What is an Alderman At Large?

An Alderman At Large represents the entire city along with the other Ward Aldermen. Some of the incumbents have forgotten whom they represent over the years, and some have not.  According to a few of them who attended the recent debate, their claim to fame is that they have been in office for many years. One even bragged about his tenure on the board for 14 years.  When your claim to fame as an Alderman is that you have been in office for a lot of years and that is the reason why you are running again it is pretty pathetic. It should not be a reason to re-elect someone.  If you are there in office and running for re-election then tell us what you have done and what you want to do and let the voters decide if you should return on those points, not just some rants. Politicians should not forget who they represent, and that is us the citizens and voters who hire them to represent us for that time in office. There are no qualifications for their jobs other than to make sure they do the best job possible. We personally think there should be term limits to bring out fresh blood and ideas, but that is our opinion.

There are four openings for this job. One can exercise one’s vote for four of them or just the candidate one would prefer. This is called a bullet vote. If you vote for only one person then you are effectively giving that person four votes. Normally, a challenger gets on the Board repeatedly over the years as Alderman At Large by asking for a bullet vote. We leave it to you to decide on how many positions you want to vote for. We chose two incumbents and two challengers from a list of seven candidates and will present our choices and explain why they were chosen.    

First of all who are we?  We are both lifelong residents and newbies here at The Somerville News. We love our city for all it is and, better yet, we are proud to be from here. We like all “’Villens” new and old who want to make Somerville even better, and we know that a majority of the residents want the same thing. We feel that our endorsements or recommendations come from the fact that we are here. While others profess to know Somerville, they are here but for fleeting moments. If job changes occur they, like most in their positions, will move on to other venues while we are still here proving our commitment to our home regardless of how long we have lived here. Some of us here at The News grew up here, graduated from the High School, got married and are still here. One of us has been here for over 80 years now. Others at The News are relative newbies and love the city like the natives do. So, although our picks for the local political races are based on the candidates’ love of and commitment to the desire for Somerville to be at its best, we also know that even a lot of newbies, so to speak, have the same love and commitment to our city as we do.

This is who we are and why we care to present our endorsements, which have no political agenda. Nor do we seek to have one. We just want to make sure that Somerville neighborhood issues and concerns are the focus and not the political agendas of a few.