he twenty third the high school building committee will be meeting to decide on grade configurations for the new high school we'll also be talking with franklin tucker editor of the belmont tony and about the total cost for the project and we have a joanna jubal us to talk with us about traffic concerns associated with the high school now's the time to start thinking about submitting nomination papers if you'd like to run for town meeting we have a video with ellen course from town clerk who has some important tips and advice for those thinking about running for town meeting and you can find it on the belmont media centers website under on demand videos i'm doing this little piece today with belmont media to let you know how excessive bill your local elections are and when they are coming up and if you are interested in running for office how you can do that if you've ever considered and if you have not i'd love to give you an idea put that into your head and conceive you consider becoming a town meeting member or running for elected office first the annual town election will be held on tuesday april third belmont has eight voting precincts and they can be found by going to the town clerk's website of the town court's website is achievable through the town clerk pages at w w w dot belmont m a dot gov select apartments and then just used the town clerk there have thirty six members from each one of the eight voting precincts so each one having terms of three years means that we elect twelve members per year there are six in the spring starting this year and april thirtieth and continuing for for two weeks on monday and wednesday then we take a break and we resume again the first week of june the deadline to submit to nomination papers for this election is on february thirteenth at five pm to be elected the second method is if you are a new town meeting member a person who is seeking election for the first time as a town meeting member you must collect nomination papers from the town clerk's office again signing and saying you will accept the nomination collect the signatures of at least twenty five registered voters of the town of belmont belmont samuel martin luther king day breakfast was a great success this year brian rushing state senator from the ninth so what district talked about how do we teach about the life of martin luther king when many people weren't alive during his amazing life one of the most moving parts of the breakfast true was when three of our belmont you with got up to talk about what it's like to be a black kid in belmont today as an african american male i have to live in a world that is not built by me or for me i need to fight for everything i have and sometimes it's still not enough when i moved here at the beginning of freshman year i was apprehensive because i had never been around so many white people however i have been accepted by students teachers and administrators alike and i greatly appreciated and also like to think dr king because if it weren't for him and if it weren't for men like him and women and children i would not be standing up here today talking to you i would probably be at home most likely going to all black school so where else that is not here and i think dr king for his sacrifice and for allowing me to stand here in front of you today i think that one of the most difficult things about being a minority in a majority is that no matter how hard you try  seen as that black kid i feel the difference in our lunchrooms groups of a particular race will sit somewhere while the other sit somewhere else other some do intermingle and sit together i wish that we would have various friends groups despite our differences i wish that people would realize we are more alike than we seem and to quote martin luther king we must learn to live together as brothers or perish together but what most you may not know is that at home for the most part ignorance isn't isn't corresponds to the lack of knowledge and some may argue for magination ignorance is the result of what we read in our textbooks watching t v in post i'd like to welcome back franklin tucker for this week in the belmont tourney and franklin i understand that the high school building project is generating some big numbers very big numbers finally we have a price tag for all the owner or project manager has come up with these figures for twelve really thirteen scenarios the ones are there were the most popular which was a seven to twelve grade configuration and a much more of a new project that it is a renovation that would cost around three hundred ten million dollars that's just a drop dropping number it certainly is it would make this high school the th considered the taj mahal of its time it was finally built in two thousand and ten it's it's really a beautiful construction and this one a number of architectural words and it came in just under two hundred million dollars but that's just a nine through twelve configuration high school and so the idea here is with the three hundred plus million dollar price tag is to build something bigger than that more grade that's right it  be almost is if it's not a high school but more of an educational center you would have basically two schools a seven through nine school and a ten through twelve school and this is in kids and you have to consider that you're putting in you putting are about forty percent between forty and forty five percent of the entire school population of belmont in this school that's about will would be consist of about four hundred fifty two thousand square feet that's just a big thing for a huge project and what would a price tag like that do to property taxes we're lucky enough to have floyd carman the treasurer come to that meeting on tuesday and he basically just figured out the numbers he said the numbers are the numbers and he certainly did a quick financial analysis very simple he said we're looking at four percent interest rates for a thirty year and others ation and what that would do for the average assessed value house in belmont which is one million dollars and it would increase that property value to for each year over those thirty years by one thousand eight hundred forty dollars increase the property value of the property tax property tax free i think so so so that that will be big for some people will be big for everybody that's true so so so there must be other options that are being looked at as well there are  when i reported this information on my web site a number of people stated let's just look at renovating that's where we start off at the very beginning of this process it is this project was going to be a simple renovation and it was a and the cost for that would be about one hundred twenty four million dollars which is the belmont cost which the town would pick up will be ninety two million much more reasonable but then you have to realize that the school committee that the school committee in the school district said that if we don't build a big enough school at the high school you're going to have to build a new elementary school and you're going to have to build you have to renovate all the other schools in town so what they're saying is we're going to pay for it one way or the other if we're going to properly house all of the students that we have here in belmont today that's correct it's easy to pay one way or the other all right well thank you franklin and we'll be talking with you next time thank you very much welcome to this week with  citizen herald and we have joanna jubilance senior multimedia journalist happy to be here my group so let's talk about traffic in the new high school yes that's that i would say was a pretty hot topic in a pretty big story in my newspaper about the traffic issue and how it will change when a new high school is built potentially for twenty two hundred students if they go with a grade seven to twelve configuration so that's adding a lot of additional students out for on percent more on top of what's already there right and i understand that residents are already concerned about existing traffic right anyone who's driven by the high school during the morning rush hour in the afternoon rush hour truly starts about two thirty in the afternoon you are conquered ave your your own golden street where brighton street there's a lot of traffic on display we're out there every day and see it right so particularly on godin street at the intersection of entry and exit the driveway at on concord avenue at golden street and at a traffic light so i would say about i would say everybody who lives on go to the street attended this meeting and spoke avenue right so so instead of adding a traffic light and creating more traffic on this already heavily heavily traveled street which i saw with my own two eyes i actually have video footage of it showing the back up of twenty two cars on golden street the traffic expert is assuring them i don't want to add more cut through this i want to manage this already heavily traveled existing katherine is assuring them that it will help so there's a different kind of cut through that might help from the  another idea came up at the meeting was saying it's been an idea for a long time and it's now part of the community pattern project this alexander avenue underpass would be a safe way for students to get from like that channing  road neighborhood the wind broke right some of those killed the high school some of those kids currently walk across the tracks right something something not safe please don't do that yeah so it is it's a separate project mike the community path project is separate from the belmont high school project and the belmont high school project on a very strict timeline so it's really it's a question of you know they're designing the new school around this community path they have this community path route and they're designing a new school around it and hopefully in time the community path parents are driving their kids to school and you know another solution was what if we get more kids to take the bus because only one hundred forty kids take the bus now to the high school out of thirteen hundred kids but that would cost more money more buses would cost more money about sixty also topic right worked on a story about affordable housing because the belmont housing trust recently got their community preservation application approved by the community preservation committee for two hundred fifty thousand dollars to funds to be put aside to is that are part of their housing production plan so if anyone's not familiar with that plan it basically it's a very good plan going to presenting it they're presenting it at the planning board meeting but it showed that twenty five percent of belmont households that's twenty four hundred belmont households are eligible for affordable housing which is just in my mind an astounding number and we only have three hundred sixty five current affordable units science so we've got a long way to go to to get more affordable housing in belmont hopefully this these funds will help they're going to look at ways you know working with ways of working with developers to give them initiatives to include more fordable units all right well let's quickly talk about our new town administrator day she had a very very busy day she worked from that the time she got sworn in until very late at night because she attended her first film high school building committee meeting that day a good way to to get on the ground and running it's got a lot  belmont has a new art studio on pleasant street and it and it will be offering classes to both kids and adults the anastasia smash art studio may be new but mr mash has been teaching art classes and our community calendar with chain peters of the important things happening in belmont this week hi i'm jane and this is your community calendar for this upcoming week january twenty second twenty eighth traveled to lithuania on tuesday january twenty third at the beach st center with beach street center member barbara woodrow as she shares photos from her two week trip lithuania has a rich cultural heritage see why its architecture sculpture cuisine customs seashore and humor make it a popular vacation destination and enjoy samples of traditional lithuanian traffic if you know a teen who enjoys creative writing the first of a series of writing workshops at the belmont public library begins this wednesday january twenty fourth from two thirty to four pm join published writer and writing instructor lynette benton as you began or move forward on stories poetry or  class registration is required and you can sign up on the library's web site enjoy a fun night of step by step painting at the library on thursday the twenty fifth from six thirty the eight thirty pm hot mocktails will be served to warm you up while you let your artistic side shine free and open to the public participants will take home their masterpiece at the end of the night register on the library's website ahead of time and for more arts and crafts learn to make your very own wolf aries at pine cone and needles on thursday from six to nine pm each fairy is constructed by rolling folding and securing roving wall around itself all materials are included no experience is needed you can register at pine cones and needles dot com decorative image practitioner and coach is ling o'shea will guide residents through the beautiful and low impact form of martial art and meditation known as tai chee you can attend this workshop at the belmont public library on saturday january twenty seventh from ten to eleven am no equipment is necessary just attend in comfortable clothing registration is not required but appreciated through the library's website and from ten thirty t eleven am at the library parents can enjoy a new monthly playgroup for children ages four and under enjoy playing tinkering singing and reading led by meghan although in ski speech and language path ologist at watertown public schools kids aged ten through twelve can celebrate the weekend with a fun and delicious brunch with friends at chop chop test kitchen on sunday the twenty eighth from ten to noon their special cooking workshop will teach kids how to make sunday brunch favorites kids will learn  techniques as they make a variety of bowl sweet and savory breakfast dishes in the hands on safe and fun environment come in your peaches if you like sign up now to reserve your spot and that's all for this week if you like your event featured in belmont journals community calendar email your event info to jane at belmont media dot org see you next time now we have some highlights from our local belmont sports teams with franklin tucker are the highlights of last week's belmont boys basketball game led by all star junior guard daley armine in belmont took the measure of the reading rockets at home after falling behind early in the first quarter belmont took the lead through armenian who finished the game with twenty six line and your mania and helped up the lead to double digits early in the fourth but reading came running back coming going on a twelve the nothing run the cut the lead to four points late in the game but honestly as jumper halted the comeback and belmont won going away sixty eight fifty eight and other news delma high girls basketball is now seven in one and ranked in the top ten in the eastern massachusetts after beating redding away from home sixty nine fifty finally fifty five last week maya birds are scored eighteen points well for her teammates greater propped jenny called meghan tan and just giorgio scored eleven each in the win over in hockey belmont is continue belmont boys are continuing on their winning ways including a tie against a very talented catholic memorial team this weekend while the girls are having a rough time having after going six and zero and early in the season having dropped their last four games the belmont gallery of art has a new exhibit featuring feminist art and women's stories by massachusetts women artists accompany exhibit our sunday film screenings gallery talks in our workshops and that's happening now through march tenth we'll be taking you to the recent opening of the exhibit it's a great exhibit i hope everybody comes out and we conclude our show this week with a programming update for your belmont media center channel's be sure to check it out i don't so like to remind you that the belmont journal is your news program you can support the program by sending in important news taps community updates or if you'd like to get involved please contact frederica regal zero at fred at belmont media dot org and that's all for this week hope to see you next time