— Photos courtesy of TEDx

The second TEDx Somerville event was held Sunday, March 30, at Brooklyn Boulders.

The nonprofit TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) organization started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago. The annual TED Conference invites the world’s leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Meeting held to discuss future of Powder House School
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— Photo by Donald Norton.

By David R. Smith

“This is not a meeting about Tufts, and I’m not going to make it one,” Mayor Joseph Curtatone told the residents who filled a meeting room at the Tufts Administration Building (TAB) on Holland Street last Wednesday.

The meeting, when it was originally scheduled, was to be a final community forum with Tufts about the university’s plans for the Powder House School, vacant now for a decade, on Broadway behind the TAB.

The annual wreath-hanging ceremony in remembrance of Deanna Cremin took place this Saturday, and with it came a renewed sense of determination to solve the 19-year-old murder case.

By David R. Smith

Nearly 20 years have done little to dull the grieving over the murder of Deanna Cremin, nor, however, has it lessened the commitment among her family, friends, law enforcement and city officials to find her killer.

The city street-sweeping program started yesterday (April 1 … no joke) and runs through Dec. 31. Check the posted signs on all the streets when they are coming down. This is big money for the city, so be careful.

Suburban legislators may not quite understand why the city wants to increase the residential tax exemption from 30 to 35 percent.

But most of us do.

Somerville is a victim of its own success: People want to live here; businesses want to open up here; and real-estate investors from Florida to China want to buy into the hot market here.

Eagle Feathers #49 – Somerville Steamers

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

Somerville’s Peter Forg Manufacturing Company on Park Street originally had its start  in 1881 as a wood-working company. After three years, it established itself as a metal stamping and manufacturing business catering to the furniture hardware industry. It was an epic time to begin.

The fifth annual Somerville Mayor’s Fitness Challenge kicked off on Saturday.

The Fitness Challenge is a 10-week event that offers both a team fitness challenge as well as a non-competitive “lifestyle pledge” in cooperation with Wellcoin Positive Health Currency. Both offer rewards for participants ranging from better health to discounts at local businesses.

When it comes to the sale of the Union Square Post Office, Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-MA) had two things to say. First, he noted that the sale is the result of what he feels was needless congressional strong-arming. A 2006 law forces the U.S. Postal Service to fully fund its pension system. “The whole pension thing is what’s causing the post office to have a loss,” Capuano told the Somerville Neighborhood News. “I didn’t vote for it but Congress passed a law five, six, seven years ago I think, that said that the post office has to fully fund it’s pension plan now. And that’s insane!” The full news story is found at www.scatvsomerville.org/SNN.

Well, for the 14th year I have been on the board for Tapestry of Voices (an organization founded by Harris Gardner, pictured far right), that every year brings to you the much lauded Boston National Poetry Festival to the greater metro area. Somerville poets are well represented including: Yours Truly, Lloyd Schwartz, Bert Stern, Kirk Etherton, Lucy Holstedt,  State Representative Denise Provost, Harris Gardner, and Gloria Mindock. Below is a peek into what the Festival offers.

Nina Alonso Hathaway is the publisher of Constellations: A Journal of Poetry and Fiction.  She wrote The Times about the new release of Constellations 3 and told us us about a reading for the launch of this new issue of the literary journal at The Somerville Public Library, Main Branch, 7 p.m., April 23, 2014.