Somerville 2007: The year in news

From alleged death threats to unpaid parking tickets, Somerville had a busy and quirky news year in 2007. Here are the top five news stories of the year as we see it.

“We’re going to bury him”

Rick Scirocco’s campaign for mayor had a difficult day on Friday, Aug. 24. That day, the Boston Herald ran a full page story on Scirocco’s multiple domestic violence arrests and the four restraining orders taken out against him by four different women. Later in the day the Somerville News reported Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone was being guarded by a police officer on paid detail after his office learned a Scirocco supporter – Lenny DiCicco – had told a Curtatone volunteer, “We’re going to bury him.” DiCicco insisted his remark was in reference to election results and not a threat to do bodily harm to Curtatone. However, either Curtatone or his staff took the threat seriously enough to demand an armed guard at the cost of $1,034 to protect Curtatone from the elderly DiCicco.

Obama’s parking tickets

Before Barack Obama was a United States senator and a presidential hopeful, he was a Harvard University law student living in Winter Hill who parked in bus stops and accumulated hundreds of dollars in parking tickets. And for nearly two decades those parking tickets went unpaid, until a representative of Obama’s settled his $400 debt with Cambridge’s Traffic, Parking and Transportation Department on Jan. 26.
The Somerville News broke the story on March 7 and Obama’s traffic misdeeds were reported on throughout the world in the next couple of days. It was hardly the biggest issue of the presidential campaign trail but it was the only one to involve Winter Hill.

East Somerville Community School burns

Almost 600 students lost their school when an electrical problem in a room heater caused a fiery explosion devastating the East Somerville Community School (ESCS) on Sunday Dec. 9. The ESCS was the city’s biggest elementary school and featured the only auditorium in the city aside from the one at the high school. Students returned to class 10 days later in three other schools in the city – the Edgerly, the Cummings and the Capuano schools. Curtatone estimated the damage from the fire was in the millions.

Progress on the Green Line

After almost two decades of delay, the Green Line extension through Somerville took its most substantial steps toward becoming a reality in 2007. Just weeks after announcing a possible delay in the project, Gov. Deval Patrick stood in Gilman Square and pledged his administration would try to beat the projected 2014 completion date for extending the Green Line. Then a few months later he fully funded the $600 million project for the first time. The extension has near unanimous support in the community and when the Green Line finally does roll through Somerville, 2007 will be remembered as the year it got its first big push.

New top cop in town

Anthony Holloway will become the third man to lead the city’s police force in less than three years when he takes over from Acting Police Chief Robert R. Bradley on Jan. 1. Holloway was chosen for the job by Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone in August over Bradley and Miami-Dade major Ruben Galindo.
When Holloway steps into the job in the new year he will set three milestones in the department’s history – he will be the city’s first black police chief, the first appointed by the mayor outside civil service guidelines and the first hired from outside the department.

Comments

[Jim Gray]

If I had "multiple domestic violence arrests and the four restraining orders taken out against him by four different women," I do not think I would be running for pubic office. Was he delusional or what?

[Election]

Most likely, the Mayor or his staff thought this would be good publicity (paid by our taxes).

[Imux]

None of you guys have ever been divorced? I've been through 3 and every single time I've had restraining orders tossed on me too. 2 of the times I wasn't even in the state - and I never hit a woman in my life -- it's just a ploy a lot of women do for sympathy. It is the way of our times.

I'm not saying some people don't deserve them, but it's gotten so easy for someone who is pissed to throw one at you that some are frivolous.

Chances are Rick's restraining orders were in that class.

[Tricky]

Dude, you got to get your delusions straight before posting: you're a lifelong Ward 7 resident with two out-of-state divorces?

[Imux]

No. I wasn't in the state when the "incidents" supposedly occurred. I was living here, but I was travelling. I had proof.

[Imux]

and I have lived other places - I went to college away and then well.. went away (still in the state, but a "guest"). Now I am back.

[Ron Newman]

If somoene has four restraining orders against him, and the women are lying, that suggests the man doesn't have very good judgment skills and repeatedly makes bad choices. So I still wouldn't entrust him with a public office.

[ohubich]

I think IMUX should run next time around - hell he only has three divorces and Scirocco has his four r.o. s. IMUX looks tame in comparision. Seriously, IMUX is correct in that some women use the r.o. as a hammer. They can claim someone made a telephone call or even a message sent via a third party. DSS even demands mothers seek a r.o. against a father/husband/boyfriend if a child is living in the house or they will take the child away!

[Jim Gray]

Imux, even if we accept that all the restraining orders are bs...he has still been arrested multiple times for domestic violence. Of course that doesn't mean that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It does mean that the police had probable cause to believe that domestic violence had taken place. Are those arrests all down to lying women as well? There is alot of smoke here. I would hazard a guess that there is some fire.

[Humberto]

Hey Jim maybe he belongs down in East Somerville where we fat, cigarette smoking, fast food eating Latinos know how to treat our women.

[Bill Shelton]

I do think that an Imux candidacy would make for a miiiiighty interesting campaign season. He has strong opinions that might flush out some of our chameleon-like incumbents, and he's a lot more articulate than Scirocco.

[Al B, Tross]

Mayor Joe always has a bunch of his appointees
around him anyway. Couldn't some of these guys have kept an eye on him. I know a couple of them pack heat .