eighth at eight a m mass d o t secretary and c o stephanie pollack will join the board of selectmen and center brown's burger and other local officials for rigging cutting for the completion of the capello road construction project just seemed like yesterday we were there for the groundbreaking but basically september twenty eighth at eight am secretary pollock will be there with the board of selectmen and other elected officials twenty eighth at eight am and the location of the celebration will be at the intersection of two probably in belmont street at the m b t a turnaround which is just outside the entrance of the oakley country club receiving input from the public into share information with the public with regard to the feasibility study process there will be several public meetings but this is the kickoff meeting to start the process again it will be on new path options and again the board has approved a welcome to the new belmont center festival that will be taking place on saturday september twenty fourth from five to eight p belmont center which is being sponsored by the belmont center business association and they will have some music and restaurant to be out in the street and basically welcome you back folks to belmont center now that the project again mentioned we were scheduled to have a p q playground meeting for the twenty first but that has as of this afternoon been rescheduled so the new meeting will be wednesday september twenty eighth at seven pm in the butler school auditorium cafeteria so again the town is engage the services of water field design grow to assist in the development of the playground and  drainage systems and basically this is an opportunity for the neighborhood to come share their views and comments with the architect to get us on the path of providing an estimate and a design for the p q playground pursuing and are very excited about it so i first want to explain what we mean by age friendly community so it's a designation developed by the world health organization for cities and towns where people live and ploy met and community communication and information and finally community support and health services realize that's a lot of information but currently the network includes two hundred  eighty seven cities and towns and thirty three countries and from our immediate area newton brookline and boston so my interest in age friendly community idea was sparked last year after learning about it at the annual massachusetts council on aging meeting and it seemed that it was a good time there was a very interesting idea and it seemed to me a good time  to consider what might be other on address needs of seniors in the town so now that we have this wonderful center on the council on aging done in two thousand and three by the league of women voters so it's been a long time yeah yeah yeah exactly so we decided to pursue m belmont from a variety of sources and they presented the results of two forums that were held here on may eighteenth the purpose of the forum to solicit feedback from people attending on what they see as the needs in town how they feel about aging in town good and  information more and more immediately of interest but the percentage of people over the age of sixteen is twenty two percent compared to nineteen percent of the average community in the commonwe projected that in twenty thirty the percentage of seniors will increase to twenty seven percent of the population and the other interesting finding is that forty two percent of the town are currently sixt opportunity to review the report and and supported the suggestion made for more benches around town and picnic tables or other seating arrangements and parks another good outcome of the forums was that i was invited to the belmont housing trust meeting that month and it was clear from that particular meeting that housing for the older population is a priority for belmont housing trust and they were also identified so i'm glad that will be part of that effort still the feedback from the forums you know is relatively small because it was just two groups that attend formula grant to retain you master run focus groups and put together a more comprehensive assessment of what residents need and seek there's a chance we also might get a grant from  great so having this kind of data would be would be great to have a nurse and a prerequisite in applying to be if we want to become part of the age friendly community network  and such an assessment would be followed by evaluation and decisions would need to be made about what needs to what needs to address how to prioritize how to  council made up of stakeholders and they would include heads of departments that naturally would be involved like community planning and health and public safety  forth as well as other members from boards and commissions that also would have an interest so once a comprehensive assessment and organisation of an advisory council are in place would be eligible to apply as a member of the friendly community network and being part of the network would provide not only a positive designation for the town but it would be a source of support resources and information sharing that could boost whatever projects the town would want to move forward with that emerged from right from there so related needs in sort of a manage managed way and if you are a medicare recipient and a mass recipient and you get all kinds of and it exists in cambridge but you have to apply it's a very lengthy application process to get it in different communities but it was approved it will be coming  just starting to and the other thing is that i just want to make a shout out for the shine program in this state it's a volunteer program people are trained they call it health benefits so this happened at the last meeting so this is a vote to ratify the contract which is our been ratified by the dispatcher's our local unit chief has some highlights and then we would a question vote to approve the contract and we've so this is a new agreement with the joint public safety just vouchers represents an overall eight point eight percent increase of the three year period july for us two thousand and fourteen through june thirtieth two thousand seventeen summarize for you below are the key financial components of the agreement the koehler this contract provide for a two percent color increase each year as is consistent with the other unions that have settled as well as the nine union c executive session i think it's important for the public to understand we're not deciding we are agreeing to this tonight or voting tonight but we've had extensive discussions with you and you've had and this was a completed product and then with regard to the term of this some people who are watching will notice that this is expiring on june thirtieth two thousand and seventeen and they're going to what's going on there in just again for the public what happened that put us in this position you know just just generally generally i think negotiations are both sides bring things to the table clearly the chief noted  one of the major improvements for the contractors the drug testing and i think that took in a quite extraordinary lot of time to negotiate the language and the concept and we've got a concurrence with the union but it took a lot of conversations i think it was wonderful  passing additional five percent health benefits all to new hires i mean these are all new concepts that part of the previous contract and now with those in line your next round of negotiations which is coming sincerely we have a lot of good people on both sides and there was a lot of give and take so i mean that's what negotiations are all about it would be nice if we could just get it all done very quickly but of course why sometimes it doesn't know i i would just like to say that after months and months and months of work and discussion you know i personally am convinced that the best decision for belmont would be not to vote to support recommendation would be what is best for belmont number one number two i think we did hear from our superintendent of schools that should vote to withdraw from the district  students will not be harmed in any way there are alternatives available the best solution would be to rescind our children to minute at a much lower cost but there are other options available out there as well and any student who has already entered minute mad as a as a freshman or a ninth grader cannot be kicked out of the school votes to withdraw from the district they they would guaranteed their full education until they are seniors and on top of that we wouldn't be able to withdraw for three years anyway try think under the current congress so there is enough time to do some orderly planning and you know that that school is too large for the new member districts towns and cities so that's a problem for us and then we also have a continuing question about the ongoing administration of the school so given that town meeting excuse me that is the difference and then at that the town meeting will take its decision of whether we should exit or not but i see this more as derivative decision mentioned on friday at a working session that is that if you're a member of the district and minuteman offers a program you're not free to go out and seek a different different recommend that the voters vote not to approve their show on the ballot question vote no on the ballot question which deals with the issuance of one hundred forty four point nine million dollars in order to fund the working on with regard to our procedure projects i will note that c p a application for the upcoming funding cycle or do with the end of september so those in the public who are all part of any groups or part of a consideration should  go to the web page to download the primary application but again no we're implementing some of the c p a projects that were approved last year such as the p s u playground finishing belmont center and  right right now before winter break actually they will be delivered shortly and there will be significant period time to install them on but i think the point was to have them ready before the end of this calendar year sooner