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Somerville mayor Dorothy Kelly Gay, once a rising political star, is facing two serious re-election challengers. What happened?
BY SUSAN RYAN-VOLLMAR
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SO WHAT HAPPENED to Somerville? Just five or six years ago, if you believe the Utne Reader, the most densely populated city in the state was also one of the hippest spots in North America. Today, if you believe the candidates running for mayor of Somerville — well, two of them, anyway — you’d think Somerville was more like the armpit of the continent. At-large alderman Joe Curtatone, who is making his second run for the city’s top political job, talks about dirty streets, gang violence, and mismanagement of city services. He says the one thing he keeps hearing from long-time residents as he door-knocks his way through the city asking for votes is that they’ve decided to leave. In particular, he remembers one couple who told him they were leaving Somerville for Chelmsford. "Chelmsford!" Curtatone exclaims, as if the Route 3 ’burb were the end of the earth. Tony LaFuente, founder and owner of the East Somerville–based Flagographics who is also running for mayor, says much the same thing. The first-time political candidate also adds that many parents are moving out of the city because the "school department has been decimated." The person responsible for all this, at least according to LaFuente (pronounced LaFwent) and Curtatone? Somerville mayor Dorothy Kelly Gay. Kelly Gay took office in 1999 after winning a special election to replace former mayor Michael Capuano, who had just won the Eighth Congressional District race. Since then, critics like LaFuente and Curtatone, a former political ally of Kelly Gay’s who professes still to have a deep personal respect for the mayor, say that the city has gone to hell in a hand basket. IF SOMERVILLE HAS indeed gone to the dogs, it’s not apparent in the city’s property values, which continue to rise. Nor is it readily apparent during an interview with the mayor. The sit-down is originally scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Sunday at the Diesel Café in Davis Square, but we change plans when we can’t find an available table. Across the street at Starbucks, whose coffee, the mayor points out, isn’t quite as tasty as that served at the Diesel, we run into the same problem. "This is what I like to see," Kelly Gay says. "People are out, the square is bustling." We finally grab a sidewalk table in front of the Burren, most likely empty because no alcohol can be served outside. Over the course of a 30-minute interview, Kelly Gay, who kicked off her re-election run with $29,309 in campaign funds (the amount reflects what she raised last year; the next round of contributions will be reported September 15), says that the police are doing a "great job" with the gang problem in East Somerville. (Last fall, members of the street gang MS-13, comprising mostly young, male El Salvadoran immigrants, allegedly raped two teenage girls in Foss Park, which sits on the corner of Broadway and McGrath Highway.) Last year, Kelly Gay says, MS-13 had about 40 members. Today, it’s down to about 20 and, she says, "we know who they are and what they’re up to." She’s "very proud of what we’ve achieved with the schools," though she notes they have been hit hard by recent budget cuts necessitated by reductions in state aid (Somerville receives approximately 40 percent of its revenue from the state). She believes she got "an incredible deal for the city" in her negotiations with developers interested in building at Assembly Square. If things are as rosy as Kelly Gay depicts, however, then how come so many of her former supporters are now backing Curtatone? Stan Koty, a former alderman and school-committee member who until July served as a city clerk for Kelly Gay (and who gave $450 to Kelly Gay’s campaign committee last year), recently resigned his post and announced that he was supporting Curtatone: "Back five years ago, when the mayor asked for my help and many others were asked to help her, we believed she was the person to lead Somerville in the right direction." Now, Koty says, it’s clear that Kelly Gay and her administration "have an inability to pay attention to the things people care about." Board of Aldermen president Sean O’Donovan says the same thing. While introducing Curtatone at a campaign fundraiser at Anthony’s on Highland Avenue last Friday night, O’Donovan told a crowd of about 200 Curtatone supporters: "I’ve been after Joe for months to take out papers [to run for mayor]. Four years ago, I supported Dorothy Kelly Gay for mayor. It was a mistake." Former mayor Eugene Brune, now the Middlesex County register of deeds, says the same thing — though he’s sympathetic to the economic hand Kelly Gay has been dealt. "Having served as mayor for 10 years, I know how hard it is. I know that these weren’t good times for Dorothy Kelly Gay," he says. And there are others: Ward Two alderman Maryann Heuston, who gave $350 to Kelly Gay’s campaign last year, and Ward One alderman Bill Roche, who gave $100. Both attended Curtatone’s Friday-night fundraiser. IT’S AN IMPRESSIVE line-up of support. Especially considering that Curtatone’s decision to run against Kelly Gay was a last-minute one — he waited until July 11, the final day nomination papers could be taken out, before going to City Hall to get the signature forms. Just six weeks earlier, when the Somerville Journal did a story on possible mayoral candidates, the paper reached Curtatone for comment as he was driving down Storrow Drive to the hospital where his wife was about to give birth to the couple’s first child. His answer then was that he wasn’t running — he had other priorities. "After that article came out, the phone calls came in," Curtatone says, from both constituents and political allies like O’Donovan who wanted the eight-year veteran of the Board of Aldermen to take another run at Kelly Gay. (Curtatone first ran for mayor in 1999 against Kelly Gay and then-alderman John Buonomo, who’s now Middlesex County register of probate. He lost in the preliminary election and threw his support to Kelly Gay.) Despite the lack of preparation, which is reflected in his campaign-finance reports — as of his last campaign filing, which covered all of 2002, he had $1013, all of which he himself donated — the Curtatone campaign seems to be doing well. His Friday-night fundraiser, for example, was a success, he says, drumming up between $10,000 and $15,000. At this point, Curtatone says, he is simply fed up with waiting for Kelly Gay to take action. "Dot’s a nice person, but it’s not about whether you’re a nice person. It’s about whether or not you’re a strong leader." If that’s the case, couldn’t Curtatone, who chaired the finance committee of the Board of Aldermen two of the last three years, be held partly responsible for the city’s current budget woes? Wasn’t he in a position to see that revenues were plummeting and spending needed to be cut? "It’s a good question," Curtatone says. "On the Board of Aldermen, we fought for the implementation of performance measures. The bottom line is you can’t manage what you can’t measure ... [but] the implementation and accountability of performance lies in the mayor’s office." Under Somerville’s strong form of mayoral governance, he points out, there’s only so much an alderman can do. What about Assembly Square? During his first run for mayor, Curtatone supported the mission of the controversial Mystic View Task Force, which opposes construction of big-box stores on the 140-acre site. Today, he’s calling for re-tenanting the Assembly Square mall, and he backs the construction of an Ikea superstore. The turnabout has caused some, including LaFuente, to wonder aloud whether Curtatone has become too cozy with developers. "I don’t understand why Joe is so adamant about defending the developers down there," LaFuente says during an interview. It’s a charge that amuses Curtatone. "My relationship with [developers] is transparent," he says. He adds that his approach to the development of Assembly Square is to mix ideology with reality. For example, the "Kmart lease is a legal reality," he says, referring to the 55-year lock the discount store has on a key corner of the development footprint. "Kmart dictates who builds on that parcel." Not Mystic View or anyone else. In the meantime, he says, he has worked hard with his fellow aldermen to come up with a new zoning plan for the area that mixes development restrictions with incentives. But again, there’s only so much an alderman can do. This is a job for the mayor. LAFUENTE WANTS that job. The businessman thinks he’s the best candidate in the race. And when he makes this point, he is always careful to criticize Kelly Gay and Curtatone together, treating them as if they were running on a two-person ticket. It’s a theme of his campaign: as you drive into Somerville from Cambridge along McGrath Highway, you’re greeted by a gigantic banner hanging from an apartment building that shows Kelly Gay and Curtatone shaking hands. The caption reads: "Four years ago they promised to build a better Somerville. Are you really better off? Vote for real change." His motivation for running seems to stem, in part, from the fact that he’s a political junkie. He majored in political science at Boston College and has been involved in Somerville politics as a campaign contributor and informal adviser to candidates for about two decades. It also stems from genuine, personal anguish over the way Kelly Gay has administered recent budget cuts. All of LaFuente’s three children attend St. Ann School in Somerville. One of his children has a disability that requires speech therapy. When Kelly Gay made her cuts to the school budget, she suspended city payouts to private schools that funded special-needs services to Somerville students, LaFuente charges. Payments were eventually restored, but LaFuente says that services to his child were so badly interrupted that he and his wife decided to pay for therapy out of their own pocket. Of course, that’s not an option every parent has. "That [Kelly Gay] is not able to at least protect the most vulnerable people in our city, it speaks volumes," he says. It would likely speak even louder if LaFuente knocked off Curtatone in the preliminary election. That could spell the end of Curtatone’s mayoral ambitions, if not his career as an alderman. And Kelly Gay, once touted as a rising star in the state Democratic Party after her surprisingly strong statewide race for lieutenant governor in 1998 (she lost to Warren Tolman, but won 46.5 percent of the vote), might find herself in the race of her life against the scrappy LaFuente. His campaign signs dot the city from Teele Square to Cross Street. And he’s hitting up the seniors for their votes. Last Thursday night, he and his campaign served dinner to about 30 of the 80 residents of the Weston Manor, a home for seniors in West Somerville. It was the campaign’s third visit to the home: the first was a coffee hour, the second was a make-your-own-sundae extravaganza, and the last was the dinner of chicken with pecan sauce, mixed veggies, rice, and Baskin-Robbins ice cream with cookies. Two things were obvious about the event: the LaFuente campaign is incredibly organized, but LaFuente himself still has a lot to learn about working a crowd. After dinner, LaFuente delivered a stump speech that was long on ideas, but also just plain long. The room was hot and stuffy, and some in the audience looked like they were about to doze off. As he was wrapping it up, asking for their votes on September 23, a woman said, "Look at me." It was an awkward moment, unexpected, but LaFuente looked over at her. As he turned, she pointed to him. "You da man," the Weston Manor resident said, to laughter and applause. It would have been a great way to end the night, but LaFuente seized the moment instead to tack more on to his speech, talking about development at Assembly Square and the "cozy relationship" between politicians and developers. The woman who had provided LaFuente with his potentially fabulous exit, meanwhile, fanned herself with a campaign brochure. It’s impossible to say who’s going to win in September, much less November. But LaFuente, who isn’t required to file a campaign report until next Monday, is a wild card that Kelly Gay and Curtatone ignore at their peril. Susan Ryan-Vollmar can be reached at svollmar[a]phx.com
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