E-Mail This Article to a Friend Mr. Mayor Somerville’s Joseph Curtatone talks about his city’s transformation from ‘Slummerville’ to an artistic, liberal, and intellectual haven BY TAMARA WIEDER

IN THE SCANT six months that he’s been mayor of Somerville, Joseph Curtatone has weathered his share of controversy. First, there were widespread protests from residents whose cars had been ticketed and towed during a declared snow emergency — despite the fact that the storm never materialized. (Ticket and towing fees were eventually reimbursed.) There was the hiring of former New England Patriot John Hannah as the city’s youth-activities director and high-school football coach, followed by rumors that Hannah has been too hard on his young players. And, most visibly, there was Curtatone’s very public support of gay marriage. That support has led to Somerville’s joining a lawsuit challenging a 1913 state statute that bars municipalities from issuing marriage licenses to nonresident couples who cannot marry in their home states, which the city asserts unfairly prevents out-of-state same-sex couples from wedding in Massachusetts.

But despite the controversial events of his young term, the former alderman is happier than ever to be mayor of the city in which he was born and raised, and he points to his early accomplishments — financial reforms, installation of a 311 phone system for residents to obtain city information and services, the revamping of youth programs — as fruits of his labors.

Q: How have the first six months gone?

A: It’s going great. Very exciting. I love the job. I’m very passionate about it. It’s really exciting to be the mayor in the community where you grew up, and be able to effect some positive change.

Q: Has anything surprised you?

A: You know, the way we conduct business here. Let me give you an example. We meet every morning at 8:30; we have our staff meetings. We’re always a few weeks out on the agenda, because we never want the issues to drive the agenda. But that doesn’t mean when you think it’s going to snow, it doesn’t snow. So you always get surprises.

Q: Was being mayor a long-time aspiration?

A: Never. I never even wanted to get into politics. One of the major reasons I ran for alderman was I felt there was a disconnect in the needs or the issues affecting youth in the city and youth programming. And also because my family had a nursing home for about 20 years, I saw the demise of health care firsthand, and I felt that there was also a need for more emphasis on senior services. So I just ran for those two reasons, and I won, and I served eight years on the Board [of Aldermen]. I ran for mayor six years ago and lost; I ran again because I felt the city was at a standstill. Actually, we were headed in the wrong direction.

My wife was having a child right around the time I had to make a decision. I made a decision I wasn’t going to run. My wife said, No, no. I talked to her about it. I was concerned about a lot of things in having a son — sending him through the education system, the condition of the city, the lack of cleanliness, the stalling of development, just the lack of direction. She said, Not only should you run, you have to do it. A neighbor — his name is Joe Thompson — whom I met when I first ran for alderman and he was a supporter since, he said, If you don’t want to run because of personal responsibility and so forth, your family, that’s admirable and that’s a good decision. If you’re not running because you think it’s a tough situation, the economy and so forth, it’s tough for local leaders and mayors, and you think two years from now you’ll run and it’ll be an easier time, then you’re really not being the leader that you put yourself out to be, whom I supported. And this is the truth. A strong leader steps up to the plate in tough times, takes the bull by the horns, and makes decisions. And that’s how we act every day.

Q: I heard someone compare the Somerville/Cambridge rivalry to the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry, meaning that the Yankees don’t really care about the Red Sox, but the Red Sox are always talking about how the Yankees suck. Do you think it’s an accurate comparison?

A: Cambridge who? I’ll put it to you this way: I’m a person who grew up with the word Slummerville. It infuriated me. I say this every day: from now on, my expectation demands that other communities compare themselves to us. Cambridge will compare themselves to us, whether it’s on education, our development plan, how we clean our neighborhoods and keep our streets clean, how we do youth programming. My expectation is that we set a standard in every aspect of government and how we provide services in the city. Has there been a bit of rivalry? I guess there’s sort of an unofficial rivalry at times because of the proximity. But I’m confident, if anyone wants to compare themselves to how Somerville is doing business now and will do business in the future.

Q: Tell me about the Somerville you grew up in versus the Somerville you see now.

A: It was always a diverse city, but obviously we have a lot more diversity today. It was always a working-class town; my family came here, and I grew up in a neighborhood with a lot of first-generation kids, whose families came from Italy, Ireland, Greece, Portugal. We all went to the same neighborhood school; our parents all worked in the factories. It was a very blue-collar town, a very hard-working town. The neighborhoods were as parochial and close-knit as they are today. We struggled; we were always considered more of an industrial town. I’ve seen the city change in a lot of great ways. I’ve seen a lot of diversity happen. I’ve seen the arts in the community grow. I’ve seen the city transform in many different ways, good and bad.

Q: What are some of the bad transformations you’ve seen?

A: I’ve seen it transform as a kid from Slummerville, and the city struggle to transform and be very successful under [former mayor] Gene Brune, he began to transform the perception of the city away from Slummerville and bring back Somerville pride. I saw it under [former mayor] Mike Capuano transform during an economic upswing and saw Somerville become hip. I saw the diversity really become embraced. And then I saw Somerville come to an absolute standstill. I saw it go back a little bit in terms of perception, that it wasn’t a good place for economic development. Expectations were at an unacceptably low level. Streets weren’t clean. I saw people thinking, this isn’t a city I want to invest my family and my future in. And that concerned me, because I’d seen so many positive changes over the years. And to see the city [regress], from many different aspects — public safety, with the presence of neighborhood street gangs; public services, in the form of streets not being cleaned; cutting vital services. That’s why I ran. I wanted to carry through the transformation of the city, and institute systematic changes to how our government does business, and have Somerville be a model for other communities. I’m a competitor; I don’t like to lose, and I want Somerville at the top.