Mayor Katjana Ballantyne is announcing the City’s annual support of local holiday gift and toy donation drives. In the giving spirit of the season, Somerville is placing toy and gift donation boxes at City buildings through Sunday, December 18, to support two community toy drives for families in need of gifts for children and teens this holiday season.  

Mayor Katjana Ballantyne announced new City funding support for area nonprofits, leveraging funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), in December, 2022. The online program portal opened on December 5, 2022, and the deadline has now been extended through February 17, 2023.  

Mayor Katjana Ballantyne and the City of Somerville are pleased to share new teen spaces and updates on the search for a permanent Somerville teen center, building on a successful opening of temporary teen spaces during Summer 2022. 

Mayor Ballantyne’s administration has prioritized creating Somerville teen spaces, which provide space for teens to relax and socialize, as well as events and activities, connections to services, and access to City social workers, as youth and teens continue to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Mayor Katjana Ballantyne is pleased to announce that the City and the Somerville Affordable Housing Trust Fund (SAHTF) are each committing $1.8M to fund the first five years of the City’s Municipal Voucher Program (“MVP”), a deeply affordable long-term housing subsidy with priority for families excluded from federal housing programs, including immigrant families. Additional initial funding is being provided through ARPA funds. 

The City of Somerville, the City of Cambridge, and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) invite you to a virtual public meeting on Thursday, December 15, to discuss improving water quality in our rivers through the development of an updated Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Control Plan. Meeting interpretation will be available into Arabic, Amharic, Bengali, Nepalese, Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole. The presentation materials and the recording will be made available following the meeting. 

Open Positions: Three
Term: Three years; with a possibility of renewing for up to one more three-year term. 

The City of Somerville Arts Council, an advisory and ministerial multiple-member body of the city, seeks three new members. Residents with arts (broadly defined), community development, program development expertise or experience are preferred, but all Somerville residents are invited to apply.