One veteran City Councillor, Michael Sullivan, has already stepped down from the body.

Another, Anthony Galluccio, having won the primary is making an uncontested bid for the state senate seat left vacant by Jarrett Barrios, who resigned to head up the Blue Cross Foundation.

Assuming Galluccio leaves the city council after 13 years, the departure of these two men from the Council will be felt for some time. S1seidel060_8_3

Their combined years of experience, their understanding of the city’s government and their dedication to the issues that impact this community have been real.

They each represented not only broad sections of this city, but also a type of governance that is good for a local council.

A councillor should be the people’s connection to the government and be their representative in City Hall. Paying attention to what’s happening, answering questions and helping to sort things out when the bureaucracy gets confusing or seems arbitrary.

It’s a point my friend Jack Cobb made to me, and it’s a very good one.

This focus on the daily issues of the city is important, because these daily concerns help to shape the “quality of life” in a community.

At the same time, a community needs to take time out to look at the bigger picture too. Cambridge is in just such a time.

With the tremendous rise in housing prices, the rise in median incomes, the shrinking of the school population and a growing elderly population, the city is facing a new and different future than what it was looking at 20 years ago.

Environmental concerns play a much bigger role now. The next pillar of our economy needs to be developing now. Of course, the city manager isn’t going to stay on the job forever and ever.

The simple truth is that the transition to post-rent-control Cambridge has happened. The demographic shifts that accompanied that policy shift are largely in place.

The great flourishing of social goals and agendas that developed in this city during the 1960s and 70s are facing a new economic reality an economic reality that has developed because of the explosion of the Information Age.

We are a relatively small city, with an extremely diverse population.

We’re an urban community that is affluent and has high ideals.

We’re walking into the 21st century facing the challenge of making this community work with the strong commitment to equity and social justice, while acknowledging the huge pressures that the disappearance of the middle class has place on us. Our change in our political leadership coincides with the changed realities we’re facing now.