hello and welcome to the belmont journal your source for hyper local news and community updates i'm my crowley your host this week we have some updates from town hall about office hours that are changing effect of june eleventh through november second for both the homer building and town hall mondays the hours will be eight am to seven pm so an extended day tuesdays through thursday is will be a regular day a day am to four pm and then fridays will be a half day from eight am to twelve noon belmont high school held its graduation ceremony for the class of two thousand and eighteen on june third we have commencement does not mark the end of his teaching your life it's the beginning of a new and exciting over the past four years i have seen firsthand how you have faced challenges both big and small and have persevered to win and it shiva excellence i'd like to start by offering you a quote and because i'm a latin nerd and this is going to be a latin quote the quote is interpreted dextro which means enter with your right foot now as three hundred thirty one right feet step across this graduation stage today i hope that this quote is on the minds of each and every one of the people whom they carry all of us can look to the future and put our best foot forward but our right foot forward take on this journey with the same zeal and confidence that i know we will all have as we walk across this very stage all in the championship clinching game six cabinet garnet colored three words up that you garden rafters anything is possible although there are some things that are out of the unpredictable i've learned through watching all of you that the majority of life is under our control i've witnessed that  hours that all of you have put into your respective clubs music sports performances and other activities whether you consider these past four years to be the best of your life or not there's no denying that we are all now experts in life at belmont high school we've walked these halls more times than we can remember past the row of dunkin donuts cups seen the samuel l rogers welcome to this week in the belmont tony and we have franklin tucker editor of the belmont tony and back again with us how are you franklin i'm doing fine even though town meeting has ended and as a political junkie and most people who like politics in this town this is really is the apollo who is the chairman of the building committee and he's he presented very good planning it was given a half hour which is kind of unusual for reports but at the end he did give us an idea of how very aggressive i think plan it sounds like the building committee has it has gone to the architect or has gone to the architect and gone to the project manager and said we're going to go forward with it let's get everything  ready because usually takes some time to get all your contractors ready all the land ready these guys are on top of things so it's an aggressive schedule and also a phase schedule so at the point what existing high school will happen and building will commence come right afterwards and you will see a new high school completed they say by twenty twenty two or twenty twenty two which is just as aggressive think it's a lot of that has to do with they're moving forward and i think they want to show that they're moving forward there's a lot of progress and there's no reason when you have like a project that you can show and you can say this is going to happen on this date and this is going to occur here and this is what it's going to look like because we have these beautiful drawings right now what the high school looks like i think that kind of pressures the public into thinking well it's a done deal i mean we can see what it's going to look like and we know what it's going to do so even though you're talking about a big increase on media everybody's taxes i think it becomes almost a fait accomplis so i think a large number of people actually don't realize that unless they vote for this november it's not going to happen that's right and then what and i know that that the and then what is is is pretty stark especially as a school committee has stated ok we just have a little bit of time left anything else said came back from last year that related to retirement that's right they pass and so i think we can consider the this town meeting to be the fairness county you know rather than looking at analysis because if you look at the cold numbers these do both of these increase  more than the other the cola adjustment really increases the unfunded mandate but i think people were saying you know i think one person the timing set a great was great when she said we were talking about the know working for the town now isn't that should we have feeling this for them as we have fairness with the existing personnel in the for the furnace issue really boils down to the calculation of the coal and and you know from the moment you retire you actually don't stay even overtime your retirement is gradually decreasing because it's not it's not a it's not a full cola that you get every year and this is a modest adjustments that makes just a small change and hopefully it will help some people  all right well thank you so much franklin and we'll talk with you again ok thank you very much welcome to this week in the citizen her old and we have joanna jubilance back with us again this week joanna is the senior multimedia journalist with the citizen her old and wicked local belmont welcome joanna thank you mike happy to be here so you have some breaking news i do have breaking news i learned that phyllis marshall the assistant town administrator resigned on may thirty first whether that's that's sad to hear what do we know anything about why she's leaving the town jessica porter the director of human resources for the town told me that she wants to spend more time with her family and that's that was basically the reason that was that was given she does not know if there is another position she also does not know if they're going to replace the assistant town administrator she said it will be up to town and ministry to patrice garvin to determine what's going to happen with her department so we'll be watching that very closely to see what's going to happen  administrator for a period of time after david cal left then and she had been the interim facilities director and i understand that she had been in the running as well for the town administrator position yes for mine and what i understand that is true she did apply she did she did not make it into that final round that patrice was part of and that's all i know about that i know she's been she was with the town for four years all right so  i think you also have some information about the incinerator sunt yes so want one of the boats at town meeting was to approve using funds from the landfill stabilization fund to demolish the incinerator site that basically that the incinerator site is on conquered avenue if you're heading towards lexington and on that site it's a fifteen and a half acre site is a tower like brick building where they used to be used as an incinerator from one nine hundred fifty nine to one nine hundred seventy five so this money is going to be used to demolish the building and do whatever environmental engineering is necessary to get it ready for the next step which is the capping right but before they can do that they're actually having a public meeting which is very important for me to announce today it's monday june eighteenth eight o'clock in the town hall auditorium the selectmen want to hear the public's ideas for future use of this site which which could include another public park for some kind or it has to be a municipal use i have already reported about some of the ideas people had a solar farm a bike park a skate park park and even the belmont youth hockey athletics center so whatever the final use is going to be will determine the kind of cap and that will be the next step which is about two years away it will cost about three and a half million to kaput the town will have about two point seven million dollars to spend on that and then there's seven hundred forty three thousand shortfall so i'm not sure how they're going to get the money for that and so and so we've with the warmer weather we're also getting some reported incidents from the police and on facebook yes it's great that we had warmer weather right  the police did put out a press release that took to put parents on alert to warn their children that there were two young boys approached by men on two different occasions as they were walking from from home from school one was an eleven year old boy and it happened in the area of washington street and he was approached by a man in a white pickup truck with a red trailer and he told him to get in the car with him the other boy was nine years old and he was approached i'm in a white van with blue lettering and that man was asking him if he had seen his cigarettes so so never a good idea to have kids walking home alone or walking to school alone always better to do it with an adult or with a with  a other child i completely agree as a parent they should always travel in pairs well thanks so much for being with us again this week and we'll see you next time thank you mike the belmont police department hosted a citizens police academy during the months of april and june jane peters of the belmont media center interviewed lieutenant kristen daly the community services officer who ran the academy as well as one of the graduates like it is insane the stuff they do and how much they care about the town a lot of them grew up in this town and they have so much respect for the town and the people of the town and we should show them respect and i think a lot of us do but i would highly recommend this program you see you very successful because it really we had a great class we had great students people that really wanted to learn so it made teaching fun all the officers enjoyed teaching them they really enjoyed a great time teaching because it's fun to teach when people want to learn so they really want to learn now it's all i'd like to thank the belmont police department i respect you guys and everyone in this town respects you and i appreciate what you do every day next up is our community calendar with jane peters jane interviews gavin farrel the executive director of the powers of music school she'll also highlight the interesting things happening in your town this week hi everybody i'm jane and we're here with  community calendar for this week we have a special guest with us today we have gathered feral he is the not so new but year into your tenure as the executive director for the powers music school thank you so much for being here with us today you're very welcome happy to be again so to start out can tell us a little bit about what your mission is over at the school and what you seek to provide to people in town and surrounding areas sure so power is music school is a community music school and we have private lessons and group classes and ensembles farm early childhood so newborns all the way through adults that's great sounds and people who go there is a big thing that just came up is you had a big donation that's going to go towards scholarships for people in town to  talk a little bit about yeah so we received one hundred thousand dollar gift which is the largest gift in the school's history to permanently and what is going to be called the music box scholarship fund it's an anonymous donor but someone who's been very closely associated with the school for many years and needless to say we're thrilled about this because scholarships making our programs accessible to everyone in the community is something that's really important for us and so to be able to have you know restricted endowment to do that is a key piece of our ability to provide those programs for everyone excellent so if somebody is interested in maybe applying for a scholarship can they do that online or how does that process or yeah that's absolutely right so information about financial aid and scholarships can be found on our web site and you can actually download the application there as well great and then something else that we wanted to talk about was on your summer programs that are  all on over the summer school years coming to an end but there's plenty for people to do over yeah that's absolutely right so we have a number of summer day programs two of them are celebrating twenty here anniversar this here are so our program called pow wow which runs for students ages five to twelve which is it's six weeks long but you can sign up for one week programs or two week programs within that six weeks and then we have a program for middle school and high school students called music on the hill which is primarily around chamber music so small ensembles for really any instrument from strings to woodwinds and brass and piano and then the summer finishes up with two programs for string players suzuki on the hill for suzuki string students and fiddlin on the hill for students who like to play more irish kind of traditional music and then we have a range of all of our regular classes so private lessons early childhood classes group piano classes as well great so plenty for whatever your interests are specialties are really great and then so there's still time to fill a sign up for those year and you have anything new coming up this upcoming school year so one of the big things that's coming up in the new school year is we're actually starting a new scholarship program and with belmont public schools and so that's going to be called belmont  and what we're doing there is for belmont public school students who qualify for a fee waiver from the public school system will get the exact same waiver for a private lesson it powers music a little and so if a family qualifies for a full fee waiver from the public schools they will get a free private lesson for powers as well so that is again it's part of making our programs accessible to students it's part of working with the public schools here in bel thanks ira and we'll get into our regular community college meet belmont's new housing authority director jacqueline martin on tuesday at one fifteen at the b street center representatives from the belmont housing trust will present the belmont housing production plan recently approved by the board of selectmen this plan provides a framework for affordable housing development over the next five years mrs rose and millie recently retired as a music teacher for the general butler school and continues to teach piano for the butler arts and enrichment afterschool program her students from ages seven through seventeen will present a piano recital of well known classical folk and popular pieces attend this recital on tuesday at four at the b street center is there a third or fourth grader interested in studying an instrument but not sure what to choose attend the instrument petting zoo on tuesday from four to six at the b h s cafeteria experiment with the instruments you can choose to study next year and meet the teachers who teach each instrument since in grade four and five are able to learn an instrument during the school day to prepare them for the band in orchestra programs with roots tracing back to him to quickly the san felice winery has seen countless generations of tuscan farmers produce exceptional wines the rate the arrival of warm weather and be the first to get your hands on the newest issue of edible boston with a party at the tricks and local route in belmont on wednesday from six to eight legal lands are a contributing writer for edible bos'n will be signing her newly released cookbook my kitchen chalkboard and sarah blackburn editor of edible boston will demo a recipe from edible boston summer issue and will answer any of your outdoor cooking questions you can r s v p for this event on event rate the college admissions process can be daunting the russian school of mathematics is hosting a free road to college event on wednesday from six to eight to discuss the admissions process and how to be prepared for the steps along the way this program is intended for sixth through ninth grade parents and students and belmont world film returns on monday with its bonus series justice for all at studio cinema this bonus series focuses on films about international social justice issues the venerable w sponsored by belmont against racism premiers on june eleventh at seven thirty the film focuses around the religious tensions between my and mars muslim and buddhists and zardoz premieres on monday june eighteenth and tell the story of a kurdish shepherds wife accused of having an affair by her in laws who flees with her nine year old daughter to belgium believing his wife the shepherd follows them to belgium only to be plagued by doubts tickets for both premieres are available on belmont world films website and that's all for this week if you like your event featured in belmont journal community calendar you can send your event info to jane at the mont media dot org saturday june second was town day at belmont center matt simon ellie put together some highlights for you so what kind of music are you going to play today really good music show with a programming update for your belmont media center channel's be sure to watch also remember that the belmont journal depends on your support if you have community updates or new or would like to get involved please contact please contact