Belmont Fall Sports Starts With Solid Wins For Volleyball, Boys’ Soccer

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Photo: Belmont High School Volleyball’s Mindee Lai attacking the net.

Belmont High athletics started the 2019 Fall Sports season on Thursday, Sept. 5 with a pair of solid home outings.

Volleyball Cage Wildcats In Straight Sets

In its season opening victory over Wilmington High, Belmont High’s Volleyball squad showed that it has just as much or even more talent on the court in 2019 than last year when it made its way to the Division 1 Central/East Sectional finals against eventual state champs Newton North.

Belmont swept the Wildcats 3-0 (25-11, 25-17, 25-10) in the first game in the Wenner Field House that is adjacent to the construction site of the new Middle and High School.

“I’m really happy with the way they played,” said Belmont Head Coach Jennifer Couture, who led her team in the season opener less than two weeks after giving birth to her daughter.

Belmont’s Sam Lim setting for her teammates.

“I think that everybody just went all out and they weren’t afraid of making mistakes. There’s still stuff for us to work on like communication, but I think, overall, the team played really aggressive,” she said.

Where Belmont has gained from last year is the addition of a second setter. Senior setter Mindee Lai now has junior Sam Lim who can take over setting up attacks, allowing her to play outside and use her hitting skills.

“Those two centers gives us a lot of options and lets us do a lot of different things we couldn’t last year,” Couture said.

Marauder Jenna Crowley sets up for a block.

Couture also pointed out senior libero Sophie Estok who came up with 12 digs and sophomore Megan Kornberg who “really stood out in her varsity debut. She played with a lot of confidence. Great passing great hitting.”

Boys’ Soccer Strikes Quick vs Wilmington

The Belmont High Boys’ Soccer got off to a fast start in the new season as they struck early in each half to defeat Wilmington, 2-0, in the season debut.

Senior Jon Brabo opened the scoring campaign with a strike eight minutes into the first half (assist from sophomore Mateo Estrada Donahue) while Will Kilavatitu entered the scoring column with a goal after only two and a half minutes into the second half (fellow junior Ali Noorouzi assisting) to give Belmont all the edge it needed as senior goalie Finbar Rhodes earned the clean sheet with five saves.

“This is a very likable group,” said Head Coach Brian Bisceglia-Kane of his team that saw a good number of senior players graduate in June.

“It’s a youngis squad, but we have a mature group of juniors, which is why I think it works. They really matured a lot from sophomore into junior year,” he said.

It’s one game, but I think they showed what they’ve been working on moving the ball and we had a bunch of scoring chances in the game,” said Bisceglia-Kane.

Girls’ Soccer Trip To Wilmington Less Than Welcoming

A young Belmont High Girls’ Soccer squad surrendered a goal in each half to host Wilmington and were shutout in its season opener, 2-0. The Marauders get back in action on Tuesday, Sept. 10 at Harris Field vs. Stoneham.

With $19M Of Red Ink To Drain, HS Building Committee Look To Designers/Builders For Fix

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Photo: William Lovallo, the chair of the Belmont Middle and High School Building committee, explaining the $19 million deficit in the project.

The first law of holes is when you find yourself in one, stop digging.

And this past week, the Belmont Middle and High School Building Committee did just that when it turned to the design team of Perkins+Will and general contractor Skanska USA to lead the process of filling a $19 million deficit at the $295 million construction project.

“We have heard loud and clear that a solution needs to be found,” said William Lovallo, the chair of the building committee.

According to Lovallo, the red ink has its origin in a “creep” in the project’s expenses and red hot real estate. The creep he spoke of is scope creep which refers to changes and continuous or uncontrolled growth in the project’s scope at any point after the project begins.

One example at the high school site: the expense of removing the soil dug up to allow the building of the high school wing.

“It turned out we needed to truck out a lot more dirt than expected,” said Lovallo.

Cost escalation is the second element, a result of Boston’s highly competitive construction sector as well as events outside the region that increase the cost of raw material and labor.

The plan to find the necessary savings was outlined by Tom Gatzunis of Daedalus, the committee’s owner project manager, who said the cuts would be found through value engineering which aims to identify and reduce unnecessary costs while maintaining or improving the value of the overall project.

This will be the second time the project will undergo a value engineering exercise as the committee spent two meetings in May ranking $30 million of construction expenses that either should or should not be cut due to worrying estimates that pre-production costs were beginning to spike.

But Lovallo admitted the committee missed “a golden opportunity” then, admitting the process was “rushed” over the two nights as the process became a showcase for a large number of residents focused on the project’s energy efficiency such as requiring solar arrays be a mandatory part of the development.

This time, the committee would leave the number crunching to the design and construction teams which have detailed familiarity of expenses and savings and have come to understand the committee’s core priorities which include keeping value within an educational program. It was unanimously approved by the committee at its August meeting.

“I like this approach,” said Belmont Superintendent John Phelan, approving of the collaboration between the three main players – the committee, designers and contractors – which will become “a team of one.”

The key areas of the project the team will focus on and the estimated target cost savings are:

  • the exterior ($3.5-$4 million),
  • the interior ($6.5-8 million),
  • the building systems ($2.5-$3.5 million),
  • the structure ($2-$3 million),
  • phasing and logistics ($.25-$.75 million)
  • and general conditions ($1-$1.5 million).

While the design and construction teams will present as a team a list of alterations to the building to cover the deficit, “It’s you at the end of the day which will approve or disapprove the changes,” said Gatzunis.

According to Brooke Trivas of Perkins+Will, some of the decisions the committee will need to make will be difficult “because there’s not a lot of fluff in this building.”

Last Wednesday, the team made its first stab at findings savings by tackling the interior with some encouraging results. Changes to the type of acoustic tiles on the ceilings of the high school corridors would save a little over a half of a million dollars while a different ceiling lighting fixture in the classrooms – producing the same amount of light with similar energy savings – would produce a “big number” of nearly $900,000 in cost reduction, according to Mike Morrison of Skanska.

But some changes were not considered by the committee as adding value to the building. When a suggestion to use a paint-like coating over drywall rather than tile in restrooms – which could save the project $950,000 -several educators on the committee and the town’s facilities director Steve Dorrance cautioned against this alteration.

“There will be 2,250 students using the restrooms everyday,” said Phelan, which will require a great deal of cleaning which tile floors and walls is the only practical surface to stand up to the repeated washings.

The cost reduction team and the committee will meet twice more – on Wednesday, Sept. 11 and Thursday, Sept. 19 – with presentations and final dollar estimates on the 19th.

First Day Of School Goes To Plan As Key Construction At High School Site Nears Midpoint

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Photo: A third of the piles have been installed in phase one of the Belmont Middle and High School project.

It was a long Wednesday, Sept. 4 for Belmont Superintendent John Phelan.

After a busy Tuesday welcoming teachers and staff back to the district after the summer recess, Phelan’s Wednesday began bright and early at Belmont High School where he joined staff and Belmont Police in a new role, as traffic monitors to assist students and parents with the first new parking and drop off scheme since the school opened 49 years ago in 1970.

With the access road which once allowed parents to drop off students at the high school’s main entrance before exiting onto Concord Avenue now a fading memory, cars, SUVs and minivans clogged Underwood Street before doubling back onto Hittinger Street and out through the Trowbridge neighborhood due to the large scale construction of the new middle and high school at the west end of the project.

But with so much that could go so wrong, opening day of the 2019-2020 school year went “very, very well,” said Phelan during the meeting of the Belmont Middle and High School Building Committee on Wednesday.

“The wait … was not too long into the [high] school” due in large part to the team of officers from the Belmont Police along with signs produced by the Department of Public Works and balloons used to identify where vehicles could come and go.

“It was good to see the kids back at school,” said Phelan, who when not running a school system of 4,200 students was also tasked with supplying the Building Committee with pizzas and drinks.

“All in a day’s work,” he said pushing a chart into the Homer Building.

While the work of bringing a new class of 9th – 12th graders, the largest and largest construction task to date is moving along quickly as 133 concrete piles have been driven into the ground to anchor the high school wing of the building. Just on Wednesday, 27 “corner” piles were secured, marking out the rough outline of the high school section, according to Mike Morrison, project manager for Skanska, the general contractor.

“We are one-third of the way in Phase 1 of the building,” said Morrison, noting that debris and soil is being removed from the site as construction beginning in and around the site of the school’s pool.

“All is going well,” said Morrison.

Report: Turf Bests Grass For High School Field; See Why At Public Meeting Wed., Aug. 21

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Photo: A close up of the artificial turf at Harris Field.

A comprehensive “fact-based” report by a member of the Belmont Middle and High School Building Committee recommends the group move forward with the construct of a new artificial turf ground known as the “Rugby Field” adjacent to the Wenner Field House.

The study’s conclusions will be featured in a grass vs. artificial turf discussion at a public meeting being held by the Belmont Middle and High School Building Committee on Wednesday, Aug. 21 at 7 p.m. at the Beech Street Center, 266 Beech St.

Authored by Robert “Bob” McLaughlin, the report concludes that turf’s greater capacity to withstand year-round use and the field’s location in a shady corner of the new school necessitates building a turf ground instead of a grass field.

While a growing number of Belmont residents and parents of students are raised concerns that turf fields are connected to serious health and safety issues including alleged increase in cancer rates for certain athletes, McLaughlin reported that independent research overwhelming concludes there are no proven detrimental health effects from playing on artificial fields.

The field, to be built in 2021, will be used by the state champion boys’ and girls’ rugby programs, as a practice and playing site for sub-varsity sports and for three-seasons of physical education classes.

The natural grass playing surface at Grove Street which includes a line of clovers.

The Building Committee’s Chair Bill Lavello said McLaughlin, and School Committee Member Katie Bowen will speak on the issue before the public comments on the findings.

In his 35-page report, McLaughlin started by stating the obvious: Belmont doesn’t have enough playing fields to meet the demands of school teams and the town’s recreational programs with grounds crowded with school and club teams year-round. Currently each town field is used on average 482 hours in the spring and 290 in the fall above the advised limit of 250 hours each season to avoid stress and deterioration.

The town has pointed out in the past the expense of maintaining a healthy football/soccer-sized grass field at upwards to $100,000 annually as well as the loss of playing space as natural surfaces need to be “put to bed” for the following playing season (in the spring if games are played during the fall) to allow the grass and top soil to recover.

The school district’s Athletic Director Jim Davis noted to McLaughlin that turf fields can be used more often, require less maintenance and can be used by many sports without a loss of field consistency.

McLaughlin points to “many … studies” suggesting turf fields can be used “three times” more than natural grass without the wear and tear placed on a nature surfaces.

“The flexibility and increased usage available with artificial turf is vital to maintaining an acceptable athletic program for the now-expanded grades 7-12 enrollment on our limited school campus,” McLaughlin said.

But it is alleged health concerns to young adults and children that prompted the committee to request the study. The report was commissioned in June after a group of residents questions the safety of artificial grass playing ground at the school and in town.

McLaughlin acknowledge the worries from residents and people that turf fields are allegedly linked to cancer threats from the rubber infill – the small round pellets known as crumb made of ground tires – used in the majority of the 13,000 synthetic athletics fields across the US.

Yet McLaughlin could not find any evidence “in the plethora of studies” he researched that links the infill – which McLaughlin noted contains known carcinogens – to increased cancer rates among players who use the turf fields.

He added that just last month, the US Environmental Protection Agency issued a final report of a multi-agency study (dubbed the Federal Research Action Plan on Recycled Tire Crumb Used in Playing Fields and Playgrounds or FRAP) that concluded while chemicals are present in the crumb rubber, “human exposure appears to be limited on what is released in the air or simulated biological fluids.”

There are alternatives to rubber infill such as a cork and coconut mixture and quartz-based sand. Yet each has its own issues: the cork/coconut mix will “freeze” on the first fall frost and has a higher rate of abrasion injuries while field operators question whether commercial sand can stand up to a field under continuous use.

McLaughlin countered some of the health concerns by noting that physical activity during adolescence and early adulthood helping prevent cancer later in life and leading to a reduction in cardiovascular ailments.

While further studies assessing individual-level exposure is needed, [U]ntil then, however physical activity should be encouraged and promoted by year-round, weather resistant fields,” said McLaughlin.

Second, on the list of issues is elevated temperatures produced by a turf field, increasing temps 20 to 40 degrees F. Critics contend the super-hot grounds could prove a serious health condition especially for younger players.

Athletic Director Davis has informed town officials the “cushion” the turf lies on is coated white, which absorbs a great amount of the heat. Davis noted the overwhelming injury concerns at Harris Field are from possible concussions and ligament damage rather than heat. In addition, most high school practices occur after 3 p.m., once the hottest part of the day has passed.

Some residents who are opposed to artificial turf have expressed their goal of not just stopping the high school’s second turf field but also taking out the small field at the Wellington Elementary School and reverting Harris Field to natural grass when the current artificial turf is retired with the next decade.

Support for natural surfaces is growing around town. A few residents who attended a July public meeting on placing temporary lights at two town playing fields to support Belmont Youth Soccer said they would not allow their children to play high school sports due to the artificial turf surface.

Those health warnings associated with artificial turf prompted Connecticut legislators to sponsor a bill that would prohibit towns and school districts from installing new artificial fields. The measure remains in a legislative committee.

At a meeting last month, the Belmont Board of Health stated it may need to weight in on the matter.

It is not known if the Building Committee will vote after the discussion Wednesday on moving forward with a specific surface.

Breaking: Man Hit, Killed By Commuter Rail Train At Brighton Street

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Photo: Commuter trains along the Fitchburg line at Belmont’s Brighton Street intersection.

An unidentified 21-year-old man was killed early Monday morning, Aug. 19, when he was hit by a commuter rail train as he attempted to cross the tracks at Brighton Street, according to Transit Police. It is unknown which hospital Belmont EMT took the man.

The incident occurred at 6:16 a.m., according to public safety officials at the scene. The Number 400 train, the first of the day inbound to Boston, is scheduled at the Belmont station at 6:13 a.m.

A dozen officials from the MBTA, Transit, Belmont and State Police, as well as Keolis Commuter Services which runs the commuter rail system for the MBTA, were at the scene collecting evidence. Just before 9 a.m., officials examined then took a bike away – along with a helmet and a carrying case – that was leaning up against a signpost.

The accident occurred on the MBTA right of way, which is under the control of Transit Police.

Today marks the fourth time in a little more than a decade a serious accident occurred at the Brighton Street crossing. A man was killed by a train in February 2009 and a woman seriously injured after her vehicle was caught between the gates in December 2016. In March 2018, a man in his 60s suffered life-threatening injuries after being hit late at night.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Pile Driving At High School Starts Tuesday, Aug. 20

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Photo: Pile driving set to start on Tuesday.

Get ready, Belmont. Beginning early next week, the neighbors living near the Belmont Middle and High School construction site will soon be listening to 10 hours a day of “the rockinest, rock-steady beat” of pile driving madness.

That’s the word from Skanska, the project’s general contractor, which announced the long awaited installation of the underpinnings of the new school’s foundation at the Belmont Middle and High School Building Committee meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 13. The foundation will require a few hundred piles (essentially poles) to transfer the large building loads to the earth farther down from the surface.

According to Project Manager Mike Morrison, the pile driving team will be onsite by Friday, Aug. 16 with the actual installation of the first of the 80 foot piles beginning on Tuesday, Aug. 20.

And the pounding will be a constant for residents and students for the next months. The steady beat of the drill pounding away on the site will run from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

In addition, due to state regulations on the transportation of extremely long piles on highways, residents can expect deliveries traveling on town streets from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m.

Just how long will the steady beat of piles being driven deep into the soil? Morrison would only say the work will continue “through the fall” with no specific end date.

And it will be loud. According to data from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the noise produced when the anvil strikes the strike plate on the pile can generate noise as much as 135 dB, which is somewhere between jackhammer and a jet engine. Even 200 feet from the source, the noise can reach 68 dB.

For some, the vibration and noise can be too much. On the website SeeClickFix.com, the pile driving conducted at the former Lane & Games bowling alley off of Route 2 in North Cambridge a year ago brought a torrid of complaints from Arlington and Cambridge residents.

“Like you, we’re pretty annoyed by hearing it start up every morning in the distance, like the Excedrin headache from @#$%,” wrote David S.

The work will begin close to the school than move outward towards Harris Field and the intersection of Concord Avenue and Goden Street. Prior to the work starting, owners of 43 of approximately 76 residential structures signed up to have the exterior of their properties examined.

John Phelan, Belmont Schools Superintendent, said he and Isaac Taylor, the High School’s new principal, will be on site when the pile driving begins to monitor the noise level. But he doesn’t believe the noise or vibration will affect learning as students are adept at attending classes with up to seven MBTA commuter trains rumble adjacent to the school.

Belmont Town Administrator Patrice Garvin said residents will be provided a heads up on the start of the job via the police department’s “reverse 911” system.

[UPDATE] Water Main Break Closes Portion of Brighton Street; Repair After 6 PM

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Photo: Water main break on Brighton Street.

A portion of Brighton Street was closed shortly before 11 a.m., Friday, Aug. 16 from Cross Street to Coolidge Road due to water main break, according to town officials.

According to Water Division personnel at the site, a six-inch water main installed in 1933 ruptured late in the morning, reducing pressure in the surrounding neighborhood.

While replacing the main is a routine operation, the placement of other utilities running along the pipe will likely delay a final repair until after 6 p.m.

Burnin’ For Cleo: Saturday’s Boot Camp Honors Athlete​ Memory

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Photo: Poster for the event this Saturday.

Join Belmont’s Burnin’ by Ray for an outdoor workout to celebrate the life of Cleo Athena Theodoropulos this Saturday.

The “Best of Boston”-winning gym is hosting a two-hour charity outdoor boot camp at the Winn Brook Elementary School field in Belmont on Saturday, Aug. 17 at 10 a.m. to honor Cleo’s energy, kindness, fierce athletic drive and abundant spirit. 

Tickets are $25 and can be obtained here. All proceeds and donations would benefit the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Cleo, who was an outstanding figure skater and varsity field hockey player, was a junior at Belmont High School who died on April 22, less than one week after her diagnosis with Ewing sarcoma, due to a cancer-induced fatal stroke.

Select Board OKs 5 Year Trash Processing Contract

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Photo: Trash processing will continue with Wheelabrow Technologies.

Belmont’s Select Board unanimously approved Monday, Aug. 12, a five-year extension to the town’s existing contract with a waste-to-energy firm to process Belmont’s residential trash.

The new contract with Wheelabrow Technologies, which goes into effect July 1, 2020 and runs through fiscal 2025, will see a one year increase of 10 percent from the current fiscal year, jumping from $69.54 to $77 per ton.

Despite the significant spike for the coming year – the cost increases for years two to five will be between 2.5 and 3.5 percent – Jay Marcotte, the town’s director of the Department of Public Works, said he was surprised at the bargain the town received.

“I can honestly tell you that I am surprised that the pricing. I thought it would be a lot more expensive it would be getting rid of trash” since the cost of recycling has skyrocketed in the past year.

“It’s a volitile world out there for recycling and trash,” said Marcotte.

Belmont has separate contracts for hauling trash from the curbside and recycling, each in their second of a five year contracts with Waste Management.

Marcotte said the price Belmont will pay on July 1 is comparable to those in surrounding communities such as Lexington, Wilmington and Reading. He also noted that just a decade ago, trash processing for Belmont was in the $90 to $100 per ton range.

The hit to residents’ tax bill for trash removal under the new contract should not be that hard due to the automated trash collection system installed last year, said Marcotte. While the town budget anticipated about 7,500 tons of trash processed townwide in the past two years, last fiscal year residents produced 6,200 tons, an 18 percent fall off due to automation.

“There is room for improvement,” said Marcotte.