A criminal past and alleged death threat took place of issues

By George P. Hassett

The underdog challenger to Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone showed signs of a campaign this week after several quiet months with little public debate between the candidates.

Suzanne L. Bremer released her campaign’s first press statement last week, more than three months after first declaring that she would run for mayor against Curtatone. In it, she incorrectly said Somerville spent over $435,500 for an Emergency Operations Center inside the city’s public safety building. In fact, according to Police Captain Paul Upton, the city spent only $55,000 of taxpayer money on the new center. The remaining $400,000 was paid for by grants from the federal government provided to bring the city into compliance with national safety guidelines, he said.

“The information [Bremer] is putting out is incorrect,” he said.

Despite factual inaccuracy, the release raised one of the first actual campaign issues in the 2007 race for mayor. Although two challengers competed with him on the ballot, Curtatone has had to put up with little opposition in his bid for a return to City Hall. There has been just one forum in which Curtatone addressed an audience in the presence of his opponent and there are no further debates scheduled. Bremer said she was open to more debates with Curtatone but that he would not agree to them. Curtatone said there was only one debate because of “logistical issues.”

The race stands in stark contrast to the 2003 contest Curtatone won to first become mayor. That year he and another challenger, Tony Lafuente, ousted incumbent mayor Dorothy Kelly Gay in the primary and faced off in a close race in the general election in which Curtatone won with 52 percent of the vote. That election cycle featured four debates and raised issues such as development at Assembly Square and youth gangs in the city.

Conversely, before this year’s primary, most of the attention focused on challenger Rick Scirocco, his criminal past and an alleged death threat from one of his supporters against the mayor.

Scirocco, owner of a construction company, has had four restraining orders taken out against him by four women who alleged he abused them. In one case he pled guilty to bruising a woman’s eye and was ordered to undergo counseling. In 2004 he was arrested for, but eventually acquitted of, buying liquor for underage children. Scirocco said Curtatone was one of the defense lawyers who represented him in court for his legal battles.

During Scirocco’s campaign, the threat of violence continued as one of his supporters, Lenny DiCiccio, told a Curtatone volunteer that Scirocco was going to “bury” the mayor.

Word of the remark got back to Curtatone, two detectives were assigned to interview DiCiccio and a police officer was assigned to a paid detail guarding the mayor for one day at a cost of $1,034.

DiCiccio said the two detectives agreed with him that the statement was an innocent jab about the two competing campaigns and not a threat. “[The Curtatone campaign] tried to pull a cutie on me,” he said. “[The remark] was nothing.”

DiCiccio is an estranged friend of the Curtatone family and claimed he was the mayor’s godfather. However, according to Curtatone, DiCiccio is not his godfather but was his brother Cosmo Curtatone’s confirmation sponsor. Whatever his relation to the Curtatone family, DiCiccio is now a staunch opponent. After the alleged threat was made public DiCiccio promised to “throw some bombs.”

On the day of the primary Scirocco and his supporters de around the city in a stretch limousine touting his candidacy to voters through a bullhorn. But that was not enough to keep him in the race and he received only 467 votes.

The issue-free campaign comes on the heels of a two-year period in which Curtatone has neutralized his strongest and most organized rivals through legal settlements and political negotiation.

The police patrolmen and firefighter unions twice demonstrated outside City Hall together in protest of Curtatone’s public safety policies. Two years ago, the patrol union took out full page ads in both city newspapers harshly criticizing Curtatone’s ultimately successful attempt to increase his presence in the police department by winning the power to appoint the police chief. However, each union has toned down its anti-Curtatone rhetoric and theatrics since agreeing to labor contracts with the city.

In the last year, Curtatone has also appeased another organized foe, the Mystic View Task Force. The grassroots group of Somerville residents had halted development at the city’s most valuable and complex parcel of land, Assembly Square. By 2006 the zoning Curtatone had paid outside lawyers over $700,000 to draft had been struck down by a judge as “invalid” and revenues from the strip mall —- the only part of the development to be built —- were far below city projections at $531,575.

Legal losses, stagnated development at Assembly Square and an inability to work with Mystic View had played a part in Gay’s loss and now Curtatone was facing a streak of bad publicity surrounding the development. But then negotiations between Mystic View and developers Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRIT) began. Although multiple people who were involved in the negotiations said city officials did not participate, Curtatone was a beneficiary of the eventual settlement.

In media coverage of the event he was able to play a central role in resolving one of the region’s most contentious, divisive and ingrained feuds and reversed some negative press when FRIT agreed to pay the city’s legal bills.

One constant in Curtatone’s tenure as mayor has been strong support from the Board of Aldermen. Curtatone said the board’s job is to “hold his feet to the fire” yet he has only had one proposal defeated by them in four years and he had enough support on the board to get his “invalid” zoning for Assembly Square passed with a super majority, eight of 11 votes. The city’s legislative body has been so cooperative with the mayor, former alderman-at-large and current State Rep. Denise Provost, D-Somerville, has criticized it for a lack of independence.

And after Marty Martinez, who had been endorsed by Provost and Alderman-at-Large William A. White for his potential for independence from Curtaone, lost to John M. Connolly in May activist and attorney Todd S. Kaplan called the board “a rubber stamp for the mayor.”

As Curtatone’s power and popularity have increased, his small but devoted band of detractors has remained stubborn. In 2005 when the Somerville News endorsed Nobody for mayor (Curtatone was running unopposed, or, against Nobody), 24 percent of voters left ballots blank or wrote in Nobody. In the Sept. 25 primary, Curtatone’s two underdog opponents received a combined 24 percent of the vote. And even against candidates such as Scirocco and Bremer, Curtatone could not win the endorsement of the Progressive Democrats of Somerville.

He said disagreements are a natural fact of policy debate and he welcomes different points of view for the city’s future. He said his popularity and smooth working relationship with the Board of Aldermen are due to the work he has done in the city over his four years as mayor.

‚ÄúFour years ago Somerville was stagnant. City government was not delivering basic services, development at Assembly Square was halted. People had the perception government had stopped working for them. Since then I‚Äôve worked to make this a model city. We have introduced customer service innovations like 311 and SomerStat in City Hall, passed zoning and begun development at Assembly Square and helped make Somerville a great place to live, work and play. I‚Äôm flattered and honored for the popularity I‚Äôve experienced in the city but that can always change. Even a right decision can be unpopular,‚Äù he said.