By The Times Staff

Second Middlesex Senate District

Our present state senator, Pat Jehlen, has been around a long time. She has now been senator for 11 years and before that spent many years as a state representative. Sen. Jehlen won the seat right after Senator Charlie Shannon, who served about 15 years as our senator, passed away in office. We like to say we are for Senator Jehlen for many reasons, even if it’s only the fact that she lives here in the city and has been around for many years.

But we thought about her accomplishments over the years and we found very few, other than a bill she proposed for elderly protection that recently passed.

There is one bill she and other legislators from Somerville voted “no” on, the “Tax Free Weekend,” which would have benefited not just businesses but poor elderly residents.

Then we considered her challenger and discussed how he’s from Cambridge and how that might not go over well with the old time Somerville residents. But then we thought about how the city has changed over the years and how Sen. Jehlen has had few accomplishments, until lately.

There are lots of new residents and new voters in Somerville now who have come to love our city as many old timers have, so we choose to do the fair thing, in our opinion.

We decided to endorse Cambridge City Councilor Leland Cheung for State Senate representing Somerville, Cambridge, Medford and Winchester for a few reasons. We know that he is as progressive as Sen. Jehlen, but we think Leland Cheung is a better choice to represent the present day progressives and all of Somerville’s diverse community.

We know he has been knocking on doors himself, in the neighborhoods throughout the district, and he’s presented himself as a new voice for the district. He is also very strongly for the ballot question on lifting the number on charter schools here in Massachusetts, presently from 17 a year that would be licensed to no cap at all, like all progressives should be for.

We feel that candidate Cheung will bring a good change to the State House representing the district. He is new, he is ambitious and just maybe it is his time. We feel he will be committed to our district and will be readily available to all constituents in the district, not just those who supported him.

We hope you will consider him for a vote on September 8 for a change and a new State Senator representing us here in the Second Middlesex District.

State Representative Twenty-sixth Middlesex District

This district includes East Somerville and parts of Ward 2, as well as East Cambridge. Presently, the state representative is Tim Toomey, who has held office a long time and is also a city councilor in Cambridge. He has been re-elected many times by the residents of Cambridge on the council and the residents of the district for state representative. His challenger is Mike Connolly, a lawyer in East Cambridge who ran a few years ago against Rep. Toomey and was defeated.

We looked over the challenger’s background and his views on the issues, and Rep. Toomey’s as well, and we feel that State Representative Tim Toomey should be re-elected to the House of Representatives.

Rep. Tim Toomey has worked hard for his constituents. He is a hands-on legislator who is always in the neighborhoods and always available to talk with a concerned resident, and if they have a problem he will and has proven that he is there working hard for the district, making sure his constituents are well served.

We know that Rep. Tim Toomey also serves on the Cambridge City Council and has been re-elected every year by the people of Cambridge, so he must be doing a great job there. We have to be honest, when anyone sees Rep. Tim Toomey and wants to talk or ask questions he’s always listening. He does not take the voters for granted like some do. Without a question, Rep. Tim Toomey is our choice for re-election.

Governor’s Councilor

We are for none of the above, especially the incumbent. We feel this is nothing but a hack job, a waste of taxpayers’ money and the legislators should abolish the position.

Some say that the present Governor’s Councilor is a mouthpiece for the MBTA union. The only true power they have is to review the appointment of judges to the bench and court clerks. We can all agree that too many judges have been appointed in the past that have been something less than desirable.

We cannot find a single state that has this elected body that gets paid to sit and vote on appointments made by the governor on only two matters. It is a waste of government should be abolished.

Now, before you read this, and if you are not interested in politics, did you know what this office was? We suggest you vote for anyone other than the present incumbent Terrace Kennedy, who, granted, has a lot of political support – some of them hacks themselves – and he has campaign signs everywhere.