By Joe Creason

The Somerville City Council held a regular meeting to discuss committee reports, councilor orders and other matters of the city agenda, on Thursday, February 25.

The meeting began with a citation from the City Council and the Mayor’s Office, honoring Marvin H. Spitzer for his 100th birthday. The citation recognized Spitzer as an honorable Somerville resident and WWII veteran.

Public hearings proceeded with the construction firm RCN petitioning to install conduit in order to connect existing manholes to existing utility poles at locations including Whipple Street, Willow Avenue and Broadway. This is due to the fact that Eversource will no longer be leasing their facility on Whipple street to RCN.

For the purposes of bypassing the old Eversource facility, RCN has connected a line running from Arlington in order to service Somerville.

The Council submitted an order to the Director of Health and Safety, Shape Up Somerville and the Somerville Food Security Coalition, so that they may discuss issues and prepare their recommendations for the Council regarding food access for anyone who needs nutritional assistance within the city limits.

Ward 7 Councilor Katjana Ballantyne submitted an order to the Director of Health and Human Services, to discuss a possible spike in COVID cases at Tufts University and if the University’s statistics are being included in the general data for Somerville.

According to Rocco DiRico, Director of Government and Community Relations for Tufts University, the school has reported 33 Covid cases over the last seven days and has a positivity rate of .15%. This rate is 10-fold lower than the overall Massachusetts positivity rate and the school currently has 59 students in isolation as well as 103 in quarantine, according to DiRico.

In an order submitted by Ward 3 Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen, the Committee on Housing and Community Development is to call a meeting for