News Nearby: Protestors Dump Trash at Bank of America Branch

Each Saturday, Melrose Patch will run a round-up with links to stories from surrounding communities that are of interest to Melrosians.

• : MALDEN—About 10 to 15 protesters cleaned a dilapidated, foreclosed property on Clinton Street Monday morning, and then delivered the ten bags of trash they collected to the Malden Center branch of Bank of America. Activists associated with Mass Uniting accused the bank, which owns the property at 56 Clinton St., of failing to maintain a number of properties throughout the city and commonwealth. Two days later, dozens of protesters to dump the trash.

• : READING—Approximately 200 members of the Reading community gathered at the Reading Memorial High School field house Wednesday for a discussion about drugs in the community. Participants named potential root causes of the abuse, but largely agreed that the community tends to deny that it has a drug issue.

• : MEDFORD—Patti Davis’s battle with the rats began in mid-June, when she spotted one near her Dexter Street home. The next day she spotted another. The next thing she knew, they were jumping out at her while she was watering her lawn. Since then, she’s confronted the issue head-on by inundating city officials in both Medford and Somerville with phone calls and emails,  seeking to have properties in her neighborhood cleaned up and have literature distributed on rat prevention education.

• : WAKEFIELD—There are currently three options on the table for the future of the Galvin Middle School: An addition that would preserve much of the school's common spaces such as gym, library and auditorium; a large addition of a brand-new "classroom wing" that also preserves the auditorium; or a completely new school that seeks to group students together into learning clusters to create more of a community feel.