towns i would personally like to thank our speakers who took time out of their busy day to join us today chamber is proud to sponsor this event with  provides a great opportunity for us citizens and members to interact with their local and state officials ask questions and become more informed about what's happening in their respective communities hansel from belmont media center helen should tell from watertown axis collaborating to do the videos today i thank them for putting the time and the community's appreciated as well  you that applause can go for our first speaker which is which will be mike driscoll town manager in watertown come on up mike so so with again it's a pleasure to be here did we previously kind of provide an overview in the next ten minutes say indicated the fiscal year the seventeen budget was submitted tuesday night and includes revenues and expenditures tolling one hundred twenty six point three million dollars which is an increase of three point eight million dollars and in the increase of three point one four percent the fiscal year seventeen budget includes utilizes the low point two and a half percent local property tax includes new estimated growth of two point eight million dollars the real estate and personal property taxes or estimated to be  next year will be ninety five million dollars which represents seventy five point three one percent of the budget with respect to spending money on taxes or a tax bills the town council sense fiscal year two thousand and two and up through fiscal year two thousand and sixteen we had an average tax bill of fifty six hundred dollars that compares very favorably with surrounding communities that don't have the commercial base that watertown has such as the average tax bill is a little over seven thousand dollars newtons is ninety three hundred dollars and belmont is ninety seven hundred dollars but again that comparison is all three of those commercial certainly belmont now and don't have the  resident the commercial tax base that we have with respect to community of element i'm not going to speak just big very briefly on it mr magoo to be talking about the development that has been going on and will be going on but i did want to touch on two things that are in the fiscal year seventeen of the budget the town council had there two of their top budget priority guidelines was to provide additional resources to community involvement in planning one is in respect to  enhancing the capabilities of community and planning by adding resources to transportation and parking issues and the other one was adding an enhanced in the resources for community involvement to deal with  provided special services and foresman so given those two budget policy guidelines the fiscal year seventeen budget includes the following three new positions in additional building inspector a transportation plan r and a code enforcement officer additionally within the town we two years ago we were here we were talking about we received a grant for an energy manager for a two year period time during that two year period of time the energy manager was needed to bring in revenues or provide some granting money monies and i would suggest that our energy manager has been above and beyond a gentleman name made lewis has helped us with our own review of our escrow project so therefore he saved the brought in capital of over three hundred thousand dollars and saved in only an over ninety thousand dollars so in the fiscal year seventeen budget we do have the energy manager position becoming a full time  position for the town of watertown the next item and probably one of the most important items i want to talk about is retirement benefits as you recall back of mentioned before november of thirteen stana poor's had given the town a bond upgrade to aaa the highers available in as of january one two thousand and fifteen the unfunded pension liability for the retirement system was a little shy of forty seven million dollars that's a drop of almost one thousand a half million dollars since the generate one of ten when it was sixty six and a half million dollars one of the town councils ongoing budget policy guidelines was to address the unfunded pension little bill liability and then look to do the other post employment benefits so the recommended funding level for the retirement system next year is fifteen point six million dollars which is an increase of about one point five million dollars what i would suggest is the retirements is a good five minutes left in the talk a little faster the the the retirement system funding will be fully funded in fiscal year nineteen so what that means is fiscal year eighteen a year from now we'll be adding another million five to the retirement system in fiscal year nineteen it'll be another three quarters of million dollars the appropriation at that point w be seventeen point seven million dollars fiscal year night twenty twenty the appropriation goes from seventeen point seven down to two million dollars we're going to have fifteen million dollars to put towards our opioid which is as of june thirtieth two thousand and fifteen is one hundred thirty two point nine million dollars that's a drop of thirty one million dollars in the last couple years so that's some of the items we're looking to do i'm not going to talk about insurance employee benefits we're would continue to work with group insurance commission rates over the last eight years have been average in a vote one point seven one percent street and sidewalk improvements town council to their credit has assessment was designed taking consideration the import of the final report of the president's task force on twenty first century policing the assessment center was held two days in november and december eleventh we received the grades hanrahan we had two interviews rounds of interviews thereafter the police chief has a responsibility to directing the operations in the administration of the police department so subsequent to that thorough selection process and in my belief he has the quality and qualities necessary position on january twenty second two minutes january twenty second i appointed michael lawn as chief of the y tom police department he's here with us today in the front row and again i think it's wonderful addition for the quickly on the police department's budget the one one thing with they were going to be doing is applying for a cops grant we've lost in fiscal year nine in ten eight positions were looking to add some positions to a cops grant the one thing that we did announced on tuesday night was that we are going to add an additional police officer in fiscal year seventeen and now it's a result of c b s films providing us with money for library we continue to have a significant amount of usage of the library has got over thirty three thousand folks per month go into the library and the education appropriation that were provided tuesday night includes two and a half million monies to the education system and that will allow for the hiring of twenty point two five new positions in the last three years town council and so in fiscal  year fifteen sixteen and seventeen the school department would who will be adding will have have a will be had in almost sixty new positions so we certainly continue to work with the school department look forward to continuing that work and can work in collaboration with the school department develop a comprehensive multiuse multi year education budget it sure as funding for schools and a successful education of our children and lastly the goal of this administration and all of the poppins to provide the highest level services and said this to the citizens of watertown while utilizing the taxpayers dollars officially as possible i look forward to working with the autumn and tom council and continue building on thank you micah we and the speakers welcome questions we're going to save them for the last speaker after the last speaker so write down your questions for any of the speakers that we here today will have time at the end to answer them  please welcome david calle town administrator from belmont morning thank you for the opportunity to provide you information updates from last year vice chairman baghdadi from our board of selectmen will provide you updates on some of the major economic development projects happening in belmont rating and conjunction with our april two thousand and sixteen bond sale this allows the town to receive the lowest interest rates on debt debt issued for projects in terms of what moody said in their rating  quote the aaa rating reflects a town's healthy financial operations and reserves position a moderately sized tax base of the strong wealth levels and close proximity to new england's largest employment center and manageable manageable debt burden the rating also incorporates aggressive funding of its moderate pension liability terms of the credit strengths that were labeled in the report stable financial operations and fiscal management affluent tax base with close proximity to boston and a history of voter supported general override so we're very pleased to have our aaa reaffirmed in and it's an indicative of the great work that the board of selectmen and other local officials have done with our treasure to provide a game plan for our financial activities in addition to that since last year the town was able to successfully execute the sale of our would fall roe property for one million seven hundred fifty thousand dollars that was very advantageous since we're at town meeting we're recommending the appropriation of those monies to be used for the feasibility study for our high school project which was recently approved by the m s p a to join the process for a new high school facility which i chair baghdadi will describe a little bit more in detail in addition to that the board has been very active in exploring the issues of pension obligations and unfunded liability presentation and i think was important for the public to understand the work that has gone on extensively in belmont with regard to its sewer and storm drain rehabilitation projects and those presentations are on line and we welcome you to take a look at them as the manager in watertown mentioned budget season is upon us we have produced an f y seventeen budget that is in balance and has been presented to the board of selectmen the warrant committee and will be presented to tom meeting june as you were aware last year the town approved a four point five million dollars override in april which was needed and we continue the process of having a team collaborative approach and our development of the budget which includes the superintendent of schools and school officials to share information and to come up with the budget plan that has consensus the budget for seventeen as proposed is  hundred and four million nine hundred forty one which is an increase of about four point six million dollars or four point six percent increase it includes i should note also that the school enrollment in belmont our k through twelve in roman has increased by four hundred twenty six students to forty three hundred students or eleven percent increase between two thousand and ten and two thousand and fifteen so we're seeing a significant increase in our school enrollment which is one of the reasons that the override was rick wired last year in our budget we were able to add ten f t e teaching positions to the budget this year and the f y seventeen budget we're adding another five teaching positions we're covering our special ed costs which are increasing and provide technical technology support to the schools we in addition are adding a staff planner to the town side budget to deal with all the activities that are asked of us through the commune development  department so that is an added increase in addition to that the over i last year had five hundred thousand dollars and increased money for roads and sidewalks so in the seventeen budget we're spending two point one million dollars in road improvements and two hundred thousand dollars in permanent funding for sidewalk improvements in addition to that as you know we have a combined facilities department and we started to implement the process where we're combining all the costs and all the budgets into one budget as opposed to having a segregated between the town the school in the library so we've began that process in this budget process so two point five million dollars has been reallocated from the school budget to the town budget to start that process of consolidating facilities budget we also have almost a million dollars in c p a appropriations that will cover improvements to our tennis courts a construction of intergenerational walking path pond preserving our vital records making improvements at our town hall for historic purposes and the like in addition to that we're part of the minuteman school district and town meeting in february a pool approve a revised regional agreement which was important for the district to redevelop its organizational structure in terms of governance town meetings now of the sixteen member districts are contemplating  funding of a hundred forty five million dollars project through the approval and consideration of a debt issuance by the minutemen school district and with regard to service delivery as i mentioned we had a financial taskforce that recommended the override last year in that process it included a recommendation to develop a recreation strategic plan which are currently underway and expect to have that done in the next few months which will allow us to develop strategic goals objectives and recommendations for the next coming five years with regard to our recreation programs were in the process of having a community outreach process as we develop our plan for a new solid waste contract in two years we have also complete in negotiations with comms cast far next ten sewer enterprise funds that will happen in the fall in addition to that that will be part of a phased approach to implement a smart meter replacement program beginning in july of two thousand and eighteen i should also note that we hear a lot about water quality in the like our belmont water department for the sec in a row as received belmont has received an award from the massachusetts department environmental protection for its outstanding performance as a public water system so we're very proud of that we've been collaborating with watertown and other surrounding communities as part of our logan airport noise advisory committee trying to work with massport f a a to try to look at the routes that are currently impacting our communities in addition to that we have streamline our permanent process repair rules through the town clerk's office and belmont in december declared itself a purple heart community capital improvements we are nearing completion of the belmont center reconstruction project  green space is currently underway for having completion with regard to the wall and sidewalks and plantings as well as the final payment treatment that will happen sometime in june chapelle the road is continuing and will is expected to be completed in late june and center brownsburg has been actively involved in march in the work of the project towards its completion in addition to that again through the help of representative rogers  to the waltham line it will require us to do a feasibility study based upon prior studies about potential routes that will be considered by the board of selectmen and to basically find a process to see what the engineering and costing impacts will be on the routes that have already been identified we have implemented a one point mill one one point one million dollars project to replace our outdated public safety radio communication system to include ensure our affective public community merges he communications and chief mclaughlin lead the project and thank you chief for your hard work on that and it's an important project for the town we also opened our underwood pool back in august we encourage you to take a dip this coming summer it's a beautiful facility we're in the process of finalizing our negotiations with the state with regard to the conveyance of the old incinerator sign a cockpit of we had legislation approved with our delegation two years ago to allow that product to be conveyed to the town for recreational d p w municipal uses and our new belmont light substation is nearing completion is expected to be completed later in this calendar year  l meeting is scheduled for may second next week and a second segment with regard to budget is scheduled for june sex so i think that was within ten minutes ok and i can brief thank you up so you can relive them and probably absorb some of the information that you can't right away today so that's a thought and thank you both for being here the he we've been busy with the implementation efforts to to put that long range plan into practice that along with the strategic framework for economic development have really been guiding a lot of the work many of you are aware and i'll mention in more detail in a minute we do have a hotel under construction as well as a number of restaurants due to the hard work of our legislative delegation all of which are here today we also got approval of fifteen additional liquor licenses for the town which is an important component of bringing restaurants and that that economic that vitality to our community so we'll be working to put th in to practice and use a lot of the work of the department also is focused on development activity so i thought one of the things i would do now is kind of give a summary of some of the development activity has been taking place over the last year and there's been a lot going on in the department's been busy and that activity will continue to generate additional revenue from both inspection fees and the new growth which the manager mentioned in terms of the the revenue growth for the town so i'm going to go through a few of the projects to go to arsenal street otherwise known as the gables as residential project mixed use project  under construction on arsenal street that includes two hundred ninety six residential units forty thousand square feet of retail space which will include a grocery store and they are nearing completion and wouldn't expect to have some occupancies this fall that's a project right on arsenal street that i'm sure everyone has seen sixty howard street and begin street another project it is under construction with sixty five residential units and ten thousand four hundred square feet of retail space which also include will include a restaurant a five seventy arsenal street the marriott residence inn is under construction hundred  square under construction hopefully it will be finished soon it's a fourteen thousand square foot retail store sixty five grove street the old iyonix building is being renovated into one hundred twenty five thousand square feet of high end office space an important component of maintaining that commercial tax base that the manager referenced as well as for eighty arsenal street otherwise called the lynx project which is taking the old risin building and renovating commercial end of the spectrum as well and the last under construction to be sixty six or fifty six serving street the old roly brick yard which will be a another mixed use project which one hundred eighty two residential units and ten thousand six hundred square feet of retail which will join with the hanover project which is already nearly up that project a has begun construction they've cleared the site but will hopefully begin construction of that site shortly in addition number of projects that are in process not yet approved by the town three thirty pleasant street which is the old case you deplete building in and julien construction those sites have been cleared the project that's in vision for that but not yet approved would be ninety nine residential units another twenty thousand square feet of retail with including a restaurant that would front the charles river athenahealth which is now the owner of the arsenal on the charles river office complex they are in the process of developing a master plan for that complex which would add a parking garage at the western end of the property and add both retail and additional office space to the complex an additional two hundred fifty thousand square feet of office space and the arsenal project is that which was the arsenal mall that is also going through a process of developing a a master plan that would incorporate significant new retail space significant entertainer component as well as residential to make that a mixed use project so all of those are somewhere in the process and i'm not going t numbers for you but obviously significant amount of development activity going on again in the corridors that were envisioned in the conference a plan then the strategic framework for economic development is where the town wanted to focus our efforts commonwealth's community compact application for watertown which will provide us an opportunity to partner with the state on best practices in several areas will be bringing that before the council shortly i've been working on residential development guidelines you know significant interest in town to try and protect the residential character of the majority of the community quite frankly and you know obviously there's been some interest some you may seen some yard signs are out about the other in that spectrum of the concern about protecting property rights and so we're we're continuing to work to try and thank you steve please welcome state representative john hac morning good morning thank you paul and thanks to the chamber for the invitation to be here with you and to give you an update on some things happening at the at the state level i'm going to follow on with what mr mcgoohan was just talking about obviously there's a lot going on in our communities in terms of development and i thought i would focus on what we're doing at the state level to try to be supportive of those efforts to lend our our support and work with the state agencies to make sure they understand what's happening in our communities and as much as we can to bring state resources and assistance to bear to try to help the communities realize their their goals in terms of terms of community development steve made mention it was steve who made mention of what's happened in terms of the liquor licenses but we were very happy to see the governor signed into law legislation that we have worked on representative law and senator brownsburg and myself to increase the number of liquor licenses for watertown another area that we've really been focusing on has been transportation we want to make sure that we are working with not only the communities themselves but the region to make sure that as these new  commercial developments occur as these new residential units come online that we're providing adequate transportation options adequate transportation capacity to make sure that these developments are successful and that the impact on other community as a whole is one that is that is positive there are a number of different transportation focused projects that we're currently working on some of you may be familiar with the arsenal carter study this is a master funded study it's one of about six or eight quarter studies of this sort of around around the state where we bring together all of the immediate stakeholders as well as the various transportation agencies and beachy a mascot the communities in the area to take a look at the entire transportation situation along the arsenal corridor which is the focus of  so much of the development activity in watertown and look at all different modes of transportation try to improve you know efficiency and capacity in terms of vehicular traffic but also encourage more people to have options apart from single occupancy vehicles public transportation pedestrian facilities bicycle facilities etc that project been underway now about half a year we've had a number of stakeholder and public meetings and that will continue on for another  eight to twelve months at the end of which there will be recommendations that we'll be working hard to implement closely related at least in terms of geography is a project underway to link up  had some success in watertown we as you know i've built a portion of the path behind the arsenal mall it currently and this now nichols avenue where working now to link that up with  entire network of paths both to the north to or to the fresh pond down as well as to the south the charles river paths that project is in its design phase i want to acknowledge bill mcclellan and boylston properties they along with athenahealth contributed some funds that the state matched for that design process and we're looking forward in the next few months to seeing that design and moving on to the construction phase third we have a project that's not actually in belmont or in watertown but as a huge impact on them and that is a project that's just getting underway now to take a look at transportation in the area of fresh pond parkway intersection particular fresh pond parkway in mount auburn street the seventy one and seventy three buses which are so critical to watertown and belmont go through that intersection after a while it does take some time to get through that intersection and we're working with mascot with the bta with d c our and with again stakeholders in that area to examine what could be done to improve the efficiency of vehicular movements through that area and again improve safety for people who are on foot or on bicycles to encourage more people get out of their cars and get around in those other ways and then finally we are where we're trying to help out the manager mention that the water towns interest in transportation planning steve was unable to get to but i know that a big focus for the town now is developing a transportation management association and we at the state level are are again trying to do all we can to support that we've made actually a little bit of progress i haven't had a chance to report back to these gentlemen yet in the state budget that the house doc did yesterday we're going to be working with senator brown's berger to build on that on the senate side to be of support as the town works  with property owners with members of the public to try to develop that transportation management association again in a way that creates more transportation options for people and sure of the development that's occurring  parkway project and look forward to hearing any questions you might have thank you good morning all as always it's a pleasure to be here today i am amazed how the town manager mike driscoll and david hale our town administrator flipped through twenty pages of notes in just ten minutes amazing i've only got three pages so i can speak a little slower than they can jonathan hecht had no knowledge but he's a natural at this i'm going to talk to you about development i can't boast of as many construction projects as my can unless you're talking about tear downs of residential single family residential homes and belmont but a little more on that ok starting with cushing square when i was in front of you at this for april of two thousand and thirteen i was chairman of the planning board at the time and you know i told you that question village was about to be permitted within the next sixty days or so and that was going to revitalize squishing square and there was a lot of enthusiasm and excitement about that project indeed the planning board did issue its final permits to the cushing village project in july of two thousand and thirteen but three years later construction has yet to commence for those of you who aren't aware cushing village is one hundred sixty four thousand square foot mixed residential and commercial development in question square it's bounded by capello road common street and belmont street right on the watertown line hundred fifteen residential apartment units and thirty seven thousand five hundred square feet of commercial development the project has been dormant for three years but that's not the town's doing by any means in fact the town wants to see the development come in and revitalize  square the owner has had issues securing a development partner and financing and that's been the primary source of the delay i'm happy to report that in march of two thousand and sixteen last month the owner of the project did enter into a purchase and sale agreement of his entire interest in the property the land and the permits and the project with toll brothers toll brothers is a publicly traded real estate development company they focus on upscale residential they have represented to us that they have one point five billion dollars in liquid assets so they will not need any financing any outside financing to purchase and develop and develop this project if it survives the due diligence that's currently in the due diligence phase and if it survives we are you know under the documentation under our agreement with the parties it has to close no later than august of two thousand and sixteen august twenty sixth two thousand sixteen we're hoping it will close sooner and we are cautiously optimistic that there will be a groundbreaking later this summer or early this fall next shifting the belmont center if you drive through belmont center you'll notice that there's active renovation hard to miss active renovation of the former macy's building you'll recall the macy's store much to the disappointment of many belmont residents closed in january of two thousand and thirteen and the owner has been trying to tap into the best commercial and retail uses for his project and for the center the renovated building will contain about fifty thousand square feet of space which is considerable for belmont center and i think the owners plan is to lease it you know to accommodate about four to eight forty eight tenants he's had a difficult time bringing one tenant and  take the entire space like like macy's had done and i want to report that the owner has signed a lease for fifteen thousand square feet with foodies market foodies is a specialty grocery store they focus on fresh foods and and specialty foods and prepared foods as well the board of selectmen did give them a retail beer and wine license or a few months ago several months ago and foodies is scheduled to open later on this fall so we are also optimistic that that will  start some additional business activity in belmont center now waverly square the success in waverly square was not and was not in a new development but in the towns ability to avert a major and unpopular project as many of you may be aware or may have read the m b t last september came before the board of selectmen and reported that they were under order by the massachusetts architectural access board to close the train station in waverly square and under their study of the situation they thought it would be more feasible and effective to construct in you train station on south pleasant street in the commercial strip of south pleasant street once you go you know around the star market supermarket and then and then you know rather than upgrading the existing station they would build a new facility on the privately owned land and then they would close the waverly station and the new facility would happen to be centrally located between waverly and the belmont center station so that could lead to an eventual closing of the belmont center station as well and presumably it would result in more efficient and more regional operations and more regional train station not a popular plan among belmont residents and you know we helped several forums where residents spoke very strongly against closing the existing stations we also had strong opposition residents showed up from watertown and walt them strongly opposing that plan i'm happy to report that the m b t has reconsidered and their current plan is to keep the waverley station open as is for a considerable period of time in the future and they are seeking to get more flexibility from the architectural access board is what has been reported to us i do want to thank senator will brownsburg er for his work and his help and his work on behalf of the town with this as well as representative rogers i also want to thank jonathan hacked for his willingness his offer to help us out in this process  as well next ok residential a few comments on residential development residential continues to boom in belmont due to the limitation of available land or is it a residential development primarily consist of demolition of existing homes and repair and replacing them with massive scale mansions you know  term controlling this type of development has been the challenge of the planning board in response to building moratoriums that have been brought by residents before town meeting the planning board has over the last several years been working on changes to our zoning bylaws which would ensure that new residential construction is more compatible with existing homes in the neighborhood and these measures include reducing maximum allowable height requiring a special permit for a new residential that exceeds a certain site thresh size threshold requiring a special permit for two family homes and duplexes and also requiring site plan review the latest issue also which the planning board will begin tackling the summer that has hit belmont air b n b and you know i'm sure that's going on in watertown as well and that is an  issue that our planning board will be looking into whether we should regulate it somehow lastly public project we received we received word earlier this year that our belmont high school project has been approved by the massachusetts school building association our statement of interest to construct a to rebuild or renovate our high school was approved our high school is forty five years old and it certainly shows its age we have formed a bomb on thai school building committee and we will be performing a feasibility study to determine whether to renovate the existing building or to build a new building forecast our forecast that cost could be anywhere from one hundred million dollars to up to about one hundred forty million dollars depending on whether we renovate or reconstruct approximately thirty percent of the allowable costs will be reimbursed by the s b a we will certainly require a debt exclusion you know for this project which may be a challenge in light of our recent override which which passed last year so that's what's happening in belmont again thank you think it's great to be here good morning and i want to also thank paul aeration who took over as executive director of the chamber only six seven eight months ago and is doing a fantastic job so how it around and you're hearing from a lot of speakers and to more from the state legislature so rather than go through a long list i maybe i'll just i have a lot of stuff i could talk about maybe i'll just talk about the budget we just did because we just concluded yesterday it's budget week in the house of representatives monday tuesday wednesday we were there monday tuesday till nine ten o'clock at night and wrapped up yesterday the budget comes out first the governor proposes a budget  and then the house comes up with its own budget and the budget came out representatives i'm one of one hundred sixty thirteen hundred amendments to the budget were filed because this is the opportunity for representatives to get maybe a local earmark for their town or their city or to propose a piece of policy that they're trying to advance and then the amendments are consolidated we don't vote one by one on each of the thirteen hundred they're all consolidated by subject matter so the environment transportation i talked to members who were there twenty twenty five years ago they used to debate each budget amendment and one guy who's now a very senior member said he always wanted to put his budget amendments at the very back of the line because they come up at two or three in the morning and he said by then people just say oh you can have it so but we don't do it that way anymore the budget is maintains the states double a plus bond rating it puts more money into the stabilization fund which is the rainy day fund which has been drawn down and is now coming back up it's a budget that increases locally to cities and towns and  no new taxes or fees so i think it's it's a sound fiscally sound budget and and that's important and the curious thing to me that is that it's very tight so when we're filing all these amendments to fund our projects it's a little frustrating as a representative because i have agenda items as do my colleagues and we were told it's a tight budget and i done some research on that because i really wonder why we have a very good economy in massachusetts after the trough of the great recession housing prices are up we know gas prices are down inflation is low interest rates are low unemployment is low  stock market is tripled since its low of the great recession so how which would increase capital gains taxes so how is it that the state budget is tight in this economy if it's tight now i mean what's going to happen if there's another downturn so  the the reason is and you should know is business leaders to the extent you're follow the state budget as i think you should one health care costs are rising at a very rapid clip forty percent of the state budget forty forty percent forty cents on every dollar goes to health care costs that's a big number the other thing is we had drawn down the stabilization fund so now we're building it back up another time is that we're trying to reduce reliance on one time revenues at the state level a lot of times to fill gaps in the budget we've relied on tax settlements for instance budgeting that in there is an effort to reduce that which is good in pension obligations as well there's an effort to sort of pay down pension obligations so that the economy's good but the state budget while it's very sound and preserves a double a plus bond rating is kind of tight there's not a lot of extra money for pet projects if you will  anyway you're going to hear from a couple other folks from the state delegation i do have a whole bunch of other items i could go through but i think in the interest of time i'll leave it there and then thank you very much know me i was serving the council with with jonathan hacked and then i ran for a seat that was actually mostly based out of waltham it's been held up before it became sheriff so i do have like half of waltham just the west end of watertown and also part of newton so it's a pleasure to be here and i say i'm a watertown guy so i think it's a great we have a great legislative team we all work well together with jonathan our senator wills brown's burger and and  also a great guy who's a great advocate for the town of belmont and it's a pleasure to work with i think i would give a couple updates on what my committee in my simon at the state house has been on as you know it's been a busy legislative session and we're working on a lot of important issues with opiate of opiate abuse one educational issues and we've got the state budget yesterday and you know trying to work on the extraordinary costs of the special education crisis that we have in watertown with having you know extraordinary costs associated sometimes with perkins and out of school placement so that's something that jonathan hecht and we'll have been working tirelessly on and i think we're making progress there trying to get some relief for our public schools what i'm the vice chairman of the financial services committee and this year we had the task of trying to give a brief update on the committee assignment we had which was regulating and coming up with regulations for in the lift in the transportation network companies we had a twelve hour hearing at the state house in the great hall to try to listen to both sides of it's really a fascinating ingenious idea lift but it becomes down to the state to come up with you know regulations and making sure that through public safety and background checks there's very it's very complicated on the back end that you may not realize and i didn't realize was insurance we haven't a medallion business for the taxicab industry that's been heavily regulated by government so we did come out the house budget the house came out with the a bill it's now in the senate and senator brownsburg will be working on it and so the regulations were you know logan airport the convention center many years ago the city of boston had issued twenty two hundred fifty more medallions that was sold to help finance the convention center so the taxi industry was really you know upset that you know we haven't regulated they come in  work basically is the chance to take transportation network company stock they're not a transportation company they're unhappy and there just a platform for how to connect people but clearly there is a lot of issues so we had to come up with the pattern of utilities public utilities will oversee a new transportation network company so that they will manage all of background checks will do it to t part background checks on on the on the drivers we also cover the insurance and how that is broken down uncertainty is of when they pick up a customer when they drop off when they have an app on when they're working so it's a very complicated insurance piece taxicabs are not allowed to hail rides they also are not allowed to pick up at the convention center or at the logan airport for five years try to give the taxi cab business some relief but they'll be a lot of push back in the senate we don't know where that will go one of the thing that we're working on the last few years work and we had short staffing for our police and and just i guess my congratulate my brother on being the new police chief in town and first publicly and i think he i know he will do a great job but we were  finally successful represented hecht and i and senator brownsburg through the senate last year was finally to get fifty thousand dollars to work on drug work in our community and certainly the opiate crisis that we were facing so that did come through last year and i think the police are going to roll out a program the some really trying to get some more opposite you know on the street and more you know as we talked about trying to connect not really isn't force meant just to try to connect with people in the community get guys out on bikes and get them into the community and trying to identify people that maybe need help and make a connection with them so we also discussed that in the budget yesterday again for next year in the house budget so i think that will be a  you know a good way of trying to connect our police to our people in our community who need help i think we have you know when i filed that years ago it was a it was a different very different way of how we probably trying to police and deal with these opiate crisis so i'm looking forward to that we're going to run programs for kids and do anything they can to just get you know out of their cars in into the community and i think that's a great start and just quickly i just want to finish up i know i  spoke to the manager several months ago we were talking about a lot of the development that's going on in town and it certainly is a challenge and i think steve magoon the staff of quite a challenge  positive side of that is that many communities in the state and jonathan will know that they're really trying to drive people into the community and they're stuck we are in a great position people want to come to our community you know clearly the council and the ice however we can help we have to manage that but we were the fastest growing community in the state last year and i think you know that's a good thing it's long as we can manage it well but people want to come to  watertown because it's a great place and has a lot to offer so we're very fortunate and so i just want to you know can graduate the staff for all the work they're doing and they're under enormous amount of pressure because of all of the different developments come in and they're trying to make sure they're done right but i think we can do it right we have the right people and i think it's a good thing that people want to come to watertown so thank you very much and i hope you have a great thank you very much it's really a privilege to serve the communities of watertown and belmont and boston watertown about matter to exceptionally well like communities you've got a great administrator great manager great boards of selectmen great city council really really high caliber people working together great police chiefs you got it all you know really you got to the staff in these communities and the political leadership of these communities are very high caliber as you look across the state and we really benefit from from that and you're also very well represented in the state legislator by representative rogers representative factum representative one and it's really a privilege for me to partner with all of them to do that to to the things happen that you've already i think gotten a great tour of the horizon of things that are that are happening across the the two communities i i guess i just want to emphasize a couple of things that that i think are that i've been excited about one is the work we've been able to do on education with the with representative fact the representative long we have really worked hard for watertown which has been way out of whack for a lot of years  in terms of the level of education that it was receiving and so between from fiscal thirteen to fiscal sixteen and seventeen we brought the percentage of the education budget that's being paid for by the state up from about twelve and a half percent up to about sixteen and a half percent and so that that works out to a million and change every single year it's not a game it's not a game changer for a community like watertown but it's it's money on the table that we are we  feel good about having been able to sort of right a wrong a really and that involved advocacy with it with the governor with the various legislative policy bodies to change in fact the formula by which education aid is distributed the other thing i just want to touch on which we haven't really talked about here but is the level of change that's happening at the department of transportation in the state in the structure that we've put in place particularly for it to manage the n b a i think is working out extremely well this is these are changes that we passed last year and you know all these projects you know which which i'm extremely excited about the you know the about the the quarter study which represented  service which is just a constant concern for so many members of the community all of that i think is benefiting from the way we've changed the leadership in mascot in particular the n b a right now it's at the top a mast you have i give governor bake great credit for this somebody who's really a transportation visionary was secretary stephanie pollack has been a transportation intellectual an advocate for public transportation an advocate for making transportation work for years and thinking about it in a very broad broad gauge way about how can you really improve transportation in the state when you take in that and what we did with the we created this control board and they are really doing something that does absolutely need to be done when you when m clear vision of how their capital money was being spent very murky i mean and you'd sort of get a plan from them and you say well can i see the back up to that and you sort of go to the back up and it's like what you know what  doesn't add up you're talking about something that you had started actually and you're really going to start next year are you going to start it well no we're not reporting it here because well you just couldn't get a straight answer as to how that capital plan was looking so you have a control board that's really asking the right questions about how that two billion dollar operating budget and you know five six seven billion dollar capital plan is put together and slowly as a result the sort of banging that picturing the shape asking the right questions and dialing it how the pieces fit together i think they're they're they're working their way to some difficult decisions so you have that control board that that's really banging the financial picture into place you've got the visionary on top and you have i think in french in frank apollo who's a really seasoned public manager who has a very hands on a vision of what's going on the transportation system and when you when you sit through a presentation with him we were i was in brighton with him on tuesday night talking a the way he was handling questions you knew that he had a very hands on understanding of what the operational problems were for the transportation system and to a much greater degree than i've seen in prior management teams of watch talk about these issues so i'm very hopeful that with that structure in place we're going to see transportation in massachusetts start to work better and that i think the they have they know that they have to focus on making it work expansion possibilities are limited job one is to make it work and they're focusing on that and i hope after a few years of doing that we will we will all really see a difference in the reliability of some of our transportation systems and that after that we can really start to talk about some of the expansion and changes that were needed i'll stop there and i look forward to participating in the dialogue again it's a great privilege for me to serve these communities to partner with you with the other legislators t represent you and thank you for having me this morning i'd like to thank all us because for the time and for and lightning us of their activities they're all busy and we have a lot going on before i open the question and answers i'd like to update you on your chamber your committees we have a lot going on like you know go to our website w b c c dot org we have a new section called presidents chrono present and tieless president mike has put it together it gives a great snapshot of all the events we have all the committees and it will tell you what's going on events that you want to come to and events that you want to join the committees of coming up may twelfth we have a book signing with quantiles channel five  then stay stay in tune and let keep you up to date with what's going on in the in the quickest possible snapshot that you can get i'll open up the question is an answer from what i understand from the cable people just stand up and ask you a that doesn't seem to get arrested is voters can register with the d n c meet however those records don't touch the towns so people come in and not be registered to vote and that is the biggest problem and we're going to transform it we believe with the guidance of various town boards it is on there will be much more successful and with that success will come more cars what people will go there there will be more  correct answer he is in the process of as he his job is to manage the growth of people like me and others a drain brains of watertown i respect what he's doing i'm not fooling anyone is news often been he knows that we have not people you know handle berger and the atlanta project next door are being done by you know real rationals who know how to do this if you don't like the size of the apartments you're not going to rent those apartments but there is a lot of