "on the City," chances are that you aren't hanging with the progressives. Many decades ago, being progressive meant you were one of the "goo-goos", i.e. the "good government" crowd. That included many of the old guard Republicans who brought managed government and the Plan E Charter to Cambridge and who founded the CCA back during the FDR administration. Progressive Republicans you say? Well, that's the way it was back then.

The Democrats saw government as a jobs program for the politically connected, and the Republicans lobbied for better managed government and restraint in municipal budgets. Political party designations don't exist in our municipal elections today, but it's pretty safe to say that every elected official in Cambridge today is a social and economic liberal eager to support and fund a broad range of programs.

Are they all progressives?

It all depends on your lack of a definition. Cambridge's municipal election system tries to represent its residents in proportion to their fraction of the electorate. It works well when there are clear definitions of the electorate - neighborhood, race, ethnicity, gender, position on some pivotal issue (like rent control), or whether you support of some well-publicized candidate slate.

During the rent control days, you might have seven of nine councillors living west of Harvard Square because rent control trumped geography on the list of definitions.

In the absence of significant issues, geography and personal identity now define the electorate and the candidates more than any issue. But why let these factors decide the election?

Why not be more creative with candidate slates? Here are some suggestions for candidate slates for 2007:

DZ Slate: Candidates who would downzone Cambridge to farmland if they could.

TB Slate: Candidates who will support anything that grows the tax base.

CRED Slate: Candidates with credibility. Now there's a concept.

NEW Slate: Anyone but incumbents, preferably with credibility.

JOB Slate: Candidates who actually work for a living.

DD Slate: Candidates who hold (or want to hold) two elected offices (double-dippers).

SLACKER Slate: Candidates who can't do their job without a personal assistant.

BIKE Slate: Candidates who get around by bicycle.

KIDS Slate: Candidates who have children.

SSS Slate: Candidates who say the same stuff over and over again.

FOR Slate: Candidates who believe the City Council should be a foreign affairs forum.

TIN Slate: Candidates from the fringe who wear tin foil hats and receive alien messages. We always get one or two in every election.

Cambridge Ideas by Robert Winters

Getting board & commissioned

There’s a great educational and civic opportunity awaiting any Cambridge resident bold enough to pursue it.
You won’t make a dime off it, but it won’t cost you a dime either. I’m talking about making yourself available to serve on one of Cambridge’s numerous boards and commissions. I can testify from personal experience that it’s a great way to get a tuition-free civic education and meet plenty of great people.

Robert Winters

First of all, you don’t necessarily have to be an expert in anything. The only essential requirements are that you be sane, reasonable, and willing to learn. Depending on which board interests you, experience may be helpful, but don’t let that stand in the way of your applying.
I’ve served on quite a few of these committees.

Here a few notes on my experiences:

In the mid-1980s I served on a water and sewer advisory board appointed by the late, great Mayor Al Vellucci. I can say without hesitation that we accomplished absolutely nothing on that committee.

However, I learned everything there is to know about Cambridge’s water and sewer systems. Since then, I’ve given tours of the watershed and have been something of a cheerleader for Cambridge water.

Cambridge Ideas by Robert Winters

Getting involved

There’s a great educational and civic opportunity awaiting any Cambridge resident bold enough to pursue it.

You won’t make a dime off it, but it won’t cost you a dime either. I’m talking about making yourself available to serve on one of Cambridge’s numerous boards and commissions. I can testify from personal experience that it’s a great way to get a tuition-free civic education and meet plenty of great people.

Robert Winters

First of all, you don’t necessarily have to be an expert in anything. The only essential requirements are that you be sane, reasonable, and willing to learn. Depending on which board interests you, experience may be helpful, but don’t let that stand in the way of your applying.

I’ve served on quite a few of these committees. Here a few notes on my experiences:
In the mid-1980s I served on a water and sewer advisory board appointed by the late, great Mayor Al Vellucci. I can say without hesitation that we accomplished absolutely nothing on that committee.

Cambridge Ideas by Robert Winters

Fine Feathered Nests

Even before the year 2006 began, word leaked out from Cambridge city councillors that a deal was in the works to grant some councillors their own personal aides in exchange for their votes to make Ken Reeves mayor. The plan at that time was for Reeves to appoint certain councillors to chair several Council committees and to use this to justify the supposed need for personal staff.

Robert Winters

Sure enough, when the committee appointments were made, new co-chairs were created where there had been none, and the councillors appointed by the mayor to chair some committees made no sense at all. Soon after, each councillor was given the option of receiving a personal aide courtesy of the newly anointed mayor.

By the end of the year, this city council had accomplished less than any in the history of the city. At year's end, there were precisely zero Council committee meetings scheduled and little for the councillors to do.

In truth, 2006 was a year during which some councillors measured their new offices, others measured their chances at getting elected to new offices, and the rest measured how many more years of incumbency they needed in order to max out their pensions.

It was a year to take care Number One, and no one did so with greater extravagance than his royal highness, the mayor, Mr. Reeves. While all other departments kept their budgets close to the levels of the previous year, Reeves submitted a budget 54% higher than the previous mayor. The main increase was the inclusion of personal "research assistants" for each councillor - all paid out of the Mayor's budget to complete the deal that made Reeves mayor.

Healy seeks $20k to bank our touring mayor

City workers' benefit fund tapped for Reeves' travel costs

Alewife columnist Robert Winters directed our attention to the following item in the City Council's Dec. 18 agenda:

16. Transmitting communication from Robert W. Healy, City Manager, relative to the transfer of $19,750 from General Fund Employee Benefits (salary adjustment) Salary and Wages account to the General Fund Mayor Travel and Training account to cover additional travel expenses related to the Congressional Black Caucus Conference, National Association of Black School Educators, U.S. Conference of Black Mayors, Gay and Lesbian Elected Officials Conference and visits to School Districts to observe closing the achievement gap initiatives.

    City Manager Letter
    December 18, 2006
    To the Honorable, the City Council:

I am hereby requesting the transfer of $19,750 from General Fund Employee Benefits (salary adjustment) Salary and Wages account to the General Fund Mayor Travel and Training account to cover additional travel expenses related to the Congressional Black Caucus Conference, National Association of Black School Educators, U.S. Conference of Black Mayors, Gay and Lesbian Elected Officials Conference and visits to School Districts to observe closing the achievement gap initiatives.

Very truly yours,
Robert W. Healy, City Manager

Winters cites grave error in City Council agenda

On his Web site Cambridge Civic Journal Robert Winters spotted four like objects, but one was tragically unlike the others:

Coming up at this Monday's (November 20) City Council meeting:

Can you spot the mistake in this list of congratulatory resolutions?

11. Congratulations to Senator Robert Travaglini on his re-election to the Massachusetts Senate.   Councillor Sullivan

12. Congratulations to Senator Warren Tolman on his re-election to the Massachusetts Senate.   Councillor Sullivan

13. Resolution on the death of Senator Jarrett Barrios on his re-election to the Massachusetts Senate.   Councillor Sullivan

14. Congratulations to State Representative Timothy J. Toomey, Jr. on his re-election as State Representative.   Councillor Sullivan

This has to be the funniest (and most ironic) error I've ever seen in the Council agenda.

Cambridge Ideas

Running Off

Though Americans like to see themselves as the authority on democracy, the truth is that we do better at sports than we do at democratic elections. As I write this, the Detroit Tigers are playing the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. As nearly everyone knows, both teams had to survive a sequence of playoffs in order to compete for the World Championship.

Robert Winters

Eight teams were reduced to four, then two, and soon there will be one World Champion. Of course, many of us would argue that in 2004 the “real world series” between the best two teams was the contest between the Yankees and the Red Sox, but the Sox still had to face the Cardinals before it was all over.

Compare this to the current Massachusetts gubernatorial election. Deval Patrick, Kerry Healey, Christy Mihos, and Grace Ross are each trying to achieve a plurality in the general election. There’s a good chance that Patrick may get an outright majority, but a plurality is all that’s needed to gain election.

However, Tom Reilly and Chris Gabrielli would both have likely outpolled Mihos and Ross if their names were still on the ballot. In fact, one of them might have even outpolled Healey. So, are Massachusetts voters really given the opportunity to weigh all the choices? I don’t think so.

Imagine what it might be like if all viable candidates were allowed to proceed straight to the general election – without any primaries. Vote-splitting among the three Democratic candidates would most likely give unacceptable results.

Now imagine that voters were given the opportunity to rank their choices and that an “instant runoff” system was in place that would sequentially eliminate the candidate with the lowest number of ballots and transfer those ballots to the next available choice – basically the same mechanism we use in Cambridge for our municipal elections except that only one person is to be elected. The governor’s race would effectively become a nonpartisan election.

Though it is likely that most Democratic ballots would remain with other Democratic candidates, many ballots would freely transfer across party lines. If Reilly was eliminated, some of those ballots might help Healey, and many Ross ballots might transfer to Patrick. Healey would likely gain ground with the defeat of Mihos.

There’s a good chance that the two candidates who make it to the final round might even be of the same party.

Cambridge Ideas by Robert Winters

The Evolution of a Cambridge Idea

Cambridge was settled as a town in 1630 and incorporated as a city in 1846. The Plan E charter of today is basically the same as that adopted in the 1940 election. Civic activists today tend to focus on downzoning, commercial and university encroachment, affordable housing, and open space, but during the span from 1969 to 1994, the defining issue was rent control, and it determined the us-against-them lines that dominated Cambridge politics for 25 years.

A hundred years earlier, another defining issue dominated, namely the "no license" law prohibiting saloons and the sale of alcoholic beverages in Cambridge. This was one facet of what was at the time known as "The Cambridge Idea," a socio-political movement with roots going back to the 1880s that found its name in the early 1890s. Other facets of "The Cambridge Idea" were non-partisanship in local government and a focus on local, rather than national, issues. An excellent exposition by one of its greatest proponents, Rev. David Nelson Beach, may be found in "The Cambridge of Eighteen Hundred Ninety-Six," a must-have for anyone with a serious interest in Cambridge history. A companion volume "Cambridge - Fifty Years a City," also published in 1896, contains the text of many speeches that shed light on the thinking of the day.

Robert Winters

John Fiske, speaking at the Sanders Theater on June 2, 1896, had this to say:  "Our city government has from the outset been upright, intelligent, and helpful. We are satisfied with it. We do not wish to change it."...."Now to what cause or causes are we to ascribe the contrast between Cambridge and the cities that are so wretchedly governed? The answer is, that in Cambridge we keep city government clear of politics, we do not mix up municipal questions with national questions. If I may repeat what I have said elsewhere, 'since the object of a municipal election is simply to secure an upright and efficient municipal government, to elect a city magistrate because he is a Republican or a Democrat is about as sensible as to elect him because he believes in homeopathy or has a taste for chrysanthemums.'"

Winters joins The Alewife

The city's premier political observer and creator of Cambridge Civic Journal will join The Alewife as a regular contributor in October.

"We are thrilled to have Robert Winters as a political columnist," said Neil W. McCabe, the paper's editor.

"There is noone who follows Cambridge politics, who does not read Winters," said Sam Seidel, a 2005 candidate for city council and Alewife columnist.

Seidel said he has spent hours on Winter's Web site and it was a valuable tool when he was organizing his campaign, where he finished tenth in the race for nine seats.

"Robert's intense research and analysis is mind-blowing, but more importantly, he is not a bad guy," McCabe said.