Some of us at The Somerville News are “life long democrats”, but it boggles our minds that the state Senate recently voted purely via party lines on a bill (S 271 – Allow appeals by teachers who fail certification test) which gives a teacher an appeal process to the Commissioner of Education because they couldn’t pass a certification test three times.

We love teachers, please don’t get us wrong – but how can we impose such a high level of double standard? Do our kids get to appeal when they just miss MCAS scores or fail a class here and there and can’t graduate (whether from high school or just to the next grade)?

There are plenty of us out there who have professional licenses – from doctors to real estate agents – does that mean we can test a number of times and get an automatic appeal because we really do deserve a chance to show what we are worth?

By George P. Hassett

Responding to several violent and drug-related incidents in Winter Hill, police this week increased patrols in the neighborhood, focusing on the area surrounding the Mystic Housing Development.

“We saw the area getting busier and the chief [Anthony Holloway] wanted to move some resources there,” said Police Captain Paul Upton.

On March 26, a 15-year-old Malden boy was shot on Sewall Street, hit in the lung with a bullet fired from a passing car.

2nd annual Peace Conference on Saturday
By George P. Hassett

Speaking from a wheelchair, Terrell Walton had done the near impossible: he had a crowd of 600 teenagers in complete silence. They were gripped by his personal story of gang violence and his call for change.

‚ÄúLike most teenage kids I thought I couldn‚Äôt be touched. I thought that nothing could hurt me. Even the day that I got shot, I still felt that I was invincible. I chose not to run. I still believed in my mind that nothing was going to hurt me. I knew the kids were coming back to see me and I could have chosen to stay in the house. 

‚ÄúBut I chose to stay outside, thinking there was a chance the kids weren‚Äôt coming back.  But they did come back and shot me five times in front of my family.‚Äù

By Mia Lamar 

A team of urban planning professionals and concerned Somerville residents submitted a proposal to the Board of Aldermen Committee on Public Health and Public Safety Monday evening for the adjustment and redesign of two intersections on Willow Avenue.
The cooperative, billing itself as the Davis Square Transportation Design Group, won quick approval by the committee’s chairman Alderman-at-Large William A. White ordered a resolution to review funding opportunities for the project in the upcoming city budget.

Former Mayor and current Register of Deeds, Gene Brune, is holding his Annual Breakfast this coming Sunday Morning at Anthony‚Äôs in Malden from 9am to 11am ‚Äì we‚Äôre sure that he will pack the room with many long time good friends as he has always done in years past ‚Äì this is sort of a reminder that Spring is officially here.   
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The Irish American Police Officers Association of Massachusetts will be holding its 9th Annual Awards Dinner this Friday night over at the American Legion Post 440 (Nonantum Post), 295 California Street, Newton (near the Waltham/Watertown lines). This year they are honoring five of our own Police Officers – for Life Saving Рawards go to Officer Derrick Dottin, Officer Alex Capobianco and Officer Steve St. Hillaire Рalso being honored from Somerville are Detective Mario Oliveira and Officer Neil Collins for their investigative works. We should all be proud of these and other fine Somerville Police Officers that work hard and are dedicated to their jobs. We from The Somerville News salute them all for a fine job well done Рwhen you see these fine gentlemen on the street congratulate them for their efforts. If you want tickets to the event, call Capt. Upton at 617 625-1600.

By Elizabeth Bernardi

One of the young writers of Books of Hope stood to read at their first public event of the 2008 season, and she was giggling. Her peers sitting in the first few rows were making faces, goading her before they all quickly gained composure. They may be teenagers, but they are also learning to be professionals.

The setting was intimate – chairs lined in rows amid the Immigrant City exhibit at the Somerville Museum – and a few dozen listeners sat rapt as the writers, all poets this night, read from a selection of their soon-to-be published works.

By George P. Hassett

Initials of the gang MS-13 appeared on walls in East Somerville on Monday. In blue letters “MS” and “MS-13” were found scrawled across six properties on Glen Street at 5:30 a.m., police said.
Captain Paul Upton said the markings were not necessarily gang related or done by gang members.
“We don’t know if it was put there by people associated with MS-13, people against MS-13 or by people who are just looking to cause havoc in the community,” he said. “It’s too early to tell what significance it may have,” he said.

Issues in artist building mirror city’s

By Pam Rosenblatt

At the end of its second decade, the artists who live and work in the Brickbottom building are, like the city itself, dealing with advancing age, improved economic conditions and a future that appears will bring dramatic change.

The Brickbottom Artists Building was established in 1988 by one hundred artists, many of whom had little money. In 1985, these young artists, mainly from Fort Point in South Boston, pooled their money to purchase the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company Building at 1 Fitchburg St. and then took three years to renovate it into what is casually known today as Brickbottom.

By Elizabeth Bernardi

April approaches and gardeners at the Mystic Housing Project are eager to start the planting season. But their new land will remain barren until they can raise the funds to finish fencing within their new community garden, and they’re hoping the Somerville community will pitch in.

‚ÄúWe’re trying to find people we know who care about gardening in Somerville,‚Äù said Warren Goldstein-Gelb, Executive Director of the Welcome Project at the Mystic, which has supported the garden with education, communication, and fundraising.

For 18 years, residents of the Mystic Housing Project have grown food to feed their families in a community garden space. Vietnamese residents who had farmed in their home country wanted to grow the ethnic foods they couldn’t find in American stores, so they founded their garden on empty land at the Mystic. Gardeners used unconventional materials, such as bedsprings fished from the trash, to create working trellises. For a decade and a half, the garden, which looked chaotic to some but fed dozens, went undisturbed.

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.)

The Iraq invasion’s fifth anniversary has understandably prompted widespread commentary. Its consequences are felt in Somerville through concerns for absent and suffering community members, sometimes-divisive arguments, constrained fiscal choices, and increasing economic hardship. So I’ll add my modest insights to those of the pundits.

For me, the most important lesson is one that our nation should have learned many times since 1898. Our nation’s political leaders do not understand the complexity of any other peoples’ experience, and they don’t have the humility needed to acquire that understanding. The best military leaders have learned this from experience, but they must follow the chain of command.