With the closure of Conway Park, youth athletic organizations are looking to alternative playing areas such as Dilboy Field to provide them with the spaces needed to function. ~ Photo by John Phelan

By Jim Clark

With the temporary closure of Conway Park due to concerns over soil contamination, many youth athletic groups have been left wanting in terms of playing spaces for their regularly scheduled activities.

The City of Somerville Board of Aldermen took up the issue at their latest regular meeting last week, looking to find solutions to the ongoing problems faced by youth athletic organizers.

By Shira Laucharoen

The Somerville Commission on Energy Use and Climate Change (CEUCC) convened on April 11 at the Somerville City Hall to design new initiatives and reflect on recently passed legislation relating to sustainability. The chief topics discussed during the meeting were shadow carbon pricing and recent state-level developments.

This Friday, April 20, the Dave Martini and Nick Peters Scholarship Fund is having A Night with Jim Plunkett. The event is being held at the Dante Club, 5 Dante Terrace off Craigie Street here in Somerville. It’s a great time and lots of fun. Tickets are $40, and include well-known local singer Jim Plunkett, plus a 50/50 auction, lots of raffles, and a buffet dinner. For tickets, please contact: Janet7345@yahoo.com or you can purchase tickets at the Eventbrite page, www.eventbrite.com/e/dave-nicvk-scholarship-fundraiser-with-jim-plunkett-tickes-44716590526

Some students will begin meeting in the modular classrooms upon their return from April break.

Phase 1 of the Somerville High School Building Project gets under way on Monday, April 23rd. Over the April break, several English and social studies classes will be relocated to the modular units on the concourse. Students in those classes will begin meeting in the modular classrooms upon their return from April break. The modular classrooms are equipped with all the appropriate classroom technology including Smartboards and each classroom has its own heating/air conditioning unit. The classrooms are secured, with a safety plan in place.

By Donald Norton

Local attorney and a lifelong member of Somerville’s business community, Philip Privitera, was honored last week at one of his final meetings to preside over the Mystic Valley Lodge in Arlington.

Eagle Feathers #151–The Year Was 1872

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

The date was January 1, 1872, a time when Somerville would celebrate her incorporation from a thirty-year old sleepy town into a young city. One of her immediate priorities was public safety. Less than three months earlier, a fire destroyed the city of Chicago on October 8 and 9, 1871. It remained the worst fire in American history until the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. The Chicago fire killed over 250 people, burned over 200 acres and destroyed over 17,000 structures.

Tony Alibrandi.

By Donald Norton

Whether you are an old customer or new one, we all offer a big welcome back after some major heart problems to Tony Alibrandi at his barber shop on Holland Street. He’s looking good and he’s cutting hair again like the pro that he is. He is celebrating almost 60 years of work cutting the hair of many notables here in the city. Tony is a great guy and he has a great assistant in Paul McGlashing.

Community volunteerism is an uplifting thing to observe and, especially, to participate in. When the efforts involved result in making the community a bit cleaner and a more comfortable place to live then it is all to the better.

Arrests:
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 Angelina Demelio, of 34B North St., April 9, 11:20 a.m., arrested at 34R North St. on warrant charges of witness intimidation and body disinter.

Zachary Colon, of 5 West St., Old Town, ME, April 11, 12:12 p.m., arrested at Broadway on charges of assault and battery, violation of city ordinance possession of a dangerous weapon, and armed robbery.

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From Michael Casey’s website:

In 1972, Michael Casey won the Yale Younger Poets Prize for Obscenities, a collection of poems drawn from his military experience during the Vietnam War. In his foreword to the book, judge Stanley Kunitz called the work “a kind of anti-poetry that befits a kind of war empty of any kind of glory” and “the first significant book of poems written by an American to spring from the war in Vietnam.” Its raw depictions of war’s mundanity and obscenity resonated with a broad audience, and Obscenities went into a mass market paperback edition, and was stocked in drugstores as well as bookstores.