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.

Arrests:
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Jason Matthews, 38, of 412 Main St., Malden, March 25, 9:30 a.m., arrested at 220 Washington St. on a warrant charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

Geavanii Sharpe, 24, of 17 Lincoln St., Hyde Park, March 25, 12:21 p.m., arrested at 182 Broadway on a warrant charge of aggravated assault and battery.

Across the country, residents are thinking up inventive ways to garden in urban areas. Locally, Somerville residents have asked about the possibility of yard-sharing: the idea that those with access to land allow others to grow on it. Enter, My City Gardens. The brainchild of local residents, this online tool matches people who want to garden with people who have available yards that they want gardened.

Police discovered body parts near train tracks off School Street early Sunday afternoon.

While the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office has not confirmed it publicly, more than one media outlet has stated the body parts are those of 66-year-old Somerville resident Vincent Lalli, who was murdered in January and whose other body parts were discovered in the woods behind a Norwood school.

His roommate, Anthony Canejo Sr., 52, has been charged with the murder, and Canejo’s son, Anthony Jr., who also lived with Lalli, has also been arrested for allegedly assisting in disposing of the body parts. The site where police discovered the body parts is near the men’s Sycamore Street apartment.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

Somerville non-profit The Welcome Project is celebrating the community’s immigrant flavor, in partnership with the City’s Shape Up Somerville healthy restaurant campaign, Shape Up Approved – Eat Well. The 2014 YUM: A Taste of Immigrant City event will celebrate a city proud of its diverse immigrant history and celebrated for its growing foodie scene celebration. All YUM eateries are part of the city’s Shape Up Approved – Eat Well campaign, which makes Somerville a healthier place to live, work, play and eat by highlighting healthier menu options at participating restaurants.