Somerville Together
SOMERVILLE NEIGHBORS TOGETHER
Our community working together to build relationships, problem solve, and take action.

TOOLS

We will be working to build out resources that explain what tools and powers residents have in advocacy, understanding City and School District operations, and making change locally. Contact Stephanie at contact@stephanieforsomerville.com with suggested additions.

Public Records Requests: From the City's website: "In accordance with G.L. c. 66, § 6A and 950 CMR 32.00, requests for public records will be overseen by each city or town’s Records Access Officer. The City Solicitor has been designated as the City of Somerville's Records Access Officer. His contact information is as follows: Francis X. Wright, Jr., City Solicitor, City Hall, 93 Highland Ave., Somerville, MA 02143, Phone: (617) 625-6600 x4400, Email: publicrecords@somervillema.gov. Information here: https://www.somervillema.gov/publicrecords  

Data Modeling Tools: Take a look at these tools that draw on public data to help users understand policy issues. 1. A tool that allows residents to model different scenarios of property appreciation and tax deferrals: https://somervilletogether.github.io/taxdeferral/ 2. A tool that lets residents try to balance their budget if earning https://jcalz.github.io/family-budget/; and 3. A tool that illustrates the cost of a new charter school opening for a district not already at its cap: http://jcalz.github.io/schoolmodel/ And, drawing on information collated from a year of canvassing, here's what I heard while campaigning made into "word clouds" for each ward: https://jcalz.github.io/somerville-word-clouds

Housing Challenge: On July 15th from 1-5pm a group of residents interested in data and housing will have a challenge to explore the data we have available and hopefully answer some of the questions we have. https://www.somervillehousingchallenge.org/