Porter Square Neighbors Association

NeighborMedia presents a FREE panel discussion:

From the Net to Your Neighborhood: Using the Web to Connect Your Community and Encourage Civic Engagement

Date: Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 6:30pm-8:30pm

Location: CCTV, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge

Whether you want to raise awareness about an important local issue or gather people for a community event, you can make use of web tools that are inexpensive and often easy to use, to organize those in your community. We’ll cover strategic uses of blogging, web video, social networking, web sites, and more. Come learn how six Cambridge individuals have used these tools for positive change in their communities and organizations, and how you can too!

Read more and register to attend here.

• NeighborMedia Cambridge

I attended the celebration of International Women's Day in Cambridge last night. The theme was "Women Fighting for Economic and Social Justice: A Celebration of Margaret Fuller's Legacy." Margaret Fuller, born in Cambridge in 1810, was a pioneer in many ways:

• First American to write a book about equality for women
• First woman foreign correspondent and war correspondent
• First woman journalist

Joy Harvey, Cambridge Women's Heritage Project, introduced the session panelists, each of whom spoke about her work in the context of international activism with a Cambridge connection:

• Joan von Mehren, Author Minerva and the Muse: A Life of Margaret Fuller, provided an overview of Fuller's life and legacy http://www.amazon.com/Minerva-Muse-Life-Margaret-Fuller/dp/0870239414
• Bishnu Pariyar, Founder, Empowering Dalit Women of Nepal (EDWON) shared her personal experiences of growing up in Nepal and, through encouragement by her father, pursuing education for herself and empowerment of women in her community and beyond www.edwon.org
• Chris Low, Co-Director and Founder of Matenwa Community Learning Center in Haiti and a Cambridge educator, shared her experiences working as an educator both in Cambridge and on an island of the coast of Port-au-Prince www.matenwaclc.org

This session made me think about my heroines and heroes who encouraged me to pursue my full potential. There are so many, but like many of the women honored tonight, my mother and father were the ones who encouraged me to believe that anything was possible for me. When I was about 8, I heard somewhere that fathers want sons not daughters, so I asked my father if he wished my sister and I had been boys, and he said no, he was thrilled to have daughters and believed girls could do anything boys could do. The encouragement provided and example set by my mother, who had been told by her mother in 1950's Belfast that women can't be doctors, be the first in her family to attend university and then go on to help found one of the first women's health clinics in Boston, and obtain her M.S.W. the year I graduated from high school, showed me that women can do anything.

Please comment with your story of heroines or heroes who inspired you.

More about International Women's Day http://www.un.org/en/events/women/iwd/2010/index.shtml
More about Women's History Month http://www.nwhp.org/

• NeighborMedia Cambridge

Easy Access Host Megan Louise Shoare spoke with Christopher Loney and Katie Hahn of CASP (Cambridge Afterschool Program) in October 2009.

Join the Cambridge Women's Heritage Project at on Monday May 8th, 2010 for a celebration of International Women's Day, Women Fighting for Economic and Social Justice: A Celebration of Margaret Fuller’s Legacy.

Date: Monday March 8th
Time: 5:30 Refreshments; 6:00 Program Begins
Location: City Hall Annex - 344 Broadway, Cambridge, 2nd Floor
Program: The evening’s panel style program will relate Margaret Fuller's activism during the Italian Revolution in the late 1840's with the work of several Cambridge women activists today. Come listen and be inspired by these real life stories:

• Joan von Mehren - Author, Minerva and the Muse: A Life of Margaret Fuller
• Bishnu Pariyar - Founder, Empowering Dalit Women of Nepal (EDWON)
• Patricia Monte - Executive Director, Centro Presente
• Christine Low - Co-Director and Co-Founder, Matènwa Community Learning Center, Haiti

Coverage of the event by CCTV NeighborMedia correspondents, ToniBee and Siobhan coming soon...

****
International Women's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world. It is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political. It is an occasion for looking back on past struggles and accomplishments, and more importantly, for looking ahead to the untapped potential and opportunities that await future generations of women. More information at the United Nations web site http://www.un.org/en/events/women/iwd/2010/index.shtml

• NeighborMedia Cambridge

Since I'll often be the first one to gripe about customer service that sucks, I'd like to take a moment to say a good word for Jenny at Origins in Harvard Square for going above and beyond. When their store was out of a lip gloss I was looking for, she actually stopped by another store on her way to work to pick up the gloss so that I could have it the next day. Even considering that she may work on commission, that was pretty amazing as far as customer service goes. I mean, a lip gloss emergency isn't exactly a diabetic running out of insulin.

Such outstanding customer service is certainly refreshing in a world of gum-chewing, apathetic salespeople who grace us with the loud details of what they did with their boyfriends last night and declarations of how much they're looking forward to going home. Thanks Jenny!

Youth Media Program participants at Cambridge Community Television tell Congress and the FCC why Net Neutrality matters for the future of the Internet.

Learn more at http://www.cctvcambridge.org/youth

Cambridge artist Kencaid demonstrates his unique wood burning and painting techniques. His show "The Art of Wood Burning" can be seen in the Drive by Gallery through March 9th 2010. To learn more about Kencaid's work, visit: http://kencaidart.com/.

• Drive By Gallery

Just wanted to say hello to everyone.

Nuestro amigo Mario Barros aka Lenguaviva invita a TODOS a participar en el Festival Internacional de Humor BOSTOONS 2010. El festival, auspiciado por la revista humorística digital EL BUS, comprende de un concurso de dibujos humorísticos, con dos categorías relacionadas con la historia, la cultura y las tradiciones de Nueva Inglaterra:

CATEGORÍA PRINCIPAL

• La libertad, en todos sus posibles significados (política, religiosa, de expresión, etc.)



CATEGORÍA COMPLEMENTARIA

• Caricatura personal, dedicado a la figura del recientemente fallecido Senador por Massachusetts Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy, una de las figuras más relevante de la vida política norteamericana de las últimas décadas.



Para más información sobre las bases del concurso de dibujos humorísticos ingresa a la página web de Bostoons Festival y descarga la planilla de solicitud de participación.


(ENGLISH)

Our friend and regular guest on Vida Latina, Mario Barros, aka Lenguaviva, invites EVERYBODY to take part in the 1st International Humor Festival BOSTOONS 2010. This unique festival comprises a cartoon contest with two themes related to New England history, culture and traditions:

MAIN THEME

• Freedom, with all is posible meanings (political freedom, religious freedom, free speech, etc.)



COMPLEMENTARY THEME

• Personal caricature, dedicated to the late Massachusetts Senador Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy, one of the most relevant names of the U. S. political life of the last decades.



For more information about the cartoons contest rules and regulations, go to the web site of Bostoons Festival and download the application form.

• Bloguer@s en Español

Monday, March 1, 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
100 from Cambridge: Preview Exhibition for Cambridge Open Studios
CAC Gallery, City Hall Annex, 344 Broadway, 2nd Fl.

Join the Cambridge Arts Council for a reception featuring a live performance, community and a chocolate tasting of delectable TAZA Chocolate in celebration of the current CAC Gallery exhibition, 100 from Cambridge. The exhibition offers a visual appetizer to the second annual city-wide Cambridge Open Studios (COS). For three weekends in April and May, more than 100 artists welcome the public into the intimate setting of their studios and common venues.

More information: www.cambridgeartscouncil.org
Exhibition: through March 12, 2010
Gallery events are FREE and open to the public.

• NeighborMedia Cambridge

well, there's that little thing, when after about 2 hours or so the project has begun to smolder in the brain, the previously inanimate, now animated by mixed emotions, mostly fiery ones. fiery emotions, then cold ashes. then wet matches (cause it started to rain) then nothing.

i wished i could show you the enraged expressions on the previously friendly puppets. the play has been written, the words were on fire, the laughs were in the bag, the sketches for the scenes should have been scanned into aforementioned computer. now there is a second body of work, behind the unfinished first work and still the people pay me reluctantly to maintain this position, the slow reporter.

slow reporter is syntactically deadly in the world of media and journalism. technically, slow reporting is not allowed. just know the hard road, the long way home made for extremist adventure travel, and wearily the world wise contemplate the work of the fates.

how dare the data slammer enter the sacred temple of the undefiled digit and disturb the pure angelic presence of its perfect glow (in the dark).
how are the execution laws in other more liberal countries coming along? i am quite sure this is a capital offense. in places like spain for instance more decisive actions would have already be completed by effective government agents. or perhaps turkey!

am i really as disturbed as some medical profusionals would have it? please give feedback. am i irrational. are these the last incoherent rants of the wretched refuse from a distant shore. did i just not make it in america. what if i die tomorrow and only leave these problems. Help!

I must complete these projects. already i have risked a certain amount of money to have my computer diagnosed. according to technicians at the locations where i have purchased the machine there is nothing wrong with my machine. what could be wrong? i'm typing some little story that i cannot even be sure to sell to fantasy/fiction genre afficionados. you begin to see?

it is crystal clear to me. please help me. this is a bona fide cry for help, not just something i might come up with to attract attention.

i would never do that to people. trust me i am just not like that. i like to work with people. i have been naive to long. let this be a warning example to you, be naive and the technical problems might never end. so far i still believe. hope for me. hope with me. i am hoping you will be interested enough to join me on this journey to discovery of technical heaven. we will meet soon friend. never give up. i will always be here.

Lately, I've been having the worst kind of problems, technical problems.

Why are there still technical problems? If you have any interesting theories for that please feel free to respond or try to get paid for finding the answer to that crucial question of our day.

What with all these great weapons of the mind and all this amazing hardware and this inbred attitude, why in God's name are there still technical problems so severe, that - right next to gargantuan and overwhelming social swamp problems (con carne, the swampmonsta) - that they are the main source of finite universe type of contemplations.

Yeah, sure the universe is flexible, that much is known, and yeah sure, we all know we need parameters, even hyperparameters, but !
why, oh, why are there these kinds of technical problems that make it appear that my computer isn't working as well as it should,
that I am living a hardware restricted hardlife, and that the data simply doesn't compute.

In addition to that I have found on my brandnew and much beloved sony some kind of stalker type bugs complete with file extensions from another universe, not a good on. And so maybe BECAUSE of the former the latter or vice versa, however i know there is a connection, and it is restricting my creative life!

Unacceptable!!

So, therefore the challenge, what could be the cause. Okay, I have investigated the conditions that might contribute, yet, I have not been able to nip it in the bud, kick it in the bud, or find out what kind of agency procecutes this level of cybercrime. Let me add I have a very unromantic working relationship with the FBI and the District Attorney's Office, or as much of a relationship that I am currently comfortable with.

I have made phonecalls. I have a phone. My phone service provider is AT&T, a major vendor. We are all technology savvy individuals to varying degrees, and experts in our various fields. Somehow this thing isn't resolving itself fast enough.

So at this point I am thinking I would be willing to pay a consultant to have a look at my computer and help me find the right connections to solve my little problem. Thus--make money off my problems.

Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association names four people to its seven-seat Board of Directors. Elected on February 24 were (starting at 3rd from left) Elizabeth Torrey, Drew Phelps, Cathie Zusy, and Leslie Greis. With them are Marco Werman, Treasurer (left); Bill August, President (2nd from left); and Carolyn Shipley,* Secretary (right).

The Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association (formerly Dana Park Neighborhood Association) had a full house and a full agenda, including election of officers, at its Annual Meeting this week. In all some 32 local residents plus about a dozen presenters and non-residents were at the event in the community room of the Woodrow Wilson Court apartments at the corner of Fairmont and Magazine Streets.

Election: Incumbents carried the day; Elizabeth Torrey, Drew Phelps and Leslie Greis are current board members, and Cathie Zusy had served previously. Elections will take place next year for the three seats now held by Bill August, Carolyn Shipley, and Marco Werman.

Western Avenue Reconstruction: Transportation Planner Jeff Rosenblum of the Cambridge Community Development Department (CDD) said conceptual planning is currently under way for the project. This phase will end in June, when the engineering design phase begins. Construction is expected to begin in summer of 2011. The project includes the stretch of Western Avenue from the Charles River to Central Square, with actual reconstruction ending at the intersection of Western Avenue and Franklin Street; conditions between that point and Central Square will be reviewed in terms of the interface between the reconstructed roadway and the square. The reconstruction will include sub-surface features such as sewer and other utility connections; the 1870s-era brick-lined sewers will be replaced. The reconstruction also includes surface features such as plantings, lights, green space, and other factors that affect traffic, businesses, neighborhoods and residences.

Public input is critically important during this early conceptual stage, Rosenblum said. He urged people to send him their comments and suggestions as soon as possible, since new ideas cannot realistically be incorporated once the engineering design phase begins. He can be contacted at jrosenblum@ambridgema.gov, or at (617)349-4615. An opinion survey is on line at www.westernavenue.info. The project’s municipal website is http://www.cambridgema.gov/cdd/et/infra/western/index.html.

Facilities for the Aging: CDD Planner Elaine Thorne and Roger Boothe, Director of Urban Design, discussed possibilities for improved physical design and services that would help make the community more livable for seniors. Improvements were considered in terms of Land Use and Zoning (including restrictions on accessory apartments), Open Space Design, Transportation, Housing, Economic Development, and accessibility of supermarkets.

Concerns were voiced from the floor about the need for a community center, better sidewalk maintenance, and improved bus service, particularly with respect to the #47 bus.

An on-line questionnaire for input into this planning process is at www.cambridgema.gov/Aginginthecambridgecommunity. Elaine Thorne can be contacted at 617-349-4648 or by email at ethorne@cambridgema.gov.

Charles River riverfront: CDD Project Planner Iram Ifarooq and Roger Boothe presented an overview of projected improvements for Cambridge's extensive riverfront. There was special attention to the ideas under consideration for the stretch from the BU bridge to the Western Avenue Bridge, including Magazine Beach and the access to the river at the end of Magazine Street. The website for the program is at http://www.cambridgema.gov/~CDD/cp/zng/charles/index.html. Ifarooq can be reached at ifarooq@cambridgema.gov or at 617/349-4606.

CCTV: Nilagia McCoy, Coordinator of Membership, Outreach and Promotions at CCTV, spoke about communications opportunities available at CCTV, located at 675 Massachusetts Avenue. On April 13 CCTV will present “From the Net to Your Neighborhood,” a panel discussion about how local citizens can learn to use the Internet to promote community connection and civic engagement. Details and registration information are available at http://www.cctvcambridge.org/Net_to_Neighborhood_Event.

Other: Concern was expressed about a report of gunfire heard in the vicinity of Pleasant Street on February 23.

Information and updates about the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association can be accessed by signing up for the organization's listserv at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cportneighbors.
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* Thanks to Carolyn Shipley for assistance with this report.
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• NeighborMedia Cambridge

It’s a festive occasion—a group of women lunching together at Upstairs On The Square, 91 Winthrop Street, on a sunny day in February. Co-proprietor Mary-Catherine Deibel (photo below) greets them as old friends.

“Don’t tell me you’re all having cheeseburgers!” says Deibel as they look over the menu. One goes for the salmon; others order homemade soups or house pizza. About half the group sticks with the sirloin cheeseburgers they’ve been looking forward to ever since the last time they were here.

Nothing obvious sets these women apart from other customers in the rosy wood-panelled Monday Club room with its long curving bar, chandeliers and gilt chairs. However, their presence here is a small miracle.

They’re from On The Rise, a weekday program for women who are homeless or living in crisis in Cambridge, Somerville and Greater Boston. Located at 341 Broadway, OTR helps them as they struggle against heavy odds to become self-sufficient, healthy, and stable. Last year On The Rise assisted 358 women, up from 328 in 2008.

About a year and a half ago, OTR Development Associate Marisa Curran sent local restauranteurs a letter asking them to donate food for the breakfasts and lunches offered at the program on weekdays.

“I didn’t answer right away--I could see we’d have problems with transporting meals and things like that,” Mary-Catherine Deibel says. “But then I realized we could give the women lunch here.”

Deibel welcomes up to ten guests from OTR every month. Today some of them agree to pose for a photo. With them are Community Advocates Tina Williams (top photo, second from left)) and Wanda Rosario (center)).

Conversation at the table includes familiar topics like TV, giving up chocolate for Lent, and computer tips. But it also includes discussion of problems that don’t exist for most of us, like: what do you do when you finally get off the street and into a place of your own, and then desperate friends from your previous life come to “visit” intending to stay forever?

The women in the luncheon group are from OTR’s Keep the Keys program, which helps formerly homeless women to deal with issues that arise once they get housed. The answer to the above question is tough: help if you can, but at some point you may have to send those people and all their stuff back to the shelter (and pay their cab fare yourself).

Comments on the food and the atmosphere at the restaurant are enthusiastic: “The butternut squash soup is super.” “It’s so comfortable here.” “Wish I could decorate my place this way.” “This hamburger is exquisite—but nobody could eat a whole one and walk away.” A few take half a portion home for later; everybody chips in something for a tip.

One woman appreciates the whole event from a special, hard-won perspective: “This is a good day to be sober.”

In addition to regular meals and special celebrations such as wedding receptions, Upstairs on the Square hosts everything from teas and book groups to vegan dinners and wine tastings. The establishment is a reincarnation of Upstairs at the Pudding, which started out 28 years ago in Harvard’s Hasty Pudding building. It reopened at the current location in 2002.

Deibel is a member and supporter of numerous local professional and civic organizations including the Harvard Square Business Association, the Cambridge Office for Tourism, and the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau. She and co-owner Deborah Hughes have been honored by the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce for Excellence in Business. In addition to this luncheon project, they contribute meals for invalids and disabled people through the Community Servings program. Recently they hosted a day-long fund-raiser for Haitian relief.

Deibel is an Arlington resident. She traces her sense of community to her parents and to the ideals that surrounded her at Immaculate Heart Academy and then at Newton College of the Sacred Heart, where she got a BA in English in 1972. (She also did a Master's Degree in English at BU: "I always thought I'd be an English teacher," she says.) Noting that there’s a practical side to her activism as well as an idealistic one; she quotes something her father used to say: “Generosity is always repaid...and very concretely.”

“We support the community, and they support us in turn,” she says. “That’s why we’re still in business here after all these years.” And she welcomes a chance to help women who are trying to get their lives together.

“Any one of us can fall on hard times,” she says.

• NeighborMedia Cambridge

Most Cantabrigians know that the State Department of Transportation (DOT) is planning to extend the Green Line from Lechmere into Somerville. This is good news for our neighbors to the north and the region. We get better public transport, making commuting to jobs and shopping better, while providing traffic, parking, and pollution relief. This will include a branch to Union Square, and a main line through West Medford to Tufts or Route 16 near the Somerville-Medford border. (Why they wouldn't go the last mile is a real puzzler.)

Little of the new construction will take place in Cambridge: less than half a mile of new track. The biggest local change happens at Lechmere Square. We are all familiar with this area as it has been configured since about 1920 with the T station on the point between Cambridge Street and the O’Brien Highway at their convergence. In ten years you won’t recognize the spot.

The extension will follow the existing rail lines running to Lowell and Fitchburg. In East Cambridge, these are on the north (other) side of the O’Brien. Instead of crossing over the highway to Lechmere Station and then back, DOT will take down the present crossing and keep everything on the far side. The argument for keeping the station in its present location was lost before the conversation ever began. The task now is to take the situation and make it work.

A group from the East Cambridge Planning Team has taken the on the job. The Lechmere Square Working Group was formed in the spring of 2009. The group has.scrutinized the DOT plan and developed a comprehensive redevelopment plan for Lechmere Square. Relocating the station means abandoning the 1.6 acre site that the station now occupies and safely getting several million pedestrians across a six lane highway each year.

When the Commonwealth first devised a plan for all this, the situation was very different. The plan to develop NorthPoint was active and driving the process. NorthPoint was to build a deluxe, modern, indoor station and connect it across the highway with an enclosed footbridge to a hotel on the old station land. In exchange for this, they would be given the old station site with whatever development rights Cambridge would allow. At present the NorthPoint partners are in litigation, and few believe that the development is viable.

Currently DOT plans to build a barebones station on MBTA land with pedestrian crossings at grade. The rationale for conveying the Lechmere site to NorthPoint is gone. Rumors persist that the state is still angling to receive this windfall, but it is hard to imagine now.

The Working Group took a hard look at the DOT and Cambridge plans for the area. We saw a minimal station, poor access, and an uninspired development plan with little public benefit. The potential was there, but it hadn’t been looked at from an urban planning perspective. The challenge for the group was to devise the best possible redevelopment plan while not bankrupting the DOT and preserving the development rights that would drive the plan, no small task. With careful thought and considerable design talent, something remarkable came of it. I regret that I can’t show the plans in this forum. The 58 page slide show laying out the DOT/City plans and the group’s improvements doesn’t fit here. There is a link to an earlier version on a previous post. Click here. Then click on the attachment link at the bottom.

Part one deals with station design, pedestrian connections and roadway configuration. Proposed changes would result in a safer, more comfortable and convenient T experience. While important and necessary, the exciting part is what can be done with the land made available by the move.

A triangle between Cambridge Street and the O’Brien Highway divided by First Street where it extends into NorthPoint is what there is to work with. The group crafted a plan that incorporates substantial commercial development, some of it quite bold, into a new Lechmere Square that would anchor the eastern end of the city with a civic plaza, and a year-round public market and a seasonal farmers’ market.

This “transit-oriented” development would complement the Cambridge and First Street business districts, benefit residents, attract shoppers from the region, offset the DOT project cost, and add to the city’s commercial tax revenues.

The plan has met with approval and encouragement from city and state officials, business leaders, residents, and planners. Councillor Toomey will introduce a Council order on March 1 in support of the plan, specifically directing the Community Development Department to work with the community and conduct a feasibility study of the Lechmere Square Market.

Here is the text of Councillor Toomey’s order.

COUNCILLOR TOOMEY 
? WHEREAS: The relocation of Lechmere Station across McGrath Highway, coupled with the uncertainty surrounding the Northpoint Development, will create a void in the East Cambridge neighborhood at the current station site; and ?
? WHEREAS: The City of Cambridge has an opportunity to activate this space in a way that benefits both economic development in East Cambridge and the Cambridge community at large; and ?
? WHEREAS: A Public Market at Lechmere Square would help establish East Cambridge, a gate way to Cambridge, as a destination and help revitalize the area; and ?
? WHEREAS: The City of Cambridge should establish a working plan that can tie the public market concept to the proposed PUD in anticipation of future changes; and ?
? WHEREAS: Economic impacts of a public market in this area should be studied; and ?
? WHEREAS: Zoning changes should be proposed to better solidify the proposal; and ?
? WHEREAS: An over all working plan of the revitalization of this area should be established; now therefore be it ?
? ORDERED: That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to direct the Assistant City Manager of Community Development to work with community groups and to conduct a feasibility study of a Public Market at Lechmere Square and to report back to the City Council

The East Cambridge Planning Team respectfully requests that the City Council pass this order and asks for the support of our fellow Cantabrigians. Please contact your City Councillors to ask them to support this order and come to the meeting if possible.

Update on March 1, 2009. The City Council enacted the above order on a unanimous vote. The measure was co-sponsored by Councillor Cheung.

The author is a board member of the East Cambridge Planning Team and a member of the Lechmere Square Working Group.

Graphics courtesy of Matthew Gordy, OnLand, LLC

• NeighborMedia Cambridge

I stomp my feet to this.

http://yonigordon.com/
http://www.myspace.com/yonigordonandthegoods

Whole episode HERE

• Bandwidth

It’s easy to miss the little sign outside the Charles Hotel parking garage, but it's worth noting the Charles Hotel Green Parking program.

After I got over my immediate Cambridgey knee-jerk reaction “nobody should drive, we should all be on Public Trans or bikes” attitude, I climbed down off my high horse and admitted that some people do have to drive some of the time and that the Green Garage program includes some innovative ideas.

Such as…
Free Bike lending and parking
The Charles Hotel has a free bike-lending program available to all hotel guests. The Men's and women's Electra Amsterdam Classic bicycles each come with a handlebar-mounted basket, a Giro helmet, a Kryptonite lock, and a local bike trail map.

The garage also offers complimentary bike parking.

Small rate for small cars
Small cars get a discounted parking rate. The garage’s nanoMAX ™ small car detection system measures a vehicle upon entry and assigns a unique parking rate based upon the vehicle's actual size. Smaller, environmentally friendly vehicles are assessed a lower rate (from 5am to 5pm).

And there is a free charging station for electric vehicles and hybrids.

Small small Car Parking Perk
The garage has a special area reserved for smaller cars like Minis and Smart Cars. This re-striped area maximizes the parking footprint to accommodate more small cars. In the same vein, the garage has upgraded their lighting system to a more energy efficient one.

Tire Inflation Station
Under-inflated tires sabotage gas mileage. Hotel guests can take advantage of the free Tire Inflation Station to maximize their gas mileage and lessen their fuel consumption.

• NeighborMedia Cambridge

Cambridge City Council has a new Mayor and new Mayor is David P. Maher. The new Vice Mayor is now Henriette Davis. Why did it take so long for the Cambridge City Council to vote in a new Mayor? I feel that if someone is on the Cambridge City Council they need to be there working 24/7 of the time. To be on Cambridge City Coucil you have to have money first.
Timothy J. Toomery ,Jr. has 2 seats and one of them is State Repesentative. I feel that having two seats is to much. He gets two checks and everything that coming with the two seats. I feel that I am the only one who's is anger about this. To hold two seats just doesn't sounded right me. Some people believe that since Timothy J. Toomery ,Jr. has been doing this for along time it's alright with them. I feel that it doesn't matter how long he's had the two seats ,because it's still wrong any way you look at it. It's time to wake up Cambridge ,because the Cambridge people are the back bone of this city. The Cambridge voters work hard for this city everyday.It's time our goverment to work for all of us. By Elizabeth A. Kanze

Homelessness in an All America City an example in Somerville, Massachusetts
Mark is director of Somerville Homeless Coalition in a Boston suburb. His experiences provide him with insight into the cycle of war trauma, job loss foreclosure and homelessness. Today's sub-prime crisis has accelerated this destructive cycle against veterans who have done more than their country has asked of them. The financial elites have demanded financial support to bolster their banks and then refused to provide credit to millions who are gripped in the wave of foreclosures expanding around them.

• BeLive Producers