Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone sent a motorcycle police officer up Highland Avenue Sunday during the city’s Memorial Day Parade to demand The Somerville News take down the sign on its float reading: "This is not Frankie’s boat."

The boat, called Miss Somerville News, was in the parade’s fourth division, and was pulled on a trailer with members of the paper’s team of contributors and 2005 Miss Somerville News, Sabrina Moorhead, when the officer approached.

The officer informed the paper’s editor, Neil W. McCabe, that Curtatone had sent him to order the sign off the boat. "Make it easy on yourself and take the sign down," said the officer.

The officer said if the sign did not come down, the mayor had ordered the officer to take the boat out of the parade, McCabe said.

"At first, I thought he was joking," he said. "When he kept it up, I told him that this was not Russia and he had no authority."

"After the officer issued the warning to our driver, I decided to take the sign down. A friend of the paper had asked if his two kids could ride in the boat with us, and I didn’t feel comfortable involving them in a police incident," McCabe said.