we would all agree that it's been anything but a dull day there's really quite a bit at stake in the election here in belmont today it certainly is we have of course we have the headline races we have the selections race got caught bony and adam dash both two very qualified candidates been out on the campaign trail it's been a vigorous campaign and of course we have three wonderful candidates of the two slots on the school committee that that is and both of those are important institutions going forward there's there's a lot at stake even in the library race the library board of trustees will be assuring forward a new building sometime here in the near future and as much as the new building they'll be responsible for the fund raising for that building and determining how much of that building comes from private folks how much comes from taxpayers  if any at all well it's a good opportunity this certainly been a lot of talk back and forth that's been covered here on the belmont media sunnah been on the you know the local town papers and of course the the famous or infamous depending on your viewpoint league that's always an exciting time so well but the voters you know will sort of speak and with the miracle of technology they tell me that we actually have the capability to be going live at some point in time where our town clerk allan o'brien cushman will be reading off the that point as i have about three minutes ago that the polls are closed but i have jim we have jim williams live from town hall we're going there now were you feeling when the polls closed and now we're just sort of in this waiting period wow when i was a candidate i remember being supreme lee grateful to living in a town such as belmont because in belmont when i ran for this like man three years ago i had the opportunity to walk the streets of belmont and i knocked on hundreds of doors and talked on hundreds of people which is something you could do in a town such as belmont that you can't do i think in many other larger communities but it was it was a fun time it was i lost of course so then i did not end up being fun but the campaign in the anticipation of the results was a good time well it certainly is i mean you know i'm sorry for those results that certainly is you know i've i've tasted the champagne and i've also tasted the pit of fruit and i think a pretty good beating so in any event we'll come back to that but  you know it was a rainy day here in belmont yet we had our own citizen journalist patricia roche traveling out about and visiting some polling places and she took some interesting some interest got some interesting perspective why don't we see what what she had to say go to fake calling from precinct six at the belmont fire headquarters on election day april fourth and so far we've got slightly over two hundred voting already which twenty nine were november we were over thirteen fourteen hundred voting so but it's a steady stream of people are coming it will have a bill be busier right around two three o'clock when school gets out  hello i'm mary gavin i'm the clerk here at precinct one at the library with had a pretty active turnout all day it's been consistent in even we were given six hundred ballots for the day and we've close to three hundred have voted so far today i think it's pretty i vote he had normally and i think it's pretty  town work and what makes it's a lovely place to live this is a an update of the voting in precinct five we have two thousand two hundred and five eligible voters in this precinct and as of ten forty five this morning one hundred fifty people have voted so the turnout is extremely low so far for this kind of an election in this precinct there are very few contested seats so i guess perhaps not surprising in the weather certainly is not helping out today the same job as it was when you were there you know i think it is it's not different belmont than any other town that has this form of government i think i mean i had the privilege of serving with a long time with  institutional bill monahan and bill skelly the two bills that they certainly had different political perspectives but they had some good experience i was just turned forty i think when i was elected and now if the first number now is a six so it's twenty years ago  but you know it's the same problems it's the same things we always had education always had to fill the school budget that was always a challenge we always head challenge on street repair sidewalks we always had so that infrastructure stuff we had the issues back then with with town hall repairs and the renovation of town hall this is storage building that we had from the eighteen hundreds it's the same thing we had police we had fire we had  contract talks we had fights on open space and that's about the time when the mclean hospital that was probably the last sort of the genesis where the kernels of the beginning of the mclean hospital debate and discussions as to what was going to happen at mclean hospital which was in of course the you know the woman temple was another big thing that was being built at that point in time so you know one person's woman temple is another person's  another person's question village it's soon to be probably i would suspect something down and so pleasant street or perhaps something else up in the mclean there's only so many places you can put stuff up ones of that type of scope of magnitude but budget you know police fire basically the same and i remember talking to various slack men that have said that even back in what people often considered to be the good old days the means i'm an attorney i fancy myself pretty good at what i do but you know in its simplest form someone gets his money same place it does years and years ago a great portion from property taxes a little bit a portion from some excise taxes a bunch a little bit from state aid and some maybe from some investments there's really not many sources of revenue in every if you build a couple of things or something you get a little new growth in this somewhere and depending on what the cherry sheet looks like from the state it's either up or down usually down well as yes and you know one of the good old days they did their prop two and a half if you needed money you just sort of on the board of selectmen but in fact we have a contested race for the board of library trustees and indeed at least in precinct six with town meeting we had i believe sixteen people running for twelve seats so we're electing town meeting representatives as well with town meeting being the legislature so as we focus on what even i would consider to be the top of the ticket the board  yes it's a big time and it sets the tone but the tone is usually you know i think this board here and perhaps the next board whoever is the be more policy making than it is and down in the trenches i can speak for me and the board that i served on it was more of a you know we had the police chief and the fire chief and the public works and that's what they did we didn't try to micromanage how to dig the hole how to make the arrest to want to do all that  r a policy board i think it got away a little of that after right left the board a little bit now we're returning back into probably some bigger policy issues from the from the top of the ticket well i remember back this is going to date me a new people coming up to become directors of you know small departments of public works but the conversation i had with peter was you know there there's a reason that you're the director of department works and i'm  not and i said let you do your job well there's that in a nutshell sort of that's opinion that was my personal philosophy you hire the good people and you know that's what they do just like i'm not a counter an investment banker yes said that that's my philosophy is that and he certainly was a gentleman the chair of the town you know with the allman service and he had institutional knowledge and every bit of infrastructure in this town that's why we're lucky in this town we have good people that are doing a fine job you know they get they take criticism of this and that a lot of it isn't really wanted but for the most part you know like department does a great job the water the palm of the water runs clean when it's summer and they fix it they don't have to wait for days and days it gets done police department seems to be doing fight a bomb and does that thing so you know i'm pretty here why people come to town and i school department runs the way the school the pub and runs but it is and even though works we have a good accountant we have and better than i and these are my opinions of course but better than good director of the office of community development i our professional staff that the board works with is a very good staff well it is certainly made my job on the on the board and i suggested make the current board and the soon to be new board the newly constituted board their job a lot more a lot easier because true we are professionals and when they come in and they say this is this is this you can rely on that because that's what they do we haven't any scandal we haven't had the big controversy you know so if it's a big town run and you know one hundred ten million or whatever we're up to now that's a lot of money it's a big corporation there's a lot of moving parts but for the most but you know it will seek the board's going to hire a new town administrator that certainly helps helps coordinate and  sort of stay of the ship and can make things a little easier as they go forward but and it's not only that the town budget as a hundred ten million let's say give or take and then you add the light department on top of that which treasurer mr cameron was run unopposed you know he's up there again and he's been doing a pretty good job so at least moody's thinks so i don't know and how long have you been in town meeting i've been in town meeting probably over thirty years and he said i think i was elected in one nine hundred eighty two somewhere around there ten meeting just seems to be i wanted to come back to town meeting that because the community is a lack in town meeting representatives tonight and really town meeting is the voice of the people it is the legislative body and there are thirty six people thirty six representatives for each precinct twelve people get elected on an annual basis so there's the opportunity for a turnover but town meeting makes some important decisions and i'll say one story one of the most profound moments and i believe you were there that i think i've ever experienced in town meeting was when we took the wall call for the mclean agreement and each person stood up in front of everybody and said yes or no deal or no yes you declared yourself in public you voted yes or no and it was an amazing experience in participatory democracy that it certainly was it doesn't roll calls don't come that often question now we have the electronic tab i don't think we've ever had a roll call that we've had to deal with we've always done the we have a little bit of play recently we have the electronic thing but wait a minute ok we're getting some dribbling in in precinct two i've been told that adam dash has one precinct two by three hundred seventy eight votes to two fifty ok so adam dash three seventy eight guy carbone e two fifty in precinct t parts you know what he does go out with the boarding he does do the investment he does does the you know goes out and goes long and short and comes up with the philosophy and the strategy on how to deal with some things i think is both forman budget and we went through that thing and went through that budget and joined helgenberger god rest her soul went through every room in that place and personally picked out the proper cheer as we did that one extra she one extra  and i like it joe and to know as the krag object treasurer they have you know down you look at the spreadsheets the down in the lower right corner it was either a black number or a red that was you know unbudgeted in the budget and at the end of the day at the end of the whole project down in that lower corner it was a black number not by much a couple of bucks but still a black double not next great not in the red so i was very proud of that was not certainly on time we had some delays but we were on we were on budget and we may have that i don't have there what do we have another result here but we have a guest we've been having guests senior about my height right i am yes and you're running for town meeting i was actually just elected campaign to campaign well on it all started from door to door i mean huge believer in and grassroots efforts and you know i started i started by hand out flyers to my looking at that looks like we have a new selectman roger and that would be adam to adam dash congratulations adam dash good luck and godspeed it'll be an interesting ride for you belie of advice the worst thing you'll ever have to do is the dog barking dog maybe cases you'll hate that job so given that i did want to come back at one last question well as an eighteen year old what do you bring to town meeting well i hope to bring a new perspective right i mean as as there be sitting on the board of selectmen i guess as of tomorrow morning you know they go down to get sworn in and they have what they have their organizational meeting up probably tomorrow what do you think town meeting i would be coming up immediately  that adam has is what we get the budget of course you've got the budget that the budget almost everything comes from the budget and then i think you know other things we've got town meeting we have  haven't seen the warrant seen some citizens petitions and things like that but they're probably more aspirational or resolutions but i would think the budget is going to be quite a thing we have some zoning articles dumbing up but now we have some type of an extension or making permanent or for another five years demolition delay by law which was some set sunset and yes i've seen some things coming out of the planning board seeing some zoning changes and i think we have that those type of issues that we're going to have to deal with and i think probably we're going to have to deal with some type of a commercial development questions or at least some proposals i think to try to figure something out with respect to places along the so pleasant street corridor i've read adam actually i wanted to ask you a question and steve and i haven't talked about these before hand but two of the buildings that are are coming up and we could probably talk on that and we probably should have beards in front of us to have this conversation but two of the of the buildings that are coming up are the ice rink and the library which require a lot i think both of them not only require better expect a lot of private money to be to be coming in is that year i understand well that's what i would expect i think that the the with respect to the library i would think that's how they would have to do it i'm not prioritizing i suppose that would be up to the up to the board compared to the school is probably number one absolute high school is going to be the mcgill so yes everything i think is going to play off that so the high schools number one for me personally i would think that  p w building because of their health and safety issues of the staff and they're probably at least to me just to me probably for next priority level library it while a priority for public funds which given the amount of us no we kind of conditions we had in real rain the campaigns really did a great job in turning out that many people so without further ado michael j with murder one moderator with three thousand four hundred nine votes ninety nine percent of the vote one of selectmen adam dash was victorious with three thousand one hundred twenty five percent twenty five votes with sixty three point thirty four percent of the vote guy carbone had one eight zero eight with thirty six point six four percent of the vote and there were there was one right in pressure of floyd carmen to allow continue on with three thousand three hundred and forty seven votes ninety nine point seven eight percent of the vote again seven writes library trustee for three years kathleen to hain two thousand eight hundred eighty nine with forty percent point eighty nine eighty seven gail s man three seven two barbara theme or end three six nine read f bundy three six seven geoffrey b miller three four two that's the end of the people who were elected in precinct three three benjamin rush who are two three two and h maxwell bessie and heather two one seven those people were all elected and didn't kind of rock with two zero five was not elected and there were twenty nine single day and from there you know that's right live that's right grew up i delivered papers in the afternoon all around precinct eight and i was i don't know nine ten years old in the paper boy the route and then when i came back to belmont with my lovely wife who's in the other room we moved to precinct date and you know now i'm down five streets don't present dates so my next room i tell will be in a box hopefully a lot a lot later than sooner but because the show if you could just outlast four percent just about a twenty eight percent turnout which i think for a town lections pretty good last year we had twenty two and a half a cent so we were up to both people that came out this year and but we're still a five ton  particular day but just over one in four about twenty eight percent are pretty pretty good for a really miserable rainy day i are happy with what it's a tribute to the campaigns they got the vote out people came out the reins if so if it was snow a few degrees colder i think we would add a little bit of a different and if i could just give some credit to that the town about my does a good job of providing opportunities for people to learn the citizen herald the  center that the league of women voters there are a number of institutions that work pretty hard to help voters make an informed decision and we should all get a applause and thank you to those institutions as well well you know for all the candidates both candidates all the winners all the town meeting members that were that were reelected for those that that weren't i mean there's the thrill of victory and it's difficult to come out a little short but they all did themselves proud to get in the ring and to get out there would try to put yourself forward and you know put yourself out there it's a tribute it's difficult to do it's done candidates up here the youngest kid a devil to be elected to the town of politics and we have a new selectman that's the way it goes so i want to thank everybody here at beaumont media i want to thank everybody media center the producers the directors the camera people it's time to go and they are go thanks thelma you did yourself proud good luck to all the candidates and we'll see around this time next year