Somerville — You can count me out as a citizen who refers to our fair city as the “ville” or the “Paris of New England.” You can count me in as a supporter of our city’s application for the All American City Award. I hope the mayor brings the award back home to Somerville.
This is not the first time Somerville is a finalist for the All American City Award. In 1973, the city received the accolade as a community that demonstrated excellence arising from broad-based community involvement and leadership, resulting in outstanding community development.
In January 1970, S. Lester Ralph, a minister and attorney, was inaugurated as mayor of Somerville. Six months prior, he was an unknown citizen who announced his candidacy for mayor. Two months earlier, he was elected mayor. He won 36 out of 38 precincts in the election.
A mere 30 months later, the city received the All American City Award. Specifically, it was bestowed upon the city for three areas of government and community participation: services to the elderly; development of and initiation of a master plan for building community schools, rebuilding old schools and remodeling all schools; and the efforts of citizens to install a reform government that exposed mismanagement of tax dollars, citing Mayor Ralph’s efforts to lead the government to be more responsive to community input.
Ralph’s election capped a six-year effort by civic groups dissatisfied with their municipal government. Between 1965 and 1970, Somerville citizens formed a host of civic organizations to change, upgrade and create a new atmosphere of citizen and government cooperation.
Some of these reform groups included ESCA, East Somerville Citizens for Action; CSS, Citizens to Support Schools; ESNIC, East Somerville Neighborhood Improvement Committee; EMOC, Eastern Middlesex Opportunities Council; SRUC, Somerville Racial Understanding Committee; SWRO, Somerville Welfare Rights Organization; WTCA, Ward Two Civic Association; MHTA, Mystic Housing Tenants’ Association; SCAT, Somerville Citizens for Adequate Transportation; CPP, Citizens for Participation in Politics (local branch); and INTERCOM, a group formed to foster communications between all these citizen groups.
This was a turbulent time in the country and in the city. These civic organizations received little or no assistance from the municipal government. It was a scandalous indifference.
They say “wisdom cries out in the streets.” Ward 1 streets were aroused by plans to destroy the character of their community with a plan for urban renewal. Community action stopped that plan. Ward 1 residents also led the city to renounce a state plan to encircle Somerville with multilane highways.
Imagine Somerville surrounded on three sides by highways. The state plan was to have I-93 divide the city to the north, extend Route 2 through Cambridge and Somerville to the south, and connect I-93 with an “Inner Belt” connecting Somerville to the Mass. Pike to the east. The Inner Belt was to pass through Somerville and Cambridge. Sound crazy? Surprisingly, most city officials were in favor of this plan.
These citizens’ groups were the catalysts that aroused other residents to oppose this strangulation of the city. Through strong activism over a period of five years, they were able to stop the extension of Route 2 and the four-lane Inner Belt. Unfortunately, the state went ahead with construction of I-93 without depressing the highway through Somerville, causing, as predicted, a split city, pollution and noise. The protest of the activist groups was the first crowbar to disturb the loud and blowsy attitude of many city officials.
On the other hand, however, more community groups formed to rehabilitate or re-create our school system. They sought to institute a school lunch program to ensure adequate nutrition for all children and to free women from the necessity of remaining home all day, unable to work, since they needed to be home at lunchtime. Even after Carla Johnston, the ace of community organizers, testified before the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and the program was endorsed by Sen. Edward Kennedy, the majority of the School Committee voted against the school lunch program. Most students in low-income Somerville were entitled to this program under law. It was a federally funded program.
Ideas to initiate a community school system were defeated. Once, parents, though invited by the superintendent of schools to visit and inspect the schools during National Education Week, were turned away from many schools when they arrived with checklists to record the physical conditions of schools, the majority of which were built between the Civil War and the early 20th century. These parents were called “outside agitators,” “socialists” and “hippies.” Privately, the shibboleth “commies” was a common slander.
Even high school girls were under attack for wearing pants to school. A gathering of female students dressed in pants was told to “go home and change your clothes if you want to go to school.”
Community schools? Well, they were simply too new-fangled for consideration. The prevailing official attitude was that most schools were to be open only during the school day. After-school programs, drug education, community meeting access, teen programs and preschool programs were not in the cards for parents. These parents were working mothers and wives of working-class workers. They were seen as agitators and troublemakers
Meanwhile, down at the Housing Authority, residents, beset with structural and heating problems, organized themselves into a tenants’ association. One night, they had a fundraiser that was raided by the Somerville Police. An innocent game, similar to bingo, was a vehicle used by churches, veterans’ groups and nonprofit agencies to raise money for their expenses. This game, though illegal, was universal in Massachusetts ($20 scratch ticket, anyone?). The chief of police, when contacted, ordered the fundraiser stopped. Akin to the police chief in the movie, “Casablanca,” he was “shocked” to discover gambling in his city. Now, this was a time when every barroom in the city had its own bookie and the third-largest organized crime outfit in New England was headquartered a mere 1,000 yards up the street from the fundraiser.
The new community groups were a creative lot. Where programs did not exist, they, with the help of nonprofit public agencies, started their own. The first area nursery school was established by volunteers in Winter Hill. A “well baby” clinic was successfully launched. Three teen centers were opened in the “housing projects.” A Community Ambassador Program provided “scholarships” for Somerville students to spend summers abroad. The first mental health clinic was founded. A health clinic was opened. A summer day camp was sponsored by the Somerville Racial Understanding Committee. Miniature community schools were organized on weekends in churches. Food programs were opened. Groups formed to clean up playgrounds and parks. A community housing and development agency was formed. Gene Brune was busy gathering support to build a Boys & Girls Club complex.
Money was raised from donations from civic leaders, federal funding and community gatherings. People from various groups met at potluck dinners to raise revenues and share the spirit of their many endeavors. This was democracy in action.
It all seems so long ago. A pervasive pattern of inside politics, hidden from its citizens, was surfacing in Somerville. A compliant populace was rising to challenge the established order. Even though the ideas of citizens’ groups were constantly shot down, the mere act of getting under officials’ skin revealed a cabal of politicians who did not know enough to stay out of their own way. As the late columnist for the Boston Globe, George Frazier, wrote of all entrenched politicians, “If you let your guard down for a single moment, you were suckered by their stealthyness.”
Some political leaders were in agreement with the new civic spirit in Somerville. There was Alderman Lee Figgins, who fought endlessly for change at Board of Aldermen meetings. Somerville politics was raw and acrimonious. Lee Figgins was in the foxhole, and there was none better than he. There was School Committeeman John Holmes. He carried the banner, alone, in the School Committee for revamping the school system. There was Alderman Leonard Scott, who shared many ideas of community activists and tried to advance their goals.
Sadly, space considerations deny me the opportunity to tell more of the story or to name the hundreds of heroic citizens involved
Political change did come to this city. Armed with confidence gained from years of community organizing, many of these citizens banned together to support and elect S. Lester Ralph mayor. His administrations instituted many of the programs conceived by the community groups of the late 1960s.
The All American City Award is not given to a community because it has attained perfection. It seeks to find a point in time where one can measure where it was then and how far it has traveled since that time.
Successive Ralph administrations brought change and new ideas to Somerville. There was fervor in the city for change, and change it did. Ralph initiated many of the successful agencies, transportation policies, affordable housing issues, arts awareness programs, financial steadfastness guidelines, tenants’ programs, development concerns, community health awareness, tree plantings, elderly programs, beautification policies, and park reconstructions that exist and flourish today.
Under the category of “victory has a thousand fathers,” file the “Red Line.” In 1972, the proposed extension of the Red Line was to travel only through Cambridge from Harvard Square to Alewife Brook. After the scuttling of the Route 2 extension, the Ralph administration received a commitment from then-Gov. Francis Sargent to alter the planned route to include the stop in Davis Square. And hasn’t that made all the difference?
The schools: it was always the schools. The Ralph administration built five schools, rebuilt four schools and remodeled every school. They embedded within the new community schools preschool programs, community access programs, nutrition programs, an alternative high school and the school lunch program.
As Mayor Ralph said at the time of the award, “No one person, group or agency can claim this award as their own; but together, Somerville can certainly be proud.”
This story is incomplete without mentioning Shelley Cohen, the former crusading editor of the Somerville Journal and present editorial page editor of the Boston Herald. She expanded the Journal, through the letters section, to open a community forum for floods of varying opinions. If something was happening in Somerville, you knew about it through her persistent reporting. If you had an opinion, she printed it.
Contacted recently, she noted what an “astonishing time” it was, and the terrific opportunity she had to report on the “bubbling up from underneath of a citizens’ reform movement.” Speaking of Mayor Ralph, she said, “He was the most unlikely of politicians … He did what needed to be done under very difficult circumstances.”
So, though some may think Somerville is today the “Paris of New England,” I say there was once a “moveable feast” that many of us still carry with us. It is in this spirit, with an understanding of our past, that I look forward to the mayor returning from Florida with the All American City Award, not for the “ville,” but for the people of Somerville. We are indeed an All American City, and of this we can be proud.
Kevin T. Crowley is a lawyer in private practice in Somerville. He was an administrative assistant to Lester Ralph, and former assistant city solicitor under then-Mayor Gene Brune.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
howe family
A six-week investigation by The Crimson has revealed a consistent pattern of conflict-of-interest, nepotism and misuse of public office by one of Somerville's most powerful political families. First of a two-part series.
Democratic State Rep. Marie E. Howe of Somerville and her younger brother John J. Howe, a Somerville property tax assessor, may have systematically used tax assessments to reward personal friends and punish political opponents, an examination of the city's tax records shows.
Although the Howes deny using assessment powers as a political weapon, Somerville tax records reveal a persistent pattern of questionable tax reductions awarded to political friends, and tax increases levied on political opponents.
In one specific instance of conflict-of-interest, the Howes used their assessment powers to give themselves a tax break on their own property.
On June 2, 1976, 35-year-old John Howe lowered the yearly assessment on a piece of property on Charnwood Road in Somerville, a block from his home, by nearly 25 per cent--from $8400 to $6400. This was one of the largest proportionate reductions in residential property taxes awarded that year in Somerville.
Nearly a year later, Somerville Alderman Andrew Puglia discovered that the property on Charnwood Road was owned by John's older sister Marie, and that the property's beneficiaries were listed on the property deed as "John J. Howe and Kristen Howe." Thus assessor Howe lowered the taxes on a piece of property owned by his own family.
John Howe admits that he lowered the assessment so the previous owners could more easily sell the property to his sister, even though the law requires assessment at full property value. But Howe maintains that his actions were not a direct conflict-of-interest, because his family members did not own the property prior to his action. Nevertheless, those who benefited from Howe's decision to lower the assessment were clearly the Howes themselves, who bought the Charnwood Road property at the lower price.
"When have you ever heard of an assessor lowering the assessment so the owners could sell the house?" Puglia, a political opponent of the Howes, asks. "That's unheard of. You're supposed to lower the assessment only if the property has gone down in value. And then, all of a sudden, a few months later, lo and behold, Howe's sister buys the property."
Howe justifies his decision to lower his family's taxes by saying that the property had been over-assessed previously--something Somerville insiders doubt, in light of the city's usually-lenient assessment practices, and the unusual timing of Howe's sudden tax decrease. Only the state's Department of Corporation and Taxation can rule definitively whether Howe's self-help tax break was legitimate, but the department has so far taken no steps to handle the politically sensitive issue.
Howe maintains that at the time he lowered the assessment on the Charnwood Road property, he did not know his sister was planning to buy it. "We were shocked when we heard about it," he stated last year. "What she [Marie] does in her office is one thing, and what I do in mine is another. We don't butt into each other's business." But as one Somerville politician noted skeptically, "Who the hell are they kidding? Marie Howe controls John like a puppet. If my brother owned a house and the assessment was lowered, I'd sure as hell know about it."
Even if Howe knew his sister was planning to purchase the property, he says that it was still legal because it did not involve a direct conflict-of-interest. Howe claims that the "John J. Howe" who is listed as the property's beneficiary is not himself, but his eight-year-old son, John Joseph Howe. (The "Kristen Howe" also listed on the deed is Howe's daughter..) Legally, there is no way to tell which John J. Howe is the true beneficiary.
However, even if it is his son who is the actual beneficiary, Howe would still seem to be involved in conflict-of-interest, because he is the beneficiary's legal custodian. Howe denies this, saying his wife could be the custodian instead. But according to several legal sources, including one in the state Attorney General's office, if the state Taxation Department finds that Howe's family tax break was unjustified, the assessor could be fired by the Department for violating the state's conflict-of-interest statute.
Marie Howe says she bought the Charnwood Road property after her brother lowered the assessment by $2000 as an act of charity toward the previous owners, whom she says were "in deep financial trouble." She denies asking her brother to change the property's assessment, and says that those who charge the family with conflict-of-interest are "sick."
Several months after Marie Howe bought the Charnwood Road property, her brother raised the assessment by $900. He says he did this because the property had increased in value after his earlier assessment because it was no longer vacant. But Alderman Puglia charges that Howe raised the assessment only when he found out he was being investigated for conflict-of-interest. "After they became aware that I was snooping around, they took a pencil and tried to cover their tracks by changing the assessment," Puglia charges.
The Enemies List
The Charnwood Road property is not the only time the Howes have used tax assessments in Somerville for personal and political purposes. The record shows that the Howes may have consistently used the assessing process to reward their personal friends and punish their political enemies.
On June 5, 1976, Howe raised the assessment on the business property of Cosmo Capobianco by $1000. Howe says he increased Capobianco's taxes because of building improvements on the property. But Capobianco says it's been more than four years since he made any building improvements on his property, and that his taxes were raised at that time. Capobianco is a friend and campaign contributor to former Somerville Mayor Lester Ralph, a long-time foe of the Howes who defeated Marie in the 1971 mayoral race. Marie Howe, in an interview with The Crimson, called Capobianco a Ralph "crony ... who has done nothing but steal from the city of Somerville on payroll jobs in the county." The man who personally raised Capobianco's taxes, John Howe, has publicly labeled Capobianco a "political parasite"--prompting Capobianco to sue for libel. The suit is still pending. "There's no question Howe has used assessments as a political tool," Capobianco says.
Three days earlier, Howe had raised by $800 the assessment on property owned by Paul and Doris Griffin. Howe says he raised the assessment because he thought the Griffins' house was a three-family dwelling. Doris Griffin was also a friend of Ralph, Marie Howe's persistent opponent: she had worked as a door-to-door canvasser in his mayoral campaigns, and later was appointed by Ralph to the Somerville Board of Appeals. "Howe said that the reason he raised our assessment [from a two-family dwelling to a three-family dwelling] was because he ... saw some curtains in the attic where my daughter slept, and just assumed there was a third family there," Doris Griffin says. But there were only two families in the Griffin house. As proof that the Griffins were a three-family household, Howe presented to the assessors photographs he had taken showing curtains in the attic of the Griffin house. Doris Griffin says Howe told her he "always" takes photos of the many hundreds of properties he assesses.
The Griffins appealed Howe's decision, and the rest of the assessors decided to grant the family an abatement. "I'm sure he [Howe] doesn't go around this city taking pictures of all several thousand of the houses in Somerville
Both Howes deny that Marie asked John to raise the Griffins' assessment; both deny that the increased assessment was politically motivated.
Former Somerville mayor and current City Clerk William J. Donovan, a political antagonist of Marie Howe and who admits having "no great love" for the Howes, had his property assessment raised by Howe from $10,600 to $14,000 in 1976. Howe says the property was previously under-valued, and that the 40-per-cent assessment increase was long overdue. But the property itself had no buildings that could have increased in value. "The land was vacant," Donovan remembers. "He couldn't justify the assessment." Donovan, too, received an abatement from the rest of the city's assessors.
Marie Howe denies playing any role in Donovan's increased property taxes. Her brother says the assessment was warranted, adding that Donovan's property was full of debris, and is a "disgrace."
The Somerville Journal Affair
One of Howe's largest assessment increases was for the Somerville Press, Inc., which publishes the weekly Somerville Journal. For years, the Howe family has been at political odds with the Journal. In 1974, the newspaper angered the Howes by its coverage of Marie Howe's conviction for trespassing. The conviction stemmed from an incident in which Marie Howe's friend, Walter Silva, forcibly removed the door of one of Howe's tenants from its hinges, while Marie participated in the break-in. Two years later, the Journal gave front-page coverage to Marie's arrest for disorderly conduct during Queen Elizabeth's bicentennial visit to Boston; the paper reported that Marie bit the hand of her arresting officer, requiring him to go to the hospital to get a tetanus shot, and that she then gave the police an alias so they wouldn't know she was a state representative. "She was infuriated after we did the 'Howe Bites Cop' story," says Journal co-editor Barbara Powers. "She said we've always been against her, and she came down [to the newspaper office] and started screaming and yelling and threatening to take us to court." No such suit ever came to trial.
On June 2, 1976, John Howe raised the Journal's tax assessment from $13,000 to $24,4000--an increase of nearly 100 per cent. The Journal had remodeled its building in the past year, but the changes were minor compared with the nearly two-fold property tax increase. "He singled us out, there's no question about it," says one Journal staffer. "He didn't do the same to other businesses." The newspaper appealed Howe's decision, and received a full tax abatement.
Howe maintains his attempted tax increase was long overdue, and "should be higher."
A Little Help for Their Friends
At the same time John Howe was allegedly using his assessment powers to punish his family's political enemies, he was also lowering the taxes of the family's political and personal friends.
In 1976, John Howe lowered the assessments of Robert and Selma Kopelman by nearly $15,000--from $44,900 to $30,000. The Kopelmans were long-time neighbors of the Howes. Though assessments are generally consistent in a given neighborhood, other property assessments in the area were raised by Howe.
On May 4, of that year, Howe also lowered--from $7000 to $6600--the assessment on the home of Leonard Scott, his wife and children. Scott served with Marie Howe on the Somerville School Board, and is reported to be a very close personal friend and companion of Marie Howe. She denies, however, using her influence to lower Scott's assessment, and says "I don't really know Leonard Scott that well."
Because of John Howe's caprius use of his assessment powers and the great influence of the Howe family in Somerville, many of those whose assessment were raised by Howe were afraid to talk to The Crimson.
Paul M. Haley, one-time Somerville alderman who admits that he "never had anything in common" with the Howes, says publicly that the increased assessment of his property was justified: "[In my neighborhood] I think it was just my house and a couple of others at the time (that had an increased assessment), but I can't quarrel with anyone, you know?"
Robert Nunziato, a supporter of Howe opponent Mayor Ralph and a one-time candidate for alderman, did not want to talk about Howe's increase of the assessment of property owned by his father and uncle. "We've been here too long in the city," he said. "What they do, they do. I'd rather forget about it."
Crackdown on Leftists
John Howe may have used his office especially to crack down on political activists. He raised from $7000 to $7900 the assessment of Chris Burns and the "cooperative family" Burns was living with. Burns had contributed money to Howe opponent Lester Ralph, and has been active in Citizens for Participation in Political Action and other liberal groups in Somerville. Marie Howe personally lobbied against Burns in 1972, when the Democratic City Committee in Somerville met to debate his resolution condemning the Vietnam War. Four years later, John Howe's rationale for raising Burns's assessment was that he saw many names on the cooperative family houses. Burns appealed the decision, and the rest of the city's assessors granted an abatement.
Both Howes deny that the assessment was raised for political reasons.
Around the corner from Burns lives another "cooperative family" of unrelated adults, including leftist political activist Frank Ackerman. In October 1976 at a packed meeting of the city's Board of Assessors, Ackerman denounced the board for using tax assessments as a political weapon. During Ackerman's speech, Howe interrupted opened, opened the tax books for Ackerman's neighborhood, and asked threateningly: "Mr. Ackerman, where did you say you lived?"
The next day, at Howe's direction, two city inspectors showed up at the Ackerman house. Two days later, Ackerman received a letter from the Board of Health at Howe's debut citing him for a rarely-enforced city ordinance against five or more unrelated adults living together without a "boarding house" license. Only when Ackerman hired a lawyer to challenge Howe's actions did the city rule in his favor.
Howe still maintains that Ackerman was operating a boarding house, despite a ruling to the contrary by the city solicitor's office.
Marie Howe denies playing any role in the Ackerman incident, but told The Crimson that "Mr. Ackerman's house was loaded with German swastikas.... They were in adoration of Adolf Hitler," Ackerman's wife, Kathy Moore says that there are no swastikas in her house and never have been: "That's just the craziest thing I ever heard. ... The poor woman apparently doesn't know the difference between the (political) right and the left." Indeed, most of the members of their household are Jewish. (Marie Howe adds that even if the Ackermans are Nazis, "that's not why it [the assessment] went up ... I'm not saying anything against Ackerman.")CrimsonAnthea LetsouFor years, the Howe family has feuded with the weekly Somerville Journal. The newspaper's front page coverage of Marie Howe's arrest for disorderly conduct when she bit a police officer especially angered the Howes. After her brother was elected a city tax assessor, he increased the Journal's assessment by more than $10,000. "He singled us out, there's no question about it," says one newspaper staffer. "He didn't do the same to other businesses
Democratic State Rep. Marie E. Howe of Somerville and her younger brother John J. Howe, a Somerville property tax assessor, may have systematically used tax assessments to reward personal friends and punish political opponents, an examination of the city's tax records shows.
Although the Howes deny using assessment powers as a political weapon, Somerville tax records reveal a persistent pattern of questionable tax reductions awarded to political friends, and tax increases levied on political opponents.
In one specific instance of conflict-of-interest, the Howes used their assessment powers to give themselves a tax break on their own property.
On June 2, 1976, 35-year-old John Howe lowered the yearly assessment on a piece of property on Charnwood Road in Somerville, a block from his home, by nearly 25 per cent--from $8400 to $6400. This was one of the largest proportionate reductions in residential property taxes awarded that year in Somerville.
Nearly a year later, Somerville Alderman Andrew Puglia discovered that the property on Charnwood Road was owned by John's older sister Marie, and that the property's beneficiaries were listed on the property deed as "John J. Howe and Kristen Howe." Thus assessor Howe lowered the taxes on a piece of property owned by his own family.
John Howe admits that he lowered the assessment so the previous owners could more easily sell the property to his sister, even though the law requires assessment at full property value. But Howe maintains that his actions were not a direct conflict-of-interest, because his family members did not own the property prior to his action. Nevertheless, those who benefited from Howe's decision to lower the assessment were clearly the Howes themselves, who bought the Charnwood Road property at the lower price.
"When have you ever heard of an assessor lowering the assessment so the owners could sell the house?" Puglia, a political opponent of the Howes, asks. "That's unheard of. You're supposed to lower the assessment only if the property has gone down in value. And then, all of a sudden, a few months later, lo and behold, Howe's sister buys the property."
Howe justifies his decision to lower his family's taxes by saying that the property had been over-assessed previously--something Somerville insiders doubt, in light of the city's usually-lenient assessment practices, and the unusual timing of Howe's sudden tax decrease. Only the state's Department of Corporation and Taxation can rule definitively whether Howe's self-help tax break was legitimate, but the department has so far taken no steps to handle the politically sensitive issue.
Howe maintains that at the time he lowered the assessment on the Charnwood Road property, he did not know his sister was planning to buy it. "We were shocked when we heard about it," he stated last year. "What she [Marie] does in her office is one thing, and what I do in mine is another. We don't butt into each other's business." But as one Somerville politician noted skeptically, "Who the hell are they kidding? Marie Howe controls John like a puppet. If my brother owned a house and the assessment was lowered, I'd sure as hell know about it."
Even if Howe knew his sister was planning to purchase the property, he says that it was still legal because it did not involve a direct conflict-of-interest. Howe claims that the "John J. Howe" who is listed as the property's beneficiary is not himself, but his eight-year-old son, John Joseph Howe. (The "Kristen Howe" also listed on the deed is Howe's daughter..) Legally, there is no way to tell which John J. Howe is the true beneficiary.
However, even if it is his son who is the actual beneficiary, Howe would still seem to be involved in conflict-of-interest, because he is the beneficiary's legal custodian. Howe denies this, saying his wife could be the custodian instead. But according to several legal sources, including one in the state Attorney General's office, if the state Taxation Department finds that Howe's family tax break was unjustified, the assessor could be fired by the Department for violating the state's conflict-of-interest statute.
Marie Howe says she bought the Charnwood Road property after her brother lowered the assessment by $2000 as an act of charity toward the previous owners, whom she says were "in deep financial trouble." She denies asking her brother to change the property's assessment, and says that those who charge the family with conflict-of-interest are "sick."
Several months after Marie Howe bought the Charnwood Road property, her brother raised the assessment by $900. He says he did this because the property had increased in value after his earlier assessment because it was no longer vacant. But Alderman Puglia charges that Howe raised the assessment only when he found out he was being investigated for conflict-of-interest. "After they became aware that I was snooping around, they took a pencil and tried to cover their tracks by changing the assessment," Puglia charges.
The Enemies List
The Charnwood Road property is not the only time the Howes have used tax assessments in Somerville for personal and political purposes. The record shows that the Howes may have consistently used the assessing process to reward their personal friends and punish their political enemies.
On June 5, 1976, Howe raised the assessment on the business property of Cosmo Capobianco by $1000. Howe says he increased Capobianco's taxes because of building improvements on the property. But Capobianco says it's been more than four years since he made any building improvements on his property, and that his taxes were raised at that time. Capobianco is a friend and campaign contributor to former Somerville Mayor Lester Ralph, a long-time foe of the Howes who defeated Marie in the 1971 mayoral race. Marie Howe, in an interview with The Crimson, called Capobianco a Ralph "crony ... who has done nothing but steal from the city of Somerville on payroll jobs in the county." The man who personally raised Capobianco's taxes, John Howe, has publicly labeled Capobianco a "political parasite"--prompting Capobianco to sue for libel. The suit is still pending. "There's no question Howe has used assessments as a political tool," Capobianco says.
Three days earlier, Howe had raised by $800 the assessment on property owned by Paul and Doris Griffin. Howe says he raised the assessment because he thought the Griffins' house was a three-family dwelling. Doris Griffin was also a friend of Ralph, Marie Howe's persistent opponent: she had worked as a door-to-door canvasser in his mayoral campaigns, and later was appointed by Ralph to the Somerville Board of Appeals. "Howe said that the reason he raised our assessment [from a two-family dwelling to a three-family dwelling] was because he ... saw some curtains in the attic where my daughter slept, and just assumed there was a third family there," Doris Griffin says. But there were only two families in the Griffin house. As proof that the Griffins were a three-family household, Howe presented to the assessors photographs he had taken showing curtains in the attic of the Griffin house. Doris Griffin says Howe told her he "always" takes photos of the many hundreds of properties he assesses.
The Griffins appealed Howe's decision, and the rest of the assessors decided to grant the family an abatement. "I'm sure he [Howe] doesn't go around this city taking pictures of all several thousand of the houses in Somerville
Both Howes deny that Marie asked John to raise the Griffins' assessment; both deny that the increased assessment was politically motivated.
Former Somerville mayor and current City Clerk William J. Donovan, a political antagonist of Marie Howe and who admits having "no great love" for the Howes, had his property assessment raised by Howe from $10,600 to $14,000 in 1976. Howe says the property was previously under-valued, and that the 40-per-cent assessment increase was long overdue. But the property itself had no buildings that could have increased in value. "The land was vacant," Donovan remembers. "He couldn't justify the assessment." Donovan, too, received an abatement from the rest of the city's assessors.
Marie Howe denies playing any role in Donovan's increased property taxes. Her brother says the assessment was warranted, adding that Donovan's property was full of debris, and is a "disgrace."
The Somerville Journal Affair
One of Howe's largest assessment increases was for the Somerville Press, Inc., which publishes the weekly Somerville Journal. For years, the Howe family has been at political odds with the Journal. In 1974, the newspaper angered the Howes by its coverage of Marie Howe's conviction for trespassing. The conviction stemmed from an incident in which Marie Howe's friend, Walter Silva, forcibly removed the door of one of Howe's tenants from its hinges, while Marie participated in the break-in. Two years later, the Journal gave front-page coverage to Marie's arrest for disorderly conduct during Queen Elizabeth's bicentennial visit to Boston; the paper reported that Marie bit the hand of her arresting officer, requiring him to go to the hospital to get a tetanus shot, and that she then gave the police an alias so they wouldn't know she was a state representative. "She was infuriated after we did the 'Howe Bites Cop' story," says Journal co-editor Barbara Powers. "She said we've always been against her, and she came down [to the newspaper office] and started screaming and yelling and threatening to take us to court." No such suit ever came to trial.
On June 2, 1976, John Howe raised the Journal's tax assessment from $13,000 to $24,4000--an increase of nearly 100 per cent. The Journal had remodeled its building in the past year, but the changes were minor compared with the nearly two-fold property tax increase. "He singled us out, there's no question about it," says one Journal staffer. "He didn't do the same to other businesses." The newspaper appealed Howe's decision, and received a full tax abatement.
Howe maintains his attempted tax increase was long overdue, and "should be higher."
A Little Help for Their Friends
At the same time John Howe was allegedly using his assessment powers to punish his family's political enemies, he was also lowering the taxes of the family's political and personal friends.
In 1976, John Howe lowered the assessments of Robert and Selma Kopelman by nearly $15,000--from $44,900 to $30,000. The Kopelmans were long-time neighbors of the Howes. Though assessments are generally consistent in a given neighborhood, other property assessments in the area were raised by Howe.
On May 4, of that year, Howe also lowered--from $7000 to $6600--the assessment on the home of Leonard Scott, his wife and children. Scott served with Marie Howe on the Somerville School Board, and is reported to be a very close personal friend and companion of Marie Howe. She denies, however, using her influence to lower Scott's assessment, and says "I don't really know Leonard Scott that well."
Because of John Howe's caprius use of his assessment powers and the great influence of the Howe family in Somerville, many of those whose assessment were raised by Howe were afraid to talk to The Crimson.
Paul M. Haley, one-time Somerville alderman who admits that he "never had anything in common" with the Howes, says publicly that the increased assessment of his property was justified: "[In my neighborhood] I think it was just my house and a couple of others at the time (that had an increased assessment), but I can't quarrel with anyone, you know?"
Robert Nunziato, a supporter of Howe opponent Mayor Ralph and a one-time candidate for alderman, did not want to talk about Howe's increase of the assessment of property owned by his father and uncle. "We've been here too long in the city," he said. "What they do, they do. I'd rather forget about it."
Crackdown on Leftists
John Howe may have used his office especially to crack down on political activists. He raised from $7000 to $7900 the assessment of Chris Burns and the "cooperative family" Burns was living with. Burns had contributed money to Howe opponent Lester Ralph, and has been active in Citizens for Participation in Political Action and other liberal groups in Somerville. Marie Howe personally lobbied against Burns in 1972, when the Democratic City Committee in Somerville met to debate his resolution condemning the Vietnam War. Four years later, John Howe's rationale for raising Burns's assessment was that he saw many names on the cooperative family houses. Burns appealed the decision, and the rest of the city's assessors granted an abatement.
Both Howes deny that the assessment was raised for political reasons.
Around the corner from Burns lives another "cooperative family" of unrelated adults, including leftist political activist Frank Ackerman. In October 1976 at a packed meeting of the city's Board of Assessors, Ackerman denounced the board for using tax assessments as a political weapon. During Ackerman's speech, Howe interrupted opened, opened the tax books for Ackerman's neighborhood, and asked threateningly: "Mr. Ackerman, where did you say you lived?"
The next day, at Howe's direction, two city inspectors showed up at the Ackerman house. Two days later, Ackerman received a letter from the Board of Health at Howe's debut citing him for a rarely-enforced city ordinance against five or more unrelated adults living together without a "boarding house" license. Only when Ackerman hired a lawyer to challenge Howe's actions did the city rule in his favor.
Howe still maintains that Ackerman was operating a boarding house, despite a ruling to the contrary by the city solicitor's office.
Marie Howe denies playing any role in the Ackerman incident, but told The Crimson that "Mr. Ackerman's house was loaded with German swastikas.... They were in adoration of Adolf Hitler," Ackerman's wife, Kathy Moore says that there are no swastikas in her house and never have been: "That's just the craziest thing I ever heard. ... The poor woman apparently doesn't know the difference between the (political) right and the left." Indeed, most of the members of their household are Jewish. (Marie Howe adds that even if the Ackermans are Nazis, "that's not why it [the assessment] went up ... I'm not saying anything against Ackerman.")CrimsonAnthea LetsouFor years, the Howe family has feuded with the weekly Somerville Journal. The newspaper's front page coverage of Marie Howe's arrest for disorderly conduct when she bit a police officer especially angered the Howes. After her brother was elected a city tax assessor, he increased the Journal's assessment by more than $10,000. "He singled us out, there's no question about it," says one newspaper staffer. "He didn't do the same to other businesses
carla johnston and vinnie lopresti
The city’s first Italian-American alderman-at-large was the guest at the Aug. 17 contributors meeting for The Somerville News. Vinny LoPresti was an alderman from 1971 until 1975 and garnered the most votes of any at-large candidate in the city’s history, he said.
“Back then you had more people running for office and more people involved,” he said. “These days, I hear, there aren’t even primaries.”
LoPresti was one of 29 candidates in 1971, he said.
LoPresti said he is proud of the time he spent as an elected official and said his greatest accomplishments were getting a string of new schools built and spearheading the city’s first anti-drug program. He helped lead the effort to build schools in Wards 1, 2, 4 and 7, he said.
“When I first became alderman, the schools were deplorable. The roofs leaked. They just had to go,” he said.
A problem community leaders were less likely to address straight on was drug abuse, he said.
“People didn’t want to talk about it. The police thought if we brought it up, it would reflect badly on them, but that is not what it was about. It was a reflection of our entire society not just Somerville,” he said.
Eventually, LoPresti organized the first publicly funded anti-drug program in the city. It consisted of seminars to educate kids on the dangers of drugs and a drop-in center for people struggling with addiction.
To illustrate his point that drugs had reached the city’s youth, LoPresti brought a marijuana cigarette that had been confiscated from a student to a Board of Aldermen meeting.
“I held it up at the meeting to show people that we were dealing with drugs in the community,” he said. “When I was finished, I just left it in there though. I didn’t want to bring it out in the hallway. I could have been arrested myself.”
LoPresti said constituents would sometimes call him with unexpected problems. “There was a woman who asked for my help who said her husband had been beating her up. She said she was too scared to go to the police and needed help from somebody. I wasn’t sure what I could really do but I told her I would help her. So one day I called the guy up and I lied. I told him I was the deputy chief of police and if he kept giving his wife problems he was going to get arrested,” he said.
The unconventional solution worked, he said.
“I saw the woman a few months later and she was thanking me and said I had scared her husband and he had stopped hurting her,” he said.
LoPresti said he has seen the city change dramatically in the three decades since he was an alderman.
“There’s a more professional crowd in the city now, fewer families, fewer children. The silence can be deafening these days,” he said.
And, he said, many people who called the city home for decades have moved to the surrounding suburbs.
“I see more Somerville people in Woburn and Stoneham than in Somerville itself these days,” he said.
Posted at 06:00 AM in George P. Hassett | Permalink
e dedication in a recently published book states: “To Carla Brooks Johnston, Who Turns Words Into Deeds For Better Communities.” And that is exactly what she did some four decades ago in Somerville and Cambridge and for the last decade of her life in southwest Florida.
Carla Brooks Johnston
1940 - 2011
Carla Johnston died of cancer on April 28 at her home in Sanibel, Florida.
In the 1970s she played a key role in the election of reform Mayor Lester Ralph in Somerville, ousting a corrupt government. The Boston Globe won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the corruption and what Carla Johnston and her colleagues were doing to end it. As funding coordinator for the city in Ralph’s administration, she brought education, social welfare, and environmental funds to the city and was instrumental in getting it designated an “All-American City” in 1972. She was executive director of northeast Massachusetts’ 101-city planning council and chief budget analyst for the areas’s 78-city transportation consortium. She served as Deputy Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, headquartered in Cambridge, and was twice chair of the city’s Democratic Committee. She was CEO of her Cambridge-based New Century Policies. She was a professor at U.Mass-Boston and also taught at Boston University and Emerson College. At Harvard she was a Loeb Fellow, was a fellow at the Kennedy School and was awarded first Bunting Peace fellowship. She lectured on public policy and media throughout the United States and in countries on six continents.
Read More:
■Activist's Life of Hope Reminds Us We Can Make a Difference
Commentary following the Celebration of the Life of the late Carla B. Johnston at Somerville City Hall on September 10th, 2011 (also published in the Somerville Journal on Sept. 22, 2011).
■Remembering Carla Brooks Johnston
A place to share your memories of Carla
■Obituary
■Carla's letter to friends
■In Lieu of Flowers
Please consider helping us to establish a seed funding grant program for Change Makers by contributing to Carla's non-profit organization: New Century Policies Educational Programs, Inc.
“Back then you had more people running for office and more people involved,” he said. “These days, I hear, there aren’t even primaries.”
LoPresti was one of 29 candidates in 1971, he said.
LoPresti said he is proud of the time he spent as an elected official and said his greatest accomplishments were getting a string of new schools built and spearheading the city’s first anti-drug program. He helped lead the effort to build schools in Wards 1, 2, 4 and 7, he said.
“When I first became alderman, the schools were deplorable. The roofs leaked. They just had to go,” he said.
A problem community leaders were less likely to address straight on was drug abuse, he said.
“People didn’t want to talk about it. The police thought if we brought it up, it would reflect badly on them, but that is not what it was about. It was a reflection of our entire society not just Somerville,” he said.
Eventually, LoPresti organized the first publicly funded anti-drug program in the city. It consisted of seminars to educate kids on the dangers of drugs and a drop-in center for people struggling with addiction.
To illustrate his point that drugs had reached the city’s youth, LoPresti brought a marijuana cigarette that had been confiscated from a student to a Board of Aldermen meeting.
“I held it up at the meeting to show people that we were dealing with drugs in the community,” he said. “When I was finished, I just left it in there though. I didn’t want to bring it out in the hallway. I could have been arrested myself.”
LoPresti said constituents would sometimes call him with unexpected problems. “There was a woman who asked for my help who said her husband had been beating her up. She said she was too scared to go to the police and needed help from somebody. I wasn’t sure what I could really do but I told her I would help her. So one day I called the guy up and I lied. I told him I was the deputy chief of police and if he kept giving his wife problems he was going to get arrested,” he said.
The unconventional solution worked, he said.
“I saw the woman a few months later and she was thanking me and said I had scared her husband and he had stopped hurting her,” he said.
LoPresti said he has seen the city change dramatically in the three decades since he was an alderman.
“There’s a more professional crowd in the city now, fewer families, fewer children. The silence can be deafening these days,” he said.
And, he said, many people who called the city home for decades have moved to the surrounding suburbs.
“I see more Somerville people in Woburn and Stoneham than in Somerville itself these days,” he said.
Posted at 06:00 AM in George P. Hassett | Permalink
e dedication in a recently published book states: “To Carla Brooks Johnston, Who Turns Words Into Deeds For Better Communities.” And that is exactly what she did some four decades ago in Somerville and Cambridge and for the last decade of her life in southwest Florida.
Carla Brooks Johnston
1940 - 2011
Carla Johnston died of cancer on April 28 at her home in Sanibel, Florida.
In the 1970s she played a key role in the election of reform Mayor Lester Ralph in Somerville, ousting a corrupt government. The Boston Globe won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the corruption and what Carla Johnston and her colleagues were doing to end it. As funding coordinator for the city in Ralph’s administration, she brought education, social welfare, and environmental funds to the city and was instrumental in getting it designated an “All-American City” in 1972. She was executive director of northeast Massachusetts’ 101-city planning council and chief budget analyst for the areas’s 78-city transportation consortium. She served as Deputy Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, headquartered in Cambridge, and was twice chair of the city’s Democratic Committee. She was CEO of her Cambridge-based New Century Policies. She was a professor at U.Mass-Boston and also taught at Boston University and Emerson College. At Harvard she was a Loeb Fellow, was a fellow at the Kennedy School and was awarded first Bunting Peace fellowship. She lectured on public policy and media throughout the United States and in countries on six continents.
Read More:
■Activist's Life of Hope Reminds Us We Can Make a Difference
Commentary following the Celebration of the Life of the late Carla B. Johnston at Somerville City Hall on September 10th, 2011 (also published in the Somerville Journal on Sept. 22, 2011).
■Remembering Carla Brooks Johnston
A place to share your memories of Carla
■Obituary
■Carla's letter to friends
■In Lieu of Flowers
Please consider helping us to establish a seed funding grant program for Change Makers by contributing to Carla's non-profit organization: New Century Policies Educational Programs, Inc.
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