hello and welcome to the belmont journal your source for hyper local news and community updates imei crowley your host this week in today's program we're going to be giving you a preview of segment b of town meeting which begins on may thirtieth but before we turn to a town meeting we're going to be spending a little bit of time with mark martha cotten a long time volunteer at the belmont media center as she celebrates her hundredth birthday last week talking about some of the things that are before town meeting including one of the more interesting things is the renovation the proposed renovation of the police station yes i'm very excited to talk to you about this because i love our existing police station i love where it is but it definitely needs updating and the question was could they update this building or do what they have to move it and build a brand new facility in the d p w yard so the building committee hired an architect from cambridge ted go on to say who came up with a creative solution that i know the chairman of the building committee emory mahoney is very excited about they're going to be able to preserve the historic facade of the existing building keep it where it is they're going to add on to the rear of the building and put in addition over the lower level they're going to put in addition on the side of the building and they're going to add an elevator to the building to make it handicapped accessible because currently it's not so it's going to have a safer way to bring in prisoners with a sally port on the side it's going to have improved locker facilities brand new lock of syllabi equal for men and women and if you've toured the facility you know that those with a locker rooms and so many of the other facilities are just in a shape yes there are stores ongoing now for all the town meeting marriage because they really want to sell this to the town meeting members and i as a resident would find it hard to believe if they don't approve this because you're getting what's like a new facility it's even adding fifteen more parking spaces if you're getting what's like a new facility for six point two to seven point five million versus what a new facility would cost is twenty five to thirty million so this is just a fraction of the previous discussed price right to do  keeping it where it is which i think is great because i love where it is in our center i think it's a great location and down the road the municipal light building that's next to the existing police station could potentially be used for additional parking that's interesting yes we'll see what up and that's more another five to ten years but i think it's great i really do you know so really innovative solutions yes and town meeting probably will buy off on this because it's such a reduction so be interesting to see what kind of discussion they have about it so another issue before town meeting again is we're continuing to deal with repairs to our fire station yes for anyone that's not familiar the two fire stations the headquarters  road and the other smaller fire station in belmont center those were built in two thousand and six for ten and a half million dollars however since they were built since the fire station moved in they have had leak issues they have had water infiltration issues every time it rains windows were leaking the roof was leaking they brought in the construction company to do repairs but it was still leaking so finally the town had to hire a forensic engineer and two thousand and fourteen who determined that there is serious workmanship issues with this with this facility the flashing was put in incorrectly so that the water was actually  right and i saw with my own two eyes she frisell gave me a tour and i actually saw how one of the windows was installed and it was an insta i mean there would you could see there's like a crack all around the border of the window you can actually see outside and that's not how windows should installed so there's this repairs that have been ongoing there was a settlement with the cut construction company it was nine hundred eighty five thousand dollars in two thousand and fourteen but that's not enough to cover the so cost of these repairs so that was  time that it would take care well they knew it was a little short when they they had an estimate of one point three million dollars for these repairs so to date they've put in five hundred thousand now they're asking for another one point two million six h thousands going to come out of the capital budget and six hundred thousand it's going to come from free cash so when all is said and done you're looking at probably another two million dollars going into this this these facilities to to do these repairs and let's hope that once and for all  it's fixed hopefully this is the end of it i hope so all right well thanks so much and we'll talk with you next happy to be here welcome to this week in the belmont tony and we have back with us franklin tucker editor oh franklin hi how are you mike i'm fine how are you just fine thank you so we're continuing our discussion of of town meeting segment be among the issue that will be discussed a town meeting or repairs to the a very holistic approach towards repairing both of those projects when we're looking at the d p w he said you know do we really need to do build something new we can we can just add space so how they're doing it is just like how we're adding space it was just inadequate for anybody because it's been it's only like the police station it's entering its seventh seventh decade it's never was kept up as it should have been and it just fell apart and we just basically is   we will have to look back at this at the d p w in ten years but right that time where we were there should be a solution to that ok so also a town meeting so segment b of town meeting this is the financial the  really very efficient way of looking at budgets he started he made it basically a year long project so there was really no controversy because we because a lot of committees and a lot of  boards have looked at their budgets and they go through an entire process where every department comes in and really has to defend each number and that includes the school department so it really gets it's get it's got thrown into the ringer it gets it gets washed in basically there's hardly any controversy because it really that the town only can spend two and a half percent what they had before because of that because of because the laws in the state right it's an extremely not much to argue about that's right in there isn't going to be anything really to to mess about say the least there it will be interesting to look at some of the things such as capital budget usually every year there's about  one point four million dollars that the town has looking at long term things but even this year we were looking at basically the same amount of money being sent for a lot of very interesting things you know they may seem on interesting but they're small they're vital projects and what amery mahoney who is again who's who's head of this committee to which is the capital budget committee she she makes infrastructure work really important she's she looks has she has a long term view of projects in town she'll look at a school and go do we have to what do we have to do to make sure that this school meeting after town meeting powers music school is collaborating with the beat street center this summer on a new program called the belmont learning chorus it's an eight week program designed to sharpen your senses improve your vocal accuracy and for some of you just try something new read a freeney the vocal instructor at the powers music school talks more about the program am my name is gratifying me i am a voice teacher here at powers music school in belmont and i'm excited that i'm going to be starting a new chorus a new singing group for is dulce over at the beach street  i approach is quite novel we're going to be doing contemporary music popular music in three and four part harmony but this will also include a significant portion of motor skills building kind refined high level skills in terms of concentration and to sum it all up i like to say that singing is like a brain gym sure differentiation like the space between pitches two you're doing both at the same time so a lot of the exercises i will use to warm the core of the design to really get the brain firing and to goals for the group that will be tangible so that we'll all feel that sense of satisfaction when we improve whether it is doubling the sound like the beauty of the sound next up you'll want to see our community calendar with jane peters jane interviews house toobin who is the chair of the belmont farmer's market committee she'll also be highlighting some of the interesting things happening  you're saying and so we're here to talk about the farmer's market for twenty eight hundred season so i thank you so much for being here say they haven't can you talk a little bit first about what goes on at farmer's market what there are a lot of things obviously there's food we have farmers and people who bring food that they prepare but it's not just food we also have a lot of events at the market so we have events tent and we've got musicians and mit magicians story time and there's a community table as well where we have folks like the belmont light department and some of the selectmen others come in just to talk about things going on in the community that folks might be interested in great so it's a real community effort than it's not just right yeah see there i'm sure there's a variety of people fourth in belmont and from surrounding towns yeah if we can find vendors from belmont we try to bring the ad because that's really nice you know have actually farmers farmer tim's veggies is coming this year some and that's part of the mission of the belmont for collaborative is food assistance in helping everybody have access to good fresh local food and people are very happy that they can stretch their dollars a little further with that which is women infants and children and other components farmer's market nutrition program for seniors and that comes out through the senior center at the beach center for senior citizens we match all those coupons and we've actually got the best match of any local market and i don't know if i don't think very many other markets match the other coupons growing and we do a lot of fund raising through the food collaborative so that we can offer those benefits to folks also meant a great way to support the community and newsletter as well so if you go to the farmer's market website you hopefully can find a spot to sign up for the newsletter no spam celibates address because we don't like it either but we'll send out newsletters on wednesdays each week so you know who's going to be in the winter once a month just so people remember that we're still allowed great all right so you can check out some of that information online make sure you sign up for the newsletter so you know who's going to be around right can we just say the dates and times one more time for people at home sure so the market open on thursdays two o'clock to six thirty in the summertime and closing at six after labor day we open on june seventh and close on october twenty fifth and if people come and love it we'd love to have you sign up to help out or donate to memorial day parade and services began at eleven am at cushing square the parade will continue to tour polo road to belmont street and will end at the belmont cemetery on grove street a service and reselling ceremony will follow the parade in the cemetery it's almost summer and a great time to view beautiful spring flowers in bloom join habitat in the floral family program on tuesday from ten to eleven walk to habitat special flower gardens and enjoy fun flower activities register for this and other habitat programs on the mass autobahn website the way we regulate and practice recycling may change in response to china's recent decision to no longer accept us recycling join belmont recycling coordinator mary beth callahan on tuesday at one fifteen for a discussion on our recycling industry policy and how to best manager cycle bulls at home bring your questions to improve your general knowledge and understanding of belmont's system a good story can lead to new business motivate people to support an important cause or foster new relationships results business coaching brings cheryl hamilton to the first church in belmont for a fun interactive and supportive workshop in storytelling on wednesday at six thirty seen celebrate the work of belmont's of young artists in the gallery of arts and you will belmont public school's art exhibit the exhibit runs through june first and can be viewed anytime during gallery hours and artist reception will take place on wednesday from six to seven for elementary and middle schoolers and from seven to eight for b h s students the belmont garden club hosts a flower show on saturdays from one to two at the library view arrangements created by members of the garden club and get in the summer spirit and finally a reminder that town day has moved to saturday june second join the belmont community from nine to four all long leonard street for fun prizes games and more be sure to stop by b m c s booth to experience virtual our three sixty camera and learn all about new classes and opportunities of the media center we will see you there and with that's we will see you next week on friday may eighteenth was the annual belmont high school prom a nod followed by this year's junior and senior prom the promenade is an annual tradition it's basically a community reception for parents students and senior citizens which the promised self and we have some highlights for you beautiful in their colors and their clothes and the whole thing was just a lot of fun and there's a lot of good community spirit here we end our show with a programming update for your belmont media center channel's be sure to watch also remember that the belmont journal depends on you if you have updates community information that you would like to have featured on the program or if you'd like to volunteer please contact frederick regal oh at fred at belmont media dot org that's all for now we'll see