By George P. Hassett

In July, Lenny DiCiccio wanted to bury Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone. By September he was voting for him.

Despite a nasty falling out and his previously pledged support to Curtatone’s opponent Rick Scirocco, DiCiccio stepped into the voting booth and cast his ballot for the man he once called his godson (though he is not actually Curtatone’s godfather, he was a sponsor at the confirmation of Cosmo Curtatone – the mayor’s brother).

“Of course I voted for him,” DiCiccio said. “Rick was a loser.”

Months earlier DiCiccio provided one of the few newsworthy events of the sleepy campaign season when he allegedly threatened Curtatone’s life.

He said he was in Ball Square, standing outside Kelly’s Diner, when he saw Daniel Spinosa – a longtime Curtatone supporter – and struck up a conversation about the upcoming primary. DiCiccio was squarely on the side of Scirocco at the time.

“I told him you better come join our side because we’re going to bury this guy Curtatone,” DiCiccio said. “And then he took that and pulled a cutie on me.”

As a result of the comment, police were notified and an officer was assigned to a paid detail guarding Curtatone from the 78-year-old DiCiccio at a cost of $1,034.

In a campaign with no debates, DiCiccio’s “We’re going to bury this guy Curtatone” became some of the only words to make an impact. “It was the only excitement we had in the damn thing,” he said.

And, a few months later, his conversion to a vote for Curtatone marked another once fierce opponent of the mayor’s who had been won over.

In the last two years Curtatone has neutralized his strongest and most organized foes – the police and fire unions who once picketed City Hall together and the Mystic View Task Force who repeatedly won legal victories against the city over Assembly Square zoning issues. He has had only one proposal voted down by the Board of Aldermen and he won 76 percent of the vote in the last election.

However, winning DiCiccio over proved to be as challenging as reaching a labor agreement. DiCiccio was angry over Curtatone’s refusal to appoint him to the Licensing Commission after he volunteered for his first successful campaign in 2003.

“Lenny would have had the whole city up for sale,” said a source close to Curtatone. “He told the mayor he wanted to be the money man on the Licensing Commission. Joe was horrified.”

Curtatone offered a job at the library and DiCiccio had an enemy.

“He said I was going to shake everybody down for liquor licenses, so I stuck Rick [Scirocco] in the race [for mayor] just to make him spend some money,” he said.

However, DiCiccio said he and Curtatone have since made peace. At the grand opening of a Chinese restaurant on Somerville Avenue a few months back, the two met and spoke for the first time in years, DiCiccio said.

   
Last year’s verbal attacks have been long forgotten by now, Curtatone said.

“The only thing that bothered me about that was it caused people to perceive Somerville in a way that wasn’t accurate. It was a colorful story but it didn’t describe the city the way it truly is,” he said. “I’ve forgiven anyone who said anything bad about me from that time.”

DiCiccio, who is married to Miss Senior U.S.A. winner Fran Owens, keeps a scrapbook of Somerville Journal and Somerville News clippings criticizing the mayor. He said one gripe he has with the mayor is his appointees. He wants to see Curtatone have more independence from some department heads.

“Sometimes I think he listens to the last guy that talked to him the night before,” he said.

Still, DiCiccio said he would probably vote for Curtatone again. “He’s doing a good job. What else can you do?”