"I thought I was going to be moral support," Galluccio said.

But he said that when Roberta Golick, a private mediator who has been working with the parties since early January, asked him to play a more active role, he pushed for a quick settlement. He said he viewed himself as something of a fresh outsider, not worn out by months of talks, and didn't want to lose that advantage.

After a while, "you become part of the scenery, just one of the negotiators," he said.

The two sides left the CRLS issues unresolved until that Friday. With a snow emergency outside, they met in the mayor's office that night. As Golick talked with them on a speaker phone, they reached the tentative agreement around 1:20 a.m. Saturday morning, O'Sullivan said.

At 9 p.m., O'Sullivan boarded a plane for Ireland, where he spent his spring vacation.

Son of a four-term member of the Cambridge school committee, Galluccio said the rapid change the district is undergoing now--with the high school restructuring set for the fall and the expected approval later this month of an elementary school merger--made this contract a difficult one to negotiate.

But he said the resolution marked a "new spirit of cooperation" and that the talks were thorough enough to allow the changes to move forward smoothly.

"Not much ground wasn't covered in these negotiations," Galluccio said.