Candidates for the City Council District C seat will appear in a debate hosted by the Charles River Regional Chamber on Monday, September 22, 2025 from 1:30-2:30 p.m. via Zoom.
The Chamber provided the following information:
Join us for the virtual debate between the candidates, Vincent Piccirilli and Andres Guzman, competing in Watertown’s November 4th citywide election for the open District C seat.
Our focus will be on issues related to economic development, housing, workforce, supporting our nonprofits, and the environment, but more general topics may be discussed as well. Questions from the business community in advance are welcome. This event will be recorded and shared later.
Monday, September 22, 2025, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
will there be a replay link for this? thank you.
In past years the Chamber has posted videos of their debates and forums. I will post a link when it is available.
Hi Barbara!
If you register for the link then you should be able to watch it even if you don’t watch it live. Charlie is right though, the chamber does post its recorded events.
For District C:
https://crrc.charlesriverchamber.com/ap/Events/Register/xRFkYjEUMCYC7
For At-Large:
https://crrc.charlesriverchamber.com/ap/Events/Register/2JFEz0qt3CNCz
All Events:
https://crrc.charlesriverchamber.com/events
Take care!
To the Candidates:
District C is nearly all residential, at least for now.
When will there be a debate for the owner-occupied resident taxpayers to see and to table unanswered concerns and grievances?? Maybe during non-working hours for the gainfully employed?
Long-term tax cattle residents are underrepresented here in today’s lovely Watertown.
Here are 20 topics right off the top of my head.
1. Lack of transparency and accountability in leadership
2. Trashed and littered streets
3. Illegal dumping
4. Rodent Control
5. Lack of street/verge maintenance
6. Lack of a street cleaning program
7. Increasing neighborhood crime
8. Neighborhood over density
9. Rapid loss of permeable ground area
10. Non permitted property lot alterations
11. Increasing surface temperatures and living green die-off
12. Lack of open and green space
13. Neighborhood motor vehicle overpopulation
14. Commercial vehicles parked overnights
15. Lack of parking enforcement
16. Illegal Short-Term Rentals in operation
17. Illegal and unregulated living quarters.
18. Perpetually climbing water/sewer rates
19. Truthful and honest openness about the planned future direction for my neighborhood.
20. Reversing the steady decline in the quality of life in my neighborhood.
I have so many more I could add, just ask.
I would like to hear how you will help save Watertown from becoming just another dirty and dumpy rental city in Massachusetts. We already have an abundance of those.
How about it?
Pretty good start Dean, caught the Traffic Commission meeting for September. Full court press from the manager and his team on the removal of parking on one side of Russell Ave from Mt. Auburn to Columbia all for a bike lane. Sure doesn’t seem like much but it sure is, in attendance besides the residents who want to keep the parking, that helps the Good Shepard Church were the Council President, an at large Councilor and 2 District Councilors, pretty important stuff here! As long as I know of, the residents have always shown their kindness of having to put up with cars from students when school is in session parking on the neighboring streets, there is no longer a parking lot at the high school for resident or others to park at with the new school taking away excess parking, they say it’s all underground and for rightful reasons needs to be secure. So, the Good Shepard is an important part of what makes Watertown, Watertown. Daycare services, of course religion and home to many groups that help serve the community in very important ways. Those parking spaces are very needed to the neighbors along with the church, daycare drop off alone would be enough reason. The neighbors all seemed to be in favor of keeping the parking. One particular point of importance that did come up was the placement of granite curbing with leftover complete street funds , Russell Ave has a width of 33 feet they said, that’s some luxury width there,not found on many streets, which would maybe not be able to be called a complete street project due to not being the finished roadway of 24 feet. Then again all the years the neighborhood had to endure the construction from the MWRA job which they were only responsible to pave the roads. so my question is, if this is really a MWRA job and the City is taking advantage of leftover complete street funds to install the curbing in a manner where it is not a complete street does a bike lane make it qualify, taking away much needed parking? It’s not decided yet, to be continued, but it sure has a lot of star power showing up to upend some parking for a bike lane.
Wow, Dean!
That’s quite an exhaustive list! We over in District D are noticing similar issues. We had gas line work being done on my street this summer, and as one truck narrowly squeaked through the parked trucks and cars, he looked at me, rolled his eyes, and said, “How does the fire truck get up here in an emergency??” I told him that fortunately we hadn’t had to find that out yet.
After the work was done at my house, I noticed that the patch on my sidewalk is even more of a tripping hazard. (I tripped a few years ago and fractured my wrist and broke my glasses). The sidewalks on my street have not been totally redone since before 1998.
I was told by a reliable source that in District A there’s a tiny street that has about four to six apartments being used as airb&b’s, most are owned and being run by the same out-of-town family. The neighbors are actively pursuing that with the City. The results of how the City handles that will be something to watch.
I just wanted to add on a happy note that at the last City Council meeting it was mentioned that both How (in C) and Bemis Parks (in D) are due for renovations. This was a continuation of a discussion that was started in a previous City Council meeting but was cut short and rescheduled. The plan was for this discussion to be continued at a later date with all of the presenters attending in person to alleviate confusion.
Unfortunately, Michelle Moon, our new Senior Open Space Planner, couldn’t make this meeting. Instead, City Manager George Proakis announced that our new Director of Community Design, Erika Jerram, and a consultant on the projects were in attendance and could “answer any remaining questions about the Bemis and How Park projects.”
What followed was the presentation of old plans with minimal details, not the updated construction plans. Councilor Lisa Feltner patiently commented that the plans they were given for this presentation weren’t very helpful in giving the Council an understanding of what the City was really getting.
See: http://vodwcatv.org/internetchannel/show/4065?site=3. starting at minute 15:47.
Sadly, this was a pretty underwhelming exhibition and, I believe, resulted in less than optimal use of our Councilors’ valuable time.
New and improved parks are coming to Districts C and D, but it looks like it’s going to be a slog.
Linda