Photo: Yard sale in Belmont.
Yard sales in the “Town of Homes.”
• 130 Common St., Saturday, Oct. 17, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
• 331 Common St., Saturday, Oct. 17, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
• 9 Coolidge Rd., Saturday, Oct. 17, 9 a.m. to noon.
• 22 Coolidge Rd., Saturday, Oct. 17, 9 a.m. to noon.
• 28 Coolidge Rd., Saturday, Oct. 17, 9 a.m. to noon.
• 25 Falmouth St., Saturday, Oct. 17, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• 56 Grove St., Saturday, Oct. 17, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Photo: The MBTA track crossing at Brighton Street.
The reconstruct of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority commuter rail grade crossing at Brighton Street will require a small but important segment of the road to be closed for more than 48 hours, requiring traffic to be detoured through Belmont Center, according to a press release from the T.
In addition to the temporary road closure, the release said work to the rail line will require the MBTA to suspend weekend service on the Fitchburg line until Nov. 22.
“We apologize for any inconvenience this work and may cause. It is critical that these major construction efforts be undertaken over weekends and some nights when the track is taken out of service. These improvements are essential to the rehabilitation of the Fitchburg Line,” said the release.
At approximately 1 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 17, Keolis Construction will begin the reconstruction work, closing the roadway to vehicular traffic until 5 a.m., Monday, Oct. 19, with the completion of the paving of the roadway.
Police details will be in place to mitigate any traffic issues, according to the MBTA. Access to the nearby neighborhood be residents and businesses will be maintained throughout construction by the detour.
More information on the weekend service suspension can be found at www.MBTA.com
Questions concerning the project, please contact us via email at MBTA Fitchburg Project email –FitchburgProject@MBTA.com or via telephone at MBTA Fitchburg Project Hotline 617-721-7506.
Photo: Belmont High senior swimmers and divers.
For the seniors on Belmont High’s Girls’ Swimming and Diving team, the past three meets with the Lexington High Minutemen have been heartbreakers (twice), exhilarating (last year) and always close in determining which team would win the Middlesex League title.
But for those seniors, this season’s confrontation held at Belmont’s Higgenbottom Pool on Wednesday, Oct. 14, would be an outlier as the Marauders scored often and early to easily power past the visiting Minutemen on Senior’s Day.
While the final score was 88-87, the officials stopped tallying Belmont’s score with three events remaining.
“We have a good solid team,” said Ev Crosscup, Belmont’s head coach who has been coping with a serious lung infection over the past five weeks.
“We are continuing to work hard and don’t let down. I’m not concerned that we are peaking too soon. We should be OK going into the sectionals and state championships.”
In two weeks, Belmont will host a red-hot Reading High Rockets, which is returning to its past prominence when it won multiple league titles.
“That will be difficult,” said Crosscup. “They have a ton of good freshmen and are also quite solid in every stroke. It should be a very competitive, exciting meet.”
Shining for the Marauders was, predictably, senior star and co-captain Jessica Blake-West who broke Belmont’s long-standing 50-yard freestyle pool record with a blistering 24.57 seconds, one of four events that Blake-West dominated individually or as part of a team.
The four-year starter, who Crosscup called one of the best overall swimmers in the state, also took first in her specialty, the 100 butterfly in 57.34 (eight seconds faster than the field) in which she is defending Div. 2 state champion.
Blake-West started the meet joining freshman Sophie Butte, sophomore Alison Sawyer and freshman find Nicole Kalavantis to win the 200 medley relay, dipping under two minutes in 1 minute, 59.31 seconds, while later teaming up with Sawyer, Solvay Metelmann (who finished second in both the 50 free and the 100 backstroke) and Julia Bozkurtain to capture the 200 free relay.
Joining Blake-West with multiple wins was Kalavantis, who took first in the 200 (2:05.50) and 500 free (5:36.78) where she led a Marauder sweep with senior co-captain Sara Noorouzi (second) and junior Allie Beecroft (third).
Capturing firsts included senior co-captain Emily Quinn in her specialty, the 100 breaststroke, in 1:11.71 and junior Molly Thomas whose 1:06.88 in the 100 back qualified her for the state championships.
Over at diving, senior Cynthia Kelsey treated the meet with a perfect score of 10 (out of three judges) in her first of six dives to win the competition.
At the midpoint of the meet, seniors from both teams received roses and balloons and Crosscup’s speech about fleas didn’t go over as well as expected. But the girls joined him in reciting a quote from one of their coach’s favorite speakers, UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.
“Strive each day to make it your masterpiece.”
Dear Belmont Residents:
We are all in our neighborhood parks, sports fields and athletic facilities at one time or another, either participating or enthusiastically coaching or cheering from the sidelines. All too often, in the flurry to head out to the next engagement, our parks, fields and facilities are left in a bit of a mess.
Here is a simple mnemonic device for coaches, instructors, parents and athletes to address this situation before the field is deserted. It’s called WAIT, and it breaks down as follows:
W – Waterbottle: Double check that you have your water bottle (recyclable or preferably reusable)
A – Athletic Gear: Look around! Do you (and your teammates) have your sweatshirt, goalie gloves, cleats or helmet? What about cones, balls, bats and sticks?
I – Itty Bitty Pieces of Trash: OK, this really means all trash. But, a thorough scan for the little stuff – stray bottle caps, the ripped off corners of granola bars wrappers, the lone orange rind, gum wrappers and wads of athletic tape – makes a difference.
T – Thank your coaches: Or instructors, or teachers, or lifeguards, or drivers or leaders, whether they are volunteers or professionals. They are out there because of you, and a little acknowledgement and appreciation goes a long way.
Please take a moment to share this with your team, your teammates or your families. Think about the impact if we all could WAIT before heading home!
Donna Ruvolo
Choate Road
Photo: Everyone pitched in at Monday’s Belmont Serves.
Wearing gloves and carrying a clipboard, Mary Lewis was spending a beautiful Columbus Day morning getting dirty.
As one of two coordinators at the Burbank Elementary School, Lewis had a long list of projects that needed to be done during the sixth annual Belmont Serves day of community service.
“We’ve been clearing a lot of brush from the back of the hill, picking weeds and planting pretty bulbs for the spring,” she said, as three friends from the Chenery Middle School – Anthony Casale, Zach Moss and Harry Brennan – prepare to load branches and leaves into yard waste bags.
“We’ve done a lot, just this morning,” said Brennan.
For more than 300 parents, children, teens and other residents who started and ended the day at St. Joseph Parish Hall, the Columbus Day holiday was not of laying around until noon, but an effort to give back to the community where they live.
Sponsored by the Belmont Religious Council, Belmont Serves “is about providing just a little help to people or a project that needs our attention,” said Rev. Joseph Zarro of Plymouth Congregational Church, this year’s BRC vice president.
The largest group event each year is retrieving grocery bags of food that residents left on their stoops the night before for pick-up on Monday. SUVs and cars toured specific neighborhoods around Belmont collecting the food stuffs and sundries, bringing them back to the Belmont Food Pantry located behind Belmont High School.
By early afternoon, 1,700 bags of food was delivered to the Pantry, restocking the empty shelves – there are no food drives in the summer – which will last through the holidays in December.
“This is a tremendous response from the Belmont community to support and help their neighbors. I know that the recipients of the pantry appreciate and are most grateful to the Belmont residents,” said Patty Mihelich, the pantry manager.
She said at least 50 volunteers helping both outside and inside the building, sorting and stocking, “and everyone had a great time.”
Special thanks go to the following businesses who supplied the paper bags: Iggys, Belmont Cambridge and Waltham Star, Whole Foods Cambridge, Arlington and Cambridge Trader Joes.
Photo: A great example of worker’s housing in Belmont in the mid-19th century.
16 Leslie Rd. #2. Walk-up condominium (1925). Sold: $501,000.
332 Cross St. Mansard-style Colonial (1860). Sold: $641,000.
A weekly recap of residential properties sold in the past seven-plus days in the “Town of Homes.”
• 16 Leslie Rd. #2. Walk-up condominium (1925). Sold: $501,000. Listed at $425,000. Living area: 1,185 sq.-ft. 7 rooms, 3 bedrooms, 1 baths. On the market: 56 days
• 332 Cross St. Mansard-style Colonial (1860). Sold: $641,000. Listed at $699,000. Living area: 1,462 sq.-ft. 7 rooms, 2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. On the market: 101 days
The tiny antebellum “old-style” Colonial on Cross Street is a gem of a house (once you get by the 1950’s brick and iron stoop) that is one of few remaining examples of seasonal housing built for the ice and brick workers that populated the area from the 1840s to the 1870s. The architecture and the building construction are basic and one of the reasons many of these dwellings were pulled down when the land was turned into subdivisions.
But this “laborer’s cottage” with the mansard roof, which could have been added later to increase the space to its second story, survived in fairly good shape. There are even the remnants of the original “front parlor.” Not on the same historic level as the grand houses on Pleasant or Somerset, but a great example how the average worker lived as Belmont grew.
Photo: Belmont High Girls’ Swimming Head Coach Ev Crosscup and his assistant, Gretchen Turner.
The water in Belmont High School’s Higgenbottom Pool was churning from six lanes of swimmers powering over the 25-meter course as teammates urge the backstrokers on as they prepare to reach for the wall.
While the meet between Belmont and Burlington high schools was determined several races before – the Marauders piled up the points early and often – Belmont High’s venerable head coach Ev Crosscup began gathering up his belongs and started slowly for the exit.
But Crosscup’s action was not due to the score.
“I’ve run out of gas,” Crosscup said as he pulled his alway present baseball cap over his eyes, apologizing that he’s unable to stay longer to speak about his team. Sitting on a bench on the pool’s edge, Crosscup’s eyes mostly stares downward even as his team wins another meet.
In a season the Marauders is one of the favorites to win a first state championship – Belmont has been runners-up in the past two Div. 2 title meets – and defend its Middlesex League title, the team’s long-time coach is struggling with a lingering illness in his lungs that hospitalized him for six days in September.
Today, the two-time Boston Globe All-Scholastic Swimming Coach of the Year undergoes continuing painful treatments stripping him of his strength and ability to sit in the humid pool enclosure.
“I was stubborn, a very male reaction to being sick. I thought I could ignore it, and it would go away,” said Crosscup, who has known many of the Marauders since they first tried out as kindergarteners on the Belmont Aquatics Team he coached.
With Crosscup’s daily coaching limited, leading the team in practice and motivating it towards a goal of a state title has been taken up by the Marauders’ four senior co-captains and it’s second-year assistant coach, Gretchen Turner.
For Sarah Stewart, a senior co-captain and relay specialist, the absence of Crosscup – a tall, lanky New Englander who doesn’t need to raise his voice to be heard and who’s exceedingly polite and proper – is felt by the entire team.
“[Crosscup] has been missing every day but we hear from him so even though he’s not physically here, we know he’s with us,” said Stewart.
For Stewart and her fellow captains, “there are situations that we know, ‘no, you can’t [reduce the time for each lap of the pool], you have to push more, Ev would want you to do that’.”
And it is the seniors and juniors, who have spent time with Crosscup, who have taken to conveying that respect for hard work to a large number of freshmen and sophomores swimming beside them, she said.
“There’s an unspoken commitment that we have to each other, that motivates us,” she said.
So far, the season has seen Belmont put up solid results, staying with Division 1 powers Chelmsford and Andover while dominating the league schedule. And much the credit for putting all the pieces in the correct order has fallen onto Crosscup’s assistant, Gretchen Turner.
“This year, [Turner] definitely stepped up,” said Stewart.
Turner grew up in a swimming family in Littleton and swam for the Acton-Boxborough Town Swim Team under legionary coach Jeff Johnson (who also coaches the Acton-Boxborough Regional High School Girls’ team) since she was four.
Recruited to play soccer at Niagara University, she would see the swimmers head off for 5:30 a.m. practice “and I really missed that.” Deciding she didn’t like high-level soccer but loved the water, Turner was able to swim competitive breaststroke for her four years with the Purple Eagles graduating in 2003.
After college, Turner had helped Johnson with the club program and worked with her family’s swimming lessons business when she learned from her sister, Belmont High School Assistant Principal Sherri Turner, that a position opened with Crosscut and immediately got her an interview.
“Ev and I hit it off immediately,” said Turner.
While Turner has all but taken the reins of the program due to Crosscup’s illness, it’s not as if she has been thrown into the deep in the pool, struggling to meet the challenge of running the team.
“Crosscup did such a great job last year preparing me for this, not knowing this was going to happen,” said Turner, allowing her to set the practices, arranging the lineups for the contests, and once when he was away last year, to run an entire meet by herself.
“There are still things that I’m learning that I’ve missed, but I’m so thankful he stepped aside and pushed me last year,” Turner said.
Turner admits there is added pressure on her with the program’s successes over the past three years
“I don’t want to let them down with the expectations for the season what the girls want to get out of it. Every minute of every day, I’m thinking of them and where they want to go,” she said.
And that journey, all hope, will end next month with the girls celebrating in Harvard’s Blodgett Pool with a state championship trophy.
Stewart said since the first day of trials, “our goal is to win states. We choose that goal last April at the captain’s meeting. We’ve put that in the heads of the new kids who made the team.”
And now they want to dedicate their goal to Ev.
“We want to prove to [Crosscup] that our aim will be achieved and met,” said Stewart.
Photo: Belmont’s Kate McCarthy skies for a shot against Arlington.
After its hard-fought loss to powerhouse Watertown this past Thursday, Belmont Field Hockey headed back to its home on Harris Field to begin the home stretch of its season with a Columbus Day matinee against Arlington.
And the Marauders reestablished its impressive scoring touch with a workman-like 7-0 defeat of the SpyPonders as the team prepares for two important match-ups with league rivals; one just above them in the standings and the other just behind.
Monday, senior forward Kate McCarthy and co-captain Serena Nalley hit for a pair of goals each while Kerri Lynch and freshman Morgan Chase (along with two assists) each scored while junior leader AnnMarie Habelow has a goal and an assist as defenders Julia Lynch and Molly Goldberg each tallied two assists.
Next Monday, Belmont (10-2-0) will visit Lexington (9-3-1), which is undefeated at home in the rematch of the Marauder’s 2-0 win in September. Belmont will seek to avenge its only other defeat of the season when Winchester (10-2-0) comes to Harris Field on Wednesday, Oct. 21. Belmont was leading 4-1 midway through the second half before allowing four goals in 12 minutes to lose 5-4. The Winchester game will also be Senior’s Night.
“We are trying to improve every one of our skills,” said Head Coach Jessie Smith. “Our defense has really picked up recently.
Smith said what they took away from the Watertown match, a 4-0 defeat (1-0 at the half) against the six-time consecutive Div. 2 state champions was to keep its work rate high even if the score is 7-0.
“We need to know that it’s always important to continue to look for the pass, to make them more automatic. That will happen by practicing it in each game,” said Smith.
Photo:
Belmont has a standing appointment each week with a town service it can not do without.
And it’s not the Board of Selectmen.
Town trash collection impacts every visitor, resident, business, and school in Belmont, and is as essential as water and electricity. The prospect of dealing with one’s garbage as some communities require – bagging, storing and hauling to a waste station – is a non-starter for many modern suburbanites.
So the early morning cacophony of squealing brakes and large compactors crushing tons of garbage arrives as sweet music to the ears of Belmontians.
According to town officials, residents and businesses are happy with the service – as long as the containers don’t fly off on blustery Spring days.
But this familiar service is likely to change, possibly significantly, as Belmont’s current trash and recycling collection contract with Somerville-based F W Russell and Son expires in June 2016.
In a presentation to the board by Department of Public Works Director John Marcotte and the town’s recycling coordinator, Mary Beth Calnan, the board – which will approve the subsequent contract – will need to be cognizant of changes in the trash collection industry while encouraging the public to embrace the new features.
“We want to do this in a way that people feel educated and that it’s not rushed,” said Belmont Town Administrator David Kale who with Marcotte is leading the town’s effort on crafting a new contract.
“If you tell people ‘You’re going to pay money for … an extra container or there [are] no more bulky items, I think that’s a change that you have to let people know about, so it’s not as painful [if it happens,]” said Kale.
The Selectmen appear willing to take an extended and deliberate approach before signing a new contract.
“Any changes will be a big deal for folks,” said Selectman Mark Paolillo.
“The radical changes that could take place years from now in terms of automated waste collection where the industry is going, I get it,” said Paolillo.
“Getting input today we could somehow inform our next contractor we may want to change it a little bit,” said Paolillo.
One approach the Selectmen is gravitating towards is extending the current contract with Russell – one of the largest residential trash collector in Massachusetts – by a year or 18 months to allow “our public process” to be completed, said Selectmen Chair Sami Baghdady.
The current $1.07 million contract calls for weekly collection of an unlimited number of barrels or bulk items – you take it to the curb, they’ll take it away – Monday through Thursday from just about 10,000 locations around Belmont. While Russell will take just about everything, appliances ($20) and anything with a CRT monitor ($15) cost extra, said Marcotte.
According to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, Belmont is not such a trashy locale; at three-quarters of a ton of trash produced per household annually, the “Town of Homes” is well below the state’s goal of one ton of garbage annually from each pickup point.
Belmont compares nicely to neighboring towns such as Lexington with a five bag/barrel limit producing .74 tons of trash per household, Bedford with a single, 48-gallon barrel limit generating just under .9 tons. Only Arlington, with its three, 32-gallon barrel restriction, produces less at .63 tons.
On the recycling end, Belmont uses a biweekly dual stream recycling system separating paper and containers, at a yearly cost of $376,285. The material is sold in the commodity market with Belmont’s “cut” already calculated in the contract, said Marcotte.
Belmont’s yard waste is collected biweekly curbside 36 weeks. When the leaves begin falling, it is collected weekly.
While Belmont’s current garbage and recycling collection agreement has worked well, significant changes occurring in the removal industry will bring changes in collecting trash, according to Marcotte.
The first is automated collection in which a truck with a side arm picks up barrels and dumps the contents into a hopper. Firms like this mechanism as it reduces the number of employees and their associated costs.
But there is a large investment upfront for the town in purchasing the “carts” each household and business will be required to use.
Also, using carts will end resident’s unlimited trash collection and the free removal of “bulky” items that would require a traditional garbage truck.
The second is single-stream recycling in which a single container holds all materials. The upside is that it makes recycling much easier and in turn Belmont’s low recycling rate will increase.
The downside, according to communities using this system, is that many residents will put regular trash into the recycling bins, reducing net recycling percentages. And costs will jump as processors charge a “tip” fee based on what it takes in.
According to Marcotte, Belmont’s current dual stream system is “cleaner” (especially with paper products) which is more valuable to processors as it can be sold as commodities to large-scale recyclers in locations as far away as China.
Marcotte said the town will need to begin the process in the next month “because [the expiration date of the old contract] will be before us before you know it.”
Yet Baghdady said “the community needs to participate in the process of making a big change in the way trash is disposed [of].”
Photo: Broadway Night in the Little Theater.
On the government side of “This Week”:
• Tuesday is story time at both of Belmont libraries.
• Infant Storytime, for infants up to 12 months and pre-walkers, includes a short program of songs and rhymes followed by time to play and socialize. The fun takes place on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the Belmont Public Library’s Flett Room.