go hello and welcome to belmont journal your new hyper local news and community affairs program i'm your host this week jeff hansel and i'm the executive director here at the belmont media center i'd first like to remind you that the views and opinions expressed in this program are not those of the belmont media center the town of belmont nor comcast or verizon they are yours and we'd like you to be involved in this new community affairs program either by reporting the news or behind the scenes if you're interested please send an e mail to fred at belmont media dot org every week on belmont journal will feature a variety of topics people in events each week will be telling you what's coming up in the community with our community calendar segment and what's coming up here on b m c in terms of programming and particularly live programming we'll also be checking in to find out what's going on this week in the citizen harold first up this week journal we took a look at the grand opening bell mog books in belmont center let's see what happens i'm so happy and ecstatic i can tell you the great story and it's a wonderful addition and we wanted one for a long time it's been i've been here for just over five years now so you know to about sixty seventy five days ago or so it's been all as the director of operations so what was it like to take that to take that leap like you weren't really prepared for that right it just kind of all sudden happened yeah there was no i had no plan to just say that way as well it's been interesting it's been it's been rewarding it's been very very busy to say the least not overwhelming but very busy right because you had this when this happened you the belmont i was in the midst of all the transmission with the times been hearing so we were in the process of finishing the construction of our new substation and then the stuff we were need to happen was to re serve the existing substations from our new substation project but the next focus for us is our master plan and i plan it is a ten year plan to convert our older substations onto the new substation and now here's jane peters our training and production coordinator with this week's community the i'm jane and i'm here with your community calendar for this week there's no shortage of hollowing festivities going on this weekend around belmont here's your lineup of haunted happenings this weekend join the all girls band at the pace in park charge for a hollowing folk dance party from eight to eleven pm dancers of all ages and levels are invited to bring in their soft soul dancing shoes and dress in orange and black for this hollowing themed dance party it is not necessary to bring a dancing partner if you're a beginner the dances are easy to learn simply by watching the leaders get spooked at this year's spooky walk twenty seventeen at monotony rocks park in arlington ma crawling with mummy's zombies and other wars being put together by volunteers and members of the community this attraction will run from six thirty to eight pm and is open to all ages the belmont watertown united methodist church is hosting a children's hollowing party starting at two pm with a costume parade around the middle green rehab and nursing center and continuing from three thirty to five thirty at the church on october twenty ninth belmont books is hosting a hollowing story time from eleven am to noon come in costume to enjoy special hollowing children's books such as pirates or spy john funk and others and if you're looking for more storytelling events you can join the powers of music school for their musical storytelling program dragon's love tacos at the belmont public library at ten and eleven am this program is developed for children ages three and up but all ages are welcome also happening in belmont on the twenty eighth you can volunteer your time at the belmont watertown united methodist church from ten to noon with their rise against hunger meal packaging event at their belmont site the church's packaging ten thousand meals that will be sent to those in need and they need your help to reach their goal you can sign up to help or donate at their web site the first armenian church in belmont is hosting their fall bazaar go out and enjoy some traditional armenian cuisine and enjoy children's activities for kids of all ages enjoy yoga on the lawn brought to you by the junior league of boston and artemis yoga this class is free and runs from ten thirty to eleven fifteen am following the yoga class you can purchase a ticket to join the junior league on a tour of the twenty seven thousand designer show house in belmont and as a reminder the twenty seven team designer show house is available for viewing through november fifth taking the work of over twenty local designers that transformed this historic home in belmont and after finding your inner peace to become one of the society of master beer see airs at the belmont craft beer seller on november first at six pm you can register for the full series of style events or for each and event individually these classes will make a true advisor of beer out  giving you a skillful understanding of beer hospitality and service history and styles and if you're a beer fanatic you can join the craft beer seller on november second for a blind beer tasting sample six different beers and learn how to talk about and describe them without knowing what they are all sessions are free to the twenty one and up crowd and take place each thursday night also available for tasting next week our lord hobo on friday the test your need for auto correct at the seventeenth annual foundation for belmont education spelling bee on november fourth the spelling bee starts at two pm and goes all day who stop by and support young scholars in both competitive and noncompetitive rounds and finally on nov fourth you can join an editor at digital silver imaging at ten am for a workshop and cya type and alternative photography process go through each step of the process starting with making a contact negative on  about a few stories that you're writing about this week in the citizen held to be sure to pick up a copy or check it out online we're going to talk about the plenty of course but what's the story about rats what's happening all right jeff rats there's definitely been an increase in rats according to the belmont health department which is what i've been writing about in the paper this is actually the second rat story it's a forty percent increase since last year in the rat population wow and let me add an interrupt you but i did also see on the boston news that there's a sixty three percent increase in rat infestation across the metro area so right this is not special about my right right and they're not sure they don't know for sure if it's related to construction it could be and obviously there has been a lot of construction so my initial story was letting people know that rats are on the rise and in belmont so be careful about how you put out your trash you seal you know seal barrels barrels that are damaged make sure your garage is kept clean and not cluttered if you compost be very careful about that i mean rats they want food they want water they love trash so that was my initial story and then we had to deter the rats it's garlic oil and white pepper it sounds you know like it's not like a toxic substance but you certainly wouldn't want your kid to eat it and that's why they've closed the park and they also have traps set in the park i'm not sure what the traps are are like but i know they are trying to trap these rodents so really you should not be playing in joey's park ok and for more information you know be sure to go to the thomas town of belmont website to the department of public works to the health department there's actually lots of good information about following up what you say about how to decrease the chances of rats right invading your problem right and also how to how to notice something that could be evidence like what a rat on a looks like you know right so look for more news about that but we're glad to see that progress has been made we're also talking also about belmont vet veterans remember you know of course the media center has been integral involved in that effort we've been proud to be a one of the partners with the system harold with the belmont veterans memorial committee and the home of high school we cry series of videos what's happening there with us so alan schreiber actually wrote the story which is our center piece this week there is a film they've made a film out of those forty plus interviews with veterans that belmont media center and all my high school co producer right and the film is showing on november fifth at town hall at four pm it's free and open to the public and it's a bye week for the patriots so it's the perfect time to go it's also a perfect time because as veterans day is approaching this really is a great way to learn what belmont veterans experienced during their service it really is it's first hand stories out of their own mouth and i've seen some of the clips here obviously because one of our staff people jeremy reserve edited the highlights together although everybody here jane peters myself julie self know a lot of folks have been involved in putting these interviews together and so on but germany did a great job pulling it together into this highlight so when when is it again it's sunday november fifth at four pm this is also at the town hall auditorium this is also related to the belmont veterans memorial project and you can learn more about that on belmont that's dot com and that is basically going to be a brand new memorial that they're pit pond there is an existing memorial there that they're also going to be restoring so that they're in the process of fundraising for this memorial and again you can learn about that on the web site if they raise one hundred thousand dollars by vice chairman and the week before that roughly mingy can also sent his letter of resignation so that's three resignations one week apart it's probably the first time in history that's happened in belmont and there there are some reasons that people can speculate why this happened but they've each given their reasons rafi said it was because he he alleged that there was misconduct by the newly elected chairman charles clarke liz allison said she didn't  she didn't feel like she was on the same going in the same direction as where the planning board is going now and barbara just said it was her workload but we do have a clip that we can share from a is such an important issue that the hasty decision that you and rockie may resent the big concept the big idea and our meeting without any discussion or any research and put it front and put the playing words in print behind that was not thought well it is good to have a preview of what we'll be hearing from you again when we get to idaho you've certainly heard from the community in the library which i don't think any of that is a surprise and i think the fact that you're going forward in the face of this is what surpris i didn't think the planning board has any authority over the library clearly a library is has elected trustees it's their fiduciary responsibility to take care of the library board between a select group of people not brought forward not pleased adequately and it's not a big idea i am it's a big lie oh my and i also think as a result of this in the actions that you've taken you should resign as of the planing board and remove yourself from this process because i think you violated your responsibilities to the planning well that does make it a little bit harder to move along to item to be where you can stay or it's up to you i plan to move on to i don't want to be in the end just for the record i'm so that is the clip that was part of the overall coverage of planning board and i know you've reached out to everyone involved in order to be more informative we're going to see if we can also get some of those folks to come out to give their perspective and fill at some of the public in july there was a lot of criticism against alison for the process that she followed and presenting that idea the library trustee was very public about saying that they thought she should have approach people do have an issue that they want to speak about or feel like a perspective that has been covered that is open for anybody to come on speak one or two minutes about a particular issue about this issue about anything but we hope that and having you on is important because you're really providing updates news and perspective anything else you want to talk about or should we well there is one other thing there's still the designer show house that's right you nearly go boston is having at our very own eight hundred fifty three william plaque homer house where famous artist winslow homer actually spent many summers and painted many of his famous creations and that's that's right and we also were involved with the production of one of the videos there and we all have visited the home right there a twenty twenty spaces on the first two floors of the home have been transformed by designers and it so well that's it for this segment next we took a look also and i think you were involved in this segment as well i'm not mistaken we covered you covered well much serves over columbus day weekend it's an annual  another great season at the belmont farmer's market which is a part of the belmont food collaborative and the farmers market would like to know what you think and you'd like to see next season our cameras went down to the farmers market before people's homes so they can come and shop and we're also we also want to build a sense of community at the market bring people together on a nice afternoon and one thing that was different this year was the  program that stands for healthy incentives program it's a new project that the state started where people who are on snap benefits that used to be called food stamps they get a certain amount of free produce if they buy a directly from a farmer and along with that we match snap benefits and some other state benefits up to twenty five dollars per shopper per week and with all the new shoppers coming in we wound up matching about four times as much money as we thought we would this year so we had to do some fundraising during the summer and we'll have a fundraising appeals starting very soon very glad to be able to bring those folks into the market and help them get the fresh fresh local produce that's available here and if you haven't done so already be sure to go to the belmont farmer's market website and take their survey well that's just about it this time for our first edition of belmont journal we'll see you next time and stay tuned right now for what's coming up right here on your belmont media center channel