Snow Totals Bust Town’s Snow Removal Budget and Its Snowblower

By 1 Comment

Photo: A cry of desperation on a snow bank at Belmont Center. 

Just how bad has the recent spate of snowstorms and blizzards been in Belmont?

It defeated the town’s brand new snowblower.

The Belmont Board of Selectmen could only shake their heads as Town Administrator David Kale revealed the machine recently purchased for the Department of Public Works for approximately $87,500 to clear town-owned and school sidewalks and other locations finally met its match after the third of four snow storms piled nearly 90 inches of snow on the town.

Lucky, the machine has “returned to service,” Kale told the Selectmen at its meeting on Monday night, Feb. 23.

Unfortunately, there is no fixing the busted budget for snow removal the town is facing. According to Kale, with payments for three of the four storms already in, the town’s expenses for plowing streets and removing snow has topped $1.1 million, nearly double the $600,000 allocated for the job in the fiscal 2015 budget.

The amount also exceeds the entire $400,000 general reserve account held by the Warrant Committee to resolve shortages for all of the town’s departments and the schools.

This comes at a time when the school budget is running a $500,000 shortfall in its current budget due to a spike in special education costs and higher enrollment.

The town has applied for Federal Emergency Management Authority monies to pay for the first storm that hit the region in January, yet any funds from Washington would likely come after the close of the fiscal year, said Kale.

The most likely course of action will for the town to going before Town Meeting in June to request a one-time transfer to cover the deficit using “free cash,” what Kale has called the town’s “savings account.”

“Free cash” is unspent money remaining at the end of the fiscal year including from budget line-items and any greater than expected tax or fee receipts.

In the past five years, the town’s free cash account has grown from around $2 million to $6.2 million in fiscal ’15.

Because the town hopes to keep the snow removal deficit in the $525,000 range, Kale said requests by business groups to remove the large snow mounts abutting sidewalks and making commerce difficult can not occur.

Look Who’s Running: Town-Wide, Town Meeting Candidates on the Ballot

By Leave a Comment

The “almost” final list of candidates on the 2015 Belmont Town Election has been released by Town Clerk Ellen Cushman on Monday, Feb. 23, with the hopeful trend of increased participation for those seeking to become Town Meeting members.

The list is not yet a final because residents have until Thursday, March 5 to withdraw their candidacy by writing to Cushman.

The list of all candidates, both town-wide and for Town Meeting, can be found here at the Town Clerk’s web site.

In town-wide races, only the seat on the Belmont Board of Selectmen is being contested with incumbent Andy Rojas being challenged by Town Meeting Member Jim Williams.

Cushman said she is encouraged by the number of candidates for Town Meeting, with six of the town’s eight precinct with the requisite 12 candidates on the ballot. And of the two that failed to reach the dozen candidates, both precincts 3 and 7 – notorious for seeing seats go up for grabs – will only see a single three-year seat go down to write-in votes.

And if anyone in precincts 5, 6 or 7 is looking for a quick way onto Town Meeting, there are no candidates for the partial term seats last two to one year. Each of those seven seats will be filled either by write-ins or at precinct meetings before May’s Town Meeting.

Precinct 1: 15 candidates (10 seeking re-election, 3 newcomers) for three-year terms.

Precinct 2: 12 candidates (9 re-election, 3 newcomers) for three-year terms.

Precinct 3: 11 candidates (7 re-election, 4 newcomers) for three-year terms.

Precinct 4: 14 candidates (10 re-election, 4 newcomers) for three-year terms.

Precinct 5: 13 candidates (11 re-election, 2 newcomers) for three-year terms. No candidates for a one-year term.

Precinct 6: 13 candidates (10 re-election, 3 newcomers) for three-year terms. No candidates for a one-year term or a two-year term.

Precinct 7: 11 candidates (7 re-election, 4 newcomers) for three-year terms. No candidates for four, two-year terms.

Precinct 8: 12 candidates (9 re-election, 3 newcomers) for three-year terms. One candidate for one, one-year term.

Belmont’s Battle of the Snow Now Turns to Potholes and Sidewalks

By Leave a Comment

Photo: The sidewalk leading to the commuter rail station along Concord Avenue in Belmont Center. 

It was bad enough Belmont resident Christina Long had to suffer through stoppages and delays to the MBTA commuter rail system due to the four snow storms that passed through the region in the past month.

She didn’t think it should be as much of a struggle just getting to the Belmont Center station.

Not only did Long need to maneuver through and around sidewalks on residential streets still filled with some of the seven feet of snow that fell on Belmont, she also found walkways on municipal property untouched including the path she uses to reach the station.

“It is amazing that this is the center of town at a busy train station,” Long said after showing a series of photos of her journey to the station.

“What about the regulation that sidewalks need to be cleared of snow? And yesterday when I went for a run, I could not believe that the sidewalk along Concord [Avenue] on the high school property was unplowed,” said Long.

“Why can I not commute to work or go for a run in safety? Has the town government all gone to Florida for the February recess?” she said.

 

According to town officials, resources are continuing to be marshaled to make a dent in clearing away snow to allow pedestrians and drivers to travel around Belmont.

“We are currently doing that right now,” said Jay Marcotte, the new Department of Public Work’s Director whose has spent about half of his time since starting the job in January leading the town’s effort to clear snow.

Municipal crews are targeting crosswalks, handicap parking spots, paths and 0ther areas that residents use to get around, said Town Administrator David Kale. The teams are using large and small snow plows as well as shovels to reach a growing number of trouble spots around town.

“Residents know that there are lots of places that need clearing,” said Kale.

Belmont is not alone in literally being snowed under by the four storms – with a fifth forecasted to arrive on Wednesday, Feb. 25; Every municipality in eastern Massachusetts has been straining to get out from under the snowiest 30 day period on record with approximately 90 inches on the ground.

In addition to the DPW’s effort, town inspectors from the Office of Community Development have been enforcing compliance of the town’s municipal snow removal bylaw in the business districts, said Kale.

But Long remains skeptical officials are doing all it can in removing snow from town property.

“How can the town enforce the wonderful snow removal law when they don’t clean their own sidewalks?” she said.

“The lack of clean sidewalks not only affects me and other commuters walking to the train station but it also impacts all the kids walking to school or the library. We are forced to walk on the road,” she said.

And while the town has been successful in making main and side streets passable within 36 hours, it’s difficult to reach every trouble point with the DPW’s Highway Division staff.

The piles of snow has also impacted businesses in Belmont’s three commercial hubs – Belmont Center, Waverley and Cushing squares – as a white wall of now solid slush is hampering commerce.

According to Gerry Dickhaut, owner of Champions Sporting Goods, and president of the Belmont Center Business Association, snow “is overwhelming in the center, it has become a hazard and a safety issue especially to the elderly, the sidewalks are very narrow, crossing the street is dangerous as drivers don’t see the pedestrians with the snow mounds so high.”

Dickhaut said the association of more than two dozen businesses urged the DPW to use its heavy equipment and remove the snow to allow for greater customer access to stores, restaurants, and shops.

IMG_0727

That was one request that the town can not accommodate.

“We’re trying to keep up with the problem, but there is a resource issue,” said Kale. While Belmont is doing its best, “Simply put, removing snow from the business districts would be very expensive and time [intensive],” said Kale.

Money is an ever-present concern with the number and severity of the storms so far this year.

Kale said the town’s $600,000 snow removal budget was $175,000 in the red after the first two storms. He can not say the current deficit because the town has yet to tally the bills from the last pair of blizzards.

“We need to be watchful” of how the town is spending, said Kale. The town has approximately $400,000 in reserves that can be used to fill the growing expenditure gap.

Even the town’s success in pushing the snow off the roads has a downside as a field of potholes have emerged on many well-traveled streets. Attempting to travel along Concord Avenue near the library or through Cushing Square have become a game of chicken between the driver and the deep depressions in the road.

IMG_0729

“They aren’t potholes,” said one Belmont residents who had traveled on Trapelo Road. “They’re a realignment waiting to happen.”

Marcotte said the DPW has “on our radar” the “real, real bad” potholes around town and emergency repairs will be done. Once the weather “cooperates, we’ll have two crews out” making repairs, said Michael Santoro, the Highway Division’s manager. That would include dry weather and moderating temperatures.

The good news is that some of the most noticeable depressions are in areas that will be completely renovated due to roadway projects; the Trapelo/Belmont project that is now entering Cushing Square and the Belmont Center Reconstruction beginning this spring.

For residents who wish to report a problem or request a repair can call the main DPW number at 617-993-2680 or go online to fill out a detailed request form.

The Voice of Belmont: When the Town Wants You to Know, Dan MacAuley is On the Call

By 4 Comments

There are some people whose voice you immediately associated with a place or time.

The voice of the Fenway Park for old-timers will always be Sherm Feller while recent generations remember the late Carl Beame.

Cantankerous Johnny Most is still the radio heart of the Boston Celtics.

And the voice of Belmont is a life-long resident you’ve heard a great deal in the past month.

“This is Dan MacAuley of the Belmont Police Department.”

Since the first of nearly a dozen calls since the last week of January when the first of four major snow storms began, adults reactively begin reaching for shovels and students leaping for joy as MacAuley’s unmistakable Boston accent rattles off yet another list of snow emergencies, parking bans and school cancellations over the phone.

Turns out MacAuley is a natural for the job.

“Believe it or not, I usually get it done in one or two takes,” MacAuley told the Belmontonian.

“I’m pretty hard on myself, and if it’s not close to perfect, I’ll do it again,” he said.

And when you come to think about it, MacAuley is a perfect person to represent the voice of a town living here nearly all of his life.

MacAuley has lived 53 of my 55 years in Belmont, straying only to Waltham for two years after marrying his wife, Jackie.

“I grew up on Sherman Street and attended the Winn Brook School, the Chenery Middle School, and graduated from Belmont High School in 1978,” said MacAuley, who went on to obtain his Associates Degree in Criminal Justice from Middlesex Community College.

His involvement in town began when he was elected to Town Meeting while still a high school student (where he is a member of the school’s Hall of Fame.) You have likely seen MacAuley selling Christmas tree during the holiday season at the Lions Club where he is a past president.

He has also led the Belmont Boosters Club (past president and treasurer) and Belmont Recreation Committee (past chair).

He and Jackie have a son, Danny, a senior at Adelphi University on Long Island, and Katie, their daughter who is a junior at Belmont High School.

“I have only had two jobs in my life,” he said; working part time at the First National Grocery store in Belmont Center until it closed in the early 1980’s then being hired – along with current Belmont Police Sgt. Kevin Shea – as one of the first full-time police dispatchers in August, 1982.

In his four decades on the force, MacAuley has worked as a police dispatcher, fire alarm operator, communications supervisor, and now 9-1-1 Operations Manager where he is in charge of the entire dispatch center that includes eight full-time dispatchers, a full-time communications supervisor and three per-diem dispatchers.

It was through his involvement in selecting the present company, Blackboard Connect, which runs the town’s “Community Notification System” (similar to the popular “Reverse 9-1-1” operation which is a trademark term of a competing company) that he became the town’s “voice.”

“When they were chosen [in July 2008], [Belmont Police] Chief [Richard] McLaughlin asked me to be the coordinator and voice of the program,” MacAuley said.

Scheduled calls are approved by Town Administrator David Kale, Police Chief McLaughlin or Fire Chief David Frizzell while emergency notifications are sent out with the approval of the Police Officer or Fire Captain in charge.

Approximately 11,000 residents, businesses, and employees are contacted by MacAuley for weather-related issues, missing people bulletins, road closures, power outages and small items such what streets will have their hydrants flushed.

And in the past month, MacAuley has been coming into Belmont homes at a rapid clip due to snow emergencies, school closings and whether residents’ trash will be picked up on its scheduled days.

With that exposure has come a bit of notoriety.

“When I am around and about, and people see the name tag on my uniform, I almost always get ‘Oh, you’re the guy that calls us all the time,'” he said.

“And my daughter and wife get asked all the time if I’m the guy who makes all the calls,” said MacAuley.

 

Town Schedules Meetings to Discuss Grove Street Playground Master Plan

By Leave a Comment

The town of Belmont has announced a pair of public meetings targeting specific audiences in March to discuss the creation of a master plan for the Grove Street Playground.

The town’s Department of Public Works and Activitas Inc. – a Dedham-based development company that worked on the redevelopment of Belmont High School’s Harris Field – will be hosting two meetings in the Board of Selectmen Room of Belmont Town Hall as they begin writing a comprehensive long-term strategy for the heavily-used open space/playground on the Cambridge town-line in east Belmont. 

The first meeting will be on March 4 at 7 p.m. when Activitas Inc. and town officials will speak to neighborhood residents as they seek their input and to better understand their issues.

The second meeting is on March 9 at 7 p.m. when youth organizations representing soccer, baseball and other sports that use the playground will give their input to their concerns.

After the meetings, Activitas and town departments will discuss the public information acquired which will be used to set a course for the Master Plan.

Further public discussions will be scheduled with neighbors, youth organizations and others at future public meetings.

‘A Brave Decision’: Selectmen Place $4.5M Override Vote on Town Election Ballot

By 1 Comment

Photo: Belmont Superintendent John Phelan speaking to the Belmont Board of Selectmen and the School Committee on Tuesday, Feb. 17.

The Belmont Board of Selectmen unanimously voted Tuesday night, Feb. 18, to place before voters a $4.5 million Proposition 2 1/2 override that will coincide with the annual Town Election set for Tuesday, April 7.

“I think we should make a brave decision to place the appropriate override on the ballot,” said Selectman Sami Baghdady as the three-member board decided not to delay a decision on the override until next week’s selectmen’s meeting.

“There, it’s on the ballot,” said Andy Rojas, chair of the board to the applause from two dozen residents and members of the Belmont Education Association, the union representing teachers and staff in the district.

This is the first override question facing Belmont voters since the unsuccessful attempt in June 2010 when residents rejected a $2.5 million initiative targeting schools and roads, 53 percent to 47 percent. A $2 million roads override was defeated by the same percentage in 2008.

The vote came after a joint meeting of the Selectmen and Belmont School Committee which heard Belmont School Superintendent John Phelan present the stark budgetary options facing the school district in the coming fiscal year which starts on July 1.

Under a budget relying on anticipated revenues for fiscal 2016, the school district will face a $1.7 million funding gap that will be resolved by eliminating 22 full-time teaching and staff positions, allow class sizes to exceed the district’s benchmarks for effective teaching and increase fees for all student activities.

“We really felt that this was important for Belmont,” Rojas told the Belmontonian after the vote.

“We hear all sides [of the override issue], and I certainly understand and we will try to mitigate the impact on the elderly and those on fixed incomes. However, once you see the presentation by [Phelan] and where the available budget leads you, it’s almost negligent not to consider an override,” said Rojas.

“Whatever the outcome of the vote, the efforts of the Financial Task Force will not die,” said Baghdady.

Before voting for the measure, the selectmen each spoke of the override as just one component of a wider approach to tackling the structural deficit facing the town and schools, recommendations raised in the final report of the Financial Task Force, the Selectmen appointed committee that spent a year analyzing Belmont’s long-range financial outlook.

“We are taking all the Task Force’s recommendations very seriously. It will include reforms both structurally and non-structural, it’s creativity on how we run both government and schools and, of course, making sure we fund the programs that are obviously the key part of the override,” said Rojas.

The vote came after a joint meeting of the Selectmen, and Belmont School Committee heard Belmont School Superintendent John Phelan present the budgetary options facing the school district in the coming fiscal year which starts on July 1.

“I should know this as this is the fourth time in six days I’ve made the presentation,” said Phelan told the joint meeting.

Reiterating in detail the pressures facing the school district in his meeting with the School Committee last Thursday, Feb. 12, (see “Belmont Schools Face ‘Significant, Negative Impact’ in Fiscal ’16 Budget; Loss of 22 Positions, Larger Class Sizes” Feb. 12) Phelan presented a stark reality for education in Belmont under an available revenue budget in the next school year: Staff cuts, greater class sizes, less material and supplies, an increase in free time and study halls for middle and high school students and higher fees for students and parents.

Speaking of the student fee increase, families with two children in athletics, a club, and the arts, “you very quickly get to $6,000 to $7,000,” said Phelan.

Phelan told the board the cuts will have a human face to them at next week’s School Committee when he and the Leadership Council – made up of senior staff, principals and department and curriculum heads – pinpoint specific positions and areas which will be eliminated.

“It’s a very disturbing picture,” said Phelan, noting that 80 percent of the school budget “is people so the biggest part of the cuts will be from there.”

As with the previous presentations, Phelan told the meeting the Task Force’s recommendation of a $4.5 million override to stabilize town expenditures will allow the district to keep existing staff and teachers, meet state-mandated required hirings due to a doubling of students requiring English Learning tutoring as well as new hires to meet the exploding enrollment and reduce the free time an ever increasing number of middle and high school students are handed.

“There are no new bikes” in the budget with the $4.5 million increase, said Phelan; the district will not introduce new classes, only retaining the current level of instruction.

“We do believe that we are at a crossroads,” Phelan said of the district, adding that he and the Leadership Council “believe the town needs to make an investment in the schools.”

During a citizen comment period, several teachers and residents expressed their support for the override to assist them in educating Belmont students.

“We teach children, I teach children,” said Dori Pulizzi, a seven-year veteran teacher at the Chenery Middle School. But the only way to effectively do so is with a ratio that she can meet the social/emotional needs of each student. With 28 in a class, Pulizzi said she can only give each student a minute of her time within a 50-minute class after providing the class lesson.

Suzanne Pomponio, a third grade teacher at the Winn Brook with 23 students in her class, said teaching “is just getting harder for students to do what is expected with the demands of Common Core [being introduced to Belmont schools].”

“It’s more stressful for the students, and they need that emotional support but we have less and less time to provide it,” said Pomponio.

After the vote, John Sullivan, the president of the BEA and a Belmont resident, said a vote for the override “is a chance to maintain quality of our outstanding schools.”

“Now we need to get community support, to work together to provide Belmont teachers what they need,” said Sullivan.

 

Belmont Business Leader Backs School District as Selectmen Discuss Override Tonight

By 1 Comment

Photo: Robert Mahoney (right) of Belmont Savings Bank with Ellen Schreiber. 

As the Belmont Board of Selectmen prepare to discuss tonight, Tuesday, Feb. 17, a recommendation from the Financial Task Force for a possible property tax increase to fund the town’s structural budget deficit, one of Belmont’s leading business leaders has threw his support behind the town’s school district as it faces substantial cuts in staff and programs under current budget assumptions for next year.

Belmont Savings Bank’s President and CEO Robert Mahoney wrote a comment to an article in the Belmontonian (Belmont Schools Face ‘Significant, Negative Impact’ in Fiscal ’16 Budget; Loss of 22 Positions, Larger Class Sizes, Feb. 12) that highlighted a pending $1.7 million gap in the district’s fiscal 2016 budget if the schools are required to work within the available revenue that the town has calculated for next year.

Mahoney is the first prominent individual outside of the district to speak out concerning the negative impact on Belmont from possible inaction in securing the necessary funding to keep town schools high ranked.

“[Belmont Superintendent] John Phelan is so right. It took decades for Belmont’s schools to become top tier. At the rate we are going we will be third tier soon,” Mahoney bluntly wrote in a comment posted Feb. 14.

“Once the parents of high potential students move out, and they will, the biggest economic engine in Belmont will sputter to mediocrity and property values will quickly follow the schools down. This is not theory. This pattern has happened over and over in short-sighted communities that have not invested in their future,” Mahoney wrote.

In the past few years, Belmont Savings has become more involved in Belmont, starting a foundation to assist organizations and individuals funding community activities. The most prominent of those was the foundation’s donation of $200,000 this fall that jump started a community drive to raise $400,000 to start construction of a new Underwood Pool adjacent to Concord Avenue.

At Tuesday’s Board of Selectmen meeting – at 6 p.m. in the Selectmen’s room at Town Hall – the board will join up with the Belmont School Committee for a presentation from the district concerning the pending $1.7 million deficit in the pending fiscal ’16 available revenue budget totaling $47.5 million. In two previous public meetings to discuss the budget, Phelan has said the rapid increase in enrollment over the past five years and for years to come has sent expenses skyrocketing as the district. Phelan has advocated the selectmen call for, and voters pass a three-year, $4.5 million Proposition 2 1/2 override to fund the gap.

After the budget meeting, the Selectmen will reconvene to discuss placing an override before voters. If it decides to move in that direction, the board will also have to set a date for the override vote.

 

 

Belmont Schools Face ‘Significant, Negative Impact’ in Fiscal ’16 Budget; Loss of 22 Positions, Larger Class Sizes

By 1 Comment

Photo: Teacher and staff represented by the Belmont Education Association listening to District Superintendent John Phelan present the fiscal 2016 school budget to the Belmont School Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 11.

Belmont students will face “significant and negative impacts” if the Belmont School Committee approves an available revenue budget for the next fiscal year leaving the town’s top-rated schools with an anticipated $1.7 million shortfall, according to Belmont District Superintendent John Phelan.

The current budget would force Phelan to eliminate up to 22 full-time positions including teachers and staff, allow classroom sizes in all grades to exceed the School Committee’s own benchmarks for effective teaching and increase the number of “frees” and study halls for middle and high school students.

“It would be problematic for the district to function as a Tier 1 district under this budget,” Phelan told the Belmontonian Thursday, Feb. 12.

Making the first public presentation of the fiscal 2016 budget before the School Committee and approximately 75 teachers and staff at the Chenery Middle School, Phelan presented an overview of its fiscal year 2016 budget in which the district would run on the best estimates of the available revenue from state and town sources.

Under the town’s estimates, the schools will receive $47.5 million in fiscal ’16 under the current Town Meeting approved 58/42 budget “split” in which the district receives 58 percent of total revenues.

Belmont is already doing a great deal of what it has, said Phelan. Where the average annual expenditure per student statewide is $14,571, Belmont has become an educational destination for homebuyers spending roughly $12,800 a year.

In the presentation, Phelan told the committee the district finds itself facing several “pressure points,” the most immediate is the skyrocketing increase in enrollment. In just the past five years – 2009 to 2014 – the student population in kindergarten to 12th grade has increased by 317 students to 4,222 in October, 2014.

And the forecast is that an additional 408 students will enter the district by 2019, a ten-year increase of 723 pupils. For comparison, the Wellington Elementary School has approximately 440 students.

Phelen said the increasing population has also bumped up the number of students requiring assistance in English Language learning by nearly double in two years, 117 in 2013 to 222 in 2015. Because about 80 of those students are not very proficient in English, the state requires Belmont to hire new staff to provide 2.5 hours of “small group instruction.”

Also in the overall population is a growing number special education students. The major component of the current year’s $500,000 school deficit is nearly $950,000 in unanticipated costs associated with special education. And those costs will increase in fiscal 2016 with the rising number of students entering the district.

When calculating the new costs required to the current “pressure points” and moving the current level of staff and teachers into the new year, the schools will need $49.2 million just to “stay current.”

But with rising costs and stagnate revenue, Phelan said schools will be unable to meet the demands of the residents and students for a top-tier education as it attempts to fill the $1.7 million gap.

“With enrollments going up, and the number of positions staying steady if not being reduced, I would be hard pressed to say we can continue what we are doing,” Phelan told the Belmontonian.

The cuts would be deep and substantial: 22 full-time positions from teaching, staff and aids would be cut, a further reduction in material and supplies, trimming professional development, forego building maintenance, increase the fees to rent school property and a large increase in student and family fees for sports, clubs and full-time kindergarten.

What isn’t seen in the cost cutting will be more students in each classroom, less programs and idle teens “sitting on benches in the high school and in study halls at the Chenery,” said Phelan.

“This can only negatively impact student learning.”

The solution in Phelan’s eye and, in previous discussions with the School Committee, is to enthusiastically support the proposal outlined last month by the Financial Task Force to request the Board of Selectmen to place a three-year, $4.5 million Proposition 2 1/2 override on the ballot to fund the enrollment issues facing the district.

“That is the solution,” he said.

John Sullivan, a Palfrey Road resident, Belmont teacher and president of the Belmont Education Association which represents district teachers in union negotiations, told the board that despite a highly trained and capable staff, class size impacts the day-to-day experience of students.

“If Belmont wants to maintain a high-quality student experience, one that puts Belmont High in the top 10 percent of high school state-wide, then the fiscal year ’16 budget, and future budgets, need to address the increase in enrollment,” said Sullivan.

Belmont’s League of Women Voters’ Candidate’s Night Set for March 26

By Leave a Comment

The nomination papers are not due into the Town Clerk’s Office until Tuesday, Feb. 17, but the Belmont League of Women Voters has selected the date for the League’s annual Candidate’s Night.
The highlight of the election season will take place on Thursday, March 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the Chenery Middle School, 95 Washington St.
The League will conduct the evening following its traditional order: those seeking Town Meeting membership are welcome to introduce themselves to the public – no speeches, thank you – then questions from a League panel for the unopposed town-wide candidates before ending the evening with a series of questions and some debating issues by those candidates in contested town-wide races.