News Talk for the week of Jan. 3

Well the State of the City Address was held Monday night and along with the mayor’s speech on customer service he gave, the President of the Board of Aldermen Bob Trane gave his speech on the outlook for 2007 as well as the new School Committee Chairwoman Roberta Bauer. City hall was well-packed Monday night, mostly city employees and a scattering of the public in attendance.

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Just out, the new committee assignments by the Board President Bob Trane. Trane wasted no time it trying out his new authority.  Appears that after six years on the Finance Committee and four years a chairman, Alderman Bill White was removed all together from Finance.    This could be good for the people of Somerville. Since White is probably the smartest alderman on the board, we hope to see him take apart the budget in 2007 for all us. We should thank the new president, maybe? 
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Another interesting Committee assignment is placing Alderman Sean O‚ÄôDonovan as chairman of the Land Use Committee. How appropriate, this committee deals with zoning issues around the city and presently Alderman Sean is rumored to be deeply into the real estate market himself with his various development projects, and, of course, his good friends at Max Pak can‚Äôt be complaining either. Does this mean we can look for some major proposals in zoning changes to come about in 2007?   
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Bob Puliciover‚Äôs  ‚ÄúCommittee For Response‚Äù has announced that they will be sponsoring three Somerville nights at the Red Sox in June, July and September.    Tickets are $75 in the Grand Stand and are limited so hurry up and put in your order.    To reserve your tickets email bob at bobpublicover@aol.com or call 617 290-6842. Also inquire about Boston Pops night in June.   
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We hope that Joe Mackey is feeling a little bit better these days after going through his long illness. Joe has been a dedicated civic servant in the City of Somerville, always there helping and organizations in there time of need. We wish him and his family well in the days ahead and thank him and his wife, Paula, for all that they have done for their home city.   
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According to some sources around the city, recently we heard that after Deval Patrick’s inauguration he will be appointing Barbara Capuano, wife of Congressman Mike Capuano, to a key position that will play a major role within the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, what we don’t know and can’t for the life of us here figure it out why.
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We were mentioned recently, well sort of mentioned, on a radio talk show this past weekend. They were talking about a city in Massachusetts that threw out all sorts of desks and furniture with valuables still inside, confiscated personal items for city fire stations and sanitary violations within one of the facilities possibly due to the dirty doorknobs. They didn’t mention the good things that happened.