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Cambridge mayor: The world is waiting

EDITORIAL | Editorial

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

February 21, 2012

(istockphoto )

With the threat of an attack against Iran’s nuclear program looming, this is no time for the Cambridge mayor’s office to remain vacant. The city’s titular leader may lack practical powers, but over the years the holder of the $105,000-a-year position has been known to weigh in where local politicians can really make a difference: foreign policy.

Alas, the office has been empty since the beginning of the year, and the City Council has been unable to coalesce around a candidate. The problem is that many councilors, who are paid about $70,000 a year, have been voting for themselves, leading to gridlock as none can muster a five-vote majority. Councilors will try again at a special meeting called for tomorrow.

Since City Manager Robert W. Healy actually runs Cambridge, potholes are still being filled, and the lights have stayed on; the only practical impact of the mayoral impasse seems to be that the school committee is temporarily without a chair. Yet Turkmenistan’s recent elections were hardly free and fair, and tensions are once again rising between Britain and Argentina over the Falklands — sorry, Malvinas. The council must understand that it has only itself to blame.

Maybe more to the point, the councilors at a standstill over who should get a raise ought to bear in mind that the longer the city functions perfectly well without a mayor, the greater reason Cantabrigians will have for questioning why they pay for one in the first place.