Discover the latest Watertown government moments, stories, and numbers in this conversation with Tyler Cote, the Director of Communications and Community Engagement for the City of Watertown, and Victoria Weichel from WCA-TV.
Released November 5th, 2026
(Click here to listen on streaming apps) (Full transcript below)
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Transcript
Matt 0:02
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 the monthly local government update that I do with Tyler Cote, the Director of Communications and Community Engagement for the City of Watertown, and Victoria Weichel over at WCA-TV. One quick thing before we jump into the conversation. I'm currently running the second annual Little Local Holiday Giveaway, where if you sign up as a monthly supporter of the podcast, you'll get a gift card or other gift from a great local business. I'll give more details at the end of the episode, or you can pause the episode, head over to LittleLocalConversations.com slash friend, become a little local friend, and come back to listen. All right, let's dig into the update with Tyler and Victoria.
Matt 0:50
Welcome to the Local Government Update. I'm here, as always, with Tyler.
Tyler 0:56
Hey, what's up?
Matt 0:57
And Victoria.
Victoria 0:57
Hello.
Matt 0:58
And we're here to talk about things for the month of November 2026. Let's kick it off. Moments from the past month. What do you have, Victoria?
Victoria 1:06
So the first moment I have is the Senior Center Building Committee has started to meet. They've had their first meetings already. The first meeting was back in September, where the committee interviewed five firms for the feasibility study. The October meeting was the final interview with the two final firms that they liked. The committee voted for EDM Studios, and the next meeting will be held once the contract is final. And the second moment I have, which I'm sure Tyler will also talk about , is State of the City. Just a quick recap from me about State of the City. It was similar to last year, where City Manager George Proakis repeated his statement that the State of the City remains strong. Major accomplishments for the city were highlighted, including home rule petition passing. Vacancy rates for life sciences have decreased, including several major businesses such as Google, Pascal Technology, and CD Projekt Red all coming into Watertown. Civil housing projects are underway. The second ambulance has launched on November 1st, and an increase to food access by the food pantry moving to the Parker School, as well as several food drives organized by the Human Services Department.
Matt 2:18
All right, Tyler, let's get into it. So, first of all, how many slides did you get to make?
Tyler 2:23
Ooh, good question. The final slide count, I believe it was around 58 is the number, which is actually more than we had last year, but it's about one-fourth of what we typically have at a budget presentation . As a slide master myself, if I can anoint myself.
Matt 2:43
Do you have some certificates hanging by your desk?
Tyler 2:45
I don't. And I fear if I print them out myself, people will think it's a little strange.
Victoria 2:50
So we know what to get him for Christmas .
Tyler 2:52
Yeah, yeah. I, believe me, I'll accept them if somebody wants to print them out. I just refuse to do it myself. Yeah, we are in the 50 to 60 range for slides, but I think it flew nicely, that the flow of the presentation went well. The way that the City Manager and the City Council President organize their thoughts is around these six administrative goals that we have in the city. And with each goal, they go through some highlights that have happened over the past year or some things looking ahead into the year ahead. As Victoria mentioned, there were a handful of anecdotes and stories and touch points with related to our human services department, which is around our public health and safety goal, which included looking ahead at potentially expanding the food pantry's hours, doing drop-off food in the future, having a winter farmers market. So some things on the docket that the human service team is looking into, and that I know that our administration and city council are both quite interested in as well as and I hope that our community is too. We are seeing that our public safety staffing is strong as it's ever been, especially in our police department. Our police department has fewer vacancies than they've had in a long time, which there are several reasons for that. Our new cadet program is playing a role in that. No longer being in the civil service is making a difference in that as well. Those steps matter , the more staffed you are with professionals and people that are able to take on shifts. It just, you know, all that stuff really does matter in the day-to-day operations of our community. And one thing that I thought was really interesting, and even though it's not something as explicitly clear that it's connected with city government, is that life science note that Victoria had mentioned, just because there's a reliance on some of the private sector, you know, we can support or attract developers to come and put up a new lab building. However, there are limitations to what we can do in terms of actually getting companies in those labs. And that's always been, that's been a conversation over the last handful of years, especially with the downswing in the life science sector. But we're seeing in Watertown our vacancy rates drop from 43 to 31 percent in the city. One statistic that they shared, which that was fascinating, was that if Watertown were a state, our venture capitalist funding in Watertown would rank sixth in the country between Texas and Florida, which is a testament to the companies that are coming here and growing here. We have a lot of medium and small size businesses. And then, of course, we have the likes of Google on their way in here coming as well, which is maybe the opposite of a medium and small size business, definitely one of the larger ones.
Matt 5:38
Heard of it.
Tyler 5:38
Yeah, heard of them.
Matt 5:39
When you have a verb named after you, I guess you're pretty big.
Tyler 5:42
Yeah, yeah. I think that means you made it. So even with the considerations of where the life science sector is, you know, we're outperforming Seaport, which is in the same area, and there's several elements that go into making Watertown the place that it is, you know, that quote unquote secret sauce that is attracting the right businesses, them finding the opportunity to grow here. And it's really good to see some of the numbers, putting the numbers next to the things that we're hearing anecdotally coming out of some of the lab spaces. And it's not just life sciences, I mean robotics, we have climate tech, we have there's a video game developing company in the city. It's quite impressive things that we have going on here in the city with some of the businesses that we have here, which is always great to see. Another thing they touched on was Watertown Square. I want to just mention things have been a little quiet on the Watertown Square front over the last couple of months. I know that we held a redevelopment authority meeting in August, and the City Council President sat down with myself, actually, and Erika Jerram in September and shared that he wants to hold on waiting to go back out to the community until we have more options. And City Council President and City Manager said it's getting close to around that time that we can share some new options. So hopefully we'll have some updates in the next few weeks about when the next opportunity is for everybody to come together and hear about what the updated options are with relation to that garage project that has been a hot topic through the community. But throughout the rest of the State of the City, want to just touch on a few other notes if that's all right, Matt.
Matt 7:25
Yeah, we got through three of the six so far?
Tyler 7:25
Three of six. I'm not gonna go through all six goals, but a couple that I did want to touch on, highlighting our library's impact. More statistically speaking, last fiscal year they had 326,800 visitors, and they were ranked seventh in the state in circulation for a 35,000-person population that is amazing, like truly amazing, a testament to the operations that Director Long and her entire staff, the operations that they have at the library and the programming that they have and the services that they provide. And one of those services being the citizenship prep course through Project Literacy, Baidy Diaw being one example of that, who this year he participated in the citizenship prep classes and received a congressional citation from the U.S. House of Representatives, and then took his oath of citizenship on the same day. Just an amazing example of the impact that our residents are having and the people in this community can have on those around you, but then also a testament to our library and holding programs. He's been playing a small part in changing people's lives in these ways. It's always so great to hear anecdotes like that. And the last one that I'll mention that City Council President and City Manager talked about was, you know, shamelessly a plug. Something that I'm working on very closely with my team is our What's Up Watertown, which increased our open rate. You know, we came out with a new format for that this past summer. We've increased our open rate by 63%. That is not insignificant in terms of an improvement and an update. We are always looking to improve that. The way that it looks, the information that we're sharing in that, we're really pushing that as like a one-stop shop every single week. If you don't engage with anything else in the city, this is the place that you can get all the information all in one place. I strongly recommend anybody who is interested in getting involved. I'm sure all of our listeners are already subscribed to it. But if you know you're walking past your neighbor, give them a little nudge, a little What's Up Watertown nudge. Nothing wrong with that.
Matt 9:27
Is this the new TikTok trend you're gonna start?
Tyler 9:29
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with it. A little, a little, hey, have you heard about What's Up Watertown? So it's a testament to Sarah Burns, our digital communication specialist who's working on that week in and week out. It's not a small undertaking. And you know, everything I just went through, that is maybe one percent of the things that our staff and our team and our community are working on all the time. I love State of the City, it's one of my favorite events every single year. I know I talk about the budget a lot, but State of the City is really, in my opinion, that's the fun one. That's the .
Matt 10:01
The confetti event.
Tyler 10:02
Yeah, it really is. So I appreciate everybody that came out to the event. If in a similar vein to What's Up Watertown, if you don't engage with any other meeting in the past six months, I recommend popping on State of the City. Kind of captures everything that the city has been working on. And and it's a reflection of some of the priorities that our team is constantly working on to be responsive and proactive in the services that we're providing to the community. So yeah, State of the City. What a moment.
Matt 10:34
Yeah. Can watch it on WCA-TV.
Tyler 10:36
Yes.
Victoria 10:37
Yep.
Tyler 10:37
Thank you to the WCA-TV team for their production of it. We , myself, Victoria, and Dan every year on State of the City are like, how can we make this look a little bit different than maybe we make other meetings look? And they're, as always, our great partners in achieving that vision. So very grateful for them.
Victoria 10:55
We really appreciate it. Thank you.
Matt 10:57
Yeah, how's it working in the new council chambers?
Tyler 11:00
I've received some feedback on it. I think it looks amazing. It looks great. The spanning the length of the room in the old format was, in my opinion, too long. Everybody was too far away. Actually, having the councilors being able to see one another and look up and see each other and for these meetings, I think is really nice. I like the new council chamber.
Victoria 11:20
I like it too. There's a couple of hurdles on the broadcasting side we're getting through. Like it's a new adjustment for us.
Tyler 11:26
Yeah. It'll be the adjustment for everyone as they come.
Matt 11:29
Yeah.
Matt 11:30
All right. Let's move on to success story. I mean, that kind of was your success story as well, Tyler.
Tyler 11:35
Yeah, and my exhale. But I'll say for a success story is something that Victoria actually referenced when talking about the State of the City is the like yesterday as the time of this recording. So technically it was in November, not in October, but we launched Medic 2, which is something that basically the entire lifespan of this project has happened while we've done this podcast. So avid listeners will have heard me talk about adding a second advanced life support ambulance on several occasions. And yesterday on Sunday, we officially launched it. I didn't realize how long far back this goes. I mean, I was talking with one of the councilors at the event, and they had told me that the first time that they remembered this coming up was like eight plus years ago. So it does extend beyond, you know, the lifespan of this podcast, but it is something that's kind of been in the lexicon of the community. People have been wanting it. And more recently, over the last like year and a half, there's kind of been this collision of the funding made sense, the opportunity made sense, the chief did a very good job at working with the council and identifying an opportunity when it presented itself. So now the city has two advanced life safety ambulances. We used to have one and then a basic life safety. And then if there was ever a need for an advanced life safety, that if one was, you know, driving to Mount Auburn Hospital and they needed a second ALS ambulance, they would actually have to contact Pro Service, which is a contracted service out of Cambridge. And what we were seeing was the time that it was taking for that Cambridge truck to get into, especially say, like the western part of Watertown. We were looking at over 10 minutes, which when we're talking about if somebody is in need of an ambulance, time can really make a difference. Pro they were a great partner to have, but having a second ALS ambulance now in Watertown run by our EMS professionals is it's great. It is the epitome of a success story of something where the community was clamoring for it. Our chief, our administration, our council worked together to find an opportunity to do it. And then yesterday we officially unveiled it. As covered by WCA-TV as well.
Matt 13:58
Where is it going to be housed? Is this also going to be the main street or?
Tyler 14:01
So actually the first, Medic One is housed on Orchard Street, which is the north end fire station. Fire station three, I believe, is the official name of it.
Victoria 14:14
Yeah, we just did a story on it on WCN.
Tyler 14:18
So I recommend giving it a watch. That was actually that was a good story. And then this second truck will be housed at 99 Main Street, which is the headquarters. If you drive by, you can see the lovely new sign that they installed as well, right above the leftmost bay.
Matt 14:34
Yeah. Nice. The hard work paid off.
Tyler 14:37
Yeah. So it's a good event. Thanks for everybody that came out.
Matt 14:40
Let's see. Did you know? Alright, Tyler. What's your did you know?
Tyler 14:45
We have a few veterans-related events. We've been getting asked, not to step on questions we get a lot, but we have been getting asked about what's going on with Veterans Day. So, as always, the city, our programs and buildings will be closed on Veterans Day, which is on November 11th, which is a Wednesday this year. But we do have some events going on that are either city sponsored or city partnered or city run. So if you, any of our listeners, if you or family member or a friend are a veteran in Watertown, please share the message about these events. And also we hope that you're able to meet our new veteran services officer, John Day, who started just a few months ago as well, wanting to make sure that he is available to anybody that may need some services, supports, anything that may come up. But for the events that we have coming up this year, we have a seniors veterans dinner at the senior center on Tuesday, the 10th from 4 to 6. This is for senior veterans and their families. You can RSVP by calling the Senior Center at 617-972-6490. On Veterans Day at the Shut t Detachment, which is at 215 Mount Auburn Street, we will have the Veterans Day breakfast. This is something that is done each and every year here in the city that is on the 11th at 11 a.m. 11/11 at 11. Makes it easy to remember. This is for veterans, all veterans, friends, family, members of the VFW and Marine Corps League. There will be a short ceremony before leading right into breakfast that day. And then on Thursday, the next day, on November the 12th at the Senior Center again, which is on Marshall Street, right next door to where we're recording right now. We are hosting a veterans music history concert at noon at the senior center. So if you're interested, please feel free to come on down. Those are just a few of the events that we have going on for Veterans Day. And I'm sure that many of the community organizations in the city may be hosting some events as well. So just keep an eye out around Watertown in case you, a loved one, a friend, whomever is a veteran and wants to get involved in any way that they can here as we head into Veterans Day.
Matt 17:01
Yeah. Sure you can reach out to a local VFW too. I'm sure they have all the info.
Tyler 17:05
Definitely.
Matt 17:06
All right. Questions we get a lot, Tyler, other than you know, how many slides are there in State of the City? What other questions are you getting?
Tyler 17:13
The construction season's winding down. So we've been getting questions about where things stand a little bit, like what's gonna happen when, you know , they're doing work in front of my house right now, but it's getting colder. Like what's going on? So we've been getting a lot of questions about that. I will say before I get into that, the road work program, the progress that we've made this year, truly a testament to the DPW team and to the community. I feel as though that we tried to set the expectation with everybody as best we could that this was going to be a really challenging year for road work. We were looking at 15 streets in our complete streets program. We were looking at like 20-something streets for mill and overlay, not to mention Mount Auburn Street that we had going on, and then other assorted projects in the roadway. It was going to be messy, it was going to be dusty, it was going to be slow, it was going to be a pain. We are getting to the end of construction season. Thank you to everybody for all of your patience. I know it was not easy, but this was one of the most efficient road construction years we've had in a few years. So thank you to everybody as working through us. Just to give you a sense, we milled 29,654 square feet of roadway this year. I'll be honest, that number doesn't even mean anything.
Matt 18:38
I can't even remember last time we hit over the 20,000 mark.
Tyler 18:41
Exactly.
Matt 18:41
That's quite a career high.
Tyler 18:43
That number is that number is like incomprehensibly large to where it's like, I don't even, I mean, put that in like football field terms, and I don't know.
Matt 18:52
How many Stanley mugs is that?
Tyler 18:55
Yeah. Americans will do anything not to use the metric system. Yeah, it's about 24,000 microwaves. So just an unbelievable amount of work. We've installed over 2,900 tons of asphalt on the roads this year. I know a couple of months ago I gave an update on where we were at with mill and overlays. This is kind of the granular numbers of completing some 18, 19 roads with mill and overlay. This is 2,900 tons of asphalt were laid down. We have eight roadways that have either been completed or actively being worked on. So the complete streets program for anybody that this is your first time listening, or if you haven't heard me talk about it in the past, basically those are the really detailed projects where we update all the utilities underground, update the stormwater infrastructure so there's no flooding on your street. We add really nice, crispy sidewalks, crispy, and then completely redo the roadway as well. New tree plantings, all the good stuff, basically turning your roadway into something beautiful. George Street, which is up in the northern part of town, across from Victory Field, is a street that just got pretty close to completed. So if you want to see what a complete street looks like, you can go over there. You can head over to Fifth Ave, which is on the south side of town. That's another one that was a very wide street, very wide. I mean, you could probably fit realistically like four cars across that roadway.
Matt 20:23
How many microwaves?
Tyler 20:24
About like 56 or so. About the same number of slides as I had. So and it's a very, very wide roadway for something that is , it's a residential street. So narrowing it down makes it a little bit safer for all forms of traffic, whether it be your walking or riding your bike or driving your car, makes it a little bit safer. And also, it's hard to measure beautiful, but it's one of those things that you see and it's just like looks lovely. It's a lovely looking street. So, anyways, sorry, I'm getting off track here. Not to blame anybody but myself, as I tend to, you know, go off track. But, anyways.
Matt 20:57
We're enablers. It's okay.
Tyler 20:59
Thank you. Yeah, I'm grateful for you both. So we have eight, eight roadways that are either completed or actively being done right now. There's a good chance that some of these roadways will not be completed before the end of this construction season, which usually happens sometime in November, just ends up getting a little too cold.
Matt 21:17
Not this week.
Tyler 21:19
Yeah, well, let me tell you, recording it's like 70 degrees out right now.
Matt 21:23
76 on Wednesday.
Tyler 21:24
Unbelievable. Which I mean helps for us to continue our construction. So that's always good. There have been years that we've already finished, we weren't able to keep going. Roadways that aren't completed, they'll try to do some work during the winter time. If it's possible, some like utility work will still be able to be done. But for the most part, a lot of the road construction will end up slowing down and stopping during the winter. So then it will get picked back up sometime in the spring, usually like the March April time frame. Usually need all snow to be gone. You need the ground to thaw out a little bit before you start cutting down into it again. There are another six roads that have not started. You know, we work in July to July years as opposed to January to December for some odd reason, but everybody does it that's a municipality. So we're gonna probably start another six roadways sometime in the spring that are gonna get this complete street program. And then starting in July again, there'll be another five streets that will be on the docket to get done. So there's just a tremendous amount of work getting done with Mount Auburn Street. What you'll most likely see is the sidewalk work will slow down to stop sometime this month as well in November. We've been on them about finishing and pouring sidewalks everywhere that they have opened up. And they being Mass DOT and Newport Construction, who are the, they're the ones that are running the project and the contractors. Cities have been encouraging them to finish everything that has been opened up. Anything that doesn't get a final sidewalk pour will still have a passable, accessible surface there. It won't just be, you know, dirt or gravel down. At the very minimum, there will just be a more porous, like asphalt that's put down on the sidewalk that will then be poured into a nice, beautiful sidewalk as soon as things thaw out again in the spring. So that's just to give you a sense of what this month is going to look like. You still will likely see construction in the roadway during the winter months when weather permits. Snow has been getting pushed back further and further year to year. You know, last year we were still doing roadway work, especially drainage work in the road up until like I mean, really almost that like first big storm that we got last year in January, late January. So I would expect more of the same this year. Well, you'll still see some construction, but not nearly as much as you saw over the course of the summertime this year.
Matt 23:58
Gotcha. All right. So let's roll into number of the month.
Matt 24:03
We have 257.
Tyler 24:06
257.
Matt 24:07
Again, number of movies you've seen this year.
Tyler 24:11
It's only about it's about double.
Matt 24:13
Let's see. Something in the city. We already knew it's not slides. Hmm. 257.
Tyler 24:21
It's a fun one.
Matt 24:21
Do you have any? Oh, fun one.
Victoria 24:22
I was gonna say parking, but that's not fun.
Matt 24:24
Parking is not .
Tyler 24:26
Well depends.
Matt 24:27
I don't know. Reels that you guys have come up with on social media this year.
Tyler 24:31
Let me tell you, a lot of chatter about the recent reel creations there.
Victoria 24:35
Especially State of the City.
Tyler 24:35
Yeah, State of the City . A lot of comments about that one. No, 257 is the number of kids that we had come through City Hall in the library for trick-or-treating last month. So this is really just me, I want to take a chance to thank everybody for coming over to City Hall and the library, trick-or-treating with our departments. I saw more Spider-Man costumes than , I lost count. Everybody is Spider-Man this year, which kind of feels like everybody's Spider-Man every year. There was one kid dressed as Jeff Hardy, who's a WWE wrestler. And I recognize I haven't watched wrestling in maybe 15, 20 years, but I picked it out. I was like, hey, Jeff Hardy. Let's just say me and that kid had a moment.
Matt 25:20
Did he put you in a headlock?
Tyler 25:23
Yeah. So no, it was a great event. I mean, so many people, it's their first time coming to City Hall. And as we've already established on this episode, people go to the library and love our library. We always encourage people going to the library, but having people come through City Hall for the first time and see that building, engage with our departments. Also, it's great for me seeing my colleagues. We're all happy and thrilled to have people come through the halls, and it's just such a happy event. So appreciate everybody that came out.
Matt 25:50
Yeah. So what do you think? Was it 257, like 150 Spider-Mans?
Tyler 25:54
Yeah, it felt like it. It felt like it. Let me tell you. Yeah.
Matt 25:59
That's interesting. I don't think I saw any Spider-Mans while I was out.
Tyler 26:01
Really?
Matt 26:02
Yeah. So maybe they were all congregating.
Tyler 26:04
Yeah. Spider-Man, that was a big one. You know, there were your standard like princesses, queens. That was definitely a big one as well. There was one person dressed as broccoli, which I was like, that's pretty sick.
Matt 26:19
I mean, if you're a kid who likes broccoli, you gotta own it, right?
Tyler 26:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's part of the brand. That was very, very cool. Shout out to the kid that had that.
Matt 26:29
Shout out to Broc.
Tyler 26:30
Yeah, shout out to Broc.
Matt 26:32
Friend of the pod. Oh, I guess that would be Pea. He would be friend of the pod.
Tyler 26:36
No. Oh, geez. Edit.
Matt 26:38
I own my dad jokes. Anyway, all right. Let's see. We've made it to our spotlight section.
Tyler 26:46
Oh boy.
Matt 26:46
And I see a word here that I know is you know gets your spider senses tingling.
Tyler 26:52
A little bit. A little bit.
Matt 26:54
So what do you got for us, Tyler?
Tyler 26:55
City Manager presented his mid-year budget presentation this past month. I'm not going to get into the details. I know that may disappoint many of our listeners, and it may disappoint even more of my co-hosts. Just for reference, 101 slides presented as part of the mid-year budget presentation by City Manager. What I do want to take this time to talk about is a little bit about like where does this fit into the whole budget situation? Why do we do it essentially? Which I know I talked briefly about last month, but I want to maybe get into just slightly more detail. The City Manager presented to the city council. He does this every October. The reason that we do this is to give the city council an update on how the closing out went of the previous fiscal year. So that would have been fiscal year 2026, which ended in June. Gives an update on how things are going in FY 2027, FY being fiscal year, that is the July to July day. And then also gives a little bit of a glimpse into what the City Manager and auditor are thinking for FY 2028, which will start on July 1st, 2027. You're like cars. It is, yeah, quite, quite. So he gave the presentation for general highlights. There was a lot of overlap with what we shared at State of the City. So I won't be redundant in that sense.
Matt 28:27
And I was just going to say, we talked a lot last time with the middle school about budget and stuff like that.
Tyler 28:31
So yes, and that was a big part of it. I would say one of the biggest takeaways of the mid-year budget presentation is that the city is looking at with the big projects, Watertown Square, Middle School, Senior Center Building Committee, projects like that. How can we put money towards stabilization accounts? Which is basically like you put it into a savings account that you can then use later to pay off a project. Because the more that you put into those accounts, the less you need to borrow. And borrowing just means that you're paying interest and it extends how much you're paying over the course of a period of time and you know the typical finance lecture stuff. So got into a lot of those details. So the city is looking towards those stabilization accounts and how we can fund, especially Watertown Square and the Senior Center project, so that we don't need to borrow as much on them so that when it comes time to start paying for the middle school project, which we had discussed at length at the last episode, we will not have to borrow as much in some of the other areas as in some of those other projects while we pay for the borrowing on the middle school project. Now, what I did want to talk about was there were some small deficits in FY30 and 31. I talked about those in a little bit of detail in last month's episode. There are avenues to address those. Some of those were talked about by the City Manager, including, you know, there's if council wants to, they can reduce council reserves, yada yada. There are strategies to do that. And there's also the opportunity that a new building goes up. And when a new building goes up, the tax revenue that that adds to the city can sometimes address those deficits as well. So there are potential ways to address those issues, and just using issues for lack of a better word for now. Now, what I did want to talk about is what's going to happen next. Typically, the next step in the budget process, which in Watertown is a year-long process.
Matt 30:29
Always budget season.
Tyler 30:31
Always budget season in Watertown. The next step in the process is these budget policy guidelines. This is when the City Manager meets with the budget and fiscal oversight committee with the city council, which is typically like three members of the city council, and they have a conversation about what are some priorities that the City Manager should be considering as he develops next year's budget, which is FY 2028, which will start again in July 2027. A lot of years being thrown around here. I'm sorry. The reason I bring this up is because that really is a very important meeting in the grand scheme of how the budget gets built. And it typically happens in November, December time. Nothing's been scheduled yet, but it's something I recommend our listeners who are interested to keep an eye out for. And I'll be sure to report back on future episodes as well for anybody that doesn't want to join in on those meetings. But that is where the council kind of sets what their priorities are. Hey, item one, item two, item three, these should be the main priorities, and we should see that in the budget that you're building. So Watertown Square, the middle school, senior center, those are examples of priorities, budget priority items that are explicitly stated in the budget that is in effect right now, that we are .
Matt 31:54
So this was talked about like last year.
Tyler 31:56
Thank you.
Matt 31:57
And then it's carrying out now. So this is the time.
Tyler 32:00
Exactly. So this is the time where if there are new initiatives that community members are strongly in favor of, this is the time to really start bringing those up because they can inform the way that the council is going about instructing administration on how to build a budget. So all that is to say, you know, I put so much emphasis on that April meeting that George does, our City Manager every year presenting the budget. However, that April meeting is really just a product of the conversations that happen as early as October and November and December every single year. So there's a lot on the docket over, I'd say November, December, and January, these next three months that will inform what the priorities are in the budget that I inevitably get overexcited to talk about in what will most likely be our May episode in 2027, which feels like an eternity away. But it's just around the corner, everyone.
Matt 33:03
Budget and Porch Fest.
Tyler 33:04
Budget and Porch Fest, the two pillars of our community.
Matt 33:08
It's a perfect pair, peanut butter and jelly.
Tyler 33:10
That's right. That's right. So, as I mentioned, mid-year budget presentation isn't always the most compelling thing to talk about necessarily. However, it is important to kind of the grand scheme of how we operate day to day. And it's sometimes hard to see where you find that in the community. But, you know, us doing such an aggressive year of road construction this year, you can draw back to this point last year as well. So, anyways.
Matt 33:39
Just show up to council meetings or send them feedback with your ideas ahead of that.
Tyler 33:46
Definitely.
Matt 33:46
So we've made it to the end here for our upcoming section. Victoria.
Victoria 33:52
WCA-TV has a fundraiser coming up on November 7th, right here at our studio on 30 Common Street. We'll have Mario Kart, Dungeons and Dragons, retro games, board games, all the fun stuff. There will also be refreshments, raffles as well. It'll be a fun day.
Tyler 34:07
What time does that start?
Victoria 34:08
12 to 6.
Tyler 34:09
Awesome.
Matt 34:10
Do you have any budget games for Tyler? You said all the fun stuff.
Victoria 34:14
Don't think budget.
Tyler 34:15
I'll just be alone in a room.
Victoria 34:21
Well, I don't know if we have Monopoly.
Tyler 34:21
Alright that counts.
Matt 34:21
What do you got for upcoming Tyler?
Tyler 34:23
Just in case there are questions, as of the time of this recording, we are the day before election day. So just in case there's any reason why people are wondering why I don't bring up anything about elections, that is why. Just editing-wise, Matt is fast, but I don't think he'll be that fast for this episode. So, but if you're interested in getting the results from Watertown of the election, you can visit the city clerks section of the city's website. It will also be linked on our homepage in case you have any questions related to that. I will also bring up Merry Mingle over at the Commander's Mansion, which is at 440 Talcott Avenue in Watertown. They are hosting Merry Mingle tree lighting celebration, festivities, family-friendly events. There's going to be activities, toy drive collection, Santa photos, kids' games, cozy story time with the library, craft stations, hot cocoa and treats, and there will be holidays around the world experience inside the mansion as well. That starts at 4 p.m. rain or shine on Saturday, December 5th. Goes from 4 until 7. Also, they're running a coloring contest, which submissions need to be sent in by November 23rd. They can either be brought in to the Watertown Free Public Library or mailed to the Commander's Mansion team, city events team at the Commander's Mansion, which I will make sure all those details are linked in the show notes. What do you got coming up, Matt?
Matt 36:02
So I just wanted to mention that we'll be teaming up with WCA-TV again for our next Watertown's Open November 18th. And kind of building off what we were talking earlier, it's going to be focused on why science and tech companies have chosen Watertown. So I have a couple of those CEOs from there and some other folks to talk about why Watertown and give people a little insight into that side of things. Looking forward to that one.
Tyler 36:26
That's awesome. So that's taking place here at WCA-TV?
Matt 36:29
It's going to be at WCA-TV Studios Wednesday, November 18th from 10 a.m. to noon. And there'll be the recordings on cable access and my podcast recording later to listen to if you can't make that. But that is upcoming.
Tyler 36:42
Very cool.
Matt 36:42
Yeah. One other thing is the Watertown Business Coalition, which I'm also a board member on, is having their anniversary and Community Impact Awards on Monday, November 16th at 6 p.m. over at Branch Line. Going to be highlighting eight community impact awards for people who have made a difference in the community. So it should be really fun night. If you're interested in joining in, tickets are getting close to being out, so you can head to WatertownBusinessCoalition.com.
Matt 37:10
All right. That's it for today. Thank you as always, Tyler.
Tyler 37:13
Thank you, Matt.
Matt 37:14
Thank you as always, Victoria.
Victoria 37:15
Thank you.
Matt 37:16
So that's it for the November update. I'll have links in the show notes for things that were mentioned in the episode. If you want to hear more episodes of the podcast, you can head over to LittleLocalConversations.com. There you can find all the episodes, information on upcoming live podcast events, and sign up for my weekly email newsletter. You can also take part in the Little Local Holiday Giveaway. That's running now through November 25th. At the website, you can click on the Become a Little Local Friend button in the menu. There you can sign up to become a monthly supporter of the podcast, and you'll get a great local prize. I've got gifts from Actors' Shakespeare Project, Arsenal Yards' Buttermilk and Bourbon, Condesa, Medium Rare and Tori Jiro, Artemis Yoga, Branch Line, Coffee Plus 254, Caldwell's Miscellaneous Fancy Goods, Campolongo Cookie Company, Cass School of Floral Design, Eastern Clothing, Fastachi, Gore Place, the Historical Society of Watertown, the Mosesian Center for the Arts, and Mount Auburn Cemetery. The first prize will be given out on November 13th. I'll be randomly selecting a Little Local Friend to get two tickets to Mount Auburn Cemetery's Solstice. The rest of the prizes will be given out the day after Thanksgiving or whenever I run out of guests. So head on over to LittleLocalConversations.com. All right, and I want to give a few shout outs here to wrap things up. I 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 shoutouts to promotional partners. First, the Watertown Business Coalition. Their motto is Community Is Our Business. Find out more about them and their events at WatertownBusinessCoalition.com. And lastly, Watertown News, which is a Watertown focused on line 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.
