hello everyone thanks for tuning in to belmont buzz belmont's newest talk show i'm your host joanna jewell is i've been covering belmont as a journalist for the past seven and a half years and i feel like a be buzzing around belmont getting all the news and for it was seven and a half years ago when i started covering belmont that i met today's guests his name is mark polo doing is the selectmen vice chairman he has served since two thousand and ten he decided not to run for a th term recently which is the latest buzz in belmont going to be talking about prior to your time as a selectman you are on the war committee think if you were going to run again i wonder if anybody would be running against you know that is that is an interesting question i suppose as a politician and some of the serves and as you know in that role you always know that you have a campaign perhaps but maybe not jesse bennett roy abstain and i just learned about a potential rd religion and here that her happened but i just want to reflect seven and a half years ago the st time i ever laid eyes on you mark it was a very about is about the thomas clarke house the historic thomas clark house and the selectmen had to decide whether or not to approve trying to think it was moving it to that property unconquered avenue i can't really recall what it was going to be  was a beautiful house and fortunately we did not find it has been deconstructed as you know you know catalog i don't know where it's sitting today and maybe someday it will be put back together again but oh my god when successful in saving and that's too bad it is too bad and that's why they now have the whole demolition tell st tell us why did you decide not to run that's a good question it was a really tough decision and frankly a really close call i've been thinking about all through the holiday season earlier than that as a matter of fact and believe it or not it came down i made the final decision on that sunday before the monday of the board meeting which i announced and i think it came down to this i was conflicted about the situation on the one hand i felt like we had a really successful year working i really enjoyed working with adam and tom and it's really good board and i think they're terrific select selectman and we have accomplished a lot but he also understood that we have a lot of challenges and we're going to talk about that in a minute and perhaps i should stay that i i think i can still you know be productive and contribute and on the other hand i felt that you know nine years is a long time it's probably time to step  away i do believe in term limits and you know was thinking that well maybe i should step away give someone else an opportunity maybe another voice needs to be heard and it came down to this believe it or not i said well because i'm conflicted about the decision  and sixteen i was committed to wanted to run again for another term yeah and i said because i feel conflict it wanted to run not wanting to run i just tapped into that and said i think i've made my decision because i'm one now it's called one because now we have two and the work that we did there well over a year i thought we accomplished a lot we had a lot of great recommendations and that led up to the successful override in two thousand and fifteen the st successful override that we had had since two thousand and two so from my point of view it was so necessary we really were tapped out and you know what was going up and so that that i think was the number one accomplishment the other thing i'd say when i st got on the board in two thousand and ten the whole community path issue has become somewhat dormant i mean it's been around for so long as you know i think i was in a traffic advisory committee and becker at the time i think was chairing there was called me path committee of the bicycle committee whatever it was met with us on the  project to me so we're not quite there yet but we're close to a very pad so i think i look at that as an accomplishment in that in terms of moving that dialogue forward in a positive way in the we're not quite where we need to be that it will get there and then finally the reason i wanted to run in two thousand and sixteen is i think from an operating point of view we had addressed a number of the issues because of the override but the major capital projects in town really need to be addressed as well you know the high school is going to move forward yes at some point in time but the other major projects police station d p w library the skating rink and so i think forming the major capital projects working group and the work that they did under him reason leadership in leadership in the of course the building committees we're not going to have a new police station in town over the next you know twelve out of me but i will say that you know up with these solutions and it's not going to affect our taxes i'm amazed by that that's a huge positive and i could i credit the building committee and again architect that they found a terrific architect and you know so desperately needed to do something for our employees at the d p w and so we're going to do something there as well but they really at one point looked like they weren't going to renovate an add them that need to start to think about when with the debt exclusion be and identify date into the future that exclusion for the library yeah ok are we going to see him behind i don't necessarily need the debt exclusion for the library if if history was a little bit different l'abri commission is up to get the amount of the grant thirty to forty percent yes and but we did have a site so you know the what was designed could be built on the current site and so we took a vote as a board to move the library across the street right directly across yes the what that did is that displaced a field ok and i think we missed stepped on that i think we should have because we weren't able to find a replacement field and unfortunately we had a throwback tech or it would have been buil because it you know it's difficult in town that's my biggest regret that we were able to get that done on a side note they're looking at possibly rebuilding the hockey rink bigger than what it is you know now which could i think no longer really get it done from a financial point of view is some type of public private partnership and for that to work at least what we're hearing in the officially is it needs to be a wreck and a half to to be financially viable for the debt service that have a cost to build it take away field space we're already displacing the tennis courts which is unfortunate so we'll have to see where that goes we're still working on it in your nine years what was there anything else but the incinerator site that you dealt with you know march th yeah yeah wow moment i know one of the other there was another controversial issue that you said you want to talk about now is the the whole liquor license yeah that was unfortunate and transfer of the market well it was a twenty one dollars vote if you recall was the one where vote against it and you know i think it was controversial it created the vision within the board and also created division within the community it was unfortunate that them not star market was a great corporate citizen so that's why i voted against it but that was if you recall to heat it means that we had on the matter maybe more than two and then we end up ultimately deciding tommy and decided we put forward up somewhere probably and that was a that was unfortunate and so the that was those licenses the one that the loading dock had could be transferred they were intended to be bartered or they were intended to give to and i've voted to awar enhance the quality of life for the residents within that within that particular area so we've taken care of the transferability issue with that was unfortunate that was a very controversial and another controversial ok it dealt with was t counsel on the gene other residents that they were concerned that they could pull up to the bank was difficult to pull or run into the parking lot and so we had a mean members of the board and i was there voted to change that design time meeting and then what would end up happening we actually find i thought reached a good you know sure we brought the groups together finally to come up with a solution that i think works because i think having that drive through in the parking there that we close off now during the summer months for our felt the other way i felt that we had voted on it that the turnout at the time was i forget the exact percentage but pretty significant as it was a presidential election two thousand and sixteen but why not why not have had a special election like a lot  special election was to vote whether or not you want up to two or on limited but it would have been good to also have the option of nothing none at all and i'd be curious to see how it would've you know i was more to come on that i didn't feel that way i thought that you know what the board town whether we have any kind of license application to puerto establishment or time will tell we'll see if there was one other major accomplishment that maybe for whatever reason you know you're not recalling but it was the true polo road car director of community develop their work really hard on that design so in the bronze burger you know because certain parts of certain residences we had to get easement from he actually went down there and ring doorbells to get sort of agreement on a temporary easement as you do increase that's a lot of it has a lot of it has to do with the school we also have needs on the town services as well i think community development always felt has been understaffed we asked them to do more with the same personnel i think the financial task force too has its pedestrians and for folks that want to bike i think we've made progress there but i think if we can get our residents to at least not drive all the time less cars on the road create you know you know safer you know safer crosswalks better sidewalks that even with all the money we're not spending you know we're just you know treading water on that we need to spend more on sidewalk with here you know really work with safe streets to schools we need to get more of the cars off the road  it unfortunately a cut through town because they come off a route to enforce or next to cambridge by people who just going to cut through the cut through all the time it's going to be difficult to do that so traffic is a big issue we have to make our town safer for operative for the slots and you think it's a lot different and you're the executive branch of government so it's an important role that you that you're providing service for so listen into learn to listen to all points of view and to him to decide what's best for obama make a decision what's best for obama which can be difficult at times because you're always going to have supporters that are asking you to do something that you might not think is in the best interest of another's as well it's hard not to sort of accommodate their point of view you want to listen to them without question but i think you need to sit there make of the season what's best for belmont may not be something that you support who have supported you agree with but that's my advice think about what's best for the town st and foremost make that decision i think you'll ever get when you're done what skills do think i can and should have other good listener i also think it's important to have some experience in town affairs and if you don't you know to really try to sit there and listen for a while fortunately we have to select  her experience so that would be helpful but to me i think you really need to listen in to have patience with heart patients but you have to be willing to listen to all points of view you do even if you disagree with someone it's ok to disagree is not you know do it in a respectful way to be able to listen to all points of view and then to think about that based on the facts make make a decision that's best for tao i think it is helpful to have experience i came out of the war committee that was enormously helpful for me to have that background involved there's some committees that i'm thinking about human rights commission perhaps the council any gene i want to do more there you know you've heard me say that i think we need to move do more for us seniors in town and the c e o way would be a great comedian serve on him maybe others as well so ways so i'm excited about the opportunities to do other things i haven't quite decided what those other things are i'll stay involved in tom but i might do things more broadly at the state or national level but we'll find out we'll see we'll see we definitely have to keep in touch absolutely not going anywhere and on what you're doing and well i want to thank you for taking time and your busy schedule to come on the show it's a pleasure to be here actually thank you and i let him issue well mr well we'll still see each other and i thank you for what you do for the town as well and i think a program like this is important too so that when i said maybe you can get your own show and i have every kind of fun well thank you everyone for to any end to belmont buzz belmont's newest talk show what's the latest buzz let me know what you think we should have who we should have on our next show to talk about the latest buzz in belmont i want to take paradise flowers for these beautiful flowers that you and i donated for our show today and i want to think jeremy is or ms or media center for all that you do and make this possible