By William Tauro 

I’d like to address this letter to candidate for re-election, Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone. 

Dear Mr. Mayor Joseph Curtatone,
While we are again considering to re-elect you for office of mayor of this fine city for another term, would you mind answering a few very important questions for the residents of Somerville and potential debate questions from your new opponent to ask you as well?

1) Can you please explain why no charges were brought against your sister Middlesex Registrar of Deeds Maria Curtatone for her role in hosting the infamous Underage Drinking Party which she hosted in June 2017 which resulted in a stabbing and an assault? Still waiting?

2) Can you please explain why no charges were brought against a Somerville Police lieutenant in his role in embezzling of compensation and overtime hours? One of these audited cases resulted in a Somerville Police officer actually getting caught and admitting to the charges and then who was simply released of the crime with zero discipline given and no charges filed against him. This officer who admitted to the crime allegedly put in for eight hours of compensation for a total of sixty days. If you do the math that equals to 480 hours at between $60-$80 an hour costing the taxpayers between $28,800.00-$38,400.00 in compensation hours paid to this particular police officer alone. 

The penalty for this particular scope of crime would’ve resulted in a federal indictment of the officer as well as suspension/termination pending a federal criminal proceedings trial. To not be confused, when a police officer receives compensation time, it is the same as overtime and that officer eventually will receive that money back to them tax-free as they retire. 

A recently retired Somerville Police officer told us that you, Mayor Joseph Curtatone instead of firing the officer regarding his admission of guilt received zero disciplinary actions to allegedly prevent a major outbreak of the scandal and potential embarrassment to you and your administration.

3) Why did you consider Sergent Michael Kiely for promotion twice who at that time was a school resource officer at the Healy School in Somerville, who was alleged to have placed his private genital images onto a school city-owned computer and later texted it out on a city email to distribute the photographs over the internet on a school computer? 

In a letter, according to Chief Fallon, Kiely received two on two separate occasions, the maximum punishment that the chief is authorized to impose by statue to impose a 5-day suspension and additional punishment at the direction of the mayor. It should be noted both suspensions were imposed on Kiely while he was a patrolman. The first 15-day suspension was for negligently and recklessly firing off his service weapon in the middle of a busy intersection on a ‪‪Saturday afternoon‬‬ with people everywhere around him. The other reason for the suspension was that erected penis photo incident.

Officer Kiely is alleged to have been caught red-handed stealing the identity of a Concord Massachusetts police officer in 2012 for harassment purposes alleging that he was dating the officer’s ex-wife who is an Arlington police officer as well. According to records and pursuant to the Concord incident, Somerville Police Officer Michael Kiely was found to be untruthful, he falsified a police report, and he fraudulently obtained someone’s identity and used that identity to not only slander the police officer in question, but he also tried to get him fired. As s result , Somerville Police Officer Dan Cotter conveniently did the investigation for you and found Sergeant Kiely did nothing wrong. Soon after that in 2014 Officer Kiely was promoted to Sargent by Somerville Police Chief David Fallon even though there was a civil service decision that ruled against him for being untruthful and falsifying a police report resulting in a 15-day suspension. 

In 2018, Somerville Police Chief Fallon via yourself, Mayor Curtatone knowing full well Officer Kiely‘s disciplinary track record, ignored his personnel file and once again and attempted to promote Sargent Kielly to lieutenant but the aldermen after reviewing the case stepped in and said no way due to his disciplinary history and voted 11-1 to disapprove his promotion.

Did a conspiracy of combined political retaliation tactics ever exist in Somerville including abuse of powers and Somerville politics getting in the way of dozens of hard working and innocent police candidate’s dreams who were on the list of becoming a Somerville Police officer?

Was there tampering of the civil service police list involved then politically eliminating/bumping and here even resulting in the murdered MIT Police officer Sean Collier?

According to court documents and family interviews, Sean Collier was allegedly outraged with the assumption that you Mayor Joseph Curtatone and the city was intentionally interfering with the police hiring of the 26-year-old who had been striving to become a police officer in the city of Somerville.

While on the waiting list Collier accused you and your administration of preventing him to become a Somerville Police officer over alleged retaliation by yourself towards another candidate’s mother who you allegedly had animosity towards.

4) Sean Collier reserved alleged accusations accusing yourself, Somerville Mayor Curtatone of retaliation tactics against Somerville Department of Public Works employee Threasa Hussey who’s daughter, a military combat veteran Virginia Hussey who was number one on the waiting list. So did you play any role in these above accusations of tampering with this municipal hiring list what so ever?

5) In Ward 2 three years ago the former Ward 2 Alderman and yourself tried to take away all the parking on both sides of the road on McGrath Highway, but fortunately this very paper, my brother Ronald Tauro and the business owners were able to fight back and at least we were able to get one side of the parking back with no help from the Board of Aldermen or the Chamber of Commerce.

Again in Ward 2 three years ago the former Ward 2 Alderman and yourself again pulled off one of your biggest stunts in Somerville’s history by closing off the McGrath Highway overpass offramp that leads down to Somerville Avenue as well as the tunnel beneath it directing desperately needed traffic of customers coming from Cambridge cutting off all traffic circulations from both sides to multiple running businesses in that area stopping them from doing business.

Allegations hovering over you that you temporarily accomplished your goal because what are those businesses and properties worth today with no traffic going down to them. What is a Burger King drive-through worth with no traffic? What is the Target mall worth with no traffic and no automobiles to park in their big parking lot? What is John’s Auto Sales worth with no customer traffic?

What is Carroll Roofing’s property worth with no customer traffic? What are all the businesses on Somerville Avenue worth with no traffic you tell me? And yes we have skin in the game as well because what is the Tauro Realty property on McGrath Highway worth with no customer traffic? Even the little sub shop on Somerville Avenue that’s located behind the Somerville Police Station that has been there for decades has even just recently forced to board up it’s windows and closed shop due to no customer traffic. And let us never forget what you did to the Ball Square square Bowling Alley with that fictitious eminent domain episode.

My question to you is why in the hell did you do this and what was the reasoning for your actions?

6) Now here we are in 2019 and once again with the Somerville Police Department back in the news again with its police patrolman’s union now allegedly missing between $50,000-$90,000 that was allegedly embezzled by one of its own officers. Why weren’t charges filed against him and why wasn’t he fired?

7) Now we get to the $64,000 question on why weren’t any of these allegations in the 566 pages of the book “STEALING SOMERVILLE Death of an Urban City” ever denied, refuted, a press release statement or a press conference ever held nor any slanderous charges or court action ever have been brought forth against me, the author in regard to the many allegations that I still accuse you of?

In this book, indictment charges could easily arise from the evidence within the book which ranges from allegations on just about everybody in your administration including yourself and the dirty deeds that all of you are accused of doing as well as with witness statement testimony using real names.

We recall during your 2017 re-election campaign, you were fortunate enough to get your competition, Mayoral Candidate Peyton Corbett discredited for a 10-year-old Facebook posting that he posted many years ago. Everything that I have just mentioned in this article above clearly outweighs everything that Peyton Corbett ever did wrong in his postings. Could you please explain the reasoning on this as well and why shouldn’t you be removed for consideration of running as well? Why are you exempt from any of these allegations?

Mr Mayor, we patiently await your response.