Open Positions: Seven, Term: Three years

The City of Somerville seeks seven members for the Historic Preservation Commission, and all Somerville residents are invited to apply. Boards and commissions offer an opportunity for residents with a range of experience, skills, and perspectives to share their talents and insights with their community. Six of the current openings are for candidates with specific expertise: one architectural historian, one contractor, one architect, one historian, and two Local Historic District residents or architects. 

Join in for a poetry reading with Denise Provost at the Somerville Museum on April 28 at 7:00 p.m. This is an in-person event at the Somerville Museum.

Provost will read from her recently published book, City of Stories and other poems. Provost has received the Best Love Sonnet award from the Maria C. Faust Sonnet Competition in 2012, and the New England Poetry Club’s Samuel Washington Allen Prize in 2021. She is also a beloved member of the Somerville Museum and a long-time Somerville resident.

The Davis Square farmers market is back with an expanded vendor roster that includes locally grown fruits and vegetables; farm-raised protein and cheese; mushrooms, baked goods, ready-to-eat meals; along with a host of other locally made products.

Find the full vendor list here: https://www.massfarmersmarkets.org/davis

Francesca “Frances” (Giacalone) Giglio, age 85, of Somerville passed away on Monday, April 18th, at Massachusetts General Hospital of Boston. Born in Salemi, Trapani, Sicily, she was the daughter of the late Giuseppe and Marianna (Amico) Giacalone. Frances came to the U.S. at the age of ten and settled with her family in Boston’s North End. She was employed for many years as a seamstress and lived again in Italy and Venezuela before settling in Somerville over 50 years ago.

By Jim Clark

Somerville Police officers were dispatched to a Grand Union Blvd. location last Sunday after a 9-1-1 called was received reporting that a man and woman had broken into the caller’s vehicle.

Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

Remember the flocks of pigeons that hung around inside Sullivan Square Station? Here are some memories of the old Sullivan Square station.

“I was young and in my memories looking back it’s like a black and white Vincent Price movie. The human turnstiles were murderous looking, the steel screeching wheels filled the air as pigeons took wing, enough to make you look up and dripping water if it was raining. Or is my memory real? Maybe it was a movie?”

The streets of Somerville are home to a wide diversity of tree species, including this flowering crabapple tree (front) and white pine (back).

By Molly Rains

As the growing season approaches, Somerville’s urban foresters are gearing up for a busy spring. The Urban Forestry Division plans to plant 175 trees in the next few months, said Senior Urban Forestry and Landscape Planner Dr. Vanessa Boukili. The springtime plantings should begin in May.

The Somerville City Council has requested that the Board of Health consider ways to evaluate the necessity for implementing indoor mask mandates in the future.

By Jim Clark

A resolution was put forward and approved at the latest regular meeting of the Somerville City Council on Thursday, April 14, asking that the Board of Health consider setting a public standard by which to evaluate when an indoor mask mandate should be enacted at their next meeting, and consider whether the community has already met the criteria for implementing a local mask mandate.