hello everyone and welcome to belmont journal your onestop destination for hyperlocal news and community information my name is todd bloniarz pleased for the opportunity to take a turn in the host chair this week as i've been a volunteer here at the belmont media center for over twenty five years that goes back to a time when there was only one local access channel and the studio was working under a different name in a much smaller space over at the high school i also produce and cohost my own show time out for sports talk which just like belmont journal airs on the bmc public access channel and can also be viewed on demand at belmontmediaorg we begin this weeks show with an important reminder about the upcoming trash and recycling collection program here in town first of all the new carts that you'll be using for the collection program they're going to be delivered during the first or the last week in june and in the first week of july so over the next couple of weeks if you're not going to be home during that time just make sure you make the necessary arrangements so that the carts will be placed on your property and if you're looking to purchase any overflow bags for the collection program you can get those at hollingsworth five and ten located on trapelo road the hillside garden true value on blanchard road and also at the dpw office on moore street now time for a fun fact did you know that there are three hundred and fifty one town clerks that work all across this commonwealth i bring that up because earlier this month the massachusetts town clerks association awarded belmont's own ellen o'brien cushman as the massachusetts town clerk of the year chosen the best at her job out of three hundred and fifty one worthy candidates ellen has been belmont's town clerk since two thousand and ten and in this segment town administrator patrice garvin tells belmont journal why she submitted ellen's name and what ellen herself thinks about receiving this honor honestly ellen cushman is by far the best clerk i've ever seen she's smart she's dedicated she lays out things in a very clear and concise and logical way which i really respond to i've had lot of fun working with her and i believe that good work should be recognized and when the nomination papers came through i couldn't find any reason not to so i submitted her name i put in a couple of things that i've observed even in my short time being here and then that was enough to get the nomination committee to notice ellen and recognize her in this great way you know it's a huge honor for not just me for my office i mean we work really hard and i'm the leader of an amazing group of people i mean that's really what that means to me obviously we all know anybody who works in an office that has more than one person because the town clerk is not just the town clerk it's the town clerk's office and so with meg and nancy and dan together we're a pretty formidable team i think that's what that means and we hope that we take care of the people in the town of belmont that they come to us with their issues and they just sometimes need a little bit of extra guidance or handholding and they can come to us and also rely on us for the more predictable parts of our job like running helping to run town meeting or the elections and produce their vital records and marry them etc i mean it's a pretty big deal that people put their trust in us to do that for many belmont residents the opening of the underwood pool marks the official start to summer the new underwood public swimming pool opens for its fourth season on saturday june 23rd belmont journal's frdrique rigoulot talks with frank sartori about keeping the pristine pool clean it's about ten to twelve weeks to prepare the pool and we begin around the first week of april the parks division comes in and does an initial inspection to see how badly the winter has affected our pool that pretty much governs how much work we have to do in the beginning how much time we need to prepare for the opening all of this particular week we're trying to get the water cleared up and running properly in balance so that the pool can open on saturday it has to meet the state requirements or the priority levels and the balancing of the ph and chlorine so the ideal range for the chlorine level is between one and three parts per million the ideal range for the ph level is between seventy two and seventy four and we try to maintain those ranges consistently throughout the year the parks division checks it five times a day we also have life guards that check the chemical levels several times a day and we have spot inspections from the health department the main thing we do is to try to keep as much debris out of the water as possible maintain bacteria level checks daily we used the automated vacuums in the evening to clean some of the sediment around the bottom of the pool it's a neptune benson sand bottom filtration system with an ultraviolet disinfection backup system which helps break down bacteria in the water so we use less chemicals that way the facility is fully ada compliant we try to make everybody happy and to accommodate everyone enjoy time now for this week in the belmontonian with editor and publisher franklin tucker franklin good to see you once again and i guess there was a meeting of a task force in town this week with some big decisions coming out that's right it was a recommendation by the superintendent's vocational education options working group and that has an acronym yeah which we don't have enough time in the segment right exactly to tell you what it is and it was established after belmont decided back in october of two thousand and sixteen to leave the minuteman school district because of differences in what they should be paying in terms of the capital costs for building the new school which surprisingly enough is being built faster than they ever thought it was going to be built and it's going online in two thousand and nineteen so maybe that's something we can look for in our high school but so we go back to the task force and what they decided is that after doing a lot of reviewing and looking at other options including programs such as a collaborative among cambridge and somerville and waltham where they have vocational programs and also looking at shawsheen tech as another option they decided that the best thing for our thirty to forty kids who go each year to a vocational education is to return to the minuteman school district as a full member now i don't know how that's going to be how people are going to react to that but this has been a very thoughtful taskforce it really looked at everything that we were that belmont students need whether it was social emotional and extracurricular and what type of education they're going to receive and it just turned out that minuteman was the best buy for the dollar does some of it comes down to location as well just the fact that minutemans a little bit closer than some of the other options that's another big thing you can basically take kids and put them on a bus and bring them to i guess now the school is no longer in lexington it's now in lincoln but it's just feet away sure right down trapelo road exactly and that closeness will also allow them to take extracurricular such as sports which is always important for kids so now what's going to go forward is that the superintendent john fallon will be bringing this to the board of selectmen again it's just a recommendation they don't have to follow it but it is a very like i said very thorough look at this at this need that we have and then it will likely go to town meeting probably not in the special town meeting in the fall but probably in the annual town meeting because the decision does not have to be made until september of two thousand and twenty while we're on the subject of high schools the belmont high school you actually have some official dates as to when the new high school is going to be built that's right skanska which is the construction company that is building the is that another acronym no no no that's a big it sounds like one it's a big swedish company okay they are they've been talking with the architects which is perkin and will and skanska is also the firm that built at the wellington elementary school so they're familiar with belmont and they've come out with a four year plan and starting as soon as well first of all the money has to be paid for it you know they have to the town has to pay for the debt exclusion which could be up to a one hundred and twenty million dollars it could be even less than that but they have designs already done it's beautiful it looks great and if the money is approved then they will be putting piles pilings into the ground in april next year so we're talking very quickly they're going to be moving as faster than most people think because that's when they'll really begin starting the first construction which will be the new high school section will be the nine to twelve and that will be basically from the from where the gym is where the field house is all the way out to about where harris field is and they'll be building that and not touching the high school that is oh well for more on all these stories don't forget to follow the belmontonian on both facebook and twitter thanks for joining us this week franklin thank you very much after six years on the job belmont high school principal daniel richards is stepping down at the end of this month to pursue similar opportunities closer to his home on the north shore as he leaves his office on concord ave richards talks to belmont journal about the challenges that lay ahead for the high school there's been a variety of them you know budget we challenged with every year but also just the growth and the culture shifts for the building when i started we were about nine hundred and fifty we're about we're over one thousand three hundred right now and as that growth happens culture shifts along the way and taking that culture and aiming it in a direction of creativity innovation risktaking as they adapt to tighter spaces classrooms out in the mods to keep that rolling has been a challenge but i will say that it's a challenge that i'm really proud of and that the faculty and staff have embraced and they're well on their way to being innovative creative educators keeping that direction creativity innovation this new building coming on board is a huge opportunity for them to expand on what they're doing and i just wish everyone the very best in creating an environment that people absolutely thrive and love to come to every day time now for this week in the belmont citizenherald with joanna tzouvelis the senior multimedia journalist for the belmont citizenherald and wicked local belmont hello joanna nice to see you nice to be here tom nice to have you as our host today yeah well it's been fun it's been fun giving this a shot so and let's talk about it's been a busy week i guess there was a public meeting earlier this week to discuss something that you had spoke about last week the results of the incinerator site exactly over on concord avenue so the selectmen wanted to get ideas from the public for uses for the incinerator site which is about twenty five acres of town owned land a lot of it is wetlands it was used for an incinerator and there's actually a building on there the actual incinerator is still on the land it's now just used mostly for public works storage of leaf composting and concrete waste and stuff like that and it'll continue to need to be used by public works even after they determine what the use is yeah a lot of interesting suggestions came out of the public meeting a bike and skate park a hockey rink and a anaerobic digester which to me sounds like some advice you'd get from your health club instructor do you know what it is i do not but i'm hoping you could explain it to me and our audience here i'm gonna do my best to do that but from what i understand it's used to collect organic waste it's an enclosed facility for organic waste and what happens is the organic waste turns into electricity in this anaerobic digester it's a process and that actually they said could generate income for the town there's two ways it would generate income you would pay a fee like if you're a commercial business that collects waste you know and you need somewhere to dispose of it you would bring it to our anaerobic digester and you would pay a fee and then it would turn into electricity which is also revenue for the town it's very scientific it's very technical and there are some negatives the negatives are that you need good odor control because if something goes wrong with the odor control it'll smell it'll smell really bad i grew up in a rural part of massachusetts where you know we had our own compost pile and yeah it can get pretty i mean that itself even on our little yard would raise quite a stink even though it's enclosed something could go wrong with those controls the other thing is traffic there are commercial vehicles that will be delivering this waste so it could potentially cause some traffic on concord avenue which is where this site is located which yeah there's not that much of it right now i mean you know there's never really been traffic issues on that part of the road there right so that those are some of the negatives and let's say the selectmen do votes because they collected all these ideas and now they're going to study the ideas and decide you know which ones might be the top three and then they're eventually going to vote on the top one so if this makes it to the top there is some more evaluation of the land that needs to be done to make sure it's even feasible and from what i understand an anaerobic digester they don't really exist around towns like belmont they're more in farm kind of towns like western mass and more farm land kind of thing out in my old neck of the woods right where i grew up it's interesting the resident that brought it to the selectman's attention his name is bruce haskell and he works for an environmental consulting firm called langdon do you want to hear about some of the other ideas well yeah no i was just gonna just to kind of follow up on that though this might be you know i can understand there might be a push for this anaerobic digester cause in the segment we're gonna have coming up a little bit later on belmont journal we have a conversation with julie wu oh yes from a group belmont compost so there's definitely citizens here in town that want to really push for the you know compost in fact julie wu was at that meeting and she said why don't we just use it for composting for food and leaf waste but i'm not sure how that would work you know we do have a rat issue in belmont so really are you aware of that i was not no so all that comes to mind when i hear composting is rats but i'm sure julie would know of a way to prevent that from happening so she was there with her idea another gentleman had a lot of great ideas a pet cemetery a dog park a driving range that came up as an idea wow that sounds like fun all these ideas was written down playing fields yeah that's an option you know what unfortunately joanna we're going to have to save this you'll have to talk about it at a future time well this will be coming up this is ongoing i will definitely keep you updated appreciate that for more on this story don't forget to read the belmont citizenherald or you can go online to wicked local belmont joanna thank you for joining us here on belmont journal thank you todd up next belmont's own jane peters brings us this week's installment of the belmont community calendar but first she talks with julie wu of belmont compost a newly formed group that wants to reduce belmont's trash by developing a low cost curbside composting option i promise the segment will not be a waste of your time see what i did there hi everybody we're here in a new location on this week's community calender we're here with julie julie is the founder of the belmont compost group in town your goal is to increase composting within belmont and also you have some other initiatives going on so thank you so much for being here today on the show thanks for coming and letting me talk about this so yeah so we recently founded belmont compost which is a group that's mission is to increase curbside composting and decrease belmont's trash by increasing awareness of the different curbside composting options and also making it possible to have low cost composting for the citizens and also businesses and the schools as well great cool so can you give us just the quick rundown of the difference between a curbside composting versus home composting yeah so actually we started out with home composting we love to garden and so we've always had our own compost pile in the back this past winter when we closed down the compost pile i just felt terrible about throwing food waste into the trash so we started out with city compost and then once a week they come and they take away the food waste and they take it to a composting facility and so we tried that this winter i was really impressed by how much more you can compost in a professional facility than you can compost at home because actually you can put in meats and dairy products and cooked foods you can put in paper products of all kinds and so actually it really dramatically reduced our trash that's great yeah so i was very impressed by that and i was thinking why aren't we doing this sure townwide so i started looking around to see if there were companies that could do citywide composting and also would give a group rate and i found this one company black earth that gives like fifty discounts for groups of over three hundred and then i found out that actually at chenery they're trying to start a composting pilot there and it turns out that black earth gives a referral discount if you sign up as a resident then chenery will get a ten credit off of their composting so i started this campaign you know hoping to get three hundred people in belmont signed up if we got three hundred people to sign up and if they all named chenery as their refer yeah that's huge then that's about three thousand right and that would pay for about a year's worth of composting for chenery so we really want chenery to succeed because all the other schools are looking at chenery and seeing how they do and if chenery does if chenery's project with composting goes well then they might start there yeah get the ball rolling exactly yeah and then otherwise you can check out our facebook site which is belmont compost with an exclamation mark and lets see we'll be at the payson park music festival concerts and in july and august we'll be at the farmer's markets as well great so people can talk to you at any one of those events yeah so we'll be there and they can learn more yep great and can people contact you if they're interested if they have any questions yep they certainly can they can contact me well i think it's a really great mission and it's great to you know to be educating people about it in the first place and to be signing up for these programs to kind of incentivize people to hopefully sign up for some of these programs so we wish you tons of luck again almost a third of the way there if you're interested in signing up you can learn more on their facebook page and they can sign up on black earth's website if they're interested in joining in on that program and don't forget to refer chenery if you do sign up so that they get that credit but thank you so much for being here thank you very much here at your house thanks very much for coming having us here today and for talking about this really great group thank you and with that we're going to bring you next week's events on the community calender many great kids write average or even bad college essays essays about life lessons learned from football or how my trip to europe broadened my cultural horizons better tales are there for the writing collegewise brings an essay writing workshop to the library on monday at seven hundred to show you what admissions officers really look for in a great essay and offer suggestions for finding and sharing your best stories play baseball trivia and enjoy singing baseball songs with howie newman at the beech street center on tuesday at one hundred and fifteen hear stories about his days as a sports writer and enjoy baseball and classic songs from yesteryear newman spent years covering baseball for the lynn item lowell sun patriot ledger and boston globe we're all artists at heart and collage lets us express ourselves with our choice of materials as well as design make a beautiful and meaningful piece of artwork in a fun and social setting with other beech street members on tuesday at two hundred and thirty artist ann miller will share specific collage making techniques materials will be provided but feel free to bring your own clippings photos textures or painting and drawing materials social documentary network and digital silver imaging present documentary matters community night if you're looking for feedback on your documentary work or a place to meet with others involved or interested in documentary photography you can apply to present your work for critique and discussion on tuesday from six hundred and thirty to nine hundred at digital silver imaging you can register on social documentary network's website fireflies are a natural joy of summer learn about them and search for them around belmont habitat on tuesday from eight hundred and fifteen to nine hundred and forty five this program is designed for all ages but be aware of the late time it needs to be dark to spot them sign up for this and other programs on the mass audubon website join us senator ed markey and the leading climate change experts for a summit on one of the greatest crises of our time following a discussion of the current state of affairs on climate policy and possible solutions questions will be taken from the audience you can join the discussion on thursday from seven hundred to eight hundred and thirty at the hs powers music school presents a powwow session to performance of cows in the kitchen on friday at nine hundred am at the first church in belmont students ages five through eleven will perform the musical theater piece that they have learned over the two week program you can register your children now for powwow sessions three and four at powersmusicorg and that's it for this week if you'd like your event featured in belmont journal's community calendar you can send your event info to janebelmontmediaorg up next the story on bhs senior service day where students give something back to the community through volunteering here's how they felt about it this is senior service day we're here at the community farms in waltham we are cleaning some buckets to fill fresh produce with to give back to the local citizens our community service was at peace of heart and we painted around the wall the wall outside the park and as we were painting the wall a lot of the neighbors they walked by with their little kids and their families and they said thank you and that made us that made me feel good about it i felt like i was helping the community we are out here volunteering at a soup kitchen in watertown we're mopping the floors and cleaning the kitchen and we're gonna help with food they really it really makes me appreciate what i do have you know what i often take for granted it makes me feel like i'm being helpful because you know i feel like their first priority isn't oh like today we have to clean out all of our stuff it's kind of like today we just have to keep giving out food so it's nice to do like little things for them and make it a little bit easier so we are at the belmont public library and we're working with two members of the garden club and we have been digging out what they call a hell strip i feel pretty good about this it's really fun we're having a ball out here and i definitely recommend it i would definitely do it again i love it it was a lot of fun and it's nice to be outside on a nice day remember that the success of belmont journal depends on you the viewers and your support please email your story ideas to executive producer frdrique rigoulot at fredbelmontmediaorg we conclude this week show with bmc's program scheduled accompanied by some smooth jazz for all of our contributors and the entire crew here at belmont journal i'm todd bloniarz saying thanks again for the opportunity and so long for now