On Monday, January 21, City offices will be closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Trash and recycling collection will be on a one-day delay all week. There will be no parking meter or resident parking permit enforcement on Monday.

• Move vehicles to EVEN side by 7 p.m. Saturday to avoid ticketing and towing
• IMPORTANT: Parking is no longer allowed in school lots during snow emergencies; other municipal lots are still available for parking
• School, Recreation, and Public Library activities canceled after 7 p.m on Saturday and all day Sunday; Libraries and ice rinks closed Sunday

Based on current forecasts, a snow emergency for the City of Somerville has been declared to go into effect at 3 p.m. on Saturday, January 19. To avoid ticketing and towing, all vehicles parked on city streets must be moved by 7 p.m. to the EVEN-numbered side of the street (unless signs posted on your street state otherwise). As always, ticketing and towing will not begin until four hours after the start of the emergency to provide vehicle owners time to find appropriate parking. The timing of the start of the emergency is thus well before the forecast start of snowfall to allow for this, as well as to provide snow crews time to prep and treat roads before precipitation starts.

(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.)

To the mayor and staff of the City of Somerville,

We recently  posted a petition online (https://www.change.org/p/strip-somerville-ma-of-its-tree-city-usa-status) asking the Arbor Day Foundation to strip Somerville of our “Tree City USA” status, and to withhold future awards until the city makes substantial, lasting, effective changes to the management of our urban canopy.

We thought deeply before taking this action. We are aware that this sort of public action can create lasting barriers to trust and collaboration. That would be a loss and a shame. Our hope is that this increased publicity will bring us together as a city to address a pressing and urgent issue.

Somerville Media Center has a great batch of upcoming workshops and events that will hopefully spark your interest. A new year is indeed for a new you” after all, right?

Upcoming SMC workshops:

 Designing Graphics for Video with Photoshop and Premiere

February 2, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. at Somerville Media Center, 90 Union Square. Sign at https://www.somervillemedia.org/designinggraphicsforvideo/

Learn Adobe Creative Suite typography tools to take your video productions to the next level. Make templates for titles, lower thirds and over-the-shoulder graphics in Adobe Photoshop and Premiere and learn how alpha channel graphics work. If time allows, the class will end with an introduction to Adobe Illustration.

Somerville resident and accomplished poet, Schwartz will serve a two-year term.

The City of Somerville announced this week its third Poet Laureate, Lloyd Schwartz. Schwartz is a Somerville resident with an impressive literary background including his current work as the Frederick S. Troy Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His poetry collections include These People; Goodnight, Gracie; Cairo Traffic; and most recently, Little Kisses (University of Chicago Press). His poems have been published in, among many other journals, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Paris Review, Kenyon Review, Agni, Consequence, and Ploughshares, and have been selected for the Pushcart Prize, The Best American Poetry (three times), and The Best of the Best American Poetry.

(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.)

By Mayor Joseph Curtatone

A monthly look at ways to get involved with your city: Don’t just live in Somerville, be Somerville!

 Submit a Response to the Shared Mobility Survey by January 18
If you have about 15 minutes to spare, we would appreciate your responses to a shared mobility survey that will help us plan for certain aspects of Somerville’s future transportation needs. The survey has questions about how you currently get around and questions about transportation options you might consider in the future, with an emphasis on autonomous vehicles. Your answers will help City transportation planners and our research and development partners at Audi understand Somerville’s current and future needs. The survey is available at www.somervillema.gov/sharedmobility.

Somerville Police Department detectives are working to identify the pictured individual in relation to the fraudulent use of a credit card that was stolen in a house burglary.

Anyone who recognizes the individual from the attached surveillance photos is asked to contact Detective Thermidor at (617) 625-1600 x 7231.

By Jim Clark

On the evening of January 2, a Somerville Police officer queried a license plate was attached to a pickup truck and found that the vehicle had been reported stolen in December of 2018.

The officer stopped the vehicle on Holland St. in front of Hodgkins Park. As other officers arrived to assist, the driver, later identified as Angelo Devito, was ordered to shut off the engine and step out of the truck.

Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

It doesn’t have to be near Father’s Day to talk about dads.

I started thinking about my dad recently when my boys were back home rehearsing with their band this past weekend. I love when the boys are both home. Their band, Mallcops, has a show coming up February 2 at The Democracy Center, 45 Mount Auburn St., Cambridge. Having the kids back at the house got me thinking of my dad.

The 2019 Somerville Maple Syrup Project kicks off on Sunday, January 27 with the Tapping of the Trees event outside Tufts University’s Tisch Library.

This January, the annual Somerville Maple Syrup Project returns for its 16th season, beginning with a local maple tree tapping and culminating in the annual Maple Syrup Boil Down Festival on March 16th at Groundwork Somerville’s urban farm at 138 South St.