News Talk for the week of April 12

DPW rumor mill alert‚ĶWho is that female DPW worker who keeps taking off for Florida every time the police show up to question her about the missing ‚ÄúVietnam firing pin‚Äù that was either stolen or borrowed out of the DPW offices about a few months ago?    Seems every time the police show up it‚Äôs time for this city worker to take a mini vacation, what‚Äôs up with that? Maybe, the police are as interested in her psychic ability to elude them as in the firing pin.

How come the Traffic and Parking Department still hasn‚Äôt fixed the meters in Davis Square? You pop your quarter in and still get just 15 minutes. Seems like they‚Äôre working  slowly to turn back the clock here. It took a month to install the more expensive ones and six months to install the cheaper ones? Doesn‚Äôt seem right to us. Could it be that they‚Äôre trying to make up for the loss of cash ($6,000.00 to $8,000.00) that was stolen back in December? We hear that Captain Charles Femino finally got the investigation started again after not doing anything on it for a while. Apparently, they finally found a different place to start having people take the lie detector. Don‚Äôt you think T&P has earned back the missing money by now? So lift the 15 minutes on the meters, or we‚Äôll complain to the Davis Square alderman. Rebecca jump on this! We know that Jack would have, he works in Davis Square. 
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Somerville Night at the Red Sox tickets, for the May 12th game, are going very fast and probably won‚Äôt last this week. So e-mail bobpublicover@aol.com to reserve yours now‚Ķand don‚Äôt forget that fabulous POPS night for Somerville folks on June 21st  We‚Äôre going!
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Isn’t this great, a local Somerville resident Sandra Mejia last week claimed a “blockbuster” prize after winning one million dollars in the lottery instant game “Blockbuster” The prize money is paid out over 20 years. And the lucky store is the 350 Food Mart in Winter Hill and they get a nice commission of $10,000.00 for selling the winning ticket.
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Oh the shame of it, more and more people still complaining about the water bills. When is either the board of aldermen or the mayor going to come out with exactly what they‚Äôre doing down at the Water Dept. so we will be able to understand why we‚Äôre all getting higher bills? Have you noticed your bill going through the roof?  And we heard that sometime in the future we‚Äôre going to be getting MONTHLY bills from the water department. Isn‚Äôt that great? 
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Now for the Powerhouse School issue. Does anyone know the outcome of what‚Äôs going on there?  Seems like its taking forever to renovate and make clear to the citizens what is going to happen there. We heard its nowhere near decided what is going there or when. We also know there is a ‚Äúproject manager‚Äù there on that job. How much is he being paid a year?   We heard its like $65,000.00 what is a project manager anyways?  Does anyone know?   
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The new  ‚ÄúDoggie Park‚Äù opened for business this past Saturday, on hand were various locals along with the Mayor and several Aldermen. The new Doggie Park located on Summer Street at the old site of the Southern Jr. High to us oldies or the Community Garden to us newbies. We heard there were a lot of dogs attending the new opening, we just wondered if their humans were on a leash, and are free popper scoppers available?
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Give Alyson Toole, The Executive Director of the Somerville Home a lot of credit.  Since she arrived in that job the home has virtually been rebuilt.   She is as dedicated and hard working an executive as we can find around here and the Home is lucky to have her.   Keep up the good work, Alyson and if you see her give her a big hello and thanks.
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We think Sen. Jarrett Barrios backed out of the Middlesex County District Attorney‚Äôs race because he was afraid he might be in a real contest (and possibly on the losing side) with his opponent Gerard Leone. Leone had been endorsed by former DA and current Attorney General candidate Martha Coakley and was picking up support based on his extensive court room experience. Barrios has little trial experience, but maintained he was qualified for the job. Now he faces Anthony Galluccio for his state Senate seat in a race he can definitely win.    
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Ok here‚Äôs one for the books. We heard this and can‚Äôt believe that this might have happened, hopefully our editor will read this and assign someone to find out. But we heard that a couple of Somerville men showed up last month at a Fall River pet supply store and purchased three dozen gray rats, (you‚Äôd think we had enough of our own). Our source told us that this certain type of rat is intended for medical research purposes only.    Could the rat problem in the city be real or is it just a dirty diabolical campaign scheme thought up by future political challengers (damn, see how we think now) simply to embarrass the current administration as we head closer to the next election? As we said, we hope our editor finds someone in our crack staff to scurry around and to find out if there is some substance to this rumor.
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With all the spotting lately of city vehicles in neighboring cities, on Sunday driving down a side street into Main Street in Medford, two of the News Talk contributors were driving along and spotted a Somerville Police car with a civilian sitting in the passenger side, they were heading towards the Dunkin Donuts in Medford Square. Maybe Medford needed some coverage?
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It was the second busiest day on our web site was this past Wednesday, 1599 visits to the web site in one day. The record is still 1705 back in September 2005.  We peeked at little brothers‚Äô site over at CNC — you know the ‚ÄúFarm Team‚Äù  (who, based on how often they visit us on the web, seem to be our biggest fans) — and ours is better. Much better.      
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We just kno
w our Senator Jehlen is watching the state very carefully making sure our Lowell Street and Sycamore Bridges will be opening in June.