The City of Somerville is receiving $500,000 for the Gilman Square Roadway Improvement Project as part of the state’s Complete Streets Funding Program.

The Healey-Driscoll Administration is awarding $6.6 million to 15 communities as part of the Fiscal Year 2026 Round 2 of grants for the Complete Streets Funding Program. These grant awards will be used by recipient municipalities to fund local multimodal infrastructure projects that improve travel for pedestrians, public transit users, bicyclists, and people using other forms of transportation.

By The Times Staff

On Friday, February 13, Director of the Somerville Arts Council Greg Jenkins posted a message on Facebook saying, after 25 years, “the new Somerville administration has decided that the Somerville Arts Council will go in a new direction and I was asked to leave.”

After this was posted, Mayor Wilson posted his statement praising the work Greg has done, saying, “After 25 years of exceptional service, we celebrate Greg’s legacy and, with the deepest gratitude, look forward to building on the Arts Council’s strong foundation in innovative arts and culture programming and initiatives.”

Climbing gear specialty store Summit Bound Outfitter stresses its commitment to providing quality goods and services locally. — Photos courtesy of Summit Bound Outfitter

By Cassidy Duncan

Summit Bound Outfitter prioritizes local in business. Started as an in-person solution to solve the inconvenience of buying rock climbing shoes online, they offer a specialty selection of climbing gear, adorning their walls with carabiners. Retro climbing films play on a TV, a wall of windows brings nature into the store, and folk music plays happily in the background. Unique, curated outdoor gear fills the space.

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The Somerville Museum is hosting an object storytelling event on Thursday, February 26. Bring an object. Curate a mini exhibition. Tell its story.

Your home is full of treasures. In Your Home Is a Museum, participants are invited to bring a meaningful object from home – something you were given, something you found in the floorboards or the backyard, something you inherited, or something that has always been important to you for whatever reason – an object with a full-bodied 5-10 minute story.

A Kennedy School Playground public community meeting will be held on February 26, 6:30 p.m. City staff invites you to attend a virtual community meeting for the Kennedy School Playground Renovations project. This session will share a preferred design, solicit the community’s input on the design, and discuss the schedule. A recording of the meeting will be posted afterward so residents who cannot attend can still share their feedback. Visit the Somervoice Posting for information about requesting interpretation and ADA access.

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One of the most recognized dishes of Italy, pasta fagioli or the phonetic version, pasta fazool, is simply delicious and satisfying. This “peasant” dish can be prepared and cooked in a short period of time and makes a great starter for a small dinner party. It can also be served as a main dish with a side of crusty bread for mopping up the sauce, also known as Scarpetta. This recipe can be easily adapted to make it vegetarian.

So, had enough yet? Have we seen the end of it yet? Only time will tell, but we surely must be near the end of our tethers when it comes to putting up with the endless digging out and warming up.

As if clearing our sidewalks and driveways isn’t hard enough, we have additional mountains of snow cresting our roadsides, peaking endlessly along like the Himalayan mountain range. Those of us who are fortunate enough to find safe and secure parking places one day can never be quite sure if we can expect the same on the next.

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Review by Off The Shelf Correspondent Ed Meek

Flesh won the Booker Prize in 2025 and has generated a lot of buzz. David Szalay is the author of Turbulence, London and the Southeast, and All That Man Is. He won the Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for Fiction. The novel is written from the point of view of a white male and covers his life from the time he is fifteen until he is in his sixties. Although he is born in Hungary, he spends much of his adult life in London, and he represents a current type of Western male whose emotional growth and development are stunted or limited by his inability to express himself and understand who he is.

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Ilan Mochari is the author of the poetry collection Playthings and the novel Zinsky the Obscure. Ilan’s short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Salamander, Hobart, The Louisville Review, Solstice, J Journal, Valparaiso Fiction Review, and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes as well as the Derringer Award for crime fiction, and he has been the recipient of a Literature Artist Fellowship grant from the Somerville Arts Council.