Yesterday, City Council President Maureen Feeney's civic summit brought about 400 people together to get people more involved in city government. Mayor Menino even showed up, although Michael Pahre noted, "Mayor Thomas Menino breezed in -- and out -- of the convention center probably feeling a little bit unwelcome" since it wasn't his idea. Adam Gaffin at Universal Hub live-blogged the event and summed up the takeaways, with education and crime high on the list......

Photo by Andy Sternberg/LAist A posthumous tribute wall dedicated to singer/songwriter Elliot Smith sat defaced by graffiti for months on end -- LAist said enough, so did the fans and city council.SFist was surprised to learn that chronic presidential candidate Ralph Nader picked former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez as his running mate.Phillyist explored the possibilities of green cleaning.In the latest edition of Reel Toronto, a bi-weekly feature looking at films shot in Toronto......

Well, City Councilor John Tobin has a solution for low voter turnout, and it's not a MoFee Style Public Kvetch-Fest. If Mayor Tom Menino thought he didn't like the idea of Kvetch-Fest 2008, he must have blown his stack when he heard what Councilor Tobin proposed. Tobin wants to limit mayoral and city council terms to 12 years. Menino, who is an institution along the lines of the Old South Meeting House, has already served......

City Council president Maureen Feeney (aka "MoFee") had plans to host a big gathering--or kvetch-fest, if you will--at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. At the time it was originally announced, it was seen as a potential irritant to Mayor Menino and a possible traffic nightmare. Whatever it is, it's on. The Globe describes the gathering thusly: Her goal is to combat the voter apathy displayed in the most recent council election and address a......

So, the first anniversary of Aqua Teen Hunger Force's attack on Boston falls close to the Super Bowl. The creative minds behind Aqua Teen merge both ATHF and the Super Bowl in one clip, which Bostonist stumbled across on the Best Week Ever blog. However, they're rooting for the wrong team: div#main{overflow:visible;} The mayor, the governor, the city council, and everyone else embarrassed by the Mooninite Menace won't like this. Not only did the Mooninites......

The fight over the mayor's pet project of moving City Hall to South Boston is about to fire up again. Mayor Menino has been dreaming of escaping the concrete confines of the current City Hall and its depressing plaza. Hence, the City Council is putting up a fight by launching an exploratory committee. (That's how American politicians do things--they don't get into a fistfight. They form opposing committees.) Menino would like to give the whole......

--Dr. Judah Folkman, who found a new way of fighting cancer by cutting off blood supply to tumors, died yesterday. [Boston Globe] --After one meeting ended unsuccessfully, the Cambridge City Council decided that Denise Simmons would be mayor. [Cambridge Chronicle] --The judge in a Florida case involving former FBI agent/Friend-of-Whitey-Bulger John J. Connolly has recused herself. [Boston Herald] --Coyote ugly: An injured coyote was spotted and rounded up last night in the North End.......

Peter Berdovsky--VJ, artist, and one of the men behind last year's "Mooninite Menace"--and the city of Boston better learn to live with each other because Berdovsky isn't going away anytime soon. The AP interviewed Berdovsky about his post-Aqua Teen life, which Bostonist has covered before. Berdovsky has been working steadily as an artist and was voted a top "VJ" in his chosen art medium. He certainly hasn't been shunned by the art community. However, as......

While the idea of living with seven or so people in an apartment that should only hold four sounds disgusting, it's kind of fun and a reasonable option for cash-strapped college students. However, Boston City Councilor Michael Ross wants to put an end to it. Ross wants only four students, max, to live in any one apartment. According to Scott Van Voorhis, he wants his plan to be part of the city's zoning code. The......

Update: WBZ has pictures of an SUV crashing into the bus. Another car plowed into the back of the car that hit the bus. The people involved were lucky--only three people on the bus and four in the SUV were hit. --A car hit an MBTA bus this afternoon while the bus was on American Legion Highway and Mount Hope Road. Three people on the bus went to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. [Boston......

--What would happen if you threw a Christmas mass and the priest never came? [Boston Herald] --Looks like City Councilor Maureen Feeney (aka "MoFee") will be elected City Council president for another term. [Boston Globe] --Even though the family that owns the stores skipped the country, Alpha Omega stores reopened. [WBZ] --Since Filene's is undergoing reconstruction, the annual "Running of the Brides" is moving to Hynes Convention Center and will be held February 22. [Boston......

Some City Councilors have complained about the mayor's blame game regarding the snowstorm, but one city councilor might be contributing to the problem. WBZ sent cameras to Chuck Turner's house in Roxbury, where his sidewalk wasn't shoveled. It gets better. Turner said that he's not going to shovel it and "claims people in his neighborhood don't use sidewalks." Well, where do they walk, then? Do they float? If a sidewalk is on the street, it's......

After a brief flash of clarity in which City Councilor Marjorie Decker suggested things might be getting a bit out of hand, Cambridge has up and banned the leafblowers, for five months of the year, anyway. Here's the details from the Cambridge Chronicle: According to the ordinance, residents are permitted to use leaf blowers from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, from March 16 to June 14, and from Sept. 16 to Dec.......

--Maybe Fung Wah isn't so bad after all. The local press picked up on a b0st0n LiveJournal story that a Peter Pan bus driver felt that his passengers on a trip to Boston should be punished and forced to stay on the bus in Framingham because one of them called the company about his poor driving. The driver's sorry ass is about to get fired. [WBZ, Globe, b0st0n Live Journal] --Female parking enforcement officers......

In Cambridge, some residents are irritated by the sound of leaf blowers--as opposed to all the other noises one can hear in Cambridge. So, the City Council is spending its valuable time debating when and where the dastardly leaf blowers can be used. According to Matt Dunning at the Cambridge Chronicle, the City Council spent the "better part of two hours" discussing how strong bans on leaf blowers should be. Exceptions to the ban kept......

After all the sturm und drang of a recount, Watertown City Councilor Marilyn Devaney has reclaimed her hotly contested seat following a recount. Initially, tallies showed that challenger John Donohue barely beat her. Then came the recount, which was a wild ride documented by the Watertown Wicked Local Blog and H2oTown. Devaney won that, and now the town's local scribes are waiting to find out if Donohue will challenge the initial challenge. Here's Jillian Fennimore......

Blue Velvet and The Twin Peaks Pilot Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge Monday, December 3 Tickets and showtimes It's not on any wall calendars, but December 3rd is David Lynch Day in Cambridge, at least according to the Brattle Theatre. Last year, Lynch debuted Inland Empire at the Brattle, and the Cambridge city council honored the director by giving him his own day. This year, the Brattle will celebrate by offering theatergoers a pair......

Beauty and the Geek: For the next-to-last episode, the teams traveled to wine country for an "I Love Lucy" challenge. They had to pick grapes, stomp them, and bottle grape juice--while tied to each other. Despite the disturbing sight of Big Dave and Little Jasmine hunkered over each other while stomping grapes, the pair won the challenge, prepared three bottles of grape juice laced with Eau de Foot, and guaranteed themselves a spot in the......

SFist witnessed a new apartment building tszuj the skyline with spectacular, gaudy turquoise aplomb, the (informal) renaming of the Mission/SOMA neighborhood border, the return of the Maltese Falcon, the Mayor Gavin Newsom mea culpa-ing over his Hawaiian getaway during the oil spill, and double-decker buses hitting the streets of San Francisco. Oh, and some baseball player named Barry Bonds is a liar whose pants, it seems, are totally on fire. LAist continues to cover the......

This rounds up the best of local blogs. Now that we're doing "Bite Size News," "Series of Tubes" will repeat those links, too. --Matt O'Malley, who has run for city councilor himself, analyzes the votes in the Boston City Council election and finds out what may have gone wrong for Felix Arroyo and right for John Connolly. [O'Malley on the Web] --Brace yourselves! Bobby Brown will perform at the Boston Music Awards on December 1.......

Boston city councilors Stephen Murphy and John Connolly aren't the only ones who have to learn how to get along. City councilor Chuck Turner, he of the stunning goatee, will also need to learn how to get along with Northeastern University, or vice versa depending which side you're on. Before the city council elections, Turner was angry with the school for not treating the neighborhood he represents with enough respect. He didn't mince words on......

Boston City Council: The four winners in the at-large race were incumbents Michael Flaherty, Stephen Murphy, Sam Yoon, and new arrival John Connolly. Incumbent Felix Arroyo didn't make the cut. Now Murphy and Connolly will need to figure out how to live with each other after Connolly's anonymous mailers, which accused Murphy of always looking for other jobs. Michael Pahre at Brighton Centered reports that Mark Ciommo defeated Greg Glennon for the District 9 slot......

Boston residents have two elections today--one for District 9 (Allston-Brighton) and one for the at-large city council position. Here's the rundown by District: District 3: Michael Cote is running against incumbent Maureen Feeney. District 4: J.R. Rucker is running against incumbent Charles Yancey. District 7: Carlos Henriquez is running against incumbent Chuck Turner. District 9: Gregory Glennon and Mark Ciommo are running for an open seat. And then there's the at-large election for four open......

If you walk through Cambridge, you would think that everyone is running for office based on the number of signs on residential streets. Finally, the day has arrived to vote for the city council and the school committee. There are nine open seats on the council, eight incumbents are running again, and several newbies want their jobs. The Cambridge Chronicle has a well-done list of profiles for each candidate. The big story of the election......

Those working for the candidates who want Boston's four at-large councilor spots are engaged in the typical mudslinging--but with a twist. Dave Wedge reported that someone sent anonymous fliers slamming incumbent Stephen Murphy for using the position as a stepping stone. (Look, what politician doesn't use a post as a stepping stone?) The anonymous flier story swiftly gathered speed, and Adam at Universal Hub noticed similarities in the anonymous flier and another flier sent out......

Carlo Basile, the man who was officially Democrat but fell somewhere between elephant and donkey, will be the new State Representative for East Boston. He won handily with 46% of the vote. The Hubster noted that turnout was 4,495. In the Boston City Council elections, Chuck Turner breezed to victory in District 7 (Roxbury) with 75.73% of the vote. Carlos Henriquez was second place with only 16.26% of the vote, so they will face off......

--The Cambridge City Council has decided to name intersections after Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. The Track Girls write that the council plans "to dedicate the intersections of Pearl and Cottage streets to Affleck and the corner of Pearl and Auburn streets to Damon." Once this is accomplished, wait for the college students to start defacing Affleck's corner and shouting, "And that's what I think of Gigli!" And then wait for someone to launch a......

--No, it's not what you think. David Chacon of Somerville took suckage seriously when he threw a vacuum cleaner at his roommate. The two got into a tiff, the victim went out, and, when he returned, Chacon had blocked the door. The victim busted inside, and that's when Chacon threw a knife, followed by the vacuum cleaner. Chacon was also an alleged pain in the ass when police showed up. He resisted arrest, "deliberately hit......

--Cookie Monster would be very, very sad. An employee of the Bon Appetit restaurant inside Lesley University lost his mind on Saturday morning and told his boss exactly how he felt. Jose Arevalo's boss told him to plate some cookies. He didn't feel like plating any damn cookies, so he said he "wasn't listening to her because she was a woman," shoved her, squeezed her neck, and threw her into the door of the walk-in......

The Cambridge Chronicle and Blue Mass Group are reporting that Anthony Galluccio won the State Senate seat vacated by Jarrett Barrios in today's special election. While Tim Flaherty had the most backing and Galluccio was saddled with a drunk-driving record, Galluccio also had the name recognition since he has been involved with Cambridge politics for so long. The only thing that matters is getting people to the polls and having them remember your name once......