Photo: The cast photo of “The Sandlot.”
A fun family activity that happens across the US each summer is coming to Belmont next Friday as the Belmont High School Class of 2019 presents “Movie Night Under the Stars” featuring “The Sandlot” on June 3, at 8 p.m. on the Brendan Grant Field. next to Belmont High School.
Tickets are $5 per person with a $25 family cap. Bring your own blankets and pillows. Popcorn and beverages will be available for sale.
Photo: The poster for the 2016 One-Act Plays.
A man falling from a plane who spends his final moments on a business call, a bedtime story that goes terribly awry and the tale of a boy becoming a man with a topsy-turvy ending you’ll see coming from miles away.
These are just a few of the stories being presented by the Belmont High School Performing Arts Company at its annual One-Act Plays. In performance Friday and Saturday in the Little Theater at Belmont High School, the eight plays – a combination of comedy, drama, satire and romance – are directed by 11th and 12th-grade students and acted by their classmates. And each just about 10 minutes long.
Here is a clip of “Sure Thing,” a favorite one-act play.
Performance Information:
Tickets: Adults: $12, Students: $5, FREE for BHS staff.
Tickets are on sale online and at Champions in Belmont Center.
Always popular, One Act Performances may sell out so buy tickets in advance. A very limited number of tickets or wait list seating will be available at the theater.
Directed by Sophia Lubarr & Tenny Gregorian
BALTHAZAR: Oliver Leeb
Directed by Emma Giallongo & Katie MacAuley
SAMUEL: Raffi Manjikian
STACIE: Josie Cooper
DJ: Jack Merullo
Directed by Daphne Kaxiras & Katie Mabbott
SON: Sri Kaushik
DAD: Nic Neves
MRS MALBY: Miriam Cubstead
DAN TOLLISON: Patrick Bean
JENN GROUT: Maerose Pepe
MRS. TELLER: Julia Cunningham
AMBER CARLSON: Clara Miller
ALIENS: Naria Sealy, Melanie Aftandilian, Kirsten Poulos
Directed by Andre Ramos & Jasper Wolf
NANCY: Molly Thomas
ANTHONY: Alex Aleksandrov
LIBBY: Lilikoi Bronson
DR. BLEDSOE: Al Hughes
AUDIENCE: Conor Bean, Giulianna Ruiz-Shah
Directed by Helena Kim & Rafi Wagner
BILL: Nick Borelli
BETTY: Nicole Thoma
BELL RINGERS: Alyssa Bodmer, Megan Bodmer
Directed by Hannah Messenger & Kyra Armstrong
PRODUCER: Tess Hayner
MAN: Danny Holt
DIRECTOR: Grace Christensen
ARTHUR: Ben Crocker
EMILY: Natalie MacKinnon-Booth
COSTUMER: Zoe Armstrong
STAGE MANAGER: Zoe Chase
Directed by Benjy Cunningham
LADY MAGNESIA: Olivia Pierce
GEORGE FITZTOLLEMACHE: Lennart Nielsen
ADOLPHUS BASTABLE: Victor Dankens
PHYLLIS: Abigail D’Angelo
LANDLORD: Sam Sorensen
POLICE CONSTABLE: Edward Stafford
DOCTOR: Evan Wagner
Directed by Aaron Fairbanks & Cameron Fetter
FATHER: Clark Addis
CHILD: Sammy Haines
MOMOMO: Jocelyn Cubstead
GLABBO: Wonyoung Jang
CLOWN: Becca Schwartz
SPAMEISTER: Callie Reagan
SPAWORKER 1: Nathan Miller
SPAWORKER 2/MELINDA: Sarah Jane Henman
SPAWORKER 3/MOM: Isabella Jaen-Maisonet
TREE: Haley Brown
Photo: The incident on Trapelo.
A Cambridge resident was arrested on multiple drug charges on Sunday, May 22, after he ran his vehicle into one of the new raised traffic islands on Trapelo Road, resulting in the busy thoroughfare being closed for nearly five hours due to possible hazardous material found in the car.
Jonathan Ottinger, 26, of 172r Harvard St., Cambridge, was charged with operating a motor vehicle under the influence of drugs, possession of a Class D substance with intent to distribute, three counts of possession of Class E drugs and a marked lane violation.
The incident continues to be under investigation by Belmont Police.
A Belmont Police officer on patrol “looked up after hearing Ottinger’s 2003 VW Passet hit the island at 12:12 p.m. When he arrived at the scene, he found the vehicle’s driver-side tires flat by the collision adjacent to the CVS/Pharmacy at 264 Trapelo Rd.
After a short investigation, Ottinger was placed in custody. Soon afterwards, Belmont Fire was called to the scene – the incident took place 100 feet from Belmont Fire headquarters – and it was determined that the scene warrented a visit by a regional Haz Mat team.
Trapelo Road was closed until just after 5 p.m.
The one Class D drug under Massachusetts law is marijuana. A person convicted of possession of a Class D substance with intent to distribute can be sentenced up to two years in county jail and fined between $500 to $5,000.
A Class E controlled substance includes lighter doses of prescription drugs that contain Codeine, Morphine and opium. Conviction could see a person sentenced to up to nine months in jail and fined between $250 to $2,500.
Photo: At Belmont Cemetary
Parades and remembrances mark Memorial Day in Belmont.
Belmont Public Schools will observe the holiday Friday, May 27 with a morning of exercises at three schools.
On Monday, May 30, the town honors the holiday with its annual parade from Cushing Square to Belmont Cemetary on Grove Street. The parade steps off at 11 a.m.
Marching bands from Belmont High and Chenery Middle school, color guards and members from the Belmont Police and Fire departments, veteran motorcyclist, marchers from local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts troops and veterans will all take part
All veterans and current military personnel are invited and welcome to join the other vets at the head of the parade.
Lining the route – up Trapelo Road before making a left at Grove Street and continuing to the Belmont Cemetery – will be families and residents cheering the marchers.
At the cemetery, a wreath laying ceremony will take place, speeches will be read, flowers laid at the graves of veterans, the names of Belmont citizens who died for this country will be honored, “Taps” played and a final salute will be given.
Photo: Leonard Street’s newest structure.
While the daily encounters with construction equipment and traffic delays along Leonard Street may feel like an eternal visit to Purgatory, the reconstruction of Belmont’s commercial hub’s roadways is just months from completion.
And with the finale of one task, the town has begun the next big chore, implementing the long-talked about parking plan for Belmont Center.
According to Belmont’s Town Administrator David Kale at Monday’s Board of Selectmen’s meeting, as the major work in Belmont Center comes to an end – the roadway and sidewalk component will be finished by the end of July or early August and the former Macy’s/Foodies Urban Market is now scheduled to open before Thanksgiving – now is the time for the town to begin presenting a comprehensive parking program for Leonard Street, the surrounding side streets and the Claflin municipal parking lot to residents.
“Let’s gear up and make contengency plans with businesses and others so when [Foodies] is open,” the town will be ready for a critical mass of parking coming to the 199-space Claflin lot, said Kale.
The most immediate announcement on parking is that the town, in association with Belmont Savings Bank, will provide two-hour free parking in the Claflin lot for June.
Using as its guide the parking plan created by Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associate in March 2012, there are several operating principles that will lead the process. The most significant of the principles, said Kale, is finding ways to increase parking spaces in the Claflin lot and on town streets.
“That become more important with retail spaces coming online,” said Kale, noting the introduction of Foodies Urban Market, the independent supermarket which caters to selling prepared foods and fresh produce.
That need for upping the number of spaces, or just as important, freeing up spaces on a regular basis will necessitate the establishment of metered parking along Leonard Street as well as changing the current two-hour free parking in the first two rows of the Claflin lot.
“We are looking to increase quick stops” to augment the number of total customers who can shop in the Center. One aspect of that goal will be increased enforcement of parking regulations on Leonard and Claflin, including patroling the lots and streets into the evening.
Other areas that will need to be changed is revisiting the designated commuter parking areas – since the program began last year, only six commuter parking stickers have been sold by the town – and the location of parking for owners and employees of Center businesses.
“We may want them to be situation somewhere other than” the municipal lot,” said Kale.
Kale also said the town will work with businesses in an attempt to steamline delivery times to merchants to prevent the current backup of traffic along Leonard Street.
“We have started a conversation with the Belmont Center Business Association” and we’ll have public meetings” to discuss the town’s plans in the next few months, said Kale.
Photo: Belmont Street, readied to be paved again.
One of the last major components of the $17.1 million state-financed Trapelo Road/Belmont Street Reconstruction Project will get underway as the Board of Selectmen approved approximately a week of overnight paving of Belmont Street and a portion of Trapelo Road from Common Street in Cushing Square to Erickson Street on the Cambridge city line.
Beginning Monday night, June 13, Newport Construction will be paving the main thoroughfare between 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. for six nights until June 18, said Glenn Clancy, town engineer and director of the Office of Community Development.
Access to driveways along the work area may be restricted so residents should park on side streets away from Belmont Street if there is a need to access a vehicle overnight.
Residents with questions should contact the office of Community Development at 617-993-2665.
Photo: A gun buy back in Florida.
There is a perception that gun buyback programs should be concentrated in high crime areas, Belmont Assistant Police Chief James MacIsaac told the Belmont Board of Selectmen at its meeting Monday, May 23.
“So it was bit surprising two years ago that we discovered there was a real need for this event in Belmont,” MacIsaac told the Belmontonian after the meeting.
After a total of 62 guns were brought in 2014, Belmont Police Department and private religious groups have once again joined together to hold a second gun buyback event, this time in coordination with neighboring police departments.
The regional event will occur on Saturday, June 11, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Belmont DPW Yard, 37 C Street.
Belmont Police is partnering with their colleagues in Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville, Watertown, the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office, the Belmont Religious Council and individual houses of worship including co-sponsors:
The buy back allows residents a safe way to dispose of unwanted firearms and ammunition, no questions asked. All firearms turned in at the gun buyback were turned over to the Massachusetts State Police to be destroyed.
During the inaugural purchase in 2014, a variety of firearms were accepted including, rifles, shotguns, pistols and a sawed-off 12 gauge shotgun.
MacIsaac said in addition to peace of mind, safer house and community, participants will receive gift cards to local grocery stores – purchased by the religious organizations – when they drop off their unwanted firearms. The Belmont Police ask that firearms be transported inside vehicle trunks unloaded, safety engaged, inside a box, bag or case. There is no limit to the number of firearms that can be turned in.
Belmont Police is asking that firearms be transported inside vehicle trunks unloaded, safety engaged, inside a box, bag or case. There is no limit to the number of firearms that can be turned in. Belmont police has set up the following special phone line to receive questions and/or requests for assistance in safely transporting firearms: 617-993-2529
The Belmont Police Department and Middlesex Sherriff’s Office will provide on-duty officers at the event to receive weapons for the safe storage, followed by destruction in accordance with state law.
For more information go to www.belmontgunbuyback.org
To make a tax-deductible donation, please make the check payable to: Belmont Religious Council (Belmont Gun Buy Back in the Memo line) and mail to
BRC c/o David Alper
One Oak Avenue
Belmont, MA 02478
Photo: Cole Bartels on the mound.
Paraphrasing Tolstoy, all wins are alike; each defeat is lost in its own way.
For Belmont High School’s senior ace Cole Bartels, Saturday’s 1-0 loss at Reading Memorial High – securing the Middlesex Liberty Division championship to the Rockets – will go down as a tour-de-force performance spoiled by the flukes of the game that can make baseball such a cruel mistress to play.
“Déjà vu all over again,” said Marauder Head Coach Jim Brown, recalling a similar one-run heartbreaker to Reading for the league championship in 2007.
“Bartels pitched great. He did his job. We just could not get the timely hit,” said Brown. “We got hits; we got men on base. Someone just has to step up and get the hit at the right time.”
Pitching one of his best performance of the season, the Penn State-commit dominated the league leaders, striking out 11 while giving up only a pair of singles. After a few early inning “butterflies,” last year’s Middlesex League all-star got down to business, and in the process, threw one of the best two innings plus stretches from a starter in recent league memory.
After a leadoff walk to the number nine hitter in the bottom of the third, Bartels struck out the first two batters in the lineup on 1-2 counts with catcher Cal Christofori’s rocket throw to cut down the runner attempting to swipe second by a mile.
The fourth inning was a master class with Bartels’ fastball hit the low outside corner schooled the heart of Rockets order as the 3, 4, and 5 hitters each took the third strike looking. To cap the effort. Bartels sat down the first batter in the fifth on a reverse K.
“When I came out in the third it was just rock and fire,” said Bartels
It wasn’t as if Belmont hitters were as they had six hits off Reading. It was if Belmont was too eager at the plate, attempting to belt junior Corey DiLoreto’s off-speed offerings, only to lift the ball into the outfield.
The dark clouds crept over Belmont in the bottom of the sixth when Bartels had leadoff hitter Connor Mulligan down two strikes only to see three straight targeted pitches were deemed balls to the consternation of the Marauder coaching staff and bench, leading to a critical no out walk.
The games “big” hit traveled the least distance when right fielder Carl Gillies attempted to move Mulligan to second launched a bunt attempt in the air along the third base line. But rather then an easy out, the ball looped over third base David Bailey who was charging the plate.
“What do you do? Normally a pop-up bunt is a certain out,” said Brown.
Making matters more difficult, a passed ball by Bartels’ battery mate Christofori placed runners in scoring a position at second and third with one out. After a strike out, an intentional walk to load the bases for left fielder Tommy White to loft a fly ball deep enough into center field to score Mulligan.
It was then up to DiLoreto to set down Belmont in order for the clinching victory.
“I couldn’t ask much more from my team. They try as hard as they could with good effort. It just wasn’t our day,” said Bartels.
Bartels and Belmont will see the Rockets this weekend in the opening game of the annual Brendan Grant Tournament at 2 p.m., Friday, May 27.
Belmont, whose pitching staff sports a 1.00 ERA, has the throwers to make a run in the playoffs but like last season, hitting and runs remain a bugaboo for the team.
“We have to put the right pieces of the puzzle together” which may require a lineup change,” said Brown. “It could be putting kids in different parts of the lineup and just getting a hit,” he said.
For Bartels, the playoffs can’t happen fast enough.
“I feel extremely good. We’re going to be a great team and accomplish special things this post season,” he said.
Photo: The Clay Pit Pond Largemouth Bass.
On Sunday morning, May 22, Belmont High sophomore Brian Alper caught himself a damn good lookin’ largemouth bass coming in at an impressive eight-plus pounds.
But it was where Alper reel in his catch that is just as jaw-dropping. No, he wasn’t on some crystal clear Berkshire County lake or in the wilds of Maine. Brian caught his bass in Clay Pit Pond.
CLAY PIT POND!
Yes, the man-made body of water – created in the late 1920s when the Wellington Brook was redirected into a pit where the New England Brick Company excavated clay for bricks – is unlikely to be on anyone’s list of fishin’ holes to find bass or much less anything living. For four decades, the land next to the pond was the town’s dump until the town opened the incinerator site near the Lexington town line in 1959.
In 1995, Belmont’s Conservation Commission asked the state to test the fish in Clay Pit Pond. Results showed unacceptably high levels of chlordane, a pesticide is associated with a variety of cancers. After the results were made public, the Massachusetts Public Health Department issued a public warning that is found on signs on the bank of the pond: “Do not eat fish caught in this pond. They may be poisoned with chemicals.”
For most residents, the creature most likely seen swimming in Clay Pit Pond is a rat or Blinky, the three-eyed orange fish found in the lake outside the nuclear power plant in “The Simpsons.”
But for Brian – who has been fishing Clay Pit for the past two years – and other hearty locals, the allure of casting a lure into a body of water outweighs most of the concerns they may face. And if Boston Harbor and the Charles River can be reclaimed to be “swimmable” after centuries of pollution, whose to say Belmont’s own “Pond” will one day … ummm, no.
As for the bass – he was not named by Brian – he will continue to swim (it’s likely he has spent the past decade in the pond) contently in his watery home for now.
“Of course, it got thrown back. No one should EVER eat fish out of there,” said Brian’s father, David, the long-time chair of the town’s Board of Health.
Photo: The vehicle in front of the CVS.
A man was arrested, and a portion of Trapelo Road has been shut down by Belmont Police due to a potential hazardous material incident that occurred at approximately 1 p.m.
The arrested man has not be identified by Belmont Police nor has the charges against him.
Belmont Police stated on social media the main thoroughfare in Belmont will be closed from Slade to Walnut streets until 5 p.m. as state Hazardous Material personnel examine the late model sedan which came to rest in front of the CVS/Pharmacy at 264 Trapelo Rd.
“They came in and told us we have to leave,” said one CVS employee who wondered if she would be able to go back to the store before her shift ended at 3 p.m.
The store was evacuated soon after the accident and arrest.
According to Belmont Fire Chief David L. Frizzell, apparently the vehicle hit a newly-installed island that now runs along Trapelo Road, blowing out both driver side tires. As police officers arrived, they arrested the driver. They soon discovered a stash of chemicals in the back seat of the car.
Soon after Belmont Fire arrived – the incident occurred 100 feet from the fire department’s headquarters on Trapelo Road – the department called for state Haz Mat team to examine the vehicle.
