Past Director Tom Champion to start Nov. 1
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Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone announced today that Michael Meehan has tendered his resignation as the City’s Executive Director of Communications and Cable, effective Friday, October 28, 2011.  Mayor Curtatone also announced that former director Thomas P. Champion has accepted an offer to return to the City as of November 1.  Meehan has served as the City’s communications director since April 2010.

Part 3:  Sprout & Co.

By William C. Shelton

(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.)

Some of the newcomers who invest themselves in community life are bringing with them new ideas. Sprout & Co. and Parts and Crafts, two organizations founded by Somerville immigrants who make their living as professionals are challenging assumptions about how we learn.

Madness is the theme, poetry the vehicle, enjoyment the promise when the Grolier Poetry Book Shop inaugurates its new poetry room above the Bloc 11 Café in Union Square, Somerville. Billed as a “wild concoction of poetry, mixed media and twisted genius”, “Madness” is a celebration of the borderlands where madness brushes against artistic genius, as evidenced most notably in the community of famous poets—Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell and John Berryman—whose lives and writings cycled tortuously through McLean Hospital in Belmont.

Second graders (left to right) John Rotundo, Syeda Kawsar and Hardik Pokhrel participated in apple tasting during Food Day activities at the Argenziano School. - Photo by Elizabeth Sheeran

Somerville schools celebrate first annual
Food Day

By Elizabeth Sheeran

This was not their parents’ school lunch.

Somerville public elementary school kids dined Monday on roasted herb chicken – real chicken, not the nugget kind – accompanied by locally grown butternut squash, cornbread freshly made at a local bakery, and apples straight from the orchard near Lunenburg.

The new proposed senate districting. (click for larger view)

By Andrew Firestone

With the Massachusetts General Court’s redistricting draft plans out on October 18, Sen. Pat Jehlen has, if re-elected, gained all wards and precincts of Somerville, with Sen. Sal DiDomenico losing his former constituent areas in Somerville. Under the new plan, which will be implemented if unchallenged, Rep. Tim Toomey will lose his precinct in Ward 2 to Rep. Denise Provost, and Sciortino would take a precinct from Ward 4 from Provost.

By Jim Clark

Police responded to a call from a woman who said that she was being harassed and threatened by a neighbor last Thursday evening.

As officers arrived at the woman’s residence on Fellsway West they reportedly noticed a commotion on the street involving seven people and they immediately separated the individuals into smaller groups for questioning.

The candidates fielded questions and offered their viewpoints on a wide range of issues Tuesday night. - Photo by Matthew Roy

By Ard Ardalan

Candidates competing for seats on the board of Aldermen held a formal panel discussion on Tuesday evening to address questions from local residents. The event, which took place at the First Church of Somerville on College Avenue, was attended by members of the local community eager to ask questions and air grievances to prospective Aldermen.

Mayor Curtatone reasserted his commitment to the GLX cause at last week’s rally at SHS. - Photo by Andrew Firestone

MassDOT not out of the woods yet

By Andrew Firestone

The Green Line Extension (GLX), delayed until at least 2018, saw the shovels drop to the ground in a mockery of the delayed process. Community members from Somerville, Cambridge, Arlington and Medford displayed their solidarity in support of the Green Line extension, on Thursday, Oct. 20, as a large group held a rally outside Somerville High School the night of the Federal environmental impact report.

Election day is quickly coming for the local elections, Tuesday, November 8. The hot spots will be in Wards 4 and 7 even. Although in Ward 3 there will be a small one, we expect incumbent Alderman Tom Taylor, who recently has come home from the hospital again, to once again top the ticket. In Ward 4 Tony LaFaunte and Christine Barber are both out there working hard, knocking on doors and setting up for a final push. Tony is having an old fashioned rally on Winter Hill on Saturday, November 5, with an outdoor barbecue and a “bluegrass band” in the afternoon. We were told more information will soon follow. Meanwhile, up in Ward 7 incumbent Bob Trane has been working extremely hard canvassing door to door every day rain or shine. We hear his opponent is out there as well.

Somerville Community Corporation a force to be reckoned with

By Andrew Firestone

In the past several months, the Somerville Community Corporation, a non-profit that provides affordable housing for underprivileged families in Somerville, has seen its stock rise considerably as a social force. From organizing rallies to support their local hiring ordinance, the mock GLX groundbreaking and the housing symposium, to receiving $3.9 million in government funds to build the third phase of the St. Polycarp village and their Cross St. project, the SCC has exemplified that old adage that, when the going gets tough, the tough get going.