Grogan says public attacks have merely weakened relations between the University and Watertown, and public comments by city officials to incite citizens do not reflect the discussions going on behind-the-scenes.

“The town officials are trying to leverage us with a terror campaign,” Grogan says. “They’re using this mythological idea that we’ll bankrupt them to frighten innocent citizens. It’s disgraceful.”

University spokesperson Joe Wrinn, who has been verbally attacked by Watertown officials for calling the town’s actions “continued theatrics,” echoed Grogan’s stance.

“To bus in children and elderly people and tell them that Harvard will destroy their lives is totally ridiculous,” Wrinn said after the Watertown rally, in which children lined the streets holding signs criticizing Harvard.

And while Grogan says the public stance by Watertown officials against the University will not change ongoing negotiations, he says he does believe that Watertown residents have been convinced that Harvard will have a negative impact on their community.

“We’re not well known in Watertown,” Grogan adds. “There’s a concern about what might be an overnight presence of the University in Watertown. People don’t know what to think.”

But he says creating public opposition to Harvard will not affect the University’s plans.

“We don’t want to hurt the town, but they can’t prevent us from coming in,” Grogan says.

Politics as Usual

While Watertown is a newer community relations issue for the University, local political battles have long characterized Harvard’s relationship with Cambridge, where the City Council in the last several years has often shown very vocal opposition to development initiatives by the University.

Tensions were at their highest last year when new council members made public threats linking Harvard’s development projects to its failure to pass a living wage, an issue the council has supported.

“If Harvard wants to build a new building and comes to the City Council, all nine of us will say, ‘Implement a living wage, and we’ll talk,’” said first-term councillor Jim Braude at a rally last April.

But Harvard officials maintain that the vocal stance of councillors does not reflect the tenor of Harvard’s relationship with Cambridge as a whole.

“It’s sometimes necessary to make a distinction between relations with Cambridge and relations with the Cambridge City Council,” Grogan says. “There is a dynamic in Cambridge where a lot of negativity towards universities surfaces in the city council, but that is not really evident to the broader population.”

Grogan says that when he first arrived at Harvard in January 1999, he commissioned a professional poll asking questions relating to the University’s presence in Cambridge. The poll found that Harvard had an 85 percent favorability rating among city residents.