Not the First Missing Cash in Somerville
Things are not going well financially for Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone and his administration. No, I don’t mean the budget deficit that Somerville, like cities and towns around the Commonwealth face. Rather, it seems his underlings simply can’t hold on to cash.
According to an article posted on The Somerville News blog:
$31,535 in cash was mistakenly thrown out by Somerville Police Monday, said Acting Police Chief Robert Bradley today. The money had been seized by police in various criminal investigations. Evidence and other seized property was also inadvertently disposed, said Bradley.
Apparently the money was stored in a desk drawer in an evidence room that had become so cluttered it was in serious need of cleaning, and someone became a bit overzealous in that task. As soon as the department learned of the mistake, Police Chief Kevin Bradley had officers travel to the garbage dump in New Hampshire where Somerville trash is taken. But, according to the Globe: "they found it was buried under hundreds of tons of super-dense, hydraulically compacted waste, and there was no way to get to it, even with heavy equipment."
This is clearly a stupid mistake on the part of some, probably overworked and asthma-ridden Police Department employee, but is simply the latest instance of lost cash in the Curtatone administration. Late last year, sometime between December 8th and December 12th, someone brook into the Somerville Traffic and Parking Department offices on Holland Street and stole $6000 -- $8000 in collected fees. Now five months later the investigation into that missing money seems to have stalled, and no one really know what progress, if any, has been made towards finding the crooks.
Ironically, it's the Somerville Police investigating the missing Traffic Department cash.
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