The City of Somerville FY17 budget is official set in stone, as of last Thursday, after a prolonged period of examination, discussion, and debate.

By Amy Swain

This week the Board of Aldermen officially reviewed and approved the budget for Fiscal Year 2017. The city’s Budget Analyst, Mike Mastrobuoni, outlined the plan, and along with Mayor Curtatone presented it to the board earlier this month. Many meetings these last few weeks have focused on appropriate spending, considering options and answering lingering questions. As of June 23, all proposals were approved.

The “Safer Homes, Safer Communities” initiative has helped to take dozens of unwanted guns out of circulation in the Middlesex County area.

By Josie Grove

Thirty-three firearms were turned in at the gun buyback in Somerville last Saturday. The buyback was the final event in the “Safer Homes, Safer Communities” initiative, sponsored by the police departments of Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge, Somerville and Watertown, the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office, and other civic organizations.

On Thursday, 7:45 to 9:15 p.m., the 215th Army Band will be performing at Trum Field in Somerville prior to the outstanding fireworks display the city does every year. They are excited to be part of the entertainment this year for this wonderful event and they hope you will join them. The festivities start at 6:00 p.m. and the 215th will take the stage at 8:00 p.m. just prior to the fireworks. No tickets necessary.

By Jim Clark

Police officers were dispatched to the Burger King restaurant on Somerville Ave. last week on reports of a disturbance involving property damage.

While en route to the Burger King, dispatchers informed the responding officers that the suspect had been detained by an additional police unit and was being held at a Merriam St. location.

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Here’s a quick and easy recipe that can be used to make sandwiches, spread on crackers, or add to your salad greens. Looking for a healthier alternative? Slice an English cucumber 1/4″ thick and substitute for the cracker.

By Josh Glionna

Somerville residents Kaleigh Conte and Shannon Higgins will be participating in the Bay State Games for the Metro girls hockey team this summer.

Conte is entering her junior year as a defenseman at Phillips Exeter Academy. This is Conte’s third summer skating with the Metro team.

— Photos by Claudia Ferro

Somerville resident and business owner Elio LoRusso’s band “Seabreeze” played at the St Peter’s Fiesta in Gloucester over the weekend. The St. Peter’s Fiesta is a five day festival honoring the patron saint of the fisherman St. Peter.

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Somerville Bagel Bard Alice Weiss reviews a new collection from poet Jennifer Barber:

Spare and lovely, the poems in Jennifer Barber’s Works on Paper resonate with answerings. Not just call and response or antiphon, although that is there too, her poems seek out the moment when, even though the call is inaudible, there is something. In Source, the opening poem, the leaves, hearing the rain before it sounds, lean “toward the place where the rain is about to begin … widening the surface of their urgency, their need/to register each shifting of air.” In Assembling a Psalm, phrases propose a psalm, without being one, and at the same time, being one: the sun, the cedars, grass like flesh, and where is she? She doesn’t know and not knowing still, and we find an answering:

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Robert K. Johnson is a consulting editor for Ibbetson Street magazine and was for many years a professor of English at Suffolk University, teaching the work of such writers as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dante, Wordsworth, Flaubert, and Frost. He has written several collections of poems, and two non-fiction books (one on Francis Ford Coppola, the other on Neil Simon). His poems appear in many publications including Webster Review, Main Street Rag, New York Times, Chiron Review, and Minotaur.

Arrests:
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Carlos Rodriguez, June 20, 12:46 p.m., arrested at Middlesex Ave. on warrant charges of miscellaneous equipment violation and unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.

Lisa Primeau, June 21, 9:54 a.m., arrested at Boston St. on charges of distribution of a class A drug and conspiracy to violate drug law, and on warrant charges of no inspection sticker, operation of a motor vehicle with a suspended registration, and uninsured motor vehicle or trailer.