hello everyone welcome to the lives abate between selectman candidates for the upcoming town election guy carbone e and adam dash i'm joanna jubal is senior multimedia journalist for the belmont citizen herald wicked local belmont dot com and i'm cole moderating tonight's debate with roger cult it roger is host of the podcast community conversations he's also a columnist for the belmont citizen herald and a long time belmont resident an active volunteer and an attorney for full disclosure i need to tell you that roger has supported adam's campaign financially but i also want to tell you that this should make no difference the  opinions and who the moderators tonight support should make no difference because it's up to you to decide who to vote for in april for four and our job is to help you get to know the candidates so that you can make that educated vote so now i'm going to debate each candidate will begin by given by giving a two minute opening statement a coin was tossed before we began the debate to determine who goes first and adam dash turn to asking questions we will alternate questions between joe and myself we will alternate questions between the two candidates having the two different candidates begin first  after each candidate has an opportunity to provide a two minute response to each question there will be an opportunity for a one minute rebuttal at some point in the debate we will move to ask questions that have been provided to us by members of the audience at tonight's debate and after we finish with the questions each candidate will give a closing statement so with that on action to the town of belmont we have a great town i speak to my friends and neighbors and i speak to your friends and neighbors as i walk around and i hear the same complaints over and over again why did they make that decision why did i know that this was going on i believe i can make a difference i've served the town of belmont over the last ten years in many different capacities and i've learned in detail about the issues facing our town i've analyzed belmont's budget line by line for the past eight years as a member of the war committee where i'm now vice chair i worked on designing and building the new underwood pool as vice chair of the building committee for that i worked on zoning and planning matters as a member of the zoning board of appeals i worked to bring additional state funds to belmont as the chair of the community preservation act study committee i worked to pass the twenty fifteen override to fix arse our roads and our stride walks into restore cuts to our schools and i was the public face of that override campaign which has brought financial stability to our budget for the last several years i've also been a long time town meeting member and i worked hard to move things forward but i'm frustrated so many of our recommendations go unanswered so many of our studies sit on the shelf all of these ideas and these projects can save the town money they can improve services to the residents but delay costs money all of this and everything we do needs to be based on our shared values of community family education inclusive  in the process we need to be strategic creative and diligent to preserve the character of our town of homes to protect the environment and to not overburden our taxpayers i understand the challenges we face but i'm optimistic there's nothing we face that we cannot get through together thank you thank you adam and now a guy will give his helping statement hello my name is guy carbone me and i'm seeking the office of selectmen my wife made me and i have lived this sixty five would fall road for thirty years now sonny anthony went to the poll of public schools in belmont through the middle school he's married and has two children let me tell you just some of my formal education just some of my professional experience i have a law degree from suffolk university law school i have a bachelor's degree and two graduate degrees from m i t in engineering i was the chief executive officer of the metropolitan district commission i was the chief engineer of the government's come government center commission i was the general counsel for the department of labor and industries and for the last thirty five well since one thousand nine hundred eighty i have been in the oh my own practice of law my office is  government son just a few steps from the state house to me public service is a privilege let me tell you a little bit about my public service i served belmont as a member of the m w r a advisory committee for ten years i helped develop the noise bylaws that we have today some years ago in watertown i was elected to four consecutive three year terms as a school committee man and two consecutive terms as a select n after thirty years of military service i retired as a full colonel in the corps of engineers you see i've been they are i've done that i have had the responsibility for the decisions i make i am a strong believer in physical and social responsibility let us see if we can agree on the following fiscal responsibility bill more needs to balance its spending needs against the ability of our residents to pay as many of you know belmont faces of critical spending needs however we need to make sure that our residents able to provide that which we request of them i am concerned of the many homeowners residents run to single family senior citizens they're all having financial difficulties it pains me that so many of our neighbors and friends are struggling in this banana and i believe that this community it is our responsibility to recognize their struggles and to a substantial controversy regarding the size of what i will call the belmont center green and the open space and fun of belmont savings make i don't want you to tell me what decision you would have made that decision is over and done however any number of people believe that the board of selectmen told town meeting one thing and getting town meaning approval of the funding for the belmont center redevelopment and then turned around and did something different it really shows how you would go the belmont center process really do you agree with that and if so what if anything would you have done differently from the process thanks joanne that's a good question the belmont center project putting aside the substance of what actually happened the bell most of the project project is an example of some broken process that we have in this town if i were elected i would definitely change that when the selectmen go to town meeting town meetings which is need to be respected if they present a project town meeting appropriate to the funds as happened with the green then this is like me go and change the project then town meeting call itself back into session and tells town meeting tells us like when rather to go back to the original project and this like men don't do that i think that's disrespect for town meeting i would not do that i was involved in that in calling that special town meeting because i saw something i thought was wrong and i acted for instance in the underwood pool we went through a series same similar process talking to residents getting comments designing the pool going to town meeting getting the money going to the voters and getting the debt exclusion and then we built what we told them came up during that special town meeting regarding the center that one fact sheet was put out saying the project always change during construction and someone put in print the seas for example the underwood pool i stood up at that town meeting and made very clear in fact we were adamant that we were not going to change the pool because it would have been wrong and we actually kept it to the same paint color as a matter of fact that we showed town meeting because we had discussions at the underwood pool building committee and we were very very very respectful of town meeting town meeting is a co equal branch of government it is the legislature for belmont town meetings to be brought more into the process i would love to have a situation where some select town meeting members are chosen to meet regularly with the board of selectmen in between sessions of town meeting because they don't meet that often to get their input because i think town meeting is that important guided you mean when you repeat the question oh no that's all right let me say this the people have got to understand that the executive branch in this government and don't is the selectmen the legislative branch in this in our government is the town meeting actually it's the town meeting that has all the power the selectmen really don't have a veto power over the town meeting the vote came up the problem was that originally not enough town meeting members had the drawings that knew exactly what was going on not did they understand when you are doing a project such as this there's a lot to it it's not that simple you got to look at the drawings you've got to look at the details on the drawings you've got to consider how it's going to be done how traffic isn't going to move through this as it was done i'm not aware of what changes the selectmen made i do know that some of the things that are out there i don't think were good engineering design in the end however the selectmen when they made these decisions i'm sure they didn't make them without discussing it with the engineers in town that is a blend clancey the plant is in town i'm sure they were all involved in this so let me say this there has to be this cooperation between the executive branch and the town meeting the town meeting has all the power not the selectmen if the selectmen see that there is something wrong when during construction that's why we have change on this you can simply say the selectmen on their own changed it because on a whim they had to be something that caused the selectmen to change  so that's my answer thank you very much a rebuttal yeah i mean obviously i was at town meeting involved in that discussion heavily and there was a very long discussion on town meeting regarding what the design would be for the green and whether there would be a road or not and it was a big part of the discussion in the main focal point of that debate on town meeting floor and the selectmen made the decision to put the road in anyway even though town meeting clearly understood it had all of the plans in front of them and told the very clearly not just one town meeting but to town meetings what they wanted the selectmen i'm not denying didn't have the legal power to make the change but just because somebody has the power doesn't mean that they should use it and i thought felt that the changing at the eleven and a been considering for years if not for decades is whether the town should build a community path i think virtually everyone agrees that there should be a community path so i want to ask a relatively narrow question do you believe that the community path assuming that it proceeds at all should be an off street path or is it adequate to have it be and on street pass that depends on the ongoing study that's going on i went to all three meetings i as a matter fact that one of the meetings i got up and i asked about what he going to do with the drainage and the two folks that were presenting it sort of smiled and said well mr kubba only this is just  feasibility study we haven't got there yet so one should not be deciding these issues before the feasibility study is completely done actually the two women that made a presentation the going back to my prophesied oriel days i told them that i would give them and they for an effort they did a hell of a job in that to be complimented but i really can answer the question until the feasibility study is finished and i see what it's going to cost and i'm i i did walk the entire site from brighton street all the way up to the center of town all the way back but i walked with the vision of an engineer how are we going to do this how close is the train going to be to those who are  walking if we put it here there's a problem with school property so i see all these problems as an engineer the problem is that at this stage of the game what i know about engineering and design and construction and what i see oh it's pre mature for anybody to say at this stage where it should go and we still don't know the cost adam you have two met thank you roger the community path is important i support the community path we have the missing link has stated that this project is eligible for one hundred percent federal funding for construction and seventy five percent for design costs this is a project that isn't going to burden the belmont taxpayers but will provide benefits in the environment in health by head giving people exercise by the business centers by having people not just drive through the centers but actually stop and shop or bike and stop and shop and it would also get cars off of our roads which as you know the traffic is terrible so there are multitude of reasons why the community path should happen the peer group did have an ingenious thing where they created this matrix of factors to objectively determine which of the routes and suburbs in which there are many a lot of the way from wal cambridge which routes and suburbs are the best by ranking them objectively with a series of factors and they said at the last meeting even though the fuse ability study is and isn't done yet they said that the highest ranking one from the matrix along from the belmont center to cambridge is the one on the north side of the railroad tracks i would support i think whatever comes out of that object of root analysis i do not want it on the street and i was glad to see that  parent group has basically ruled out putting in a long concord out because of fatal flaws due to too many driveways and intersections along concord out i think putting that pap on concord have no one's going to use it frankly and what would be the point putting it on the railroad tracks as a straight shot and it's a benefit to the economy it's a benefit to the environment and it's a benefit to belmont for which we're going to not pay for it so i it's kind of a win win look everybody agrees that we should have a community p the whole idea here is where are we going to put it what's it going to cost and what are the engineering decisions that have to be made i have not decided yet i would like to see a committee path but with my background circle experience in construction engineering and design i am not ready to accept the recommendation of this group for the reasons i've already indicated let me say this that there is a very dangerous intersection upright and straight when you come out of the community path i don't believe that there's more than ten feet there for the community path to go through and i brought that up and no one has yet shown me that no no mr carbone you're wrong right we do have the thirteen feet i don't think it's there so i'm going to reserve my opinion until somebody proves to me that there isn't a bottleneck in the danger that i perceive for the pedestrians a little who will walking i see a problem and i reserve my right to decide belmont withdraw from the minuteman vocational school in the can in the campaign about whether to withdraw voters were told that there was a better way a better plan ok we withdrawing from the school district what's the better way sure that's a great question we had the war committee of spent most of the fall is our major project analyzing and dealing with minute man in the various options i can tell you that our plan is to send the kid back to  is the beauty of this messed up system that the minuteman has set up whereby the towns that are the members who are paying for the building actually pay more to send their kids to minutemen than the nonmember towns who don't pay for the building which sets up this odd series of incentives to not be a member town we tried for many many years to try to reform that system we ultimately worked very hard through the efforts of jack weiss our representative to minuteman a bomb mclachlan who put in a lot of time from the war committee with minuteman to try to fix this and more political did as well from the board of selectmen and we were we got a new agreement which allowed us to be able to withdraw and honestly at that time a lot of other cities and towns towns around did withdraw immediately but belmont did not stuck it out and tried to work with the remaining towns to get minuteman to be more fair to get the outside towns the nonmember towns to pay their fair share that did not work so we had no choice but to exercise the option to get out of minutemen now that that leaving doesn't take effect for three years and all the kids who are in minuteman get to continue until they graduate so really by the time we're done and as members it will be the fourth year after the three years from now when the freshman who enters as the third year graduates four years later however after that the main play is just to send them right back to minute man this is the discussion we had a town meeting it's an odd system i don't agree with this system but that's the system in place to work minuteman and theirs will get the same education and will pay less just like all the other towns like waltham and others guy let me say that there are really fo things that i champion in public education i'm going to take this opportunity to talk about what i believe we should do in a secondary education as we look at the new high school and i'm going to talk about locational education the play if you go to watertown where i was on the school committee for twelve years and you see the high school it's there you'll see that there's an addition on it just for vocational education that i championed now as a matter of fact i believe that he belmont there are a lot of boys and girls who want vocational education and we should provide it maybe maybe a little bit of it should be in the new high school i champion athletics science the arts music vocal theater all of that that's what i champion but i don't want vocational education to be an orphan in this town now i am hoping that when they when the three years go by and they build a school i'm hoping that a lot of students won't go so they'll be some vacancies and the minute man's program they're going to look around and say we have to fill out our programs and i'm hoping that boys and girls from belmont can go to minutemen at less cost because there are vacancies and they want to fill them about this is that this is never been about supporting or not supporting vocational education i think that gets lost in the discussion about mina man what it's about is about the poorly set up series of incentives and costs in itself i mean my nephew is studying welding i'm a big supporter of occasional education i think there's no point designing buildings if you don't have anybody to actually build them however the system is broken and i saw a problem and i acted as did the work committee in order to take ourselves out of that system of poor incentives and will just be like watertown the medford and others who send their their students to minuteman with a new minuteman is being designed for a substantial number of out of district students nonmembers students and will just be one more of them ready to move on to thank you the next question comes to you first guy one of the major controversies in belmont in the past year involved the transfer of an alcohol license from a local business to a chain grocery store my question to you tonight is not what decision you would have made as betwixt those two businesses because that decision is over and done with that decision is made however however whichever side you came down you would have come down on that controversy it seems that nearly everyone agrees argument the process was flawed from the beginning because when it was voted it simply said in conformance with chapter one thirty eight now you would think anybody who knows something about liquor licenses and them isn't involved in that business an attorney who does this would say wait a minute right if you just vote this without looking at section twenty three of the statue you are voting for something that's transferable that's the process it was wrong from the beginning it was flawed so what what i have done as an attorney i would have simply said let's go to chapter one thirty eight let's google the word transferable and pop up section twenty three and i would have said to everybody folks stop this letter restraint this license is transferrable there were three opportunities to catch that one by the arm in committee one by the  time when it came up three opportunities for someone to step up and say this license is transferrable and i wrote all about this so what's there i cited the case the flaw the flaw was from the very beginning t selectmen had no choice they did the only thing they could do in the law and that's allowed a license to be transferred i'm not going to name names i'm simply going to say there were people who were being relied upon who should have made the right decision and either they didn't make a decision or they didn't know that's my answer thank you adam thank you roger like the green that we just talked about in belmont center this is yet another example of the broken process in belmont  i believe this was a an indication it's got nothing to do with the loading dock or star market who was the transferee who received the license what it was was about respect for town meeting one goes back to the transcript when those licenses were issued you can see on town meeting floor that there was a discussion and a question to the board of selectmen whether or not these would be transferable the answer was they would not be transferable and they would be set aside for small specialty locally owned businesses i support our local businesses however i also believe we should not be issuing licenses the belmont doesn't get to control particularly when they are given to the recipient and they pay the town four thousand dollars and then turn around and transfer them for four hundred thousand dollars against the will of town meeting to a chain store which is not a small specialty store which was the point of having the licenses in the first place i should note that the war committee has nothing to do with the issuing of liquor licenses this is purely within the board of selectmen as the liquor licensing authority for the town there used to be a liquor license advisory board which would vet all of these applications package them make a recommendation and then give them to the board of selectmen to vote on i think that's a good process that remove politics from it and i would support going back to having that liquor license advisory board but i saw this situation i acted i got involved i spent my thanksgiving weekend actually working on a legal brief to appeal the  transferability decision to the alcohol beverage control commission of the state because i simply believe that it was not what town meeting had had been told and it was wrong i felt like it was something that i needed to address a b c c deferred to the local board the town as it typically does i'm not surprised and i believe if the board of selectmen had voted the other way that the a b c would have supported that as well could i respond yes i want to go back to the what i originally said  my opponent is not really addressing the issue here the warren commission they weren't committee they voted unanimously right what was what came out of town meeting and nobody on the warren committee no was office not the town council no one ever said this is the way it was voted i don't kill what the intent of the town meeting was i'm an attorney i only know what is black print on a white page from the very beginning it was transferrable you want to write a brief to the a b c and do what you want you would lose i was in front of him to kill the judge who wrote of the the decision that i wrote about it was donovan versus the city  woman there was it whatever you did it was not going to be successful the only thing the selectmen couldn't do was what they did forget the four hundred thousand dollars to four thousand dollars had nothing to do with it i am saying this is the law let's not get involved in what i'm going to call exile genic acrobatics trying to reach can figure out what really happened the facts don't change the facts no matter how you look at them the facts support what i said thank you guy our next questions about storm water runoff belmont again last summer we saved a failing grade for the water quality that eventually drains into the river nonetheless belmont generates funding for storm water control through its sewer rates which is not considered to be a sufficiently stable funding source to support state and federal financial assistance to help repair and to replace our storm water system would you support the creation of a storm water utility through which the people who cause storm water runoff are the people who primarily pay to collect and treat that  that's an interesting idea joanna i'm chairing the public services public works committee of the work committee and we've been meeting with department heads as we're now studying the budget and putting it together we've had a lot of conversations about the stormwater  as you know we're going to be getting a permit from the e p a very shortly we believe and when that permit comes we're going to have to start in town addressing our issues immediately and it's going to be an up and additional burden on our town engineer in our community development department there is money available from the state there is money available from them w r a for i and i we should take advantage of that money and make sure that we get it in order to do we need to do here and it's not just the mystic river basin that we've been contaminating it's also the charles river basin with belmont the hill and it runs both directions and i think that now that the e p a permits going to be coming out we're going to be addressed them in finding and locating with a consultant where that illegal discharge is coming from and the making sure that illegal discharge of sewage into the system stops that's important for not only for the fact that we're being legally required to do it it's important for our environment as well this is yet another example of deferred maintenance and putting decisions off and kicking the can down the road as we've done on a number of public works projects it's very easy unfortunately to forget about your sewer system when it's out of sight out of mind you water runs down the drain you don't really think about it however that is the foundation which our entire society works in some ways if what works underground doesn't work we're in big trouble but we have a good plan there's money available in grants and low interest loans to allow us to do that and if we can find the people who are actually doing the contamination and making them stop then i think that would be the way again i think the question had to do with whether or not we should follow another committee if moses were a committee we never would have got to the promise land  experience as the commissioner and chief executive officer of the metropolitan just a commission i was personally responsible in that position to clean up the combines through inflows that were going into the charles river going into the mr griffin going in the boston harbor i did all that the fact of the matter is that we do know where the source of contamination is we can't arrest it it just takes time and money so we don't have to get into all of this thing let's form another committee and study this and study that i repeat if moses were committee we never would have got to the promised land the people you have in belmont right now know the solution know how to handle it's a matter of money and it's balancing fiscal responsibility and social responsibility we have to figure out how we're going to pay for these things we don't need other people we don't need of a consultants coming in the people in belmont know what the solution is you know how to stop it the problem is money well we don't know the source of the pollution that's one of the things we've been working on i've been on the war committee of the public services public works subcommittee for eight years and we have actually been discussing this issue for a recently for the last few years we do not know where the source of the pollution is that's why we're hiring consultants to go and source it is you can imagine it's very difficult to find with all the drains in town underground where particular contamination is coming from this is an order of the e p a that we have to do this this is an order of the p a it's not a matter of money or a matter of responsibility it's a matter of complying with an order of the e p a that we will have to do because we never spent the money in the past when it would have been cheaper to maintain the systems and instead now it's gotten to the point where it's going to be more expensive but we're under an order and we have to do it thank you adam i mean i know i've got about twenty five minutes left in athletics question that's great thank you guy this one comes to you first going on twenty years ago now in one of the most controversial developments ever to be proposed for belmont in fact i would go so far as to say it may have been the most controvers development in belmont was the development the redevelopment of the mclean hospital property two parts of that development proposal involved a research and development facility along south pleasant street and a large senior housing development obviously neither of those developments ever occurred my question is given the fact that the town has already decided that the development that some sort of development is appropriate on those two properties and the fact that such development would generate new tax dollars for the town do you believe that it is appropriate and timely to reopen the mclean agreement to pursue development at the art the research and development the r and d property in the senior housing property yes however and i've said this time and time again miller is a community of homes and when you have commercial development we have to make sure that we recognize what the impact of that commercial development is going to be on the neighborhoods that  i would love to see that sort of project that you talk about because though children will go to school they're going to pay taxes and there are people in belmont who can work there without even taking the m b t a to go to kendall square or go to mit or go to harvard they can take their bike up the bike path and go to work so yes i think we should do it and when i'm so ackman i'm going to ask the the selectmen to please put me in the capital budget committee put me on the committees where i can use my expertise and this is one of them because i spent a lifetime worrying about the very problems that we're discussing here you know what it is it's my father used to say a blind man once sent to him tony feel sorry for me i can see  father used to say no you feel sorry for me i see everything and it's killing me i want to get involved in this this is why i'm running for selectman now it's one last challenge for me and i've been up to it at my age i've been through it i'm  to devote my time full time to being a selectman in belmont i'm not going to be a part time attorney i'm not going to be a top part time engineer i'm going to spend my time from my house that would fall road in work around belmore what else can i tell y inc you yes the we need to start the discussions again with mclean hospital it is their land and with the neighbors because when this came up last time if you recall there were a lot of issues regarding traffic and parking issues in the neighborhoods so that needs to be respected our indian assisted living would be interesting developments to have i think the assisted living allows seniors to stay in town and affordable fashion without having to go to a nursing home or move away and they indeed obviously we're not that far from kendall square we're not that far from downtown boston and the r and d would be something that would help us with our taxes and take some of the burden off of our overwhelmingly residential tax base that said we need to surg and carefully think about commercial development and place it exactly so we need to have conversations with the neighborhoods and i do this in my job as an attorney i do a lot of zoning and planning and licensing and other communities i keep it out of belmont and not coming up with the work i've done for the for the last ten years but i do it in other communities and what we do is we have neighborhood meetings and we work through problems we also did it on the underwood pool where there were some neighbors who had some opposition to some things we were doing with the pool and we had a number of meetings some of which i led where we got everybody to a situation where everybody could accept the project and the project has been great on time under budget and the neighbors seem to like it and i've done this like i said with my other job and other places sometimes it has gone to the point where myself and the architect of gone to residents houses spread out the plans and the kitchen table and ask them one at a time what is your issue with the particular project and when you get them alone sometimes of the b while their son is going to be on my tomato plants and then we can make adjustments to the building and after the building looks better at the end so it's a win win project but we have to have a discussion about where and where where and what and to what intensity commercial development would occur anything to add to that  yes indeed i've twice i've heard about the underwood pool i'd like to ask has the underwood pool finally been accepted by the town and has all the punch list items they all been completed and has final payment been given to the contractor let me continue to be for you and so i know that when you start getting involved in projects like this you always run into opposition rightfully so from the community it has to be somebody who doesn't divide it's got to be somebody that can bring people together by seeing all the facets of the problem and bringing people together and getting a compromise it doesn't take a genius to know that there's going to be opposition every time there's going to be commercial development next to a neighborhood the idea is to bring people together you number in engineering you never get a perfect put a lot of time and effort and money into a facelift some would say much more than a facelift of belmont center given that effort and those resources devoted to belmont center would you agree that the town owes equal or at least some substantial amount of effort directed toward cushing square and waverly square while it's an interesting question yeah i mean i don't want center project we talked about some of the flaws of the process but the project itself came out fine  i think cushing square has gotten a raw deal and has been sort of unfortunately overburdened in the last few years they had to put up with the to repel road reconstruction which caused a lot of trouble with the businesses because you couldn't even walk on what used to be sidewalks there and then the soon as that got done now cushing square because cushing square the coaching village project was delayed so long which should have happened first and then the roads were done but all the roads were done and they were tearing the buildings down and going to rebuild the new cushing square  i feel sorry for those poor businesses down there and we should be doing more for them been problems with the process with the coaching village development as well i have heard from people being at the one of the cushing village meetings about the ram project ram a plan that when they tore the buildings down there wasn't notice given directly to all the butter's and so all the dust went everywhere because people didn't know to keep their windows and doors closed and they were called back in february when that happened we had some warm days are believe today but we did and when that came down with all the dust it was just spin a simple communication to tell the people to look out we've got the dust coming the good news about it is now that the question village project is going underway will do the environmental cleanup from the old dry cleaner that was there were to contaminated the site and that's a benefit for the neighborhood and then the build the new project and hopefully at that point we can do some more for cushing square because it is one of our signature squares and i think with the cushing village it's going to have a real focal point it's going to have more people there more density there more activity there obviously i have a very soft spot in my heart for crushing scars my daughter in high school worked at the starbucks there which is going to fortunately be far as the triangle is concerned it will be square if i have any say in it i want to remain a green space i don't want the development no way a writes i want to stay in as it is because of the traffic congestion in the houses that are immediately they are pushing square somewhat different but to me waverly square is an area that should remain with open spaces in the triangle i don't want me development as air rights over the railroad tracks and i won't expand further on that however there are areas there that can be tastefully developed commercially i'm talking about the rights and i'm talking about the triangle i'm not talking about salt pleasant street are not talking about what happens going along for polo wrote back to cushing cushing square why easily the town now has a cushing square all the way very important and i looked at it and i said i was very happy to see that there are no registered marijuana dispensaries in crushing square let me say this about the developer told brothers in my experience which is extensive in this area is a very fine developer you must not worry about that the things that alan talked about happened that's what happens in construction the wind was probably born blow in the wrong way i'm not praising them for not notifying the public i'm saying that these things happen in construction i believe that that's going to be a very successful prot project because i know the reputation of toll brothers and its affiliate that's but waverly square the community path which will go from go all go through waverly square i think is going to be a big benefit bringing people from other communities into waverly square could be a great benefit for the business is there i think also we need to fight to keep the railroad station there you know the the m b t a tried to close both of the stations in belmont center and in waverly square and combine them into a station on south pleasant street i don't know why anyone is thinking about taking away public transit in the year two thousand and seventeen i would fight for keeping both of those stations there because we need that train station in cushing square i'm sorry waverly square and cushing square you know the  brothers should have been brought in years earlier if we'd cut the old developer loose instead of just extending extending extending extending those would have built it a long time ago we'd be done with cushing village by now well gentlemen we only have time for about three more questions so roger choose your next question w the man is blessed with substantial green spaces throughout the community we have the wind brookfield's the town feel gross tree p q park one concern that i hear around town is that those green spaces are increasingly being turned in to athletic fields not because the town has made some affirmative decision that the athletic uses are the most desirable but rather because the athletic organizations have the money to put into the irrigation and to putting in the the infrastructure  given that the board of selectmen also set says the parks commission how would you ensure that our are open spaces are put to what the town makes an affirmative decision as being the best use rather than the use that is supported by financially by something well let me say this i'm sure perplexed by a question roger i see these open spaces as being insufficient for the needs of the town and the title nine both boys and girls are entitled to the same access to sports let's say let me stay with sports my son played little league baseball american legion baseball here  when i see open spaces right now i'm thinking of little league ball fields little league and in cages when people take money out of their own pocket to build a new press box to money for a new gym floor these are people that we have to cherish in belmont we can't say that because you got money and you're taking are open spaces for sports let me tell you something i believe in athletics the lessons i learned on the football field especially when we lost i brought through the rest of my life roger rose respectfully i don't see it as you do to me because it pock when i was a little kid i i can to help the boys and girls fine playing fields soccer fields and that sort of thing i think it's extremely important yes passive recreation is important we have t habitat we have other areas but roger we don't have enough playing fields we just don't the little boys and little girls they all want to play athletics we've got to provide for them i will resist saying that this field cannot be used for athletics it's going to be passive recreation not on my watch what else can i say ok then thanks roger we need a recreation plan and we need to have somebody who's coordinating all of the recreation programs to get the maximum amount of bang for our buck with the under the undersized recreation resources that we have we definitely have more of a need for recreational fields than we have fields for i have certain my wife is coach soccer i've stood there watched both my kids play soccer at p q and grove street and every where else in town and rain or strain or shine and i can tell you that it's always a fight my wife would always come back and complain about how it was always a fight to get practice field time because the fields were just overbooked that being said there is also a great need particularly among the seniors i've heard to have some more passive recreational space that's why we're putting in that interim generation a walking pond and that's why there's a proposal for c p a funds for a path like that around grove street so i think we can do both we can have passive uses and active uses in the same places and i think though that we need to do what committee recommended back in two thousand and ten when we put a series of structural reform recommendations forward many of which were not acted upon would be to then have a recreation plan and there's been a recreation strategic planning process going on to coordinate that that process is not done we need to revisit the fees to make sure that what we're charging is fair and equitable with other towns because i believe that we're charging less or not charging at all and then we need to make sure that the fields are being appropriately in an organized fashion programmed and booked because right now it's sort of this catchall where the school books things in the town books things and and there's no in the belmont you soccer books things and there's not one coordinated place honestly if we just put a google calendar up online i don't even think it costs money to just put up a counter for people to sign up might be easier but now i support both the recreation and the pas the decision i was not a staff officer i was the fellow who had to make the decisions my decision will be that i am going to come down for the youngsters right i'm going to find as much space as i can for them i want them playing athletics we can walk around we can find places for the elderly to walk around we can find that although we don't have one of playground for the kids when i was young i used to hear these people say keep a boy in sports and you keep them out of the courts today it's keep a boy or girl in sports and you keep them out of the courts i will champion is much as i can playing fields the hockey rink is something that i'm on by public private we only have time for one more question and then you have to do your closing statement belmont is facing the negotiation of a new solid waste contract this coming year one action that would help reduce the costs of solid waste disposal to the town would be an increase in recycling by belmont residents pay as you throw systems that promote recycling have been found to be very popular in committee and communities where they have been adopted would you support adoption of a pay as you throw system for belmont i think it was you yes the this is a great opportunity because it only comes up every so often that our solid waste contract is up for renewal and this gives us the opportunity to decide what we want for our waste pick up recycling saves belmont a lot of money it's something like sixty something dollars per ton less that we pay for recycling than we pay for solid waste so when we recycle take money out of the out of the truck take money take waste out of the trash and put it into the recycling we're not just helping the environment we're saving belmont's budget so we need to encourage more recycling what we can do is we can talk to the community and have a discussion so we can figure out what we want to put the bid out for whether we want to do pay as you throw a single stream have multiple different days of pick up all of these things have costs and benefits and then we can put the bit out there take in the offers and sign a new contract our current contract has worked pretty well we've had a pretty good deal i've been working with that on the work committee on the public services public works committee for the last eight years and it has been a boon to belmont that we were able to have the contractor continue to use the same trucks even though they should have replaced the trucks and charged us for they agreed to use the other the same trucks for another year to get us through the end of the contract but this is going to be a big discussion and override was passed in the early two thousand and four trash and that money is actually going towards trash as it was promised and it's actually covering the cost of trash so i think we need to go back to the people if we're going to do something like pay as you throw and start charging for trash and ask them i believe an article is coming up at town meeting to do just that and i would be interested to see that discussion let me say this it was nine hundred ninety four we had overnight and the town was asked and then they appropriated as i recall something like the town is paying enough people in this town a paying taxes until it hurts and now you want to put another fee in top of them i know that it is the folks who cannot afford it probably throw a little bit more away right and while i'm at it i should also talk about this foolishness about taken the barrels off the athletic fields and let people take this stuff home i don't know where these ideas come from all i know is if you don't have enough barrels put some more barrels in there so to answer your questions shot in sweet i am against pay as you throw for the reasons i've said the town paid for twenty six years and it's been going up to want to hop a cent every year i don't have to go and ask people all of these questions when i know what the answer is going to be the answer is going to be what i just said you folks what twenty six years ago came up with two million i think it's ninety three thousand dollars and it's been going up to one percent every year it's very simple or right we just asked people to be a little bit more what do i say understanding when they throw away their trash i wasn't gippi and i couldn't find a cigarette butt on the street a repeat a paper the same thing if i go to germany if i go to switzerland belmont is a very wonderful town the people are going to do was tell them look forks this is what you have to do because we've got a problem belmont neighborhoods will respond thank you to add to that i mean this is where experience comes in handy i've been working with public works and solid waste recycling for eight years now i'm familiar with the contract i'm familiar with the provider i'm familiar with the people in town working on the been involved with that in the solid waste committee back when we have one and it's been something that i think we're going to have to very shortly this fall come up with an idea as to what the new contract is going to be and i would love as a selectman to work with my colleagues on the board if so elected to start that process have a conversation get everybody's i admit i am passionate in these matters bellman needs to balance its spending needs against the ability of our residents to pay for them we need to achieve balance in our fiscal management thoughtful development is an important aspect in and hansen belmont's tax base compatibility of our neighborhoods in the quality of life is essential to achieving this well known as a small town that's only to fool a square miles and every commercial where they could be sent commercial development abuts a community of homes again balance is key i bring to this office so this election by extensive experience and the relevant experience for the very problems that we have to face in the next three years if there's one thing i know in my life i don't have all the answers i don't i cannot solve all the problems with myself by myself and i do know what questions to ask and whe ask them i bring i believe humility and wisdom based on the tour so the the office let me say this i will listen and i will hear you please on april fourth go to the polls cast your talked about a lot of great issues the question we have to ask is what do we want for our town i love this town and i've worked to make it better but there's still a lot to do we need to get things moving there's decisions that we need to make what to do what not to do building projects cost more each year we wait grant money doesn't come to belmont if we don't go and apply for it we need to make decisions and we need to act i've been involved in town boards and committees for the past ten years i've a good understanding of what works well and what needs to be fixed but it's not just up to me i've been speaking with people around belmont as i've walked the precincts for the last several months and yet people want the potholes fixed but they want a voice in government too and we've talked about some of the broken process here tonight i know if we work together we can fix this we can get things done my name is adam dash and i ask for your vote on april fourth so we can get belmont moving thank you thank you all thank you again for coming out and guy i wish you both the best of luck roger thank you for being with me tonight and i want to remind everyone april fourth is town election day be sure to get out and vote and if you can't get to the polls you can see the town clerk is absentee voting that's all i have to say there's no excuse