Walter Pero steps into a new role as Director of Veteran Services in Somerville.

By Andrew Firestone

For 15 years, Ward 4 Alderman Walter Pero has served as a voice on the Board of Aldermen. Through this time he battled leukemia, and retook his Ward 4 seat after beating Alderman Jim McCallum in 2003.

Pero steps down as Ward 4 Alderman now, after he announced he would not seek re-election last March. An alderman from 1996 to 2000, Pero resigned to take a position as the City of Somerville’s Director of Veteran Services, a position he would also hold in Winthrop, eventually elevated to the Deputy Commissioner of the State Department of Veteran Services. He was again elected as Ward 4 Alderman in 2004, serving until December 31, 2011.

Pero called his finest vote in the chamber the one he took against the rezoning legislation for the Gravestar/Taurus Investment partnership, Assembly Square Limited Partnership proposal back in 2003. While the vote passed, the ASLP would later sell their permits to the current developer, Federal Realty Investment Trust. “I didn’t feel that the developer that was selected would be able to carry-through on the project, and I think I was proven right a few years later.”

“They just didn’t have deep enough pockets to build Assembly Square,” he said.

He said that his proudest achievement was pushing through an ordinance establishing a commission for Memorials and Monuments. The commission considers and votes on the naming of squares and streets, often in commemoration of veterans and their service, taking a power once held solely by the mayor and bringing it to a board. Pero said he was happy because it “takes a lot of the politics out of it.”

Pero said that he worked for the betterment of veterans because he had witnessed the disrespect that many were given after the Vietnam War. Pero himself served during the Vietnam era in the United States Army, but never went to the conflict itself. He said he was pleased with the change in public sentiment towards veterans in the current age of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“There’s been a veteran in elected office for many, many years. In fact, it used to be that, if you were a World War II veteran, that was one of your qualifications for becoming a politician in the city,” he said.

Pero was President of the BOA in 1999 and again in 2009.

He said that he had tried to administrate his duties with a flavor of “responsiveness.” “People don’t call anymore, but they certainly call or e-mail or they text. You have to be responsive to every issue, because if you’re not responsive one time, they will always remember that.  So if someone calls about a street light, or a parking problem, zoning issue, landlord issues, those are the things that an alderman needs to follow up on.”

Now entering retirement, Pero says he looks forward to golfing, reading books from the Somerville Library, and spending time with his grandchildren.