Don’t forget, tonight, Wednesday, March 8, Ward 5 Alderman Mark Niedergang will be holding his re-election fundraiser from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Olde Magoun Saloon, 518 Medford Street, in Magoun Square. Plenty of parking in the lot next door. Come celebrate Ward 5 and Somerville’s progress and challenges, and contribute to our future. Guest speaker: State Representative Christine Barber. MC: Alex the Jester. Complimentary food, cash bar. Suggested Donation: $500, $250, $100, $75. Please come and give what you can. Make checks payable to: Committee to Elect Mark Niedergang, 29 Conwell Street, Somerville, MA 02143.

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Happy birthday to a lot of our friends and fellow Villens here this week: Happy birthday to a popular guy and real estate agent here in the city, John Pratti, of the Norton Group. We hope he has a great birthday celebration. Happy birthday this week to our own Chris Haskell, who writes a column here at The Times. Chris lives in Winter Hill and also runs a podcast on Thursdays at the SCATV studios. We wish him the very best and hope his birthday is a great one. A nice guy! Happy birthday to our own Jim Clark, a great guy, awesome Editor and someone who knows his stuff. We of course want to wish him the very best and hope he has a great week for himself. Happy Birthday to Michelle Ferro, daughter of our photographer, Claudia. Michelle has a great family and we are sure they all celebrated together. We wish her a great year! Happy birthday to a great guy and a City of Somerville employee who is dedicated to his job and our city, we hope Mike Browne has a great birthday for himself. Also, another great City of Somerville employee, Eddie Nuzzo, a lifelong resident of East Somerville, we hope he has a great birthday. Good guy Marc Piro, from one of Somerville’s most dedicated families, is celebrating his birthday this week as well. Happy birthday to Donald Coutoumas, who is another great guy and dedicated Shriner in the Clown unit. We hope he has a great day for himself. Happy birthday to Nick Kondilis, another dedicated real estate agent here in the city, working for many years at Bremis Realty. We hope Nick has a great day. To all others we missed here in the city, we wish them a happy birthday, and if you want to be mentioned here or know of someone who should be recognized, let us know.

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With people’s comfort in mind, due to the sub-freezing temperatures and high winds on Saturday, Groundwork Somerville postponed the Maple Syrup Boil Down Festival until March 11, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Somerville Community Growing Center, 22 Vinal Ave. They will have all the regularly scheduled fun including music, pancakes and, of course, the boiler going full steam. Please check their Facebook page for further updates.

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Historic Somerville presents the 2017 Local History Lecture Series: Inventing the Charles River, a talk by Karl Haglund, Sunday, March 12, 2:00–3:00 p.m. Reception to follow at the Somerville Museum, One Westwood Road. $8 General admission, free to Historic Somerville and or Somerville Museum members. Karl Haglund, author of Inventing the Charles River, has spent the last 25 years as Project Manager for the Department of Conservation and Recreation for the new Charles River Basin.  His book was published by MIT Press and received an honor award from the American Society of Landscape Architects. For more information, visit their website: www.HistoricSomerville.org. To contact them, email: info@historicsomerville.org or call Brandon Wilson at 617-625-6600 -X2532.

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At this month’s Somerville Garden Club, Warren Leach, talented garden designer and owner of Tranquil Lake Nursery in Rehoboth, MA, will recommend a diverse selection of superlative plants in his talk. He will discuss plant combinations that you can translate into your own garden, echoing leaf colors and texture to brighten the garden through the seasons. Leach is a passionate plant collector and landscape horticulturist with a depth of knowledge of all garden plants. He is also a distinguished and award-winning garden designer who enjoys sharing his horticultural and garden design knowledge with others through garden lectures, mentoring and through the gardens that he designs. This meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 8, 7:00–9:00 p.m. at the Tufts Administration Building, 167 Holland Street, Somerville. Meetings are on the second floor, wheelchair accessible. Parking is available on site and the building is a short walk from the Davis Square T station and is on the #87 bus route. All Somerville Garden Club meetings are free and the public is invited to attend. For additional information please visit www.somervillegardenclub.org.

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There’s a new website in town. Check it out at www.somervillema.com. The Somerville Times is on the site. Also check out www.medfordma.com. Someone asked online why we keep these two websites in Newstalk. We guess it’s because we like them.

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For those that might be interested in obtaining certification for firearms should look up the Lawrence Rod & Gun Club. They provide an extensive program at the end of which you receive certification for Massachusetts/NRA Certified Firearm Safety Classes. They run a class once a month, which is limited to 10 people and we hear that this is the place to go to learn safety when handling guns. Email gunclub@earthlink.net for more information and or go to their website at www.lawrencerodandgunclub.org and read up about the course. We’ve been told that the course has seen a major increase in people applying for it, especially women. We can tell you first hand here that it’s a great course and quite thorough. The same goes for this in Newstalk. The club has informed us that many residents of Somerville have called or gone to the club to find out about certification.

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It’s 2017 and Demet’s Donuts over on Mystic Avenue is the best. We’re noticing more and more Somerville residents over there getting their coffee and donuts to start the day. The ladies working there are fantastic and always smiling. If you’re in the mood for a huge, great tasting donut drop over early since they disappear as the day gets on.

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Nobody works harder than the people at Goode Gas on Pearl Street. If you’re having a problem with your car they work hard to make sure it runs smoothly without costing you a lot. Stop in for gas and say “Hi” to George at the pumps. He’s never shy for comments on what’s going on here in Somerville. We’re big fans here at The Times and always have been. You can say we grew up knowing Vinny and his brother. Mention that you saw it here.

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Yes, we’re big on the Mt. Vernon Restaurant, but we have to remark on the popovers. They are the best. Get a nice hot one out of the kitchen with some butter, you’ll be asking for more.

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The Somerville Redevelopment Authority (SRA) invites the public to comment on the Master Land Disposition Agreement (MLDA) with Union Square Station Associates (US2) at a special SRA meeting and public hearing tonight, Wednesday, March 8 at 5:30 p.m. The MLDA between the Somerville Redevelopment Authority and Union Square Master Developer US2 was submitted to the SRA for review at their meeting on February 16. The SRA will hear comments at the meeting, and comments are also currently being accepted via email. All email comments must be submitted via email to Emily Hedeman at ehedeman@somervillema.gov by 3 p.m. on Wednesday March 8. The meeting will be held at Somerville City Hall, in the Aldermanic Chambers, 2nd Floor, 93 Highland Avenue. To view the MLDA, please visit somervillema.gov/US2MLDA. For more information, please visit somervillema.gov/unionsquare or contact Emily Hedeman at ehedeman@somervillema.gov or (617) 625-6600 x25.

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The 2017 Somerville Parks & Recreation Fair takes place on Saturday, March 11, 1:00 p.m. at the Somerville High School Gymnasium, 81 Highland Ave. Join in for a fun-filled day of activities for all ages. Come learn about everything Parks & Recreation has to offer. For more information visit www.somervillerec.com.

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Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day week with the hit Irish play Jimmy Titanic at The Rockwell. Winning the 2014 IRNE award for best solo performance, Jimmy Titanic is a hit Irish play produced by Tir na Theatre. A century after the sinking of the Titanic, after fictional accounts and conjecture, documentaries, and journalism, Jimmy Titanic is a remarkable piece of pared down theater that manages to entertain, inform, move, and comment from a completely original point of view. Wednesday, March 15 and Sunday, March 19 at The Rockwell, 255 Elm Street Somerville. Info: https://therockwell.org/shows/jimmy-titanic/.