The View From Prospect Hill for the week of September 21

    968 votes cast in the only primary in the city. What a shame.  During a time when important decisions are being made and others neglected, most people don’t even care.
    A lack of civic involvement is one thing – people do have jobs, families and homes to keep up, but a trip to the ballot box serves a greater purpose aside from the casting of a single vote.
    Voting is a satisfying experience. Walking out of the cloaked booth after a selection, the voter feels as though they have just taken part in a communal, centuries-old ritual and feels more connected to the civic process than ever.
     So when people in Somerville don’t feel compelled to vote in, much less discuss the local primary, it sends a message that chills the spine of the entire 4.2 square miles of the city.
     But, as someone once said, the darkest hour is the one right before dawn. And the reason for hope can be seen in the challengers in this same primary.

    One, Lawrence Paolella, hosts various Somerville characters from all walks of city life at his home for an afternoon of lunch and conversation dubbed “Lunch with Lawrence.”
     “It’s just my culture,” he said.
Paolella prepares meals such as linguine with mussels for guests as diverse as Bill Shelton of the Mystic View Task Force and Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone. The discussions take place under the trees of his fenceless backyard. Paolella, a native of New York, has convinced each of his surrounding neighbors to remove the wires that disrupt the flow of neighborhood life on Oxford Street.
      The discussion is raw. Paolella and his guests don’t hesitate to tell it to each other straight. Paolella once kicked Curtatone out of the yard after an especially heated debate, only to host him again a few short weeks later.
      “That’s the Brooklyn in Lawrence,” said Curtatone’s former mayoral opponent Tony Lafuente.   
       The other Ward 3 candidate was John A. Roderick. A local character who works far outside the public sector, Roderick is best known in the city for being a regular guy and a little league baseball coach. 
       Roderick is a shining example of what is right in local politics.
       Relying more on a good-hearted desire to help his city than a sophisticated political acumen, Roderick won his 173 votes the classy way – reaching out to his neighbors with plans and ideas for the city.
       With such accessible candidates, the Ward 3 Primary should have been an opportunity for people in Somerville to get involved, if only for one day, in the charm of local politics. Instead, most didn’t even notice the polls were open. Oh well, Paolella will just have to invite each voter – one by one – to “Lunch with Lawrence” before the November 8 general election.