hello and welcome to the belmont journal your source for hyper local news and community updates i'm mike crowley your host this week st some announcements belmont's been raised to a higher risk for the west nile virus the greatest risk is for those over age fifty and those with compromised immune systems so take appropriate precautions and avoid getting getting bitten by mosquitoes also the belmont public schools have a number of openings available that belmont interest belmont residents might be interested in you can check their website for details welcome to this week in the belmont tony and welcome back franklin tucker editor of the belmont tony and which by the way you can find at belmont tony and com thank you very much for that little promotion all right so you have some news about traffic and how we're going to be national traffic additional traffic because of the high school and also the entry and exit of the high school not just the high school to some through twelve and so more kids you could almost call the belmont comprehensive school like that  they were concerned that so much traffic was going to go in here was going to go there and already the traffic is causing a lot of concern for those residents in that area so this group was brought together to listen to the avenue which would they would put temporary lights there to find out what kind of traffic patterns there would be because that because what the architects and the traffic people at the high school who are building high schools believe that there really need to so these decided you know what we should be really doing is looking at a traffic patterns throughout town i mean there is certainly going to be congestion at any kind of high school entrance or exit surely going to be for two or three hours in the day an hour and a half in the morning an hour a half it at night or maybe a little bit longer when it does take that very important component that the high school's new high school is going to do going to bring and then just expand it and that's something that the town ha is doing right now so it's a town wide traffic study that's right so so this high school traffic working group is almost becoming an advisory group for the town in terms of traffic and that may be a good thing because they because there's so many groups that are in compassed in the traffic in the working group and they and they don't want to they don't want this to to last longer than the beginning of the year so they're going to be really doing a lot of work a lot of work is being done right now by a consultant for the town looking at that you also have a consultant for the for the new high school they're going to mesh their information and we'll see with if there's some pattern changes such as making certain streets one way for half a day or maybe making golden transit commercial van was coming off sycamore and turning into alexa ten right now there's still a police report being made of that but it apparently he was cutting quickly she was trying to cross the same time it's one of those situations where a lot of things happen at once she was very seriously hurt and charges haven't been brought to the driver yet but that's because they're still waiting for  the condition of the resident but for anybody who is of a destiny and crossing the street at some of these busy intersections you know i personally have experienced almost getting getting hit because because some drivers just swing right through the intersections without stopping and it's a real problem and so it's a situation where you know the town attempted to slow down traffic on lexington street by raising saturday september th you know our own interned you interviewed recently mary bradley the from under and some of the porch hosts about how you can enjoy the celebration and what you can expect we are going to see about seventy performances and they are mostly music but we have a couple of dance performances thrown and a read reading thrown in but the the music is runs the park is the grand finale so mary who will be supporting this wonderful event so the community has really come together to support porch fest which has it's been amazing and i'll open up my email and have an e mail from someone who is donating one hundred dollars and i've never talked to this person before and i don't know who they are and it's just it's like two quarters of my heart but we also have big sponsors like don't want savings bank and we have other sponsors like in man and zone on against racism and so on her piece and a dean store is a woman i met at the belmont gallery of art we have a few more roger gallagher on our website there's a there's a link that says sponsors and so people should check that out and thank those people because they really have done a lot to make this without them this would not be possible say and the biggest sponsors though are the performers in the porto for example we're standing here in paul roberts backyard who is so kindly allowing us to use not only his yard for this but for a performance on the eight so what made you want to become a porch host berry reached out and i know they were looking for locations and we've got a location it's pretty close to belmont center and nice big backyard and a porch most importantly that's big enough for folks of performance was happy to host and we're really looking forward to it we you know it's part of being part of the community and i'm really so thankful to mary for doing this because this is one of the many events that i think will become a tradition and will kind of help bring the community together and celebrate music for take part about  you so what made you decide to become a port chose well it was very exciting when they brought the idea of mary and the group brought the idea to do pork fest i've seen it in somerville and heard about it in other a town wide block party if you will and people will get together they'll have a chance to be outdoors and for some music and the bands will get a chance to play for audiences that wouldn't naturally get to see them all right so mary what would you like to say to mentone and about george best as like a closing word oh well the closing of four chess is going to be the time that everybody will gather together at grocery park and we're going to have a huge event where we're going to have the high school mar otters marching band play followed by school of honk which is probably a one hundred and fifty dollars to one hundred and sixty dollars musicians out on the field over the course of two hours and then we're going to invite everybody from the town to also participate in one song so bring your instruments will have the song on the website as well as instructions on how to play it music on how to play it and will all play together if you don't play an instrument you can sing you can dance you can watch because that is in imports best land that is also participating welcome to this week in the belmont citizen herald and also available online at belmont wicked local dot com and we have joanna jubilance our senior multimedia journalist with us citizen harold again with us this week how are you joining axl mike very happy to be here and i have some exciting news to lead off with ok it's about the belmont high school project right the m s b a approved the project scope and thought funding on august th this was a big hurdle for the belmont high school building ok maybe to get through because now this basically means the de exclusion will be on the november th ballot that is the next big step right but but what the a must be it be a has approved is an eighty million dollars grant there right companies that would accompany the debt exclusion yes so this this is the project the total project cost for the grade seven dollars to twelve dollars school is two hundred and ninety five million dollars right with the grant it's going to be about two hundred and thirteen one million dollars because the campaigns already i mean the committee already spent two million dollars of that so it's going to really cost the project cost for grade seven dollars to twelve dollars school is two hundred and thirteen million dollars that's what that's what the public needs to know and that's what the yes for belmont committee is going to be promoting in their campaign is going to campaign that there will be there are a lot of these fliers all over town they're about to launch and we're starting to see their flyers yes and full disclosure i am involved yes thank you for disclosing sunday september rd rd at seven pm at the belmont high school belmont hill school belmont belmont hill school in the athletic center media room on the nd floor so that's that's an important date to put on your calendar if you want to learn more also they have a website yes for belmont dot org and a facebook page yes for belmont so you are seeing a lot of these red and white signs all over all over town and you'll be hearing their message ok and it's you know we don't know right now if there's a no committee yet so keep you stay tuned for that ok so the the police chief richard mclaughlin has had a town review and he's getting a raise so yes what what do we know about that ok so this is part of  roll a roll out plan that town administrator patrice carbon is doing with jessica porter that human resource store human resources director she is reviewing nonunion employees and from what i understand this hasn't been done for a very long time so so long time coming so so no no reviews of of nonunion of nonunion employees until until recently right very recently and belmont police chief richard mclaughlin had his review on august  th he got the highest marks from patrice garvin and she said that she finds him to be of the utmost integrity and his overall performance out of a one dollar to five dollars scale exceeds expectations so she asked the selectmen to approve  two percent merit increase retroactive to two thousand and seventeen which they approved so that brings his salary from one hundred and seventy five thousand and ninety four dollars to one hundred eighty five thousand five hundred and sixty seven dollars news because if you know the chief you know that he's a great guy and somebody with the highest integrity and we hate to lose him so that's that's the news about that and there's one more when all the community path project committee yes so so we've had a september is national service dog month and belmont's jane slavin has decided to raise a puppy as a service dog for canine companions for independence i admire the work  service dogs and you know that a lot goes into making a dog a service dog so she is but if i could do it a financial commitment you know i'm responsible for paying for his training and his food and his toys and if he's you know his vet bills and all of that to that will be happening in belmont this week everyone this is your community counter for this week volunteer to help with the care and maintenance of habitat over the course of twenty four weeks and the polling partners program beginning on wednesday at four thirty this program is suitable for all ages and is a great way for students to earn community service hours no registration is required a complete list of dates can be found on the mass autobahn website and on sunday celebrate the national day of service from dollars to eleven am and helping with trail maintenance weeding and getting the goats ready for the next season registration is required for this program and you can do so on the mass audubon website visit belmont books on wednesday from seven to nine for an evening with three short fiction writers who have been published in the literary magazine moderated by senior editor william pierce this panel is a part of belmont books writer's craft series explore the art of fermentation across three genres beer wine and cheese all at the society of master beer seers on thursday from six dollars to eight hundred and thirty dollars this event will feature six unique and different courses each highlighting a small poor of beer and wine paired with a cheese tickets can be purchased through event bright join the greater boston chapter of the new england mountain bike association for a thursday night ride through landlocked forest in lexington beginning at six pm this social ride divides into different skill levels with a volunteer ride leader meet fellow riders learn about a great writing area and organization this chapter frequents many areas around belmont you can learn more at any m b a dot org browse and shop at the belmont gallery of art's pop up fundraiser for together central b gonda on monday from ten am to seven pm together central buganda is to improve the health of women in africa and all proceeds from the sale will benefit the watertown based organization and that's it for this week if you'd like your event info featured in belmont journals calendar you can e mail your event information to jane at the media dot org we end with a programming update for your belmont media center channels to be sure to watch that's all for now hope to see you next time