Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone has requested the Board of Aldermen declare three city-owned properties in Davis Square surplus in order to move ahead with plans to develop a hotel and public parking garage on one or more of the parcels.

“Declaring these lots surplus is the first step in bringing a much needed hotel to the thriving Davis Square business district,” he said. “This area is not only a local draw but has become a regional dining and shopping destination. There’s ample demand to support the right kind of specialty hotel in this area.”

By George P. Hassett

For the second year in a row the top official in the Somerville public school system was rated by the School Committee as exceeding the requirements of his job.

Anthony Pierantozzi, superintendent of schools, faced his second formal evaluation since taking the job in July 2005. The evaluation was conducted by the school committee’s seven members and Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone.

By George P. Hassett

Ten days after a fire decimated their school, all the students from the East Somerville Community School are scheduled to be back in class learning with their teachers this week.

The 120,000 square foot elementary school was destroyed in a Dec. 9 blaze after an electrical problem in a room heater caused a fiery explosion on the school’s first floor.

Green Line expected to up real-estate values, further gentrification

By George P. Hassett

After almost two decades of stops and starts, the  long awaited Green Line extension through Somerville is coming closer to becoming a reality. The project received its biggest boost to date this month when Governor Deval Patrick fully funded the $600 million venture in his transportation bill. In October he stood in Gilman Square and pledged his administration would meet, and try to beat, the 2014 deadline for the extension.

Near miss on Broadway ‚Äì it seems that one of our police officers was hit by accident Sunday at 5 a.m. by a city plow that couldn‚Äôt stop going down Broadway – the officer pulled out on the right side and if it wasn‚Äôt for the quick thinking of the plow driver, the accident could have been much worse. Both drivers were taken to the hospital and we‚Äôre pleased to hear that only the vehicles were injured and not the drivers. 

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Last Thursday and Sunday the streets here in Somerville were plowed better then our neighbors in Cambridge, Medford and Boston – the absolute ‚Äúgo to guy‚Äù for DPW Commissioner Stan Koty was none other than Tom Barry, who is credited with doing a spectacular job and Stan was heard to say during both storms: ‚Äúif I only had 20 Tom Barrys.‚Äù            

By George P. Hassett

For now Anthony Holloway is focused on learning.

Holloway, the city’s new top cop sworn onto the force last week, said he will be taking a crash course in Somerville 101 for the next six to eight months to catch up with the city’s criminal side.

Off  The Shelf by Doug Holder

I am presently in Israel as a guest of the “Voices Israel” literary organization. I judged their annual poetry contest. This is a speech I plan to make to the group.

When I look at a poem, I look at it with a deliberately untrained eye. I look at it, as I would read a newspaper, a pulp novel, or a short story. This is how I approached the poetry I judged for the “Voices Israel” organization’s poetry contest this fall. I didn’t want to deconstruct the sentences, look for Marxist theory between the lines, check for meter consistency, obsess if the bird’s feathers are red or white. Poetry to me is as natural as the next breath, an organic art, instinctual. What I want is simple, but really not so simple. I want to be surprised in mid-sentence, I want to stop and hungrily re-read, I want to say: “What an image…goddamn that was a good piece of work.”

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.)

Would you like to play Russian roulette?  Is the idea attractive to you?  In a real sense, our nation‚Äôs leaders are playing Russian roulette with the planet‚Äôs capacity to support human life.

As Tip O‚ÄôNeil famously said, all politics are local.  The fact that climate change will be globally catastrophic does not diminish how devastating it will be locally. And given the federal government‚Äôs dereliction of responsibility to ‚Äúprovide for the common defense,‚Äù I think that it‚Äôs worthwhile to have a conversation about it here in Somerville.

Property taxes are going up for homeowners in Somerville. In a unanimous vote on December 5, aldermen approved 2008 property tax rates for commercial and residential taxpayers. Under the new rates, the average owner-occupied two-family home will see an annual tax increase of $47 or 1.2 percent, the average one-family home will see an increase of $55 or 1.9 percent and the average condominium tax bill will increase annually by $9 or 0.5 percent.

By Pam Rosenblatt

It was artist Kelsey Russell’s dream for people to walk into the gallery and see the blank canvas, pick up a paintbrush or a pen and work off each other’s artwork and creativity. And last week people from all walks of life entered Out of the Blue Art Gallery to draw, paint, and silk-screen their own images onto her large communal canvas.

The different people were there “working together to create one piece,” she said. “I am inspired by creativity and people. Mainly people because I think creativity comes from the influences of the world. The world influences the creativity within an individual.”