Shopping carts in the Mystic River. Not bodies, not vehicles, not even a missing Traffic and Parking desk – just shopping carts everywhere. It seems silly that this is even an issue, but it has been for years. Kids, homeless people and nitwits have been throwing them into the river for years and years, but it has to stop, and soon, otherwise "Assembly on the Mystic" will not be as attractive to potential condo buyers as the developers would like.

Alderman at Large Dennis Sullivan has the beginning of the solution in hand by sending off a copy of our city shopping cart ordinance to Medford, but it will take a much more "global" approach. It has little to do with the direction in which the river flows – Everett should also be brought into the fold.

It doesn't take much for a cart from Target or Costco to make it over to Somerville. And that's just the start of the even bigger discussion on how to create a more stable, clean water and shoreline environment for the Mystic River and the cities that border it.

So thanks to Alderman Sullivan, maybe the broader discussion will begin and possibly an urban oasis can flourish on not just the Assembly on the Mystic side of the river, but maybe Station Landing too.