hello everyone my name is roger colton and i'd like to welcome you today to community conversations there are lots of interesting and important issues being debated within public policy and government circles in belmont today issues that will affect your pocketbook your environment the education of your kids it's important for belmont residents to keep on top of what's happening with these issues accordingly for today's show i've invited franklin tucker to join me franklin is the publisher of the bellman tony and belmont's independent online source of local news whether the topic has to do with local politics the schools the operation of town government or something else that is going on in the community franklin is there with his camera and his writing pad to capture it and report it to the bell my community franklin welcome and thank you for taking time to come talk with us today well thank you roger it's nice to see you can you before we get leads you into these into the stories and it's also a way of updating everybody like in the very beginning of the day what kind of meetings there are in what kind of concerts just it's just a little tidbits like yesterday was the th of march and so i had a little thing about the ides of march so well i know that i've been in a meeting in the morning and been at a basketball game at night and you you've been to both of them yeah i've got i've got no  for the library trustees and a little like this year but still nice to see that we have candidates for those positions and also that we've got i think we've got races firms for seven out of the eight  precincts in town meeting so that's great and in precinct six i know we've got sixteen people running for twelve positions i believe yeah that's that that should be exciting and i'm a firm believer that people don't have positions and then decide not to run and therefore their open positions it seems to me that every year all twelve positions are open simply because you're an incumbent doesn't mean that there is an assumption that the you should be voted back yeah well that's that's correct i mean we saw a great example of that with mike lee vinson when he was running for when he was i believe was chairman this and he was wondering how this happened because people didn't read his position it was just you know just a very small paragraph be basically why my running and some of the issues he forgot to do it because he was overseas somewhere and he came back he was the only one something like that and he lost and he says everybody knows me in this in north north cambridge and he went to his neighbor's neighbor knew him since he was born he says i don't understand how i lost he says well i didn't vote for you and why don't you vote for me says you didn't ask and so don't assume anything do you find as you talk to people around town that there is i'm not sure what the real the best word is but  election to two different type of animals right there unless somebody starts library board of trustees that's correct how does one go about distinguishing between candidates for the library board of trustees really it is going up to the candidates i mean they're pretty accessible you can always you know e mail them i always try and they'll come back and they'll tell you their positions i think a lot of it has to do with you can get the information you know it's not hard it's not like if you have a question about state you know you can't call charlie baker up and say hey governor well what about this line i mean you cut here you can you can literally i would suggest that anybody who wants a little bit more about the race go to legal women voters  candidates night that's great fun you'll see the people you'll see the candidates and right after the meeting you can go right up and ask him questions and will the belmont county and be covering that's probably a silly question has it's front the feasibility studies being run by a project manager name and archer for pave par corp i'm sorry she's been doing a fantastic job she's held maybe a dozen meetings  discussing every kind of alternative route you can think of and in late april she'll be coming to the board of selectmen with a recommended path and that will be the one that they say that they either accept it or modify it and then the most important part fund it and my understanding and i didn't realize this until recently but the proposals are for state and federal funding for the path the community for the belmont community form which is always been involved with this with the community past there are already looking at where the where the sources of funding come from so it all depends you know because of the the elephant in the room of course is is there a feeling that there are options that are no longer on the table no i think all the options are on the table but what i think was a very smart was it that the board of selectmen told the community path community path have an impact on the two business centers i mean i think of it is a bike a bike path a walking path but i also think of it is almost a boon to waverl center you only have to look at the minuteman bike path which is goes through arlington and lexington people have constantly say within spring summer and fall especially on the weekends that path brings everybody to lexington center you know you'll see bikes all over the place it's certainly well i mean how can it not yeah well i know that ann and i bike that's our destination we started at the high school and we had toured lexington center right in the bookstore i think i think when we reported on the bookstore opening up when they st thought about it the response was incredible people were like oh think think goodness we have this a bookstore that you know civilization we've got a bookstore again and i think people are very excited about that and of course foodies was a great pick up also because it is something that will bring people in of course you have the downside which is parking because we have enough parking you know when when when it comes thanksgiving or christmas and foodies is packed like every other food place how is that going to impact belmont prepared foods they they they are to think themselves as a as a special east of a supermarket with a large specialty foods section so let's say you come home at six o'clock you just don't want to go into foodies to buy you know groceries you can just buy your  and with the the bookstore and let me tell you how i buy books i love old mysteries from the twenty's and thirty's and so as a normal rule if i'm not at the tattered cover and denver or the lights over the prairie and i was city or something like that i can't find those used books i shop online  center if i remember and the husband is i believe he is at porter books bookstore porter porter square bookstore which is a very popular place i think they're going to be mostly new books because they that brings in the large the highest margin so but i but you know being a local bookstore you probably can see you know the proprietors every day so you can so you can bug them i want to see some more dorothy sayers books you know one i mean there is i can remember back in lexington he used to have like these beautiful bookstores there used bookstores and you only need to go to cambridge to think about the great wonderful like poetry street you know the poetry books yeah y and they had one of the great foreign books stores you know for foreign language but that that just recently shut down to so let's turn to the schools if i've heard an ugly rumor that you've spent some time covering issues in the schools that's there is a proposal to set back the starting time of the high school that's right and there's opposition to yeah by freshman babies by high school students you think that how counterintuitive is that you have parents wanting their kids to go to school an hour later and you have the kids you know fourteen research that shows that kids learn better if they sleep later that's right well as as as former parents of teenagers i know about my son like to stay as long as possible and you know you rather than a seven hundred and thirty start and of course then you have the logistic problems you know because we have one we you know we have buses that take not only the high school kids but we have but they then turn around and do the elementary kids so  you know people have to find out a little bit about that one of the also you know because we are in a sports league the middlesex league we have to make sure that everybody else in the middle six league starts at the same time too because you know if you're getting out at three dollars you know he is going to take a half hour to an hour before your sports teams are ready while while woburn will be will have already been ready to play game so sure you'll screw up that a little bit but it's possible it's it in fact the athletic leagues are coming together and seeing if they can do that you know it was a proposal that was done by the current school committee member and press which and  it seems logical so well see and there's a time period between the end of school and dinner or the end of school and the start in evening activity  does it does setting it back really press that well those for those those two freshmen say they do yeah you should get them on this show and they're very articulate it's great to see fourteen year olds who can make an argument and  to let me see if i get this right to eliminate rd and th grade instrumental music into expand music education starting in the th grade that's correct i think there's opposition to that i think  have to see the other side you know do you have the manpower to do it others other school system seems to seem to be incorporating a th grade start for music education and finding it just is as compelling you know grade is actually leading to a disproportionate number of kids dropping instrumental music or if they if the schools delay it until th grade they will taint kids longer the important thing i guess for me to take away is it's it's really not a budget issue as you said it's actually haven't you nutro it's it's a decision of how best to deliver education that's why it's an educators  it's a way of moving something forward let's say you know maybe maybe taking a different approach and that's all it is it's not my where you know it's not done for any like i said political reasoning or something like that and will the school committee have a say in that they always have a say as you always know you know the school committee certainly approves curriculum but they you know but you know the day they  will they they can give their opinion and you know that opinion has to be listened to you know so i don't know how whether it's a formal vote but i don't think it is because that would kind of defeat the purpose of educators running the educational process right so that certainly will you know i know that many members of the school committee have talked about this with us with some concern and it concerns me so much to to move the curriculum decisions it's presents an interesting quandary on how parents can participate in the education of their kids and yet would you want to do right and you want parents to have a say in how their kids get educated but you also in some ways want to leave the educational decisions to the educational professionals well it sounds like your wife was on the school committee or something like that i don't know how i would react  know in fact today is if you go today which is the th of march you will see the st they're starting to dig for the foundation but it's great you see these big big excavators and they're digging into the ground the ground is being moved so bit basically what for for people who are dreading the closing of starbucks what we've been told is that starbucks will close maybe next month in april because it just makes more efficient you know but there's no parking in starbucks and if you go down to the site you'll you'll see the starbucks it's right of commons and triple zero and what they've what the developer said which is toll brothers apartment division their apartment division they are going to move very quickly on building what is called winslow building which will be on the old man this will parking lot and once they finish that that's where they'll have maybe six or i should say four distinct retail operations on the ground floor they will move those in as quickly as they can you know again revenue and one will be starbucks and they say sometime in maybe late summer early open until the rest of the building is being done so the big issue is of course the parking underground parking you know that they're going to have to dig in where you are if you're an old timer again the old national supermarket or the c v s they're going to have to dig that and dig that completely out to build a foundation so they can put a thirty three dollars and a half story apartment building on there and is any money that will come to the town that already come to the town or are there payments that are and accomplishing are reaching certain benchmarks no i think are pretty much we've we've received any kind of fees and permits and along with the one million dollars that they fiscal seventeen budget so it's in fiscal seventeen it'll be in this fiscal seventeen budget i don't know how much that's going to free cash but it's new growth so and then every year you'll get you'll get a tax on just the property and the price of the parking lot would go into the one million dollars the other part yes would go into this this fund offset future capital expenditures question basically said ok it's going to the capital but equal that will take that money that's like half of what the capital budget will just move that to the side and we'll put the new growth in there you know the new money so it's  will see at the end of at the end of june when we finalize a budget where that money shows up exactly and this is a funny thing because we were already saying seeing some  petition by a former warren committee member to take a portion of free cash and put it right into what is called the general stabilization fund which is which was basically the money that we got received from the proposition two and a half stabilization fund so we don't have to ask for an override again you know so it can just every year we put more money into it and it's and it's great i mean look how the schools we were getting the teachers that we need to getting the space that we need in modular units so it is a smart idea but it also prevents like the town from doing something like the renovation of belmont center which was which was free cash which was out of free cash which was out of free cash either free cash cash or bonding from free cash right and you know the modulars also were the recent modules over the generally middle school those were bought by free cash so there's a little bit of politics there well i don't want folks except at harvard not for basketball smarts and just and he was just an undersized center six foot one which is a very small center and he was he just outpoured a lot of people he was just it was great for that for the entire year he kind of ran out of gas in the last part but he was doing so much for the team and you know we've seen a little bit of the future he was a senior bet my vote for most improved  he was the goaltender for the hockey team and then what happened is he decided you know there was a really good goaltender behind him and he will give him you know the opportunity to spend two years you know to be the and he played basketball and he was anything he showed his athleticism by just being a really good guard he would come in just to spark the team many times yes time and time again you know brought a time oh i didn't even get to say about the unfortunate thing they're now going to division one they're not going to be a division two team so they're going to be going against big girls from and over and revere and ever so it's going to be tough but they could they could they could have a chance of this year were incredible we need to to wrap it up but i i hope you would consider joining joining us again someday oh yes certainly we can talk about our kids we have been talking today with franklin tucker tucker franklin is publisher of the belmont county and which is belmont's independent news source you can access the bellman tony in belmont tony in dot com i would like to thank you again for joining us i would like to you thank you the listeners for tuning in you can access this podcast by listening to it online at the b m c podcast network at belmont media dot org and you can also download it from i tunes by searching for the b m c podcast network i'm your host roger coulton thank you again for listening and i will talk to you again in two weeks