By William Tauro

This is a photo of one of many 100 year old underground colapsed chimneys throughout the City of Somerville that have failed and caused most of the tremendous amount of water buildup resulting in street flooding, basement flooding and destruction of properties throughout the city. I would like to thank Christine Carlino of Somerville for this photo which actually has a pretty big story to tell.

There is one particular chimney on Richdale Avenue which has been known for the past 10-12 years ago by our current administration that a Verizon utility concrete box weighing over two tons that was placed on top of the chimney over twelve years ago causing the hundred year old chimney to collapse and fail even further. Our current city officials, our department of public works department heads, our city engineers and our city project managers (All appointed city hacks) have known about this for years, but have always chosen to turn a blind eye away from it to ignore it for some reason. Especially where a utility company caused this damage, they are responsible for it. They are responsible to fix it, repair it and especially my preference to replace it.

Why this has been ignored for over a decade is a very good question. It’s still remains to be a mystery as of today, especially where the repair costs fell on the laps of the Somerville taxpayer’s who have been paying for these shoddy bandage repairs for over a decade. Maybe someone got a kickback, who knows, but let’s move forward with this ongoing problem and let’s fix it once and for all.

As mayor I will make sure that this utility company who caused the damage will be held accountable for this and have it fixed properly and replaced. Other chimneys across the city will be dug up, thoroughly inspected and replaced as necessary with new state of the art equipment so that the residents of Somerville don’t have to worry about their basements, yards and streets ever getting flooded ever again.

Best regards,
William “Billy” Tauro