Replies

Fri column ping, Fri show ping

A serious breach of etiquette, even for sordid Somervilleans
By Howie Carr | Friday, August 8, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com

You can take the boy out of Somerville, but you can’t take the Somerville out of the boy.

That’s the lesson, one of them anyway, learned from the squalid tale of John Buonomo, the Middlesex register of probate, lugged Wednesday night after being caught stealing on some of the most outrageous surveillance video in recent memory.

He was allegedly absconding with $1 bills from the copying machines operated by the Middlesex Register of Deeds, another Somerville hack named Clean Gene Brune.

Which proves the truth of another old Somerville saying: The schools there teach you how to add, but never how to divide.

But even by Winter Hill standards, this is a breach of etiquette, one former Somerville guy robbing another one. Why didn’t Buonomo steal from, say, Sheriff DiPaola? He’s from Malden - an open city. DiPaola ain’t connected.

There’s one thing about this I don’t understand. About six weeks ago, I got two different letters saying that something was amiss in East Cambridge. Being from Somerville myself, I figured it was better to farm out the hit, so to speak, so I passed it on to a reporter here at the Herald.

This other reporter called Buonomo and told him about the rampant rumors of thievery in his office, and Buonomo angrily denied it. That’s to be expected, of course. We didn’t expect him to confess and curl up into the fetal position.

But according to the Middlesex district attorney, these surveillance videos of Buonomo were made as recently as last week. That means Buonomo took the call from the Herald saying we suspected something, and yet he was so brazen he kept sneaking back to the machine.

I can’t tell you how shocked I am. Buonomo is a guy who used to crash wakes at Doherty’s looking for votes.

But Buonomo does have a defense. He has a disease - kleptomania. Which reminds me of yet another old saying about the All-American City: A lot of the people there are so crooked they’d steal a hot stove, without gloves, and then come back for the smoke.

I’m not saying the office is a joke, but candidates over the years have included Ronald McDonald (in 1996) and Ed McMahon (in 2000). Just consider the hacks who’ve actually won the jinxed job.

We’ll start with Paul Cavanaugh, who became a judge and later resigned under murky circumstances. He was replaced by a Middlesex commissioner who was then voted out of office and replaced by a nutty Republican woman who was then voted out of office by Robert Antonelli, the son of an ousted Middlesex treasurer who was then himself ousted by the Supreme Judicial Court because of alleged abuses.

Young Antonelli was replaced by a seat-warmer Republican who was defeated by Buonomo.

Buonomo won a 12-person Democrat primary, thanks to a fortuitous recount that turned a 22-vote deficit into something like a 16-vote victory. Another candidate was the daughter of a disbarred governor’s councilor.

The last time I saw “Landslide” Buonomo was when I needed something from his office, and he hand-delivered it to me, in Brighton. This seemed like service above and beyond the call of duty, even for someone from the old neighborhood. But who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?

And now Clean Gene Brune has burnished his “clean” credentials. A woman has been sworn in as acting registrar - for the third or fourth time. In the registry of deeds yesterday, Brune’s minions briefly put a hand-lettered sign under the surveillance-camera peephole that said, “Smile, John, you’re on Candid Camera!”

Sources say Brune wandered by and took the sign down. You’re not supposed to gloat after you whack somebody.

You send a wreath to the funeral home and shut the bleep up.

That’s Somerville, baby.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1111774