Local Government Update, October 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 October 15th, 2025
(Click here to listen on streaming apps) (Full transcript below)
Links mentioned in episode:
School Building Committee - Sept 17th
Trash and Recycling Info and Calendar
2025 Election Dates and Deadlines
Library Board of Trustees Forum
Creative Chats With Filmmaker Margo Guernsey
Watertown's Open, State of Development in Watertown
—————
Sign up for the Little Local Conversations email newsletter to know when new episodes are out and keep up on everything Little Local Conversations.
Thank you Arsenal Financial for sponsoring Little Local Conversations! Listen to my Watertown Trivia episode with Arsenal Financial’s Doug Orifice to have some fun learning about Watertown!
Thanks to podcast promotional partner the Watertown Business Coalition, a nonprofit organization focused on connecting local businesses and strengthening our community. Check them out at watertownbusinesscoalition.com.
Thanks to promotional partner Watertown News, a Watertown-focused online newspaper. Check them out at watertownmanews.com.
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 have 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 of Watertown, and Victoria Weichel over at WCA-TV. And we recorded this over in the WCA-TV podcast studio. And this update is for the month of October, 2025. Let's get into it.
Matt: 0:38
Welcome to the Local Government Update episode. I'm here once again with Tyler Cote.
Tyler: 0:42
Hello.
Matt: 0:43
And Victoria Weichel.
Victoria: 0:44
Hello.
Matt: 0:45
So let's dive right in. Moments from the past month. Let's see. Victoria, why don't you kick us off?
Victoria: 0:51
So I have an update regarding the middle school project. During September 9th, City Council meeting, City Manager George Proakis gave an update regarding the middle school. After completing a feasibility study, the cost for a renovation and a cost for a new build were much higher than expected. And the city manager suggested to take the project off the table at the moment, as the cost was much too high and did not feel comfortable continuing with the project. City Manager Proakis met with the school building committee on September 17th to discuss further about the future of the project as well. A lot of committee members for the school building wanted to continue looking at different options, how to not take it off the table just yet. City Manager Proakis during the city council meeting on September 9th wanted to move forward on other major focuses for the city, like the new senior center, the Sterritt Lumber site, and all that. So the school building committee is going to continue looking, but for now it's kind of in the limbo state.
Matt: 1:47
So it's on the back burner. We have kind of this money earmarked for this project.
Victoria: 1:52
But using it to make major repairs to the building. So it can hold up until we can actually do a new building or new renovation.
Matt: 2:01
Right. Which is something I think you've talked about before, Tyler, where we just maintain buildings so that when we do get the chance to redo things, it's a long-term wise choice.
Tyler: 2:11
Yeah, it's typically more cost effective to spend some preventative maintenance earlier rather than waiting for things to completely deteriorate and then, you know, have a big cost later on. But yeah, there is money in a stabilization account focused on the middle school project. It's, I don't have the number directly in front of me, but it's somewhere in the teens of millions, you know, 14, 15, 16, 17 million, which was put in that stabilization account, I believe it was late last fiscal year. So sometime May, June of 2025. So that money is earmarked for that type of project. The budgeted number originally when this project was put on the table was in the 84-ish, 85-ish million dollar range. And that's, you know, it was an already tight budget, but we saw this as an opportunity, especially because one of the big elements of the conversation was that we had the modulars still right next door. So if we had to use them, there would be potentially the opportunity to kind of do so because once those get taken away, it just adds cost in the future if we were to have to put them back, right? So this is why we do feasibility studies. It's to answer these exact kind of questions of this is what we think we can fit into our budget right now. Here's a number. Let's do the feasibility study to see if we can accomplish that.
Tyler: 3:31
I know there's been a lot of questions about MSBA funding, but there's already the MSBA money that's helping with the Watertown High School project. And it's rare for the MSBA, which is a state agency that helps with like school improvements and building projects around schools. It's rare for them to be doing multiple projects in a single community at a time for an entire rebuild of a school. And they also actually have helped with existing projects that are going on in the middle school right now, like the roof and the windows that are going on in the middle school. So essentially the likelihood that they would support this project, at least as the city manager said, it's hard to plan for that, that you can expect it in any form. So that's of course playing into the conversation. What I recommend is for our listeners and residents to tune in for the October mid-year budget presentation, which is taking place on October 14th. It may already be out by the time that you're listening to this, which you'll be able to find on WCA TV on demand. In that presentation, I know the city manager will share a little bit more about budgetarily where we're at, how it relates to the middle school, and then where some of our other capital items, such as the senior center, for example, or Sterritt Lumber site, which was just used as a transfer station for the last several months. So there are other capital items that are part of the discussion and finding the way that we can kind of address the economic uncertainties that are happening both regionally and nationwide to fit what Watertown can do right now, essentially.
Matt: 5:00
Gotcha.
Tyler: 5:01
Yeah.
Matt: 5:01
Yeah. Well, we had a good stretch there with all, you know, sparkly new schools. So I guess going four for five isn't bad.
Tyler: 5:09
Not bad. Yeah.
Matt: 5:10
Yeah. All right, Tyler, why don't you tell us your moment from the past month?
Tyler: 5:13
Moment from the past month is one that I'm sure we're all aware of, but I do want to speak to it. And hopefully it will be the last time that you hear me talking about this in the foreseeable future, which is that the Republic Services trash and recycling strike came to an end.
Matt: 5:27
Did you dump out a trash bin full of confetti over yourself?
Tyler: 5:31
It felt that way in City Hall a little bit that we needed to do something. I do want to express appreciation for our residents in working with us through this entire thing. Whenever you have these situations where it's with a consultant, but you know, the city is kind of being this middleman between our consultants and our constituents. And there's always more that us as a city want to be able to do, and we're trying to accomplish as much as we can. And sometimes that doesn't always fulfill to the absolute most the thing that maybe everybody feels like we can and should do. But I do want to appreciate everybody who bared with us over the last three months or so as this strike was ongoing. The patience was much, much appreciated. The one thing that I kind of want to just reflect on a little bit is the amazing work that our 311 team did over that time, receiving 150 phone calls a day about missed trash. What they would do is they would get those calls, they'd put them into a sheet. And then at the end of every single day, they would send that sheet or throughout the day, not just at the end of the day, would send it over to our DPW trash and recycling coordinator, Matt Bacon, who worked for three months straight, Monday to Saturday, because we would do catch up days on Saturday where we'd bring in a third party.
Tyler: 6:44
And while he's doing that, he's also down at the emergency drop-off site helping there and ensuring that that is running as smoothly as possible. Matt's like a total all-star, the work that he did coordinating with people that have never been to Watertown before, showing up later than typical to do curbside service, and ensuring that we're getting as most efficient of service as humanly possible. And just to the whole DPW team. We were one of the only communities impacted that didn't have a dump or a transfer station in some form. And we were able to get one up and running within 48 hours, which I think is a tremendous success just in terms of like efficient, abnormal, kind of unique action, which is something that George, our city manager, preaches with his staff all the time. But also credit to Tom Brady, the director over at DPW, for being kind of creatively looking at this and thinking, well, let's not just sit by and like wait and see where this goes. Let's take action and see if we can put ourselves in a position to alleviate some of the concerns that we know are that our residents are going to have. So get that up and running.
Tyler: 7:44
And to be totally honest, you know, we were sitting in meetings that first day talking about this as an option. And, you know, those dumpsters that we have were being asked to essentially compete with some of the other cities and towns that are impacted by this for some of those services to say, bring in these extra dumpsters. And then we bring in these dumpsters and they can fit across the four or five dumpsters we have, total around like 20 tons of trash and recycling. We pick up 35 tons of trash and recycling every day. So there's also the concern of there won't be enough space. So just so much appreciation for our residents, so much appreciation for our 311 team and our DPW team for putting in all that work. But now we have regular service like we did back in June at this point, back up and running. Our recycling center is back open again on their regular hours. We just had a Watertown swap shop, which is a great program that our trash and recycling coordinator, Matt, is running that unfortunately was closed down through the course of the summer, but is back up and running on weekends, on Saturdays. You can see the schedule online or on our calendar. And bulk item pickup starting again. It's just things are getting back to what they had been. And ultimately, this is just my final sign-off on talking about trash and sending appreciation to everybody and like the truly great work that they did and also their patience and understanding through, you know, the last several months as this was going on.
Matt: 9:08
Yeah. Well, thanks everyone who helped us get through and looking forward to getting back to regular. Moving on, let's go to success stories. So both of you had the same success story because it was kind of a big one. But Victoria, you want to start with what's your success story?
Victoria: 9:25
So the success story for this past month was a state of the city presentation. On September 30th, City Manager George Proakis and Council President Mark Sedaris sat down in the council chambers and addressed the public about the current state of the city. Went through notable changes in the past year and what the future looks like. Generally, the city, even though there's a lot of economic questions in the year of, in general in this country, Watertown isn't a very good place. There are concerns, but City Manager Proakis and Council President Sedaris are hopeful. They believe Watertown's in a good, stable place. That's a major thing to take out of that.
Victoria: 10:03
One thing I wanted to really point out from the state of the city is the public health and safety year in review. A lot has happened in the past year regarding public health and safety in Watertown, a lot of good things. So the city has completed the health and human services study, created the human services department, hired the director for human services, Jenna Bancroft, developed multiple new programs such as free sunscreen dispensers in some of the city's parks, sharp collection kiosk, increased CPR trainings. Some programs and services include 30k in free food through the Watertown Farmers Market, through the SNAP match program. The recreation has created 20 new youth and adult programs as well. The Watertown Fire Department has also reached out to elementary students with fire safety education, conducted monthly community meetings with the senior center to improve fire safety. The police department recruitment efforts have improved throughout the creation of the cadet program, with the city leaving the civil services.
Tyler: 11:02
Yeah, and I think that City Manager and City Council President's review of the public health and safety is a good opportunity to kind of highlight some of the amazing work that some of our departments are doing and some of our community partners as well. Because that's, public health and safety is something that is very much, you know, some of the work is coming from within City Hall with some of our departments in there. But then also a lot of it is empowering our community partners. You know, Wayside, for example, is a contractor through the city that we are always empowering and working with them to ensure that we have service provision happening in the city in several ways. And now with Jenna on board, our human service director, she's going to be focusing on over the next year, something that George and Mark talked about was focusing on improving our access to some of our prevention programming now as well. So using some available city funds to improve harm reduction programming, to do youth substance use prevention, to invest in existing programs that are both within City Hall and in our community, and then also build some new ones as well, which is great.
Tyler: 12:03
I think that was a great highlight that they shared during the State of the City. I highly recommend people to give a watch. Their presentation was maybe a little over an hour, give or take. There's some slides that go with it. You can actually access the slides online as well. I'll make sure to have that link in the show notes. But this year, State of the City took on a little bit different of a format if you've watched previous years. This year we ended up formatting them around six general goals that we have in our administration. And every goal kind of focuses on something different. One is running an efficient organization. One is ensuring that we have excellent community service and community engagement or fiscal stability and public health and safety, as Victoria mentioned. And all of those goals kind of speak to some of that program or the services that we're delivering. And it was a good opportunity to use those goals to kind of touch on each and every department, the successes that you're seeing. And it wasn't exhaustive. It’s not touching on everything that we’re doing.
Matt: 13:03
You can't mention everything in 70 minutes. Come on.
Tyler: 13:06
Yeah, I know. Unbelievable. But I hope that, you know, residents that watch can kind of walk away and feel a little a sense of pride in a lot of the stuff that the city is accomplishing, but then also give them just a better sense of what is happening day to day in your community. What are people doing in City Hall or at the Parker building, or how are we approaching the way that we do our streets and things? So it really was, I think, a great presentation. Highly recommend giving it a watch. And if you have any questions, it's a great opportunity for you to kind of get the start of information on things in that presentation. Then if you want to dive in, you can reach directly out to myself or 311 and we can give you even more information about it if you want to learn more about a program or a service or a statistic that you heard. So it was great. And I appreciate everybody that came out and have watched. And I hope people continue to do so.
Matt: 13:55
Yeah. And in terms of things that we've talked about on this podcast, is there anything in that presentation that we haven't touched on that are like new directions to keep an eye out for?
Tyler: 14:04
Yeah, I would say there was definitely, there was several things that we have talked about. You know, I know we've talked about trees a lot. There was definitely some updated statistics on trees and such. I would say a big conversation was on the public health and safety and some of those new directions that we're going to start seeing the city going in. And I recommend people going and giving a listen to the city council's president. He kind of gave some remarks at the start of one of the goals that focused on the school's efforts specifically on DEIB with their diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging office and some of the amazing work that they're doing and some of the stuff that they're going to continue to do. I thought that was a great little piece that the council president, who sits on the school committee and the city council, that is not always the case in communities, and it's something that does happen here. So he kind of put his city council hat aside for a moment, put on that school committee hat for a second and shared kind of his perspective around that. And I thought that was really interesting. So there's certainly a lot to take in in the presentation, but I definitely think that it's worth your time.
Matt: 15:08
Gotcha.
Tyler: 15:08
Yeah.
Matt: 15:09
Yeah. So go check that out. All right. So now let's move on to some of our fun sections. So, Tyler, did you know? What do I need to know this month?
Tyler: 15:18
Yeah. So, did you know that your polling location may have changed this year? If you don't know, I hope you do now. So, no longer is the city going to be using. So, our election this year, take a step back. We have a local election. It is on November 4th. That is Tuesday, November 4th. The city, our elections are run by our city clerk's office, will no longer be using the elementary or middle schools as polling locations. Several reasons for that. Just ensuring that having correct access to buildings and parking available and everything. So we're no longer using the elementary or middle schools. If you used to vote in the Hosmer, that is now being moved to the Hellenic Cultural Center at 25 Bigelow. If you used to vote at the Lowell School, that is now going to be over at Northend Fire Station at 270 Orchard Street. If you used to go to the middle school, that is now over at the Watertown Public Library at 123 Main Street. And then if you used to go to the Cuniff, that is now over at the Munger Apartments at 100 Warren Street. Now, highly recommend going to watertown-ma.gov slash voting locations. Or if you just go to our home page, the top bar from now until election day will have a note about where you can go to find where your polling location is. I highly recommend you going there. There's a link on that page to the Secretary of State's website where you can just put your name and your address and it will tell you where your voting location is.
Tyler: 16:45
We're going to be doing a lot of outreach over the next month to make sure that people are aware of this in the lead up to election day on November 4th. If your precinct was impacted by this change, you will be receiving a postcard. If you have not already, letting you know. If you are a registered voter, that is, you will receive a postcard telling you that your location has changed. If you make any updates to your voter registration, say you change your address because you moved from the top floor to the bottom floor of your apartment or something like that, you will get an updated letter that tells you what your updated voting location is. Or if you change your, you know, your last name, for example, for any reason, then that might be a reason that you get one of these updated forms. And in that updated form, it will tell you what your new voting location is. You can expect to see our variable boards posted up all over town. Those are the electronic boards that you see that tell you that construction is coming up or something like that. Those will now have some election day info coming soon as well to let you know that locations have changed.
Tyler: 17:45
And then you also will just see posted online and on social media with the city. We actually just last week, we're recording this on October 6th, released a very long announcement kind of detailing some key dates. So before we jump ahead in the pod, I do want to kind of highlight some of these. Election day is November 4th from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. But early voting is happening and that will take place at City Hall in the lower hearing room. So not at your dedicated precinct, but early voting itself will be at 149 Main Street on October 28th from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. And then October 29th and 30th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Voter registration deadline is 10 days prior to the election. Residents can register to vote online before the deadline on October 25th, or you can visit the clerk's office before they close the Friday before then. You can go anytime between now and the Friday before then, which is October 24th. And then you can also request a vote by mail application by Tuesday, October 28th at 5 p.m. You can do this online and I'll make sure that that is shared in the show notes as well. So please keep an eye out for all these notifications. And also if you have a neighbor, if you have a family member, let them know about this change as well. We're trying to make sure that it's known. We'll have signs posted up at the old voting locations as well. So if you end up going to the Hosmer School, it will now tell you where you need to go. But I want to make sure that this message is getting out because this can be a pretty big change. Some of these schools have been used as polling locations for a while. So we want to make sure that everybody is aware of where you're supposed to be on November 4th if you're looking to vote.
Matt: 19:21
Yeah. And as always, if you have any questions, call 311.
Tyler: 19:23
Call 311, always. Thank you.
Matt: 19:26
And Victoria, do you want to talk a little bit about cable access's coverage of the election?
Victoria: 19:30
I was going to bring this up in the upcoming. But by the time this comes out, we will, I believe, have three of our special election programming out. So last Monday at the time of filming this, we held the Library Board of Trustees forum, which you will be able to check out now. On the day we're filming this, October 6th, we are filming the city council forum at 6 p.m. in the middle school. So that will be available on our on-demand on our public channel. That is for city councilors at large forum. It's not a debate. Well, we are having a debate on October 9th for District C. And for School Committee. This is upcoming October 20th at the middle school as well at 6 30.
Matt: 20:10
And is there a place on your website where people can just see all these coming up?
Victoria: 20:13
Yep. So if you go to WCATV.org and you go to Watertown Cable News, if you hover over it, there will be a specific tag for elections. You can check out each individual candidate on there, but also you can keep track of Watertown Cable News every week at 7 p.m. on Thursdays. For any election updates we're going there, we'll also be covering the elections on November 4th as well.
Matt: 20:34
Thank you for doing that work. Let's move on to next one. Questions we get a lot. So now that you're not getting asked about trash, what are you getting asked about, Tyler?
Tyler: 20:43
Yeah, good question. I started getting this question more over the course of September, which is when is the road construction going to start in Watertown Square? Now, of course, all through 2024, even in 2023, we did the Watertown Square area plan process where several community meetings, visioning sessions, charrettes, basically every planning term and word that you can think of was discussed at those. And in June of last year, so June 2024, City Council endorsed an area plan, which was a vision. That's what it was. It was a vision that included a reconstructed road network and expanded sidewalks. And it ended up reclaiming about like, I believe the number is like 3.2 or 3.6 acres of space in the downtown, which is currently used to like store cars or roadway, essentially, currently pavement, because people want more space on sidewalks. They want more green space, all that stuff, right. So that process, you know, the area plan process is completed, but now we are getting into the implementation. So the big question that I've been receiving is when is the construction actually going to start? No time in the immediate future. That I can assure you. Shovels will not be in the ground in Watertown Square to redo this road network. What we have currently, and what you can see in the plan, or if you go to Watertown Square Improvements.com, is the vision for the square. It was something that during the planning process, it was called the Four Corners design. That is just a vision is not detailed. What now needs to happen is the city is bringing on board an engineering firm to do a more like detailed look of what is possible with using that vision.
Tyler: 22:22
So a detailed look means what is the gravel underneath the road actually like? How far does it go down? What is below that gravel? Who owns what's below that gravel? Like Cambridge may end up owning a pipe down there that leads over into Cambridge, right. So there's a lot of those details that still need to get sorted out. They are gonna look through traffic data a little bit more to get a better understanding of what the traffic impacts will be from some of the changes that are laid out in the plan, you know, because there's everything from the removal of like a lane here or a lane there or the addition of a bike lane or a bus lane, and all those details need to kind of get investigated a little bit further, which this engineering plan will be doing. And then right down to like, is the curb going to be six inches or eight inches? Those are some of the details which aren't laid out in the vision. Like we have a general overview of what we want that square to look like using all that community feedback that we received over that year-long process.
Tyler: 23:23
But now it's about getting into like the nitty-gritty, getting into those details. And then at the end of that process, which could take 12 to 18 months, it's not something that's going to happen overnight. There's a lot of stuff that needs to go on, including bringing on board the engineering firm to help do this and to really take the lead with our city staff. And what they'll do is they'll kind of develop these incredibly detailed design drawings and basically be like, this, here you go, is kind of executing the vision. Now there's going to be plenty of opportunity for public input throughout that process as well for people to engage and stay informed. Myself and a colleague are revamping our Watertown Square website that was used in the area plan. There's already bones of that updated website up now if you go to Watertown Square Improvements.com. But over the next few weeks and through the month of October here in 2025, you can expect to see more and more information getting put up there, outlines, detailed information about like what can you expect, what can you not expect, what's included, what's not included, to make sure that everybody's staying informed. And we'll continue to use our email list as well, which if you used to receive updates about future meetings about Watertown Square or public input about Waretown Square, then you will continue to receive them now because we'll use that same email list. So visit the website, but also to answer the question that we receive a lot. When is it starting? No time right now. Don't expect, you know, construction crews in the square every day anytime soon, or at least not related to the Watertown Square project. They might be there working on another thing. But in terms of like a change road network or expanded sidewalks, anything like that, there's still a lot of work that needs to get done before we get to that stage.
Matt: 25:01
So put off Watertown Square driving apocalypse for another year.
Tyler: 25:04
Yes. Yes, definitely. At least. And I think the reason we're getting that question is because the other process related to this project started recently, which was our land strategy consultant who's doing our revitalization plan, presented to the city council in early September, which you can find that video on WCA-TV or on the Watertown Square Improvements website. But I'll save maybe some details about that project for a future episode. As those two things, while they're related, the engineering and the revitalization project are kind of happening at the same time, related but separately.
Matt: 25:37
Gotcha. Cool. Yeah, I think it's also because you know it was such a big thing, the square planning, and then it kind of just dropped everyone's radar. And now it's been long enough. Like, wait, what's happened?
Tyler: 25:46
Yeah, what's going on there? Yeah. I can assure you that people aren't really missing anything. It's not, you know, we will absolutely be making sure that everybody stays up to date. Yeah.
Matt: 25:54
All right. Let's see. Next we have, number of the month. Tyler, $30,000. Hold on, $30,000. Let's see. Did you get signed as a minor league baseball player, Tyler? Is that your salary?
Tyler: 26:08
I'll tell you what, nine-year-old. Oh man. Nine-year-old Tyler would have loved to hear that I got signed as a minor league baseball player. I can assure you that. That was the dream for a long time. But here we are.
Matt: 26:21
Savannah bananas. Are you okay with that?
Tyler: 26:24
Yeah, I'll take that. 30,000. Actually, Victoria alluded to it earlier in this episode. That is the amount of free food that has been accessed at the Watertown Farmers Market over the past year through our Snap Match program, which is funded through local grants, donations, state funding. It's a great success in terms of just getting the food supports and the community supports that are needed. And it's another reason why our farmers market continues to be a crown jewel of our community in so many different ways. I'll also share, just as a, you know, since we kind of already alluded to that number, maybe I'll throw in another number here just for a second number of the month. A bonus number of the month. Is 1,129, which is the number of free rides that have been accessed by seniors through the GoGo transport program run by our senior center. Another great service that Lydia, our director of senior services, has championed, making available transportation rides for seniors who need to get to doctor's appointments or need to go to the grocery store and family member can’t help them get there, or something, you know, going out to get a medication that they need that day. It's a great service that is accessed through everything from some grant funding and then some city funding itself. And it's making available a program that has been a great success. And if you have interest in signing up for GoGo, please feel free. And this is for our senior population, feel free to reach out to our senior center, or you can contact 311 and they can connect you with senior services to make sure that you can sign up today. But it's a great service and it's a great opportunity to get to places that you need to go when you need to get there.
Matt: 28:03
And that $30,000 to situate that in terms of scale. Like, do we know how many people we're helping with that, or do we know how much of an increase that is over previous years or anything like that?
Tyler: 28:13
Great questions that I do not have readily available for you right now, but something that I will definitely look into and get those maybe contextual numbers here for a future episode.
Matt: 28:23
Yeah. Sounds impressive though.
Tyler: 28:24
It does.
Matt: 28:25
All right. Well, was there anything else people wanted to hit on before we just rolled into the upcoming and rolled this out?
Tyler: 28:32
I don't think so.
Victoria: 28:33
I think just go vote on November 4th.
Tyler: 28:36
At the right voting location.
Victoria: 28:37
Yeah.
Tyler: 28:42
Do you have anything, Matt? Anything coming up on your side?
Matt: 28:45
Yeah, lots of stuff. Actually, after the election, I'm having, so I've been doing these Creative Chats over at the Mosesian Center.
Tyler: 28:50
Yeah.
Matt: 28:51
In the week, the Friday after the election day, I'm having a guest who is a documentary filmmaker who did a documentary on election officials.
Tyler: 28:59
Cool.
Matt: 28:59
Which is carried by Time magazine's film.
Tyler: 29:02
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt: 29:02
So that should be a really interesting talk with her about that side of it. So I'll have a few things related to election stuff in my feed. But for full coverage of the real local stuff, go to Watertown Cable Access and Watertown News. And, like Tyler said, go to the right place.
Tyler: 29:18
Yep. Please do.
Matt: 29:19
And what else do we have to look forward to, Tyler? I see a few other things here for you.
Tyler: 29:23
Yeah. Walker Pond, I've mentioned community meeting number one. I talked about it at Nauseum probably over the course of the summer. But a Walker Pond community meeting number two is happening Thursday, November 6th, which I don't think we'll have next episode out by then. So I want to make sure it gets on people's radar. Thursday, November 6th at 6 p.m. at the Jewish Community Day School, which is 57 Stanley Avenue in the west end of Watertown.
Matt: 29:51
So that's when I can go advocate for the mascot, the bullfrog mascot.
Tyler: 29:56
That's right. That is exactly right. So please feel free to come by, join us for the meeting. Landscape architects are drafting up designs based on the feedback that we received at community meeting one and in the survey, which kudos to everybody that took that survey. We had over 300 respondents in the time that it was open, some amazing feedback, some amazing ideas. Our landscape architects have plenty to work with to make sure that they draft up some interesting concepts and designs for everybody to get back in the room and have discussions about and, you know, share more ideas, some tinkering some ideas, new visions. You know, we're continuing to take new ideas and new thoughts and opinions in. So please join us to hear about what those concepts are, but then also keep an eye out for a survey to be released right after that. We'll keep that open for a little while as well.
Matt: 30:43
Is there going to be any focus group with kids who play Minecraft to get ideas on designing?
Tyler: 30:48
It's a great idea, actually. That's a fantastic idea. Yeah, maybe just like give them a blank slate and then say this is Walker Pond.
Matt: 30:55
These are the types of blocks we have to use.
Tyler: 30:56
Yeah, yeah.
Victoria: 30:57
Have someone like pre-make Walker Pond in there and tell them to go wild.
Tyler: 31:01
All right. Now, now we're talking. Love that idea.
Victoria: 31:05
Not just Minecraft, we can do like Sims.
Tyler: 31:08
Yeah, there's really, yeah, we could have like several focus groups on different building mediums in the game. And then we have two Halloween events. One is Wicked Watertown on October 25th from four to eight. Just fair warning for families, parents, caregivers. Four to six, the fright level will be spooky. And then 6:30 to 8, it will be scary. So just depending on where you feel comfort in the scale, that is something to just keep an eye on. So that's October 25th, 4 to 8. And then City Hall will be hosting a trick or treat. Families, parents, caregivers, everybody welcome to come. A free event on Tuesday, October 28th from 5 to 6:30. Come trick or treat at each of our departments, and our city hall departments will be decorating doors so you can come and give us feedback of what you think is good, what you think is great, and then which departments need to get in the lab and start thinking about some new decoration ideas for their doors for next year.
Matt: 32:02
Did you mention that Wicked Waretown is at Commander's Mansion?
Tyler: 32:05
Command, yeah, I don't think I did. Thank you. Wicked Watertown, Commander's Mansion, which is 440 Talcott Ave, October 25th, and then trick-or-treating at City Hall on October 28th, 149 Main Street.
Matt: 32:16
Cool. Well, I think we hit on everything here then. Yeah, maybe one thing I will attack on is that I’m doing an event with the collaboration between my podcast, Watertown Business Coalition, and planners from the City. We'll be having an event on November 13th at Italian Design Interiors, and it's going to be a panel discussion on the state of development and real estate in Watertown Square and the city. So kind of related to the Watertown Square thing we were talking about earlier. So people want to hear that discussion, come on out.
Tyler: 32:44
Yeah, very cool.
Matt: 32:45
Cool. I think we hit on everything then. We'll just wrap it up and say goodbye to listeners. So thanks for taking the time, Tyler.
Tyler: 32:51
Thank you, Matt.
Matt: 32:52
Thanks for taking the time, Victoria.
Victoria: 32:53
Thank you.
Matt: 32:54
So that's it for the update with Tyler and Victoria. I'll put links in the show notes for things that were mentioned in the episode. If you'd like to hear more of these episodes and interviews I do with people in the city, head on over to LittleLocalConversations.com, where you can find all the interviews, information on events coming up. You can sign up for my weekly newsletter, and you can help support the podcast by clicking on the support local conversation button in the menu. And I do want to say that I have a special Little Local Holiday giveaway that I'm going to be starting soon in the coming week or two, which is for people who support the podcast and become what I call a little local friend. If you help support at a monthly amount, you have a chance to win something from a whole bunch of gift cards and free stuff that I'm getting from local businesses to help encourage people to get out and do some of their holiday shopping and experiences here in Watertown. And of course, helping support the podcast helps keep these conversations coming. So I should have information on that coming out next week. So keep an eye out for that. Again, you can sign up for my newsletter at LittleLocal Conversations.com, get information on that. At this point, probably about $1,000 worth of stuff from Watertown businesses to give out. So I'm excited to do this.
Matt: 34:00
Alright, and to wrap up here, I want to give a few shout-outs. First one goes to podcast sponsor, Arsenal Financial. They're a financial planning business here in Watertown that's owned by Doug Orifice, who's a very committed community member, and his business helps busy families, people close to retirement, and small businesses. 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 one goes to the Watertown Business Coalition, their nonprofit organization here in Watertown that's bringing businesses and people together to help strengthen the community. You can find out more about them at WatertownBusinessCoalition.com. And lastly, promotional partner Watertown News, which is an online newspaper focused purely on Watertown. It's run here by Charlie Breitrose. It's a great resource, so go check that out at WatertownMANews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.
