ok this is bob riordan public information specialist for the town of belmont here for our special town day edition of belmont and thirty i'm joined today by a former selectman angela frenzy angela how you doing fantastic fantastic it's great to be on this side of the  microphone ended up doing all that so maybe someday i'll show we'll see how it goes great see how it is a great weather today great day i bet you've been around for a lot of these town days i think i've made most of them  yeah and it's interesting they keep getting bigger and better every year i mean even in spite of all of the construction site that we've got going on here it's they've done a great job of being able to work around it in get all the booths and tables up and the crowds are great so it's a it's a it's a beautiful event you know one thing to point out is the crowd is really great down here i mean we've had a lot of people that are really engaged and one thing that i know you're very passionate about is the local business community and it seems like this is a great market for them to kind of interact with the community right i mean in that's one of the you know one of the great deference one of the great goals with the of the of the whole day is to promote local business  of a business point of view but also from a from an activities point of view of the construction here in the center to pella road what's going to happen with cushing square you know i mean just so many things this tremendous amount of  every every road i think i try to go down this you know new road being put in so we're making great progress there we've got the bridge cleaned we've still got some work to do there but the bridge looks great i mean personally i never realized how dirty it was now see how clean it is well i tell you the contractor the tried to clean it never realized how dirty it was either because there's still a number of stains the air that will try to remove but for the most part it's clean we'd like to at some point be able to take care of the divide  get that painted get some landscaping down around so forth so you know if it is that it's it's it's a simple about on leashes one thing i hope people realize is that although we are going through all this construction which can make travel difficult we do have the class and st lot and people really need to take advantage of that and support the local businesses because as you said it's a very vibrant place and a real center a town you know it's it's amazing people talk about the importance of parking but i program is to really be a monthly update to show residents some of the things the town government is doing and i know you as a former selectman have a very good understanding of a lot of the things the inner workings the town hall in town government but we feel something that the residents could really benefit from is just some knowledge of that and a better understanding and some of the great things that our town departments are doing last month for example we had mike bishop from the water division on to talk a little bit about what they're doing he gave an update on hydrant flushing and actually the water department just got recognized for an award at the state level which is the third time in a row that they've had it tested so i know the gas companies doing a bunch of work although it recently enough i just signed a petition seven or eight of them to schedule for for being fixed up so i mean there's some there's some things in those kinds of situations that are just you know you need to appreciate the activist group because of gas company gets to build out one hundred below one hundred percent of the gas that they acquire isn't really in and so there's no incentive for them to pick the lake to fix the leaks i mean that's that's crazy yeah right and the people that are paying lower it turning right now reza so i mean  substantially but it's still a wonderful place and i can't imagine living anywhere else so i can agree with you there it's a great community and that's one of the goals of belmont and thirty and great programs like today and programs like yours is we just want to show residents what a great community it is really showcase the good things that are happening here well so thank you i don't think a lot of residents really understand what the cultural council does what what what is like an average thing that you guys work on and how do you how do you better our community ok well so we have a cycle were funded by the massachusetts cultural council which is a state agency and we get between five and ten thousand dollars a year there was recently a little tussle at the state house about how much money we were going to get and there's an organization called mass creative which has an email list of makes it really easy for you to stay up to date and know about funding levels and how to get in touch with your senators or your state reps and to let them know that the cultural programs are really important to you we have a funding cycle so we have a grant deadline that october fifteenth annually and right when everyone comes back from the summer we publicize information in the belmont tony and maybe we'll make sure to get you some information about the grant applications you can go online we have a little bookmark if you happen to be a town day and want to stop by our our tent but this tells you what website to go on with the mass cultural council download the grant form we funded the schools so we have a lot of programs that are going on theater programs science education programs we had one about machines i'm a former high school science teacher and i we really liked it when they had the machines come in and we were studying work in energy and it made the academic study come alive more recently we funded the belmont world film festival they're actually having a book signing coming up in june and we funded the habitat habitats having oh and i find the belmont media center and i find it at tavia where i'm not remembering all the different grants that have happened in so many years but clearly you guys have done a lot in the community and it shows so you said that there's a way for people to file grants or if somebody has a project to share if we have a facebook page spelman cultural council and that's probably the easiest way to get in touch with us look for belmont coutts cultural council you can also get in touch with me julia jenkins i am actually a real estate agent in town at century twenty one adams k c so if you want to find my name or my facebook page but that's in the twenty first century the easiest way to find us and you have openings if somebody was interested in joining the cultural current solar not all how does that work our meetings are open to the public so we'd love if anyone wanted to get involved and get an idea of other programs that would help him enrich the cultural community of belmont you don't have to go into boston you into cambridge to have fun and to be creative so yeah you get touch with me and they are also to the selectmen office because we're appointed by the selectmen so there's a formal application that you can fill out that's great to hear and it's a three year term as i understand your term great well thank you for stopping by i mean certainly i think we learned a lot i'm from a russian school of mathematics we have been in the tone for a year already serving about two hundred families and we are very excited to be part of the belmont give us a call come for a free of all we plus this from september or congratulations on that it's certainly a great news that you guys will be moving to a new location and you said what we're talking about you just had an event recently for the school  challenge games and rubik's cube competition so it was a lot of fun we had music and games for the kids and the are going to make these and then you'll think hopefully next summer we will see you there if you missed the opportunity t time so certainly like a mini town day to get things going for the summer season before the town they are right so you said you're going to make that an annual event folks can look out for it next year absolutely please check out our facebook page for events we do have actually such events happening at least twice a year we have one coming in december as well which which is more marked project competition nightmare we have students to create their own much project using the concepts that they learn in our classrooms and we have again our doors are open for the community to come see and what for the best project that they like it has been a great success this year that we have done  by today i'll let you get back to the event but we appreciate it you are a new location thank you thanks for having me i'm elaine a celebration and i'm an owner of our house kickboxing and fitness we are on belmont street right next list we only opened in november so we're fairly new business for the community here and we're here today trying to the face is the name most people drive by our studio every day and never met us so that's why here we have a and that's one of the great things about today is the community really gets to know new businesses like yourself so i'm glad you were able to get a booth and become a part of it you're mentioning that you have an event coming up to yes yes we actually i am a c greater boston health and wellness collaborative and we are putting together a prosperous two health event where we're trying to introduce members of the community here to new businesses to health and wellness to different options that they can potentially add to their lifestyle so that like town day is just a collaborative effort between a bunch of businesses almost definitely we have a whole little roll of businesses that down day was amazing to put us together and give us a chance to do this whole event and promote the events like that to the community it's not even about each particular business it's much more about community education and community outreach i love it and is there an opportunity for folks to learn more about this event i yes yes  business owners may be doing something with the belmont media center to promote it you so good yeah forget everything yes we actually be doing a business of health show on belmont cable channel again to promote local businesses to show people how you can get healthier how you can implement healthier lifestyle changes into your life we will actually be taping in a couple of weeks and then yes keep an eye on it keep an eye open for business of  health good to hear it certainly a lot of stuff coming up from the business and we're glad that things are going so well let you get back to your booth thank you for taking a few minutes to talk with us thank you i'm grateful for being here thank you so much absolutely not only from a vision twenty one implementation committee who stop one of the official town committees are our charge is with implementing the vision that residents of belmont came up with i think in two thousand and one so making you know being a welcoming community maintaining schools roads there's a there's a whole charge which is available on the website but we come up with projects to find ways to do that and certainly there's so much to be done to make that vision a reality what are some of the things you're focus there is so actually the  last big thing we did which which demonstrates how much there really is to do is we organized last year a survey at one of our charges this to every so often update find out from the community what it is they want so we did a  recently we released a report i don't know if it's you can see and find out it's available on the town web site talking about what types of things people want to see so there is lots of great feedback i'm obviously than usual about you know improving roads points of the schools but also things about learning about ways for people to get more involved in town government so i think that you know i'd love to pitch to whoever is watching is that there's lots of town committees out there looking for members of the community to joy and information on the website about how to do that the vision twenty one implementation committee where about to have a few members go off and always let you're certainly looking for new people yeah just to remind folks the annual committee appointment process is coming up so anyone who's interested joining vision twenty one or one of our other committees there should be some vacancies on most if not all what you would need to do is just log on to the town website will be running an advertisement in the paper with more instructions or stop by the selections office and foll what's called a community volunteer interest foreman now he's done it is yet difficult and it asks about experience but you absolutely don't need to have had you know lots of experience already were really looking for newcomers and anyone with the time to devote to helping making better and i imagine a grib all of the town departments are there environmental groups so it's a great event to learn about different things going off about want to get involved with so it's this year it's tuesday august thirtieth from six to eight thirty pm at the cha school you'll see signs around town remind you about it but if you haven't been before even if you have come check it out now what about ten groups like those that are here today how can they get involved so i actually will be very shortly sending out an invitation to all the groups that have attended in the past i think we try to do a good job of including everyone but if for some reason you are a town organization it's it's either official town things or non profits and the two categories involved send an email to meet belmont at g mail dot com and and yours truly well we'll get it in and reply and figure out if you're a good fit for the event that's good to hear and i mean i know from attending even if you're not a newcomer to belmont you can chamber of commerce thanks for joining us pleasure to be if it's a terrific crowd great day for belmont a lot of people were tied behind the scenes to make it happen and it's great to see the happy faces certainly this as you know is a huge day for the business community it's a great day for businesses to connect to people who want to talk a little bit about that in the value wells being the executive director of the watertown belmont chamber chamber is comprised of mostly small businesses and it's it's it's great to have an event like this so they can get out to the community and the community can see what they do so at the belmont betterment of socialization of belmont center that i'm an association i believe is behind this i know belmont savings bank plays a big part in this event i know jerry from champion sporting goods is very active in it and we have somewhat a town businesses here as well so if you're missing if you haven't been hit you're missing a great day and you're missing a great time to just visit the businesses and see the community in action and we've lucked out with some great weather today which is something we really appreciate i think i should take this jacket off it's cold and s this is a real real integration of the community and puts a smile on my face that's good to hear and let's just talk a little bit about some of the work you're doing at the chamber i know with summer coming up as well out of events and things that are works it's been a web site is w b c c dot org and that'll say it'll that'll tell you a lot better than i can say it sold go to the web site and look at the events and if you have any questions contact information is there we have a lot of source resources both community why government wise business wise so really you know from the water tom belmont community if there's any anything you think you need we may have a resource for  you that's great to hear and will certainly help you to connect with some of the residents hopefully that are watching here today and we've been saying all day here that town day is the place to be and i have seen all three of our selectmen here here's another one kim williams i love her you great so the farmer's market so much and that's another great event that takes place here in belmont center and certainly the board has been very supportive of that and also town day absolutely i'm in here for about two hours walking up and down and i have a bag full of information i join the historical association there's a lot of great organizations here and this really to me is a great chance for the community to bo and i just want to mention to the audience that it's your fault that i'm in politics because i work for bobby's campaign when he was running for state rep when was that two thousand and twelve two thousand and twelve  oh my gosh that was a while ago well i think it qualified me for the job i do now but i'm glad that i'm not in the political scene anymore and i had so much fun holding a sign for you down there in concord i mean nobody understand how that intersection works it's difficult but certainly the board has taken kind of a leadership role in trying trying to restructure some of the things down here in the senate with the reconstruction projects absolutely things so hopefully we'll see some improvement know one thing just to remind folks of that we've been talking about all day is that the class street watch in addition to being home so the farmer's market is a great place to park for people to come and walk around the center here when they may find it otherwise difficult absolutely  how is your new show going well what the audience for the judges what is it called belmont in thirty in this is what we're working on right now we call the program is to really do a monthly update of what's going on within the town kind just give people an insider's look at some of the things that town government does because we've got a lot of great people working here as you know and just kind of showcasing their efforts and giving the audience a better idea of what town ok up the board is going to be taking that up soon is my understanding in the summer yes absolutely we have the appointments coming up so great way for folks to get involved obviously i mean many people are members of different committees and with sixty six  belmont's fire chief differs l dave welcome good afternoon thanks for stopping by so what brings you down here today well we want to make sure that the event today is safe so we make sure that all the cooking establishment that have been temporarily set up here are safe they have their extinguish use ready that their propane and things that they're using to cook with are properly installed in permit it so there's a great deal of stuff that actually goes into an event like this behind the scenes tremendous amount we have to actually vacate the station as one of the things we also have an e m f detail down here today in case anybody becomes sick or injured i did see them walking around hopefully they're not needed today but it's good to know that the the i did see something online recently you just had a student who got an award from the safe program yes holly kang from the wind work school had a was going to a friend's house and the friend didn't answer the door but could hear the smoke detectors sounding in through the education she learned in the safe program she went home and persuaded her mom to make a phone call to the homeowner  and they were able to get in and we responded and made sure that the fire had not expanded beyond the stove so it was a good good good series too and it's that's great to hear and certainly that's a great program that's done in partnership with the local business community yes it's a three way partnership we get a grant from the state from the department fire services we receive money from phailin insurance in our biggest supporters cambridge savings bank that's good to know i mean certainly this is a big event for the business community and that's just one of the ways that the business community gives back to belmont in our town yes and we appreciate the support we have yet another special guest on our town did dition of belmont and thirty chair of our board of select are having me what a great day this is i mean the place is packed the weather was good today so it's another great celebration of our community and excited about what's taking place today there's all kinds of children as adults  just a wonderful day for a town i love town day well as a real hero and we see so many people having a good time and that's a great thing for belmont absolutely it is a great thing for vomits when we all come together as a community perhaps for our political differences aside and just celebrate the day and celebrating the great time that we live in you know that's one important thing i mean certainly we just came off of a reelection season we did everything a graduation like you but that's one thing is great about belmont is people put their differences aside you really want together on a day like today do we have a lot of work ahead of us we're going to celebrate today and relax enjoy the beautiful weather you know the rains come in later today and tomorrow but we have town meeting coming up in a couple weeks we have a lot of important issues we need to pass our budget for twenty seventeen put aside issues are not discussed and we just celebrate the wonderful community that we live in certainly an event like this is something i think everybody can support absolutely honestly the businesses appreciate the board's leadership doing i know it's been challenging for them we really with the redevelopment of pleasant street but the businesses i want to thank them and they're celebrating today and they're out in force i've already stopped by a number of them and thank them for their cooperation as you know bobbie to be difficult for them and they've had some challenges so i think the board's going to consider doing some things in june to help them out perhaps around parking going to talk about that i think on monday so it thanks again i mean beaumont savings bank which is such a huge supporter of our town and i saw some about one hundred cars that have been out here today that to make that more accessible and better support the business community so while that's true we still have to you know as you know we need to you know finalize our parky management plan so that's going to be helpful and what i'm really excited about what's on our agenda from monday is we're going to make a decision in toward a contract for the community path feasibility study and want to contract to our consultant and so that's launching that's as close as we've ever been to realizing a community path for our community and so we'll begin t work that's been that needs to be done there in the community path imitation of budget committees and great work so hopefully once we have a path in town wherever that time will be less people will drive and have a need to park and more people will walk so we'll say well certainly the improvements down here in a day like today just proves what a walking place belmont center can be and how many great businesses we have they are take the time to go walk around i mean not just here but also pushing square in that projects moving forward as well as the hopefully the community understands and we have the square as well so we have vibrant business communities we need to continue to support their efforts well that's that's great i appreciate you stopping by to i mean certainly we know you're having me honor and great