Giammarco

NORTH PROVIDENCE — Democratic primary voters in District 2 will go to the polls Tuesday to decide the political fate of former interim-Mayor John Sisto Jr. and one of his longtime rivals, Joseph J. Giammarco, who are seeking the party nomination for one of the district’s two Town Council seats.

The Sisto-Giammarco contest is the only council primary. There are no Republican candidates for council seats in the November election so the District 2 primary winner will be the next councilman.

Giammarco, who was defeated by Sisto in a council race four years ago and has lost two other council races since, has sharpened his attacks on Sisto, asserting that if Sisto had won a special mayoral race last year, there would now be condominiums being built on the Camp Meehan site.

Sisto held the council seat for 18 years before resigning to serve as acting mayor for four months last year after A. Ralph Mollis was elected secretary of state and left with two years remaining in his mayoral term. The seat is now held by John E. Fleming Jr. who was elected in last year’s special election. Fleming, who is Mollis’ chief of staff, is not seeking reelection.

Giammarco bases his assertion on campaign finance reports last year that showed $6,625 in contributions to Sisto’s campaign from associates and family members of developer John H. Petrarca, who has been trying to build either residences or an amusement park at the Camp Meehan site despite strong opposition from residents.

The finance reports show contributions to Sisto in last January and February of $1,000 each from John H. Petrarca, of 2 Michael Drive, Lincoln; his son, Michael Petrarca, of 3 Charlene Rd.; his wife, Sandra Petrarca of 2 Michael Drive; former Rep. Vincent Mesolella, of 235 Promenade St., Providence, a business associate; a daughter, Jina Karampetsos, of Lincoln; and Normand Duquette, of 2 Rocky Hill Rd., Rehoboth. Sisto is listed as working at Providence Auto Body, owned by John Petrarca.

There were also gifts of $500 from Donna Mesolella of 18 Tarkiln Ave., and $125 from Nicholas Rampone, of North Providence, an employee of Providence Auto Body.

“I can see no reason why [Petrarca] would take such an interest in the race, or why someone who works for Mr. Petrarca but who lives in Rehoboth, would have contributed to Mr. Sisto’s campaign other than to buy influence,” Giammarco said last week, after raising the allegations in a public debate. “Thank God, Charles Lombardi was elected [mayor], because there is no doubt in my mind that if Sisto were the mayor, the condos would be in the ground now.”

Sisto says that Giammarco is grasping at straws and that there was no way that he would have allowed residential or commercial development at Camp Meehan, given that he pledged in 2006 that he would never support such development as long as he was an elected official.

Camp Meehan has been a sensitive issue since the possibility that the property might be developed emerged last year. After Petrarca and the nonprofit agency that owns the property, Capital City Communities Centers, ran into fierce opposition from residents as well as from Mayor Lombardi, the Planning Board and the Zoning Board, the developer filed two suits seeking to have the zoning rulings overturned.

At the time of last year’s special mayoral primary, there were no lawsuits filed, and the town was publicly committed to trying to buy the Camp Meehan land to expand the adjacent Governor Notte Park.

When asked this week why Petrarca and his associates seemed to be so keenly interested in contributing to his last mayoral campaign, Sisto said he didn’t know, but said that Petrarca has donated to other North Providence mayors in the past. “Apparently, he likes to give to people who are in office.”

A resident of 8 Atlantic Ave., Sisto, 67, is a former salesman and branch manager for the J.J. Nissen Baking Co.

He is a past president of the Presentation Club Knights of Columbus, past president of the North Providence East Little League, an auditor for Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church, a past member of the Zoning Board of Review and a member of the Marieville Business Association. He is a widower and his two daughters live at home.

Sisto, the endorsed Democrat, said he would like to continue the work he had been doing before, keeping a close eye on the budget and “keeping taxes as low as possible.”

He acknowledges that taxes were raised at times during his tenure on the council, saying that there are times when a municipality has no choice. “The state does not help us. They are cutting more and more.”

He says he would like to revive the road-resurfacing program that had always been part of the town budget, but was apparently skipped this year.

Giammarco, 47, of 2 Oak Knoll Court, says he is campaigning on the promise of keeping taxes low, which he says contrasts with his opponent’s record “of raising taxes 22 percent in the last 10 years.”

Giammarco’s blue-and-white signs typically can be found in front of the same houses that have a sign for Lombardi, who is running unopposed this year, and he says that he would help the mayor keep spending under control.

A maintenance technician for the state Department of Transportation, Giammarco’s hobby is restoring antique cars in his garage.

He says that Petrarca gave Sisto another assist in last year’s primary by providing his campaign with two antique cars — a 1958 Buick and a 1956 Thunderbird — with signs inviting people to vote for Sisto on primary day. He says the cars should have been listed as “in-kind” contributions valued at $300 to $500 a day.

Sisto dismisses the complaint, saying that if he had to list an “old car with a campaign sticker on it” he would also have to list all the other taxpayers in town who drive around with one of his bumper stickers.

Giammarco, a 1980 graduate of North Providence High and the son of a police officer, is a past president of the North Providence Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police Associates. He is a volunteer for the North Providence East Little League, a former volunteer firefighter at Station 3 on Douglas Avenue and a former member of the North Providence Land Trust.

Though he has said that he does not foresee any reason why taxes would have to be raised, particularly if officials keep their eye on the budget, Giammarco said that he would never say “never” because something can always happen.

rdujardi@projo.com