01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Christopher Bizzacco, about to become Mayor David Cicilline's chief of staff, is only 24, and you might immediately ask what the story is with that.

But first I had to know something else from Bizzacco, who's been deputy chief and whom I ran into in 2002 when, as a student on leave from Brown University, he was Cicilline's campaign manager: Does he still subsist on iced coffee and chocolate sprinkled doughnuts?

"I wish I did!" said Bizzacco, who these days has a healthier diet: water, fish, chicken and scrambled egg whites.

Okay, about becoming chief of staff at 24:

Bizzacco says, "Think about the teenaged men who died in World War II fighting a war and winning a war, the teenaged men and women fighting now and the successful people who are running their own businesses starting at the age of 20. Success is whatever the person's ability is. It doesn't depend on their age."

He declares, "I intend to prove that I can do the job."

His new salary is $100,000, and Brown political scientist Darrell West, who taught Bizzacco, says he's worth it: "He gets both the big picture and the details of politics. He knows how to get things done."

Cicilline calls Bizzacco bright, mature -- and versatile:

"I saw him, both in the campaign and in the three-and-a-half years he's been here, be as tough as anyone needed to be in particular circumstances and, at the same time, mediate conflicts when they needed to be mediated, work with community groups, work with people inside city government."

Tough? Describing Bizzacco's acting on his wishes, Cicilline says, "I've seen him terminate people from city employment that had to be terminated. I've seen him reassign people. I've seen him remove work from individuals who weren't getting it done."

Bizzacco told me that some day he'd like to be a top officeholder himself -- perhaps mayor or governor. I noted that many campaign or government aides who become candidates fall flat on their face. He said he's never fallen flat on his face, "so I fully intend that that will not be the case."

He grew up in North Providence where he worked summers pouring molten zinc into molds at the Providence Casting Co., the jewelry factory owned by his father, David, and his uncles, and where his mother, Rosanne, was on the school committee. At age 14 he campaigned door-to-door for her.

He thought that after North Providence High he'd go to West Point -- he was nominated by Rep. Patrick Kennedy -- but then he visited some freshmen there. "One class ended and they went to their dorm room and had to shine their boots. And in the middle of shining their boots, an alarm went off and they had to run to the hallway and do pushups."

So he went to far less structured Brown, finishing up in late 2003 while already working in City Hall. His family now lives in Smithfield. Bizzacco has an apartment on Providence's Federal Hill, directly above Costantino's Venda Ravioli, overlooking DePasquale Plaza. "The fountain's nice at night," he says. "It helps you sleep."

Bizzacco fielded my questions without incident, until, on instinct, I asked if he's a Yankee fan, and the awful truth came out. It's ironic, because Mike Mello, the man he's replacing, told me Bizzacco is "the Theo Epstein of city government," a reference to the young but respected Red Sox executive.

I asked Cicilline about Bizzacco's Yankee blemish. The mayor held out hope of swinging him around -- if the Sox can produce a solid run of success. "Chris is a thoughtful and fact-driven pragmatist," he said.

M. Charles Bakst is The Journal's political columnist.

mbakst@projo.com /(401) 277-7638