By Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

Taking a closer look at this month’s notable city data – and interesting numbers.

2: That’s the number of people allegedly behind 53% of Somerville package thefts in December. This December Somerville Police got reports of package thefts from 17 residences (down from 28 in December 2015), and arrested two people allegedly responsible from thefts from nine homes. Package thefts happen year round, and around 25% happen in December. If a package is stolen from your building, make sure you report it to the police.

175: That’s how old our city is this year. Since this is a big birthday, all year we’ll be celebrating the 175th anniversary of breaking off from Charlestown to form our own city. The celebration kicked off at the State of the City Address on January 9 and will continue with 12 months of events and opportunities to learn about Somerville’s rich history, celebrate our present, and look to our future. Visit Somervillema.gov/somerville175 for information on upcoming events or to share your stories about Somerville and suggest 175th activities.

46.6%: For the first time, in as long as many of us can remember, we’ve changed which side we park on during a snow emergency. So how did it go during the first snow emergency of Somerville’s first Park Even snow season?  We issued 46.6% fewer tickets than during the first snow emergency last winter. Historically, the first emergency of the winter sees the most tickets, and it drops off from there with each storm as people get used to the parking rules again.

We’re glad that so many people followed this winter’s Park Even parking. We’ll still be doing outreach to make sure everyone knows that this winter season vehicles need to be moved to the even side of the street during snow emergencies, unless street signage says otherwise. At the end of the season we’re also planning on doing a survey through our alert system on how residents feel about the change, so expect more data on this coming up.

In the meantime, you can also help us spread the word by letting friends and neighbors know about the City’s snow website, www.somervillema.gov/snow, where all our snow policies are posted, as well as information on how to sign up to get City alerts.

400: Thanks to some motivated Somerville residents, that’s the number of metric tons of carbon equivalent that soon will no longer be emitted into our atmosphere each year. A total of 115 Somerville households signed up to purchase discounted solar panels for their roofs via our Solarize Somerville Campaign last year. Now these homeowners will be able to cover their electricity usage and save money with renewable electricity. They will also be collectively reducing greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 400 metric tons. To put that into perspective, according to this cool online calculator hosted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, removing 400 metric tons of CO2 is equivalent to taking 84.5 cars off the road for a full year. Or, put another way, it would take 10,366 ten-year-old trees to absorb 400 metric tons of carbon in a year.

Data-based decision making is at the core of how the City of Somerville develops policy and sets priorities. Every day we check the latest 311 stats, and throughout the week we meet for in-depth review of departmental data and city trends. The monthly Data Download column shares some of the data we’ve been reviewing recently. To see more Somerville Data, visit the online Somerville Data Farm at http://www.somervillema.gov/datafarm/.