The freshly renovated award winning house house at 22 Linden Ave.

By Marian Berkowitz

Denise Price is not your typical developer. When she purchases and redevelops a home in this area, she cares not only about design and construction, but also about the property’s history. She notes that every house represents a unique piece of local history and digging out old maps and census files of Somerville are a good place to learn more, as they can reveal the location and names of owners at each address.

Eagle Feathers #182 – Welcome Home

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

This past weekend the remains of United States Army Sergeant George R. Schipani were brought home to Somerville and laid to rest in the city’s Veterans Memorial Cemetery. The ceremony was concluded with full Military, Municipal, and Veterans’ groups’ honors.

At first blush, it may seem like a reasonably good idea. A high tech tool to help the good guys catch the bad guys. Is it as simple as that? Of course not. It is indeed “complicated.”

Many scientific studies have confirmed that the technology behind facial recognition systems is far from perfected. Horror stories abound involving wildly inaccurate matches being made, often at the expense of people of color. That alone should disqualify the technology as a viable option for utilization by law enforcement, security services, and others.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration with the Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA), announced its annual Water Quality Report Card on the Mystic River watershed for 2018. For the fifth year in a row, water quality monitoring data show that water quality in the main stem of the Mystic River, including the Upper and Lower Mystic Lakes, is very good on a regular basis and meets water quality standards nearly all the time, especially in dry weather.

*

Review by Wendell Smith

The title of this monograph on display at Porter Square Books grabbed my attention because reading Stoner by John Williams had provoked an abreaction five years ago. Once I read Almond’s introduction with my Sunday coffee I did not put it down except for bodily necessities until I finished it so I could go to bed. That kind of absorption is unique in my experience reading criticism.

*

State Rep. Denise Provost has a new poetry collection out with Somerville’s Ibbetson Street Press, Curious Peach. She writes The Times, “I’ve always been highly attuned to seasons, weather, and the natural world around me. Several years ago, I collected a number of poems on these themes, arranged them chronologically through the passage of a year’s time, and kept rewriting every word and line until I was mostly satisfied. Most of these poems are hyper local. They include such subjects as Somerville street trees, the wild roses in the parking lot of the porter Square Star Market, and my neighborhood after a snow storm. This sonnet is about the effort to grow vegetables in our difficult urban garden – which, of course, is a metaphor for many other endeavors besides.”

Join the City of Somerville, City Councilors Jesse Clingan, Ben Ewen-Campen, and Matt McLaughlin, and the Gilman Square Neighborhood Association for a community meeting on Monday, July 15, to discuss the implementation of the Gilman Square Neighborhood Plan. The meeting will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Winter Hill Community Innovation School, 115 Sycamore Street. 

Arrests:
*

Amador Vasquez, of 138 Pearl St., June 26, 12:35 a.m., arrested at Brook St. on a charge of unarmed burglary.

Deandre Singletary, of 795 Cummings Highway, Boston, June 26, 6:45 p.m., arrested at Harding St. on multiple warrant charges of receiving stolen property over $1200, larceny over $1200, larceny under $1200, and forgery of check.

Acrobat Cate Great!, a Massachusetts Health Connector member,performs high above Davis Square in Somerville. ~Photo credit: Eric Haynes

On Thursday, June 27, the Massachusetts Health Connector held “Day of Coverage” activities across the Commonwealth designed to help people #GetCovered and connect with health insurance options via the state’s health insurance marketplace.