If we weren’t there we wouldn’t have believed this – but kudos go to State Representative Pat Jehlen, who agreed to be part of the Debate last Wednesday evening at the Independent Restaurant sponsored by the Somerville News. The debate between Rep. Pat Jehlen and her Republican opponent Dane Baird was packed wall to wall with residents of our city.

Rep. Pat Jehlen totally disarmed Dane Baird by putting on her “Grandmother” routine, while Baird came off as being rude and petulant. Dane should learn to wait his turn and be more respectful and Pat should have brought cookies and milk or at least Apple pie. We think Pat won the debate — at least the charming part.

Rep. Pat Jehlen totally disarmed Dane Baird by putting on her “Grandmother” routine, while Baird came off as being rude and petulant. Dane should learn to wait his turn and be more respectful and Pat should have brought cookies and milk or at least Apple pie. We think Pat won the debate – at least the charming part.

Speaker of the House Tom Finneran is gone, but we can’t forget that he was a friend of us here in Somerville. We also hear the he sent a hefty donation to Carl Sciortino – who least we forget is the Democratic nominee for the 3rth Middlesex. Let’s hope that Sciortino’s memory is as short as Finneran’s.

Speaking of memory, do you remember Tony LaFuente? We hear that he’s having a major fund-raiser on October 29th – we wonder if Tony keeps an attendance roll. Say, where is the Mayor? Will he remember to come back to Somerville for his own fund-raiser on October 26th at the city club? He’s been out working hard for John Kerry. Seems like loss of short-term memory is the political disease du jour here in Somerville.

Now to our favorite Alderman at Large Bill White. It seems like he hurt his back recently and on top of that has the flu, but that doesn’t keep the brains of the Horseshoe down. As the chairman of the Finance subcommittee, he recently submitted and order requesting the details of all overtime expenditures in the city government, as part of his continuing effort to scrutinize the city’s finances. You have to agree he works hard for everyone in our city.

How is it that Somerville continues to be treated like the poor little sister city of Cambridge? Recently on a couple of streets in Winter Hill, Keyspan came down one night (not even in the daytime) and digs holes on the corner of Marshall & Howe Street, places a couple of cones in the hole and leaves – and doesn’t return. We’re counting at least 8 days now and Howe Street is still without a street light. If this were Cambridge, Newton or Wellesley you can bet their city councils wouldn’t put up with this. Don’t these companies have to get permission from City Hall before they dig up streets – or do we count the days like we count the years we have to wait for a new bridge?

We feel bad about the lousy front page on the Farm Team paper recently – they should be ashamed of themselves for printing the story on Alderman Tom Taylor the way they did by just saying “Police Sources”. Now we hear that there’s an internal investigation as to who is talking to the Farm Team. That seems funny since the State Police would be the ones doing the investigation, not the local police. We think Alderman Tom Taylor should be given the benefit of doubt until it’s been proven otherwise. Remember – those who cast stones shouldn’t live in glass houses.

Rumor has it that now that Vinnie Ciampa is doing the sticker campaign to retain his seat, he’s not going to let Sciortino’s false statements go unanswered. We say all you have to do is go to Google.com and put in “Carl Sciortino” – you’ll have enough reading to fill a few hours. Especially the incident at the Cathedral of Holy Cross during a Homily and what he and his partner did. That’s funny, all that expensive literature during the Primary race from Sciortino and never a mention of that. We think that if you’re so proud of your actions, then let the residents and voters know about it instead of just hiding it. We’ve also heard that Former Boston Mayor and Ambassador to the Vatican Ray Flynn might be out in full force with the Knights getting out the word. That’s a good thing we guess for all the Irish Pubs here in Somerville – and we all know the pubs can use the business.

Seems that Alderman at Large Dennis Sullivan, being the nice guy that he is, made a small error recently when he sent letters off to all those who won “Best of Somerville” and sent Denise Kallis a letter congratulating her for winning “Best Waitress in Somerville”. It was actually Joanie Batzek who won and who is also good friends with Denise. The two decided to play a little joke on Alderman Sullivan by calling him and asking why he did that. It was all in fun and it’s easy to confuse Joanie & Denise – they’ve both been around a long time and those that know them both also know that they can make anyone laugh.