Congratulations to Peter Ungar and the Foss Park Neighborhood Association for their ability to do what so many elected officials in the city could not: get the state to recognize and respond to Somerville’s needs.

The $2 million slated for Foss Park improvements by the House is a welcome change from the city’s long history of being overlooked and neglected by state agencies. Inadequate public transit, closed bridges and decayed state-run facilities became the norm in Somerville. Any inferiority complex that already existed here has only been exaggerated by the state’s very real failures to take care of their property.

Sixty percent of the city’s open space is run by DCR – often poorly. Train tracks cover our city yet we have only one stop. We don’t need to remind readers about the Lowell Street Bridge. And we have pools and hockey rinks that consistently open late and when they are finally open they contain the same major structural damages as the year before.

Too often our elected officials have charmed and double-talked their way out of these issues without delivering solutions.

So add Ungar and the Foss Park Neighborhood Association to the list of local activists who have proved to be more effective than politicians in solving city problems. Thank you Foss Park Neighborhood Association.