Last Wednesday the Somerville Highlanders Athletic Association had a successful fundraiser at The Goodtime Emporium function center. It was a fun filled evening for a worthwhile cause. There were many in attendance including Mayor Joe and Coach Hanna.

Registrar of Deeds Gene Brune had his annual Scholarship breakfast at Anthony’s in Malden this past Sunday. As usual there was a huge crowd of over 250 people in attendance. This year marked the twentieth straight year of having this breakfast. Congratulations to former Mayor Brune for continuing on with this worth while tradition.

There is a rumor circulating around town that a Hollywood studio is thinking about filming a movie about Somerville. Why not—they just filmed one about the Boston Red Sox and there’s been others from surrounding towns that made people take notice.

In our travels around this fair city, we have noticed that Alderman Bruce Desmond has been out there in full force and busy as a bee—not just representing us on the board, but also by helping out the Somerville Little League. He has coached, managed teams, rerouted schedules and really pitched in with Trum Field out of commission. Good work Bruce—our kids thank you too.

Just think, soon we will finally have a second mall that we can shop at and call our own in Somerville again. Until then, we can thank God for the Twin City Plaza. For the past fifteen to twenty years we have had to depend on the plaza to do our local shopping and it always came through. With the planned expansion of Shaw’s and the new facelift underway, it will continue to serve our needs and be an important landmark in our fine city for years to come.

One would have to assume that the Farm Team has really noticed us on the playing field. Their advertising department has been calling businesses advertising with us saying that they have seen their ads in our paper. It’s nice to know that we have them paying attention to us.

Did anyone understand what the person calling into the Farm Team’s Speakout section was trying to get at by mentioning one of our Publishers? The caller mentioned that Mr. Norton was on the liquor commission and owned a newspaper and that Mayor Joe should remove him. Let’s try and set the record straight—Mr. Norton is a member of the Licensing Commission for the city— which does more than just liquor licenses, he owns part of Prospect Hill Publishing (which owns this paper), ERA The Norton Group, Able Funding, LLC and several other private business interests. He is also a life-long member of the community, a homeowner, parent, grandparent and has a long resume that anyone— including that caller—can get a copy of free of charge from Mr. Norton at his office in Ball Square any day of the week.

Seems like Alderman At Large Denise Provost was trying to add lots of amendments to the proposed zoning changes by Mayor Joe. We bet that she and the wackos from the “MY VIEW” task force were not happy than none of her amendments passed. It was almost 2 a.m. when finally the vote was taken and passed (8 to 3) for Mayor Joe’s proposal. It was sickening to hear the Aldermen talk about the positive changes that group had, but they still voted against their amendments. We noticed that Alderman Trane was absent on one of the amendment votes and for the record, Alderman White, Alderman Taylor and Alderperson Provost were the only members of the board who voted for all of the “MY VIEW” amendments.

Has there been a major shake up in the DPW with Stan Koty in charge? We heard that people were recently shuffled around—and some didn’t like it—into different departments in an effort to make it more productive. The people who complain should really try and remember how life was under the hack who had the job before Stan did— and how poorly served the taxpayers of the city were during that administration and then try to really complain about how things are today. We keep on growing—The Somerville News has grown in active readership so strongly that we will be installing nice shiny new newspaper boxes all across the city in the next two weeks. Distribution has reached over 140 places in the city limits and a direct mailing list of over 500 people and businesses. Soon, we will have even more surprises and pleasant announcements to make. Even from people who might not like a few of us personally, we have heard nothing but nice things about that changes we have made—please keep giving us ideas and your opinions—they matter to us.