A public service announcement from the Somerville Media Center Board Members Joe Lynch and Guillermo Hamlin

As part of their ongoing negotiation of a community benefits agreement, the Negotiating Committee of the Union Square Neighborhood Council (USNC) and US2 (the designated master developer for the Union Square Revitalization) today stated that the groups have engaged in weekly meetings since July 30, 2018.

To begin the process, the parties agreed to a set of negotiating ground rules and the USNC also shared a report that it had compiled of inputs from over 150 community members and key stakeholder organizations in the neighborhood, solicited through two “CBA summits” held at the beginning of the calendar year. Recognizing the need for information sharing as a precondition to successful negotiation, the parties have been working topic by topic to understand different aspects of the proposed development and solutions that would best meet local needs.  To date twelve (12) ninety-minute meetings have been held on topics including arts and the creative economy, sustainability and environment, green and open space, indoor civic space, parking, housing, and jobs, and support for small and local businesses.

Please join Ward 7 Alderman Katjana Ballantyne, and staff from the city’s Engineering Department and Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development on Wednesday, October 24 at 7:00 p.m. in the cafeteria of the West Somerville Neighborhood School at 177 Powder House Blvd. to discuss upcoming improvements and paving to Powder House Blvd.

Expanded voting rights among 16 recommendations in Clean and Open Elections Task Force report

A recently released report by the Somerville Clean and Open Elections Task Force includes 16 recommendations to increase voter participation, lower barriers to candidate participation, and increase the openness and transparency of the election process. At the request of Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone, two of the recommendations will soon be under debate by the Board of Aldermen: that for City and School Board elections only, the City seek home rule petitions from the State Legislature to lower the voting age to 16 and expand voting to non-citizens who would otherwise be eligible to vote.

An estimated 589,000 river herring migrated upstream to spawn at Mystic Lakes in 2018 according to numbers just released by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF). If you stacked the fish end-to-end this would be over one hundred miles of river herring—enough to get you from Boston to Provincetown-in a river that is only 7 miles long.

 Info Session on Resources for Lead Paint Mitigation on October 23

Lead Paint Safe Somerville staff are using Lead Paint Poisoning Prevention Week, which runs from October 21 to 27, to remind residents about the dangers lead paint poses to young children. Although lead paint was banned in 1978, it is still present in many older homes and nearly 90 percent of Somerville’s housing was built prior to the ban.

There will be a Public Hearing before the Board of Aldermen’s Committee on Finance on Monday, October 22, 2018, at 7:00 PM, in the Aldermanic Chambers, 2^nd Floor, City Hall, 93 Highland Avenue, on the Order of Alderman William White, Jr., Chair of the Committee, for public input related to the transfer of a city-owned parcel in the North Prospect Block to the Somerville Redevelopment Authority (#204755).