Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

As the messenger, I posed this question to Somerville’s social media. What would you tell Somerville’s new mayor is the most important thing to add or to fix? And here we go! Your comments follow:

• Get rid of the rats.
• Build a parking garage! Maybe in Ball Square for instance.
• While I realize there are many and more important problems the new mayor will inherit … what must not be forgotten is we the taxpayers of Somerville and their specific problems personal to them, such as the rodent and also city tree problems. Trees are uplifting sidewalks to the point of ruining expensive walls that were put up to beautify our homes and tree roots that are uplifting basement floors which need thousands of dollars to repair … I personally can’t even manage to have the city trim the tree to deter the squirrels from dancing on my brand-new roof.
• Stop tearing down neighborhoods.
• More affordable housing.
• Don’t confiscate any more buildings like the Armory.
• Ticket jay walkers and bike law breakers.
• Put Broadway back the way it was!
• Set up police checkpoints for drivers who text and who are on their phones.
• Give tickets to jay walkers and cyclists who break the laws of the road.
• Rats and those straws all over every road! I drove down from Methuen for my fav Leones, and I felt like a ball in a pinball machine.
• Remember the senior citizens.
• Better schools for #1, simplifying and streamlining ISD process for residential and commercial projects, and cleaning up the streets of garbage and known drug dealers/users.
• Be good and remember we with Somerville pride won’t let you bring Somerville down.
• The roads!!!!!
• The rat problem.
• Stop building out priced high rises and build efficiency apartments to make it more affordable.
• Homelessness.
• More Dog Parks!
• Cut down street cleaning to once a month on each side of the street. Hard to find parking spots on side streets.
• Make the citizens who built this city, generation after generation more important than the newcomers who want to change everything.
• STOP putting UGLY condos on every available space. And make Broadway what it USED to be where we can drive in all lanes MINUS the RED Lanes that just hold up traffic for everyone and add exorbitant fines for driving in one. Lots more but I haven’t the time right now.
• Fix the sewers so the streets stop flooding. When School Street was closed and had a piece taken out my street didn’t flood. As soon as they reconnected it Richdale Ave. started flooding again. Put in the parking garage under the soccer field and put one of those giant rain tanks under the Homan Building site to stop the flooding.
• Paint City Hall.
• Easy win is rats.
• Ticket people/businesses who have garbage and water sitting around. Treat it like parking tickets and traffic violations.
• Bicycles should be registered and insured.
• Affordable housing, get rid of the white poles, charge the bikes $100 a year for the roads, and give them a small license place, so when they hit someone and leave we can get them, if you ride against the traffic you will see them open car doors, see there blinker when the turn the corner, thanks.
• Fix the streets
• Streets, Parking, etc. Central Street was flooded from the stupid bumps they put in the road. They put them in where there wasn’t a sewer drain!! How stupid.
• More police presence especially around the city’s squares especially Davis.
• Fix handicap sidewalk access around city finish street repairs and then pave them.
• Rats roads.
• Make bike riders pay for roads.
• How long has the bridge behind the high school been under construction?
• Stop ticketing vehicles for such high amounts.
• Please stop shortening our streets for cars
• Make dealing with the rats your first priority
• Community policing in schools!
• Hold stealth city councilors to do their jobs and to answer phone calls from voters and taxpayers.

Well, there you have it. Godspeed.