By Amy Swain

One of the award winning submissions for Somerville’s Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Teen Empowerment’s Art Contest, by Nina Zou.

Last Thursday, the Somerville Speaks initiative held a banquet at the Uniun. The event was the culmination of an art contest the group held including writing and visual art on the topic of mental health issues.

The event began at 6 p.m. By 6:15, the venue was nearly full. The notion that mental illness does not discriminate was represented in the crowd: different ages, ethnicities, and personalities came together.

Our apologies to visitors to our website last week. It was down for maintenance for a couple of days, following a series of spam-bot assaults on our database. Everything is in apple pie order now and we don’t anticipate any problems in the future. We had to delete part of the corrupted database, which included past article comments by our users, but in the spirit of the new year and new beginnings, let’s get busy refilling it with our ideas and suggestions concerning life in our great city. Be sure to visit us at www.thesomervilletimes.com and share your thoughts.

By Jessica Kenney

The Board of Aldermen held a regular meeting on January 14, 2016. One of the topics discussed was in regard to police officers wearing body cameras. The order was that the Chief of Police should consider using body cameras on all police officers. There was a particular focus on the patrol division. The body cameras would be worn in the normal course of their duties, and would provide video from the officer’s perspective of the situations or interactions taking place during a call for service.

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

Recently the Somerville News Weekly has highly offended myself and other proud residents of Somerville for extremely offensive comments made by James A Norton. In his most recent Reality Bites column, Norton started off immediately by referring to the City of Somerville as “a village of idiots” and followed that up by calling the people of Somerville “dummies,” “mental midgets,” and “douchebags.”

Eagle Feathers #95 – The Swedish Nightingale

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

It began in 1829, with a nine-year old girl named Jenny from Stockholm. Often she would sit at her window seat looking out and petting her little cat while singing.

On January 25, details for the revitalization of Lincoln Park will be formally presented to the public by the City of Somerville.

Parts of the plan have already been revealed, however, and one of the more popular decisions that the planners have made is the inclusion of a natural grass playing field.

By Maureen Bastardi

Since September of 2014, older adults in Somerville have been able to attend various Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) events for free. This is made possible through a wonderful program the BSO sponsors called “Symphony for Our City.”

This program strives to build deeper relationships with representatives from various organizations across the greater Boston area, bringing together individuals of various backgrounds, and informing the BSO’s work through reciprocal relationships.

I was just having breakfast with an artist acquaintance at the Bloc 11 Cafe in Somerville, Mass, when the subject turned to where we would move to if we were forced out of our city. We thought of isolated burgs like North Adams, an old mill in Lawrence, far flung nowherevilles in the western part of the state. But of course none of these places are like our hometown of Somerville, where both of us have lived for many years. Across the country artists, low-income folks, and others are being forced out of their communities due to the hungry tendrils of gentrification.

Wayne-Daniel Berard teaches English and Humanities at Nichols College in Dudley, MA. An adoptee and former Franciscan seminarian, his birth-search led him to find and embrace his Jewishness. Wayne-Daniel is a Peace Chaplain, an interfaith clergy person, and a member of B’nai Or of Boston. He has published widely in both poetry and prose, and is the co-founding editor of Soul-Lit, an online journal of spiritual poetry. He lives in Mansfield, MA with his wife, The Lovely Christine.