Car theft rate in Somerville down this year
For the first time in two decades, car theft in Somerville has gone down, The Somerville Journal reported.
The Assembly Square Mall, with easy access to Route 93, was once a major target of car theft, but years after the mall's 1997 closing, Somerville no longer ranks in Massachusetts' top-ten cities for auto theft.
"I remember growing up - I remember those stories," Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone told the Journal. "They set the cars on fire and dumped them in the river."
Last year's theft level was the lowest in 25 years for the city, and Somerville now ranks in the "middle of the pack" for car theft, according to the paper.
In addition to the closing of the mall, the improvement in anti-theft devices and the increase in severity for grand theft auto penalties may have all contributed to the decline, Somerville Police Chief George McLean told the Journal.
Curtatone said that overall crime in the city has also declined in the last 25 years, adding that the new development on the site of the Assembly Square Mall will not be the same crime magnet that it was in the 1980s and 90s.
What we're going to be developing is not just a mall," Curtatone told the Journal. "We're building an entire neighborhood. ... Economic activity and revitalization doesn't bring more crime."
Rosie O'Donnell to participate in benefit for Somerville Children
Actress and former talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell will visit Somerville on March 13 to host a literacy benefit at the Somerville Theatre.
Local authors and folk singers will appear along with her to raise funds for the Healey School's Choice Program, an under-funded kindergarten through sixth-grade program aimed at improving literacy. Proceeds will go to the school library and various scholarships.
O'Donnell is a personal friend of local author Lauren Slater, who helped organize the event and who asked her to help with the program.
Local parents are also involved in arranging the evening's plans and fundraising attempts.
"We're hoping to draw people for many reasons and from many sources," one parent told the Somerville Journal. "We hope people who come will buy books for the school library."
MBTA train strikes three workers, kills one
An Orange Line train hit three workers, killing one, on Jan. 27.
The man killed, Obioma Nna, 46, was a father of five, who was working to fix a frozen switch with two fellow employees when the accident happened.
"He was an exceptional man and an exceptional role model," Joan Vodoklys, a principal at a Framingham, Mass. school where Nna was on the school board, told the Medford Transcript. "This is such a loss for us."
Drug and alcohol tests on the conductor of the train, as well as the attendant and dispatcher, turned out negative, according to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), but investigators are trying to determine why repeated warnings that workers were on the tracks were not heeded.
The other two employees who were hit were wounded. Peter Lee escaped with minor injuries, but Michael Mason suffered a fractured skull and several broken ribs. He was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital.
-- compiled by Bruce Hamilton from the Somerville Journal
