After a media campaign for a Cartoon Network show mobilized emergency response crews in Boston on Wednesday, Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone will take part in a meeting this morning to discuss legal settlements.
This comes after law enforcement agencies were summoned on Wednesday to several locations where people thought they had discovered bombs.
Upon responding, authorities found almost 40 lighted advertisements, complete with protruding wires, for "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," a show on Cartoon Network.
Similar ads have been displayed in other major cities, including New York and Philadelphia, although none led to bomb scares. Many of the devices in Boston were up for weeks before they caused panic.
Turner Broadcasting System, the parent company for Cartoon Network, has already accepted responsibility for the distress.
Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said the company has agreed to pay for the response efforts, according to the Boston Globe. This may amount to more than $500,000 in payments.
Somerville's Director of Communications Tom Champion told the Daily yesterday that he is not sure if the exact amount of compensation has been worked out yet.
Somerville lost approximately $25,000 in emergency response efforts, and Curtatone has indicated that he wants compensation for that as well as for the anxiety that the campaign caused the city.
"These devices may not be explosive, but they're far from harmless - they've done a lot of damage to local budgets and to the taxpayers of Somerville and other area communities," he said in a press release.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has been in contact with Turner, and Maeghan Silverberg, a public communications officer for Curtatone, said that Somerville will support Coakley and her office. "We're participating in any action they take," she told the Daily.
If the settlement is not sufficient, Curtatone has indicated that the city will seek additional compensation for the fear and anxiety that the campaign caused.
"We're prepared to file our own suit," he told the Globe last week. "We're certainly going to seek punitive damages against Turner to prevent others from pulling this stunt in the future."
Still, even though Turner will pay restitution, Champion said that on balance, the advertisements may be profitable for the company.
"One thing's very clear right now and that's that Turner television and the Cartoon Network have gotten millions of dollars worth of publicity," he said.
Beyond the monetary damages faced by Turner, the two artists hired to make the advertisements, Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens, were arrested and face criminal charges, which many, including Curtatone, feel are not necessary. "From the mayor's standpoint it's not crucial to make an example of them," Champion said.
Also on Wednesday, authorities discovered two unrelated devices that turned out to be fake pipe bombs. One was near the Tufts-New England Medical Center.
On Thursday, the Boston Herald reported that police had a suspect, but according to Officer Eddy Chrispen of the Boston Police Department, police had not concluded as of yesterday who is responsible for the devices. "[It's] an ongoing investigation at this point," he told the Daily.
