We’d like to thank the Mayor and his staff for taking time out of their busy schedules to meet with PFC Matthew McLaughlin of Somervillle, who is home on leave from Iraq. Matt has been acting as a war correspondent for The Somerville News and sending us articles for the paper. The Mayor welcomed Matt into his office at City Hall, spent a 20 minutes him and his mother and grandmother. Turns out the Mayor used to coach Matt in football, and they had a great time catching up and listening to his view of what is happening over in Iraq.

The sticker campaign being waged by Representative Vinnie Ciampa has a lot of people talking on both sides. What we found interesting was that the “Farm Team” had all those “Speak Outs” protesting his decision to try and save his seat. The funny part about it is that you can tell that it’s coming from the so called “progressive” Liberals who are crying foul and not happy about Vinnie doing this. We say so what – it doesn’t matter who it is – whether they’re liberal, progressive, conservative or whatever – we still live in America and if someone wants to exercise his or her rights – then they should be allowed to do just that. We also think that there is a lot of outside the city money being spent to fool the voters of Somerville. Outside groups have a hand in almost all the important races, but none more blatant than Carl Sciortino’s campaign. Hopefully everyone can see through the flood of expensive and polished literature from his group and see who is paying to get him elected. All you have to do is read the bottom of the literature and go to their web sites to discover for yourselves who is behind this one issue, self-centered candidate.

Looks like there wasn’t a “nation wide” search, but rather a “Cambridge Health Alliance wide” search recently for the new Director of the Somerville Board of Health. It must be nice to be the CHA and to have so much authority over what happens in our city. First they have the Chairman and now they might have an employee of theirs as the Director of the Board of Health. Noreen Burke, a nurse with the CHA, has been for the position to the Board of Aldermen by Mayor Curtatone. We can only hope and pray that when she’s approved and takes the oath, that she disavows her allegiance to the CHA. If we didn’t care about the city, we probably wouldn’t keep calling for the removal of the Chairman, who lives in Cambridge and is a would-be puppet for the CHA. It’s too bad Mayor Joe doesn’t see it our way on this issue but we will continue to watch and pray for change.

There was a big crowd of residents on hand at the recent public hearing at the High School to learn about the plans for the Green Line expansion into Somerville’s Union Square and up to Ball Square and beyond. As our Mayor put it in his opening remarks, Somerville not only wants but also needs this – Somerville pays over 4.5 million dollars per year to the MBTA as an annual assessment and its about time the City gets something in return. Let’s keep up the pressure with our legislators and city officials to get this done.

During the big game last week, TV shots of fans from around the Boston area were shown and one was from one of Somerville’s fire stations. The squares were crowded with fans and everyone kept their cool – things didn’t get out of hand and that’s a very good thing.

Tickets for the 2nd Annual “Somerville News Writers Festival” on Sunday, November 14th are going fast. A great lineup of writers and special guests are going to be there, including Andre Dubus and Steve Almond. The first 100 tickets sold will get you into the special cocktail party before the event will be held at The Burren in Davis Square from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Then everyone will join together and have a great night that has been planned for the past year at Jimmy Tingle’s Theatre. If you are looking for tickets. call The Somerville News at 617 666-4010 for them.

The Mayor is doing a fine job and for the most part, most of the department heads are also doing a fine job for us – you can see and hear the difference all over the city. Then there are department heads that need to take management classes and learn how to work with others. Department heads who have even the slightest bit of private sector employment tend to be the ones who actually work a full day and know how to interact with others.

Speaking of department heads doing a good job – Highway Superintendent Tom Vitello (an East Somerville Native) – immediately after being told about the hole in ground on Howe Street, had it repaired by the utility company that had dug it up and left it there for over two weeks. He made the call and got it fixed immediately. Now that is service – by someone who knows how to do a good job. Yeah, we think he definitely came into city employment from the private sector.

Alderman at Large Bill White has had some criticism about his recent order requesting a run down on overtime pay in the various departments, which is something we just can’t understand. Why would a city official be insulted by this? Isn’t this why we have elected officials? Bill is still under the weather and we hope he gets better and continues to hold people accountable for their jobs.

The mayor had a great turnout at his recent fund-raiser at the City Club – there is no doubt that this mayor is popular in many ways. Hey, speaking of popular, we hear that recent candidate for mayor, Tony LaFuente, also had a great turnout at his recent fund-raiser, although he’s not sure what office he will be running for next year – we heard the rumor that it will be Alderman at Large. Some people might take issue with someone having a fund-raiser who hasn’t declared what he’s running for or why. They might think that being rich and bored aren’t the most desirable qualifications for public office, but hey, what do we know. Our favorite video star, former resident and man of many political lives, who happens to be the Register of Probate for our bankrupt and state controlled county was the key speaker at Tony’s fund-raiser. Must have been a real bitchin’ time.

We are glad that Alderman Tom Taylor has been seen around the city – despite those nasty headlines in the Farm Team Paper. He is running for re-election and we are glad that he is. We also hear through the grape vine again and again that Alderman Bob Trane will have serious competition for re-election as well as Alderman MaryAnn Houston may have a couple of candidates against her. Are the so-called “progressives” taking aim at everybody or is it all smoke and mirrors. We suspect a little of both.

One final note – some changes are being made this month at The Somerville News – watch for our November 18th edition for some announcements. Also, remember to go to www.thesomervillenews.com for daily local news updates. We have reached an average of 200 plus hit per day, some days well over 300 hits and we are proud of our being able to bring you the best of local news both in print and online. Please take the time to call us, mail us or email us with your comments – we can only get better with your help – we do this for the readers and will listen to everyone who has an opinion.