hello everyone thank you for tuning in to belmont buzz philmont newest talk show i'm your host joanna jubal is senior multimedia journalist for the belmont citizen herald and wicked local belmont dot com today we're going to talk about the hockey rink the skeptical role of hockey rink its past present and future and with me today to talk about this are two very important people in town two very special well known people in town to my left is year you were superintendent of the recreation department and you also a hockey coach for about twenty five years right belmont high school and i asked how you know dante and you said you knew dante from when he was a young you're also very active in the community you've been active with the rec department you i want to mention that you were inducted into the state hockey coaches hall of fame you know forty years of coaching experience here in belmont you have your own business here in belmont landscaping and constructions you're also got two celebrities here today this is a really big deal and i thought it would be appropriate to have you on to talk about this very much  debated skating rink it was much debated up until recently as to where it would be rebuilt and now we know it will be rebuilt on its current site we know it needs to be rebuilt so what i thought i'd do is i'd ask you skip to talk about the history of the dante why wasn't this structure mean taint over the years and why is it in such deplorable condition i want to get into the condition and a little bit well the rig for it's all rink really sort of there's a great purpose it really gave have public funding to help us subsidize rebuilding of the rink is different the libraries different the pool was different those are all different things we don't have there's no federal programs to make it just you know now go out on that  and that's unfortunate but just like everything else i mean if you go in that facility today i mean it really breaks my heart because i played there was a youngster in a thirteen year old youngster i played there and then i was up and the expense of setting the boards up and getting the rink up and put in the glass that one went the glass became a little bit more complicated it was time consuming that it took over it took a number of weeks to put the ring up so the theory was correct bony would come out there we put benches around there and we put rubber mats in there and were used to that the whole team had to come dressed and they put escapes on in the back of the rank so it was very primitive and then we had a two locker rooms in the back but this still was a bottle situation that we have you had to use the facilities you had to walk all the way through the you know stance to get back up there so you know it was a home you know it we're lucky to have it and that's reasons why it is choosing just outdated i mean it's just right before we had the regular floor that was surface was the tennis surface which is very true now the point of the what happened was why the tenants had to leave we got a commercial company came in who paints bridges and they did it in a really nice job paid to do it but i mean who ever heard of paint a twenty six unit over a number of paper so we never appropriate any money for it we constantly fixing the chill of barrels today standards the chill is a more we talked about last night at a meeting at the school they were talking about being energy efficient the energy that we waste running those old old compresses it's just doesn't even make any sense but we don't put any money into it and then you know when the town needed a pool the town stood up and said we need a pool right you  public funding we're talking about you know we're talking about everything but the don't want to talk about really what i think is very important that should be done in conjunction with the rink that's pot with the high school  on that right now for a green and have project is already you know underway and they know they didn't they didn't think that all the m s b a won't fund the rink so that's probably why that include you know in the plane well it still after you and you're still even although let me ask you this the new rink which we're going to be talking about now the future of the rink it will it will be rebuilt we know that it will be rebuilt on the current site what we don't know is how big it will be where exactly it will be on the campus and will it still be named skip the liberal and i couldn't tell you and will it be a public private partnership or will it will the town keep it now looks like they're moving forward dante with this r f p process they want they're drafting an r f p to to look for a private partner because they want to do the public private partnership because they say we don't have the money to fix it and this is the best thing to do i applaud the city of the group who's a work extremely had to accomplish it because the thought was will never get one any other way and we have to do it this way and i think that's that's a noble but i think the town has an obligation to build a rink for the citizens of the town and if it's going to be run by a private entity i'm all for it but we need a pool we need a pool ok and i think we facilities and i'm really feel strongly that the town should revisit it we have never really put a committee together we god knows we have committees to study many different things and i have i we have before we jump on to this that we appropriate money to report the rink into some here in order so it's not an embarrassment to everybody that lives in this town which it is right now and we look at this with a study group and come up with a conclusion if the conclusion is with the study group that it becomes a public private partnership though i'm not in favor of i would i would welcome it because i th building and where you think they should rebuild because there's been a proposal that belmont youth hockey had to make a rink in a half with a multipurpose room and they're going to move it from its current location they're going to add parking and it  will eat up some field space i mean so what do you think about that idea well my idea of a high school has not compromise i feel i think out campus at the high school is very attractive because we have such a beautiful field space which shifted everything over to the left so we have compromised the field space would today's is age of multi purpose fields that have synthetic grass on i think we'll be able to survive that but my thought would be if we did move the rank for the propose location or suggested location in front of the library cross street from the library where the softball field is then we have to make packing for the amount of cows based on the space that we have making on the new rink right so if we do that now we've compromised the softball field and a softball field this soccer field that's adjacent to it my thought process would be years ago i think that was a successful project i would like to see the rink be rebuilt completely on the school location moving it forward and then have an additional walk a space which is plenty of room behind the range right now and then to make money and i don't what do you think when that well there's a there's a deal that was worked out many years ago on the funding of this facility probably to run a hockey program for a be a positive it's a wise to make money the ice time between two dollars in six hundred and thirty dollars that we currently have is prime ice i would suggest if that happens though it's been promised that the high school have st crack at take nine o'clock at night the benefit in for me that i lasted there forty years the kids walk right down right down the street get this skates on a two hundred and thirty they're home having dinner with their family by five thirty six o'clock seven o'clock does that have an importance to me that has the most important thing that we don't want has this ability to put the athletes on the facility right after it in we don't have to drive kids around and ice in practice in a privatized that rink then those hour was have to be sold because those are the prime i was flooded you can sell it possible to keep it as a town rink how would it how how would it be possible without fines there's no fines right by any means this rink he has to serve us for the next two or three years at the minimal so i've suggest this should be we should be putting some money back into that and clean that rink up so we can go without a rate because if this rink goes down knock that's not fair ok they're both in they're both important to both our purpose but i think it's very important that we we create a safe environment for our kids to point in and i would love to see the rink do i really want to thank  belmont if you have ideas for future shows email me at belmont at what good local dot com thank you