hello everyone welcome to the journal belmont's own program for hyper local news in community programming i'm your host roger colton one of belmont's premier spring events is town day in belmont center do you expected bad weather kaun day has been rescheduled for saturday june second in belmont center changes are happening at belmont high school thomas brad has been selected as the interim principal for belmont high school for the upcoming school year brough has been and a part time assistant vice principal at the high school the belmont school committee is again at full strength after having a member move to california opening up the seat the six person governing board of the belmont public schools was down one member joe norton who narrowly lost an election in early april for the school committee has been chosen by the board of selectmen and the school committee to fill that seat adam dash explains the process that led to financial background the work on the war committee and finances being a big chunk of the school committee work and then of course ms norton who had recently run for the office been vetted by the voters and i lost a very narrow election and the fact she put  past decade and a half i have had involvement with both creating and overseeing nonprofit budgets in particular so i know how to read the budget but i also know i know questions to ask and i also know where those numbers come from in the context for those number so that when we talk about spending for things like professional development or special education i understand what what goes into making up those numbers and and the sacrifices that would be made if we both from the on the ground perspective as well as a number crunching perspective as anyone who lives in the town understands even if you have kids in the public schools it's going to be a significant i don't and all of us to help pay for that school building and so i think we we need to understand why that's such an important investment and so i have thought about a few  aspects that you know having a good and healthy school district benefits all of us in the town it helps our town economy it helps the spirit of community within our town and it honestly there's a practical aspect which is that our real estate prices continue to increase as more and more people will pay more and more to get into our district because of the schools so i think it's exciting to think about you know we have neighbors and friends who are some of them are seniors and some of them are folks who just don't don't have kids in the schools or whose kids have already graduated through their schools and i think it's important to be able to make a strong case to them is in historic space within the rock meadow conservation land the victory garden boasts one hundred fifty plots assigned to community members the waiting list is long but the rewards reaped are well worthwhile joining us as we visit on cleanup day for the victory gardens and see the many volunteers make the victory garden work the victory gardens in belmont started during the war but they were actually in another part of town there were two victory gardens and then they were moved over here this land here was actually the old mclean farm so it's really lovely that this area had been farmed and then during the war when there was less labor available the farm went fallow and so it's now being used again for victory gardens when there were fewer gardeners and it was less active there was one person coordinating first it was bruce and then it was cathy and they both worked really hard but especially now that we have so many active plots they said we need more help so now i think we have five or six people last year was the first year for the board this is the second year and we'll be looking for you know people who want to join the board as some people retire i think we had this year maybe ten or fifteen new gardeners from the wait list so about every year about ten to fifteen plots open up so when you have one hundred people on the waitlist it does take a while to get my name a c c and i live in belmont my first year at this community  it's been a really interesting experience and were looking forward to the growing season for planting vegetables and so it's really amazing to see this many people here coming out to do work together and that's really building a owns all of this property you can travel you know walk all the way around either on a path or you can go in through the woods around there all the way over to the to the state institution so it's not only the garden you have in your wonderful all master plan for at the rock meadow property jeffrey north a member of belmont's conservation commission explains the steps that are being taken to ensure the viability of this community meeting and it was led by two students from the commerce committee and thanks to a generous grant from the judy record conservation fund the conservation commission has a gauge that the economy school in hastert planted the project to determine the future and best use is ways to enhance the rock meadow conservation area which is a very valuable natural resource and asset to the town for past recreation for wildlife habitat experience or education and not belmont victory gardens are located on the property as well and this is a property that's completed for sometime in late june or july we'll have some more discussions like this one of those problems so i ask and we look forward to more community participation creating a master plan conservation welcome to this week in the belmont citizen now i have with me this week joanna jubilance who is the senior multimedia journalist for the senate's and her thanks for stopping over happy to be here roger we have  news on a possible new skating rink at the high school yes we do the skeptical rolo skating rink is basically obsolete they're still using it but it's really deteriorating and it's really not safe to continue using it so the belmont youth hockey league has a proposal for a brand new recreation center not just a rink it will be a full size n h l twelve month rink half rink a multipurpose room a locker rooms additional parking sixty five thousand square foot athletic facility and my understanding is that this can happen without any town dollars going to belmont youth hockey would fund it and the town wouldn't have to pay a dime but they would have to give the land for it so it's basically a pop private public partnership between the town and bell want you talking about the town have to agree to it and there would be a lease for a certain period of time about thirty years which is the amount of time they think it would take for them to pay back their loan they'll charge user fees to anybody using their rank except for the town that you know the school would not have to pay user fees and i don't believe the recreation department would pay user fees but all the other youth hockey programs would pay user fees and that's how they pay back their law and i said at the high school but that may be jumping ahead a little potential site they have this proposal to go on the site where they'll bring current lee is it would just be moved forward more toward concord avin you away from the tracks and they'd have to knock down the existing tickets like where they have lockers now that brick building that's there and if the this is constructed it could actually generate money for the town right well what would happen is after that thirty year period the town would have the option to take the facility over from belmont youth hockey and charge user fees and they have and they could potentially make money but that wouldn't be for thirty years and they'd have to decide do they want the money you talking to continue and to have a contract to continue to manage it or does the town wan take it back but again where it's going to be is is is that when i say yes yes yes and where it is now if it's at the high schools a very convenient location obviously you would have to bus belmont high school hockey players to the other site there would be additional parking that could be used for the pool in the library so there's a lot of pros and cons and robert mulroy who's on the board of the belmont youth hockey league said it's like choosing between salmon or steak this proceeding constable yes ok let's turn to the dunkin donuts there is a saga that is finally coming to an end yes like yes nicholas leo purchased the property at three forty four pleasant street which is on the corner of pleasant in brighton purchased it over two years ago and had a vision of putting a dunkin donuts there he owns several dunkin donuts so what he did was he went to the zoning board first for a special permit for a fast food restaurant and he was denied because they said it would add traffic to the area and they were very concerned about the traffic so in the meantime what he did was he filed a civil complaints with middlesex superior court against zoning board and he went back to the drawing board drew up a new plan scaled down the size of the dunkin donuts and went to the planning board for a permit to build it and he did get it but it didn't come easy with them either and there were a lot of concerns about traffic who had to do additional traffic studies and address all the traffic concerns and he got the permit to build with conditions on traffic and then what he did is he they they came to an agreement in the court that ok we'll go back to the zoning board and see if they'll give you the permit now and they did but it did not come easy again and there was a lot of concerns about traffic but he's going to he is addressing all those concerns and his conditions for the hours of operation and deliveries so the bottom line is that there will be a dunkin donuts on pleasant street yes it will be smaller and there will be strict controls on traffic in hours yet they're really going to keep an eye on the traffic they don't want to get worse and that's ok thank you you're welcome we've been talking with joanna juba les who is the senior multimedia journalist for the belmont citizen herald and you can read about these stories and more in the citizen here now my center was in danger of losing one of its mainstay eateries recently stonehearth pizza the previous owner jonathan schwartz had closed all of the stone hearth pizza locations in other communities mark the last summa delano silva has been a cook at stonehearth for thirteen years he's now one of the new heartland who explains why this event is important not only to seniors but to everyone in the community the fair opens at five o'clock on may twenty second doing your health care proxy form is one of those things you forgot to do you know you should your doctor probably told the the council only value self determination and wants everyone to have the tools and information to do right to their own life as much as possible people may need to activate their health care proxy after a long illness or suddenly you can be really difficult for the emilie's to know if they are making choices for you the way you would the best thing to do is to write down your wishes  n someone and talk to them when i discovered honoring choices massachusetts i visited their website and download the forms that i can complete my health care proxy at home a new year's eve my husband and i both did our forms using our guests for the holiday as our witnesses and it was kind of silly to tell our guys let's get down to business but it made it fun and i got it down the beach streets and to resolve arena community health fair on tuesday may twenty second five to seven pm what young council  here's the belmont media centers jane peters to tell us what there is to do in belmont in the coming week hi everybody we're here with your community calendar for this week before we get started we have an interview with a special guest this is mary lee she is the chair of the and what it is is a celebration of community through arts and music on people's front porches or in their yards in their backyards on their driveways and it's all orchestrated through a website where people can go to sign up to either perform or to host a band or both or they can sign up to volunteer to be part of it on that level so the event started in new york how is belmont's porch fest going to be different or the same from the way they  so well so ours will be very similar to how it's done in somerville sample it'll be in different regions of the town for different periods of time ok so we're going to engage all the precincts but it'll only be for two hours in each precinct so precinct to one eight for example will kick off the event from eleven to one and then precinct three four and five will will host performances from one in top three and then from five till or three to five precinct one six and seven will host host performances and then we're going to end it all in grocery  park from five to seven with the big you know community wide celebration great so is going to an all day event it is yeah and so people who are interested in seeing these performances are going to be a lineup sort of before the event so people know where in town they can  someone performs but they don't feel like they have a great support for performing they can sign up and more put them all together our registration closes july fifteenth ok and then we're going to spend three weeks making making the perfect marriage performers so the music will performances will be spread throughout and now this is a volunteer run vent so i'm sure you're looking for people maybe to help out we are in every aspect right now we need people we're going to need people day of we want people to be bike ambassadors who will ride around but we also need people now who will start working with with vetting an idea and we'll need people once we've connected the porches  and the performers to coordinate with those peoples we need people on every level and we need money you know right not a lot that we do itself right exactly exactly great so whether you're someone with a porch looking to host whether you're an artist yourself or if you're even just interested in attending the event you can see more information on your website that you can sign up to be a porch post you can sign up to be a performer you can sign up to volunteer all through there so definitely have there to see more information and you can also donate there if you're interested in supporting that way but thank you so much for being here and we hope that there's a really great turnout for this event it sounds like it's going to be so much fun i think and be really enjoyable and really going to bring the community together you know i mean that's that's the hope ye thank you so much for having me on some think you and so with that we're going to get into our normal calendar segment when it comes to me as a calorie our skill can grow at any age the belmont learning choir invites you to their free gathering on tuesday to me feeney and other interested singers there are no trials all skill levels are welcome to this collaboration between powers music school and the beat street center to help adults continue their music education the eight week summer session starts on june fifth immerse yourself in the world of winged creatures through a presentation by local wildlife photographer carole smith bernie learn about the habitats of birds and bees their interdependence and how we can protect them bernie is a member of watertown friends of bees seeks to educate the public about the importance of eliminating pesticides and protecting the natural world but not both are the sponsoring the new england patriots in a basketball game versus the belmont boosters all stars on wednesday at six thirty in the be just fiel house if you don't have tickets yet you can call the number on screen attendees will have autograph and photo opportunities as well as a chance to win an autographed football travel abroad the beach street center's popular travelogues as beach street members share photos and memories from their trips around the world on tuesday you can visit historic french sites as ed and mary and because they enjoy and whisk you through normandy must say michelle and lou off valley on friday see photos taken during bryan sapeurs travels in two thousand and eleven to cuba both presentations begin at one fifteen the library friends hope to see you at their annual meeting on thursday at seven after an abbreviated business meeting speakers from the board of library trustees the belmont library foundation and the building committee will explain their unique missions and layout the process forward to a new building the public is welcome so please join them whether you are our current member of the friends or just looking to learn more from the most passionate and expressive sonatas to intimate and lyrical salon pieces violinist joshua packin and pianist liko horry will deliver a recital celebrating the wide artistic potential of the violin attend this concert at the belmont watertown united methodist church on friday at seven tickets are available on isn't great say yes and to be a just pack spring improv show on thursday and friday at the be a just little theater whether you attend one night or both watch unique games and scenes all made up on the spot based on audience suggestion tickets are free for students but adult tickets can be purchased for one or both nights on the beach just pack website and that's it for this week we'll see you next time on c calendar that's it for this week's edition of the bell my journal as we sign off let's watch what is available on belmont's community programming t v stations thanks for watching i'm your ho roger colton i will talk to you again next time