The campaign web site of Ms. Katjana Ballantyne  for Alderman in Ward 7 has some interesting comments we found Tuesday. She goes after Alderman Bob Trane for not going to participate in a debate. She actually had the nerve to say “voters will miss the chance to hear from their Alderman, also that Trane’s refusal seems to give the impression that government is closed.” It further goes on to say, “government should be open and voters deserve to hear from their Alderman.” WOW! This from a lady who we hear called Joe Lynch up Tuesday afternoon to say now SHE WON’T participate in a candidate forum either. Why doesn’t she mention that on her web site?  Isn’t transparency wonderful when it’s one sided? So her campaign committee has Marty Martinez, who serves on the same Somerville Community Corp. board of directors (Katjana is past president of the board). Marty, who is on her committee (wonder how many other SCC board members are on her committee and if that’s legal?), is president of the PDS group that recruited her and endorsed her before the endorsements went out, but she wants you to believe that she’s transparent and for open government? She probably has a bridge for you to buy at a bargain price! Wonder if names of the SCC board of director’s past/present are also working in Ms. Katjana’s campaign?

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Congratulations to Charlene (former Ward 4 School Committee woman) and Brian Harris of Winter Hill, celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary this week. Long time Somerville residents and still here. Both have been and continue to be very active here in the community. We wish them the best and many more years of bliss. Also celebrating their 47th anniversary is Mary Ann and Dennis Sinclair, who we hear will be partying all week long.

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Happy Birthday to the following ‘Villens: Big Birthday wishes to Alicia Puglia Loan, Cliff Clark, Hope Parsons, our good friend and transit officer Tom O’Connor, along with Larry Rogers, and a big Happy Birthday goes out to Linda DeCicco who is 13, and Victoria DeCicco who is 14th, both of whom will be eating cake for a long time. To all the other ‘Villens out there celebrating this week we wish you many more from home base here in the ‘Ville.

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On the so-called controversy at Market Basket with the bike racks again this week, we had several Newstalkers visiting Market Basket (must be best in Somerville) and noticed that not even half of the racks were filled with bikes, with plenty of room for more. What’s the drama all about? Or is it that the new bikies (we know it’s not proper grammar –  so sue us) making demands?

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And now for our local so called Transparency group in Somerville called the Progressive Democrats of Somerville or the (PDS).   (Please re-read last week’s disclaimer on membership now and before) If you read last week here in Newstalk we mentioned we would be having more on the following bagged endorsements for the various local races. Up in Ward 7 it’s well known within political circles that the PDS group not only recruited Katjana Ballantyne to run in Ward 7, but it appears that active PDS members were also on her campaign committee. You remember that Katjana is a past President of the Somerville Community Corporation (mentioned earlier in Newstalk).   President of the PDS, Marty Martinez, is also a board member of SCC (now you see why they endorsed before she was practically running for office). In their first act of open transparency they mentioned only Katjana as running in Ward 7 before she was running for the endorsement of the PDS, but they didn’t mention Joan Puglia or Bob Trane.  They sent out questionnaires to the candidates under the guise, again we hear, of being transparent (yeah right)  – so candidate Joan Puglia submitted her questionnaire, but knew that she wasn’t going to get it, since it was already widely mentioned and talked about openly that again Katjana was their candidate. Knowing that she wasn’t getting the endorsement, we were told that Joan still submitted her answers but asked and wanted to have her answers published to the members, which they declined.  By the way, Bob Trane submitted his answers as well but also knew that endorsement was bagged. It seems that their fearless leader Marty Martinez failed to be honest. He tells the Glob reporter that was present (like this is breaking news, having the PDS endorsements) that Joan never submitted the questionnaire’s answers, so he deliberately lied to the Glob knowing full well that not only did Joan submit her answers, but she knew that the endorsements were phony and in the bag from the beginning. Maybe that’s why Marty is resigning?  We wonder what the founders of the PDS group think of the so-called bias transparency of the organization that many a good person worked hard to build, just to become the laughing stock of the city. Is the open lack of transparency being questioned by many of the originals founders of the group, we wonder? We still love the way Marty runs the club though. We feel personally at Newstalk that he’s run the club in the right direction. The only problem is that others think the same and will properly save it in the near future.

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The Somerville High School class of 1966 is having its 45 year reunion on October 15 at the City Club. RSVP SHS Class of 1966 at 44 Morrison Rd. W. Wakefield 01880.   Cost is $35.00 pp.

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Labor Day weekend – the end of the summer is upon us. Has anyone else noticed that traffic in the city this past week is way down? So, that means heavy traffic in Falmouth and up north in NH. Let’s all enjoy the summer as it passes by so quickly.

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All quiet down in Winter Hill and Ten Hills. Walking the streets in Ward 4, we see Tony Lafaunte out there every single day, working very hard for this election. He is determined not to lose this one. His opponent, Ms. Barber hasn’t been seen around the ward much except on certain streets. Whole neighborhoods, we hear, haven’t even seen her. Meanwhile, up in Ward 7, Bob Trane is out there every single day working hard with several of his campaigners going on into the night. In Ward 3 we hear Tom Taylor is home from the hospital and is doing well and will soon be out campaigning like he always does. One of us ran into Celica, his wife, and she is like always – very optimistic and smiling. She’s a great lady and we are big fans of her.

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We hear that Joe Lynch, himself a former candidate for ward 5 alderman (who was crushed and lost by over 600 votes), has been trying to make himself the king-maker here in the ‘Ville. Joe, who we hear is very popular with his TV show, is seen by tens of Somervillians here on local cable. We can’t say for sure, but we hear that he may even have more viewers than the Real Estate Answers show.  Joe has been proposing a sort of candidates’ night, we hear, but not getting much cooperation from certain people. They are telling him that they are busy that night. Oh, what night? We hear any night. Now we have gone and done it. We made a funny about one of the present PDS member’s favorite TV shows (although we know for sure he doesn’t like them). Like them, he’s so transparent and open minded. Or is he?  Or are they? Or will they be once again? Will he be a fan of them?