hi i'm state representative dave rogers and welcome to the rogers report today i'm really pleased to welcome belmont town administrator david kill to the show first however i want to give you a quick update from beacon hill the house has had a busy start to the year in which we've passed a number of key pieces of legislation two of which i want to highlight for you today the spring's most significant legislative accomplishment is a bill aimed at curbing the opioid crisis as many of you are aware our state has seen a sharp and deeply troubling rise in deaths from heroin overdoses it is nothing short of a public health crisis the new law just signed by the governor and which took effect immediately contains several important measures including capping first time prescriptions at seven days so that doctors aren't over prescribing opioids and to requiring careful evaluations of patients within twenty four hours of being admitted for an overdose the opioid crisis is one of the biggest challenges facing massachusetts and working with my colleagues i will continue to seek new ways to address it the second bill i want to highlight is legislation that ends the anachronistic practice of suspending driver's licenses for those convicted of drug related crimes individuals convicted of drug crimes have had their licenses automatically suspended even if the drug crime had nothing to do with driving for up to five years and a reinstatement fee of five hundred dollars was attached to the suspension of driver's licenses coupled with the need to pay hefty fees to get your license back all while attempting to re enter society as a productive citizen poses a completely unnecessary challenge to individuals who made a mistake but deserve a second chance by ending these so called collateral sanctions at the registry of motor vehicles we can eliminate this relic of a failed approach to drug related crimes more appropriately punish nonviolent drug offenders and encourage successful re entry to society the most significant upcoming work of the legislature will be the state budget and of course while high profile legislation often grabs the headlines in many ways the state budget is the most influential thing that your state legislature does each year i support increased funding for a broad array of progressive priorities including early education civil legal aid transportation infrastructure the arts and substance abuse treatment among others i've also identified three key priorities i will be supporting in this year's budget debate my top priority is making sure the belmont and the other communities i represent get their fair share of chapter seventy local aid for education and that it grows healthily governor baker has proposed an anemic one point five percent increase which is not nearly enough and it's not consistent with his campaign promises i also plan to lead efforts in the house to increase funding for the massachusetts department of environmental protection or d e p d e p staff levels have fallen precipitously by a third and the department is struggling to perform even its core functions i look at flint michigan and grow concerned and so i'm fighting for this line item as one of my top priorities finally i'll be strongly supporting funding for services to homeless individuals homeless individuals as opposed to those in families comprise one third of the massachusetts homeless population but they receive less than twenty percent of homelessness funding budgets are not just numbers on a piece paper the way we spend reflects our values which is why i support the budget priorities i have described now i'm pleased to introduce and welcome belmont town amid a stranger david kale welcome david glad to be here thanks for coming in two thousand and twelve and i held the position of deputy finance director and budget director for the city of cambridge for nine years and prior to that i was the chief financial officer for the arlington public schools so that's a long career in public administration fantastic and for those here in belmont who aren't really familiar with the town administrator role can you talk a painted general sketch of what you do  some of the key functions of the job sure the town a minute straighter serves as the chief administrator for the town and reports to the board of selectmen and the town i'm in straight or directs the day to day operations of  special projects we manage public community relations and documents for the town i'm responsible for the recruitment hiring of department heads coordinate committee appointments in the process for the selectmen there's over sixty committees in town wow and it's a court i knew there were a lot i didn't know it was quite sixty or sixty ton of homes in the town of committees and coordinate the activities of the ne will tell me in special town meetings as they're phyllis marshal and we have a very we have a great group of department heads who are very committed and doing a good job so very fortunate to have that team and that just gives a snapshot of the activities of the town and history of wow that's a big list  a significant portfolio what accomplishments would you point to in the current fiscal year of sort of the big things that have been happening that are positive to report to the to wn citizens actually we have a long list of accomplishments that we've seen in the current year and i think it bodes well for the town getting some things accomplished and the work of our room ploys and the board of selectmen and other committees and elected officials one of the things that we've been able to accomplish is after several years the town has executed the sale of the would fall road property and that yielded one million seven hundred fifty thousand dollars to the town great which may be allocated to other capital projects in the future we've been able to graduation as a team effort and and the board was actively involved in  executing that we've also been able to coordinate to comprehensive presentations this past fiscal year one of which that took place in december was a presentation on pension obligation bonds and rehabilitate that system so those are two major presentations to educate the public and to provide information to the board and to and to the public at large we've just completed our budget  need to do to make sure that we analyze our expenditures and produce a balanced budget sure in addition as part of that budget proposal as you know a few years back tommy to prove the consolidation of town in school and library facilities into one consolidated facilities department right we have done that we have our director and our management team in place and we've been able to negotiate with our unions to allow our school in town employees to work in each other's buildings which is a major component of trying to coordinate iraq tiffany's but now we're focused on  phased way to consolidate the budget in staff into one budget i see so in this budget we've taken the approximate two point five billion dollars in school facilities and maintenance cost of transfer or them to the facilities apartment budget which will again allow was over the next couple years to continue to move the staffing over and the library cost so though have one consolidated department with all the resources in one department both human resources and financial resources which will allow us to manage our facilities department more efficiently and effectively that's great some maybe some officious ease of scale by consolidating we've already seen some of those things over the years in terms of being able to consolidate contracts for elevator maintenance or if we see maine and so we're already seeing some of those accomplishments in terms of getting some efficiencies but this will only continue that process and that was part of the overall plan when the consolidate facilities mentioned we've had two special ta meetings that have occurred during this fiscal year and we're getting ready to have the annual time meeting so again i think that requires a lot of coordination between the tao moderator and the town clerk and our pretty intense in terms of trying to pull that all together we've also work collaboratively with other town officials and other communities and we have a special tommy with regard to adopting a revised minuteman vocational high school agreement as well as working on their building project which will talk about a few minutes we also had to public forms i think i know that you would tended with the m delegation weighed in as well we let them know that closing it wasn't really an option the town supported in any way but so thank you i think that was an accomplishment that is important in addition to that the town has again aaa bond rating status that's fantastic it's very important because that allows the town to achieve the lowest interest rates possible sure well to market and that will be even more important as the town considers the possibility of funding a high school construction project right and as interest rates have just ticked up a little bit and i just saw the chairman of the fed janet yellen say they might take up a little more so having a aaa bond rating in an era of rising interest rates fantastic it is and it's quite an accomplishment and i know that you were participated in even though it happened in june it's worth mentioning that the p g a professional golfers association host of the  lation senior players championship at belmont country club and joan and that required the coordination of all our town departments and it was a large event prestigious event and we were able to coordinate the activities in a professional manner in a coordinated manner and involve not only the departments but the p g a state and other agencies it was a major event and i think it put belmont in a good light sure and  we also are underway where we are under current undertaking a recreation strategic plan which is one of the recommend taishan as that was contained in the financial task force report rate and that basically will allow us to do a  a plan that will develop strategic goals identify objects and recommendations for the next five years and we plan on having that ready sometime in the year and then going up thing that is important for the town sure  recently as of monday the board approved now talk a little bit more about this a request for proposal for a feasibility study to allow the community path implementation committee to continue the process of identifying issued in the next week or so and i will talk a little bit more about your that because i know you've been a leader with that in addition to that we're in the process of developing a process to collect data and receive public feedback over the let folks know when that's scheduled and what do you see as the key topics that will be that will be discussed your kind of one more thing you have at least because i think it's with these are all great things are happening in the town i think sometimes when you work in the weeds you sort of need a second to sort of look at the forest sure that you're good things have happened and we are we've just completed successful negotiations of comcast to to extend the ten year term for underwood pool back in august and we're getting ready to open up the pool for the new season with extended hours and additional programming that's fantastic and beautiful is an unbelievable we we had probably the hottest days when the pools open road in belmont center were substantially completed last calendar year but they will be finished up later this spring which i think will be good news to the residents and to the business community here that affects our business districts we've just just about to finish the replacement of our outdated public safety radio and communication system to make sure that we can continue to provide effective emergency response so we will we're very proud about that and  we're working on finishing through a public private partnership the replacement of the basketball court at the high school last of the varsity court was done through private funding the town allocated money a last town meeting to finish the remaining of the basketball court so that will happen to come up with the way to do that and i still play hockey you know once a week immensely and play in the night and i have friends who skate at that at the rink in belmont and i'll be looking forward to having that thing refurbished and what i'm sure a lot of people  are talking about it right now and then you help with this with our home rule petition basically we're waiting from the can which is the division of capital asset management and maintenance the appraisal for the  old incinerator site unconquered out basically filed homo petition to basically and it got approved so that that property can could be conveyed to the town for recreational public works or municipal uses and the funding will be offset by what we've contributed to will contribute to kept the site as part of our remediation efforts right hopefully the appraisal the legislation had that in its right so hopefully the appraisal which has now been completed and been reviewed will as i said the offset is what we're contributing for the capping will be praise will be less than what were or equal to what we're spending for that remediation so there'll be a net zero cost to the town great and then we continue to work on  to have them provide information that will help inform f a a to take a look at the routes and potentially make to make some adjustments because that is a big issue in town and i think those are things that we've worked on have two segments of tommy in the first one will be may second and that typically is called segment a and that will comprise nonfinancial articles generally and then we have a second part of tommy which is june sixth and that is typically called segment b which primarily deals with financial arkell's primarily with the a budget and more committee and the capital budget committee are now in their process of reviewing submitted budgets with regard to segment a some of the topics that will be considered in the board of selectmen is scheduled to vote the warrant shortly is to the extension of the demolition delay by law that was approved a few years back basically the historic district commission is still compiling an updated list of historic properties so they will be requesting an extension to why they get that information available as folks know the residential property still removal by law was approved three years ago it had a sunset provision april first two thousand and sixteen so there will be a request to reauthorize that by law for residential property snow removal so that will be on the  segment a list in addition to that the planning board will be submitting a zoning by law to amend the single residency zoning district on the construction of oversized single family dwelling units as you  recall last year from tell meaning there was a citizen's petition that was approved that put a moratorium on the height of new structures for the dalton road neighborhood for the plane the boat has been working since then to come up with amended a there will be community preservation committee budget proposals they've gone through their process as you know community preservation act funds come from a one point five percent surcharge on the homeowners property tax bills as well as state matching funds is about a million three annually that the town receives from these those sources right and that's to support historic preservation activities affordable housing and open  community preservation act community receives proposals in the fall and reviews them and has approved six projects for town meeting to review they told about eight hundred eighteen thousand dollars and they include replacement of the  other topics what's the latest on the community path implementation sure as i mentioned on march fourteenth with through this week the board of selectmen approved a draft request for proposal which will and what that will allow us to do is to do an engineering assessment of the path segments to determine their viability it will also allow the consultant to do a cost s mission cost estimate for budget and t that we are very fortunate because that is quite a large endeavor and we appreciate the fact that you were able to secure a hundred thousand dollar fund yeah we got funding in the state budget it was quite a battle because we had to get it in and then the governor vetoed it we don't override the veto and so senator brownsburg and i were pleased to be able to do that for the town it's an important project another big enough or big development in town of course is the school building authority the massachusetts school building authority has has given an initial green to the new high school can we talk about that a little bit i think you were selected to be on the committee that's going to help implement this congratulations on that again a major accomplishment for the town the town is submitted proposals to the there's like eight where in phase one or module one of the process we tell meeting back in february tommy improve the establishment of the school building committee chair tom moderator has selected fifteen individuals to serve on that building committee now other components of this first phase is completing an educational profile question here which the superintendent is actively working on working on roma projections and roman certifications providing documentation of the maintenance and cant capital planning processes that we use in town for our school buildings what we will be doing at the mae tao meeting is allocating funds so that we can go into the second module which is the hiring of a firm to do a feasibility studies or owners project management services which are required under the process and testing so that will be an appropriation request that will happen in this upcoming ta meeting which then will allow us to do a feasibility study agreement with the m s p a and as i said they'll move us into module two which will actually be the hiring of those consultants charge with the process which then will yield ultimately with recommendations for a potential project yeah so it's you see the headline about the school building authority in the in the new high school getting initial approval and i don't know if the public fully aware there is still a very rigorous ongoing process to really make this happen so it will be a several month process and i think the tom moderated kid to the folks that he has to be part of the building committee that potentially will be a ten year commitment how well i think we're near the end of our time i want to thank you for being here it's real pleasure i think the town is lucky to have you working on so many diverse issues and getting good results so congratulations on your success so far and continued success and thanks again for being here thank you for your