Somerville has now had its new mayor, Jake Wilson, for 100 days.
He’s got a lot on his plate. The budget is tight. Rents are sky high. The threat of immigration enforcement has much of the city’s population on edge.
But there is plenty that gets Wilson fired up about his new role, which he took in January after unseating the city’s incumbent mayor last year.
To get a sense for how things are going, The Boston Globe invited Wilson to show off some of the Somerville spots that feel most meaningful to him at this point in his freshman year.
He agreed.
Here’s where he wanted to go:
City Hall
On the wall behind Wilson’s desk in his spacious office at City Hall, is a large painting of — what else? — Fluff, the sweet treat famously invented here. There are also not one but two posters of the rapper Frank Ocean (he’s a huge fan) and an enormous photo of what dental plaque looks like under a microscope (a gift from the Forsyth Institute).
Also, two plaques of the commemorative kind. One is a citation for his time as a city councilor. The other, for his time leading youth soccer in the city.
“The two biggest reasons I’m here,” he said.
A window, which offers an enviable view of the city, including a soccer field where his high school-age daughter was, just then, practicing lacrosse.
In one corner is a conference table. In another, some couches.
It’s here that Wilson has been trying to fulfill a campaign promise to be much more accessible in the role than his predecessor Katjana Ballantyne was, in his view. On Thursdays, he has taken the unusual step of holding public office hours, which any city resident can book.
A lot of Somerville residents have been taking him up on it. Every slot has been full, on every Thursday since he started, he said.
The Star Market ruins
The next stop was 299 Broadway, the former home of a decrepit Star Market that sat vacant for many years.
Wilson can’t exactly claim credit for this. The plan to demolish it, and to lure a developer not only to build something in its place, but to make room for affordable housing, was hatched under his predecessor.
But Wilson said he wanted to stop here to reflect on what the city can learn from the way it handled this rare opportunity to build in a big space. Namely, by being extraordinarily generous, greasing the skids with big tax breaks for the developer.
The result was 319 new apartments, 115 of them affordable units, along with new community space and a park.
The city will get another crack at this at 90 Washington, another plot of land that it acquired in recent years (and paid a lot more than it planned to after losing a big lawsuit), with hopes that it will be home to a new mixed-use development.
“To me, this is a road map of what you can do when you put your money where your mouth is on something. When you invest in it, you get the right incentives, and you end up with a project that everyone is very, very excited about,” he said.
The Davis Square ‘slip lane’
You can’t exactly wave a magic wand and make Davis Square perfect. In-your-face homelessness and drug use have been an issue here, as neighbors know all too well. A large chunk of the neighborhood has been in limbo for years as developers have sought, and so far failed, to build various housing and lab projects, including the latest proposal to build a controversial 26-story apartment building. There has been both outrage and vehement support for this; Wilson has remained neutral. In the meantime, many storefronts sit vacant.
But you can get creative, he says.
The next stop Wilson picked was the neighborhood’s “slip lane,” a stretch of pavement the city owns in front of the popular Mike’s Food and Spirits, but has mostly been dormant for half a decade now.
Wilson said he is working on a plan, set to be announced soon, that would add tables and chairs and invite musicians to perform in the space to “just really make it feel alive,” he said.
His administration has also talked about doing the same thing in Statue Park, another public space that, lately, has been a gathering place for the homeless population and people with drug or mental health issues who have been coming in greater numbers.
It won’t change everything, he acknowledged. But it sends a message to the broader public that the neighborhood is still the arts destination it’s been for decades.
“We talk a lot about the narrative around the square,” he said. “When we improve the situation here, the narrative will come along with that.”
La Brasa
If it was an omen, it wasn’t a good one.
When Wilson celebrated his election victory, he did it at an upscale restaurant on Broadway called La Brasa. It had been a favorite of his. They took campaign photos in front of its multicolored wooden entryway, and packed the dining room the night he won his election.
Then, not long after, La Brasa closed for good.
The restaurant was one of many in the immigrant-dense East Somerville neighborhood which saw declining foot traffic during Trump’s second term as immigrants in the neighborhood report limiting their time traveling outdoors. When there are reports of ICE activity here — real or not — many parents sill won’t send their kids to school.
“That is a direct result of the climate in this country, in terms of immigration enforcement. What Donald Trump is doing has really had a negative impact on East Somerville,” he said.
“I’m just really worried what we end up looking like here if this keeps going, you know? It’s caused me a lot of anxiety.”
Per protocol, mayors travel in SUVs steered by drivers. Usually, they’re all black. He asked the city’s police chief if his could be painted bright orange, so people wouldn’t mistake him for a federal agent. He was rebuffed. They settled on gray.
“Even this color, you get looks like, ‘Is that ICE?’”
Hopping back in the “mayor mobile,” as he calls it, Wilson headed back to City Hall. There is plenty he does not like about the building, which shows its age, with paint noticeably flaking in thick chunks off the tall white columns outside the building’s entrance, which he admits is not the best look for people who have been coming by in the early days of his term.
“Definitely needs a fresh coat,” he said.
Spencer Buell can be reached at spencer.buell@globe.com. Follow him @SpencerBuell.