Local Government Update, March 2026
Listen to the latest conversation with Tyler Cote, the Community Engagement Specialist for the City of Watertown, and Victoria Weichel from WCA-TV to discuss things that have happened during the past month in Watertown through key moments, success stories, and important numbers.
Released March 12th, 2026
(Click here to listen on streaming apps) (Full transcript below)
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Links mentioned in the episode:
Human Rights Commission - February 17th
Committee on Rules and Ordinance - February 24th
Committee on Budget and Fiscal Oversight- March 2nd
Check out recordings from city meetings and find info on upcoming workshops at: wcatv.org
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This program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
Transcript
Matt 0:07
Hi there, welcome to the Little Local Conversations Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode I sit down for a conversation to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This episode is one of the monthly local government updates that I do with Tyler Cote, the Community Engagement Specialist for the City of Watertown, and Victoria Weichel over at WCA-TV. This episode is for the month of March 2026. And I will say this one might be a little shorter than some other ones, because I actually did cut out a couple of sections that mentioned ramifications from the big snowstorms that we've had. But by the time I got to releasing this episode, the snow is pretty much melted because of the warm weather, so it wasn't really relevant anymore. If you haven't heard, the parking ban, the overnight parking ban has now been lifted by the city. So yeah, enjoy seeing the grass again. But otherwise, here's the rest of the conversation I had with Tyler and Victoria.
Matt: 0:58
Welcome to the Local Government Update podcast. I am here as always with Tyler.
Tyler: 1:02
Hello.
Matt: 1:03
And Victoria.
Victoria: 1:04
Hello.
Matt: 1:05
We are going to talk about things for the month of March 2026. Let's get right into it. Victoria, what is your moment from the past month?
Victoria 1:13
So my moment for the past month was during February 17th's Human Rights Commission meeting, the commission held discussions about recent immigration enforcement. They discussed it with Captain Unsworth, immigration attorney Karen Bobadilla, and Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan. I want to highlight this discussion mostly because I think it's very informative. If you're very curious of what is actually happening, this is a very good place to start, especially in the hyper-focused Watertown area. So Captain Dan Unsworth discusses what local police involvement can and cannot do when it comes to ICE involvement. Attorney Karen Bobadilla goes into discussion of what is happening in the courts and what civilians can do to keep themselves safe. Primarily what they can do is know their rights. And Marian Ryan discusses how ICE has changed over the few years and how they have changed their tactics. And she also goes into details of how her office has successfully sued ICE in the past.
Matt 2:08
And was there any Watertown specific things that were interesting that came out of that or just generalized things?
Victoria 2:13
It was mostly very generalized. If you really want to know what local police can do, I recommend listening to Dan Unsworth’s discussions. He goes into what Watertown Police Department has, including concerns with civil rights, where to go on the Watertown Police Department's website and report it and get in contact with the police department.
Matt 2:32
Anything to tag on to that, Tyler?
Tyler 2:34
Yeah, I'll just add on that city manager Proakis also spoke about the city, our city manager's office, 311, we've received questions regarding immigration enforcement in Watertown as well, and what the role of the city is in the process, what role the police department plays. So if you are interested in hearing a little bit more from the city manager's perspective, which is reiterating a lot of things that Captain Unsworth has spoken about and then Chief Hanrahan has spoken about in the past as well. George, our city manager, spoke at length at a council meeting about this in mid-February. I believe it was at the February 10th meeting, if my memory serves me right, and gave a little bit of perspective regarding what role the city has, the role that, you know, the fact that Watertown Police Department's duty is to protect and serve everyone who lives, works, visits here. That it's not their role to enforce federal immigration regulations. There is a clear kind of line between what the police department is actively working to do and then things that aren't under their jurisdiction.
Tyler: 3:39
So I recommend giving a look at that and continuing to seek out resources that are available around the community as well. And I know that there's community conversations that are happening around this topic, joining a human rights commission meeting as well. They're meeting every month, sometimes more than once a month. And this is typically an item on their agendas in some form or another. So you can certainly connect with them. And even if it's just sharing perspective or asking for where resources might be available, and they've been a great resource with regards to this conversation through Waterown here over the last several months.
Matt 4:12
Gotcha. All right. So let's go to next section, success stories. Victoria, what is yours?
Victoria 4:20
So mine is on February 24th, the Committee on Rules and Ordinances met to discuss and vote on the pet shop ordinance. This ordinance focused on puppies, kitties, and rabbits from large-scale facilities breeding animals for profit. Under the current zoning in Watertown, overnight boarding of pets is not allowed. So this has not been an issue in Watertown, having what some people may call puppy mills or kitty mills. But this proposed ordinance would allow animal rescues and shelters to come into Watertown. There was discussions during the meeting about broadening it to mammals, but that was put off. They wanted to focus on the puppies, kitties, and rabbits because they are the most affected by these large-scale facilities. You can expect this ordinance to be discussed at an upcoming city council meeting down the line.
Matt 5:08
All right, Tyler, what is your success story here?
Tyler 5:11
Yeah, so I know in the past I've given a little bit of update with regards to Watertown Square. And maybe this isn't necessarily a success story as much as it is just I want everybody to be totally up to date on where we're at and recent announcements and such. A success story in the sense that we are continuing on with the project, which I think there's always something to celebrate with that. The city released an update about Watertown Square and the Watertown Square process over the last couple of weeks in the latter half of February 2026. To catch everybody up on the reasons why things have been relatively quiet. I think I may have given an update regarding Watertown Square back in like September time, maybe our September, October episode, just saying, like, hey, the ball is going to start moving again. Well, the ball is definitely moving now. So I want to give a little bit of an update as to where we are.
Tyler: 5:59
So to catch everybody up back in 2024, we passed the Watertown Square Area Plan. I won't go too deep into this. There's many ways that you can learn about this whole process. I'll even share some of them here soon. But our council endorsed the Watertown Square Area Plan, which was a vision for the future of our downtown in November of 2024. The first step of implementation was completed, which was adopting new zoning for the downtown Watertown Square, which complied with the MBTA communities law. That was a big first step, and there was a requirement to have that step passed by the end of 2024. Now, through all of 2025, it was preparing for what this next step is, which is to get involved in an urban revitalization plan and then also a streetscape design effort. Those are two separate pathways that are happening at the same time. They are informed by each other, but they're not, you know, you may be going to meetings or hearing announcements for us that are only about one of those plans because they're happening with two completely separate consultants and they're focusing on two different things.
Tyler: 7:05
The urban revitalization plan, it's a legal process that essentially the goal is to investigate an area, determine what the development potential is of that area. And the outcome is like this set of strategies, a series of strategies that basically tells you and tells us as the city, like, hey, this is how you can get the development or how you can bring the vision of your plan to life. It identifies some barriers. So, for example, maybe there's a pipe right below an area of Watertown Square that's owned by Cambridge. That can sometimes cause some new development concerns when developers are looking to maybe put up new housing or bring a new business into the downtown square. So, what this revitalization plan is doing is identifying all those things and then helping design strategies to address those concerns so that you can bring to life the vision that's outlined in the Watertown Square Plan. The Watertown Square Plan is kind of like a 30,000-foot idea of what the square can be.
Matt 8:07
We’re building that high, huh?
Tyler 8:08
Whoa, hey, whoa. Not that high. So that's like a bird's eye view vision. Now we're getting a little bit more detailed in this urban revitalization plan. While that's being done, and that's the city has brought in Innes Land Strategies to do that work. So they have done urban revitalization plans in the past. So they are actively working on that now. And you can anticipate that work to be done throughout 2026 for the most part. We anticipate a lot of this work to be done as we get into the latter part of this year. The first step of that is a demonstration project, which is basically just doing that larger urban revitalization plan, but a super detailed look into just one little area. It's almost like a proof of concept, essentially, just to show you what we're going to do for the entire area. This is an example of that here in a smaller area of space within the square. So that will be done through this first quarter of 2026. So that will end up eventually being shared out with the community, which will be exciting.
Tyler: 9:06
The other side of the project is that streetscape design. Now, this is an engineering plan. This is getting into everything of, as I mentioned, what is below the ground, identifying where things are below the ground, how far down they go, and who owns them. And then also working on bringing to life a 100% design of that four corners concept that was endorsed in the Watertown Square plan, which is a new four-way streetscape in that direct downtown area, diverting a couple of roads to new areas of the square, an improvement of the amount of space. The concept design reclaims about three, a little over three acres of space that is currently pavement, to be now like open space, sidewalk, place that people can actually spend time. Planners love to use the word public realm. It's essentially the spaces that aren't buildings that also aren't streets.
Tyler: 10:04
This is a long process. The outcome will be a 100% construction design that can be handed over to a construction crew for them to actually complete. But this is going to take potentially up to 18, 24 months. We're looking at a pretty long-term process in order to get this done. It's a large amount of space to do these detailed construction designs of. And there will be many updates through this process in many different forms. I highly recommend everybody to visit Watertown Square Improvements.com slash news. This most recent update that I'm pulling a lot of this information from was posted there and also emailed out to subscribers. You can go to that website and subscribe to our newsletter, which will certainly get more active here over the next several months as this process is really picking up.
Tyler: 10:48
One thing that we want residents to be aware of is that progress sometimes on these projects is not always a linear, steady pace. Sometimes it's a lot of things in a short amount of time, and then it's, there's a slowdown and there's not a lot of work for a couple of months, and then a lot of progress for a little bit. So we're going to try and do everything we can to keep everybody updated, even if updates are just, hey, there are no updates. The update is there are no updates. Not only for our businesses to make sure that they're fully aware and part of the conversation, but also our residents so that they have an idea of kind of where we're at. So I would anticipate some more announcements here over the next handful of months with regards to both of these projects as they get really going and are gearing up here. So we're excited to get into that next stage and get into the next process and continue conversations with our residents and with the council as well as they're taking on a big role in this process.
Matt 11:39
Gotcha. Next up, we have, Did you know? Alright, Tyler.
Tyler 11:43
Did you know? 311, they now have texting. It's 2026. We're all texting all the time.
Matt 11:49
SMS, technology of the future.
Tyler 11:51
Yeah, here it is. It's like dipping dots. It's the future of ice cream. Texting, the future of communication.
Matt 11:58
There you go.
Tyler 11:59
So you can text 311. You're not going to be texting 311 the number. You need to text the number 617-458-8311. Got that nice final three numbers in there.
Matt 12:11
311-311-311 was already taken?
Tyler 12:13
Already taken. Disappointingly, already taken. Yeah. So 617-458-8311. You can text a question. You can text a request. You can text an idea. And then the 311 team will either respond to it with an answer. Say you're like, hey, what time is the city council meeting tonight? You text 311. They'll just answer you like they're just a friend that you're texting that question to. Laura and Stephanie are there to respond. Or maybe you cross a big pothole, you take a picture, you send that over to 311. What they'll do is they'll open up a ticket in the same way that it would be if you submitted it over SeeClickFix. Then you'll be able to see it on the Watertown app. But just a new way for you to connect with our city to submit concerns, submit a complaint, a non-emergency request. And credit to 311 team, as always, for always trying to find ways to open new doors for our residents to connect with us. So now, easier than ever, you can save the number in your phone, text over a question, text over a concern, and our team will be there to help out. I will say, even though we're texting now, they're still only open during their normal operating hours. Even though texting feels a little bit more informal and they can do it any time, if you text us at midnight, we will get to it around 8:30 the next morning.
Matt 13:27
Cool. All right. Let's keep it moving to questions we get a lot. Tyler, what question is popping up for you guys?
Tyler 13:34
Yeah, lately, I mean, we got a lot of questions about trash and recycling because we had a one-day delay due to the storm. Talking with our 311 team, that seems to be one of the most common questions that they receive. And I do want to say whenever we have one-day delays with trash and recycling, especially one-day delays that are caused by storms, typically what will happen is Republic Services will, say it's a Tuesday, we're on a one-day delay. So they're doing Monday's route. They will typically go through all of Monday's route on Tuesday. And if they have extra time, they will start on Tuesday's route. And if they can get some bins done on Tuesday, a day early, then they will, but they will still go down that same street the next day, anyways, when it was originally scheduled. So sometimes we see questions pop up online and on social, or maybe they reach out to 311 saying, like, hey, the trash trucks just drove by, but I thought it was a one-day delay, my pickup's not till tomorrow. They're gonna come back tomorrow. It just is a time-saving measure for them. So that really what they're hoping for is that Saturday route that they're doing, that they may be able to maybe shave a little bit of time off Saturday route.
Matt 14:40
So we got no numbers this month. So we're gonna just skip on ahead to our department committee spotlight, which I don't know if this is really a department committee spotlight, Tyler. What have we got here?
Tyler 14:51
I know, I know. Well, I will say, as I was identifying what to speak about here, I was back in my notes, and when we had originally kind of envisioned this, I had budget slash department slash committee. So I was like, well, if not now, then when? It's time for a budget primer. I know our listeners are clamoring for a budget primer, they've been just thinking about the budget.
Matt 15:14
Big foam fingers that says budget.
Tyler 15:16
Yep. Yep. We should, we should look into that.
Matt 15:21
Tyler's eyes just lit up.
Tyler 15:23
Wow, that got me going. So I do want to give just a slight budget primer. The budget's a year-long process. Nobody loves saying that more than our budget team. It is a year-long process. The next year's budget starts the second that the current budget gets passed. I know I've done some touch points here with everything from our city manager's mid-year budget overview, which happens typically in October, some memos and presentations that are given throughout the year and working with the budget and fiscal oversight committee. So there's a lot of steps that go on. But we are here recording on March 2nd. We're probably looking at maybe a little over a month until the next budget gets delivered. If just using previous years as a guide as to when these budgets are released. So we're anticipating it sometime, probably in April. And I want to just give a very, very high-level brief summary as the way that the budget is a little bit, like what is the budget? What can you expect in it? Not so much the numbers, but like how is it set up? So maybe we can do a deeper dive in future episodes in some form.
Tyler: 16:26
So when we put the budget together, there are a couple of pretty important distinctions. There is an operating budget that is also referred to as the general fund. That is probably most easily described as paying for kind of day-to-day operations. So that includes everything from like the payment of the gas that goes into our trucks that are going around town. That pays for the salaries or the benefits of staff as well. Pays for the technological services. Our 311 service, it has like the actual technology that allows 311 to run, is paid through out of this general fund or the operating budget. When we are building the budget, there's almost like two budgets in there. There's actually kind of a third called the sewer and water enterprise fund. I'm not gonna, if you were here for the sewer and water enterprise fund detail, I'm sorry, I have to kick it to a future episode. But that is one budget, which is usually broken down by department to department, is typically how it's formatted.
Tyler: 17:25
Then there's the capital improvement program. You've probably heard me refer to this as the CIP in the past. Unlike the general fund, which again is kind of that day-to-day, year-to-year expenses, the CIP is a five-year outlook. And it is only focusing on the high-cost, expensive equipment or expensive programs or projects that need to be planned to ensure city's infrastructure is being maintained, or maybe bring to life a new building in some form. So our schools would be considered a CIP project, or a new vehicle would be considered a CIP project. So our city manager released a memo in late January this year where he actually said that this year, the way that they're defining CIPs is an asset that has a use life of at least two years with a purchase price of at least $20,000. If it does not exceed that $20,000, if it doesn't meet that threshold, you will find that item in our operating budget or in our general fund. So that is the differentiation. If we have any people that need definitions, that is probably the best way to describe what a CIP is.
Matt 18:36
AKA the big stuff.
Tyler 18:37
Yeah, the big stuff, the measurable things. I mean it's sometimes hard to kind of see the you know, OPEB, which is the other employee benefits, something along those lines. Whereas, you know, a new car, a new building, you can actually physically see those things, right? Typically, when you see these big items that are added to the CIP, the actual, if you really want to dive into the details, it comes with a table with colored coded cells that basically is like, hey, this is gonna cost $20,000 and the cell is colored yellow. And that yellow actually has a determination as to like, okay, that actually means that it is being paid for by bonds or maybe a loan, for example. Or sometimes it will be coded blue, and then we know that that is gonna be paid for by tax revenue. So you can actually see how these specific items over the next five years are gonna be paid for. Although there are some cases where something is listed as a TBD, or like we know that we want to pay for this in FY 2029, which will start July 1st, 2028, not to add even more complexity to the conversation. But those things may end up saying still to be determined, or a TBD.
Tyler: 19:51
The reason why we do that, and people that are listening may be wondering, well, why would you put something into the budget that you don't know how you're gonna pay for it yet? And that's part of the strategy in developing these budgets of, hey, we know that this is a priority. Our council said that this is a priority item that we need to consider. We are exploring ways that we can pay for it, whether it is tax revenue, maybe ends up being a grant that we seek out to help pay for part of it, or maybe it's bond service, something. We're seeking a way to get this done, but we're putting it in the plan so that when we are approaching that 2029 or 2027, sometimes things in 2027 are still listed as TBD, even though that is the coming fiscal year. It is basically just as like a reminder for us of we know we have to do this, it is part of the plan. Now we need to work to try and figure out how we're gonna pay for that thing. It's just a part of strategically thinking about how we're gonna build this budget out.
Tyler: 20:45
So, what's happening right now in March is the budget team is meeting with the budget and fiscal oversight committee, which is a subcommittee of the city council. They are making recommendations to the CIP so you can actually join. There's a meeting tonight.
Victoria 20:59
I was gonna mention that.
Tyler 21:00
Yeah. So by the time you are listening to this, you will be able to go back and actually watch that discussion where they actually go through some of the big items that are in the CIP. It's more detailed conversations into some of these very specific items. And then when it comes time for the city manager to present the operating budget, the general fund in April, a lot of that discussion is typically done looking at just the general fund because a lot of the conversations with the CIP had already been done in the lead up because there's a lot of planning that goes into both of those. So that is a very brief, yet somehow the longest potential way that I can describe the fact that there are kind of two budgets in one budget. So that's a budget primer. I did not even scratch beyond the surface of the budget. There will be more to share on the budget as we get a little bit further along, but I wanted to give a little bit of a primer as to what's included, how are they separate, what's different about those two things, and then also acknowledge that we also have a water and sewer enterprise fund.
Matt 21:59
Gotcha. I've been thinking while you're talking about, I was listening to what you're saying, I promise. But also we got our foam fingers that say budget on it. What's like the cheese head, like what's the thing you can wear on your head that's the equivalent of that? You know, is it a tax document, doesn't look good?
Tyler 22:13
No, that won't sell.
Matt 22:15
You know, like a new building, a building on your head or something.
Tyler 22:18
Yeah, that could be. I was looking through some of the items that were TBD in the most recent proposal from the city manager. He proposes it to the council and then it's discussed and things are moved around, changed, whatever it might be. Like one of the things is new windows at the Parker building. Sometimes it's like, it is just windows. Not everything's a new building. Sometimes it's windows, something like that. We could just pick an item every year out of the CIP and be like, this is our foam head this year. We're going Parker building windows.
Matt 22:46
You know, I'm, we're giving you gold here.
Tyler 22:48
So I'll report back on how we can procure.
Matt 22:51
Yeah. Do mine make it to the desk, Tyler?
Tyler 22:55
Are these mics on?
Matt 22:56
Yeah, yeah. All right, all right. All right. Well, we'll look forward to some more budget talk in future episodes. Let's wrap it up with what's coming up. What do we have for upcoming? Who has anything to share?
Victoria 23:08
I will just say in regards to meetings, a lot of meetings will be focusing on the budget. We're in the about two and a half month stretch where it's going to be a lot of budget talks. In the sense of Watertown Cable Access, we have a lot coming up for workshops. Check out our social media. We have a teen workshop with the Watertown Boys and Girls Club coming up during April vacation. And we should be opening our signups for our youth workshop very soon that takes place in the summer. So keep an eye out on our social media for that.
Matt: 23:34
Awesome. Tyler, what do you got?
Tyler: 23:36
Not gonna call out any particular meeting today, but stay connected on our city socials, city website. Do you have any updates, Matt?
Matt 23:44
Well, the event that I was supposed to have at Cable Access last month was delayed because of the snow. So instead of February 24th, now March 24th. You want to come to the marketing and storytelling for solopreneurs panel discussion. Going to be on March 24th, Tuesday, 10 a.m. to noon. Going to be a great six-person panel. And then, maybe before the next time we record too, I'm gonna be actually doing another event here at Cable Access. Next Watertown's Open will be only a couple weeks after that because of the reschedule. And that will be on tourism, summer tourism, how to capture that in Watertown because that's a lot of stuff this summer. From World Cup to Tall Ships, Treaty Day, Mass 250, all that good stuff. So we have some good people talking about that too.
Tyler: 24:25
That's great.
Matt: 24:26
Yeah. And then there's Creative Chats and all that stuff too. If you're interested in arts and culture, first Friday of every month. So yeah.
Tyler 24:31
Awesome.
Matt 24:32
Well, I think we got it all. So as always, thank you, Tyler.
Tyler 24:36
Thank you.
Matt 24:37
Thank you, Victoria.
Victoria: 24:38
Thank you.
Matt: 24:39
So that's it for my conversation with Tyler and Victoria. I'll put links in the show notes, as usual, to click through to things that were mentioned in the episode. If you'd like to hear more of these conversations, you can head on over to LittleLocalConversations.com. I have all the old local government updates. If you want to click back and listen through previous months, you can go on the website in the menu. There's listen by category, and you can click right through to local government updates. See all of them there. You can also listen to all the other ones I do, from one-on-one interviews to event highlights to live podcast events for Creative Chats over at the Mosesian Center, Watertown's Open small business conversations, just lots of different stuff where I'm trying to talk to the people in Watertown and share their stories and ideas and bring people together. So again, head on over to LittleLocalConversations.com.
Matt: 25:24
Alright, and I want to give a few shout outs here to wrap things up. First one goes to podcast sponsor, Arsenal Financial, which is a financial planning business here in Watertown that is owned by Doug Orifice, very committed community member here in the city. And his business helps busy families, small businesses, and people close to retirement. So if you need help in any of those areas, reach out to Doug and his team at ArsenalFinancial.com. I also want to give a thank you to the Watertown Cultural Council who have given me a grant this year to help support the podcast. So I want to give them the appropriate credit, which is, this program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. You can find out more about them at WatertownCulturalCouncil.org and MassCulturalCouncil.org. And a couple more shout-outs to promotional partners. First, the Watertown Business Coalition. Their motto is Community Is Our Business. You can find out more about them at WatertownBusinessCoalition.com. And lastly, Watertown News, which is a Watertown focused online newspaper. It's a great place to keep up to date with everything going on in the city. Check that out at WatertownMANews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.
