hello everyone welcome to the belmont journal own local program for hyper local news and community affairs programming i'm your host roger coulton the planning board this week held a public hearing on its further deliberations on where the retail sale of marijuana will be permitted in the town of we've captured one segment of that hearing to show you some of the factors that the planning board is away we have to provide adequate areas for business it's we've already eliminated most of the retail business areas in town by by far and away in response to people just like you we've all been listening to this and hearing this and in response to people who said we don't want it in our neighborhood which came out light has come out loud and clear over time there have been many meetings and that's been one of the clearest messages i get in my e mails in the conversations of everything else we don't want to next storehouses the issue here is that the task of the planning board is to find places to put this use in belmont  we're going to have it if we don't do anything it could be any of the commercial districts so our task is to find what we believe the planning board believes after having heard from the residents in the town and with our planning staff what we believe are reasonable places to zone in this into place the arguments against many places and focusing it in one place smack of notification which is trying to legally zone away something that you don't like that's what steve's referring to we thought about this and we're still listening to people we haven't made final decisions on this when we will have a draft of this that will be in the policeman ery warrant tomorrow i believe right we're going to submit this for a polemic draft of this to the town tomorrow a pulmonary draft we will have additional public hearings on this this is a transparent process we're doing this in front of everybody all the time we're not having any side conversation on this we're listening to you and we will make understanding in hearing what people say november th voters will go to the polls to decide whether to approve the construction of a new school for grades seven through twelve if approved the new facility will provide a new school for nearly half of belmont's five thousand school kids i have with me today ellen schreiber who is  one of the leaders of the yes for belmont campaign thanks for joining us thank you for the opportunity so people ridgeley talked about a new high school but this really isn't a new high school it's two schools and what yes two schools and one is a very important thing it's a great solution for our high school students and our middle school students it's a middle and high school but it's also a great solution for all of the kids in the district by building two schools and one we can free up space in all six schools for all five thousand children one of the reasons that we are thinking about a new school is because of the overcrowding the enrollment in skyrocketed yes absolutely in the last seven years we've added seven hundred students over one hundred a year it's crazy these kids are coming and we need to provide space and a good education you know if the november vote is about money it is it is not inexpensive to build a school for half of our school kids can you tell us what the cost of sure the cost of the solution is two hundred and ninety five million  this is the ballpark of all high schools if you look at arlington and waltham two of our neighbors they are also in this process they are spending over three hundred million and they're doing it for fewer kids and they're doing it for a nine to twelve school but the three hundred million let me round it to three hundred if that's appropriate that's not all bama money no and this is the really exciting thing for ten years we tried to get into a state grant program we were finally selected in january of two thousand and sixteen and they are going to give us eighty million dollars in order to build a school that's eighty million dollars our taxpayers don't have to pay and one dollar of the implications of state involvement is that there is there is state oversight oh yes how the money is spent there's a tremendous amount of state oversight the it's the massachusetts school building authority m s b a and they want to make sure their money is well spent so they rigorously scrutinize what we do and they have to approve every single decision they voted unanimously that this is the best answer for belmont now one other thing to know about the s b a if we don't use it now we have one hundred and twenty dollars days to approve it if we don't use it now we lose it and you're out of the image of the state money we lose the state money eighty million dollars of it and we're out for it's not a matter of going back next year then well no we are out we can start applying again last time it took us ten million dollars you know if we leave them at the altar this time they may not want to do it again is there an alternative to  building a new school or must be an alternative let me put there what is the alternative there is a plan b it's pretty terrible the plan b is that we wind up with fifty proximately fifty temporary modular classrooms then after that we do an addition on to the channel or a middle school you know it's not just about classrooms it's also about gyms and cafeterias and auditoriums so we do in addition on the generally then we do an addition and renovation of the high school and that's massive it just costs a lot to do the high school it needs a lot of work so the total of all of that is two hundred and forty seven million dollars compared to two hundred and thirteen million dollars belmont taxpayers will be responsible for for the seven to twelve school and when i'm hearing you say it's the option of doing nothing isn't really an option  no option to do nothing the kids are here there are already in the elementary schools they're moving up into the middle school so you know in the middle school alone we're going to add two hundred dollars students over the next three or four years then they're headed to the high school you know the busy option of doing nothing is pretty terrible thank you we have been speaking with ellen schreiber who is one of the leaders at the yes for about my campaign we encourage you to vote on november  on the ballot issue involving the new bama seven through twelve say hello welcome to this week in the belmont tony and i have with me today franklin tucker the editor and publisher of the bellman tony and now much online source for hyper local news thanks for stopping over oh thank you for having me there is a never ending story regarding the community path but now it's the stories busy about conflicts between town in the state that's right i don't think it's really a conflict i think the the town is willing to listen to the state in what they're there are suggestions to the town because they have the money and and in a very bizarre twist the stat down the path from beaumont center to the cambridge line which you write in st it would it was going basically on the on the north side of the railroad tracks and then it would go underneath a new underpass the alexander underpass alexander avenue and then go on the long the south side specifically for two to allow the residents on channing road not to be not to have that path which they always protest jaxtr that now the state does object to that for the simple reason is that when you're on the south side you don't have to cross the tracks to get back onto the north side of this of this longer path that's the official path you just can't stay on the south side so they're saying it's just way too dangerous so just put it on the north side and we're golden well the town is basically going well you know if they're going to give us a pot of money i think we could go that way  october th on on whether to now change the path which was given after a few ability study from the south side to the north side which would affect the people on chang road and also a bit of a business that is at the end of that path at brighton saree which is the french company and the moving it to the other side of the railroad tracks the one that was not recommended in the feasibility study was that option it was rolled out it was rolled in feasible or it was just a rule it was just rolled out it was just ruled out only because there was opposition to it and neighbors that's why the neighbors now when they approved this they didn't say this is a hard and fast fast  rule that they were going to stay on the south side come hell or high water no this they said there was always an option of going back simply because there could be you know problems or the situation could change later on so they're now using that flexibility to move back to the north side so we will know soon bed but the state really has the upper hand the state is providing the money that's right the state is providing the money in there and they're willing partner they want to give us the money they say that they're under alexander that's beautiful because it prevents the constant trespassing of kids across tracks which they don't want and they want to give us the path as a seems of this fifty five mile path from berlin to cambridge is something that they want to have done so in belmont is that very important cog in the middle that needs to be solved so they're willing to give us the money they just want to change the the where the path is and dead decision will be made works it will cost and how money upwards to twenty five thousand dollars a year just to get weekend trash pick up in those areas so let's see what happens welcome to this week in the belmont  i have with me today joanna jubilance who is the senior multimedia journalist for the belmont citizen herald and wicked local belmont belmont's online source and print source for local news thank you roger there is continuing progress in responding to the pedestrian death this summer the board of selectmen recently made a big decision so with the support the full support of the traffic advisory committee they voted to disband the current traffic advisory committee and we name it and reappoint new members with a brand new charge so it's going to be called the transportation advisory committee and it's going to focus more on and bicycle safety in addition to vehicular traffic in what does it mean to focus on bicycle and pedestrian safety also i mean she exactly this committee will look at traffic calming measures they'll make recommendations for things like crosswalk signage how to improve intersections how to reduce you know if this areas that have a lot of speeding that the town actually is going to have a website to that's going to get this going to get a lot of public input if you go on the town of belmont website you'll see the link and you can put in your concerns about streets and sidewalks that may have issues in belmont and this committee is going to look at that data as well and work with the town a advisory committee if people are interested in this they can apply and the deadline two applies november st there they're hoping that they can get people with traffic engineering experience that would be a big plus and they'll make the appointments on november also making progress and making a decision on what happens at the old incinerator site yes the old incinerator site it's located on concord avenue twenty five dollars acres of land which is currently used by public works for things like storing leaves and different things and it will still need to be used by public works but they're looking at post closure use it's because what they have to do is they have to cap the site they're required by the state and they have to make a decision about what is what is what kind of cap and they're going to put that's going to depend on the use so there was a meeting back in june and there was a a long list of potential uses which they've now narrowed down to five do you want to know if answers are and those five are anaerobic digester ok born just focusing on these five uses and they're looking for public input there are pros and cons to all these uses on the anaerobic digester would require a fuse ability study which would cost eight thousand two hundred dollars the hockey rink  the the pro is that the capping wouldn't cost as much because the rink itself acts as a cap the con is that someone's going to have to pay to put in a road and parking and it would not be able to get done for at least five years if the high school project is approved they're going to need that yeah the next few years as the concrete and steel structures three new buildings at the bradford in cushing square rise up today the owners of the bradford toll brothers and their architects recently held a public meeting to allow the planning board and members of the public to see and experience the materials that will be on the outside of the buildings so today we have a mock up of the building materials that will be going on in each of the three buildings in the bradford development which is formerly the cushing village development it's an open public meeting so that the public can come in look at the materials  confirm that in fact of what's being put on the buildings is what was approved by the planning board this is been this is been a project bradford now that's been in process for over ten years as we're seeing at this point the project is coming out of the ground one of the jobs of the planning board has been and continues to be the approval of the of the materials that will be on the exterior of the building we have already had a st step in terms of this and the materials have been brought to the planning  were presented before they have been available at town hall for everybody to take a look at we're just going to walk through the sort of what you see before you it's it's a conglomeration of building materials as best we could make it represent the actual building we have varieties of cement siding shingles the way the windows are you know this is a simple window the proportions are for sample window and not the proportions you see in the in the final window but they are six over six with the transom we do have some limitations on the center window because we have two conditions a stone brick only condition and then a trim condition so you know  it's a little unfinished in the middle but you know the intention is to show you that you know what the window looks like with white trim and what it looks with next to the brick well i'm delighted that the planning board and told brothers ha put up the mock up and invited the community to see it i think it's really important i like very much the limestone use on the mona building as the cornerstone of the development i think that's really important and a really beautiful materials i was also very pleased to hear that the red brick is going to be full brick and not been near that's a very positive you know addition and i and i appreciate the general response which is to build to three different buildings as opposed to one human development and i think having three distinctive buildings are really good thing here is doing peter's with a look at what there is to do in belmont in the coming week on community calendar hi everyone i'm jane and this is your community calendar for this week drag maclean deconstructing stigma team and celebrating world mental health day on october th with the north american premiere of a go at the film showcases the work being done by maclean's partners from the movie even at home of brains in kenya following the screening there will be a panel discussing mental health around the world the screening and panel are both free register on event break there are grace tuttle will visit belmont books to read from her book hidden city and dot stripes squiggle on friday dollars in a guest story time the event will be accompanied by a craft activity exploring the shapes and textures of sea creatures and on friday evening you can attend a ticketed author visit at belmont books with madeleine miller author of the song of the killie's and new york times bestseller circuit students can attend this author talk for free when they present their student i d s at the home of books in stores next week is public power week and the belmont light department will be at the beech tree center on friday for presentation learn about the benefits of public power how to save money on electricity and how to increase renewable energy broadway night is a beat just performing arts company's annual musical theatre cabaret taking place on friday and saturday evenings in the high school's little theater students will perform classic show tunes and contemporary work from new musical theater composers in an evening of song dance and storytelling more info and tickets on the just pack website little johnny is a ghost who loves trick or treating solve math problems at the russian school of mathematics math spooky house and helped johnny collect his traits on saturday from two to five as a thank you for your help you can win some treats and prizes as well the belmont library recently hosted a presentation on technology in today's world one speaker talked about fake news and technology as nd speaker talked about social media and this is a good thing right we have great walks we have a lot of really high quality new sites many more than the big three and many more than the newspaper we had before just like our great really unprecedented access to information over dinner we were talking about just going from medical the election the trunk campaign was publicly courting black voters they were saying come vote for me i'll help you out more i've got your back right come in and vote for me while they adults and children gathered at harris field last week to celebrate soccer night in belmont this year one hundred percent of belmont's girls varsity soccer team st began in nd soccer the purpose of the night is to celebrate how much strong tradition of soccer from kids through the varsity high school let's take a look at some of what happened event celebrates the connection between our high school soccer programs and our youth programs the belmont soccer association and the arlington soccer club  it for this week's edition and in the belmont journal let's now take a look at what's happening on the emcees community programming channels i'm your host roger coulton thank you for watching i'll talk to you next time