Local Government Update, October 2026
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 October 20th, 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 a 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. So let's get right into it.
Matt 0:26
Welcome to the local government update. I'm here as always with Tyler.
Tyler 0:31
Hello.
Matt 0:32
And Victoria.
Victoria 0:33
Hello.
Matt 0:34
And we're here to talk about things for the month of October 2026. Let's start off with our first segment, moments from the past month. What do you have, Victoria?
Victoria 0:42
So last month, superintendent of schools, Dede Galdston, announced her retirement. During the previous school committee meeting on October 5th, she laid out her goals for the upcoming school year, as it will be her last year. Her goals were set in mind with the new superintendent coming in and the new director of student services being hired as well. A lot of her goals are multi-year goals. So she's signing them off, and the new superintendent will be picking them up. Her five goals this year include improving IDA annual determination score, rebuilding family trust, decreasing chronic absenteeism, cultivating belonging and mattering, and leadership transition. There's a presentation from the previous school committee that goes into more details for each of these goals as well.
Matt 1:29
Yeah, obviously you could do a whole podcast episode on each of those or a full slideshow in Tyler's world.
Tyler 1:36
If we could be so lucky.
Matt 1:39
Yeah, and thanks Dede Galdston for her service all these years.
Tyler 1:43
Yeah, quite an impressive career and the impressive time in Watertown, too. With I mean, just the new school development alone and overseeing the schools during that time, which is not easy whenever you have kids bouncing around in different schools and different locations all the time. So yeah, absolute best to her in whatever is next.
Matt 2:01
And do we have any word on the new person or when that's going to be decided?
Tyler 2:06
I believe that they were putting out that they were going to put together like a search committee of some sort, but I don't have many of the details on it at this time.
Victoria 2:14
I do know in relation to this new director of student services, they want this new superintendent to be involved in that, there was talks of that as well. So the priority is the new superintendent.
Matt 2:25
Gotcha. Tyler, what is your moment from the past month?
Tyler 2:29
Yeah, so our city council president announced in October, maybe it was the end of September, that the city is going to take on their next charter review. For anybody that doesn't know, our city's charter is its constitution. It is what defines the government locally. It establishes the roles and the responsibilities and the authority of the council, of the school committee, of the city manager, of the auditor. It is the defining document that makes Watertown Watertown. It was the charter back in 1980 that said, which was a charter committee review back then, that said that we will now be a city form of government. However, we will still be called the town of Watertown.
Matt 3:23
The city known as the town of Watertown.
Tyler 3:24
Exactly. So, and then in 2020, 2021, another very exhaustive charter review, I would say. Exhaustive in the sense of it was a very detailed review. That's what I mean. I mean, I'm very partial to that review during that time as they wrote into the charter that there shall be a creation of the community engagement specialist, which was the job that I took when I first started in Watertown. So it brought me to this great community. So I'm very grateful. Some of the other changes in that time for the last charter review that happened, it was the establishment of the state of the city address, which is something that is going to be coming up at the end of October, which I'll be sure to mention towards the end of this podcast as well. Establishment of annual councilor meetings was something that was put into that charter review. Council analyst was added, policy analyst, somebody that is focused on helping develop some of the big policy questions that are before the council at any given time. The resident advisory committee, I believe, was created out of that charter review as well.
Tyler 4:26
So it is a process that is reviewing what is working, what is happening in the city within city government, what are some of the functional changes that we can make. There was also the addition of the preamble back in 2020 and 2021, which was kind of like a statement of values for the city. And anybody that is interested, I recommend giving a look onto the city's website as to what that says, because that charter preamble defines what the city administration's goals are. And then you see those weaved in and out of the budget policy guidelines. Budget, one on the ticker.
Matt 5:03
Ding ding.
Tyler 5:04
And I think it's so easy to think about these large overhanging documents as being historical things.
Matt 5:14
Were they like hidden in an oak tree at some point?
Tyler 5:16
Right, yeah, exactly. And there may be members of the community that think that the charter isn't something that we think about all the time. But I do want to assure you, I, oddly or not, I talk about the charter every single week in some form. Whenever we have big questions, whenever we have process questions, whenever we're wondering about what's the latest update on the way that we do X, Y, or Z, one of the first places that we end up looking back to is the charter to see if it actually tells us the way that we need to do those things. So the city council president announced that they will be beginning the charter review process, forming a committee. I think by the time this podcast comes out, the application window will close, but they are welcoming applications to fill six seats of residents who will sit alongside three city councilors to discuss this charter review. Members of the community are welcome to join those meetings whenever they do begin. Application deadlines close on October 16th. But I strongly recommend that you stay up to date on the city's website and other social medias if you're interested in this process, because there will be public input required throughout everything. And any charter changes that happen need to go to a vote. So that is something that you would anticipate to see. Any voters in Watertown would anticipate to see, obviously, not this election season, but looking ahead into 2027 sometime.
Tyler 6:36
So it's a really interesting, you know, it's another example of government at work. And I'll say that there are several communities in Massachusetts that have these kind of templated charters that aren't necessarily built for their community, like especially if you go west of Worcester, which is where I grew up. I had not heard of a town charter for my 1,000-person town in Clarksburg, Massachusetts. And then when I came out here, the frequency and the importance of the charter in Watertown is something that I think is really interesting and impressive and important to a community like ours as we are continuing to think about the ways that we can improve our city government and our city function, then also be more reactive and proactive for our residents in a given time, too. So stay tuned. And I'm sure that I'll have many more updates on this over the next handful of months as the commission comes together and as discussions begin.
Matt 7:32
Two questions. Two time questions. One, so is this something we do every five years, or is it just when the president's just like, yeah, we should do it?
Tyler 7:39
Good question. So this is something that's going to be every 10 years, but with the very in-depth process and the several number of changes that happened in 2020, 2021, they wanted to do like an interim review, something a little bit sooner than the 10 years. So the way that they wrote it into the charter was there shall be a review of the charter every year that ends in a six. So now the way that it's working, all the changes were enacted in 2021, I believe it was. And then so five years after that, they do, that's where we're at now for these interim reviews. But now we will not have another review again until 2036, after that, and then every year with a six after that.
Matt 8:26
Gotcha. And then how long does this process take?
Tyler 8:29
In our announcement that we released, we were recommending people that were interested to look at this as a four to six month process, give or take. If we anticipate the applications to come in here in mid-October and then probably a couple or a few weeks of reviewing those and doing any potential interviews to bring people on, then the city council president will recommend people for appointment to the city council, who would then be the ultimate vote to form that committee. And then you need to actually start the meeting. So, you know, we still may be a month away until, you know, give or take, I don't know. It's a little bit of a guess in terms of when you can expect to start seeing things begin. Then after that, I would anticipate maybe about a half year from that point. And then, of course, any updates would need to go out to the voters.
Matt 9:21
Gotcha. Great. So let's move on to success story. And you guys both put the same thing down. So, Victoria, you want to kick us off for the success story of the month?
Victoria 9:30
So the success story this month is the middle school project. The city council approved unanimously to move forward with the middle school project, during a special city council meeting on October 6th. This does not approve the funding for the project. It just means the project can continue to develop. The current estimate for the project is $110 million. Currently, the city will have to max out their borrowing amount and delay other projects like the senior center and east end fire station if they do end up voting to fund this project. Currently, there is $14 million in the middle school stabilization fund.
Matt 10:07
Tyler, how were you gonna add on to that?
Tyler 10:10
I'll take it from the angle of just the monumental nature of a project like this. It was referenced several times in the council meeting, which started off with a presentation from the city manager and then led into discussion and questions from the council, which then led to the motion and eventual vote. And it was referenced multiple times during the meeting that Watertown is viewed by many other communities as being the gold standard of how you go about these big capital projects and in particular school projects. It cannot be said enough just how impressive it is to now be looking at a fifth public school in under a decade, all of which are being proposed without needing to go to the voters for a prop two and a half override. That is something that I think you'd be hard pressed to find that in many other communities, anywhere else in Massachusetts. Proposition two and a half limits the amount of tax revenue that the city can collect in taxes each year. And an override would allow them to go over what that limit is. In many communities, that is one of the strategies that are taken to take on these projects. And sometimes to take on one of these projects, never mind to take on a fifth in such a short amount of time. The process that was taken over the last it's really been two years since the city manager presented this.
Matt 11:39
We've definitely talked about this a bunch on the podcast.
Tyler 11:41
We certainly have.
Matt 11:42
Is it happening? Is it not? Is it happening?
Tyler 11:44
Yes, right. And it was back and forth. And of course, as Victoria mentioned, it's still subject to appropriation. So there still needs to be the appropriation of funds. The way that it currently stands right now is this project can continue to move forward with the projected budget cost of $110 million. When the city manager first proposed this project, they were looking at it as $70 million in borrowing with about $14 or $15 million in stabilization, give or take. That number has, of course, increased. However, the city council, and something that they've done very wisely, and something that is a credit to the foresight of the brass that makes a lot of these decisions, is they were looking at some of the variables in play that were putting pressure on them, one of which was the modulars. The modulars are a building that we had been renting for a long time. And it actually became financially, it made far more financial sense for the city to purchase those. And actually, it would be significantly less money to purchase them, especially since we would have had to extend the lease on the modulars at the time because the high school project, it was not known at that time yet that we would need to bump the opening from April to September. So they've made the decision to purchase the modulars, which allowed for additional flexibility and additional time. And actually, what has happened is it allowed for more designs to come together. And with each design that has happened over the course of the feasibility project, those numbers continued to get a little bit lower, a little bit lower, a little bit lower in terms of what the projected project cost would be.
Tyler 13:14
You know, it's a testament to the city council and to the city administration and the school building committee who worked tirelessly through the last couple of years on a project like this. The design as it currently is would overdouble the usable outdoor space, which I think is always very cool whenever you can utilize outdoor spaces for education, especially in the Northeast. It's a creative way of looking at it. 21st century learning environments throughout the building, taking a lot of the facets that people loved with the high school and transitioning it over to make sense in a similar way over into this new middle school space. Changing the main entrance of the building to move over onto Bemis Street and that getting a redesign as well. And increasing on-site parking, you know, there's small details here, maybe the community isn't thinking about, but it's also helping staff and families in a lot of ways too. So it's quite impressive what they're able to do and getting to this point. With that said, there are of course going to be impacts in some form. So if it's all right, Matt, if I can jump ahead,
Matt 14:17
One followup, well, couple followups. So just to clarify for people, since we've been talking about this back and forth for a bunch, so this is a completely new building, not just like renovating half of it, which is like one of the options they've been talking about.
Tyler 14:27
You may have heard it referred to as an add-reno, like adding a piece, renovating another piece. No, this is a new building, new construction, which is actually oftentimes cheaper and quicker than an add-reno, which it logically, I even struggle to be like, wait, it's it's cheaper to tear the whole thing down and start anew and quicker, but it often is. All the project projections were suggesting that as well.
Matt 14:51
Yeah. And just was there anything else interesting, like Victoria, from the meeting in terms of comments that were made?
Victoria 14:58
Generally, I would just say public support was overwhelmingly for the middle school. I don't know if there was really much, no, there shouldn't be a new middle school. There was a lot of support, adamant support that there should be a new middle school, which was very shocking for me. Because usually with these things, you get a little bit of back and forth, especially with this potentially pushing back other capital improvements.
Tyler 15:20
There were a couple students that came and spoke at the meeting, speaking with regards to the impact that the new high school has had on their learning experience. It was also quite interesting. There was a conversation about how when they moved from the old high school building into the modulars, how that was actually a benefit to their educational experience in some form, that the modulars compared to the old building was actually not that bad. And that there could very well be that similar experience with some of the middle schoolers as they make the move from the current middle school building over to the modulars just across the street.
Victoria 15:53
Yeah, it was, I think like back when we first started discussing this project, I think even the middle school principal was like, if we just move to the modulars, that would be a lot better than the current building. Or something along those lines.
Matt 16:05
Gotcha. All right, Tyler. Now you can now we can talk about budget, ding ding.
Tyler 16:09
Budget!
Matt 16:11
Get some dings.
Tyler 16:12
I'll not belabor this too much, but I think it's important contextually to talk about the middle school, not in a vacuum, but also to think about some of those impacts. And I would say that the city manager's presentation at the start of the meeting really did well at talking about budgetarily what are some of the changes that would need to be made in order to make a project like this work. You know, there are massive projects on the horizon, one of which, of course, has been this middle school, which is a priority set by the city council dating back two years now. But we're looking at Watertown Square, we're looking at specifically the streetscape work of the Watertown Square plan, taking that five-way intersection, changing it to a four-way intersection, expanding sidewalks, reclaiming 3.4 acres of current pavement space to now be usable, walkable, enjoyable. I'm going to use a planner word, public realm. That is another project that is on the horizon. The senior center, we have a senior center building committee now.
Tyler 17:13
So there are big projects on the horizon that the city is looking at and figuring out how we can make all these things work together. And if we continue on the same path, kind of budgeting in a similar way that maybe we have in previous years, really what that would lead to with, and this is in the case of a middle school project, it would lead to about a three to four million dollar budget deficit in the FY30, FY31, FY32 timeframe, give or take. So what the city manager outlined in his presentation was a pause to the acquisition of land fund, which has 5.5 million in it, give or take. That fund is something that paid for Walker Pond, just as a general point of reference of like what those budget lines are for. So there would be a pause of the acquisition of land fund for a few years. There would be some slowing of salary growth, modest, nothing significant, but a modest slowing of salary growth during those deficit years, which that would really only end up coming into conversation when it gets into some of the collective bargaining conversations down the line, but modest slowing.
Tyler 18:25
An increase in stabilization contributions in the early next couple of years for some of the other projects like Watertown Square and Senior Center building. And the reason that you do that is because if you have more money in stabilization, think of stabilization as a savings account, essentially. If you put more money into those accounts to eventually pay for those projects, then you have to borrow less. You have to borrow less money. So if you add more into those now, when you start borrowing for the middle school in three, four years from now, you'll need to borrow less for those other capital items. So it's kind of a strategy to still continue working at some of these other priority, big expensive items. We call them capital projects in the municipal world. While also continuing forward with maybe the most expensive project at the same time, which in this case would be a middle school.
Tyler 19:17
All those adjustments would move the deficits down to, you know, give or take a million out in the, we call those the out years of the CIP. So if a capital improvement plan is a five-year plan, the out years would be like the year three, four, and five of those plans. Then as an option, if the council wishes to do that, we could lower the contribution to council reserves, and that would actually close the deficit altogether. So some of the flexibility with relation to that Watertown has had the benefit of having for the last handful of years and several years, especially since the big lab boom and the new growth that happened dating, you know, between 2010 and 2020. That some of that flexibility does get limited with a project like the middle school. I don't think there's any question about that.
Tyler 20:00
However, the strategy that was outlined by the city manager actually offers the opportunity to still move forward with some of these other big projects, even while continuing to do the middle school. And 99% of the community would actually not really see a significant service level change from the operating side. So the operating side being when you walk into our inspectional services office, you would still get the same service that you would always get. There's no cutting of a position or a program or anything like that that our residents expect and enjoy and participate in. It is some of these other strategies around the budget that could make a project like the middle school work. Councilor Palomba did, he added some comments at the end, closer to the vote, where he talked about in three, four years, if there comes time that we want to take on a new project or take on a new program, there could be a limitation there of us being able to bring in a new staff member to do that. But he said he just wants that to be mentioned and wants it to be recognized while still voting for the project and for the middle school.
Tyler 21:06
So there is always going to be a potential trade-off on doing a project like this. However, it is hard to pass up the opportunity, especially with a community that has an expectation of their school buildings and of their school environment. George ended the presentation by saying we're at a point in time where the reality is matching with the possibility and the opportunity. And if they didn't do it now, the price of the middle school project would become significantly harder in two years from now or four years from now, or whatever it may be. So from the conversation at that council meeting and among the community, it has really panned out to be the right time to take the opportunity on and to take on a project like this.
Tyler 21:50
I'll also mention that a lot of these budget concerns, I'll call them, or the some of the limitations, can really be wiped out if there's development of big new development in the city in the form of quote unquote new growth. So a lot of those concerns fall aside a little bit if there's a big new housing development or one of the lab buildings that's permitted ends up turning into a lab building here. So wanted to just add the context, some of the budget context to a project like this. Because I think it's important to kind of view the entire picture here as well, while also recognizing just how much of a success it is. And a credit again to the council and school building committee and the administration and the school committee, everybody involved in getting to this point. It's something that everybody should be really excited and really proud of.
Matt 22:37
All right. So Tyler, you can come down a little bit after all that budget talk.
Tyler 22:43
Yeah. A lot of chat there. Sorry, I hope our listeners liked listening to my soliloquizing.
Matt 22:49
All right. Moving on to did you know? All right, it’s our did you know segment, Tyler, what do you got for us?
Tyler 22:55
Hey, Matt. Did you know that you can bring your son to City Hall or the library to trick or treat on October 27th between 4:30 and 6 p.m. Watertown children, please dress in your costumes, come department to department, come meet the staff and get your candy. We also have allergen conscious candy as well. Want to make that clear. Always make sure that we have those on hand. This is an event I love every single year. It's always fun seeing members of the community come to City Hall. A lot of times, I learned this in Civics Academy, another thing that I mentioned probably more often than I should. A lot of times when people come to Civics Academy, it's their first time ever stepping in City Hall. And we see that a lot with this event as well. Last year we had over 150 kids come through City Hall, which was a tremendous success. This year, let's get 151, maybe 200. I don't know, very excited by this idea. Our first year that we did this, we did this in 2024 for the first time. So just a couple of years ago. We ran out of candy, so many kids showed up. We had to do an emergency HR run down to CVS to buy more candy. We're far more prepared this year. So please come on down, visit City Hall, visit the library, go department to department. Members of our staff are going to be dressed up in their costumes. We decorate our office doors so you can come through, see some of the decorations, some of the creative minds that are at work in City Hall. So hope to see you there. Hope to see you both there as well.
Victoria 24:23
Well, it is a city council night.
Tyler 24:24
Yes, it is a city council night.
Victoria 24:26
Because you always schedule it on a city council night. Yes, it is. We are ending it this year at six to avoid interrupting. The first year we did it, it ran until seven, which really meant it ran until like 7:30. And it was a very loud hallway.
Matt 24:38
You didn’t open with public comments, trick-or-treat city councilors.
Victoria 24:42
We do have mic checks at like 5, 530. So we'll still be battling it.
Tyler 24:47
Yeah.
Matt 24:48
Well, important question: what will you be dressed up as, Tyler?
Tyler 24:50
You know, this has been a conversation in my house with my wife. Last year, just for reference, I went as a hot dog, but I dressed up as a hot dog in a suit. So it was a tan suit with a red shirt and a yellow tie. This year, as this is an audio medium, so nobody listening to this knows I have a mustache. So I'm trying to find a way to work the stache into a costume. So please email me at tcote at watertown-ma.gov in case you have any ideas. Please keep them appropriate.
Matt 25:18
Your favorite family-friendly mustachioed character.
Tyler 25:21
Yes, yes, please. I'm taking any and all recommendations. I find myself being various characters from Robert Pattinson movies over the last handful of years as well, but I'm frankly running out of options.
Matt 25:34
Yeah, there's options. I mean, the one that pops in my head that would be obviously Ron Swanson.
Tyler 25:39
Yes, yeah. Which it feels too, is it too on the nose? Local government, municipal.
Victoria 25:43
I don’t know. I think it's more of an attitude you have to nail down.
Tyler 25:48
That's the other thing, is I don't. Ron and I, I think our similarities start and end at the mustache. Like, I don't think you'd find Ron on this podcast.
Matt 25:57
Let's see. Next we got, questions we get a lot. What questions are you getting? This actually seems like this could be a question that you would see in a Parks and Rec episode.
Tyler 26:08
Yeah, it is. We've been getting a lot of what's going on with these spotted lanternflies. So a spotted lanternfly, it's an invasive insect. It causes damage to trees, other plants, they feed on their sap. Primary host of a spotted lantern fly is a tree of heaven, which is, I believe, is also an invasive tree. So it's a little invasive, loving the invasive there. But researchers are also finding that it's targeting grapevines, it's targeting hops, fruit trees, and it basically goes and it just drains these plants and eventually kills them, unfortunately. Spotted lantern fly eggs, they're hatching from their masses right now. But let me say hatching can be prevented if the eggs are scraped off of the tree and squished in the process. I know this sounds unpleasant, but for this very invasive insect, everybody can do their part in stopping the spread and the harm that these insects can have. I was cleaning out my shed yesterday, and I found several in my shed. I did my part by squishing them. So if you see a small number of adults or nymphs, you can squish them, smash the insect into the ground.
Matt 27:23
See, now you're drawing out the Ron Swanson here.
Victoria 27:26
I was gonna say.
Matt 27:28
I can see him, you know, deadpanning, you squish them, you stomp them, you know.
Tyler 27:33
Oh gosh. So essentially, if you don't know what it looks like, I mean you can certainly Google an image of them, but they look like a large moth, like a thick moth. So if you have a large infestation, sometimes they can crowd together on trees or in other areas. So you can always put circle traps or sticky bands around, which can help collect them and trap them as well. Please do your part if you see them around. This time of year, they get a little bit slower, lethargic, but with the warmer temperatures, they've made their way north and can certainly wreak havoc on an ecosystem. So we appreciate everybody's support and help in addressing this unfortunate infestation of a harmless bug to humans, but can really mess around with some of the ecosystem in the area.
Matt 28:20
So the PSA spot and squish.
Tyler 28:23
That's right.
Matt 28:24
Got it. No, spot, scrape, squish.
Tyler 28:25
Spot, scrape, squish. Splat.
Matt 28:28
All right. Number of the month.
Tyler 28:35
100,000.
Matt 28:36
100,000. That's a number that's too big to be the amount of slides that you could produce for some presentation.
Victoria 28:42
Yeah.
Tyler 28:43
I mean, I would not assume that.
Victoria 28:47
That sounds like his goal.
Matt 28:48
Right, but that's more than you'd be allowed to do. 100,000. I don't know. What do you got, Victoria? What do you think?
Victoria 28:55
Some reason I’m going like nature route.
Matt 28:57
Last time we went big number, you guys were horrified when I said bugs and birds.
Victoria 29:02
Well I’m thinking like how many types of something there is.
Matt 29:07
How many trees do we have?
Victoria 29:08
That's what I was thinking.
Matt 29:09
Yeah. I don't think we have enough. 100,000 still seems pretty big. The amount of candy you guys bought for this year's trick or treat.
Tyler 29:16
Oh, probably pretty close. 100,000 is the square feet of sod that was placed down on Victory Field as part of the Victory Field improvement project. So we had 100,000 square feet of sod grown in Maine, transported to Watertown, laid down in late September, early October. It looks fantastic right now, let me just say. It also is really nice to drive by Vic and actually see grass down again. This has been a long project. It is a big project that's taken on by the city. You can go back to listen to previous episodes. We've talked about the Victory Field project. This is phase two of the project as well. And I believe it's a three-phase project.
Tyler 30:00
But the project includes a full irrigation system, full new drainage system, avoids mud on this beautiful new grass field as well, gets rid of any standing water, addresses any unhealthy grasses that might be coming in. But now that the sod is laid down, basically what you need to do is you need to let the roots of the grass establish themselves in this new environment. So it will be most likely that the grass is fenced off until next spring at the least. We'll definitely have far more information as we come out of the winter as to what the most up-to-date timeline, maybe sooner, but I'd expect to have some information as we get into the early 2027 as to when the grass field is going to be up and ready to go. But it is looking great. So 10,000 square feet of grass. Kentucky bluegrass specifically.
Matt 30:49
But it came from Maine.
Tyler 30:50
Came from Maine.
Matt 30:51
Confusing.
Tyler 30:52
And came to Massachusetts.
Matt 30:55
All right. We already did our budget spotlight. So we've made it to the last segment here. Upcoming. What do we have, Victoria? Anything?
Victoria 31:04
Just WCA-TV is having their annual fundraiser coming up November 7th. You can RSVP at WCATV.org slash fundraiser. You can also sign up for our WCA-TV Grand Prix with your friends and family participating in Mario Kart Racing. If you're not interested in Mario Kart, we'll have retro gaming, Dungeons and Dragons, hosted by yours truly. Old games and all that fun stuff. Or you can just come and hang out too.
Tyler 31:30
That'll be awesome.
Victoria 31:30
Yep.
Tyler 31:31
Yeah. That'll be a good time. State of the city taking place on October 28th. That is a Wednesday in the new and improved city council chambers, which will be opened up by then, which will be exciting. It starts at 6 p.m. Come on down. I think it is one of the easiest and most approachable ways for you to have an understanding of what the city government has done in the past year and what they're thinking about in the year ahead. It is a presentation, speaking of slides, with our City Manager and City Council President, City Manager George Proakis, City Council President Mark Sideris. So always, always a fun presentation to attend and get a chance to speak directly with the leaders of the city, which is always cool. And then Trick or Treat, which I already mentioned, which will be the Tuesday before then on the 27th, starting at 430, which should be very fun.
Tyler 32:21
If you have not checked it out, I strongly recommend that you go and watch WCA-TV's coverage of the post office press conference that was held in Allston in early October. I believe it was on October 4th. WCA-TV was there along with several other news entities. Allston is going through a very similar situation that Watertown is with relation to their post office. Allston actually had a signed lease with the post office and they backed out of it. All their residents received the letters from the USPS about this shutdown a week after all of our residents did. So they're almost on the exact same timeline. Dorchester just got notice from the USPS that they're doing a temporary closure there. So this is something that has had ramifications across all of eastern Massachusetts, I would say, especially in this direct area. And I find it quite interesting that the USPS's letter to the Allston residents was sending people over to the Watertown areas for their post office needs. I feel like every time that we start talking post office, there's another contradiction somewhere in the process. So been a frustrating one, but hopefully I'll have more updates on that coming soon. And we'll make sure that we link President Sideris’ remarks in the show notes as well. So thank you, Matt, for doing that. Surely I'm forgetting some other things, but you can always learn the latest by signing up to our What's Up Watertown newsletter. Comes out every single Friday. It is truly the one-stop shop in your inbox of the latest information and what's coming up next in Watertown.
Matt 33:58
Wicked Watertown.
Tyler 34:00
Wicked Watertown is taking place on October 24th from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Commander's Mansion, which is at 440 Talcott Ave. Join the Commander's Mansion staff. They always do so well with a spooky house. And I believe that they're doing a trunk or treat right outside of the mansion this year as well. There’s going to be a photo booth. There's going to be lively costumes. There's going to be ghost stories by flashlight with the Watertown Free Public Library and the Bookmobile, which should be very exciting. A lot of very exciting things. Advanced tickets have gone on sale. $5 per person. Children that are under three are free. Advanced registration closes the day before on October 23rd. And then you can get tickets at the door for $10. So cash only. So I recommend you buy beforehand, save some cash, and support a great mini event.
Matt 34:51
Awesome. Well, we've made it. Thank you, Tyler.
Tyler 34:54
Thank you.
Matt 34:55
Thank you, Victoria.
Victoria 34:55
Thank you.
Matt 34:56
See ya.
Tyler 34:57
Later.
Matt 34:58
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 episodes of the podcast, you can head on over to LittleLocalConversations.com. There you can find all the episodes, information on upcoming live podcast events. You can sign up for my weekly email newsletter. And if you'd like to help support the podcast, you can click on the support local conversation button in the menu. And there you can become my little local friend and help keep all these conversations going.
Matt 35:26
Alright, 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 shout outs 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 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.
