Somerville Voices

To the Charter Review Committee, I sincerely appreciated the opportunity to give testimony at your November 10th public hearing. I hope you are not discouraged that, from mildly to passionately, all but one person who spoke was critical of your preliminary recommendations.

You already know more about Somerville than the kids who spend a year or two reporting here and then move on. You have years of personal experience understanding one or more important civic issues. The Somerville News, Somerville Journal, and this humble forum can certain benefit from your insights. And more than any time that I can remember, providing a decent future for all Somerville’s citizens requires our fully understanding our present and the past that created it.

From the 1950s, through the 1970s, well over half of Somerville’s long-term residents permanently left the city. The first clearly identifiable group of newcomers who replaced them was Portuguese immigrants.

The attraction of Somerville’s affordable housing, Irish and Italian enclaves, and thriving industrial economy made it the most densely populated American city in the middle of the last century. Its 170 manufacturing plants provided wages sufficient to support a family, often with only one parent working.

When a region’s climate changes over long periods, its ecosystems change as well. Woodlands can become grasslands, tundra or desert. This process involves prolonged conflict between differing plant and animal groups, and between how they change their environment by living and propagating. Even if they were conscious, they would not see themselves as at war, but rather merely doing what they can to survive.…