BELMONT — A key portion of the village revitalization project is nearing completion as Main Street is close to looking like it will when the project is complete.
Town Administrator Jeanne Beaudin said that while Phase 1 of the projects also includes Sargent and Fuller Streets, she said aside from a few items, the Main Street are project is nearly complete.
She said the plantings and the grass will go in this week and she expects, weather permitting, the final top coat of asphalt to be put on by the end of the week as well.
She said the sidewalk and some painting won't be completed by this weekend but Main Street will be ready for the Memorial Day ceremony planned for Monday.
The historic bandstand will be placed on a new round, cement pad located between the library and the now town-owned "bank" building, said Beaudin, who added the contractor who moved it for the town will be putting it in the new spot at some point and the Belmont Heritage Commission will begin the revitalization once it's on the new spot.
Mill Street is one way from the North Main Street entrance just north of the library by local ordinance and is two-way coming from the south, until Center Street. Center Street itself is one-way, from the Belmont Mill out to Main Street. According to information given at last night's selectman's meeting, Mill Street was already one-way by town ordinance so selectmen didn't need to vote.
She said the Veterans' Memorial that had been built by Eagle Scout Alan Bartlett has been moved from near the Belmont Mill to a spot in front of the library was and will be rededicated during the Memorial Day ceremonies by the the American Legion Post 58 following the Memorial Day parade that begins at 1 p.m. at the Belmont Middle School.
Beaudin said the contractor should begin working on the water lines for both Fuller and Sargent Streets shortly and she expects construction to be completed this summer.

LACONIA — "'I knew it would be on the leader board, but I didn't know it was going to win,'' said 17-year-old Dakota Wright of his 3.7 pound, 22.5 inch long landlocked salmon, which won the 31st annual Winni Derby over the weekend.
Wright, a junior at Bishop Brady High School in Concord, was fishing with his dad, Mark, near Welch Island in Gilford bright and early Saturday morning (around 6:30 a.m.) when he felt the tell-tale tug on his line that told him he had hooked a good-sized fish.
After a 15-minute battle, he brought the salmon on board, and now all he has to do is pass a lie detector test to claim the $12,500 grand prize for the derby, which for the first-time ever is invoking a rule which requires the winning angler and the eyewitness to the submit to such a test.
Wright says that he isn't worried about the test, which derby officials say will take place later this week and was instituted due to concerns which surfaced on many fishing blogs that some winning fish in recent derbies weren't actually caught in Lake Winnipesaukee.
He said that he and his dad, who is a carpenter, have been fishing together in the Winni Derby for the last 10 years.
Mark Wright said that he was ''really proud'' that his son had won and said that he has always enjoyed fishing with Dakota, who skipped his high school prom in order to take part in the derby.
Dakota said that he plans to buy himself a new pickup truck and pay for the insurance on the truck with his prize money.
Wright wasn't the only winner over the weekend in the Derby, which is now run by the Laconia Rotary Club and handed out about $50,000 in cash and prizes over the weekend.
First prize winner in the lake trout division was Raymond Combs of West Halifax, Vt., who took home $5,000, while Christopher Gelinas, 11, of Loudon, won the junior salmon division and won a 14-foot motor boat with a trailer.
About 1,400 fishermen took part in this year's Derby according to Rotary Club President John Moriarity, who said that was an increase of about 150 over last year.
Derby Chairman DianeLaBrie said that fishing was slow on the first two days of the derby but picked up on Sunday when the weather turned cloudy.

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Mark Wright of Laconia (left) hugs his son, Dakota, winner of the 2013 Winni Deby with a 3.7 pound salmon he landed Saturday near Welch Island on Lake Winnipesaukee. (Roger Amsden/ for The Laconia Daily Sun)

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Laconia Rotary Club president Diane LaBrie congratulates Dakota Wright, 17, of Laconia, winner of the 2013 Winni Deby with a 3.7 pound salmon he landed Saturday near Welch Island on Lake Winnipesaukee. (Roger Amsden photo for the Laconia Daily Sun)

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Laconia Rotary Club president Diane LaBrie congratulates Junior Salmon Angler Division winner 11-year-old Christopher Gelinas of Loudon, who won a 14-foot Alumacraft boat and a trailer. (Roger Amsden photo for the Laconia Daily Sun)

BELMONT — Selectmen last night unanimously rejected a request to pay Lakes Region Public Access television $15,067 until the new franchise agreement is signed with MetroCast — the area's cable television provider.
The decision came after the town got a bill from LRPA recently that was about $5,000 more than what it had been told it would pay, although basically level with what has been paid in recent years.
The money is a dues-like fee that the town pays LRPA to be a member of the organization, be represented on the board of directors and have the right to have the town's public meetings broadcast on Metrocast's public access channels.
According to the bill from LRPA to the town, the LRPA board based the estimated bill for Belmont, around $10,000, on the estimated number of cable subscribers in the  town, based on previous years.
The letter from LRPA said that when MetroCast counted the subscribers in Belmont it used only the cable subscribers, not inlcuding patrons who buy only other MetroCast services, such as Internet access and phone service. The new subscriber numbers were considerably lower for Belmont than those the LRPA board used in calculating the projected bill, which was quoted as a per-subscriber price.
One the LRPA board realized the MetroCast numbers were lower it voted to increase the per-subscriber price to appoint where it would generate the budgeted amount of income.
"In retrospect, the decision to set the per subscriber level should have been done after receiving the current count from Metrocast," wrote LRPA Director Denise Beauchaine.
Last night the Belmont board noted that MetroCast and the subscriber communities are negotiating a new 10-year contract and it has been suggested that a direct channel for each community for public access will be part of that new contract that will go into effect in January of 2014.
In reality, should the direct feed become part of the new contract, it means Belmont residents would be able to watch videos of their own boards that choose to be recorded rather than having the meetings run on a schedule driven by LRPA.
The board noted that selectman's meetings haven't been aired since July of 2012 and, to date, they haven't gotten any complaints. Board members said they got a few complaints that the same old meeting was running over and over again but they have since asked LRPA to remove it.
The reason the meetings are not video taped is because there is no one in the town's budget to tape them. Town Administrator Jeanne Beaudin said last night she thought she had a volunteer who would do the taping but the woman called her and told her she would be unable to do it.