Last night was the second neighborhood meeting on the proposed Ocean State Job Lot to replace the vacant Winter Hill Star Market store. The City Planning Board meeting is scheduled for August 24 at City Hall at 6 p.m. if you would like to find out more contact Ward 4 Alderman Walter Pero at wpero@comcast.net or call him at 617-628-0137.

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Happy Birthday to Courtney O’Keefe, well known lifelong community activist here in Somerville.    Also Birthday wishes to Judy Louchi Jacobs another lifelong activist, to both we wish a great day and good year, they are both nice people and love Somerville.

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Very sad to hear that Ronald White at 29 years old passed away in New Hampshire from a brief illness. His mother Muriel Berry is from Somerville. Ronald grew up in Winter Hill, he is also survived by his brother Michael Berry who lives in Florida. The family was extremely close and Ronald was very near and dear to a lot of people here in Somerville.  Our sincere condolences to his mother and his family.

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Also Happy Birthday to Ron McCollem of the Somerville DPW who turns 61 years old this week.  When you see Ron watering the flowers at one of the cities many islands, wish him a Birthday, he does a great job making Somerville look good.

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We hear that Jimmy Halloran of West Somerville recently got engaged, congratulations to him and bride to be.

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Congratulations to Erin Mackey daughter of the late Joe Mackey, who was married just recently.

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Lots of controversy over the new chief pick this past week. In the end, the mayor had to make a decision that he thought was in the best interest of the city. It was something of a catch 22, we hear that his decision didn’t come lightly and that he liked both finalists. Hopefully this guy will stick around for the full five years and we learn something from him coming in. We think we should all keep an open mind on the pick.

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Candidate for State Senate seat Dave Carnevale was seen again in Winter Hill recently, he’s working to unseat Senator Pat, the queen of the progressives. This is David’s first run for public office, he’s 25 years old and a lifelong resident of Medford, where as Sen. Jehlen has been an elected official here in Somerville since the early 1970’s making her part of the establishment at the State House. Some of us here at Newstalk think the word incumbent this year is a liability.  It’s true, if you’re happy with the status quo then vote for Sen. Jehlen, if you want to get real change then vote someone new in. We also think that term limits are a good thing, maybe that should be on the ballot sometime.

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We hear that Rep. Carl has an opponent who is running as an independent, but we heard someone else might jump in on a sticker campaign as a Republican candidate. Two years ago Carl retained his seat on a sticker campaign.

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Funny we heard that the Farm Team has offered the two candidates for state senate – Jehlen and Carnavale – a joint interview this week so they can choose who they are going to endorse. As they might predict what we might do (sometimes) we can say unequivocally that their endorsement will be nasty against Sen. Jehlen’s opponent,  we just looked over the past 10 years of endorsements and the Farm Team has a record of nasty endorsements. Just ask Alderman Robert Trane – he had to pay $25,000 to the Journal two years ago to learn that lesson. Remember? He paid for some advertising, didn’t even get his ad printed, then they ran a cartoon accusing him of theft? Hey, anything the Farm Team can do to stir up some interest, right?

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A get well soon goes out to our good friend Joyce Murphy, wife of Larry Murphy who is hospitalized at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. Joyce is a wonderful woman and we wish her a speedy recovery.

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