Politics & Government

Inauguration to Bring Unprecedented 6th Term for Curtatone

If he serves more than half his term, Curtatone will be the longest-serving mayor in Somerville history.

At an inauguration ceremony on Monday, Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone will be sworn into office for an unprecedented sixth consecutive term.

If he serves more than half the term, he will become the longest-serving mayor in Somerville history.*

Members of the Somerville Board of Aldermen and Somerville School Committee will also be sworn in on Monday.

Nearly half the Board of Aldermen will consist of new members.

See: End of an Era for Somerville Board of Aldermen >>

Meanwhile, the School Committee will have three new members.

Monday's inauguration ceremony starts at 6 p.m. at the East Somerville Community School's auditorium.

At 5 p.m., the Somerville Board of Aldermen will hold an organizational meeting at City Hall to officially elect the board's president and vice president for 2014.

* For some reason the photo gallery of Somerville's mayors on the city of Somerville website says Curtatone first took office in 2005. That's wrong. He was elected in November of 2003 and was sworn into office in January of 2004. Other long-serving Somerville mayors include Michael Capuano, who was mayor from 1990 to 1999, and Eugene Brune, who served from 1980 to 1990. The photo gallery says Brune served until 1989, but Brune's author biography says he served in office for 10 years. The photo gallery also says Dorothy Kelly Gay was mayor from 2000 until 2004, though I believe she first took office in 1999 after a special election. In all, it seems the list of Somerville mayors on Wikipedia has more accurate dates. Based on those dates, John M. Lynch, who served twice as mayor in the 1930s, '40s and '50s—his terms in office weren't all consecutive—spent 11 years as mayor. The photo gallery on the city's website, however, indicates he spent only seven years as mayor.

If anyone out there—longtime residents and Somerville history buffs, I'm talking to you—has a definitive list of Somerville's mayors and their terms in office, by all means please share it. The city of Somerville's list seems to contradict known facts about their dates in office, and Wikipedia, useful as it is, isn't authoritative.

None of this changes the fact that no other mayor was elected to a sixth consecutive term and that if Curtatone serves through January of 2015 he will have served longer than any other mayor. Of course, if it turns out Lynch served in office for seven years, not 11, Curatone will achieve that distinction this month.


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