hello and welcome to the belmont journal your source for local news and community updates imei crowley your host this week the board of selectmen is seeking a belmont resident to serve on the high school traffic working group applications need to be submitted by six pm on may th for more information you can go to the town website for bringing an end to harassment by enhancing accountability and rejecting discrimination the bill is intended to strengthen federal laws governing workplace sexual harassment and  been a long time coming and is way overdue from hollywood to congress from restaurants to farm workers to women and men in every type of workplace who have seen harassment and discrimination ignored for too long last year the me too movement pulled back the curtain empowered by the bravery of survivors issues that used to live in the shadows came to light and while the conversation started with celebrities the voices of survivors have echoed in every single industry and workplace across every single state according to the e e o c there are some sobering statistics at least twenty five percent of women experience sexual harassment at their workplace seventy five percent of women who experience harassment are retaliated against when they report it and somewhere close to ninety percent of them ploys who experience harassment do not file a formal complaint we say no more no more silence no more acceptance no more complicity the be heard act puts the dignity of workers ahead of the rights of perpetrators and sends a sip simple clear message no matter your race income or job you have a right to be safe at your job our bill will work to make workplaces safer by prohibiting mandatory arbitration predispose non disclosure agreements by extending the statute of limitations for harassment claims by eliminating the difference in the minimum wage between tift and hourly workers and requiring workplaces to create harassment prevention strategies we are building on the courage of the people who have come forward by putting long overdue protections and accountability into the law coalition of advocates to talk about more formally roll out our be heard act and that really is what it's about it's about our raising our collective voices to amplif the lived experiences and the stories and the struggles and the hurt of survivors i'm very grateful for the elevated consciousness of the renewed commitment to workplace harassment and discrimination based upon the me movement in times that we wanted to put forward something that would be sweeping and inclusive and it would address every worker from hollywood to congress to those workers that are too often rendered invisible  their heart you can watch the entire press conference on belmont media centers web site our facebook page and on our you tube channel welcome to this week and the belmont tony and with franklin  part of a process that is very normal with the any kind of project of this size and magnitude it a sickly what it's doing is looking at it looks at three different valuations that are done by the contractor the engineer  and the architect and what they do then is a they it's basically a wish list and usually goes over budget over budget and then they have to cut just very quickly i think what i understand was you know after proud parts of the project that they cut you know and then they made the value of each of those line items twelve or three to deciding whether it's going to be cut or not going to be cut and some of those items have been million dollars three million dollars is with the solar panels it's a big argument that's right and what many people were saying especially the people in the process is that solar is going to be there this is not going to be it's not going to be cut out of the process what they were saying is let's not buy it upfront with money that we can use somewhere else that would help the core mission of the building but rather doing at the end where we you have maybe contingency money there's sixteen million dollars that you know in case in case something bad happens money and they said let's move it back to the back of the process let's the five years from now because number one solar is  going down in terms of expense and you know the solar panels themselves so let's get better value by waiting what happened is that the community heard about this a lot of activists came student activists and they basically  said we really have we don't have that much of a trust what you're trying to do we're looking for a stronger commitment to the zero net energy status of this building that's right and i think the fear was that if there isn't this upfront commitment to solar  core in the core mission are you cutting is the theatre going to be smaller is are you going to have different types of engineering throughout the throughout the building so that process is continuing i think for at least one more meeting that's right about three million turns out that negotiations with the tosi family for the pure coat site just taking a small portion of the building itself it just didn't go through that and the family decided that it wasn't in their interest that  it we don't want to go through adamant domain so they're going to go and do the engineering study on the north side all right so so that's a big decision on community path and thank you so much franklin we'll talk with you next time thank you and she's been with the town for a year now as of january th and they have her one year per performance review earlier in the month she met or exceeded most of the  contract her contract expires in january two thousand and twenty one of the contract is every year she'll have a review and based on that review she'll get a raise or not or not she got a two percent merit increase retroactive to july of two thousand and eighteen well as well july two thousand and eight as well as a two percent cost of living increase also retroactive to july of two thousand and eighteen and then starting july of two thousand and nineteen she got it a two percent m have had dealings with patrice garvan that they will understand that this time administrator is worth the money also worth noting jessica porter the director of human resources presented the data of comparing town manager in town and ministers salaries in fourteen surrounding communities are fans of the average is two hundred that's about two hundred and six thousand so based on that she's making less than the average ok i'm sure that if she stays with us a bit longer we'll see that improve yes so so let's talk about the d p w and building projects in town meeting which is is a special town meeting may st right coming up and the on  warrant for that is an article that comes from the police and d p w building committee as you know they're going to be renovating it in june starting in june hopefully right they're going to add on to the police station and  on to the public works however since they were approved last spring the project has changed slightly the police staff is going to move temporarily to the water department site and going to be renting trailers for that ok that's about five hundred thousand dollars additional expenses that they didn't know about ok but because they're going to be out of the building the committee thinks it would be a good time to do the interior renovations that really need to be done now that wasn't planned originally as part of the rock track but as they got deeper into this they they decided that it just didn't make sense to do the renovations and leave the old electrical exact and we don't have an exact number of what that is going to cost so they will know i believe april th we'll know more about that and it will it will definitely be presented at the special town meeting it could be around three million dollars ok but that is just a placeholder figure it is not an exact amount yet all right but it could be three and a half one billion more dollars that they need to borrow for the project and that town meeting will have to approve all right  we'll see you next week and thank you so much joanna and well we'll talk with you again soon the arts and crafts store pine cones and needles on propeller road is now operated by three belmont residen one of these residents carlene loveday explains how they want their story to be actively engaged in the community or story as reported by david webster belmont journal volunteer i'm currently loveday pellow road and over my shoulder an adult beginner knitting class is taking place when the prior owner made a move to another state and closed the business we realized we didn't mission as had been here before so it's a combination of toys and crafts kids and adults we do drop in crafting we do class series and workshops and it's very homey in a way that i think a lot of us might remember from childhood or grandparents house and even if kids aren't necessarily going to grow up to be knitters it's nice to have those sort of quiet skills that take some patience and slow skill acquisition i really intended to be a place that you could come and hang out and that's a feeling that we wanted to carry over from the st ownership we have crafts that are available all the time simple things like painting or just a sheet of paper with watercolor to more complicated things like model kits and we've had a lot of adults ask too so we have a number of classes about as many adult classes as kids and neda has in particular a really strong volunteer drive the project that we have going on right now is a little knitted squares are approaching its corners to be assembled into a blanket to give to an organization that works with children in need and that's our window display right now right behind you actually it's something that people have chipped away at some people can finish a whole square well they're sitting here in their kids are working away and some people have done a half and someone else is coming to finish it so it's nice to be able to see the store and the community work together on something that is important to but what we really love is that parents feedback about this being a place that sort of a place you come in and take a deep breath and whether they're here to buy products or learn a craft or do something their kids and their friends or have a birthday party we really value the feedback that it's a calm it's accomplice to be the belmont dramatic club season is that wonderfully squishy time of year between winter and spring when melting snow and spring rains make mountains and molehills out of marvelous mud habitats today programme takes place from ten dollars to eleven am and is suitable for children up to age five habitat needs your help finding the muddy spots so be sure to wear your boots register at mass autobahn dot org the beach street center hosts a st in a four part lecture series discussing various nutrition topics for seniors innovations in nutrition on tuesday at one hundred and fifteen dollars dr barbara shoot at hale will present food for thought at the center to kick off the series r s v p at the front desk to reserve your spot the belmont after school and richm collaborative presents the final talk of their parent lecture series on wednesday at six hundred and thirty in the cherry out of tory m the talk features dr cleese warn him on the topic of how to talk to kids about race culture and racism this lecture provides concrete tips on how to speak to children about cultural differences and how we can all learn to address racism and microaggression parents of music students presents an evening at the pops at the h s on friday and saturday evening friday night's concert features  habitat presents its th annual goat gala on saturday from one to three interact with and learn about habitats friendly heard of nigerian dwarf goats play games and sample some goat related products the goat gallo will show you how the goats help out habitat and how you can help out the goats sign up is not required learn more at mass audubon dot org step right up join ring master duncan the daring trapeze artist macbeth and lady macbeth and more under a big top full of magic and mystery on saturday at two at the library the boston theater company's team touring troupe features actors in gray's th or twelve including three belmont high school students this performance is recommended for ages eight and up reach for the stars at belmont books may story slam on saturday from six to nine pm participants are asked to keep their stories to five minutes a happy hour with craft beer seller begins at six with doors opening to the slam at six hundred and forty five purchase tickets or register as a storyteller online or in store rd generation solo artist eric johnson is visiting growing up children's resale boutique on sunday johnson creates hand cut original silhouettes simply by looking at a person's profile and cutting with surgical scissors on black craft paper these treasured keepsakes only take a few minutes to create you can learn more and sign up by visiting event break the back up easy five k road race celebrates peca as a two time world marathon challenge champion two thousand and nineteen race takes place on sunday the kids one mile race kicks off at nine am with the five k race starting at nine hundred and thirty you can register and join the fun by visiting becca p z five k wired dot com the pickup is on saturday from ten dollars to one dollar at fitness together and that's all for next week if you'd like your media dot org the kindness rocks project encourages you to find inspiration in your life with messages painted on stones stones you ask elaine or razi p ambassador for the kindness rocks project brought the project to the beach street center last week where seniors painted inspiring messages on stones to be distributed around town we spoke with alina about the project and how it looks to impact our community for the better know i'm one of the ambassadors for the kindness rocks project the woman that started her name is meghan murphy she started the project a couple years ago and i'm just one of the representatives that started my community i was walking along the beach one day and i saw this little area and this is the kind this rocks project and it's just basically all these colored rocks with different you know kind of inspirational positive messages and like this is cool and then on the back it had the  kindness rocks products of course i looked it up and i was like wow there's just a whole like movement and i'm you know different you know little spots around the world megan murphy the woman that started it she was just walking along the speech as she walks along all the cape and she would look for messages through the rocks her parents had passed away so they kind of thought see class was one parent in our heart shaped rock with another parent she was kind of this is kind of neat to have messages you know you kind of look for the universe so then another day she said you know what if i write on one of these rocks and so she wrote in like five rocks and it so happened that a friend of hers found one of the rocks and contacted her and said how good it made her feel so then she's like this is something here so she just kind of how does going on so it's just kind of spiraled out into a really beautiful project you can take one if you need some inspiration to leave one for someone so you know just kind of a fun thing to do i mean some communities have like an actual little area to rock art in but yeah usually like you know you might just be grocery shopping and find one on the ground you know so it was just kind of neat to kind of find them and actually a therapist for a living so you know part of what i do for a living is you know kind of help people maybe change the way they thing can you know have an attitude of gratitude and such so i guess it doesn't hurt to just sort of add more kindness you know sometimes when you do something nice it makes you feel good the so much negativity  a positive i guess there's more information on kind this rocks project website and there's even lots of instagram and facebook pages you can kind of follow along and be part of it so if you find a rock you know let us know and if you want to get