Friday, June 22, 2012
Members had debates about a plan for hiring outside custodians and about the Group Insurance Commission health care plan.
The Somerville Board of Aldermen approved Thursday night a $171,620,447 operating budget for fiscal year 2013. In passing the budget, Board of Aldermen President Thomas Taylor, from Ward 6, said, "This budget process was quite enjoyable, really, because we didn't have to cut anything." Ward 4 Alderman Tony Lafuente, who's new to the Board of Aldermen, thanked his colleagues. "You've taken a lot of difficult votes and the administration has done a lot of difficult work over the past ten years to get where we are," he said. The Board conducted a series of meetings throughout the month of June in order to approve the city's budget before July 1, when fiscal year 2013 begins. In doing so, they made $180,883 in reductions from the proposed …
Monday, June 18, 2012
The public is invited to a series of meetings this summer.
Hayes Morrison, director of transportation and infrastructure with the city of Somerville, said the city will make improvements to Davis Square's streets in the next couple of years. Just what those improvements will be are up in the air, and the process is "very much in its infancy," she said. The city is hosting a series of public meetings this summer to discuss the matter. Morrison said she hopes residents attend so they can discuss "What they think, what they like about the square, what doesn't work about the square." The city will be looking at "all modes of access through and around Davis Square," she said. An announcement from the city says "the City will evaluate existing and future transportation needs in Davis Square—including …
Friday, June 15, 2012
Residents will be able to view 311 data, crime statistics, government spending information and more.
Residents interested in tracking government spending, crime statistics or 311 constituent services data will have an easier way to do it this summer. According to an announcement from the city, Somerville is launching an "OpenData" cloud-based portal in July that will allow the city to share an array of data and information with the general public. The announcement says Somerville will be the first community in New England to use the cloud-based portal, which is developed and hosted by Socrata, Inc,. a Seattle-based company. Other cities in the country, such as New York, Chicago, Seattle and Baltimore already use the system, the announcement says. According to the announcement, some of the information residents will be able to access using…
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
A look at the proposed fiscal year 2013 budget and the salaries it contains for important Somerville officials.
Throughout June, the Somerville Board of Aldermen will be working to approve the city's fiscal year 2013 budget, proposed by Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone earlier this month. (Fiscal years run from July 1 to June 30, so fiscal year 2013 begins in less than a month.) Here's a list of top Somerville officials listed in the budget and their base salaries. The proposed budget, which includes this information, is publicly available on the city's website. A few things to note: These are base salaries listed in the proposed budget. (You can find the fiscal year 2012 budget here.) Some city workers—police officers, for instance—receive other forms of compensation, such as overtime, so their annual take-home pay may be different than what's …
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone said the fiscal year 2013 budget will focus on education.
Somerville faces no layoffs and no budget gap as the city prepares to make final a budget for the next fiscal year. At the same time, the school system is poised to receive a boost in funding. Somerville Mayor Joesph Curtatone, who presented a proposed budget to the Board of Aldermen Tuesday night, said the city faces a healthy financial situation heading into fiscal year 2013, which begins in July. The mayor said the proposed budget for the upcoming year places an emphasis on education, family and youth. Speaking about the budget earlier on Tuesday, he said "the greatest area of interest, in a long time, will be in education." The proposed general fund appropriation for fiscal year 2013 is $171.7 million, which represents a 1.2 percent …
Monday, May 14, 2012
The state allows cities to recoup unpaid taxes, fees and fines, but the technology to do this isn't in place, according to the Somerville Board of Aldermen.
The Somerville Board of Aldermen ran into a snag at the state level over a proposed idea that would have helped the city recoup money owed to it, according to proceedings from the May 9 Board of Aldermen meeting. The idea, proposed by Ward 4 Alderman Tony Lafuente in April, was for the city to place liens on individuals' state income taxes for unpaid taxes, fines and fees owed to the city. "We have a fairly transient population in the city," Lafuente said at an April 26 meeting. "Whether it be parking tickets, the excise tax, if there's any kinds of fines or fees, people leave the city [and] they don't really care about making payment to the city on some of these liabilities. This would allow us to collect that money." The Board's …
Pauline Lim
5:06 pm on Thursday, July 5, 2012
I agree with point #2 made by Jonah Petri. I specifically hate how long it takes to cross the square when entering from Highland Ave. more ›