hello and welcome to the belmont journal your source for extremely local news and community updates imei crowley your host this week the annual town election is coming up on april nd now that may seem like a ways off but there are some things that you should be thinking about doing now if you're interested in running the deadline for submitting nomination papers which are available in the town clerk's office is feb you should pick them up soon a nomination for town wide office requires certified signatures of fifty registered voters if you're thinking about running for town meeting member you'll only need twenty five dollars signatures always here to talk with us today about a six hundred and twenty five thousand dollars grant she's of attained for belmont to work on youth drug abuse prevention the grants from the white house office of national drug control policy and the substance abuse and mental health services administration and so i'd like to welcome you lisa thank you what is the grant and how much is it so it's a drug free communities grant and it's for it's the six hundred and twenty five thousand dollars spread out over five years ok so we are on october st we began year one of the grant process what kinds of activities is there is the grant going to support well the grant has basically it's two pronged it will support prevention of youth substance use as you mentioned and then the nd thing it will do is it fosters community collaboration ok so we have about eighteen months ago i started the belmont wellness coalition ok and the coalition is a cross section of parents and town employees school employees youth i have two students from belmont high school that are on the coalition right now and so the coalition is part of  community collaboration to the grant wants to see us working with many different stakeholders in the community to get a sense of what is most needed so we'll spend the st year gathering the data analyzing the data seeing what bubbles up from the data that we have and then after we spend a year really immersing ourselves in what belmont students are doing or are doing or where they're vulnerable where they're strong then in the nd rd and subsequent years of the grant will be able to figure out do we need to start a peer leadership program do we need more activities do we need to bring in certain speakers but this st year is basically trying to get a sense of what youth need ok and can you talk a little bit more about the or are there other organizations that are involved in the core coalition or not really so the coalition kind of the core members are we have the fire chief chief purcell as it is a is a key member i have both school resource officers from the in from the high school we have the school nurses on the committee we have several parents genest arius comes when she came in so we have lots of school representation and it we have some clergy reverend joseph our own from plymouth congregation so we tried to get the goal was to get a very varied mix of stakeholders and again we've been meeting since summer of seventeen so it's about eighteen months and part of what i wanted to come on and talk to you about is just that we are an open door coalition we'd love to hear from any and all community members we really just want to hear what people in the community are concerned about from cradle to grave with regard to keeping our youth safe in substance free so i am always eager to meet new people who want to be a part of this work so i know a lot of parents are concerned about the ping in the schools how how be that the coalition uses grant to help on an issue like that so that's a great question so what we're doing right now is we're looking around to see again to get the data so there is an instrument called the youth risk behavior survey the wire b s and many communities do it every other year and it's a very comprehensive survey that asks students in grades six through twelve about being about alcohol about marijuana about stress about suicide ideation about eating issues disordered eating many many questions do you wear a helmet do you wear your seat belt have you driven with somebody under the influence do you talk with your parents about these issues so belmont hasn't actually given this survey in several years ok but we are giving it in one thousand in march or april of next spring so we will get a sense of how many of our students are they being ok and then we'll look around and see what other can communities are doing one area that belmont has been a leader in is to brough the interim principal at the high school created a diversionary program so when students are caught they ping and said i'm just giving them punitive consequences he's created this program where they can get education about you for having me welcome to this week in the belmont tourney in and welcome back franklin tucker editor of the beaumont tony and how are you just fine thank you so i understand the new tax assessment rates around that's right going down what does this really mean it means your taxes are really going up in the reason why is because belmont is the place everybody wants to come to and the reason why that and the effect that everybody wants to come here is that our property values have have gone up by nine percent this year it's story almost an extraordinary amount of money so in combination between the increase in property value in the decrease in tax rates we're still seeing an increase in our taxes that's right and the reason for that is because the belmont has to be you know we're under the constraints of properties of proposition two and a half which anybody remembers almost four thousand and thirty years old forty years old now it prevents you from increasing your the growth of your tax base by more than two have percent so belmont because it doesn't have much leeway it doesn't have a big commercial base it doesn't have other revenues that's coming in unlike watertown said four thousand dollars on the table if they said they tax everything they could find everyone or any table now what does this mean for the average homeowner well st of all we have to realize is that with the increase in the overall tax value overall value of the property we're seeing that value of homes going up too so so so we've been hearing for a while that the average home value in  about average house or many homes that you can buy in the seven hundred thousand dollars range in the eight hundred thousand dollars range but the average home now is about one million one hundred thousand dollars and what that means is that your average tax bill is now going up s school building and that's kind of about a one thousand eight hundred dollars after three years so by the year two thousand and twenty three it's going to be about fifteen thousand dollars on an average house can you believe that sounds like of a lot but we have a lot to pay for that's right so so just a little bit of time left franklin i understand some decisions have been made about community preservation act funding that's right he allocated now it's a one million dollars so you have the police station upgrade that's going to be that they said ok with and then there's two things around pond and there are there's only one the final applications that's in real trouble and that is the bandstand at pace and i think senator well brownsburg or has been actively working to solve some of the areas traffic woes we have a clip with with senator brown's burger at the intersection of fresh pond parkway and mount auburn street talking with us becoming through this intersection my whole life and it's always been a disaster but about five years ago we got some engineers together from the wouldn't work but we want to run the room and everybody was had lots of ideas and that led us to seek some funding for a proposal to really study the intersection and really the whole system straight spanning from mount auburn hospital back to star market in belmont to watertown and asking what can we do to improve the intersection and we had a good consulting study done a lot of traffic modeling and analysis a lot of public consultation and they came up with a plan to create bus lanes in this segment  st of all so we have we have a dedicated bus lanes between belmont and the belmont line basically and around auburn hospital and some in watertown as well and other key thing for people to realize is actually the majority of people riding on this bus waiting to get through the light is all in one lane but it's actually going through at roughly the same speed as it was before because of the additional green time we did have a very bad couple of weeks which began about two weeks into the implementation i think  was maybe november th where they swapped out a piece of equipment which is actually nearby here on out our street and they when they did that they didn't program it properly and it's actually about ten days in a number of tries to get a program properly this these new traffic computers are complicated the maintenance guys can't do it you have to bring in a specialist to do it finally they got the right people in place to do it but for about ten days there it was very bad and that was a real black eye to the project in the perception of the project will which will probably happen next year well as they say move the stop lines inward that way and contract the intersection so that what you know while preserving throughput will have less gridlock less possibility of gridlock and it also be safer  pedestrians to cross it's a very very wide and dangerous intersection now and use of cars bikes people will get across the intersection more quickly or will have less time in the middle of the intersection and that also will save a lot of the free time in the cycle part of the cycle part of the life cycle is yellow and we don't like red because of those because there's so many people trapped in the middle of the intersection so we can we can eliminate some of that that will create more green time more throughput for everybody a table speed bump right on cross street between the homes of dawn mercier ninety six cross street and lucille white eighty five cross street they went to a selectman meeting monday night to complain that ever since this raise table was installed nov st their homes have been vibrating lucille said her home has cracks in the walls cracks in the floors her foundation and it's keeping her daughter up and now we've had not i witnessed it today i went there and i witnessed how fast cars are going over that speed bump and let me tell you it's fast so so we have to residents who are saying you know the vibration that's being caused by cars going over one of these rays tables the so extreme that it's actually well not just causing discomfort but but in the case of one household there pointing to physical damage definitely and i  have pictures of that damage cracks in her walls and her floor and her foundation it's one hundred year old home but she said only and when this speed bump went in did she see so so it not been long it's just been a few weeks i think some violence since november st so both dawn and lucio would like to know when community development will you know do something about this they said they're investigating right and don said well we want to answer when will we have an answer and glen clancy told them january but whatever the answer is in january if the solution is to remove the speed bump it won't happen until the spring because of the weather right ok yeah and he was this nd day on the job he was at a murder a murder scene crime in cambridge and twenty three year old harvard grad student jane britain was brutally murdered she was assaulted and murdered found in her bed in her cambridge apartment so an extremely sad case and one that was never solved all these years all these years and insolvent and mike widmer said it was gnawing at him a student i want to just mention a b journalist actually wrote the story and did a really good job describing how this was gnawing at him for years so in two thousand and fifteen he decided he retired and he's like i want to start you know i got to do something about this so he filed eight freedom of information act requests over a two year period to the middle sixty's office all of them got rejected however november th this past november the d a announced that we solve this case we linked d n a to michael sumter who also had cambridge ties and was linked to like five other sexual assaults and three murders he served fifteen to twenty years since he got out on parole and then he died of cancer in two thousand and one but they they did say this that he had the d n a definitely is linked to him so they solve the case but the thinking is that perhaps they wouldn't have solved it they wouldn't have done the d n a testing it might not for mike what merced persistence yeah i think persistence pays off you want to rush to the belmont gallery of art by sunday december th for their small works show and sale the sale features small works by belmont artists and also features a variety of pottery from few words but i just want to say that we have posted you don't want artists in the show primarily to mention work on the wall on everything it's all works it's for sale and this is our very st sale for in about four years ago her and i started working together actually partner and then just about a year ago she sold her half of the business to me and so i became the sole owner of indigo fire about a year ago but it's been an awesome adventure the studios started out very small very modest but we really have an awesome following of students and artists at this point there's a ton of different styles of pottery shown here but actually at to be showing it to the community at this point we want to let people know that there's a big group of potters local here in down by making pottery and i don't think that many people know about it and now it's time for our community counter with everyone i'm jane in the series community calendar for next week give the gift of cooking on tuesday from four to six with top top test kitchens when their holiday cooking workshop and this drop off holiday cooking workshop kids will make delicious food gifts to give to family and friends this workshop is for kids in grades one through four register on and then write food is just one of many things that brings us together during the holidays spent thursday afternoon from london to sharing recipes you love and enjoying some treats in the collaboration of boston based musicians who celebrate the holiday season with their annual program of sacred secular and winter pop music rearranged and re harmonized a portion of the evening's proceeds will go to the grow clinic at boston medical center providing comprehensive specialty medical nutritional developmental and social services and dietary assistance to children from the greater boston area diagnosed with failure to thrive spend saturday afternoon with sound therapist joe hayes at groundwork yoga and wellness  a sound healing workshop to celebrate the winter solstice be bathed in sacred chant the didgeridoo the surety box and a full complement of courts to baton and fusion sound bowls register and learn more about this unique workshop at groundwork wellness dot com connelly head of springdale barrel room will be hosting a special tasting at craft beer cellar on sunday from two dollars to four pm enjoy samples of some amazing girl aged beers from springdale and jax abbey as well as specialty beer and glassware from now  december th the belmont public library will be forgiving finds return overdue or build them up materials and the library will waive any of the charges please bring non perishable canned goods to the library when you come to have your fines waived all items will profit that works to maintain the small town atmosphere of belmont including working on such things as limiting traffic growth promoting pedestrian safety and working to preserve some of the historic a natural resources  town the organization puts out a bi monthly newsletter joiner jubilance was there for their latest release we are preparing to me allow aid belmonte just for a newsletter we do it every two at least six or seven people who have a lot more than that tonight it's fun you can hear there's a lot of chatter of the high noon then you know people discussing all sorts of things often related to belmont sometimes personally i am responsible for announcing the mailings getting people to the mailing so that we can get them done getting the so not only qualified but also hopefully good writers as well as present an unbiased view you know looking to see all sides of an issue i mean they're just so into the issues that's what i love about you know the citizens form these people just live and breathe all of these issues and that's so important to them we're always interested in hearing what it will take to sort of create and maintain a small a sphere connect people with the environment and the historical significance of different places and dollmann it's a place with a rich history and a lot of nice conservation land that not everybody knows about and so instead would drive their cars up to new hampshire and vermont to get the same experience and we end our show with a programming update for your belmont media center channel's be sure to watch and if you'd like to get involved in the program or have news or community updates please contact frederick regal o our producer at fred at belmont media dot org well that's all for now and i hope to see you next time