• Brighton Street’s The Loading Dock is granted by the Belmont Board of Selectmen a sole full-liqour retail license, beating out two other applicants. The license will come with conditions including that the anticipated renovations at the convenience store (as it transforms into an “international cafe/bistro” according to owner Faud Nicolas Mukarker) are completed and the store will no longer sell tobacco or lottery tickets.

• Belmont High School social studies teacher Dr. Jeff Shea was named the 2014 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year. Shea will be recognized in a ceremony at Belmont High School this Tuesday.

• The Belmont School District is running an $220,000 deficit for the fiscal 2014 budget due to the need for additional instructors in responses to the rapid increase in student enrollment, a rise in expense for special education and unanticipated costs such as the repairs to the Higginbottom Pool. 

• Less than six months since it was passed by November’s Special Town Meeting, a resident discussed before a public forum on the upcoming Town Meeting articles his citizen’s petition to strike the residential snow removal bylaw from the books.

• After a recount of the ballots cast at Precinct 3 – the first election recount in Belmont in more than a dozen years – it turned out that long-time Town Meeting member Marty Cohen lost his re-election bid by a single vote.