Arrests:
*

Arjuna Kataria, 27, of 4 E. 132nd St., New York, NY, August 7, 2:36 a.m., arrested at 20 Windom St. on charges of burn personal party, disorderly conduct, witness intimidation, and violation of city ordinance open container.

Paulo Cebola De Sena, 22, of 136 Webster St., E. Boston, August 7, 6:53 a.m., arrested at 72 Jaques St. on a charge of assault and battery.

Suzanne Cope.

Old habits die hard. Now I find myself gravitating to the window seats at the Bloc 11 Cafe in Union Square, Somerville, Mass. It may be the darker environs in the back are less attractive as I press closer towards the 60 year mark–you know rage, rage against the dying of the light and all that sort of rot. On this morning I was at my window at Bloc 11 to shed light on my subject for the day, writer Suzanne Cope.

Somerville Poet Tara Skurtu.

Somerville Poet Tara Skurtu studied Creative Writing at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, and is an MFA candidate at Boston University. She’s the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, and a 2012 Tennessee Williams Poetry Prize finalist. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Review, Hanging Loose, Salamander, Poet Lore, The Los Angeles Review, Hiram Poetry Review, The Southeast Review,The Comstock Review, Amethyst Arsenic, and elsewhere.

By Jim Clark

Somerville fire and police units were dispatched to a Windom St. residence at approximately 2:40 a.m. on August 7 on reports that a garbage can’s contents had been set on fire. West Somerville has reportedly been beset by an unusually large number of such fires in recent months, according to police and fire officials.

MassDOT is scheduled to install a raised crosswalk on Holland Street at the MBTA Station. Weather permitting, construction will begin on Sunday, August 19, at approximately 2 a.m. and continue through Wednesday, August 22.  During this period, the Buena Vista Parking Lot will remain open. However no vehicular traffic will be allowed on Holland Street from Winter Street to Dover Street.

SomerVision’s twenty-year plan goes into action in June, impacting many Somerville neighborhoods.

Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone and Ward 1 Alderman Bill Roche invite all interested residents and stakeholders to attend a community meeting on Monday, August 13, to present the construction schedule for the East Broadway Streetscape Project.

– Photos by Lisa Heyison and Bobbie Toner

On The Silly Side by Jimmy Del Ponte

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

I peeped into a colleague’s office to say hi last week and we got on the subject of the songs of 1966. We were both 13 years old back then and we couldn’t believe all the great songs that came out that year.

Somerville Police Chief Thomas Pasquarello confirmed today that on Monday, August 6, at approximately 4:55 a.m., a prisoner in the custody of the Somerville Police Department suffered an unknown medical event while inside a cell at Police Headquarters. Police officers attempted to revive the prisoner and immediately summoned emergency medical assistance. He was transported by ambulance to Cambridge Hospital where he died a short time later.

The Hungry Tiger Festival roars into town this coming Saturday.

By Tatiana Kombo

On Saturday, August 11, Union Square will be home to the second annual Hungry Tiger Festival, a Somerville Arts Council event. From 6 to 10 p.m., the square will be transformed into a bustling and ethnically diverse market in which varied “gastronomic and cultural riches” will be on display.