ResiStat
is a series of public meetings at which residents of each ward meet
with city officials to discuss data about city operations. ResiStat is
the outreach program of SomerStat, a group which, in the words of
Somerstat analyst Eric Friedman, "help[s] the Mayor's office to manage
their departments using data to inform decision making."

About
25 residents attended the meeting for the East Somerville ward,
including a contingent of seniors from the Cobble Hill area, who came
to promote a road resurfacing project in their neighborhood.
Representing the city were heads of several city departments, Ward 1
Alderman William Roche, and Alderman-At-Large Dennis Sullivan. Mayor
Curtatone, who had planned to speak at the Resistat meeting, was tied
up with a particularly important School Committee Meeting the same
evening, the Mayor's Office said.

Monday's meeting opened with
an overview of city spending for fiscal year 2009 and its plans for
overcoming a 12.1 million dollar budget gap for fiscal year 2010, which
began July 1.

Next, city officials gave updates on plans for two large repair projects in East Somerville.

Phil
Ercolini, representing the Office of Strategic Planning, reported that
the city will use federal stimulus money to finance the resurfacing of
Washington Street in 2010. This came as good news to the Cobble Hill
seniors, who had gathered a petition to promote the project, according
to Alderman-At-Large Dennis Sullivan, who spoke with seniors at the
meeting.

Capital Projects Manager Gerald Boyle gave an update on
plans to rebuild the East Somerville Community School after it burned
down in December, 2007. Boyle said that the city has reached "a large
insurance settlement," and is working with a state agency, the Mass
School Building Authority, to make further plans to rebuild the school.
Boyle made one thing clear: "Probably the primary question on
everyone's minds is when, and I cannot answer that."

Following
these updates, city department heads led discussion groups on Strategic
Planning, Community Policing, Traffic and Parking, and Environmental
Programs.

Discussions of citywide business, such as the
expansion of permit parking and community policing initiatives, were
similar to discussions at previous Resistat meetings covered by the
Somerville News.

In news specific to Ward 1, Somerville Police
Chief Anthony Holloway reported that, though crime citywide is down 20
percent from last year, incidents of crime in East Somerville are much
higher than the city average for 2009. He suggested that T stops can be
hubs for crime "Because we have Sullivan Station, they actually take
that, come in on the T, and they start to work, they come here 8 o'
clock in the morning off the T and they start working, so it's mostly
where the T stops are. " However, when a resident asked if the planned
Green-Line expansion might lead to more crime, he changed his answer.
saying "No, T has nothing to do with it; it's just one of those things
where the group we're arresting right now, they're using it."

On
the environmental front, David Lutes, Director of the Office of
Sustainability and the Environment reported that East Somerville has
the lowest recycling rates in the city. East Somerville, which has
trash pickup on Friday, recycles only 7.6 percent of its trash,
compared to the citywide average of 14.3 percent. One resident
responded to this news by pointing out that, ""We have one blue bin for
our whole building of six apartments," a situation that may be true for
many people. Another resident said of neighbors that, "They're not so
much worried about recycling, they're more about maybe, you know,
working."