It wasn’t hard to walk away from the Inaugural Ceremony on Monday night feeling good about Somerville. Many wonderful things have happened to our community over the past four years although we have quite the collection of characters with a wide range of political ideologies. Forget for a minute (we will try) about the newcomers vs. the old school or the PDSers vs. life-long residents – this is a community that comes together in good times as well as bad and knows how to move itself ahead.

It’s easy to stand on a soapbox somewhere and spout off ideas about how the government should be run – it’s another thing to actually get into the mix. No, we aren’t saying that because one of us is an elected official, it is simply the truth. Local politics, for years and years, was run on the concept of ‚Äúthis is what I have – this is what I want‚Äù – today, as we tackle national and regional issues at such a local/personal level, the bridge between imagination and reality has become so minute that the term ‚Äúevery vote counts‚Äù has never been more appropriate.

Opened in 1939, Day Street bowling alley to close in spring

By Elizabeth Bernardi

Walking into Sacco’s Bowl Haven and Billiards is like walking back a half-century in time. The d√©cor has not been updated in as long, and as evidence, a framed copy of The Tufts Weekly hangs in the entryway, the front page headline reading, ‚ÄúTuition Raised $150.‚Äù A silver-and-blue Marlin hangs on one wall, a pink flamingo behind the counter, and framed photos of bowling games past dot the walls. And all of the scores are still kept by hand.

By George P. Hassett

In his first speech as president of the Board of Aldermen Dennis M. Sullivan called on Mayor Joseph A.  Curtatone to reopen and fully staff a fire company that has been out of service for four years.

Sullivan, sworn in as the board’s new president Monday night, said fire fatalities in Massachusetts were at their highest this year in any year since 2000. Last month the city’s biggest elementary school and a Harvard Place home that had been in one family for three generations were devastated in separate blazes. 

While the home at 9-11 Harvard Place was caught in flames and its two residents suffered serious burns Engine 4, the closest fire station, was closed.

According to sources down at Buddy’s Truck Stop Diner on Washington Street, representatives for the Patriots owner Bob Kraft stopped in for a little breakfast one day last week. Seems like they’re pretty interested in taking a second look at the huge parcel of land down behind Inner Belt for the possibility of housing a new soccer stadium in the near future. A while back Bob Kraft was seen in the audience at Mayor Joe’s announcement for re-election ceremony Рabout 6 months ago. The stretch of land being looked at goes from Inner Belt Road almost all the way down to the old Prison Point Bridge (that’s an old name and it’s been vacant land for many years).

                                                ************

Final registration for the Massachusetts Presidential Primary is January 16 at City Hall – call the election department for details. The Primary is scheduled for February 5. Also the City Democratic Committees are meeting on Saturday February 2 to select delegates to the convention.      

Curtatone pledges more police, expanded services

By George P. Hassett

Four years after he won the general election by only five percent of the vote and just two months removed from an election in which 80 percent of the voters chose to return him to office, Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone was sworn into his third term as mayor Monday night.

After being escorted into the Somerville High School Auditorium by aldermen Maryann Heuston, John M. Connolly, Sean T. O’Donovan and Robert C. Trane, Curtatone delivered a speech touting the steps his administration has taken since coming into power in 2004 and encouraging Somerville residents to “swing for the fences” in the next two years.

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.)

Here is a paradox:  I generally like Somervillians better than people in any other community that I have lived in or know. They are decent, hardworking people with a sense of justice and a sense of humor. If you need help, you can count on your neighbors to come through with something more than warm wishes that you have a nice day. Somervillians are not pretentious and don‚Äôt take themselves too seriously. Yet, people call each other names here more than in any place that I know.

Union Square area residents, business people and property owners are invited to two community   meetings to learn about and discuss the proposed Green Line spur to Union Square. Union Square Main Streets and STEP (Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership) are sponsoring the meetings.

The first meeting will be on Tuesday, Jan. 8 at 6:30 p.m. at the Public Safety Building at 220 Washington Street in Union Square and will focus on issues of importance for the Union Square neighborhood, particularly station location and the route of the spur. A second meeting on Tuesday, February 12 at the same time and place will continue the conversation.  Union Square Main Streets and STEP are holding the meetings to inform the community about the various options being considered for the Union Square spur and to learn neighborhood concerns and priorities.

Off The Shelf by Doug Holder

Robert K. Johnson is a retired English professor from Suffolk University in Boston. He has been widely published in the small press and is the author of nine collections of poetry, including his latest “From Mist to Shadow” ( Ibbetson 2007).

Johnson has also written two critical studies, one of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, and the other of playwright Neil Simon. He is a winner of the Ibbetson Street Press Lifetime Achievement Award along with other notables such as: Robert Pinsky, David R. Godine, Louisa Solano, and Jack Powers. He is currently the submission editor for the literary magazine Ibbetson Street.

By Joseph A. Curtatone

(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.)

So much for a quiet holiday season.

By now you have probably already heard that we have had more snow this December than we had all last winter – and the Boston area is essentially in a tie for the all-time record for total December snowfall. We’ve blown through our snow removal budget and, while I am confident we’ll get through the fiscal year in balance, we’re going to have to tighten up accounts in other areas to make up for what is already a $40,000 plus deficit in the snow account.

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 saw a list of the top ten New Year’s resolutions people make Рhere they are:

Spend more time with family and friends
Exercise
Lose the spare tire
Quit smoking
Enjoy life more
Quit drinking
Get out of debt
Learn something new
Help others
Get organized