The city manager seeks to fill vacancies for members and alternates on the city Historical Commission and neighborhood conservation district commissions for Avon Hill, Half Crown-Marsh and Mid-Cambridge.

City government had its problems in the past year, with councillors sniping at each other and showing less than impressive chops in dealing with a Kendall Square development deal, but there was plenty of shame and even sadness to go around.

Their own deadlock in electing a mayor and the dragged-out conflict over a driveway tested the patience of the City Council on Monday, but neither issue actually got resolved.

Residents of Avon Hill got another week’s delay on a giant lotÆs curb cut proposal that has been fought for some three months with door-to-door petitioning and letters to the editor.

A neighbor opposed to a lot’s second driveway focused attention on “irregularities” in the owner’s application: too few signatures in favor, and therefore too few to justify its progress through the city’s approval system.

Considering the rhetoric like they get to hear on a proposed driveway up on ritzy Avon Hill — about the meaning of democracy, the future of a historic neighborhood and thinking of the children — it’s little surprise city councillors want out.

A test basement apartment program is almost, but not quite, in place for 13 buildings in Cambridge, having been stalled for a week in a parliamentary maneuver called “reconsideration.”

Things were not looking good Monday for the owner of the largest lot in Cambridge, where a construction team has been toiling for four years to, apparently, make a mountain out of a molehill.

There’s tension on Avon Hill, a pricey neighborhood of large single-family homes near Porter Square — but none so large as this.

If you’re looking for a place to live, there’s a good opportunity on Lancaster Street, in the Avon Hill neighborhood. But reader Rich Lingner offers a warning: It’s a little pricey at $4.9 million.