Do you have what it takes to serve your city as a “secret resident?”

Constituents will be trained to quiz, engage city staff to enhance customer service.

Do you want to help improve city programs and services? Now’s your chance. The City of Somerville is launching its “Secret Resident” program, seeking resident volunteers to provide feedback on the city’s customer service. Through the program, residents will complete brief customer service training, and will engage city departments to assess and evaluate the accuracy, efficiency, and ease of customer service.

This is what you can expect in this week’s Somerville Neighborhood News.

Check out the All-City Band concert for seniors, attend a Women’s History Month event, learn why kids at Winter Hill Community School – and the Mayor and School Superintendent – were all eating peppers the other day, hear about a program aimed at helping small businesses in Union Square and find out if Tufts students think their university should offer financial aid to undocumented youth who make the grade and get accepted, but can’t afford to the bill.

Johnette Napolitano will be debuting new songs, familiar songs, and telling her exceptionally remarkable stories at Johnny D’s on April 16. — Photo by Amber Rogers

By Jim Clark

In contrast to the serenity of her high desert retreat in Joshua Tree, CA, Johnette Napolitano bubbles with excitement in anticipation of her upcoming solo tour, kicking off at Johnny D’s Uptown Restaurant and Music Club in Somerville on Thursday, April 16.

Maya Jaugust, a fourth grade student at the Argenziano School, loves science. Last week, she learned that she had been selected as the 2nd-place winner in the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s (MWRA) Annual Poster Contest. Contest winners will be recognized at a special ceremony in May at the Deer Island Treatment Plan. Maya’s winning entry was one of 1,873 posters received by the MWRA this year. The contest involved creating a poster “showing a person or people doing their job in the water or waste-water field as it is related to Science, Technology, Engineering or Math.” Seven winners in each of 3 categories were selected (K-2, 3-5 and 6-8). More information about MWRA’s School Program is available at: http://www.mwra.com/02org/html/sti.htm. Congratulations, Maya!

By Jim Clark

Police were dispatched to the Starbucks café on Grand Union Blvd. last Thursday on reports that a man was checking parked cars.

As officers entered the parking lot, they were informed by dispatchers that the man in question, later identified as Keith Francey, had been spotted in the lot entering a car that had been reported as stolen earlier that day.

Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone, Ward 2 Alderman Maryann Heuston, Ward 3 Alderman Robert McWatters, and the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development (OSPCD) invite all interested community members to the latest in a series of meetings and public forums to discuss future roadway and utility improvements for Union Sq. on Mon., April 13 at 6:30 p.m.

By Gabriela C. Martinez

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If you have been planning to try out some of Somerville’s international cuisine, The Welcome Projects invites you to the Armory on April 16, where you will have the chance gastronomically travel around the world and experience the cuisine of Mexico, Ireland, Ethiopia, Brazil, and India in one place. The Welcome Project, an organization dedicated to providing support to Somerville’s immigrant communities, will be hosting YUM: A Taste of Immigrant City. The event will also be an opportunity for the Welcome Project to celebrate its 25 years as a non-profit.

Under the training of Somerville High School Career and Technical Education (CTE) Teacher Mario Sousa, six SHS Carpentry students earned a 30-hour OSHA credential, an extremely valuable credential to have when entering the employment field. The group pictured at right (one student who completed the training is not pictured) is the first SHS class to earn this 30-hour OSHA card in-house. Mr. Sousa completed a two-course training last summer at Keene State in New Hampshire, to become a 30-hour OSHA “train the trainer” instructor. The training was funded by a Perkins grant awarded earlier this year to the SHS CTE program. Congratulations to all the students on this outstanding accomplishment.

By Joseph A. Curtatone

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

The storms of February have made our transportation deficiencies glaringly obvious, and those failures and deficiencies didn’t happen by chance. We created them. We created them by saddling the MBTA with $3.3 billion in state debt, a failed funding formula, and a watering down of Gov. Patrick’s Way Forward funding plan. We are trying to be competitive in the 21st century economy with Nixon-era infrastructure. It doesn’t work. We have before us a choice, an opportunity, and a challenge. The Boston region is one of the most important regions in the world—part of the reason Boston is designated an “Alpha City” by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, meaning that it links major economic regions and states into the world economy. The challenge is: will we remain competitive in the future? Will our capital remain an Alpha City? Business and municipal leaders joined together last week to send a message to our leaders on Beacon Hill: Let’s capitalize on the opportunity before us. Let’s make the choice to invest in a well-maintained and an expanded MBTA system, so we can meet that future economic challenge.

Calling all vinyl fetishists! Enter your most wacky album cover in the Somerville Arts Council’s Bizarro Album Cover Contest!