hello everyone welcome to this week's edition have community conversations i'm your host roger coulton well town meeting is right around the corner here in belmont and we are going to go through town meeting what's going to be presented to a town meeting this year and talk about the issues the town meeting will discuss a town meeting is effectively belmont's local legislature and in an effort to explain the issues that will be presented and talk about what's at stake we have brought in franklin tucker today with the bellman tony and welcome franklin and thanks for coming over to talk with us oh i love coming over and talking about the town government any time franklin is the editor and publisher of the bellman tony and which is belmont's local online news source before we start talking about town meeting someday we're going to have you over enough times that i'll start feeling compelled to introduce the belmont county and but can you tell our listeners what the belmont tony is just as eas describe it it's an online media source for everything about belmont whether it's town meeting or new businesses or what's happening in the sports fields so anything you want to know about belmont is pretty much in the belmont  we talk about more of the administrative workings of the town in june we talk we will there will be discussions and votes on the budget let's just start at the topping go through one by one and see how quickly  we make it through oh i have not how quickly but how far we make it through before the clock runs out of us ok the st proposal that i wanted to talk about was a proposal to reduce the speed limit this and what we're seeing as is that a lot of adjacent towns have adopted the twenty five dollars most people in it arlington it does it on may st somerville cambridge and many other towns are doing it so you'll have a regional it's almost like a regional approach to this so if you have twenty five mile an hour speed limit going all the way from you know top of arlington all the way to somerville including belmont speed limits speed will be less and you'll have less others or less likelihood of  of accidents just talking to people i mean i think this is one of those things that one of those articles that will pass pretty easily and my impression is that this doesn't affect the road such as i live on the little warwick roads where people are required to duck between the cars parked on either side this really will slow traffic down on concord and on common street and ice like that the chief stated that there is only really three places three stretches of road that will not be affected because that it really looks at thickly settled areas slowly here after town meeting well i don't know about that but well one of the big issues to come before a town meeting this year is what's called the demolition delayed by law there is a proposal to extend produced a greater ability for people to not destroy historic buildings i don't know well one of the places where i think the historic district commission felt that it didn't work was with the i don't remember the the address on waverly street one hundred and twenty two wavering the street where there was the barn there was a barn and the home and the existing historic just existing demo within the delay by law required a six month delay and the belief there was that the developer was intent on carrying those structures down  waited out the six months in and did indeed tear down those historic structures and build big multifamily housing that's right that's as some people would say that's the flaw in the demolition delay a law which is just basically have to wait out the time period it's not like some laws in europe as you see you know in england where they can there's a demolition delay and you just can't do it right exactly that's not so much here i think there was a lot it was a lot of compromise making demolition delayed by law and it's basically a way of trying to help people realize that these are  months to twelve month that's right to a year which is more in line with other communities throughout the community throughout the region and the again the intent there is simply to allow preservationists to meet with the same with the future sale there could be a compromise maybe just to save a sort of a certain portion or maybe the exterior of a building you know keep the historic you know to keep the historic flavor you know or maybe even save the building itself finding resources  that maybe the new homeowner doesn't know of that seems to be what they're trying to do but you know it's so many of the season house and belmont and wants to you know knock it down and make a three million dollars house on top of it  they'll probably wait out the bill probably week the year well and to make clear to our listeners the demolition delay by law doesn't apply to any home there is a list of historically significant homes and the list is maybe one hundred and eighty it's a little higher i think some there's been something as with it like we were talking about earlier it's an updating of the list of historic homes some of been taken off some of been put on  is that people talk about preserving the character and part of the character belmont is that we have so old home mz that are historically significant architectur significant or maybe even just who live there you know no one wants to try to tear around the home or house and in order to try to preserve one part of the character we i say we that we is we as a community are seeking to preserve those architects released historically significant structures that's what the demolition delayed by a loss about that's right there's only so many mansions you can look at  package that the sign by law had a report that consisted of three or four pages explaining what was going on and i have to say i couldn't understand whether there was anything significant going on basically invited the invited the public to talk about the st segment of our meeting and there was a great explanation about the signed by line basically we're just codifying it you know we're just making you know there's there's certain there's certain little tweaking what is done but basically we're what we're doing again we're following a trend here is that it we're basically just following what other towns around us have been doing  think it's just that they feel it's the playing board which is supporting this which is promoting this article they felt that there was it was time to to really just make it more in the books in the by law something that people can read and not be confused by and one of the things that i noticed for example i there really could be an improvement in the quality of life people however i notice that one of the this is basically a plain board wants to be proactive they don't want let's say we have a major building project in waverly square and we have a lot of new we have a lot of new businesses we want to have that sign in all ready to go you know like the size of a sign or you know an awning you know they basically want to just make sure that everybody understands the limits and they did clear or they are proposing to close one loophole or what i can a loophole  involving temporary site exactly where they're the proposal is to apply the sign regulations to temporary signs so someone can say look a contractor has it outside the house or or there is a a that that that is the one maybe fly in the oilman in this and maybe you may see a little bit of pushback by tommy members we know that there are people who who are considering this like a freedom of speech issue and i believe that about pet peeve of mine you haven't heard this before ok by it seems to me that just in the last couple of years and i'm not sure whether it's two years or five years there has been a proliferation sign boards make it difficult to see the times but this sign by law would not extend to that because there are not signs associated with the business exactly i mean most of those signs that you're talking about are for non profits a temporary moratorium on marijuana dispensary owners and my impression is that this is simply reacting to the state which has slowed down the process at the state level and therefore the town doesn't need to move as quickly but ultimately the town about like every other place will need to adopt marijuana regulations that's right if this is a that we are simply following what the what the state is doing we don't  of allowing marijuana be sold in town i don't know if that's that's something that people want i mean the actual question actually passed pretty substantially in belmont i think was six thousand and forty or something like that and i think the board of health has indicated that they the board of health is responsible for promulgating local regulations and they have already appointed board and the board of health ok and the board of health anyway has said that they will honor the voters about that voted in favor of legalizing marijuana so they will allow marijuana dispensary somewhere that's right and then it'll be up to the plain board to decide you know just like you mean like like a liquor many people are pointing out that this get to that we should fall what the liquor laws are in in town where you can  period of time to really think this out and and decide the right to summarize the article regarding marijuana dispensaries doesn't resolve the issue it simply kicks the issue and it but it delays consideration of the issue but the delay is really because the process at the state has slowed down so belmont is in step with the state and  when the state acts and the town knows the rules of the game if you will exactly the town will be able to act as well that's right that's my impression of this or no there's it that's exactly what it is so this article shouldn't be  noncontroversial all it's basically we're just following what the state is doing and it allows us more in fact it's better for belmont because it allows more time to really think i have a really thoughtful process and figure out where you want to put it or again whether we opt out which towns and cities can do that would require i believe as our town council was talking about whether that rule will require an actual vote of the of the town people or town meeting vote portion of the of the real estate tax and put it into a separate fund which will then preserve three hundred and thirty three things and that promotes historic preservation start preservation recreation open space right and housing and how community housing such as affordable housing or help you know sort of a housing yes and there are specific projects then that are presented to town meeting that projects go through sale and then the state also ponies up maybe thirty percent forty percent of the budget and it comes out to about one dollar to two million dollars a year that's available in the pot now and we don't have to spend that all you know you don't have to spend it all you know you can go a year without spending it and it basically what it is like as you said it's a very competitive process and what what was in belmont what it is is that people or the or the  will ask for that money for it for very specific causes like recreation we're fixing up the tennis courts you know and one of my impressions is not simply my impression that as i remember the capital budget committee last year told town meeting i believe the chair of the capital budget committee said and very mahoney amery mahoney said that one advantage of the c p a is that it will fund projects that specific buildings such as the police station or the d p w so this isn't perfect for the small what some people call smaller projects such as running a water lin sons of italy and that's going to be the one that really i think a lot of people have been asking why are we doing this and it seems like it's a private organization well how does it really how is it really part of belmont you know it's not like the pool which was funded by the c p a or it's not fun it's not like the veterans memorial project which is you know which will be funded a little bit by that by the c p c you know how does this really work for belmont and then you know that the town has been asked has been asking for and we and really and just basically you know making sure that the tennis courts are all functioning and are in good shape so it's not that those are not unusual not unusual requests and they've been passed in the past pretty easily in the past one proposal before the board of selectmen that where there is some change going on is that there was originally a proposal to expand the board of  three members to five members and my understanding now is to defer that to a study committee oh i guess of course it was going to very controversial one and i think a lot of it has to do with how the the  original petition was written and how what it was proposing basically it was proposed by jim williams who is the chairman of borders like him and he wanted to be more efficient he believes that because of the open meeting laws you know you have to have them can talk with each other that's right because that would be an open meeting violation them open mean basically what he said is that well this is inefficient what's go to five and then we can have two people talk and then you're not in people making i don't want to say deals but you'll have people talking about paul saying talking about town issues with the camera without t v camera without the public knowing about it and you know we've seen this in the past you know especially  people were so upset about for a long time was because we were there were a lot of like backroom deals yes yes ok and i want to we're running out of time let me to that welcoming town designat parts of the citizens petition to where it is now where the police department while it's not promoting it there's a basically will come to town meeting and say they are not opposed to anything that was being said it's more of a suggestion it's more of a an affirmation of what the to believe that this citizens petition is and again i don't mean to sound protests but almost a symbolic community response to the anti immigration dialogue  we will we want to make sure that the people in our community feel welcome to be here that they're not they don't have to worry about the local police coming in knocking on their door or stopping them at a red light you know targeting them that's basically what it is it is it is a symbolic but it's also just an affirmation of what this community that is exactly well we're out of time there how do you have there are other articles that will be before a town meeting that the town budget will come before a town meeting in june and perhaps we could get you back before then to to talk about the town budget there's always interesting stuff we can talk about tom budget and we can also do a little bit of post game  s of what town meeting is basically done that's great we've been talking to franklin tucker franklin is the editor and publisher of the belmont county and the belmont tony and is belmont's local online source of what i call micro news it is hyper local hyper local belmont specific news thanks again for coming over it's always great fun to have you here hopefully our listeners will have a better idea of what is on the agenda for town meeting starting next week sounds great thank you very much roger i want to thank our listeners for tuning in today you can access community conversations on line at the media center website by searching for the b m c podcast network and you can download us from i tunes by searching for the b m c podcast network this is your host roger coulton thank you for listening to community conversations i'll talk to you again in two weeks