There is a new team at the helm of The Somerville News now that George has returned to Emerson College for more schooling.  Neil McCabe, our new/old Editor, has embarked on a solid campaign to capture more readers both in print and online. He has brought with him a talented band of journalists with more to be hired. The paper will grow with new sections and a new look plus lots of Somerville stories as always (unlike the city‚Äôs other paper which devotes equal space to Cambridge).  It‚Äôs going on four years now under the new (and local) ownership, who are totally committed to bringing the best in local news coverage to you ‚Äî the readers of Somerville. One thing to watch is our daily updates online at www.TheSomervilleNews.com ‚Äî every day we will be shouting out to Somerville and the whole world, what‚Äôs going on here in the city ‚Äî and if you don‚Äôt like what you read, just respond in the comments section and let us have it.

This is election year and we would love to see lots of contests in the local wards both on the school board and the board of aldermen. Just to give some of you prospective candidates the incentive, members of the school committee receive a salary of $10,000 a year (not bad for a part time gig, huh?) and the Board of Aldermen members get a whopping part time salary of $25,000 (forget what we said about the school committee, that‚Äôs not bad!) and the Mayor receives $124,000 a year to lead our fair city. There‚Äôs a great retirement plan and, unlike the old days when aldermen were lucky to even get re-elected, most of the aldermen don‚Äôt even have competition! Oh for the days when the school committee got zero for pay and the board of aldermen only got about 3K in salary. Like in 1972, when there were 29 candidates alone for Alderman at Large at $3,000 a year. With 25K per year today, there should be 100 people running for the job.   

We were glad to see Somerville‚Äôs own Jonathan McDowell quoted on the front page of the New York Times (yes some of us over here read it) this past Friday on China‚Äôs space program. We profiled McDowell in the paper and it was good to see his career did not suffer. He is the only guy we know with a planet named after him.   But, there are plenty of people we like to send to that planet too, check it out.   

Congressman Mike Capuano‚Äôs son Joseph Capuano is rumored to be getting a job with the Deval Patrick administration. The young Capuano is to be starting soon at the Office of Economic Development. Joe was a full time volunteer for the Patrick campaign as well as Patrick‚Äôs driver, often spending more than 16 hours a day with him on the campaign trail last year. Sounds fun.   

Word is that this week the legislative matters committee will present to the full board of aldermen the election dates for the Alderman at Large special election to replace Denise Provost. The seat has been vacant now for 3 months, its about time. If we wait any longer some of the old school politicians will start announcing, oh yeah wait a minute hasn‚Äôt that happened already?   

Is it true that Mayor Joe will be traveling to Saint Michael, Portugal some time soon?  Well, according to the Portuguese‚Äôs television station in Fall River the Mayor of St. Michael and his city are going to welcome Joe with open arms sometime in the next month. We hear they are also planning many ceremonies and festivities in his honor during the visit! Do you think News Talk would get that kind of treatment if we suddenly showed up in the Azores?