the belmont journal your source for very local news and community updates on my crowley your host this week in local news the belmont wellness coalition has been awarded a six hundred and twenty five thousand dollars grant from the white house national drug control policy and the federal substance abuse and mental health services administration the wellness coalition plans to work with community partners to reduce and prevent youth use of marijuana alcohol and other drugs on sunday november th a bell rang to mark the commemoration of the end of world war one our own jeff hansel was there michel we were all expecting long nights at both tuesday and wednesday as sessions of special town meeting didn't happen didn't happen so i have two words to describe the special town meeting and they are historic progress ok historic because belmont town meeting made decisions that really are historic we're moving prague and progress because we are moving prague projects that were such a long time forward so you know i don't want to we start with i wanna yeah so the fact that st of all things went so fast because there was so little debate on the there were five major articles even the marijuana article the adult use marijuana overlay district article only had ten people go up to the microphone the rd person that went up said let's end questioning but that didn't pass there was only one person who spoke in opposition that was bonnie friedman she said you know i'm really against this it's too restrictive and cambridge can open up a marijuana store that's twenty one you know an old are many blocks away and if we put if belmont puts one there that can prevent that but steve pinkerton vice chairman of the planing board said he urged town meeting i agree with you barney but we have to pass this now and down the road we can revisit it so there was an expectation i think of you know deep seated opposition yeah to to to this measure right and and it just failed to materialize and i did i think that's you know a testament to the amount of sheer amount of work the planning board did i mean and meeting with both sides in crafting i agree crafting a compromise that everybody felt they could work with moving forward that passed you know overwhelmingly the two thirds or so more than two thirds so then we have this the south pleasant street overlay district which concerns a portion of the same area ye dollars acres of that same area the marijuana overlay district is actually six sixteen acres now this one is six and a half acres to be exact so basically what that's doing is it's taking three lots on south pleasant street and it's going to allow for assisted living facilities and age restricted mixed you know residential facilities so that's an acknowledgement that that you know as that as as people age in the town you know many people want to move out of their houses you know downsize mov to you know assisted living and other kinds of developments and this you know this kind of development would provide an opportunity i think i think worth noting is the last the nd to last person who went up to the microphone was robert that's so that was quite funny the other historic decision was that they are approved the funding for the design of the underpass portion of the community patio alexander  progress right there and that's going to really give the wind brooke neighborhood another way to get to the library of the high school level of the to the to the new seven dollars to twelve dollars school safer way right for crossing over the tracks i would say the other end that had no debate right senior tax deferral that there was some discussion on that and there was one couple of people opposed to that but the the big one for threatening is floyd carman our town treasurer was opposed to reducing the interest rate for this senior tax deferral program which basically you know it allows eligible seniors to defer paying their property tax and then there's an interest rate so the current the previous interest rate was eight percent it's now down to four now it's four and a half because town meeting passed it so that's big because now they want that they're trying to say we passed the debt exclusion right away you know this will help seniors be able to stay in belmont so the very last item and we don't have a lot is i'm dead exclusion  debt exclusion for for the new school yes and no debate whatsoever has to overwhelmingly overwhelming so it's now going to happen big win for the community big win and i would say again historic meaning because it just went so quick i've never been  to town meeting that had such little debate and was so short so thank you joanna in the meantime have a happy thanksgiving and we'll talk to you next time thank you michel happy thanksgiving to you and your family to get some welcome to this week in the belmont tony and ana welcome back franklin tucker editor of the belmont joining to talk with us this week about traffic and why is it so bad it's not getting better no it's not getting better anytime soon we can we we now have information about why where the traffic coming from who's coming through belmont and why it's not going to get any better anytime soon and that is because of the study that was done on a town wide traffic study by the b s c group and their traffic engineer sam offering do ok so and what he found is that you know the major problem with belmont is that it's just part of a regional congestion problem we're sort of stuck in the middle that's it that's right you know you have people who car coming from arlington lexington concord just our jason communities cutting through belmont because it's the quickest way through to getting to basically the eastern part of of massachusetts boston cambridge and other places which are growing at a great and a great speed so there really aren't there really are regional alternatives not now i mean it's very difficult to do a regional solution because you have so many different towns and cities and this it would cost a lot of money so so what we're talking about in terms of numbers people have this suspicion that you know most of this traffic is from out of town to limit the amount of people coming off a route to that would solve the problem it wouldn't ok so we have we have heavily trafficked our arteries we have people who are cutting off of those or the reason rolling  neighborhoods trying to find a faster way for what are some of the answers well a lot of the answers first of all the there are some answers there are some proposals that were done by citizens that just aren't going to if they if belmont does it arlington will do it and all that and then you also have restricted access into neighborhoods the no left turn right terms but even that you really need to have you have to have cooperation with your for your fellow townsmen you and you could also lose your federal funding on some of the major arteries simply because you're restricting so it's something that you really don't want to do ok so what are some of the things that we can do in th down because you don't want to be a safety issue but also to to keep capacity high at key intersections you want things to be flowing you don't want to put a foot of a bottleneck in these areas because you know you can if you look this is like a hurricane you know the hurricane comes through but it takes three or four years to clean it up that's what's going to happen here we're going to have to make sure kane's you know traffic calming things down arse on our streets and it's not going to be a quick as a traffic hell all right thank you franklin thank you we'll talk to you next time twenty point departments across massachusetts including belmont for participating and no shave november to raise funds for home base now you ask what this is home base helps veterans and their families heal from post traumatic stress from attic brain injury and other service related issues  and basically police department says about sixty of us in mass and another ten or so throughout new england that are printed in unit you know the money that is raised goes directly to the home base program for responder aspect of it st started with dollars or so guys do it also if you will and this year we're up to about twenty of us right now it's extremely important if you talk for me my father was in the military i work with a lot of us military so it's important to raise money and i help those guys  there is a community fine artist and modern embroiderer who paints in stitches dresses that you may have already seen at a previous show at the belmont art gallery her rowhouse dress project is intended to call attention to all of the women who have exercised their rights following the supreme court's historic roe versus wade decision by feminist artist i've been working with stitching and painting for quite a while and have come up with my row house dresses and the row house dresses our house dresses are a discussion about being female in the st cent and in the th century living with roe v wade as the law of the land and the benefits of that pride we're at risk right now losing that with the new supreme court justice appointments and so it's gravely concerns me so i'm going to be telling my stories on these dresses this particular one is a story about a young woman who took several friends to planned parenthood over the years and this is the house that she was living in when that happened and looking for stories that that you can share with me it could be about an abortion that you've had because you felt you were too young because you wanted to finish college because you already had three children because you're worried about finances you could leave they never pregnant and your friends did because you had the benefit of birth control that you were able to access through a clinic near your college or as a young adult it could be a great story about choosing to help with friends or were looking for ways to tell stories that would never exist if roe versus wade hadn't been passed and if we weren't able to basically control our own bodies and massively important  i've always been quite passionate about women's rights i grew up with a single mother in and watched her go through a lot as a as a woman in and think it put something in my head and it got me you got me thinking about this from a young age when you know the supreme court issue you and clarence thomas is from the supreme court is a st time i felt political in my life and i just couldn't believe after where they need a whole went through on that and on that panel in front of congress that somehow that in the end was put on our supreme court it just felt so it felt so wrong and it felt so misguided that for the repeal offense to happen now it is so personal to me and i feel  that my are is the one way that i can help women express who we are and put it out there and make sure that our stories are heard in a way that that's legitimate and that we will be listened to so you could email me my email is  back or artist at g mail dot com i'm thrilled to get more stories i'm having a big show in april and i want to have hundreds of these dresses now it's time for our community calendar with dream peters jame talks about all the interesting things you can also enjoy tea and cookies following the talk at three pm in an intergenerational program crafting fairy gnome and mouse figures for the habitat children's shelter building activities and on tuesday at five delve into the world of me believe with a showing of would you be my neighbor a documentary featuring fred rogers his infamous public television program mr rogers and his legacy wear your red card again and enjoy an evening movie with friends at the beach street center joined discussion of lincoln in the bardo at the library on tuesday the th dr gary highlander a local historian and professor at stonehill college will present on the pentagon papers to learn about the seven thousand page study that discusses america's political and military involvement in vietnam after world war two kids can spend an evening with professional chef gail arnold in the chop chop test kitchen for an evening of spanish cooking on tuesday from four to six in this class kids in grades three to five will discover signature dishes from spain while sharpening beginner to intermediate kitchen skills register on event great help habitat in autumn cleanup on saturday december st from ten am to noon hardy folks who like to rake cut firewood haul brush or are skilled with hand tools are encouraged to volunteer this cleanup is suitable for all ages tools and gloves will be provided you can see a full list of habitat events on the mass autobahn website lab collaborative designs and delivers special education services that promote academic social and career independence in the most inclusive settings possible you can support lab and best buddies in their craft fair on saturday december st from ten to three at the lexington high school cafeteria browse a variety of handmade items like jewelry decor and gifts and you can visit spirit and gourmet on saturday for their holiday grand for a from four to seven pm you can enjoy live jazz cocktail tasting twelve bottle wine tastings and specialty food tastings from over ten different local artisans and i thought for this marauders girls volleyball matches with reporting by franklin tucker and video by jeremy reserve marauders as they would come up against some of the best players in the state one being actually weighing into harvard on a four year scholarship it was a spirited game but the man was pretty much overpower with a programming update for your belmont media center channel's be sure to watch also if you'd like to get involved in the program we'd love you to please contact frederick rigo at fred at melle belmont