hello everyone welcome to the belmont journal belmont's own program for hire local news and community affairs programming einar host roger called and a reminder from the town's office of community development the town residential snow by law requires sidewalks along residential properties to be cleared of snow and ice by eight pm the day following the storm for example for this past sunday storm snow should have been cleared from sidewalks to thirty six inches by eight pm on monday night if you have questions about the bylaw you can contact the office of community development at six  thousand and eighteen every seat of the twelve open seats in each town meeting precinct is open every year as of this year three year terms are still open for year or the partial term seats as a way to decide whether they want to be involved to the point of running later for three years seat maps of belmont's precincts are available on the town clerk's website dollars kids made the buzz at the m l k breakfast with equality for a change a song they wrote for basic records a workshop offered by the belmont after school enrichment collaborative  captivated the public like the keynote speaker who invited them to go on his show on w g b h belmont media's frederick regal sat down with the kids and their teachers before i get into the topic i have to just give another round of applause to these young people from a chinnery middle school i'd like to make sure i get one of those down bows so i can take over to the station with me but it means so much ignoring it hurts more than a touch so we decided to put together a workshop to teach and record original songs with students and we had this amazing group of talented kids join us so we started by coming with original material to just teach them the recording process and then from there we worked on collaborating and writing original songs with them and that's where quality for a change came from their words their melody and we just helped with the music and the recording and the editing so that was their working on but we wanted to write our own song so we talked about what things where mary and get people to be aware about so we to watch them really arrive at that themselves and any work that we did in editing it or producing it in that song it was just to sort of capture what they had already done themselves so that's welcome to this week in the belmont citizen her oh i have with me today joanna jubilance who is the multimedia journalist for the citizen how in wicked local belmont belmont online and print source of local news thanks for stopping over always public hearings have begun between the planning board and the grade seven to twelve your high school building committee and one of the things that came up was they want to see the southwest wing which is at the front entrance of dollars to twelve dollars school be moved away from the pond they feel it's poking into the pond and they want to see more space between the pond in the building because they said it's historic space it was actually designed in the one thousand nine hundred and twenty s by lauren underwood it's a significant asset to the would move in this effect the size of the building yes so that basically the they had a meeting this week and the architectural team said doing this will add square footage to the building and it will affect the educational program on the th floor it can be done you'll gain ten feet the most you can gain is ten feet he said but you'll add six hundred and thirty seven square feet to the building so they're going to decide between now and next week they're going to look they're going to look and see can we get the square footage down to the four hundred and forty five thousand one hundred square feet that was approved by the massachusetts school building authority and that is a limb question that isn't up or they absolutely can't go over that at all and they're going to try  and they're going to see what they can do which the impact on the teaching of moving well just just some of the classrooms have to be moved around it does affect the educational program they call it but they it can be done it's just a question of this extra square footage now whether or not they can get it down ok well speaking of the high school yeah we are close to making a decision about a new permanent principal or possibly no decision well ok well we'll find that out we have two candidates two candidates who are going through the public interview process where they can actually meet parents and parents can ask them questions so one of them is isaac taylor he is the principal of north middlesex regional high school in townsend which is about eight will be with the two new grades about two thousand two hundred dollars students and then all of bradford is the nd all of bradford she is currently the principal apprentice for prospect hill academy which is a charter k through twelve school in cambridge and she's coming to meet the public as well that school has one thousand one hundred students but again it's k through twelve it's a different model and both both of these candidates have a strong teaching background so we'll see w end up picking if they end up picking either one because the public is filling out questionnaires giving feedback and that will be taken into consideration fine and the decision lies with superintendent failing i believe it does and the human resources department belmont belmont's online and print source of local news you can read about these stories and more both online and in the print edition of the belmont citizen herald well my lights two thousand and eighteen about belmont's lights appliance rebate program it's not something that i actually have any familiarity with sure so it's a program that started in two thousand and three so since then we've been off for offer have all the information on how to do so energy efficient appliances of course are important but why does belmont light manage this kind of a program as we look forward to you know our strategy for achieving all of our climate goals and energy goals every component of our service offerings have to play a role in that and so appliance rebates target you know that the rand side  and this is to help make up the difference and help them cover that incremental cost for an energy star model you know is this a program that's going to be in place in two thousand and nineteen yes and so twenty nine empowering people to manage their and use their energy consumption by creating rebates it also helps us steer folks in the right direction to choose smart devices smart thermostat smart appliances and so you know as many of us know you can go out to a store you can go online and there seems like there are endless options this helps narrow down the field and help folks pick technologies that work with belmont lights management that are there other programs that the belmont lite operates that have similar goals oh well it's just it's part of a wide range of rebates that we offer we have the home energy  assessments you know as part of this we talked about the air source heat pump rebate so it's part we're really pushing strategic electrification and it's part of that larger umbrella of leveraging the ability to  this week in the belmont county and i have with me today franklin tucker who is the editor and publisher of the belmont county in belmont online source for hyper local news thanks for stopping over thank you we are making progress toward reaching a decision on a possible new hockey rink that's right well a skating rink they want to be known as and it would be more of a recreation center they are looking at a lot more involved with this this this project but it is a comments and the pros and cons at the at the public meeting it really turns which brought one hundred people to to listen to it so it was a lot of interest in that there really sounds like everything is leaning towards having it at the original having it at the present site just rebuilt building a new structure there in one of the implications of that is that the high school would lose a field that's right it's well there's there's always an assumption that they will lose some  fields but it will come down to what the design looks like but everybody believes that there will be a loss of one field it will be a j v field so they're thinking so the school committee and the rec department believe that they can somehow  mitigate that problem ok one thing that would seem to be mitigating is is traffic there's been traffic concerns about the new school how does the new rank affect that well you know you currently have a lot of traffic that's hockey in skating and related you only need to go to a very popular ski game to see the traffic and a number of people parking on side streets it will be a levy it is a little bit i believe because they are thinking about  having a good sized parking lot there so you will take a lot of the track a lot of the parking a lot of traffic off the streets of belmont and put it in sort of having the neighbor neighborhoods into the parking lot does the hockey rink provide parking for  as more or less it would be student parking right now the planning board in the high school building committee have to say have decided that it will be four hundred dollars parking spots on the periphery of the new high school they w t have a big parking lot of will just be on a street that goes around the school a lot of that other traffic a lot of parking for students will be on concord ave and probably after the break in the new skating facility will save the town money do i understand that that's right because it's a public private partnership it is a public park partnership it would cost no money for for that to the town taxpayers it would be a thirty year lease or whatever you know that's still up for up to date thank you we've been speaking with franklin tucker who is the editor and publisher of the belmont tony and belmont online source for hyper local news here's belmont media center is jane peters to tell us about what there is to do in belmont in the coming week on this segment jane sits down with food pantry director patty mahal it's to talk about the food pantries moved to its new home ivery why we're here with belmont here with us from the belmont food pantry we are going to be talking about what was initially going to be a move for the belmont food pantry from the church to the town hall but now is just to reset up and i restocking of your inventory so can you clarify a little bit what might have happened there well basically what happened is last summer we there was some clearing up and rebuilding over it beaverbrook and so it stirred up all the ground and  critters and so the critters went around in fact searching for a new home and they found the food pantry and so we basically had a major rat infestations so what had to happen is that i had to bring in a cleaning nd so we'll be taking from that we had planned on anyways purchasing special restaurant style metal tables with a shelf underneath so that you can keep the food you know six inches off the ground so we planned we outfit american space anyways that's lucky so this kind of was for to it to us and it worked out awesome can you talk a little bit about the new space that you're going to be and maybe what changes are coming about because you're in a new space things that you're updating changing to the organisation so it's sort of thing watch it lee every time we move we make changes here and and this is actually the biggest change what we have been working on in one of my board members that's getting a software program she's got the software program inputted all of the information that we you know have to have about every one and we'll update it with the registration forms and what that  enable us to do is to keep an electronic database of everyone who's using the food pantry how many bags are going out how many people are utilizing the pantry it will keep us on top of you know that sally has did come in october so she can get a gift card for the holidays and it also enables us to fulfill a request from the greater boston food bank for this data and so the food pantry is slated to be open february nd and we just got through the holiday season which i think is when a lot of people have giving on the mind how can people continue that into the new year going forward it's again you know any special specific items you can have a cold water or whether food drive you can have a birthday food drive you can have you know snack day once we get into the summer you know different things that might pertain to what you would be eating you know in the family you know at your own home and do it one of the other places that you can donate food is there's a barrel at star market and it's by the cash register so if you're going along and you're shopping for items you could grab instead when you grab two and have you know make up a bag and you can put that bag into the barrel there that's another it's the easiest way to doing it as we go forward we will have a drop off box somewhere on site but i hasn't been decided because we've got to remember that the town hall is in a storage district well i'm sure it'll be useful if you are able to put it in there because a lot of people go through that area and a lot anyone who's wishing to monetary don and on the volunteer page a sign of genius you just click on it and find a time that you can volunteer you great awesome thank you so much both thank you for having me appreciate it i'll check them out on february nd everyone i'm jane in this is your community and nineteen is the year of the pig and you can celebrate with the belmont chinese american association at the end you will chinese new year gala on sunday from one to six hundred and thirty from one to four in the general cafeteria experience dragon dancing view peking opera costumes and traditional instruments and enjoy chinese food the formal performance following the festival from four hundred and thirty to six hundred and thirty in the auditorium will include acts put on by belmont residents and world famous artists alike join the over one thousand belmont residents who attended last year's festival in bringing in the chinese new year as winter settles in there's nothing more comforting than a bowl of heartwarming soup your child can enjoy a special soups and stews cooking workshop family on tuesday for children in grades six to eight and wednesday for children in grades three through five learn more at chop chop family dot org and register on event great powers music school presents happy beats designed for children ages five to ten and afro caribbean drumming for adults to teach drumming techniques through the music of north west africa and the caribbean master traditional rhythms and songs and learn about the various cultures that create this vibrant and exciting eyes open for tracks and if the conditions are favorable you'll tap the st sugar maple of the season register by visiting mass audubon dot org the belmont high school performing arts company presents their winter improv  weekend with shows on friday and saturday at seven pm in the little theater driven by audience suggestion this show is guaranteed to be a high energy performance learn more and purchase tickets on the p a c website do you have a book that saved your life belmont books and the mafia steve all men are hosting a story slam centered on this theme a winner will be chosen by a special guest judges to win a prize tickets for storytellers and audience members can be purchased on belmont books website or in person at the store be sure to put a request in your order if you would like to participate as a storyteller and throughout february get active in your reading with this year's st belmont books community read the age of light tells the story of a vogue model turned renowned photographer aleem miller you can check belmont books instagram for discussion questions about the book and share your own photos inspired by lee miller with the designated hashtags for a chance to win journal as we sign off let's watch what's available on belmont media centers other television stations thanks for watching i'm your host roger colton i will see you again next time