Editor’s note: Trent Bunker was a former staff writer at the Daily. He did not contribute to the writing or editing of this article.
Incumbent State Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven won the 27th Middlesex District Democratic primary on Sept. 6, defeating opponent Jason Mackey. Uyterhoeven, who is currently running uncontested in the general election, won with 87% of the vote and is on track to continue representing the city of Somerville in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
The MBTA announced on Aug. 5 that the Green Line Extension Medford branch — which was scheduled to be completed by the end of the summer — will not open until late November. This is the project’s third delay from the planned completion date of December 2021.
The Somerville City Council unanimously passed an ordinance protecting the rights of individuals seeking gender-affirming care on June 9. The ordinance prohibits City of Somerville law enforcement from helping to enforce laws enacted by other states that prevent individuals from accessing gender-affirming care.
Residents of 18 units on month-to-month leases in The Bradlee Apartments, an apartment building in Medford Square, were given notice in late March that they had 30 days to permanently vacate their homes so that the building’s new property managers could renovate the units. The time frame was extended to 60 days after advocacy by city staff — placing the final move-out deadline in late May — but affected tenants said that was still too little time to find new housing and that local and state agencies were largely unhelpful.
The Medford branch of the MBTA’s Green Line Extension — which includes a stop on College Avenue, adjacent to the Tufts campus — is on track to open this summer after a slew of delays.
National newspaper chain Gannett plans to cease print publication of 19 weekly papers in eastern Massachusetts and merge another nine papers into four, beginning this month. Tufts’ host communities will have their papers — the Medford Transcript and the Somerville Journal — merged into one. The combined paper will still be distributed in print weekly.
Editor’s note: Mouhab Rizkallah, owner of LaCourt Realty LLC, sued Alexander Janoff, the Daily’s editor in chief, and Emily Thompson, a deputy news editor, in March 2022 over the Daily’s coverage of the LaCourt Tenants Union. The case was later dismissed with prejudice. Janoff and Thompson were not involved in the reporting or writing of this article.
The Somerville School Committee voted on April 25 to approve Real Life Learning Center’s application to establish a K–8 private school. The vote came after a months-long standoff between Somerville’s subcommittee on Education Programs and Instruction and Vida Real Church, the founders of RLLC, who say they were unfairly targeted based on their religious beliefs.
The city of Somerville partnered with Fenway Health in March to prepare for the opening of a supervised consumption site where people who use drugs can consume drugs in a safe environment under medical supervision to prevent overdoses. Somerville signed a $40,000 contract with the healthcare and research organization — which caters specifically to people in the LGBT community, people of color and other underserved communities — to determine optimal locations for the supervised consumption site, establish a community advisory board and study existing models of drug use monitoring to determine how the site should operate.
The Somerville City Council passed an ordinance on March 24 banning crisis pregnancy centers, defining them as deceptive, limited services pregnancy centers that do not directly provide or refer clients for abortions or emergency contraception.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley announced last month that she had secured $8 million of federal funding for the Massachusetts 7th Congressional District, which she represents, and that $2.5 million of that funding will be allocated for a Somerville project called the Poplar Street Pump Station. The project is slated to begin construction in fall 2022 and will provide critical stormwater management infrastructure to the city.
Local activists and some elected officials have criticized a recent study of Somerville Police Department’s staffing. The City of Somerville announced on March 8 that its Racial and Social Justice Department had contracted a consulting firm to conduct a study on the Somerville Police Department’s staffing procedures, prompting frustration over the speed of police reform in Somerville.
The MBTA Green Line Extension officially began service with the opening of its Union Square Branch on March 21, 2022. The addition extends the Green Line’s service from Lechmere station to the new Union Square station in Somerville. The Medford branch of the GLX, which will terminate at the Medford/Tufts station currently under construction next to the Joyce Cummings Center, is slated to open in summer 2022.
A bill proposed by representatives of Medford and Somerville that would establish a one-year fare-free bus pilot program within the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is moving through the Massachusetts House and Senate, having recently been referred to the Joint Committee on Transportation.
Friday, April 1, 1:15 p.m.
Voters in Massachusetts may see a ballot question about the employment and benefit status of gig drivers during this November’s elections. Senator Elizabeth Warren and a coalition of labor groups have vehemently opposed the ballot question, while rideshare companies like Uber, Lyft, Doordash and Instacart have backed the initiative. There is a possibility that the state legislature intervenes before then, eliminating the need for a ballot question.
Mayors Katjana Ballantyne of Somerville, Breanna Lungo-Koehn of Medford and Michelle Wu of Boston came together for a virtual discussion on March 22 in the latest installment of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Lifes Solomont Speaker Series. They discussed the challenges they face as women in politics as well as their plans to transform their communities.
The Medford Public School District was recently awarded a competitive Hate Crime Prevention Grant by the State of Massachusetts. Medford Public Schools plans to use the $50,000 award, the maximum amount of funding available under the grant, to integrate restorative justice practices into the classroom.
Somerville Mayor Katjana Ballantyne recently launched an initiative to diversify city boards and commissions in the Somerville city government. In an effort to make them more inclusive, the city will reevaluate the selection and application process for positions on boards and commissions.
