By Joe Creason

The Somerville City Council convened for a regular meeting on Thursday, October 19. A portion of the meeting was designated for public hearing where residents could voice their opinion on several infrastructure and community maintenance agenda items.

A grant of location was submitted by the Cambridge Network Solutions to install conduit from the manhole at the intersection of South St and Windsor St and along the Cambridge-Somerville property line.

“On Windsor St. we are looking to construct new conduit to join the section there which is lacking a utility pole, to an existing pole all already in the Verizon system, along the Cambridge boundary,” said Jeffery Harrington, Director of Construction at Cambridge Network Solutions. 

The public hearing went on with limited comment or objection from the Council and the public.

SomerStat Director Cortni Desir was present at the meeting in order to give the Council an update on the reprecincting process.

Massachusetts municipalities are required by law to review ward and precinct boundaries every 10 years to coincide with the US Census. Municipalities then send the newly recorded ward and precinct maps to the state for approval.

“There are several reprecincting standards, including that each new precinct must be composed of compact and contiguous territory and no precinct may contain more than 4,000 residents,” Desir said.

Somerville’s population grew 7 percent between 2010 and 2020 for an increase of 5,291 residents. The city has not seen a spike in population like this in over 100 years.

“Every ward absorbed some of the population increase, however that growth was not even. Two wards alone accounted for half of the population increase, wards one and five, and ward two also saw a significant increase,” Desir said.

According to Desir, the current ward boundaries are not within 5 percent of the ward averages as required due to the pattern of this increase.

“With current variance of wards ranging from 6.8 percent to -6.5 percent, at minimum in this reprecincting process, Somerville needs to shift some blocks to move ward boundaries into compliance,” Desir said.

The city hopes to redraw its ward boundaries with a target population of 3,859 residents per precinct, says Desir.

“The proposed new boundaries would push current ward five school committee member, Laura Pitone, who is also the only candidate on the ballot for November 2, into Ward 6 as she lives at 46 Rodgers Avenue,” said Ward 5 City Councilor Mark Niedergang, “To deny the voters of Ward 5 their selected representative for school committee by moving her house out of the ward, is really not acceptable.”

Desir says that SomerStat was not aware of the impact that the new map would have on School Committee member Pitone’s home block.

“This is a draft, please expect to see a revised version before the Octber 28 meeting,” Desir said.

An order calling upon the Chief of Police to report to the Council on why the police presence at this year’s Prochfest seemed inadequate, and what planning will be done to ensure less disruption to neighbors for next year’s Porchfest, was submitted by Councilor Niedergang.

“I love Porchfest and I don’t want Porchfest to go away, so I’m not trying to end it but I think it could be managed in a better way. A whole lot of issues arose at this last one, which has happened in the past,” Councilor Niedergang said.

The Councilor says he hopes that the administration will consult with the Police Department and the Department of Public Works to see what additional preparations can be made for the next year.

A brief update was reported by the Land Use committee Chair Ward Three City Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen.

“We are steadily making progress on regulation for rooftop mechanics, a series of amendments from Councilor Davis to regulate the size of commercial spaces in the small business overlay district. We also began discussions on a new topic, regulating the amount of parking in the Boynton Yards plan,” Councilor Ewen-Campen said.

According to Ewen-Campen, residents have shown support for the amended plan in the Boynton Yards neighborhood.

The next regular City Council meeting will be held on October 28.