The kids complain that there's nothing to do… well, kids always do, but this time they have a point. Somerville has few recreational facilities and little green space to begin with, what used to be an effective youth program has been gutted by Finneran's and Romney's budget cuts, and summer jobs are as hard to come by as any other kind.

The board of aldermen can't create jobs (except perhaps a few for their political cronies), and they can't restore the youth department budget. But in a desperate effort to be seen as doing something useful, they've spent much of their time over the last year constructing an "anti-gang" ordinance that would more or less suspend the right to freedom of association in Somerville.

You might think it's the most regressive legislation passed in Somerville since the privatization of city trash collection. But wait…

Like our youth, the aldermen clearly have too much time on their hands, as they also found room in their schedule to amend the zoning ordinance so that big box (excuse me, "lifestyle center") developers can have their way in Assembly Square without any review of the impact on traffic and air pollution.

Kids in East Somerville already suffer from a higher level of respirational disease than the statewide average, no doubt due in part to the poor air quality around Routes 93 and 28. How many more will be affected by the constant traffic to the "lifestyle center", the Super Stop and Shop and the proposed Ikea? Nobody knows, and few seem to care.

Fortunately, both these misguided efforts are likely to be thrown out by the courts. Unfortunately, they’re probably not the last harebrained schemes we're going to see hatched by our current city leaders.

Here's hoping that the current crop will be replaced by a new team that will be more interested in solving our many problems than in political grandstanding and toadying to out-of-town business interests.

Paul Lachelier and Bill Bumpus host "Progressive Politics" on Somerville Cable Access Television (Channel 3), every other Monday. Upcoming guests include Rich Rogers, Secretary-Treasurer of the Greater Boston Central Labor Council (Sept. 20) and a representative of the Progressive Democrats of Somerville (Oct. 10)