A Somerville resident is on the brink of telling the incoming professional class "Enough, you can have it."   While I was door knocking near Capuano Elementary, I met a man whose father, a US Navy veteran, in the 1950s moved the family from a Portuguese controlled Island--Madeira if memory serves. He proudly owns the Dell bought in 1991 on savings  scratched together from $10-15 hour jobs all his life, and there with his wife raised two daughters. He is now a grandfather to twins and wants to be able to support them. But he complained of the taxes and fees, in short the ever increasing unaffordability of Somerville. He had taken care of veterans--like neighbor Russ MacCauley, who passed eight years ago, recalling years taking him to medical appointments. As someone who had lived right, who had invested in Somerville, the increasing costs of living in Somerville were pushing him to the brink of leaving. I submitted the following letter advocating a No vote for Water & ...

A reportback--  I am here in Chelmsford, MA to attend a bail hearing for a man detained by ICE 82 days ago--a week since the co-owner of small business filed my letter of support along with Senator Pat Jehlen's letter. Please donate www.ElectSpicer.com  I raised funds for signage and doorknockers $1800 from 15 donors last Friday. According to Senator Pat Jehlen, new law allows me to put your campaign support to pay for childcare so I can campaign. Thank you in advance! At Finance Committee of the Whole, I spoke up regarding the Mayor’s proposed budget that would cut the Racial and Social Justice Department funds by $200,000 and increase the Police Budget an additional $5-9 million. The Cambridge-Somerville 350.org node organized me, and I spoke to the need to provide environmental justice protections from pollution to impacted neighbors--crediting the pilot project of Ward 1 City Councilor Matt McLaughlin--which would bring air filtration units to homes already most likely to ...

  If the detention of students condemning genocide is not a station of the cross I don’t know what is. Thousands of us assembled in Somerville near Tufts University in solidarity with Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts graduate student, who we must remember aside many other detained by ICE including asylum seekers unable or intimidated to play the role of a prisoner of conscience. My family, residents of Somerville have typically experienced the corner of Tufts Triangle as a place to play soccer, afterwards walked around Powderhouse Square in some kind of exercise and play, but that evening, as a family living in the midst of tyranny,  we were engaged in a civic belonging, grateful for community . Many of us activated to the emergency protest had heard about the detention of Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Kahlil whose wife Noor Abdulla, certainly comes today before our confessing hearts. Noor, which means “light” in Arabic, attests to the strength of the mourning women. In Luke’s Gosp...