Local Government Update, May 2025

This is a 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.

Links:

Fair Housing in Watertown Meeting

Second Ambulance Meeting

Climate Leader Community: WCA-TV segment | Watertown News article

City's Forestry Webpage

Read Submitted Budget

Watch Budget Presentation

City Council - April 8th

Watertown Square Website

WCA-TV Ascertainment Hearing

Watertown Porchfest, Saturday, May 17th (With Public Arts and Culture Community Sculpture Walk at 11am, starting at Linear Path behind City Hall and Library)

DPW Open House, Tuesday, May 20th

Memorial Day Parade, Monday, May 27th

Watertown Pride, Sunday, June 1st

Watertown Helps Out Food Drive

Watertown Helps Out, Volunteer Throughout May

Community STEM night

Transcript

Matt: 0:07

Hi there, welcome to the Little Local Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode, I sit down for a conversation with someone in Watertown to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This episode is a monthly local government update episode that I do when I sit down with Tyler Cote, Community Engagement Specialist for the city, and Victoria Weichel, who's over at Watertown Cable Access. And yeah, I'll let us just dive right in and get into what's been going on this past month and what's to look forward to. Welcome to another local government update podcast. I'm here again with Tyler Cote.

Tyler: 0:40

Hello, hello.

Matt: 0:41

And Victoria Weichel 

Victoria: 0:41

Hello.

Matt: 0:42

Cool, so we'll just dive right in then, because I know we got a lot to get to this time. So let's start right off with moments from the past month. So, Victoria, want to take it away?

Victoria: 0:50

Yep. Moment I had this month was there was a fair housing in Watertown meeting. So this was in response to the February 2025 report from the West Metro House Consortium. This report found that 13 communities, including Watertown, had evidence of discrimination of race or income. During this meeting, Kelly Vieira, Director of Investigations and Outreach at Suffolk Law, and Sophia Suarez-Friedman from the Wayside Multiservice Center, gave presentations about fair housing, review laws for housing. Sophia Suarez-Friedman like kind of explain the Wayside and how they help people with finding housing and what they do for Watertown. During this meeting they also answered questions regarding housing from the community. I would recommend watching WCA-TV's programming for it. They had like little videos with testimonials of people explaining like their personal experiences with housing discrimination.

Matt: 1:43

Yeah, I'm sure that I feel like I say every couple episodes of this podcast, it's a big topic in this city right now.

Tyler: 1:49

Yes, yeah, fair housing, housing in general in the entire region is a very hot topic and something that I know the city is taking seriously as well. Yeah, to just echo everything Victoria mentioned, you know this is kind of a first wave, I'll call it, of steps that you can expect from City of Watertown with regards to responding to the February report. You know the way that these testings work, to give a little bit of context to it, because I don't believe we talked about it in previous episodes, the West Metro Home Consortium, which is 13 communities, engaged Suffolk University. They have something called the Housing Discrimination Testing Program there in Suffolk. What they do is Suffolk sends out testers, essentially a pair of testers to private brokers and property managers to ask to rent housing in these member communities. And there were 134 total tests done and, as Victoria mentioned, yeah, there was cases of discrimination on race and income in all of the 13 communities. So it's certainly an issue that several of our communities in this region are facing, Watertown included.

Tyler: 2:52

You know April was Fair Housing Month, which is part of the reason why this meeting was held in April and ensuring that we're just having conversations throughout that month but not only throughout April, all year long, which is why our residents can expect to see more steps taken in the future. I would keep an eye out for this fall, the Affordable Housing Trust and West Metro and even some of our other cities and boards, including the Human Rights Commission, participating in hosting a training program on fair housing sometime this fall, with sessions for owners and brokers, and then another session for our community members to further this education. Ensure that there's an understanding as to the supports that are available, what to do in cases that you feel as though that you are a victim to housing discrimination in any form. So this is the first step of many, something that our city manager, George, made a statement on, because he felt that it was important that our residents here from our city, that we recognize that this is going on with some of the private landlords, private brokers, that are happening in the city. And we're going to try and do everything that we can and take steps from the city's perspective. So, first of many tests, but, yeah, this was a good event and thank you to WCA-TV for covering it and making sure that people are getting the perspectives and the testimonials were, yeah, definitely an important piece of that as well.

Victoria: 4:06

I would also say, when you're watching it, they did you give like examples of what discrimination for like income and race may like appear as. If you think you're experiencing it, you can kind of watch this meeting and maybe see like, okay, maybe this is it or not. 

Matt: 4:18

Yeah, and has there been ever been a study like this before here? Like do we have anything to compare this to, or is this our only data point at this point?

Tyler: 4:24

It's a good question and forgive me for not being fully aware of the testing specifically in Watertown that has been conducted in the past. This is something that you know, this testing program isn't, in general, isn't new, so it's hard for me to give you a benchmark specifically for Watertown, but I'll go back and see if I can find some previous tests that were done and if I can find anything, I'll give an update on the next episode.

Matt: 4:47

Yeah, because obviously, like, it's not good to have that.

Tyler: 4:49

Right.

Matt: 4:49

But it's also directionally, which way are we going? It’s always good to know.

Tyler: 4:52

Yes, it's a great question.

Matt: 4:54

But sounds like they'll be doing more tests, so we'll know as those tests come.

Tyler: 04:57 

Absolutely, absolutely. 

Matt: 04:58

All right, well let’s move on to the next one which is, Tyler, what's your moment for the past month?

Tyler: 5:03

Yeah. So I think this is something that I know Victoria wanted to talk about as well. On April 29th the city hosted, or city council hosted, a committee on budget and fiscal oversight to further the discussion about our ALS or ambulance services through our Watertown Fire Department. This is something that we had briefly talked about in a previous episode, discussing that this meeting would be happening and that there had been previous budget and fiscal oversight meetings to discuss the options. It was a good meeting I would say. There are meetings and then I think that this was an example of like good public input, good council discussion, really good presentation from our chief, Ryan Nicholson, to kind of lay out all of the options that are before us as a city to address some of the main concerns. And what the chief did was he kind of framed two issues that were in front of us. One was the concern for response times for ambulance services and then the other was staffing challenges that are associated with it as well. When it comes to the ambulance service, it's not just getting a second physical ambulance. The bigger conversation is really surrounding staffing the ambulance and getting eight additional firefighters and EMS to staff that service. 

Tyler: 6:08

And with regards to the response time, the National Fire Protection Agency has these guidelines that are basically like this is the gold standard of what you need to be expecting from your ALS service ambulances. And that is nine minutes. So when the call happens to when the ambulance arrives on scene, it needs to be in nine minutes or less and 90% of the time. Our current system, which is carried out about two thirds of the time by a Watertown Fire Department ambulance and then one third of the time by something called Pro EMS, which is like a private company in Cambridge. Yhe private company in Cambridge is only meeting that nine-minute guideline about 44% of the time, according to the chief's presentation. So it really shows that there's a need to at least explore what the other potential options could be, and the Council Committee on Budget and Fiscal Oversight agreed as they made the motion to ask the administration, forgive me for the specific language, but I wanna make sure that I get the motion correct. Asking the administration to make the National Fire Protection Agency standards of 90% in nine minutes a key performance indicator for the Watertown Fire Department, to be annually reported and to provide adequate support to meet those goals. If not meeting it, making the obligation to find the supports needed to ensure that we are meeting those needs. So that first motion from the council, the committee at least, was to recommend to the council, again this is a process discussion as well, but to recommend to the council to make this directive to the manager and to the staff to find ways of ensuring that we are actually meeting that requirement that may be due to the model that we currently have we're falling short of.

Tyler: 7:45

And then the second motion that was made was the committee making the motion to find adding a second ambulance to the Watertown Fire Department. You know they find that it's the most cost-effective way to meet the standards as well as to recruit and retain paramedics to maintain the existing ALS service in Watertown and to recommend to the city council to ask the administration to determine how to best move forward with this model. So the chief presented about seven different models to the committee that include everything from partial private and public, a full private system, adding, you know, staffing backups as opposed to a full ALS system. So there was a lot of potential options and a good conversation around it. But the committee ended up kind of taking that step to recommend that the council make this a directive of the manager to see kind of how this can move forward. There's still a lot of work to be done. Just because this happened, still needs to go before the city council, and it's not something that we'll be able to snap our fingers and then instantly we'll have a second advanced life support ambulance, but this is a pretty significant step forward I would say in this conversation. I know that it's been a topic on hand with the community as well. So that was a detailed, and forgive me again for the specific motion language, but that was a pretty big step that has taken over the last few weeks.

Victoria: 8:59

The only thing I was going to add. City Manager George Proakis did say we should be expecting it to be seen at City Council fairly soon. And also I agree with you with like the key moments of that meeting was the public input. We had one resident who spoke who had experience with both the private and Watertown ambulances and just spoke to how much he preferred the Watertown ambulance and the paramedics

Tyler: 9:22

Yeah, and our chief kind of laid out as part of this presentation, which we'll include in the show notes of the episode too, kind of laid out this performance measure essentially, looking at the response quality, the response time, the morale for the staff, the revenue gathered because of course transports come at a cost, and then the cost impact what actually is coming out of the city and what are they spending to give this service. And using this kind of model of measurement, having two advanced life support ambulances modeled out to be the highest scoring on the chief's model. So I recommend giving that a look and then watching the presentation that was given in the whole meeting on WCA-TV. It was an insightful and interesting meeting to tune into.

Matt: 10:03

Yeah, cool, all right, so we'll keep moving on to success stories from the past month. So, Tyler, what do you have here?

Tyler: 10:10

Yeah, just last week, on May 2nd, Watertown was recognized as being a Climate Leader Community. Those are all caps, Climate Leader Community. We were named one of the 19 first Massachusetts communities to receive this certification. The Lieutenant Governor and the Commissioner of Energy Resources were both in town in Watertown on Friday to recognize the city and celebrate all the communities, wasn't just ourselves. But it means a lot that in this kind of inaugural recognition of some of the leading communities when it comes to resilience and green energy, that we have state delegation coming to Watertown, hosting this in front of our future high school. I think it goes to show the incredible steps that the city has taken and the commitments that we've made with regards to climate resiliency and clean energy and all the climate activities.

Tyler: 10:58

So in order to get this recognition, there were six steps, the requirements to achieve. That includes being a green community in good standing, which has its slew of other requirements to achieve. Establishing a local committee to advise on clean energy. A decarbonization commitment and eliminating on-site fossil fuels by 2050. A decarbonization roadmap. Zero emission vehicle first policy. Specialized stretch energy code, which we were the first one to pass in the entire state by about one hour. You know the city has made, and our council has made, a tremendous commitment to make sure that we are being leaders in this space. We were the first, back in 2018 I believe it was, we adopted the first rooftop solar ordinance of its kind in all of New England. As I mentioned, we were the first to pass the specialized stretch energy code. We, of course, have the first net zero LEED Platinum 4.0 certified high school in the nation, that's going to be opening next April. It means a lot to the council, it means a lot to the community to kind of be leaders in this space. So to be recognized as a climate leader community last week, I think was affirming the work that's been done and also motivating for our staff and for our community. And I hope everybody's proud of the steps that we as a community as a whole are taking to be leaders in that space.

Matt: 12:10

Yeah, do we get a special badge or button we get to use?

Tyler: 12:13

Well, we get a crisp certificate, a very crisp certificate which, if anybody's interested, it is in the city manager's office.

Matt: 12:19

Is it like big check size at least?

Tyler: 12:22

I wish. Oh man, that would be lovely. Yeah, so maybe we'll have to make some pins or some buttons there. And we appreciate everybody that came out to EcoFest and kind of participated in being the leader that we try and be. The city threw our first EcoFest and hopefully it's not our last.

Matt: 12:38

Yeah.

Victoria: 12:38

WCA-TV was there for the awards, filming it, so you can expect that on Watertown Cable News later for, I believe, the May 8th episode. And then we were also at EcoFest filming that, so you can expect coverage probably on Watertown Cable News as well, about EcoFest.

Matt: 12:54

Yeah, we're recording this the week of EcoFest, so we're hoping that you have been out there and I'm sure it will have been a good event. All right. So let's move on. We're going to kind of have a Questions You Get a Lot/Did you know? mashup session here for Tyler talking about trees, so give us the lowdown on trees.

Tyler: 13:10

Yeah, I'll go through this relatively quickly because I know I've talked about trees in previous episodes too, so I know that maybe our listeners are getting a little treed out. But a question that we're receiving a lot right now, especially as we get into the springtime and out of the doldrums of winter, there are people asking about tree removal or pruning and everything that's associated with that. So any tree that's found in a public way or is a public shade tree, which is basically, if it's on a public way think our street trees or a tree that is like bordering upon like a park, for example, or bordering and is meaningful to the green infrastructure of like our roads and streetways, you need to go through a process to get that pruned or to get that removed if it feels that it is dying. It is a simple process, but it is a process. What you need to do is you need to submit a tree pruning or a tree removal request, which our tree warden, we have a dedicated tree warden that's entire role is ensuring that we have a thriving green canopy and tree canopy here in Watertown. And what he ends up doing is he goes out, he reviews the tree, determines whether it needs to go through a removal process or a pruning process and then he makes the decision as kind of the best ways of moving forward. If it is a tree in a public way, then this is something that the city and our contractors will end up taking on.

Tyler: 14:30

I know that there are sometimes some questions about, you know, if a tree falls down and it's like half on private property, half on a public property. That is a situation where we're only able to take care of the public property piece of the tree. That's a conversation that you can absolutely have with our tree warden. And if you have any questions about this, the easiest way of getting answers that you need is to call our 311 service. So if you're in Watertown, just dial 311, give them a call, talk with Laura, talk with Stephanie, our two 311 reps, and they'll walk you through everything they need to do. And if you have trouble with it, they can even submit the tree request form. If it's something that needs to get removed, there's a state law where things need to go through a tree hearing process to make sure we're not, you know, removing a tree that might have the opportunity to come back to life or improve or is meaningful to the surrounding area. So it can be a longer process, but a process nonetheless. So we appreciate everybody's help and if you have any questions about, like what am I going to do with this tree in my yard, give 311 a call. They can help you out. At least give you a little bit of direction as the ways you can get your answers.

Victoria: 15:34

I'll also say WCA TV does record the public tree hearing meetings as well. They're very quick.

Tyler: 15:39

Yes, they are.

Matt: 15:41

Let's keep branching out here, and move on to numbers of the month here. So, Victoria, you got a number of the month to throw at us?

Victoria: 15:53

Not specifically a number of month, but like numbers. So on April 8th city council meeting, the city manager, George Proakis, submitted the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The submitted budget includes revenues and expenditures totaling over $223 million. The main takeaways from the budget hearing is that, even though times are very uncertain at the moment, Watertown still has very strong budget fundamentals and those strong fundamentals are what's going to keep Watertown stable throughout these times. These fundamentals include funding the OPED, fully funding the pension system, and supporting stabilization funds in Watertown. In June, expect the budget hearings from department heads. They're not scheduled yet, but they typically happen early to mid-June and take place across three days. And Watertown will be filming them, as always.

Matt: 16:44

This is your Olympics, Tyler. Here's the budget.

Tyler: 16:48

Yeah, the budget. I know I spoke a lot about the budget in the last episode as well and that was. We recorded that and it got released right around the time that the budget was released. I recommend going back and listening to that. And then also, it's a longer presentation, you're looking at, you know, 90 minutes of our city manager presenting. However, as I said in the past, our budget tells the story in a lot of ways of our city and what's coming, what we're prioritizing. Our city manager speaks about the middle school, that project and what you can anticipate. He talks about Watertown Square, which I know many people have heard a lot about over the last year, two years now. And also speaks to some of the limitations that we're facing as a city as well. And you're right, Victoria, and a big message that came out of George's presentation was uncertainty, being kind of like the word. I think George said uncertainty many, many times in his presentation. But I think it's the proper approach, the way that you know our city has approached the budget and again, this is just the submittal. There's still hearing process, the council still needs to adopt and there's several steps still to go. But our city, they've prepared themselves for situations like this in the sense of stabilization funds and preparing us for the potential for uncertainty.

Tyler: 18:00

So as our city is kind of preparing for our next fiscal year to start in July, July 1. This budget doesn't have any added new positions in the city, doesn't have any significant new programs. Doesn't mean that there's not going to be opportunities to see new things in the city, but there's no significant increases that you might have seen in previous budgets. So there's a lot to be told there. I would keep an eye out for any sort of release on additional information about the budget to help our residents kind of digest everything that goes along with it. Because it's 200 plus pages of charts and we want to make sure that our residents are understanding where their tax dollars are going. It's an important thing to know.

Matt: 18:37

Yeah, that's what I go read when I want to unwind at night.

Tyler: 18:39

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Matt: 18:41

Yeah, so it sounds like we're kind of had a wave, past few years, of spending and now we're entering a stabilization period, is the kind of general takeaway from that?

Tyler: 18:50

Yeah, I mean I would say there was certainly growth, positions we were adding, teams we were adding. And we have been, our city's been in the position to be able to take those on as well. And it's not spending to just spend. We've also been adding programs and opportunities here in the city too, right. So selfishly, of course, I'm one of those new positions here over the last year and a half, but even having the opportunity to come and speak and do these podcasts, this is an example of trying to, for my role, improve the way that we are talking about what we're doing in the city, which I hope our residents have found beneficial in some form. But there are many, many reasons why many of our staff are doing some great work. So I would just keep an eye on more information about kind of what's in this year's budget, especially as we get into the hearings here in the next handful of weeks. Those are hearings, so there will be opportunity for public comment, especially as we get closer down to the vote from our council.

Victoria: 19:39

I will just say, like the stabilization funds are like more for, like future plans of housing, Watertown Square specifically was mentioned for stabilization funds. But then, like also capital improvement projects. Stuff that can't happen right now but down the line. Essentially planning for them now.

Tyler: 19:54

Yes. Kind of with sound fiscal principles and strategies, when we're able, putting money into stabilization. So even in the uncertainty we're in now, having the opportunity to still put funds into stabilization funds is only preparing us for additional uncertainty that may come. Whatever that may be. The purpose of it is to ensure that we are in a place that continues to use our tax dollars in a way that allows us to provide a great service to our residents.

Matt: 20:18

Keep an eye out,

Tyler: 20:19

Please do. 

Matt: 20:20

All right, Tyler, I see your number here and I'm curious what this number means. Throw it at us.

Tyler: 20:25

Yeah, so our number of the month is 3,754. Sounds like quite a random number.

Matt: 20:32

Maybe it's like, if you're a baseball fan, like a hits record or something.

Tyler: 20:36

Oh yeah, that's right around Pete Rose's record probably. But this is actually the final recognized unit capacity number by the Commonwealth's Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities and the MBTA Communities Act. That is a lot of large words. You all have, probably, if you're listening to this, you may have heard about the MBTA Communities Act. This is the law that was put into effect by the state requiring our MBTA communities, which are cities and towns that have rail service or subway T-lines, our commuter rail, our buses, or even adjacent communities, to essentially zone for the opportunity for new housing. We talked about earlier about how the housing crisis is hitting our area, both from an affordable housing standpoint, but also just a supply and demand standpoint as well. And as a part of that, our communities you know 100, I believe the total was 177 communities in Massachusetts, were required to pass zoning that allowed for the opportunity for housing by-right, which is a zoning phrase which essentially means you know it's a little bit more opportunity, a little bit easier for developers to come in and develop housing. What this means, you know, nothing from what was actually passed by our city council for zoning back in November has changed. This is strictly just an acknowledgement of complying with the state and with the state's act. So nothing that was passed in November has changed. This is really just they did the calculation of what our zoning would maximally allow for unit capacity, which is the number of housing units. Does this mean that we will have 3,754 housing units in this downtown area?

Matt: 22:13

Next month. 

Tyler: 22:14

Absolutely not. That is not what that means. This is the opportunity to have this housing, and that's if like nothing were on these plots and then we rebuilt to the absolute maximum number. So it is just a number, but it is a big step and there will be more opportunity for people to engage in the whole Watertown Square process here over the next several months as we're getting into the redevelopment and the roadway planning process. So keep an eye on it. If you're signed up for the Watertown Square emails, we will be putting out some information that way and then, of course, stay up to date with our city social. But this was an exciting and a big step and something that we're proud of. We're proud of the fact that we were able to comply. And also thank you to all the community and our staff for all the work that they did to actually get us to this point, because it was quite a robust process to get us here. So it was exciting for the compliance letter to come in from the Commonwealth this past month.

Matt: 23:03

Nice. Lots of celebrating compliance and certificates.

Tyler: 23:06

Certainly. Yeah, I know sometimes it can come across as a little pat on the backy. But it is a recognition of all the work that has come before it, the several months and years. I mean with the green communities I mentioned back in 2018, we did the rooftop solar ordinance. I mean, that is, we're talking seven years of time between then and now.

Matt: 23:25

Yeah, congratulations. All right, so we're up to our last section here, which is what's that thing? Today, Tyler, what's the thing?

Tyler: 23:33

What's the thing? I know many of us are probably aware of what the rodent control boxes are around the city. If you aren't, we kind of have these black plastic boxes that are placed in maybe flower beds or gardens around sidewalks. But you know, I was at a Chats not too long ago and somebody came up to me and was like what's actually inside and also how invasive is it on the surrounding environment, and not just to our rodents? And it made me realize that I think we can do a little bit better about sharing all the time and care that actually goes into deciding what's a part of those. So the city uses something called a non-SGAR rodentcide, called Terad3. So forgive me for the overly scientific language, but this is kind of the newest formulation in fighting against rodent infestation and it uses vitamin D3 to do so. And essentially the bait attracts rats or mice and it reduces the risk of that secondary poisoning, which is something that is really important to our health department and our city and then also many other community members as well, as they want to make sure that we're not affecting the greater ecosystem while doing it. You know, thinking about our birds, which may, as part of their animal kingdom, may go after mice or rats to eat. We don't want them to be picking up something that has poison that would be hurtful on them. So in the past there have been cases of using SGAR or S-G-A-R, that's secondary generation anticoagulant rodentcide. Forgive me. But that has a high chance for secondary exposure to our animals. So moved away from that model and are utilizing something that is less invasive on the environment, less invasive on the greater ecosystem, while also still having the effects on our rats and mice to reduce our rodent concerns.

Tyler: 25:13

And I also want to mention that our health department will always say, these boxes, which are only in public spaces, this is a last resort option. There are other things that we can do as a city and then also our community members ask for them to do to impact rodent control. Ensuring that you don't have overgrown vegetation or standing water or exposed trash. Those are some simple steps that we can always take. Ensuring, if you're having a dumpster, going through the dumpster process to ensure that you understand everything that goes into it, so that you're not inviting rodents into your home or into your driveway or onto your streets. So these boxes are a last resort, but they are necessary in order to really help us keep the rodent issue under control. So less invasive, just about maybe a little less effective in terms of its impact on mice and rats, but still effective and a meaningful part of a greater strategy.

Matt: 26:01

And when did you make that change to the new type?

Tyler: 26:03

Yeah, so I believe it was about a year ago now. So it is, relatively speaking, new, but it's something that we're going to be continuing to use moving forward.

Matt: 26:11

Gotcha. Cool. Well, we've reached the end of our list of things here, so just the upcoming which, there's nothing going on in May in the city, right?

Tyler: 26:19

Nothing.

Victoria: 26:20

Nothing at all.

Tyler: 26:20

No.

Victoria: 26:21

It's a quiet month.

Tyler: 26:22

Yeah, what do you have, anything, Victoria?

Victoria: 26:24

WCA-TV’s ascertainment hearing will be happening this month. The date is unsure of at the moment, but it will be happening. So stay tuned on WCAT's social media to find out when that is happening. It will be in the council chambers when it happens and there will also be hybrid options as well.

Matt: 26:40

Yeah, we talked a little bit about that the last episode, but just secure their funding from the cable companies, yeah.

Tyler: 26:49

Before I get into my things, I want to give space, because I think that the most prescient timing wise thing is Porchfest, which is going to be May 17th. Matt, you've been intimately involved in the execution of this event, so I want to give you the chance to kind of promote it because it's a great one.

Matt: 27:04

Yeah, so I'm on the Porchfest organizing committee and, yeah, last year we had like 70 plus locations and 150 plus performers and this year looking at about 75 hosts and about around 175, 180 performers, depending on how that shakes out. And yeah, it's going to be Saturday, May 17th, 12 to 6 pm. It's going to be a couple of after hours events from 6 to 9 pm. One of them is going to be here at WCA-TV and they're going to have the MIT Video Game Orchestra come and play Mario Kart music while people playing some Mario Kart tournaments. That'll be fun. Then Ritcey East will be hosting some musicians, if you want to grab some food for that time. But yeah, there will be lots of stuff going on throughout that whole day. So should be a good time.

Tyler: 27:47

Where can people find out about it? And then, when is the map of all the locations going to be live?

Matt: 27:54

So watertownporchfest.org. And the map is up there now. There's a couple of things shifting but 90% of that is set so you can look. And when you go to the website there's a big thing says check out the map and schedule and just click on that. You'll see all those location things pop up on the map and you'll be like, wow, Watertown is going to be full of music.

Tyler: 28:13

That's awesome. Love to hear that. Yeah, this is something that we love that we have in the city. Thank you, Matt, for everything that you and your team have done, and I know Liz Helfer, our arts and culture planner in the city, has been involved as well. It's great. It's great. Love that we have this in Watertown. 

Tyler: 28:28

Some other events to just keep an eye out for. Everybody is invited on May 20th, from 5 to 730 in the evening, that is a Tuesday evening, to come down to 124 Orchard Street to meet our new DPW director, Tom Brady, yes, that is his name, and the entire DPW team. We're going to be hosting exhibits that each of our kind of teams at DPW are going to kind of give an inside look as to some of the work that they actually do. How does your water and sewer actually run? What does our fleet look like? Come down, touch a truck. That is going to be a part of the event. We've been talking about trees. What is the process that actually goes into planting these trees and what are the considerations that are taken? So come on down. That's May 20th at 124 Orchard Street, right next to Victory Field. And then also we have the Memorial Day Parade on May 26th. That is from 12 to 2. It will be from City Hall to Victory Field, speaking of Victory Field. It's going down Main Street, up Waverly and then on to Orchard all the way to Victory Field. So that will be 12 to 2. And then, lastly, because I'm not sure we'll be recording before this, Watertown Pride. The festival will be on June 1st 2025. That will be from 12 to 4 at Saltonstall Park, which is right behind City Hall, on the lower park. So come on by, food, games, fun times and celebrate Pride here in our city. So be very excited for that.

Tyler: 29:45

The last thing I want to mention is that, as a part of Watertown Helps Out and the Watertown Community Foundation, in collaboration with the city of Watertown, we'll be hosting a food drive from May 12th to May 21st. There will be drop-off locations for non-perishable food at our schools, at the library, at the East End Fire Station, the police station as well. So if you have any food that you'd be willing to donate as part of this food drive, please feel free to go to those drop off locations to donate. The food will end up then being donated over to our food pantries in the city. So it's going to a good cause and we hope that you all will participate. And then check out Watertown Helps Out for all the several other volunteerism opportunities that are available as well. I believe there's close to 30 plus other projects for opportunities. So that is all. Long episode today, Matt.

Matt: 30:35

Lots of good stuff.

Tyler: 30:36

Yeah, that's right.

Matt: 30:37

Yeah, definitely check out the, I do want to give a shout out to the Watertown Helps Out, which is just volunteer opportunity for doing so many stuff in Watertown. Great thing you can sign up. I'll put the link for that in the show notes too. Lots of opportunities. I'll be cleaning up the community path where the sculptures are, because we're actually going to have new sculptures from the Public Arts and Culture Committee going up at early 11 am, celebration of that on Porchfest Day too. I should put a shout out for it. But yeah, I'll put as many show notes as usual as I can to link to all these things. Any other last thoughts before we wrap it up here? 

Victoria: 31:07

Just say, WCA-TV will be at a lot of events that we just mentioned, like Porchfest, I'll be around filming. Then for Memorial Day we will be broadcasting live as usual and we'll be at Watertown Pride, I believe. We usually are. I've been there. It's been very fun.

Tyler: 31:20

Awesome. Yeah, nothing else from me. Thank you as always, Matt. Thank you, Victoria. Appreciate being involved.

Matt: 31:25

Thanks for taking the time to share everything. 

Tyler: 31:26

Of course.

Victoria: 31:26

Thank you.

Matt: 31:28

So that's it for my conversation with Tyler and Victoria. I will put a bunch of links in the show notes for things that were mentioned. If you want to listen to more episodes like this and other interviews I do with people around the city, you can head on over to littlelocalconversations.com. I have all the episodes there, events coming up, you can sign up for my weekly newsletter, and you can support the podcast. Again, littlelocalconversations.com.

Matt: 31:50

I want to wrap up with a few shout-outs here. First one goes to Arsenal Financial, podcast sponsor. They're a financial planning business here in Watertown that is owned by Doug Orifice, who's a very committed community member. He's involved with lots of different initiatives in the city. I did a Watertown trivia episode with him a while back that you can find on the website or in the feed. If you want to learn more about him and learn some Watertown Trivia along the way. And if you need some help with financial planning, you can head on over to arsenalfinancial.com.

Matt: 32:17

I also want to give a shout out to the Watertown Cultural Council, who are giving me a grant this year to help support the podcast. So I want to give them a thank you and 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. Find out more about them at WatertownCulturalCouncil.org and MassCulturalCouncil.org. The last two shout outs go to a couple of promotional partners, the Watertown Business Coalition and Watertown News. Watertown Business Coalition is a nonprofit organization here in Watertown. It's bringing businesses and people together to help strengthen the community. They actually had a very successful STEM night at the middle school recently. Cable Access has video of that that I will link to in the show notes as well. Didn't mention it in the episode, but that was another successful event from the past month. Can find out more information on events and things they have coming up at watertownbusinesscoalition.com. And Watertown News is a Watertown-focused online newspaper. They're a great way to keep up to date with what's going on in Watertown and check them out at watertownmanews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.