Local Government Update, November 2025
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 November 18th, 2025
(Click here to listen on streaming apps) (Full transcript below)
Links mentioned in the episode:
Economic Development and Planning - Oct. 21st
Commission on Disabilities - Oct. 22nd
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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 with someone in Watertown to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This episode is one of the monthly local government update episodes that I do with Tyler Cote, the Community Engagement Specialist for the city, and Victoria Weichel over at Watertown Cable Access. So let's get into the conversation. Welcome to the Local Government Update Podcast. I'm here as always with Tyler.
Tyler: 0:35
Hello, hello.
Matt: 0:36
And Victoria.
Victoria: 0:36
Hello.
Matt: 0:37
So let's dive right in with our first segment, moments from the past month. Victoria, you want to kick us off?
Victoria: 0:43
Yes, I have two moments. So the first moment I have is from October 21st for the Committee on Economic Development and Planning. They met to review an ARPA funded study for improving city supported mobility. The recommendations came with five strategies the city can pursue. Expanded local transit approach, become a leader in universal design, invest in top quarters by use, develop a comprehensive safety approach, and pursue local and regional priorities with agency partners. With the expanded local transit approach, a lot of was focused on microtransit and exploring expanded programs already similar in town with the senior center and go go grandparents. There's a very in-depth presentation from the economic development and planning meeting. I recommend checking that out. If you want a shorter version, check out Commission on Disabilities from that following. They have a much shorter version of the same presentation.
Tyler: 1:35
Yeah. Thank you, Victoria. I was actually on the stakeholder group that worked with Zeke and the consultants on this project. So I have some insight into the work that was being done around it. I do recommend giving a look to the presentations, whether you do the full presentation that was delivered to the Economic Development Committee, or if you are able to do the say like 20-minute version that was given by our transportation planner, senior planner on transportation, Zeke Mermell at the Commission on Disability. It was really interesting being in some of those meetings and thinking about like regionally what our transportation infrastructure looks like, and then more internally to our four square miles. Something that I found very interesting is Watertown has maybe a stronger infrastructure from a transportation perspective when you look at the east-west as opposed to the north-south. It's a lot of going from Waltham through Watertown to Cambridge or into Boston, but there isn't necessarily much going from kind of the Belmont to Newton nexus or even parts of Cambridge down into Watertown Square. So that was quite interesting in the way that they looked at that and recommended some potential avenues for addressing some of those shortcomings in the infrastructure.
Tyler: 2:51
They have a relatively easy to understand set of graphs and recommendations that are in this report, which we'll make sure that we include in the show notes as well, that kind of break it down pretty simply between, you know, what is cost effective, what are the long-term impacts, and what is the impact on staffing or what is the impact on needing to connect with more regional partners and how easy are those things in actually being done. So it really was a quite an interesting approach to looking at transportation not only within Watertown, but also considering what some of our neighbors are doing too. And also looking at what we currently have that, like our TMA. We have a connector shuttle that is kind of this public-private partnership between the TMA and City of Watertown. What are options for expanding that program? What are options for adding routes to that? And then, as Victoria said, you know, looking at things like the GoGo Grandparent Program, which is run through our senior center.
Tyler: 3:52
So there are a variety of potential options that the city might be able to go. Whatever recommendations they feel fits, you know, all these conversations end up coming down to budgets and the opportunity, aligning some of these recommendations with maybe grant funding that might be available, or if there's just the right time to get into a partnership with an organization or a local group. So things typically are gonna need to take some time to align, but I do recommend giving this a read or at least a brief watch if you have the opportunity to do so. And you'll probably, if you have had the opportunity to jump into some of the other big planning documents that the city have done, Watertown Square, the comp plan, you'll start to see some of those similar themes sprinkled in. Universal access design is something that is definitely mentioned in the Watertown Square plan and in our comp plan, ensuring that we have this comprehensive safety approach and know that there's this concept of vision zero, which is we should be looking at streets and trying to find transportation methods that cut down on casualties caused by vehicle accidents or transportation-based accidents down to zero, and how can we actually develop a safety plan to get to that goal?
Tyler: 5:04
So it's a comprehensive look at everything that has to do with transportation in the city. So if you are a transportation junkie that really wants to get into the bolts of exactly how this stuff is looked at and thought about from the city's perspective and our consultants, then this is a great opportunity. Or if you're new and are just interested in kind of getting a lay of the land of where transportation currently sits within the city, this is definitely an interesting report to get into.
Matt: 5:30
Gotcha. Again, nothing’s decided yet. This is just the process of talking it out, figuring things, the direction. And out of those five or whatever you said areas there, they’re trying to decide which ones to highlight because we don’t have infinite money.
Tyler: 5:44
Right, right. And it's not a we're only going to focus on one and not focus on the other four. Oh, there is overlap between all of them. I mean, we can become a leader in universal access design while also pursuing local and regional priorities with regards to transportation. So a lot of the solutions are going to touch on all five of these key strategies. It will take time to get into the implementation side. This is not something that is, you know, the strategies and recommendations are made, but then comes the implementation side and implementation and recommendations. There's always going to be some necessary changes that need to be made in order to actually make it a reality. Us at the city will continue to make sure that we share whenever we are making implementation steps. Something that we're trying to do is connecting them back to these planning documents to be like, hey, we're doing this because of this. We've done all the work to figure out. We've engaged with our community and our stakeholders to understand what the needs are. So this is why we're doing it. And sometimes I think that breakdown can happen where we're doing the thing, but we're not saying why we're doing it. So pointing back to these sometimes year or multi-year long processes that include hundreds and thousands of engagement touch points with community members is something that we'll always try and do better. So when as these implementation steps start to roll out, we'll make sure that we're making it clear of hey, this is executing the vision that we saw and that was laid out in the transportation mobility study.
Matt: 7:13
Gotcha. And Victoria, you had a another moment you wanted to throw out there?
Victoria: 7:16
So I kind of just want to give an update of regarding the middle school project. So on October 28th, the city council held a special meeting to further discuss the middle school project, bringing up the question: do they want to do basic repairs on the middle school or proceed with a bigger project? No votes were taken. City Council President Sideris wanted to give the council more time to think, review the options we have. This meeting was mostly to give the councilors a chance to ask for Vertex, the project management team, Superintendent Galdston, and the city manager questions to help make an informed decision. One thing that I think to highlight from that meeting is Superintendent DeDe Galdston especially wants to do this project right, even though a new middle school is needed. She'd rather wait and plan and be ready for when the time is right to build a new middle school than to rush one that isn't what they want or need, really.
Matt: 8:06
Right. Yeah. And for context with people who weren't aware beforehand, they had talked about this previously about redoing the middle school because we had the modulars there from the high school, it was a good time to try and do that. Previously had determined that it was, the city manager had suggested they was too expensive to redo it, but they're still addressing this because there's still people on both sides of that fence, it sounds like.
Tyler: 8:28
Yeah, definitely. And we are recording this on November 12th, and I'm looking at the council agenda for tonight and included on the council agenda is a discussion and potential action on middle school plan. So this conversation is even going to be further updated after tonight, I'm sure. And this saga, this segways actually nicely into kind of my moment from the past month as well. So, which is that the city manager presented his mid-year budget presentation in October to the city council. And a part of that presentation included his request to the council of, hey, I could use some direction in terms of what you, the elected body of the city, remember, city manager works for. He always says, I have nine bosses. My nine bosses are the city council. And he asked for their help when it comes to these, I believe he presented them as future challenges and opportunities for the city because it becomes challenging to every budget that gets made is with an eye of at least like five years in the future.
Tyler: 9:31
So the mid-year budget presentation is an opportunity to report back on the closeout of last fiscal year, which ended in June. Takes a little bit for that to get closed out. So they report, hey, everything's closed now. We're good. This is the end of FY25, and this is how the beginning of FY26 looks. The budget process is year-long. So it's also an opportunity for the city manager who, in getting prepared for developing the FY27 budget, again, this is we're in 2025 and we're talking about FY27. But the FY27 budget.
Matt: 10:05
Such is city life.
Tyler: 10:06
It is, it is. So the FY27 budget would begin on July 1st, 2026. So in order to get prepared for that, the city manager actually requested the city council to consider and help him prioritize some of these big projects. And this is actually the same big projects that were discussed last mid-year budget presentation. We're talking about the middle school, as Victoria had mentioned. We're talking about Watertown Square. We're talking about there's a need for a new DPW yard, essentially, place for like laying down equipment, storing. There's need for a new senior center. So there are, and I know that I'm missing one or two there, an East End fire station. So there is unquestionably a need from the city manager's perspective in terms of understanding what direction he should go in. And that comes to the special council meeting that was held a couple of weeks ago at the end of October to have that discussion about where the council thinks that the city manager and the city should go with regards to the middle school, because that is kind of the big project that was prioritized at first and at least to go through that feasibility study process. But the feasibility study ended up yielding some much higher cost numbers than was originally anticipated and also originally budgeted. And the impact that if we move forward with a much higher cost of project might have. So ultimately it comes to the city council in terms of their decision. That conversation is ongoing. As soon as that decision is made and that vote is made, then that will send the city manager and the city on his way for planning the next several years when it comes to budgets. But ultimately it comes down to the city council.
Matt: 11:56
Right. It's hard to plan around when you got a hundred million dollar decision floating in the air.
Tyler: 12:01
Indeed.
Matt: 12:01
Anything else to talk about on the mid-year budget presentation?
Tyler: 12:05
I would just add in, aside from the middle school project, just putting that into a bucket in of itself and some of those big capital projects, I would say that the city manager definitely was pretty blunt in talking about kind of this ongoing economic uncertainty that is facing the city. And something that he has mentioned, and I know that the city council president has mentioned as well in the past. The city has not, does not get a copious amount of federal grant funding, which we know has definitely had some pullback in terms of the amount of federal grant funding that is available. The city itself doesn't directly get it, but one of the big impacts that could impact Watertown is grant funding and federal funding going towards like biocompanies and bio lab companies, as we know that the city has several bio labs in the city. You know, there's been great progress in some of them. 66 Galen is nearly completely full now, which is exciting. We're seeing occupancy increase in several of our labs, which is great. But with federal cuts to funding towards biotech and medtech companies, that can certainly have this kind of trickling down effect impact on these companies being able to stay or move to Watertown to actually be here. And that's where we can see a significant impact, or if not significant, at least some impact on some of the city's planning with regards to building more labs, or which I'm not saying please don't take that as their any plans of building labs. It was more of just a statement on this can impact decision making in the future in several ways. So he was pretty blunt in talking about some of that uncertainty and the position that it could potentially put Watertown in.
Tyler: 13:41
Also talked a little bit about that impending home rule petition with regards to the tax split between commercial and residential. Currently, there's a home rule petition that's been in place for the last handful of years now that is set to expire here, I believe in the next like year or two. Forgive me for not having the exact dates on when that does expire, but our state delegation is hard at work. But if that does not get extended in the way that it does, which allows us to have a more even split in terms of residential and commercial tax, that could see a significant increase in residential tax revenue up to like a 16% increase, which it would be much higher. Now, ultimately that comes down to our state delegation. So we're talking those that are in the state house and working to get this home rule petition reapproved so that the city can continue to function at the way that it is with regards to the how that does the tax split.
Tyler: 14:35
So that seems to be an impending question as well. Plays a role in terms of a timeline. I believe the city manager was asked during his mid-year budget presentation, like, when can we expect a vote? And ultimately, there's not a expected timeline. There's not like, oh, they will tell us by next week. There's that uncertainty associated with it as well. So there's still a lot to be done in that space, but it's something that I know that our city council is keeping an eye on, our city manager is keeping an eye on when it comes to the budget. I know that our state delegation is also working at the state house to see if they can get that extended as well, because that has the potential to be quite a significant change. I realize that I just went over several things that present uncertainty or maybe aren't great or have the potential to be good, but are still uncertain. You know, the city, the economic status of the city still remains strong, still maintaining our triple-A bond rating, still continuing to provide programming across all of our city departments. You know, our rec department has created up to 20 new recreation programs this year, which is great. So still a lot of great work that's still being done. Highly recommend going, giving a watch to that presentation. I believe George said it was going to be his longest yet. I don't know if it quite got there. Nobody can go through 200 slides quite like George can. And I think he came out to around like 80 minutes in total, which when you have 200 slides, I think that's impressive for anybody to get through.
Matt: 15:56
He trains his slide button finger.
Tyler: 15:58
He always says that it's not about how many slides you have, it's about how quickly you go through them. And I suppose that's true. He is he is proof of that. So yeah. So I highly recommend giving a watch to make sure that we add that over to the show notes as well.
Matt: 16:10
Sounds good. All right, well, let's move on to our next section here, which is success stories. So, Victoria, what's your success story?
Victoria: 16:18
So, my success story is that Watertown School District gotten some really great MCAS scores. So, Superintendent Dede Galdston presented the most recent 2025 Department of Elementary and Secondary Education report. Essentially, Watertown’s MCAS scores measured to what they were pre-COVID. A lot of school districts cannot say the same currently. Superintendent Dede Galdston credited the new schools creating an environment that kids actually want to be in, and also how they approach education as well with more focused, target-driven approaches instead of like an overlapping, trying to have everyone meet the standard instead of meeting the kids where they are.
Matt: 16:59
Gotcha. Well, that's good news that we've made that progress back up. As much as, you know, testing scores can be maligned. They are a point of information of some kind. So good. Like the good news.
Tyler: 17:09
Yeah. We love good news.
Matt: 17:10
All right, Tyler, what's your success story?
Tyler: 17:12
Yeah. I mean, we'll stay in the schools here for a minute. Whenever the city is able to open a new park playground space that our residents and kids can go and enjoy, I always consider that a success. So I just want to give a quick shout out to the official opening of the Lowell Playground up near the Lowell School. 123 Lowell Ave. So we're very excited about that opening up. New swings. We have play structure for two to five and another play structure for five to twelve. The basketball court's been resurfaced, repainted, and it's looking nice and crisp and fresh. Little small patio area over near the basketball courts as well. We had a ribbon cutting back in late October, followed by a school-sponsored event, trunk or treat event, where we actually had some city staff there decorating trunks and handing out candy to kids. So it was a great event. It was a good opportunity to go and celebrate whenever these projects, which especially Lowell Playground, Lowell Playground is like embedded within a tight little neighborhood up there as well, kind of surrounding that school. And what we heard a lot was that the families in that area like will, after work, walk over, use that playground. And it's a very popular playground in that neighborhood. So the opportunity to reopen that, we understand the impact that the closures can have. So it was just a good opportunity to celebrate whenever these projects come to an official close and an opening and actually be able to say, this is what all that was for. Now go and enjoy this new state-of-the-art beautiful playground that is already getting great use. Of course, now it's getting cold. Although I was up in that area last week when it was 40 and 50 degrees outside and it was full. So that is the beauty of kids, is they don't feel temperature, or at least they seem to suggest that they don't. So they're still using the playground, which is great. And I hope that everybody in the neighborhood and people citywide are able to make their way over there and give it a look.
Matt: 19:06
Yep. I remember seeing some good clips from cable access with, you know, Coach Ernie or Director Ernie giving the speech with kids running in the background all happy. So happy scenes. All right. So up next, we have Did You Know? As always, Tyler, what do I need to know? Or what didn't I know?
Tyler: 19:23
Yeah. So I'm gonna combo the did you know together with another segment that we frequently do, which is questions we're getting a lot, because I think that these two things blend together. The question that we're getting a lot right now is what construction is being done. I think it's a question that I hear more frequently than any other question, especially as we're getting close to the close of construction season. So it's getting to that point where we have kind of a lot going on in a short amount of time, knowing that the weather is going to get to a point here where some construction just can't continue. And in combination to that question, I also want to just give a little bit of insight into our street letter process because I think that will hopefully answer some questions that I get repeated to me every once in a while.
Tyler: 20:09
Essentially, what happens is when work is being done on a given street. So when I say work being done, it could be water main is getting replaced on a street, which there's like a water main replacement program, which doesn't mean that a water main is broken, just means that sometimes we have to do these replacements so that they don't break in the future, which is great. It's just general maintenance. Or maybe one street is part of our complete streets program, so they're getting all new sidewalks, all new street, an entire kind of makeover that is accessible and beautiful and has all the makings of the complete streets vision that our city has. Typically, we do about five of those streets a year. We're currently working through a backlog of them right now, so we're talking upwards of five to ten this year. So doing more of them now than maybe we would in a given year. So I definitely think construction's at the front of people's minds, partially because it's at the front of their door at times as well.
Tyler: 21:02
And what happens is when the work is being done, and we're talking about often in these like residential streets, DPW, our public works department, will create something called a street letter. If you have lived on a street where work is being done, you have most likely received one of these street letters. They don't have beautiful pictures or anything on them. They are quite to the point in terms of what they are. They will tell you the work that is being done, the date that they anticipate the work to be done, and when they anticipate the work to be completed. The most frequent amount of time that these are handed out is two days prior to the work happening. If work is being done on a Monday, it is most likely that that street letter will get out there on Thursday. If the work is being done on a Wednesday, it will typically get out to you on a Tuesday. So take those weekends out of there. That is typically what is done. There in some cases we know that these street letters are getting out there a day prior. We work with our consultants and with our contractors to make sure that that is not happening frequently. We would like to make sure that everybody is getting this notification as early as humanly possible, but most likely two days and as far in advance as a week beforehand.
Tyler: 22:09
When these street letters are sent out, they also are added to our planned work for the week. This is a document that gets released every single Friday by the city of Watertown that will tell you all the construction that is happening in Watertown that week. This will have less detail than you probably will have in your street letter itself, because that will just give an overview of the project. But it is a good way for you to get a sense of all the work that's being done. I'll make sure that I share it over and include it in the show notes. So just an example of what these look like. And you can actually sign up for them so you can get the info of when that work is being done, which is great. Now, one thing that I get asked a lot about is I got a call on Friday about this actually saying that, hey, there are cones outside my house. I have a street letter here. Does this mean that I won't be able to leave? Whenever work is being done, that will limit access to actually getting into your driveway, for example. The street letter will say that. It will tell you that you will not be able to leave your driveway between this time and this time. If you need access to your car or access to get out, then please move your cart somewhere that isn't in your driveway so you can actually leave if you have to go to the office or the grocery store or to a doctor's apartment, whatever it might be, right? So the street letter will say that.
Tyler: 23:23
Now, if you have any questions about that, you can always call 311. We always direct people to calling 311 with these things. Our 311 department receives every single street letter. So they are actually able to reference the street letter that you have received. So if you receive one, you have questions about what the work is, whether you'll be able to get in and out of your house, if it's actually going to start on the day that it says that it's going to start. They'll actually have the most up-to-date information and they can answer all those questions for you. And you can always call 311 with any question, but in particular, this one as well is always a great one that you can reach out to them about. Generally speaking, if a road is getting paved or a sidewalk is being done. So if your street letter says that one of those two things are happening, that is the most frequent case where access tends to be limited to in and out of driveways. So if it says that, you can call 311, get clarity on it. If they don't have the direct answer for you, they have a direct line over with our engineering team that will have the exact answers for you. So you can always reach out to them. But just to give you a sense of how that process works, how those street letters come together, why you receive them, when you can expect to receive them. That is typically the timeline that they end up working on, the information that they'll have. And we always recommend if you have more questions about them or the project that's being done or anything, you can always contact 311 and they can answer any outstanding questions that you might have so that they can quell any concerns or address any questions.
Matt: 24:50
Tyler's always spamming the 311 message.
Tyler: 24:52
I know, I know. You would think I work in the 311 department, but I don't actually. And I know that I probably annoy everyone by saying call 311, but I work near them. They have quite an impressive system of ensuring that they have all the information that they might need at their fingertips if you have questions. So always recommend giving them a call. They're a great resource for a city.
Matt: 25:11
So question about so, like roughly, how accurate is that information you give out to people? Is that like accurate 80% of the time? Because I know things change, construction changes all the time, but like, you know.
Tyler: 25:23
I would say the only thing ever that would happen that would cause the information letter to be wrong is if we have significant weather that pushes it. Typically, what would happen is it would push it back a day. It wouldn't move it up. And if it was moving it up, then there would need to be like an updated street letter that goes out. Almost all the street letters say weather permitting, which that allows kind of a little bit of flexibility around it. Now, if it says that work is being done on November 12th and you look outside and it's pouring and snowing and sleeting and and I'm running out of precipitation.
Matt: 25:58
Raining cats and dogs.
Tyler: 25:59
Yeah, exactly. So typically that will lead that project to get pushed maybe a day, maybe two, if there's still, you know, snow and ice on the ground. But always recommend reaching out to 311. If it says that work is being done on this day and you have not seen anybody come down your street with pavement, then probably means something has been pushed. We try and work to ensure that those three letters are accurate. So I would say that they are accurate more than 80% of the time. And the biggest wrench that gets thrown into them is that weather that ends up impacting. But we try and make sure that those are as accurate as they possibly can be and that they're getting to each house as well. That's always really important to us, too. So I recommend checking mailbox or checking if it's wedged in between your front door. If you use your back entrance, if you're, you know, noticing that there are cones in the street, maybe check your front entrance to see if somebody put a flyer there. That could be the street letter. So those are typically hand delivered.
Matt: 26:55
Who delivers them?
Tyler: 26:56
Good question. So most of the time it's the contractor. So the ones that are actually doing the work. DPW will create them. They will send them out to the constituent services team, our communications team in general. Typically, our councilors will receive them as well. So if you're in district A, it's most likely that your district A councilor has received them. But majority of the time, it is the contractor that is handing them out. On some occasions, it will be DPW.
Matt: 27:21
Gotcha.
Victoria: 27:22
Tag on that the Committee of Public Works did meet with DPW on October 22nd to discuss 2026 road reconstruction. And all the roads part of that list. So would recommend checking that out. If you have a road that you think may need some reconstruction, it might be on that list.
Tyler: 27:38
Okay. Thank you, Victoria. Give that a watch.
Matt: 27:41
Nice. So let's see. We're gonna hop to next number of the month. We have two unrelated numbers from Tyler. Very different in size and scale here. The first one is 10. Bowling pins.
Tyler: 27:56
Oh, as a uh as a bowler myself, I appreciate that. Three time state champion.
Matt: 28:01
Humble brag.
Tyler: 28:04
So 10, yes, number of bowling pins, at least in 10 pin bowling. And also the number of locations that we are accepting food for the Watertown Food Drive, as presented by the Watertown Human Services Department, with the support from the Watertown Community Foundation. We are running a food drive over the course of November and December. We have food donation bins located at Watertown City Hall, 149 Main Street. Watertown Police Department, 552 Main Street. Watertown Public Library, 123 Main Street. the East End Fire Station at 564 Mount Auburn Street. And then all elementary, middle, and high schools and the administration building located at 30 Common Street, which the entrance is not on Common Street. It's either on Spring Street you can enter or you can enter through Marshall as well as there's a parking lot back there. But all that said, we are taking non-perishable food donations for anybody that is able and willing to donate during this time with impacts to food access and SNAP benefits.
Tyler: 29:12
This is an important time to give. And our human services department stepped up in collaboration with some of our community partners. All of these donations are going towards the Watertown food pantries and the community fridge. We had bins at all polling locations. So thank you to everybody that has already given, whether you did it on election day or if you have stopped by one of our 10 locations to drop off food. We are very, very grateful. I was already part of the first wave of sorting and dispersing. The community has really stepped up, and I'm incredibly grateful. And I know that our human services department is as well, as well as the community foundation. And I hope that we can continue to collect food and disperse it out to families that are in need this November and then going all the way into you know holiday season. Next month as well. So please feel free to go to one of those locations, donate if you are able. Non-perishable food items again. There is a whole list of non-perishable food items as examples that you can get on watertown-ma.gov slash humanservices. So you can go there, or if you go on the city's social media pages, then we have all that information in a recent social media post, which will continue to be repeated over the course of the next two months. So you won't have to scroll too far down the grid to find it.
Tyler: 30:30
And last but not least, the food pantry does porch pickups as well. They typically do them the first Saturday of each month. So the next one won't be for a couple of more weeks as of the release of this podcast, give or take. So if you're unable to get to a bin or unable to get to the food pantry at a time to donate, but you still want to make sure that you do donate, you can fill out a form to have a pantry pickup, food pickup. And I'll make sure that that link gets shared over in the show notes as well for anybody that would like to donate. But again, thank you to everybody that has stepped up to help. And also thank you to everybody that plans on donating in any form or anybody that is able to do anything to kind of help Watertown families during this time.
Matt: 31:12
Yeah. And this is going to keep on going on, even if the government starts to bring this stuff back online. It's going to continue no matter what.
Tyler: 31:19
Yes. Yep. That we are going to be running this program all the way through the end of the year, no matter what. So if you're able to donate, we appreciate it.
Matt: 31:26
Yeah. And thank you to all the people in the community who have already stepped up and even doing their own individual things. Like I recently interviewed Max Ritcey over at Ritcey East. And he's cooking up meals and giving them out to people who need them. And you know, there's lots of people doing whatever they can to help out. It's great.
Tyler: 31:44
Yeah. Yep. And it's part of the reason that makes Watertown so great, the mobilization in a way of this community to help their community. It's fantastic to see. And it's something that as somebody that you know works within the city government, that's goal is to connect with the community. It's things like that that really make the job all that more enjoyable to see kind of our members of the community actually stepping up in a really meaningful and impactful way.
Matt: 32:09
Yeah. And I'm going to be sitting down for a one-on-one with Jenna Bancroft, the head of human services, soon. So get more in depth on this and the impact, hopefully, in that one. All right. And then you have a second number. This could be a much larger one. This would be hard to bowl with 13,540 pins. I'd like to see a state champion take down that many with three balls.
Tyler: 32:30
That's true. That's true. Oh man. I feel like you remember those old Wii games where there was like 1,000 pins. Oh man, geez. Yeah, this number and this is quick. I don't have too much to add to it, but I just think that it's in a somewhat related note with regards to food and food security. And that is the number of people that joined the Watertown Farmers Market this year. So we had over 13,000 people come by the farmers market that runs from June all the way until October. So I want to thank everybody that came out this year again. We are averaging somewhere around like 700 people per week coming to the farmers market, which is always great. And look forward to continuing it again next year. It is a jewel of the community in several ways. And I know that people love it. We love it in the city. It's something that we are proud to, you know, look at these stats, look at these numbers, and we're always happy to see that our community are using some of the programs and resources that we have available in the farmers market being a great one. So thank you to everybody that came. I don't have much else to add. But yeah, it's a great number.
Matt: 33:31
And thanks to Stephanie and her team who, you know, dealt with all the construction going on at the Saltonstall Park.
Tyler: 33:37
Stephanie Venizelos and Dominica, who is now a member of that wellness team, and they now sit under the Human Services Department, Jenna Bancroft, who Matt will be interviewing here soon. The amount of work that they put into the success of the market each year is unbelievable. So kudos to them and just another amazing market season.
Matt: 33:55
Excellent. All right. Well, I think we've talked about everything that could possibly be talked about. Didn't leave anything off the list.
Tyler: 34:01
Nothing. Nothing at all.
Matt: 34:02
But we've hit on a good amount for today. So let's wrap up with our upcoming section. So Victoria, why don't you start us off? What do we have upcoming?
Victoria: 34:10
So Watertown Cable Access is turning 20 this year, and we're doing a big celebration here at our studio here at 30 Common Street. All details available will be at WCATV.org slash 20th anniversary. All you can expect is raffles, silent auctions. We're going to be doing a special live broadcast. So if you can't come in, you can watch it from home. There'll be studio tours, you can meet everyone who works at WCATV. Get to see all of our equipment, how we run uh government meetings, uh studio shoots. There'll also be food, photo ops. It'll be a lot of fun.
Matt: 34:41
And I hear like a special game show of some kind too.
Victoria: 34:44
Yep. Yep.
Matt: 34:45
And I may or may not be playing guitar for that.
Victoria: 34:48
Yep.
Tyler: 34:48
Whoa. Breaking news.
Matt: 34:52
Not for the game show, just for light background music during the thing. Yeah, don't worry. Not the main event. No. Sounds like it would be a lot of fun for you guys. Yeah.
Victoria: 35:01
If you're interested in coming, please RSVP on our website. It is a free event to attend, but suggested donation of twenty dollars to help protect the future of local media. We can keep doing what we're doing, keep covering all the meetings we do, all the sports. It’ll be very appreciated.
Tyler: 35:16
Congrats on 20 years. That's amazing.
Matt: 35:19
Yeah, as we always say whenever these things come up for cable access. Such a valuable resource in this community and unique. Tyler’s talked about it for municipalities having this resource is unique.
Tyler: 35:29
Definitely.
Matt: 35:30
Definitely congratulations and support it and keep it going for another 20. Or for another 13,540.
Tyler: 35:37
That's right. Yeah. Yes, congratulations. I'm excited to go to the event. I hope I can see many of people that are listening there as well. I just had a couple of things in looking ahead. Walker Pond survey. We had the second Walker Pond meeting on November 6th. That recording will be posted online soon. You can get it at WCATV or at watertown-ma.gov slash walkerpond. But there's also a survey there. We have two concept designs that we're using all the community's feedback to develop. One called Forest Park, and then one called Green Hill Discovery. A lot of intrigue around those. So we highly recommend if you're interested in giving insight as to what you would like to see at the future Walker Pond site, which I've talked about probably almost ad nauseum, and I'm sorry that you've heard me say Walker Pond, probably as much as you've heard me say Republic Strike this year. But please feel free to take that survey. You can get that on the city's website. Merry Mingle at the Commander's Mansion is coming up December 6th. There's a lot coming up. Check out the city's calendar. We keep that up to date every single day, whether it be an event, a meeting, anything and opportunity, please go online and take the survey.
Matt: 36:47
Awesome. We hit on a lot of stuff today. So thanks again, as always. Thank you, Tyler.
Tyler: 36:53
Thank you, Matt.
Matt: 36:53
And thank you, Victoria.
Victoria: 36:54
Thank you.
Matt: 36:55
So that's it for the conversation with Tyler and Victoria. I'll put links in the show notes to the things that were mentioned in the episode so you can check out those resources. If you want to hear more of these episodes and other types of interviews that I do with people all around the city, you can head on over to Little Local Conversations.com. You can find all the episodes, events coming up. You can sign up for my weekly newsletter. And if you'd like to help support the podcast, I do have the Little Local Holiday Giveaway currently going on, where people who sign up to support the podcast before the end of the day, November 26th, have a chance to win some local gifts from businesses and organizations that have been on the podcast. You can find all that at Little Local Conversations.com slash friend. There's tons of gift cards and gifts from Arsenal Yards, including Buttermilk and Bourbon, Condesa, Medium Rare, Mighty Squirrel, Tori Jiro. Also involved is the Boston Gold Kings, Campolongo Cookie Company, Cass School of Floral Design, Farina’s, Gore Place, the Mosesian Center for the Arts, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Revival Cafe, and Ritcey East. So again, head on over to Little Local Conversations.com slash friend, help support the podcast, and you'll have a chance to win a gift from one of those places. Have until the day before Thanksgiving.
Matt: 38:00
Alright, I want to give a few shout-outs here to wrap things up. First one goes to podcast sponsor, Arsenal Financial. They're our financial planning business here in Watertown that's owned by Doug Orifice, who's a very committed community member. And his business, Arsenal Financial, 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 Watertown Cultural Council.org and Mass Cultural Council.org. And a couple more shout outs to promotional partners. First one goes to the Watertown Business Coalition, which is a nonprofit organization here in Watertown that is bringing businesses and people together to help strengthen the community. You can find out more about them at Watertown Business Coalition.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.
