Photo: A rendering of the proposed Belmont Public Library.
The Belmont League of Women Voters will be holding a virtual Brown Bag Lunch Talk titled:
Belmont Library: Where are we? How do we get a new one? with Kathy Keohane, chair of the Library Board of Trustees, and Peter Struzziero, Belmont Library Director.
The lunch will take place on Friday, May 20 from Noon to 1:30 p.m.
The meeting will be on Zoom: Meeting ID: 880 3835 5536, Passcode: LWV or you can follow along by going to this link.
Photo: Vaccine/booster shots will be provided to public school students and staff on April 12. (Credit: Wikimedia)
The Belmont Health Department is offering COVID-19 vaccines to eligible residents, including first, second and booster shots on Wednesday, May 25 from 10 a.m. to Noon at Beth El Temple Center, 2 Concord Ave.
Register for a vaccine appointment here.
Please present insurance cards, photo ID, and vaccination cards at appointment.
The CDC recommended in late March that all individuals over the age of 50 and certain immunocompromised individuals get an additional booster dose of COVID-19 vaccines. The decision follows authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a second booster dose for these groups four months after receiving a first booster of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Those eligible include:
Residents may access booster doses from more than 1,000 locations, with appointments readily available for booking across the Commonwealth. Visit mass.gov/COVIDVaccine to make an appointment.
This clinic will be operated through a partnership between VaxinateRX and the Belmont Health Department. The Pfizer vaccine will be available.
Having difficulty registering? Call 617-993-2720 or Email: Lsharp@belmont-ma.gov for assistance
Photo: Belmont High School
A 39-year-old New Hampshire man was taken into custody on Thursday, May 12, for making a bomb threat that forced the closure of Belmont High School the day before, according to a press release from Belmont Police Chief James MacIsaac.
Acting on information provided by Belmont Police detectives, members of the U.S. Marshall Fugitive and the Massachusetts State Police Fugitive task forces arrested without incident the unnamed resident of Ossipee, NH at a Holiday Inn in Peabody. He will face charges for making a false bomb threat and could face additional federal charges as well. The suspect’s connection to Belmont, if any, is unclear.
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Photo: Lincoln Crockett directing the world premier of “The Butler is Dead” at the One Act Festival at Belmont High School.
The sad tales of unclaimed luggage, a murder mystery in which the butler didn’t do it and a verbally gifted pirate in search of a special someone.
These are just a few of the productions presented this week with the return of the Belmont High School Performing Arts Company’s Student Directed One Act Play Festival taking place this Thursday, Friday and Saturday, May 12-14 at 7 p.m. in the Belmont High School Black Box Theater.
Tickets can be purchased online here. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students.
The annual production is back on stage after a two-year Covid hiatus with a mix of comedy, drama and everything in between.
”One Act is a form of theater that tries to condense a message that could be conveyed in a two hour straight play or musical into 10 minutes,” said senior Lincoln Crockett who is directing the world premier of “The Butler is Dead,” by Eli Barnes, a Belmont High graduate (2019) who wrote the work to be performed in 2020 but was delayed due to the pandemic.
See the accompanying video as Crockett goes prepares his cast for the production.
For two BHS PAC veterans who have taken up the mantel of senior director, the return to One Acts now brings new outlook to the theatrical process.
Leeza Pesok is co-directing with Giulia VecchiI “Emotional Baggage,” a one act about suitcases stuck at an airport’s unclaimed baggage counter and all the trauma and problems they go through while complaining about their lives.
“Yeah, it’s a comedy,” Pesok said.
Pesok’s fellow senior, Katie Shea, is directing “Jolly Jack Junior: The Buccaneer’s Bairn” with Talia Fiore, the tale about a pirate named Willie who has been on the hunt for someone special.
Q: What’s it like to be involved with the return of one acts after two years away?
Pesok: “My freshman year in 2019, I was in a One Act as an actor. Three years go by and, out of the blue, I’m now directing one. Seeing the production from the inside-out has given me a truly unique perspective on building a show from the bottom up as a director.
Shea: I was also in one acts my freshman year and being able to direct them now has been such a rewarding experience to see a side of production of theater that I’m not normally on.”
Q: Why did you select the plays you’re directing?
Pesok: “I just spend a couple of weeks reading different plays. And then this one just sort of jumped off the page. I could really visualize it. And I still can’t forget the moment in auditions when I heard people reading the lines for the first time after reading it for so long by myself. And it was then I just knew I made the right choice. Seeing it in rehearsals and working through it, I’m just so excited for audiences to see it.”
Shea: “When [Fiore and I] found Jolly Junior, we read the script to each other in these ridiculous British accents and we couldn’t stop laughing. We knew that this play would be so fun to produce.”
Q: Unlike a standard play or musical, one acts are known for having fairly sparse staging. How do you compensate for these limitation?
Pesok: “We don’t actually have talking suitcases on stage. The script provides a little brief description for each character – a threadbare Valise from the South or a drug smuggler’s duffel bag – and then we sort of take that and incorporate some character choices and that gives the actors a chance to make the stage come alive.”
Shea: “We were lucky enough to have plenty of pirate costumes left over from “Spongebob” [BHS PACs spring musical produced last month] so that actually worked out pretty well for us. And while we did create a minimalist pirate ship, you’ll definitely get the feel that it is one.
Q: What do you want the audience to take away from your one act?
Pesok: “When you when you go through an airport, you never really think about the experiences that their bags are going through and how it must feel being carried around through your whole life. It’s cool to see all the actors connecting with different aspects of each bags life; how one was meant to go to a Realtor’s convention in Florida but got left behind and she’s so upset about it. It’s a really fun perspective to have when you just are a person and not a suitcase.”
Shea: “We’re just looking for people to have a good time and sit there and laugh for a little bit. The plot of our show is ridiculous: there’s so many made-up words in the dialogue that are supposed to be ‘pirate’ language. The actors have done an amazing job of really bringing it to life on stage. So we just hope people have fun.”
SURPRISE By Mark Harvey Levine
Directed by Grace Sattler
Peter’s psychic abilities are driving his date, Whitney, slowly insane.
JOLLY JACK JUNIOR: THE BUCCANEER’S BAIRN By Jeff Goode
Directed by Katie Shea and Talia Fiore
Looking for revenge, pirate Willy boards a pirate ship and demands an audience with the captain… but instead finds a secret to his past.
ALIEN MONSTER BOWLING LEAGUE By Matthew Lopez
Directed by Emily Kaiser
The arrival of Aliens is threatening Hubbard’s long reign as Bowling League Champion.
HE’S REALLY A GREAT GUY By Rory Leahy
Directed by Chris Jorgenson
Matt wants his friend Dan to get out more and meet someone special, so he sets up a double date with Heather and Annie, but Dan’s secret inner life could be a deal breaker.
1-900-DESPERATE By Christopher Durang
Directed by Claire Svetkey
Gretchen, alone on a Saturday night, impulsively calls 1-900-DESPERATE, a hotline for desperate single people. But you never know who you’ll meet on an open phone line.
EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE By Nina Shengold
Directed by Leeza Pesok and Giulia Vecchi
It’s hard to be a suitcase at the Unclaimed Baggage counter.
THE FIRST NIGHT OF CHANUKAH By Sheri Wilner
Directed by Naomi Stephenson
David Schwartz is the only jew stranded in the Devil’s Lake, North Dakota airport on the first night of Chanukah – until he encounters another traveler with a link to the (historically real) turn of the century Jewish homesteaders in North Dakota.
THE BUTLER IS DEAD By Eli Barnes (World Premier)
Directed by Lincoln Crockett
Several important guests show up to a business meeting at a fancy manor, only to find that murder occurs. *gasp* The butler must have done it…. But…. The butler is dead!
Photo: Belmont High School on the first day of the 2021-22 school year.
Due to a phoned in bomb threat, classes at Belmont High School have been cancelled for today, Wednesday, May 11, according to an email from Principal Isaac Taylor. Four Belmont Police vehicles and a Belmont Fire engine are at the school on Concord Avenue investigating the threat.
“Out of an abundance of caution the school department has elected to close the school for the day,” noted the Belmont Police twitter account.
Taylor said in his email that he was working on “how we will reschedule AP exams that were supposed to be taking place today.”
Chenery Middle School and Belmont’s four elementary schools remain open.
“At no time were there any threats or concerns for our elementary and middle school buildings,” said Belmont Superintendent John Phelan.
The Belmont School District has provided a detailed timeline of the events of Wednesday, May 11:
Belmont Superintendent Phelan wrote in email to the school community just before noon:
“I want to thank the Belmont Police Department and Belmont High School administration for their vigilance, support, leadership and commitment to the safety of our school community. In addition, my appreciation goes out to our neighboring police departments for their support in sweeping the building.”
“The High School administration will provide an update on the schedules for today’s afterschool activities and the rescheduling of Advanced Placement exams impacted by today’s school closure.”
“My deepest gratitude to all of our staff who supported our students in all schools today as we worked through this morning’s incident. Staff will be made available to talk with students for the remainder of the week, should there be any questions or continued concerns.”
Photo:
Belmont High School’s Girls and Boys teams will be hosting the first-ever Lacrosse Night in Belmont on Saturday, May 14 as the Marauders play host to the SpyPonders from Arlington High School.
The boys’ varsity game will be begin at 4 p.m. and the girls will be facing off at 6 p.m. The night will include “some light pomp and circumstance,” according to Josh Streit, Head Coach of the Belmont Boys’ Varsity, which will involve youngsters from Belmont Youth Lacrosse.
Photo: Belmont Town Meeting approved the work of a special commission to change the Massachusetts state flag and seal (above) (credit: Commonwealth of Massachusetts)
The final two nights of Segment A of Belmont’s 2022 annual Town Meeting saw the creation of a new committee to oversee town and school capital projects, allow a group of dispatchers to retire under the plan they started with, and gave a thumbs up to updating the state flag.
Here was the opportunity for Town Meeting to merge the two existing committees overseeing the town’s capital process – the well established Capital Budget Committee and the two-year-old Long Term Capital Planning Committee – into an all encompassing oversight group of capital projects to be dubbed the Comprehensive Capital Budget Committee.
According to the article’s sponsor Chris Doyle, chair of the Long Term Capital Planning Committee, the new group will revise and expand the town’s capital budgeting and planning process. It will continue the work of the Capital Budget Committee which comes to Town Meeting with an annual appropriations list of projects or items requested by town departments – from fire trucks to roof repairs and everything in-between – with a new requirement to present to Town Meeting detailed one, five and 30 year plans that will evaluate major projects and financing options. The one year plan would be the annual appropriations which is voted on by Town Meeting while the five and 30 year plans will be recommendations by the CCPC provided to the annual meeting.
While there was no real opposition to the creation of the new committee – it has been under discussion and presented to the public for the past several months without much criticism – the article still came before Town Meeting with three amendments which Town Moderator Mike Widmer said was the most he’s seen at any one article in all his time as moderator. Two amendments were clearly ”housekeeping” alterations which were happily accepted by Doyle.
The third amendment from Bob McGaw, Precinct 1, sought to include language on how the three plans would be structured, by “endeavor[ing] to utilize generally accepted financial analysis tools and models in its evaluation and comparison of capital projects.” While the amendment’s suggestion on using “generally accepted” analysis models appeared to be innocuous enough, it could also be open to interpretation that troubled many as demonstrated by every board and committee reporting on it recommending “unfavorable action.”
While opponents to the McGaw amendment were OK with deep dives on the finances of capital projects – Ann Marie Mahoney, Precinct 1 and chair of the CBC, said what McGaw is seeking “is already happening” with her committee including analyzing purchasing vs. leasing and calculating life expectancy of renovation or reconstruction projects – they believed the phrasing was far too vague.
“This sentence is completely unworkable,” said Claus Becker, Precinct 5, as ”there is no list of ‘generally accepted financial analysis’ tool in the context of local governance.” Becker said if a resident doesn’t accept the work a committee or board has produced, it is their “civic duty” to do their own analysis and present it to the public for comment.
The McGaw amendment was set aside by Town Meeting and the article was approved by a wide margin, 244-8-3.
Precinct 7’s Michael McNamara put it succinctly when he renamed the measure on the Retirement Classification of Certain Employees brought before Town Meeting as the “keeping them from being stiffed” article.
Tom Gibson, chair of the Belmont Retirement Board and the sponsor of the article, reported that the article came as a result of the latest three year audit by the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission – which regulates, oversee and guides the operation state’s public pension systems – which determined that Belmont’s dispatchers are misclassified in terms of their pension benefits. While they are placed in group 2 – which includes employees whose major duties are the care and custodial duties involving prisoners – the auditors said they should be group 1, which are for clerical, administrative, management and technical employees. That change would have an impact on the calculation of an employee’s retirement allowance which will eventual the final benefit.
Gibson said the PERAC-directed change would impact just eight Belmont employees and all future employees. Under the new group designation, the eight would be required to work more years to receive the amount they were expecting under the existing plan. The article would grandfather those under the existing Group 2 classification with all new employees be slotted into Group 1.
As both Gibson and Select Board Chair Mark Paolillo noted, voting yes on the article was to a measure of fairness for the eight dispatchers. While the majority of speakers supported the article, some who said they were fine with the measure were miffed that the Retirement or Select Board didn’t have an analysis of the ”added” cost of keeping the dispatchers in Group 2 available to members.
After a bit back and forth with members, Gibson revealed that there would be a $159,423 increase to keep the dispatchers where they are.
Fairness passes: 247-6-5
This article was fairly self explanatory: Citizen petition sponsor Joseph Barnard, Precinct 3, hoped that the town would approve a resolution to support a special commission as it goes about the mission of changing the Massachusetts state flag and seal. Barnard said this is not a new issue, that indigenous people have been saying for generations that the flag and seal were ”offensive and harmful” and a yes vote ”is to uplift and amplify an indigenous led campaign for change.” Go here for more information.
Not much in terms of debate as nearly all speakers were enthusiastic in backing the measure, although one member did ask for the data that would support the contention that ”a large majority of native Americans find the current state flag offensive.” Barnard admitted he didn’t have a poll or survey to call on but said he believed the indigenous leaders who backed the commission would know what their constituents thinking on the matter. It passed 222-12-19.
Segment B of Town Meeting which articles involving the town and school budgets will be voted, will commence on Wednesday, June 1 at 6:30 a.m., likely via Zoom and on local cable access.
Photo: The new Belmont High School auditorium where Town Meeting will likely not take place in 2022
The Belmont Board of Health is recommending the second segment of the 2022 Town Meeting remain virtual, according to a discussion at the board’s monthly meeting on Monday, May 9.
The recommendation now goes before the Select Board for a final decision.
The Town’s Health Director Wesley Chin said he meet recently with Town Moderator Mike Widmer and Town Clerk Ellen Cushman to determine if is possible for the town’s legislative body to meet safely for the three scheduled nights in June when Town Meeting will review and vote on budget articles.
Chin noted to the board that Covid cases have surged in the past month with the CDC placing Middlesex County in its ”high” category for infection.
With the infection risk elevated and best practices for holding an indoor meeting includes people spaced six-foot apart from each other, Widmer and Cushman said the two locations large enough to hold approximately 300 Town Meeting members and staff – the new Belmont High School and the Chenery Middle School auditoriums – are unable to provide the needed separation.
Board member Donna David said she was informed that a possible hybrid option – on site participation with a virtual option or using both auditoriums – was not as an option as the town’s Information Technology department told her a tech solution doesn’t exist at this time to make such a plan work.
Photo: Belmont schools are suggesting students consider wearing masks as Covid cases surge
The Belmont school district is suggesting students consider going back to wearing masks as the number of positive Covid-19 cases in the schools, town and county have spiked in the past two months.
“We are not mandating but simply recommending this added layer of protection,” said Belmont Superintendent John Phelan in an email to the school community dated Monday, May 9.
Phelan said that since the April break, the district has ”seen an increase in cases and this is most likely due to the contagiousness of the Omicron variant, as well as, increased social gatherings and travel.”
The surge of local cases has resulted in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to raise the Covid-19 Community Level for all of Middlesex County to the “high” level on May 5.
In Belmont, the number of new weekly positive cases in schools reached 93 as of May 4, a significant increase from previous weeks, shadowing the jump in the general population as the state reported 165 positive cases in the past two weeks. Using the Average Daily Incidence Per 100,000 people, 14 day period measurement, Belmont has gone from a low of 6.8 incidences on March 4 to 43 on May 4.
“We continue to work closely with the Belmont Health Department to monitor cases and keep our students and staff safer. We ask for your continued support in this effort, particularly at times like this when we experience increasing cases,” said Phelan.
Noting that many of the past mitigation measures Belmont and its schools had implemented since March 2020 have been lifted – the town’s mask requirement was ended in the first week of March 2022 – Phelan asked parents and students ”consider” mask wearing as an extra layers of protection and when symptoms are present and antigen tests remain negative.
Photo: Belmont High School
I attended Belmont Public Schools from Kindergarten until I graduated from Belmont High in 2019. Overall my experience within the Belmont school system was positive and effectively prepared me for college and many other aspects of post-graduation life.
However, there was one area where the curriculum fell short: sex education. In my four years at Belmont High, the only topics related to sex education that we covered were basic anatomy, STIs, pregnancy and abstinence. There was a brief discussion about contraception that centered around an oft-repeated phrase along the lines of, “abstinence is the only sure way to prevent pregnancy”.
While this statement may be true, a 2017 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report indicated that approximately 55 percent of teens have had sexual intercourse by age 18. Why, when over half of teens are sexually active by the time they graduate high school, are we not providing a more comprehensive, realistic, and applicable sex education curriculum?
There are three main arguments for a more comprehensive sex education curriculum: sex-ed curriculum would help reduce the stigma around STIs and encourage more teens to get tested, and, finally, most sex-ed curricula do not cover vaginal health and thus set young women up to be misinformed about their own bodies.
Massachusetts’ current laws require an abstinence-focused approach to sex education in public schools (SIECUS) which was entirely in line with what I experienced in high school. While it is true that abstaining from sex is the only completely effective way to prevent pregnancy, I believe that telling young people to avoid a natural human behavior in order to avoid the risks that come with it is foolish and ineffective. Teens are no strangers to risk, and counting on them to avoid risky behaviors entirely is doomed to fail. Your teens years are inherently one of the most emotionally tumultuous, mistake-prone periods of your life, and it’s dangerous to forget that.
Why, when over half of teens are sexually active by the time they graduate high school, are we not providing a more comprehensive, realistic, and applicable sex education curriculum?
Furthermore, a 2017 study found that abstinence-focused sex-ed curricula “have little demonstrated efficacy in helping adolescents to delay intercourse.” Similarly, a study at the University of Washington concluded that, compared to teens who received no sex education, those who were taught an abstinence-focused curriculum were 30 percent less likely to experience unwanted pregnancy while those were taught a more comprehensive curriculum were 60 percent less likely. That alone proves that abstinence-focused sex-ed is not only ineffective at preventing pregnancy, but that a revised curriculum that covers more contraceptive options and risk-reducing behaviors could be significantly more effective. If it’s the aim of Belmont High to reduce teen pregnancy rates, then a comprehensive curriculum is the best way to accomplish that.
However, pregnancy is not the only risk factor when it comes to sexual activity. STIs are just as, if not more, prevalent. While I was taught the signs and symptoms of the most common STIs in high school, there was little information about how those STIs are treated. In health classes, the education we received about STIs felt more like a fear-mongering tactic than an actual informational session. We were required to do extensive research on the physical effects of STIs, the only facet of the issue that was thoroughly discussed.
I believe that the way STIs are discussed in health classes is only adding to the stigma around seeking treatment and getting tested. Young people are at a higher risk for contracting STIs, and lessening the stigma around them could lead to more teens getting tested. Regular STI testing is an important part of all around physical health and should be treated with the same neutrality as visiting a general practitioner, dentist, or optometrist.
Sexual health should not be presented as a shameful, scary topic, but should be presented as a neutral collection of facts and information. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “Young people ages 15 to 24 represent 25 percent of the sexually active population, but acquire half of all new STIs, or about 10 million new cases a year.” Such a startling statistic should be more than enough evidence to indicate that more comprehensive sex education curricula is not just an issue for teens and their parents, but a wide-reaching public health issue that we should all have a stake in.
While pregnancy and STIs are undoubtedly the main concerns surrounding adolescent sexual activity, there are many other topics under the umbrella of sexual health that should be covered. In school I was never taught about UTIs, yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis, or any other vaginal health concerns. While they may not carry the same frightening connotation as STIs, all of those conditions can lead to severe complications if left untreated. For example, an untreated UTI can lead to a life-threatening kidney infection and untreated bacterial vaginosis can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, a condition which increases a woman’s infertility risk. Teen girls are not taught the early warning signs of these conditions, how to prevent them, or the urgency with which they need to be treated. Adding such topics to the curriculum would also help combat the strong cultural stigma around vaginal health, possibly helping female students feel more comfortable seeking treatment. Most women will experience one or more of these issues in their lifetime, and we’re doing them a disservice by completely omitting gynecological issues from sex education curricula.
While the Belmont Public school system does an excellent job preparing students for life after graduation, this issue represents a significant hole in its high school curriculum. Many young people, especially young women, do not receive educational information about sex, gender, and their own bodies outside of school.
As an educational institution meant to serve and uplift young adults, Belmont High School should revise their sex education curriculum to include a broader range of topics in a less abstinence-focused manner. The disadvantages of abstinence-focused sex-ed are backed by numerous studies, and the advantages of a more comprehensive curriculum are innumerable.
This is not just an issue on an individual level, but a serious public health concern that, if remedied, would benefit the entire community.
Hamilton is a 2019 graduate from Belmont High School and is currently attending college