Concerns over safety issues in the Davis Square and Seven Hills Park areas prompted a community meeting where city officials and residents reviewed the situation. ~Photo by Bobbie Toner

By Fred Bernardin

On Wednesday, October 9, the Somerville Community Baptist Church hosted a community meeting to discuss the safety situation in Davis Square and the adjoining Seven Hills Park area.

The meeting was attended by several city officials including Mayor Katyana Ballantyne, recently appointed Police Chief Shumeane Benford, Deputy Police Chief James Donnovan, 311 Constituent Services Director Steve Craig, and Health and Human Services director Karin Carroll.

Connor McCombs, the Health Communications Officer facilitated the meeting. The room was filled by about 200 Somerville residents with dozens of residents relegated to the hallway outside the room.

The meeting was convened due to recent incidents in the Davis Square area, including two stabbings in late September within a few days of each other. Each of the city officials provided brief presentations describing their roles in helping to address the safety concerns in the Davis Square. The theme of balancing options for the at-need population and enforcement to address public safety concerns was a recurring theme. The officials provided information while emphasizing that they well looking for community engagement and cooperation.

Highlights included Mayor Ballantyne’s emphasis that her office is “fully focused” on the concerns of residents and that she visits the area daily at many different times of day. She said she has seen the positive effects of the city’s efforts over the past weeks.

Deputy Chief Donnovan presented some statistics on the rate of incidents and the increase in police presence. During the seven-week period during August and September, there SPD carried out 674 Directed Patrols and 156 Park Walk and Talks (an effort by SPD to build trust and understanding with the unhoused populations), almost tripled relative to 2023.

The increased patrols have contributed to 13 arrests over that same period. During the public discussion, one resident from the area talked about witnessing a Park Walk and Talk encounter and described it as a 30-to-35-minute discussion that was “received very well by the unhoused people”.

In all, 21 Somerville residents presented comments and questions during the hour of public discussion that followed the presentations from city officials. The residents presented a variety of views during which their concern and passion was evident. In all cases the audience was respectful, and the applause received by often conflicting ideas indicated that a diverse cross-section of the community residents was present in the audience as well as among the speakers.

Some themes that were touched on multiple times across the questions, comments, and responses were:

• Residents do not feel safe or comfortable in the public areas of Davis Square and in the words of the final speaker “we’re not coming here because we’re happy”. Several residents questioned why it seemed to have to get to this point before action was taken. All participants recognize that this is a nationwide problem of housing and drug use and not specific to Somerville. However, there was a belief that the shift away from community policing has damaged the relationship between the community and the police force, and that tolerance of open drug use has contributed to making Davis square particularly vulnerable to these problems. A 21-year Somerville resident who lives within a block of the bike path described it as “incredible to have our community police back” after letting the problem “lie fallow for so long”.
• There is a clear struggle with choosing actions that can both provide more safety and can also be sustained to provide long-term solutions. Although some of the city’s responses (e.g., a proposed Supervised Consumption Site) seemed to some residents to promote drug use, to others it represents the reliance on “evidence-based” approaches that minimize the impact of drug use to the community. One resident acknowledged that it takes “courage” to make commitments to these measures in preference to harsher enforcement.
• The city is struggling to cope with safety problems given the existing resources. One resident questioned why the increase in police presence in Davis Square comes at the expense of police presence in other areas of the city. Mayor Ballantyne shared that the city is finding it difficult to fill the six unfilled positions at the SPD, meaning that officers are asked to work extra hours to meet the recent demands. This includes Chief Benford, who while recognizing it is part of his commitment to the job, has had to “buy [his] daughter off with ice cream” because of stretches like the 11 days before the meeting, which included working 8 16-hour days with no days off for.

Chief Benford closed the meeting by offering a “token of action” that he would be looking to work with community stakeholders and make them part of the solution to promote “buy-in” from the community as the city develops a plan specifically designed to meet the needs of Somerville. The meeting was taped by Somerville GovTV and is available for viewing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4PSyAXXQT0. The community is encouraged to send e-mails with follow up questions and comments to cm@somervillema.gov.