Development

See Drawings of the Latest Hotel Proposal in East Watertown

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Developers have come forward with preliminary plans for a hotel off of Arsenal Street, behind Target in Watertown. Elm Street Hospitality LLC has requested a developer’s conference with the town’s Planning Department to discuss the hotel proposed for 80 Elm Street – the former Atlantic Battery building. The spot is just down Elm Street from the recently approved Residence Inn by Marriott at the corner of Arsenal and Elm streets. According to engineering documents submitted to the Planning Department the hotel would be five stories tall and cover about 12,000 square feet of the 36,000-square-foot parcel.The total floor space would be 66,604 square feet. The documents were drawn up by Bohler Engineering of Southborough.

Schools

See Who Made the Honor Roll at Watertown High School

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Watertown High School released the first term honor roll lists – see who made it during the fall of 2014. Ninth Grade – High Honors
Evan Aldridge, Amelia Allison, Joseph Chau, Nicholas Cordeiro, Caroline Costa, Jacquelyn Furbish, Claire Gabel, Anna Gellerman, Siobahn Greene, Melanie Halibian, Emily Koufos, Katherine Lawn, Spencer McClellan, Katherine Nilov, Jeremy Ornstein, Sarah Pardo, Lauren Petrillo, Elizabeth Powderly, Darlyn Ramirez, and Destiny Santalucia. 
Ninth Grade – Honor Roll
Alexander Abrahamyan, Hakeem Alhady, Madiha Begum, Sarah Benites, Christina Borelli, Gabriella Cacia, Liz Cam, Gabriel Cimino, Julia Cottone, Arianna Curry, Nelziclea Da Silva, Julie Der Torossian, Hailey DiBacco, Daniel Fabrizio, David Fabrizio, Hadi Farhat, Alexander Feltner Harrison, Meghan Foley, Julio Fulcar, Owen Gallagher, Natali Gevorgyan, Didar Jajan, Jonna Kennedy, Christopher Koufos, Amanda Lewis, Jie Sen Lian, Jeannie Ngan, Anahid Ohanyan, John Papadopoulos, Stella Papadopoulos, Catherine Papayannopoulos, Tia Pellegrini, Sydney Poulin, Kian Rice, Molly Ryan, Sergio Salas, Christine Saroufim, Ana Scott, Elza Shakhverdova, Rubina Simikyan, Brianna Sullivan, Timothy Tat, Kaitlin Tracy, Isabella Vitti, Rubina Vosbigian, Connor Walsh, James Walter, and Ana Zoubian. 10th Grade – High Honors
Evamarie Alessandroni, Samuel Carton, Alexis Catsoulis, Alexan Cinar, Julia Dunoyer, Nicole Frisoli, Michael Guyumdzhyan, Sara Gyulakian, Rosdom Kaligian, Stefanos Kiorpes, Thayna Marcos, Hovig Margosian, Lily Mills, Shannon Murphy, Ryan O’Reilly, James Piccirilli, Ruby Rosenwasser, Alex Smith, Stella Varnum, and Olivia Venezia. 10th Grade Honor Roll
Mahdi Alhady, Brian Amedio, Faryal Amin, Elizabeth Arauz, Andres Arenas, Ani Aroyian, Sarine Ashjian, Christopher Baccari, Natalia Balan, Emma Bannon, Robert Belli, Larissa Bittencourt, Benjamin Bunnell, Lauren Burns, Anthony Cardarelli, Daniel Carito, Joseph Chomthakham, David Conlon, Julia Dario, James DeRocher, Maksim Doe, Aurora Fidler, Colin Gardiner, Isaac Gibbons,  Sarah Greim, Artem Grigoryan, Mayra Guerra, Isaac Huff, Sabir Hussain, Kaysa Jinan, Nareg Kalaydjian, Lisa Kalies, Leslie Kay, Yasir Khan, Zelal Kort, Fatima ez Zahra Kouchaoui, Eli Krieger, Lance Kuo, Catherine LeBlanc, Tatum Lee, Benjamin Lowry, Karina McAdam, Samantha McFarland, Hanna McMahon, Jenna McMahon, Lisa Nantongo, Emerson O’Connor, Vicky Orellana, Marina Osipova, Gabriel Pino, Vasiliki Pistoftzian, Talene Pogharian, Max Potseluev, Nayara Ribeiro, Zachary Rimsa, Fatima Roda, Elizabeth Santourian, Reid Shanabrook, Brendan Shanahan, Lori Shirinian, Aidan Sullivan, Janaki Thangaraj, and Emmanuel Theodore. 11th Grade High Honors
Nelli Balian, Niko Carvajal-Janke, Karl Elbakian, Kyle Foley, Karina Franca, Tyler Gardiner, Zoe Grodsky, Julia Harrington, Sabiha Khalid, Erika Libertini, Austin Lin, Joanna Lopez Ordonez, Steven Mey, Cristopher Patvakanian, Christopher Rohlicek, Arshdeep Singh, and Deanna Solari.

Police/Fire

Residents Can Create Profile that Will Help First Responders

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Residents can create a “safety profile” with information about themselves and their household that could be useful to first responders in an emergency. The profiles are part of Smart911, national public safety service, which has been added to the town’s existing 9-1-1 emergency services. When a resident calls 911, their profile will be displayed sothe 9-1-1 call-taker will have a better understanding of the situation and faster emergency response. “At a time when seconds count, being able to have the information we need to send the correct response teams to the correct location during an emergency will save time and ultimately lives,” said Watertown Police Chief Edward Deveau. “The safety of our community is top priority and this is a way in which we can utilize technology in order to ensure we are offering the highest level of protection to all of our residents.”

Residents can create their Safety Profile online at www.smart911.com for their household that includes any information they want 9-1-1 and response teams to have in the event of an emergency.

Government

LETTER: Fire Union President Reacts to Council Rejecting Contract

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As President of the Watertown Firefighters Union, Local 1347, I write today to express my and my membership’s extreme disappointment with the Town Council’s decision to reject the Joint Labor Management Committee’s (JLMC) decision relative to the collective bargaining agreement between the Local and the Town. The tripartite JLMC panel, comprised of a management representative, a labor representative and a neutral arbitrator is empowered by Chapter 589 of the Acts of 1987 to resolve disputes between public safety employees (who by statute lack the ability to go on strike like all the other unions) and cities/towns that have remained unresolved for unreasonable periods of time. In this case, after nearly 6 fruitless years of bargaining, mediation and arbitration the JLMC, after reviewing supportive documentation from both parties and hearing their testimony rendered their decision known as an “award” in late October 2014. The award included the accepted proposals from both parties that this neutral panel believed to fairly represent the wants and needs of the parties collectively. Not all of either parties’ proposals were accepted by the panel.

Charity

Whooley Foundation Provides Gifts for Watertown Kids in Need

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Each year, just before Christmas, the Community Room at the Watertown Police Station fills with toys destined for families struggling during the holiday season. The effort is the continuation of the work of the late-Sgt. John “Sonny” Whooley – a Watertown Police officer who made it his mission to make the children in the community a little happier, said Det. David Collins, who oversees the drive these days. Members of the Watertown Police and Fire departments do much of the work.

Sports

5 Watertown Athletes Make Herald’s All-Scholastic Teams

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The Boston Herald named five Watertown High School athletes to its All-Scholastic teams in football, field hockey and soccer. Raiders’ quarterback Nick Giordano made the Herald’s football All-Scholastic team, named Sunday. He helped lead Watertown to its first Middlesex League title since 1983 and a 9-2 record, including a second straight playoff birth and a win over Belmont. Giordano threw for 1,110 yards and 11 touchdowns, and ran for 850 yards and eight TDs, according to the Herald. In his Watertown career he had more than 3,500 yards of offense and 41 touchdowns.

Environment

LETTER: Watertown Resident Joining Community Solar Program

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Dear Editor and Watertown Neighbors,

I know that many of you have received information about a current Watertown solar initiative called Neighborhood Solar. Recently, my husband, David Breakstone, and I decided to explore this option.  We had no idea what to expect. 

I attended one of the informational meetings and found Ben Mayer of SunBug well-organized, informative, and willing to answer all questions. The program and the process made sense, so David and I asked SunBug Solar, Neighborhood Solar’s installer, to do a site visit and give us a proposal. We thought we would not be good candidates because our roof is already partly covered with solar thermal panels for hot water. Ben Mayer’s site visit affirmed that we could indeed have solar photovoltaic panels.

Police/Fire

Police Log: Target Catches Serial Shoplifters, Employee Caught Stealing Cash

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The following information was provided by the Watertown Police Department. Arrests

Dec. 9, 3:30 p.m.: Target security spotted three people who had been in the store the day before and took items and got away before they could stop them. They suspected the three were the same people who had been scamming Target stores around the Boston area. The were seen taking clothes and video games and went to the back of the store where they placed them into target shopping bags.