Newstalk for the week of Jan. 4

Happy New Year to everyone – lets all hope that Somerville becomes an
even better city in 2006 – this goes out to all the residents from us
here at Prospect Hill Publishing, Inc./The Somerville News.  The
Publishers of The News are proud to be going into their fourth year as
the owners of the paper and we wish everyone a great upcoming year.

The State of the Paper – 2006.      
Another year has passed and The Somerville News is getting better and better and the weblog has been attracting nearly 1000 visitors a day, distribution of the print edition has increased to 152 spots around the city ‚Äì we even get calls now asking for the paper to be delivered in various new locations.  Yes, we‚Äôve grown in a lot of ways, but one fact that we‚Äôre really proud of is that we only print Somerville stories – about Somerville people and places (and it is owned by local Somerville residents and businessmen).  Over 7,000 papers on average are distributed every Wednesday.  Don‚Äôt get us wrong, we are still not satisfied – we want to be bigger and better in 2006 than we were in 2005.  Hey, we‚Äôre not always right and we have missed the mark a few times, we‚Äôre sorry for that and we promise to be much better in the upcoming year.

We have gone over this several times before, but we feel compelled to state it yet again for those a little slow on the uptake‚ĶThis goes out to those who don‚Äôt have a computer or are not to used to going on line to check out things.  It is not true that the postings of comments on our weblog come from The Somerville News staff or owners (unless of course you see our real names), there are some very creative people who post comments there.  Although they might look and read as real people, some people on the weblog have taken on ficticous character personas such as:  Cambriville, The Late Mrs. McCarthy, The Mole, Delusional, Tricky and others.  These people‚Äôs identities are unknown to us and they can be very creative and talented writers.  We here at The Somerville News read them just as others do ‚Äì when they appear as comments on the weblog.  Like the nearly 1000 other people who navigate to our weblog, we are amused and laugh at them just like everyone else.  It‚Äôs kind of like Speak Out in the Farm Team paper, except we don‚Äôt sit there listening to voice mails and edit them before printing them in our paper.

Congratulations to Alderwoman MaryAnn Heuston – the new President of the Board of Aldermen and also to Alderman Bob Trane ‚Äì the new Vice President of the Board.  Strange, they both got elected their first time in special elections held in their wards.  We wish them both a very good term of office and a fruitful and productive 2006 to the Somerville Board of Alderman.  We want to wish everyone on the board including our newest member from Ward 6 – Rebecca Gerwitz – the best of luck this year in upcoming local legislative matters.

Wow is it just us, or is this State Representative Special Election exceedingly boring??
Some of us personally believe that it‚Äôs Denise Provost by a long shot for no other reason than it‚Äôs hers to lose.  We wish Denise and Elizabeth the best of luck on Election Day and we can only hope that a lot of people surprise the pundits and show up to vote.  There are those out there saying that less than 20% voter turnout will happen – we think that might number might be a little on the high side.

It appears that there is a rumor around that some businesses are very upset about the meter‚Äôs in the squares, apparently months ago the Mayor and then Acting Director Bob Bradley were going around holding meetings with the Chamber of Commerce selling them the idea of having the meters and how it would be better for business.  Most businesses don‚Äôt agree now, because people have been seen leaving the squares to do their business.  Will this one come back to bite the Mayor in the rear just like the towing of cars for street sweeping came back to haunt former Mayor Dot Gay?  In fact, it didn‚Äôt just come back to haunt her, it was one of the main reasons she was voted out of office!