Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

“High Yo Fitzie! Hi Mrs. F can Fitzie come out to play?”

Remember when you’d stand outside your friends’ house and “call” for them? Often we’d use a nickname. This is the second story I’ve done on the nicknames we had for each other growing up in Somerville. I asked my Somerville friends to try to recall those shortened names we had for each other and here they are.

Mayor Joseph Curtatone spoke at the “Build Bridges, Not Walls” rally, organized by The Welcome Project in 2019. – Photo courtesy of The Welcome Project

By Shira Laucharoen

Somerville officials and local organizations have been responding to the Trump administration’s decision to deploy 100 border patrol agents to ten major sanctuary cities, including Somerville, in February. These officers will be assisting with run of the mill immigration arrests, in cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The Somerville City Council’s Committee on Legislative Matters addressed a number of issues at its latest meeting, including revisions to the current stormwater ordinance.

By Anna Schaeffer

City councilors JT Scott, Mark Niedergang, Lance Davis, Ben Ewen-Campen and the Committee on Legislative Matters met on Thursday, February 20, to discuss concerns regarding stormwater treatment, surveillance technology and noise in the Somerville community.

Don’t forget Somerville voters can cast their ballots ahead of the March 3 primary election during early voting hours through Friday, February 28. All early voting sessions will take place at City Hall, 93 Highland Ave. Early voting hours remaining are Wednesday, February 26, 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Thursday, February 27, 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and Friday, February 28, 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The rally in support of paraprofessionals gathered outside the Somerville Public Schools Central Office, while president of the STA Rami Bridge spoke, on February 24.

By Shira Laucharoen  

Chanting vociferously and carrying signs, throngs of rallying individuals flooded the meeting room for the Somerville School Committee at 8 Bonair Street, on February 24. The community members were standing up for the rights of paraprofessionals who work in Somerville schools, asking for a new contract that would grant them fair pay and job security.

Fabric artist Tori Costa will be displaying her collages fashioned from textile materials at the Somerville Media Center through March 28.

By Isabel Sami

The Somerville Media Center is now showcasing a number of contemporary textile pieces by Tori Costa, a fabric artist and former Somerville local. Costa makes collages out of recycled materials she’s acquired from her travels as well as from her own home, and she says that part of the reason she began to make fabric collages was due to her lifelong love of textiles and fabrics. She is also aided by her background in quilting, a craft she began after graduating college twenty years ago.

As voters ponder who they might want running on the national ticket in November, they are now tasked with searching their souls for the right answers to questions posed at the ballot box next week.

There is also the matter of choosing candidates for the State Committee for the Second Middlesex Senatorial District and Members of the Ward and City Committees.

Please join the Somerville Homeless Coalition on March 26 for the Annual Gala, Spring into Action at the Row Hotel in Assembly Square. The evening will feature a keynote address by Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone. Proceeds from the event will benefit the guests and clients of the Somerville Homeless Coalition (SHC).

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Review by Off the Shelf correspondent Dennis Daly

Raquel Balboni butters her readers with luscious phrases and salted cream stanzas in her first book entitled XXX Poems. She churns her verses with naked abandon in an avant-garde display of unabashed kisses ingrained with unabashed cravings.

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Thomas DeFreitas was born in 1969 in Boston. He graduated from the Boston Latin School, and attended the University of Massachusetts. His poems have appeared in Dappled Things, Ibbetson Street, Muddy River Poetry Review, Plainsongs, and in other publications. Tom is a member of the New England Poetry Club and lives in Arlington.