Somerville band member held without bond

By Jack Nicas

Vincente Lebron, drummer for the Somerville-based band Either/Orchestra, was detained at Logan Airport in May upon returning from the band’s European tour. His passport and green card were confiscated and he was ordered to attend an ‚Äúentry hearing‚Äù on June 9. The results of that hearing summoned him to the South Bay Correctional Center in Boston, where he remains today.

On Thursday, Lebron had his deportation hearing in Boston’s JFK Federal Building. His attorney, Lenore Glaser, requested another hearing, to decide if Lebron can avoid deportation. If so, a ‚Äúmerits hearing,‚Äù a trial to decide if Lebron should be deported, will be set.

Mayor’s choice rocks Somerville

By Caitlin Jackson

It’s not every mayor who shows promise in booking musical talent. But here in Somerville, Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone rocked the crowd with his own personal musical find, Italian band Rota Temporis, at last weekend’s ArtBeat.

Curtatone said he saw the band perform when he was visiting Somerville’s Italian sister city, Gaeta and was impressed enough to help set up their local appearance.

By Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

Several local papers have already run stories about Somerville hiring a team of planning and engineering consultants to do a quick assessment of various development scenarios for the Inner Belt and Brickbottom districts. Under the umbrella of the non-profit Urban Ecology Institute, this team will examine the transportation, access, environmental and sustainability factors that must be addressed in any effort to realize the full development potential of these valuable areas in East Somerville.

There’s a real urgency to this study because the state’s Executive Office of Transportation recently expressed their interest in having some portion of these districts serve as home for a new Green Line maintenance facility. It’s not enough simply to say we don’t like that idea: after all, we strongly support the Green Line Extension through Somerville to Medford, and a maintenance facility is necessary somewhere on the line, even if Inner Belt or Brickbottom may be the wrong places to put it. We need to look at whether it can be made to fit without harming the rich potential of these areas to become new mixed-use urban neighborhoods where future generations of Somerville can live and work while enjoying  the benefits of great transit service and easy access to downtown Boston and Logan Airport.

Off The Shelf by Doug Holder

Writer Timothy Gager is a man who crosses many literary genres. He has a new poetry collection out from Somerville’s Cervena Barva Press: ‚ÄúThis Is Where You Go When You Are Gone.‚Äù In 2007 alone Gager had 32 works of fiction, as well as poetry published in online and print journals.

He is the current fiction editor of the “Wilderness House Literary Review,” the coeditor of the “Heat City Literary Review,” and the editor of the fiction and prose anthology “Out of the Blue Writers Unite.” He is the cofounder of the Somerville News Writers Festival, as well as the Dire Literary Series in Cambridge. The series was voted “Best Of” in the Boston Phoenix 2008. I spoke with him on my Somerville Cable Access TV show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”

By Jack Nicas

A Somerville man serving in the Marines was injured in a roadside bombing June 10 in Afghanistan. Paul Savage’s parents said the bomb struck a Humvee carrying the Fairfax Street native and four fellow soldiers, causing injuries to Savage’s knee, leg, hip and back.

On Thursday aldermen and Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone recognized Savage for his service to the country by presenting his parents, Paul and Carol Savage, with citations.

Savage’s parents were also presented with a medal from Frank P. Senesi, the director of Veteran Services in Somerville. Ward 4 Alderman Walter Pero said, ‚ÄúIn the bottom of a file cabinet, I found a medal, which the then mayor would reward to veterans returning to Somerville from World War I. Mr. Senesi had that medal recast and we now have a replica with the city seal on it and on the back it says ‘To those who served.’‚Äù

On The Silly Side by Jimmy Del Ponte

( The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

Well we just lost another longtime family home on my street (near Davis Square). They had been here for over 50 years – both parents are deceased and the adult kids decided it was time to sell – they had been my neighbors for 48 years. I heard that the new owner is going to convert the two-family into condos – what an original idea!

Though I am sad to see the family leave, I stand to get something out of the deal – the common fence between our properties needs replacing – go get ’em, Carli Fence! You know what they do when they perform a condo conversion. They’ll give the joint beautiful hardwood floors, except the kitchen and bath, which will receive some kind of extravagant tile. They’ll throw in central air conditioning, and divide the basement into equal storage stalls with chicken wire and locks. They’ll update all the systems. The kitchens will have shiny stainless steel appliances and marble counter tops. Then the price tag will be at least $450,000 each (location, location, location).

Tufts janitors, their union members and students decided it would be a good idea to protest in the middle of Davis Square, blocking traffic the other day. Rather than make an impact on the people that might actually have some say in the resolve of their issue, they only seemed to anger people trying to get home, get to work, get somewhere.

In more ways than one, college students often tend to get their ideas of what “grassroots” organizations are all about from the good and bad of our country’s milestones and the protests that happened at that time. Some of the mentioned “images” from a bygone era can lead people to do seemingly silly things.

Don’t get us wrong, some of us are old enough to have been right in the middle of the anti-establishment, protest-happy late 60’s and early 70’s. The whole era was defined by television images of protests outside the White House or in front of a school bus in South Boston or maybe in front of some war memorial – these were powerful images of the day, and their visual impact is one that has carried with it both factual and fictional conceptions of how to get a message across in the public’s eye.

Resolution proposes T station move across Ward lines

By Jack Nicas

After already losing one proposed Green Line stop of its original two, the Brickbottom district may now be left with none.

A resolution was proposed at the Board of Aldermen meeting Thursday to move the remaining Brickbottom stop, at the intersection of Washington Street and Joy Street, across the train tracks to Cobble Hill, at the intersection of Washington Street and New Washington Street.

By Mia Lamar

Standing on a sun-baked sidewalk in Gilman Square, cars and trucks barreling by, one may have thought Danny LeBlanc, chief executive officer of the Somerville Community Corporation, chose an odd spot for a press conference. Yet LeBlanc, speaking to announce the release of two reports examining equitable and smart development strategies for East Somerville, insisted that the small group gathered before him look past where they stood today and think to the future of this, and many other Somerville neighborhoods.

“Imagine," said LeBlanc, nearly shouting over roaring traffic, "what this neighborhood will look like when the Green Line stops here."

By George P. Hassett

Tufts University janitors and their supporters blocked traffic in Davis Square Thursday during a rally to protest what they say are low wages and a lack of benefits.

About a dozen people walked in a circle shouting ‚ÄúNo justice, no peace!‚Äù in English and Spanish on a traffic island to start the demonstration. The protestors were made up of janitors, Tufts students and the janitor’s union SIEU 615.