pt at large

2nd Street Cafe, Cambridge, MA

Tuesday, August 30, 2005
2nd Street Cafe
89 Second Street, Cambridge, MA 02141, 617-661-1311
Mon - Fri 7:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.

This little cafe is a bracing retro throwback to a less frenetic era, one in which “buzz” and “glitz” weren’t yet invented, and service and damn good cafe food was the rule rather than the exception. One step inside and your internal gyroscope stabilizes as if you stepped into a time warp. Not a square inch of plastic or blinking neon or polished granite in sight.

Cheerful goldenrod walls and walnut wainscoting all around, stained and filigreed old oak book cases filled with crockery, chips. juice drinks and bottled water, line the rear wall. Several small round cafe tables each with two wrought iron teetery chairs and a stretch of four stools at a window counter facing Second Street take up the space for diners. The chest high order counter and compact kitchen, from which the aroma of seasonings and warm bread emanate are three steps inside the front door. And overhead looms a colorful chalkboard on which are inscribed the day’s specials and nearly the whole menu. The place can’t be much more than thirty by twenty. Every square inch smacks of authenticity.

“You’ll love it!” I was confidently assured by the young lady when she learned The Adventurer had driven from Watertown with the cafe’s vaunted Cubano sandwich on my mind. I sat back and basked in the old world charm of the place and had just begun writing my observations, when it arrived at my table. The pressed sub roll, into which roast pork loin, ham, swiss, mustard, mayo, relish, and hot pepper relish were intimately layered, disappeared faster than the upper class in Havana after Fidel took power. It was 2 p.m., long past The Adventurer’s customary lunch time.

Other special sandwiches ($6.95/$4.00) on the regular menu include grilled chicken with pesto, tomato, and mozzarella; grilled Reuben; roast beef with arugula, boursin, and horseradish mayo; Mom’s meatball grinder with provalone; vegetarian sandwich with humus, tomato, red onion, cucumber, and sprouts. And about ten home made soups ($3.50/$4.50), salads ($6.75/$5.75), and home cooked gourmet specials with salad ($7.95).

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed two women being served a Moroccan chicken dish, one of the specials, that made me believe that the chefs don’t toss around the word “gourmet” lightly.

As The Adventurer licked his fingers, he finished reading the part of the menu stating “All our food is made with the freshest ingredients available.” As if on cue, owner Jonathan Adelson picked up his phone and called four vendors for tomorrow’s meat, cheese, vegetables, and bread. I just might return then to sample one of those specials.

To see the daily menu, go to http://www.2ndstcafe.com

Celestial reverie while waiting for Rev. Johnson

Reporter's notebook: Thoughts while spending an hour sitting on a dock on the East Branch of the Westport River waiting for Rev. Evan Johnson to finish his nightly trumpet serenade as he floated calmly on the river in his Boston Whaler. I interviewed him at his home next to the dock  at about 9 pm, after he put his trumpet and boat away for the night. See story for details.


A clear, cool, black, windless night, the entire firmament in the audience, dippers, tauruses, orions, the whole damn celestial family and one tiny reporter on a wooden float being entertained in grand style with ethereal tones of jazz, gospel, show tunes, classical stuff, emanating from the man with the golden horn sitting on the thwarts of his motorboat  playing for his muse and anyone who cared to listen. One of those nights when the sky is so clear and well defined it looks like a confection of celestial twinkies close enough to pluck from the heavens.

Old documents reveal business of whaling

Old documents reveal business of whaling

Date August 18, 2005

Captain Ahab was obsessed with the pursuit of but one whale, Moby Dick. Michael Dyer, head librarian at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, is consumed with unlocking the business aspects of the entire 19th century whaling industry. And like Ahab, he got more than he bargained for.

"I've been studying whaling history for 12 years in two of the best collections in the world," Mr. Dyer said to a full crew at the June 16 Westport Historical Society meeting. "I thought I had a pretty good idea of what was going on in Yankee whaling. And I'm here to tell ya that I got it all wrong!" he said with a grin, adding that he was in good company.

"And not just me. Hohman got it wrong, too!"

Mr. Dyer was referring to Elmo Hohman, whose 1928 book "The American Whaleman" is considered the most authoritative source about American whaling.

Mr. Dyer launched into a wide-ranging one-hour discussion titled "An Introduction to the Business of Whaling, 1819-1870". He read excerpts from letters, journals, and log books of sea captains and businessmen, showed a handful of slides of old drawings and engravings that reveal details about activity at the whale docks, and displayed an implement he thinks was the most important tool in the whaling industry.

Comparing the whaling industry to an octopus, he said "It has tentacles that go all the way from Bremen, to Charleston to New Orleans to Albany to Boston to New York City to Philadelphia and Belfast and Rotterdam and Liverpool and London. And these are only the ones I found since last week."

Mr. Dyer said the whale business was one of the mainstays of the economy in the 19th century. There were hundreds of wholesale or retail whale oil merchants on the East Coast. In 1837 there were 17 candle houses in New Bedford alone.

"The network of firms and individuals is so complex it may never be completely understood," Mr.Dyer said.

Mr. Dyer said scholars would have to travel to ports where whale products were shipped along the East Coast and to Europe to find mercantile records that would show the extent to which the whale business impacted the global economy.

Until recently, Mr. Dyer agreed with historian Elmo Hohman's assertion that the cost of labor was one of the most important financial aspects of the whaling industry. However, he was surprised to find a fact to the contrary in a letter written by John Avery Parker, a prominent New Bedford businessman involved in mercantile whaling and ship building. Mr. Parker wrote that out of a voyage in which the value of the product was $20,000, the crew might be paid $6,000.

Mr. Parker, who was reputedly run out of Westport for financial problems, was obviously having no difficulty in New Bedford and seemed to be turning a tidy profit with his whale boats.

Mr. Parker, who was in business from 1803 until his death in 1853, left nothing to chance and wrote thick letters of instruction to his captains. He wrote to the master of the ship Alexander "Try not to go anywhere where the men are going to want to desert. Spend as much time cruising for sperm whales in the Atlantic as you can prudently and then have time to reach the Arctic Ocean in time for Right Whales."

"Now I'm going to shock you," Mr. Dyer said. "I believe this was the most important tool in the whaling industry." he said as he held aloft a long wooden rod. The gauging rod, as it was called, was inserted into the whale barrel to determine how many gallons of whale oil it contained and therefore how much money the owner would make from a voyage.

Mr. Dyer believes that the actual process of refining whale oil will never be known. "They were essentially trade secrets. That was how these men made their living and they weren't about to share the process. "Whale oil had scores of uses, including soap making to sewing machine oil to fuel to keep lighthouse beacons burning day and night.

The whaling business was hazardous and called for men who weren't averse to taking risks with their money. Shipwrecks and mutinies were not uncommon. To extend their control of the business, some of these men owned the insurance companies that insured the boats, the cordage companies that fitted them out, and the banks which helped finance them.

"The business end of the whaling industry is the Mt Everest of its era," Mr. Dyer said, and it will take him years to climb high enough to get a comprehensive view of it.

Kate Cory research

Part of Mr. Dyer's research uncovered details about the fate of the Kate Cory, a 132 ton whaling brig built in Westport in 1856. During the civil war, the master of a Confederate privateer named the CSS Alabama targeted Union whale ships because, Mr. Dyer said, "He knew it would put a major hurt on the economy of New England by targeting the whale oil industry."

In 1863, the Alabama found the Kate Cory off the coast of Brazil and sank her and her cargo.

The facts Mr. Dyer spouted could be a terrific basis for a math class. A whale ship like the Lorenzo could carry up to 2800 barrels of oil. The average harvest of a sperm whale was 40 barrels of oil. A full barrel contained 31.5 gallons. If half of the Lorenzo's cargo was sperm oil selling at 90 cents a gallon, it had a retail value of $39,690. A captain's share was often one barrel for every 16 barrels, while a lowly greenhand would earn one barrel for each 200 for a four year voyage.

BY PAUL TAMBURELLO

shorelines@eastbaynewspapers.com
http://archive.eastbayri.com/archive_detail.php?archiveFile=./pubfiles/eby/archive/2005/August/18/Westport/21727.xml&start=0&numPer=20&keyword=dyer§ionSearch=&begindate=1%2F1%2F2003&enddate=3%2F25%2F2006&authorSearch=paul+tamburello&IncludeStories=1&pubsection=&page=&IncludePages=&IncludeImages=1&mode=allwords&archive_pubname=None%0A%09%09%09

Anita Suhanin with Shwang, a gem of a band

Shwang with Anita Suhanin
Toad, 1920 Mass. Ave, Cambridge, MA 02140 617-497-4950
capacity about 70 people
Monday, August 15, 2005
Shwang plays regularly on Monday nights at Toad

The minute Anita Suhanin began to croon Patsy Cline’s ballad “Strange”, Toad patrons perked up their ears, pulled their drinks closer to their hearts, and knew that for the next forty minutes, conversation would be irrelevant. This woman doesn’t just sing the songs, she inhabits them, drapes them sinuously around her slender shoulders, and luxuriates in the perfect fit. She infuses the cover songs that make up most of her repertoire with unique introductory phrasing that has the mystery of a first kiss, and your imagination wondering where it’s going to lead.

There will be nothing objective about this review. It’s teetered over from visceral appreciation to raving fandom. I am now a card-carrying devotee of this tiny band and ready to propose to Anita Suhanin, the group’s singer, songwriter, focal point, unassuming torch singer, and eye of the Shwang storm of music.

Overcast skies made it impossible to see the Perseid meteor showers over Boston this week, but Suhanin’s version of “If I had feelings” by local writer Naom Weinstein, achingly slow and sweet, crossed Toad’s firmament in slow motion, dazzling listeners by it’s fiercely raw emotion, reminding ptatlarge of the powerful mix of hope, despair, and survival that illuminates the best blues.

As if Suhanin’s stylings aren’t enough, consider Shwang’s band. Duke Levine does things up and down the frets of his lead guitar with playful imagination and sheer brilliance. Shreds of down home blues and surprising jazzy riffs peppered his solos and earned whoops from the crowd. Levine can suggest a geographic sense of place, with a sunny faintly Mexican south of the border lick, or an internal spot, a dark, recently damaged piece of the heart. He intuits where Suhanin is going emotionally with her lyrics and releases them as if setting a bird free from its cage.

Bass player Lou Ulrich and drummer Andy Plaisted electrified the customers with one solo per set. The grins and nods back and forth during the sets showed that these guys were digging what each other was getting into.

Toad, a shoebox of a pub in Porter Square, is the ideal symbiotic fit for Shwang. Tiny and unassuming, the narrow bar on one side, tiny round cabaret tables with a bench running the length of the other side, a band stand at the far end, Toad is a perfect echo chamber for bands like Suhanin’s. For the most part, the patrons come for the music and don’t rehash soap operas during the show. Toward the end of Shwang’s set, though, the joint sounded like a freight train thundering over a covered bridge. I wasn’t disrespect for the band, it was applause fanned by the band’s energy and talent. There ain’t no place ptatlarge would rather be on a Monday night.

Partial play list from first set
Strange - Patsy Cline
My heart belongs to daddy - ?
It’s a sin to tell a lie - Slim Whitman
Joey - Concrete Blond
If I had feelings - Noam Weinstein
In Dreams - Roy Orbison
You Can Never Tell - Anita Suhanin
Yellow Roses - Ry Cooder

Their retirement is well deserved

East Bay, RI

East Bay Newspapers

Friday, August 12, 2005

Their retirement is well deserved
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edward and Anna Costa are finally hoing to get some days off. After 27 years of operating the popular Westport Fruit and Deli at 151 State Road, they have sold the business. Mr. Costa has been in the retail food business for more than 30 years. Four years before taking ownership of this business, he owned Michael's Provisions in New Bedford, specializing in producing Portuguese sausage.

A year after he sold his New Bedford store, he was approached by a good friend who wanted to sell his fruit business on State Road. Mr. Costa and his wife didn't think twice before purchasing it. Over the years, they added groceries, a deli and prepared food section, and a package store. Many customers didn't notice when they removed the wall separating the package store and the market six years ago. Both Costas are natives of San Miguel, Azores, Mr. Costa from the town of Ferreira when he was 19, Mrs. Costa from Furnas. It wasn't till they immigrated to Fall River that they met and later married.

WESTPORT FRUIT: "About a year after I sold Michael's in Fall River, a friend I'd known for years told me he was selling this place so I bought it. At first I didn't know much about the fruit business but after a while I learned what to do."

HARD WORK: "I used to work from 6 a.m. in the morning to 10 p.m. at night. It's been less lately but it's a seven days a week job. Sometimes I don't even have time to cut the grass at my own house and have to hire someone to do it! After 27 years here, I decided it was time to slow down."

CUSTOMERS: "My wife and I have great relationships with our customers and we're really grateful to them. I still have my friends but I'm going to miss the seeing our customers and talking to them every day."

CHANGES: "We sell more prepared food now than in earlier years. The old generation liked to cook more, the new generation doesn't seem to cook as much."

DECIDING TO SELL: "It really didn't take too long. I make decisions quick. If you think about something too long, you might change your mind!"

NEW OWNERS: "We're selling the business to two couples who will be living in the area. I'll stay for two weeks to teach them my way of doing business. After that, I'm not going to be putting my nose into their business. If I come in here after that, it will be as a customer."

END OF ERA: "My son Scott has been helping here for the past six years. But he has a master's degree in business and wants to go off on his own. I think he'd rather not work every day of the week, too."

REAL ESTATE: "We still lease property to the other businesses in the Plaza. I will be busy with watching out for them, too."

NEXT STEP: "I'm so used to working seven days a week, I'm going to be a little lost for a few weeks, but then I'll find something else to do. I like golf but I'm not good at it. I started playing 10 years ago. Maybe now I can play more than once a week."

TRANSITION: "I'll stay for two weeks to teach the new owners my way of doing business. After that, I'm not going to be putting my nose into their business. If I come in here after that, it will be as a customer."

By Paul Tamburello

shorelines@eastbaynewspapers.com
Copyright © 2003, The East Bay Newspapers
http://www.eastbayri.com/print/333014954129000.php

Newbury Street sizzle

One of the coolest things to do on a griddle hot August afternoon is stroll down the length of Newbury Street. The shops, galleries, eateries, and realty offices are the backdrop for the real show, the potpourie of people winding their way up and down the eight blocks from Arlington Street to Massachusetts Avenue. A world-class canapé of a city is on display for the observant man at large.

Photo: FreeFoto.com

So what if the slice of life thereon has been rinsed to conceal the most destitute from sight. There’s still a big enough wedge of the city’s real people and the people who’ve come to tour it to make it an ecumenical viewing experience.

Want to see tatoos and piercings on various body parts? Get a whiff of Chanel as the little black dress with fashionable pumps breezes by? Hear languages from the Asian and South American continents overlaying those from the South of Boston? Watch traffic crawl up the street with virtually no impatient honking because the drivers are intent on praying for a parking spot or rubbernecking at the attractions winding their way down the sidewalks? See a posse of homeboys/girls gossiping on a stoop on the shade side of the street? Bump into backpacks from Eddie Bauer and handbags from Vuitton? Observe families with maps and digital cameras in hand looking for all the world like the human version of McCloskey’s famous “Make way for Ducklings” as they parade single file up the narrow sidewalk? This is the place.

ptatlarge suspects that most of the walkers have come for the visceral experience of being on this street, Newbury Street, the Boston equivalent of Rodeo Drive, where you just might glimpse a celebrity or at least breathe the same air they do, window shop the same upscale boutiques they do. Like a “leaner” in horseshoes, proximity to the prize counts.

pt won’t begin to rhapsodize about cleavage, turns of the calf, and the glorious variety of female sashaying and areas of flesh exposed to the sun, The bombardment of prurient thoughts is deliciously overwhelming, and, confined to his pubescent imagination, will not get him arrested. But it will tempt him to be a part of the scene some sun splashed afternoon in the near future. A passerby just might take him for someone of import.

Gastronomical aside: lunch at 29 Newbury
Duck frittata with roasted red peppers, red onions, broccoli, topped with goat cheese, priced at $12. Exquisite.

Lascivious Biddies

Lascivious Biddies
Lee Ann Westover (vocals)
Deidre Rodman (piano, vocals)
Amanda Monaco (guitar, vocals)
Saskia Sunshine Lane (double bass, vocals)

Ryles Jazz Club, Inman Square, Cambridge, MA
August 9, 2005

You gotta admit it, the oxymoronish name intrigues. It was enough to motivate The Adventurer to motor over to Ryles Jazz Club on August 9 to hear these four musicians who appear to be neither Lascivious or Biddies (perhaps Biddies in training, though). To me, the real story is how these four twenty something femmes got their leg up on the competition. Podcasting.

Wikipedia describes Podcasting as “a method of publishing audio broadcasts via the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed of new files (usually MP3s). It became popular in late 2004, largely due to automatic downloading of audio onto portable players or personal computers.”

We’re talking iPods here and even people in The Adventurer’s demographic know that iPods are those little white units that appear to be a second umbilical cord to most people in the 18 - 25 year old demographic.

Laptops are an indispensable part of the Biddies traveling gear. The most recent podcast they uploaded for their fans was one hour before they walked across the street from the coffee shop to Ryles to perform their set. Wireless they are, clueless to technology they are not. Thanks to this Podcasting stuff, they’ve got fans in Belgium as well as Belmont, MA.

Independent musicians like the Lascivious Biddies have the techology to produce their own “radio shows”. An iPod packing music fan can subscribe free to these independent music makers. Realizing the potential, and probably tired of getting hip way too late, broadcast radio is distributing their signals through podcasting, too. Just log on to your computer, say it’s an Apple, since it’s the only kind I know, click on iTunes, click on Podcasts, and download the podcast to your iPod or personal computer. Dancing down the street afterwards like Ellen Degeneris is optional.

OK so I've left out a bunch of technical stuff that I cant possibly understand but you got the gist of it. You can drive your computer chip engineered car without understanding what’s going on under the hood, right? So just try to download a podcast and let me know what you think.

Now back to the Lascivious Biddies. I was more impressed with their geekyness than their music. They have good stage presence, are very capable musicians - piano, bass, lead guitar, and singer - and look like they’re enjoying themselves. Their original songs have decent harmony, are well played, and have some of the classic sound of the tunesmiths of the past, guys like Rogers and Hart and Harold Arlen but … they’re not memorable. No hooks. No line of universal feeling searingly expressed. The harmonies were technically correct but a bit thin on the bottom notes. Not one song reached out and grabbed me by the lapels and hollered “Rush the stage after the set and buy the CD for that song!”

But here’s the good part. You don’t have to take my word for this, at least if you’re an Apple computer user. (Note to all my PC using friends, I must assume that you can tune in to Podcasts, right?) Find the Podcasting setup on your own and tune in.

Whaddyathink of the Lascivious Biddies? While immersed in the iPod Directory on the Podcast page, you just might find the next big rock or folk or hiphop group Podcasting away.

It’s a whole new music world out there. If nothing else, the Biddies get credit for showing ptatlarge the next big wave in the music industry.

Cuffee clan gathers to remember a remarkable man

East Bay, RI

East Bay Newspapers

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

Cuffee clan gathers to remember a remarkable man
------------------------------------------------------------------------

WESTPORT - It was a crystal clear Saturday on July 23 with a gentle breeze building from the northwest. It was the kind of day Paul Cuffee, successful Westport businessman and ship captain at the turn of the 19th century, might have been tempted to put one of his ships out to sea.

Instead, about 40 of the Cuffee extended family — including men, women and children from many corners of Massachusetts and Virginia — convened in Westport for a "Descendants of Captain Paul Cuffee Family Reunion."

The Cuffee kinfolk have been congregating biannually since 1972. Related to Cuffee or his Wampanoag wife, Alice Pequit, by bloodline or marriage, they are proud of Capt. Cuffee's accomplishments.

Paul Cuffee was born on Cuttyhunk to an African father who had purchased his freedom and a Wampanoag named Ruth Moses. He taught himself to read and write, went to sea as a young man, and eventually owned shares in 10 ships involved in whaling or trading. Capt. Cuffee's efforts led to blacks gaining the right to vote in Massachusetts in 1783.

When Westport didn't create a public school, Capt. Cuffee started one on his Drift Road farmland for his family and neighbors. It was quite possibly the first integrated school in the young republic.

Local Quakers, who admired his industry, frugality, and sense of community, welcomed him. Capt. Cuffee eventually helped build the Friends Meetinghouse on Main Road. His friends included William Rotch, Jr., the influential New Bedford businessman.

This reunion's itinerary had the feel of an extended school field trip. The first stop on Friday was a visit to the Paul Cuffee Charter School in Providence followed by a visit to the New Bedford Library to view original Cuffee documents.

"The reunion is a way to remember the stories of our history and to share what we've learned along the way," Su Almeida said. Ms. Almeida is coordinator for the Boston Descendants of Captain Paul Cuffee and is on the board of the Paul Cuffee Charter School in Providence.

Sunlight splashed through the windowpanes of the Friends Meetinghouse on Main Road on Saturday as Carl Cruz of New Bedford conducted a memorial service that was equal parts history lesson, family introductions, and songs from the gospel tradition. Mr. Cruz reminded the group that one purpose of the reunion is to educate the young about the Cuffee heritage. He recounted past reunions, read letters written by or about Capt. Cuffee and asked members to share their connections with their ancestor. From time to time, Mr. Cruz led the elders, teenagers, and tots in the group in a gospel song recalling the struggles for freedom and rights, and the indomitable role of faith in their tradition.

Willie Dozier of Hampton, Va., showed a small Capt. Cuffee doll that he'd had since he attended the first reunion in 1972. He has discovered that a Cuffee descendant was one of the famed Buffalo Soldiers that served with distinction in the U.S. cavalry in the late 1800s.


"Hand in hand, everyone, two by two," Mr. Cruz said enthusiastically just before noon. He proceeded to lead the group to the Cuffee monument just outside the Meetinghouse where they laid flowers. Then, hand in hand, he again led them in song as they marched to the gravestones of Capt. Cuffee and his wife behind the Meetinghouse.

"In the Native American tradition, we'll lay greens here," Randall Pollard of New Bedford said as he carried an armload of fresh green ferns to the site.

After a box lunch under the shade of the tent still standing from the annual book fair, the group formed a cavalcade -- the Virginians' tour bus followed by the Bostonians' cars and vans. Their next destination was the Bell School House.

Referring to Capt. Cuffee as "Westport's most distinguished resident," Westport Historical Society president William Wyatt welcomed the group at the Drift Road schoolhouse. He gave a brief account of Capt. Cuffee's contributions to Westport and cited his "good sense, strong faith, and strong belief in the progress of the human race."

Members of the Cuffee family are also buried at what Carl Cruz described as "Uncle John's Burial Ground," a partially overgrown cemetery at the corner of Old County Road and Fisher Roads. After laying flowers at each unmarked gravestone, Cuffee's descendants repeated the ritual performed at the Main Road monument and graves.

Young and old, from 91-year-old Gertrude diNatale of Cambridge to two-year-old Madison Cuffee of Chesapeake, Va., bound by blood and marriage, they held hands in a circle, and sang. The day's last song was "May the Circle Be Unbroken."

Joan Cuffee Lewis, coordinator for the event from Virginia Beach, said the family history isn't exclusively about the past. "Today reminds us of the importance of family. Those of us who are alive today are a part of history that we so often read about. When you know that your ancestor played a part in all the things that we learn in the book, we can say that we are the book."

Ms. Almeida said the family would gather for Sunday fellowship at the Morningstar Baptist Church in Mattapan. With reunions like this one, it's evident the Cuffee family circle will not be broken any time soon.

By Paul Tamburello

shorelines@eastbaynewspapers.com
Copyright © 2003, The East Bay Newspapers
http://www.eastbayri.com/print/308412809819906.php

Loud beach goers

Loud beach goers, vandalism upset Atlantic Ave residents
Thursday, August 4, 2005

Twenty-three Westport Harbor residents, represented by Atlantic Avenue resident Gil Peixoto, aired a long list of complaints before selectmen on July 25, describing boorish behavior and illegal acts perpetrated by beach goers. They complainted about teenage drinking, loud all-night parties, illegal parking, dune buggies riding roughshod over plover habitats, and trash and human waste.

Some residents of Beach Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, Shore Road and Boathouse Row said they have experienced vandalism on their properties as well.

The petitioners asked Police Chief Keith Pelletier for a consistent police presence to tag and tow cars illegally parked and to consider blocking vehicular access to Beach Road.

Chief Pelletier said he was hampered by being short of manpower with budget cuts reducing the force by five positions. "There are only three cars on the road for a 50-square-mile town during the weekend," Chief Pelletier said. He added, "We just got a Community Policing Grant this week, which will pay for more officers during the summer months."

While acknowledging how thin his force is spread, Chief Pelletier promised more police presence going forward.

Selectmen asked the residents to keep calling when they witness the incivility and the parking violations. Chairwoman Elizabeth Collins urged voters to support increased funding for the police department at next year's Town Meeting to help address this problem next summer.

BY PAUL TAMBURELLO
http://www.eastbayri.com/print/308471695977148.php