*
Mandarin: Mayor Katjana Ballantyne wishes those who celebrate a Happy Lunar New Year!

The City of Somerville’s Digital Bridge Initiative and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, are inviting community members to join a virtual meeting to share their voice and help shape the city’s digital equity planning.

— Photo courtesy of Somerville Fire Department

Captain Mark Matthews was promoted to the rank of District Chief at the February 8 City Council meeting. District Chief Matthews (center) is shown at his promotion ceremony with Assistant Chief Sean Tierney and Chief Charles Breen.

THE BEST OF SOMERVILLE 2023

Readers choices for 2023

Congratulations to the winners!
Please support their businesses and let them know you saw them in
The Somerville Times

*

Best Idea in 2023:
Somerville Community Path Extension

Worst Idea in 2023:
Removing parking spaces in front of local businesses

Review by Dennis Fischman

There’s a trend in the murder mystery genre: take a historical figure, perhaps a writer herself, and make her the detective in your own book. Stephanie Barron did it with her Jane Austen mysteries. Nicola Upson is still writing her series starring Josephine Tey, a Golden Age of Mystery author herself. There have been Oscar Wilde murder mysteries (by Gyles Brandreth) and even an Agatha Christie-as-detective series (by Andrew Wilson).

There are plenty of romantic activities to take part in throughout the city this coming Valentine’s Day.

By Joei Chan

Trying to figure out what to do this Valentine’s Day with your significant other, friends, or even yourself? Here are a few things to keep on your radar when thinking of ideas for next week:

Small Mart Valentine’s Market at Crystal Ballroom

What better year to find your inner dragon power than 2024, the year of the dragon? Kicking off this Saturday, February 10 at 10:00 a.m., LEGO Discovery Center Boston will preview its NINJAGO: Dragon’s Rising Event.

Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

(Originally published on October 11, 2014)

Lots of songs remind us of growing up in Somerville. My dad graduated from Somerville High in 1938, and my mom in 1944. Somerville’s swinging teens back in ‘38 were boppin’ to songs like Jeepers Creepers (where’d you get those peepers). The top song in 1944 was Bing Crosby’s Would You Like To Swing on a Star? (carry moon beams home in a jar). It’s cool to imagine my young mom and dad strolling through Davis Square singing those two songs as they “saw the movie for a nickel and had a coke for 2 cents!” (after walking uphill, barefoot, in a snowstorm to school!!)

A Massachusetts man was sentenced today to two years in prison for engaging in a scheme to bribe the chief of police of Medford, Massachusetts, to obtain approval for a client to sell recreational marijuana.

The popular series Songwriters in the Round series was awarded a 2024 Local Cultural Council grant from the Somerville Arts Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. David Thorne Scott, founder of the series, expressed his gratitude.