watch and listen to the talking news every day at twelve noon and six hundred pm on channel ninety six comcast xfinity and channel thirty verizon fios it can also be heard mondays and tuesdays at four hundred and thirty pm and wednesdays at one thousand two hundred and thirty pm on channel nine xfinity and channel twenty nine fios listen anytime on the bmc podcast network on soundcloud and itunes just search for the belmont media podcast network and now on to the talking news big plans in store at watertown's arsenal yards by angela thoma with the coming of the new year residents can look forward to the opening of some new shops and eateries nearby at arsenal yards in watertown arsenal yards is a mixeduse development located at the former arsenal mall site the development consists of more than a million square feet and will be comprised of shops eateries office space four hundred and twenty five residences fitness services a hilton hotel a green space and a bike path there will be forty tenants in total the wilder companies and boylston properties are the developers finding the right tenants for arsenal yards is a challenge according to boylston properties principle bill mcquillan the developers are looking for tenants who fit two needs first they have to keep the banks happy what this means mcquillan said is prospective retailers must meet a certain credit worthiness and have a record of reliability and longevity the trick is to attract tenants who are also new fresh and interesting and provide consumers with a reason to look up from their screens and to go out shopping the retail business is very challenging in this world of ecommerce we have to work very hard to find the right people and the right stores mcquillan said our job is to create a mix of people who satisfy the banks who have lent us a lot of money as well as satisfy the customer who is going to make the property and the project a success so far there are thirteen confirmed tenants including city works eatery and pour house condesa restaurante mexicano european wax center gap outlet hampton by hilton marshalls old navy pokeworks roche brothers shake shack tmobile the majestic at arsenal malls at arsenal yards excuse me and utra mcquillan said representatives in charge of leasing for both boylston and wilder are out all the time talking to potential candidates and trying to figure out who the right folks are for the development according to mcquillan arsenal yards is hoping to bring as many local tenants as possible while we have great respect for national and regional retailers we hope to curate local retailers and restaurants into the property he said so far mcquillan believes their request for local retailers has been successful he mentioned both roche brothers and condesa restaurante mexicano as examples roche brothers is a local chain of supermarkets headquartered in wellesley locals ed and rick roche coown the company currently they operate twenty stores throughout greater boston metrowest and southern massachusetts and over to my colleague claire thank you bob north indian cuisine comes to belmont spice delight will be located at sixty three concord ave by rachel kelly spice delight featuring north indian cuisine is now officially open under the leadership of owner rusty gill and his business partners rahul bagga raghubir singh and tony padam the restaurant is located at sixty three concord ave occupying the space where chinese restaurant golden garden closed in late two thousand and seventeen spice delight's menu created by executive chef singh features items inspired by the cuisine of punjab where the men grew up bagga said that north indian dishes such as chicken tikka and kebabs are often based on meats and breads instead of rice and lentils gill said that the restaurant projects a simple elegance with its clean modern style and traditional indian instrumental music playing in the background the food is going to be nice of course but there is a lot more to this experience than just the food he said he said that he hopes that the close relationship he has with his partners extends to the guests of the restaurant i don't really run this like it's a business but more like a family that's what my approach to life in general is based on he said gill first entered the food industry selling wholesale pizzas to new england schools after leaving his job pricing mutual funds at state street in the early 1990s he owned another restaurant zaika taste of india in medford until just last year when a wegmans supermarket moved in taking over the space padam who was gill's college roommate said that he hopes to target spice delight's marketing strategies and social media posts to the interests of the people in and around belmont to make guests feel personally connected to the restaurant we want people in here to be looking less at their phones and instead to be having conversations with their families and also with the staff he said padam said that the restaurant's management will be posting on instagram facebook and twitter to engage with customers gill said that he wants the staff at spice delight to be authentically happy to promote a welcoming energy in the restaurant there are a lot of places with decent food but it's the atmosphere which makes you want to keep coming back he said spice delight is open monday through saturday from one thousand one hundred am to nine hundred and thirty pm and sundays from one thousand one hundred am to nine hundred pm now over to max thanks claire potential race for selectman seat two prospective candidates town meeting member jessie bennett and warrant committee chairman roy epstein pulled papers for the seat by joanna k tzouvelis once the news of mark paolillo not running for reelection to a fourth term on the board of selectmen broke within a few days two prospective candidates pulled papers for the seat town meeting member jessie bennett pulled papers on january ninth and warrant committee chairman roy epstein pulled papers january 11th to be nominated each candidate must collect signatures from at least fifty registered voters of the town to be certified by the town clerk at press time neither candidate turned in their nomination papers about jessie bennett jessie bennett town meeting member precinct one pulled papers on january ninth for the selectman seat bennett is the first woman to consider running since alexandra ruban ran against selectmen vice chairman mark paolillo in two thousand and sixteen paolillo recently announced he will not seek reelection to a fourth term bennett has lived in belmont with her wife stephanie burt for eleven years and their two children ages thirteen and eight who attend the public schools in belmont in addition to her experience with town meeting she is a member of the high school traffic working group burbank pta chenery pto part of the townwide safe routes to school group a board member of the foundation for belmont education and the belmont after school enrichment collaborative basec bennett was also recently appointed to the transportation advisory committee bennett was also part of the steering committee for the yes for belmont seven to twelve campaign and the two thousand and fifteen override campaign this is something i feel drawn to said bennett when we were trying to hammer out thorny issues like trash issues and traffic problems we need to be approaching it with intellectual curiosity and rigor and a readiness to engage i hope that those are some of the qualities i'll bring to it if i'm chosen for the job she said her work on the marketing side of the override and debt exclusion campaigns helped her get to know the issues inside out and upside down i had to be ready to engage with people in person and online about their concerns and questions i realized that to gain an indepth understanding of town issues you need to be willing to have your butt in a chair during a meeting to dig for the right reports and to reach out and ask questions town issues she said that she is most concerned about currently are traffic and communication she believes the current board has made a lot of progress and hopes to keep the momentum going we are at a moment ripe with possibility we need to be really thoughtful about what our next steps are bennett said she wants to be part of leading policy changes needed to help with the traffic situation and infrastructure she also wants to be part of addressing other infrastructure issues in town that are so important and is very focused on the quality of life issues bennett said she grew up in a workingclass family and understands how tight money can get i want to make sure belmont remains a community that's affordable for a wide swath of people and a place where people feel welcome and valued she said her professional experience is in nonprofits she was in the marketing department of beacon press for six years and prior to that helped run a literary magazine and book festival in minnesota she currently freelances as a web designer and social media consultant i try to approach everything with an open mind and rigor and dig in i try to get under what gloss people are putting on an issue and try to see what's really going on said bennett she considers herself a pragmatic progressive who knows how to talk to people listen to people and think for herself i hope that serves me well the reality is i respect we all have different views we all have to work together on the things that really matter said bennett over to you bob thank you max another candidate for the position roy epstein in addition to serving on the warrant committee since two thousand and seven and as its chairman for the past three years epstein has been a town meeting member precinct six for more than ten years he also serves on the public works police department building committee community path project committee and belmont light board advisory committee his history of service to the town he has lived in for twenty four years also includes being a member of the major capital projects working group municipal light temporary net metering working group as the chairman town administrator search committee and town accounted search committee and belmont light substation site committee epstein said that he has been thinking about running for the past few years it's a big step he said the hours are long and the pay is low and it's a big responsibility epstein would have supported paolillo if he had run again had mark continued i would have been delighted he said he said he also supported selectman tom caputo who ran uncontested last year there's a long list of big questions that are on the horizon just to start with the high school dpw police station community path are building projects that need to be completed and they need to be completed well because they involve a huge amount of money and they will have a huge affect said epstein in addition to these projects he said there's a very long list ranging from school to capital projects to town budget and much more i feel i more than maybe almost anybody right now has been involved in so many of these areas that i thought it would be irresponsible not to at least try said epstein he feels gratified by the support that he has received so far from people he has told about his decision to run i think the town is better off with a contested race there's been a problem attracting candidates even for town meeting and i think it's unfortunate the candidates are better in a contested race he said epstein works as a economic consultant in complex commercial litigation and is an adjunct professor of finance at boston college he became a town meeting member in two thousand and three and joined the warrant committee a few years later because he was impressed at how town meeting looked to the warrant committee for guidance when a significant question came up epstein and his wife joanna raised their two sons martin and jacob in belmont who both attended the public schools he received his bachelor of arts degree in economics from wesleyan university and his phd in economics from yale university and now over to my colleague claire thanks bob justice remains unserved special report criminals run free while authorities drown in open arrest warrants by mike wagner doug caruso daphne chen john futty and eli sherman editor's note this is first of a twopart series millions of americans are wanted on criminal arrest warrants including hundreds of thousands accused of murder rape robbery or assault while victims wait for justice in massachusetts there are more than three hundred and ninety thousand open warrants many cases stay open for years even decades often forgotten as law enforcers and judges struggle to keep up with new warrants filed in courthouses across the nation each day an investigation by wicked local gatehouse media and the columbus dispatch found more than fifty seven million cases in twenty seven states with open arrest warrants enough to lock up eight hundred and thirty one of all massachusetts residents reporters sought records from all fifty states but twenty three did not provide usable data among those warrants reporters identified nearly two hundred and forty thousand cases involving violence a weapon or sexual misconduct enough to fill every state prison cell in texas michigan and virginia most jurisdictions around the nation are doing nothing with warrants like this nothing said david kennedy professor of criminal justice at john jay college of criminal justice in new york city and director of the college's national network for safe communities the warrants pile up as of august 20th two thousand and eighteen open warrants in massachusetts accumulated to three hundred and ninety thousand three hundred and eighty three dating back to one thousand nine hundred and seventy according to data compiled by the mass executive office of the trial court the data was provided in response to a public records request by wicked local as warrants are issued the majority are closed but a number remain open for various reasons such as individuals are in jail have not been apprehended have been deported have moved out of state or are currently incarcerated out of state road court administrator jonathan s williams in a response to the records request citing undue burden or expense massachusetts would not break down the warrants by original offense or provide any biographic information about the accused without the charges it's impossible to separate which massachusetts warrants are related to violent charges interviews with judges attorneys and law enforcement officials from across massachusetts show a large portion of the unserved warrants stem from minor offenses such as not paying a parking ticket warrants cross socioeconomic levels but disproportionately affect poorer communities and racial and ethnic minorities open warrants have been a problem in the massachusetts court system for decades explained retired judge raymond doogan who served as an associate justice at boston municipal court from one thousand nine hundred and ninety one to two thousand and fourteen paths to a warrant authorities issued a warrant when they have evidence someone committed a crime but haven't yet located or arrested the suspect many people face warrants because they were charged with a crime or even given a traffic ticket but didn't appear for a court date others were convicted but violated their probation most people especially those wanted for minor offenses remain free as long as they don't cross paths with law enforcement people are stunned when they're stopped for a traffic ticket and then taken into custody said peter elikann a massachusetts defense attorney if you're arrested on a friday evening and court doesn't open till monday you could be sitting in lockup for three days overall records collected by gatehouse media showed one case with an open arrest warrant for every thirty two people in the state providing data in massachusetts the number totaled about one warrant for every seventeen people now here's max thank you claire followup continuing with the same story waiting for justice police since august two thousand and seventeen have been looking for cornell bell suspected of killing michelle clark of weymouth the 33yearold mother who had dated bell in the past shared a son with andly cribb who was hopeful an arrest would be made i'm not giving up he said i'm hopeful something will come up and justice will be served but i honestly don't think that will happen it just doesn't seem like much is happening bell was wanted on outstanding warrants for other violent crimes at the time he is suspected to have killed clark the search continues but cribb says it feels to him like the effort to find bell has deteriorated those responsible for serving warrants in massachusetts law enforcement agencies often are drowning in other duties taking time away from tracking down offenders and new cases with fresher leads come into police departments every day law enforcement agencies say they try to prioritize cases but it's easy for some to fall through the cracks if warrants aren't served in the first few days or weeks when judges issue bench warrants for probation violators or for those who fail to appear in court police often don't know about it judges are buried under their own case loads and rarely have time to pick up the phone to call detectives on individual cases judges may have a hundred cases called in the course of a day durken said it's very unlikely that judges sitting in sessions day after day are going to remember all the stuff that comes up and while many open warrants are related to nonviolent offenses serving warrants can be dangerous in two thousand and seventeen braintree police officer donald delaney was wounded trying to serve a restraining order to a boston man who had an active warrant for domestic assault and battery kidnapping and threatening to commit a crime delaney lived a year later yarmouth police officer sean gannon a 32yearold k9 officer was killed trying to serve a warrant in barnstable stanford graham was shot and killed in worcester in two thousand and two after an argument with two other men according to a report by the worcester telegram and gazette a wicked local sister publication suspected killer and new york city native omar nunez fled along with his father calvin nunez after the fatal confrontation the father was caught in two thousand and six and convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to fifteen to twenty years in prison according to the tng omar nunez was never found and an open murder warrant is still waiting for him in worcester superior court law enforcement officers across the nation say the best window to catch a fugitive is within the first few days of the arrest warrant being filed judges police lawyers and reformers use words like flood and fire hose to describe the torrent of warrants the courts are overwhelmed the police are overwhelmed that's the way it is said sergeant joseph m guigno of the waltham police department it's tough to find the time for some of these warrants or cold cases because police work is nonstop over to you bob thank you max belmont's town administrator reflects on past year by joanna k tzouvalis one year ago on january the 16th patrice garvin became belmont's first female town administrator within her first week on the job she saw opportunities for grants and she was able to enter belmont into a community compact agreement with the state a total of thirty thousand from the program is being used for comprehensive financial planning and longterm financial planning accomplishments in garvin's first year include finding a new home for the belmont food pantry inside town hall applying for a grant of up to four hundred thousand annually from the state to fix sidewalks and streets with the complete streets policy applying for community preservation funds to design a community path hiring assistant town administrator john marshall who will focus ninety of his time on the recreation department reclassifying budget analyst glen castro's position to budget director helping start a belmont school study group and reviewing nonunion employees garvin was shirley's town administrator for about four years before coming to belmont her top priority in her new position was to listen before making any changes i needed to get an understanding of how the town is run before making any significant impactful changes she said another goal she had was to change the staff culture she did this by implementing an opendoor policy with all department heads and planning events such as the halloween trick or treat at town hall and an ugly sweater day for town employees i want people to enjoy coming to work because they'll want to work i'm trying to be more lighthearted and fun said garvin her goals for this new year include creating a capital improvement plan and working with the town's new financial task force on a plan to address structural deficits she said there is never a typical day there are good days and bad i like coming in knowing i'm going to make a difference to improve people's lives that's what i've always wanted to do i love serving the people of the town said garvin selectman chairman adam dash said that he is impressed with garvin's ability to obtain grants and state funding and her ability to work with people and come up with solutions such as the new location for the belmont food pantry her creativity and management style has allowed belmont to move forward in two thousand and eighteen at a staggering pace now that she has more familiarity with the town we look forward to even better things in two thousand and nineteen and beyond wrote dash in an email to the citizen herold selectman vice chairman mark paolillo said garvin has had a positive impact on town affairs she is smart hardworking and a talented town administrator she approaches every issue in a thoughtful way and dedicates her efforts to finding a solution that is in the best interests of our town she is a very skilled problem solver wrote paolillo in an email to the citizen herold selectman tom caputo said garvin has been a wonderful addition to the team at town hall she's very effective at moving the town's priorities forward and has shown a real skill at identifying creative solutions to complex problems belmont is lucky to have her wrote caputo in an email to the citizen herold town clerk ellen o'bryan cushman said garvin has been a wonderful addition to the town it's residence and its employees in email to the citizen herold she wrote what garvin has particularly brought to belmont she has created a general spirit of optimism and pride in working for the town of belmont she is very customer residentfocused to provide a high level of customer service she's skilled and interested in bringing separate pods or interests together to collaborate she's very interested in moving projects and decisions forward not letting them stagnate wrote cushman public works director jay marcotte said garvin has been supportive to his department particularly with the new trash and recycling contract the new smart water meter program and snow ice trees operations and has made several recommendations that they have implemented to better serve the community and now over to claire thank you bob newcomer files papers for school committee peter pantazopoulos filed nomination papers for the threeyear school committee seat on january fourteen by joanna k tzouvelis peter pantazopoulos filed nomination papers for the threeyear school committee seat on january fourteen pantazopoulos has lived in belmont for eighteen years with his wife olga they have a fiveyearold son elias at wellington elementary school and a oneyearold son evan there will be two threeyear and one oneyear school committee positions on the town election ballot april 2nd incumbents andrea prestwich and jill norton have pulled papers prestwich said she plans to run for one of the threeyear seats norton who was appointed to the school committee to fill the seat vacated by tom caputo who won the selectman seat last year said she is unsure what seat she will run for pantazopoulos currently works as a global portfolio manager for apps associates he said he has been thinking about running for two years and believes his finance background would benefit the school committee a lot of people have asked me since i have a finance background to run for school committee he said he frequently attends school committee meetings as a spectator he said his work experience would allow him to feel comfortable challenging budget line items that he has the expertise needed to evaluate actual spending and budget forecasts you need someone who is confident and has that knowledge and is fiscally responsible i think that's what i can bring he said pantazopoulos said he is concerned about access to afterschool care in belmont he wants all belmont parents to have access and not have to rely on winning a lottery he also said he believes there is the potential to create a revenue stream for belmont by managing its own aftercare program pantazopoulos said he voted in favor of the grade seven to twelve school because he knows it will help solve the space issues as long as the older students are kept separate from the younger students however he is concerned about the opencampus policy safety and security for students in the new building as well as safety of students walking and biking to the new school now here we go to bob along with my colleagues claire and max we thank you for listening to the talking news and hope you've enjoyed the show we will return next week for another edition of local news happenings around belmont