HalfWay Home: New Municipal Skating Rink Has Its Coming Out Party [VIDEO]

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Photo: The interior of the Belmont new Municipal Skating Rink.

The roof is on, the side walls are mostly up, and the cement floor is coming soon. The view of the new Municipal Skating Rink was just a few months ago in renderings and architectural drawings, but in the last week of April, the facility on Concord Avenue is here—well, halfway there. 

The public’s first chance to see the interior of the under-construction skating rink and community center took place on a warm April evening. So far, the reviews have been upbeat.

“It’s really nice,” said a nine-year-old Belmont Youth Hockey player looking at the rink. “It’ll be fun to play here because it’s brand new.” 

“Many who spent time in the old rink were just amazed at what they were seeing,” said Mark Haley, chair of the building committee overseeing the NHL-sized rink’s construction.

Residents strolled in over the afternoon—many bringing kids to see where they will be playing by year’s end—to ask questions of representatives from contractor Skanska or just take a look around the $30 million facility. 

On May 21, concrete will be poured, followed by laying a series of pipes to cool the ice sheet. The CO2 refrigeration system – currently under construction – will be shipped from Canada, arrive on June 19, and be in the rink by the end of that month. The roof-top dehumidification system will be in Belmont in late July. “And with that, we can make ice in September,” said Haley. 

Less than an hour later, Haley and committee members Tom Caputo and Dante Muzzioli sat before the Select Board to update the board on the timeline for opening the rink.

“The project remains on schedule,” Haley told the board. We’re planning on making ice and doing the commissioning in September.” The installer of the preferred mechanical equipment will make the first sheet of ice. 

“By October, the ice will be ready for youth hockey and our student-athletes to skate on. It will be ready for the hockey season in November. 

But there remains one tricky obstacle facing the project, one not of its doing: the threat of a 10 percent cost hit due to President Trump’s recently imposed tariffs on Canadian goods. While the large steel beams making up the building’s frame were delivered before Trump’s action, two essential items remain to be built: the CO2 ice plant and the roof-top dehumidification, which total $1.4 million. 

“There is no alternative source” for the equipment, said Elizabeth Dionne, chair of the Select Board. “This is nobody’s fault. It’s a change of circumstance.”

Haley said the building committee has paid half the cost for the ice plant, which he hopes will not require any tariff increase in its final price.

The search for a solar panel installer will begin this spring with Skanska putting together a package of base and two alternative bids: The base will be for the full 22,000 square foot coverage, with one alternative installing two-thirds of the roof and the second alternative constructing half of the base.

“The reason for that is we can have some flexibility of how much money we are able [to spend],” said Haley. The good news on the money front is the building committee is preparing to sign a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) contract with Skanska. The document outlines a predetermined maximum price for the project, where the contractor bears the risk of cost overruns beyond the GMP. 

Also, the total contingency – which covers unforeseen expenses that (always) arise during a project – is currently at $1.2 million, with 50 percent of the $26 million in construction costs spent. Haley noted that having a 10 percent buffer with half the project paid for “is a good place to be.” 

What’s Open, Closed On Patriots’ Day; Trash/Recycling Delayed A Day

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Photo: The 2023 Boston Marathon

Patriots’ Day, the Bay State’s homegrown holiday, will this year commemorate the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Arlington. Oh, and there will be a road race Monday.

While the first shot was fired in Lexington and the Regulars were halted at North Bridge in Concord, more than half of all casualties that day occurred in modern-day Arlington. Minutemen from surrounding towns converged on Menotomy to ambush the British over the short distance from Foot of the Rocks – at the intersection of Lowell Street and Massachusetts Avenue – to Spy Pond on their retreat back to Boston.

On Monday, April 21, Belmont residents can participate in the celebrations by heading to Arlington Town Hall at 730 Massachusetts Ave. At approximately 12:30 p.m., join the “Menotomy Welcoming Committee” in its annual tradition in greeting riders reenacting the rides of Paul Revere and William Dawes. While awaiting the riders, you are invited to join in family-friendly activities and enjoy light refreshments.

Most of the day’s attention is focused on the Boston Athletic Association’s annual 26.2 miles marathon. It will be a great day for runners and fans as the forecast calls for highs in the low- to mid-60s, with clouds during the race.

So, what’s opened and what’s closed?

Closed

  • Belmont Town Hall, offices, and buildings are closed, as is the Belmont Public Library currently in the Beech Street Center and the Benton Library.
  • Belmont public schools are closed Monday as they are shut for the week-long spring-time break.
  • State offices such as the Register of Motor Vehicles and courts are closed.

Due to the holiday, trash and recycling curbside pickup is delayed a day. If your removal day is Monday, don’t! Bring it to the side of the road on Tuesday.

Open

As it is a state holiday, the US Post Offices on Concord Avenue and in Waverley Square are open as are federal offices.

Star Market on Trapelo Road is open as are retail and convenience stores, eateries and restaurants, and liquor establishments. 

Marathon Monday on the MBTA

While the Red Line subway at Harvard and Alewife will be running on a weekday schedule, buses are on a weekend timetable. In addition:

  • Various bus routes on the marathon route’s North and South sides will be detoured.
  • Due to congestion, bikes are prohibited on all MBTA vehicles on Patriots’ Day.
  • Copley Station on the Green Line will be closed Monday. 
  • View the MBTA’s Patriots’ Day schedule here.

Daffodils, Plantings Welcome Spring In Belmont Center

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Photo: Priscilla Hughes (left) and Cathy Chin from the Belmont Garden Club planting seasonal flora among blooming daffodils at the Horse Trough in Belmont Center.

Four times a year, members of the Belmont Garden Club head out into the community to plant seasonal flowers and flora in squares, roundabouts, and along the streets around town. On Friday, April 18, Priscilla Hughes and Cathy Chin, who head BGC’s community planting effort, gave the ‘horse trough’ a spring sprucing up with Easter lilies and lilacs.

Yet the highlight of the corner display and throughout Belmont are the thousands of blooming yellow daffodils blanketing community spaces in the past week.

In the fall of 2020, the Garden Club planted an initial 10,000 daffodil bulbs—1,500 around the horse trough in Belmont Center and 8,500 along Concord Avenue as you enter Belmont from Cambridge. Another 600 were subsequently planted at the World War I memorial at the Belmont Lions Club on Royal Road. Each spring since the arrival of the official flower of Wales has heralded spring in Belmont.

The Garden Club will hold its annual fundraiser outside the Lions Club on Town Day, Saturday, May 17, selling flowers, plants, and herbs. 

Crowley Prevails In Recount For Belmont Town Moderator

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Photo: Mike Crowley with the results of the Town Moderator recount which confirmed his victory, April 17.

When many believe the United States is undergoing a crisis of confidence in government, Belmont witnessed the reaffirmation of small ‘d’ democracy when, on Thursday, April 17, the town successfully proceeded – without allegations, shouting, or threats – to confirm the result of the race for Town Moderator.

After nearly three-and-a-half hours in the Town Hall auditorium, one-time school committee member Mike Crowley was declared the winner (again), receiving 2,136 votes to 2,125 for former Select Board Chair Mark Paolillo. Crowley’s winning margin increased by an extra vote from his Town Election total on April 1, while Paolillo’s tally remained the same.

“I would like to thank the Board of Registers for their work” in promoting democracy, said Crowley after Registrar of Voters Chair Bob McGraw read the results from the town’s eight precincts.

Crowley expressed his gratitude to Town Clerk Ellen Cushman and her staff which ran the recount, his attorney, Dennis Newman, and the volunteers who came out in force to work as his vote observers. 
Attorney Newman has some history with recounts: he was the lead Democratic attorney observing the critical Palm Beach review of votes in the historic Bush/Gore Presidential recount of 2000.

The day began with detailed instructions from Kristen Gagalis, an Associate at Anderson & Kreiger, which is the town’s legal counsel. The recount of nearly 5,000 votes was conducted at card tables with a reader facing a calculator. The candidates were allowed an observer at each table who could challenge any ballot they felt was incorrectly tabulated. The Registers would judge the disputed ballot.

While Crowley came with two dozen volunteers serving as his observers and tabulators, Paolillo did not attend and did not appear to have sent his own set of reporters. Despite the lack of advocates on the floor, Paolillo actually picked up a vote after the first precinct—the precincts were reviewed in order from one to nine—was completed, reducing Crowley’s margin to single digits at nine. 

But by the completion of Precinct 3, Crowley’s advantage had returned to 10 votes, as his observers kept a keen eye out for any mark or smudge that could go the candidate’s way. At times, Gagalis—using her pre-legal experience as a middle school teacher on cafeteria duty—would firmly remind the room the process was best served without unnecessary chatter. 

Just before noon, the final two precincts were swiftly counted without a large increase in disputed votes, which Paolillo would have needed to overturn the initial result.

“I’m very happy with the results. They confirm that the original outcome was the right one,” said Crowley.

Belmont Girls’ Lacrosse Found Goals At The End Of The Rainbow As Marauders Top SpyPonders, 8-7

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Photo: Belmont High sophomore midfielder Natalie Merrow taking chase after a shot in Belmont’s 8-7 victory vs. Arlington High on April 15.

Belmont HIgh Girls’ Lacrosse game against Arlington on a rainy Tuesday, April 15, was following a familiar script as the Marauders were on the wrong end of a 6-5 score late in the third quarter. The Marauders – missing a handful of senior players through injury and illness – looked close to falling below .500 early in a season

But as the storm clouds parted and the late afternoon sun broke through the departing clouds, a glorious double rainbow suddenly emerged over Harris Field and the High School. And putting a twist to the popular idiom, the Marauders found goals at the end of this rainbow as Belmont scored three consecutive tallies to take the victory, 8-7.

Senior attack Charlotte Mayall scored Belmont’s seventh followed by sophomore midfield Natalie Merrow with the game winner with the assist from fellow sophomore Lily Cook with a little over five minutes remaining. Merrow won the subsequent draw control and the Marauders played keep away in Arlington’s defensive zone for nearly the entire final period before the SpyPonders final score with 29 seconds remaining on the clock.

After eight of 20 games, Belmont sits at 4-4, with a important 15-14 victory over perannial Middlesex Freedom champs Melrose in its pocket. For Head Coach Dan O’Brien, there are encouraging signs for the second half of the season.

“We’ve battled in every game. We’ve had to come from behind quite a bit,” he said, pointing out that the team played that game with a midfield made up of a senior – Mayall – and three sophomores, “and today they competed and made plays, especially at the end,” said O’Brien. He had special recognition for junior goalie Brooke Whalen who has collected her fourth double-digit save game on Tuesday, earning player of the match.

“We’re getting good experience on how to win tough games, and that’s going to be helpful come tournament. And we’re going to have to get really better, because we’re going to go into a run where we meet [four top 20 teams], before we return of league play.”

“We’re gonna be in a gauntlet, all of May,” he said.

Annual Town Meeting Warrant Set By Select Board, All In One Session With A Hybrid Twist

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Photo: The town prepares for the annual Town Meeting

It’s said that you can’t tell who the players are without a scorecard, and you can’t tell what’s going on at Town Meeting without the warrant.

Now, the members and public are all set to attend. On Thursday, April 10, the Belmont Select Board voted unanimously to sign off on this year’s annual Town Meeting beginning on May 5. Other dates for the Town Meeting include May 7, 12, 14, 19, and 21.

This year’s meeting will set precedence by taking place over a single, three-week session, as opposed to the decade-long bifurcated assembly, when the meeting was divided into a May general session followed in June by the budget articles.

“We’re entering into an experiment, and it is an experiment to do a single session,” said Select Board Chair Elizabeth Dionne, who said the final number of articles could reach 26. She said the change came down to a pair of considerations: A budget segment scheduled in mid-June prevented the town from closing its books in a timely fashion on June 30. The second reason is to “ease pressure on people’s schedules in June.” 

This year, we will also see the introduction of a hybrid meeting that allows members to attend online. The option in attending was a chief election promise of Mike Crowley, the newly-elected Town Moderator.
The select board has supported and will support a hybrid town meeting, said Dionne, noting it will be a “very ambitious agenda” as it will take place with a new town IT director, Chris McClure, and Crowley in place. While Belmont will employ a mixed meeting, nearby towns, such as Arlington and Needham, remain on-site only. 

But Dionne said her one caveat in supporting the hybrid meeting will be if the members believe the benefit of not meeting in June is worth the pain in May. “So this is a one-year experiment.”

The list of articles before members includes appropriations, the first of two parts in repairing the Chenery Upper Elementary school roof, the seven Community Preservation Committee projects, a lengthy flood plain district zoning bylaw, and a slew of articles that appear every year on the warrant.

Article 16 is to approve a four-year term to finance the purchase of iPads, which the school district has targeted. Dionne noted there had been social media “chatter” questioning the “found money” as any extra one-time funds should be made available for the fiscal year 2026 town budget, which is anticipated to increase by 2.5 percent as opposed to the 5.8 percent rise in the school’s budget. Dionne explained that the money was found during a “clean-up” of the town’s book from check-offs on residents’ property tax bills directed to schools. 

“So in some ways, it is found money. But it was originally meant to be spent on school projects,” said Dionne. 

A significant article before the approximate 290 Town Meeting members is senior tax relief, an important pledge by the Select Board to ease the tax burden on homeowners after voters passed the Proposition 2 1/2 override in 2024.

“The very diligent [senior tax relief] working group had brought us a number of articles that I think we all enthusiastically support,” said Dionne, including a mix of volunteering at town departments and donations by residents to assist qualified elder homeowners. 

The senior tax relief will be discussed in a special town meeting within the regular meeting, as the town legal counsel requires a little more time to discuss last-minute changes. 

Another article in the special will be to release the overlay funds within the assessor’s department. This reserve budget line has built up over time so that some of the funds can be released to the town for one-time bills. 

A single citizen’s petition will come before Town Meeting requesting the Select Board to file a Home Rule Petition with the state legislature granting Belmont the authority to prohibit or restrict the use of second-generation phosphides to control rats. If passed, it would allow a future Town Meeting to prohibit the poisoning by the town. Sponsored by the Belmont Citizen Forum, the article points out the evidence rodents that ingest the poison can harm and kill predators who feed on rats. Currently, the town’s departments have rejected the use of poison.

The Select Board will likely bring a late attempt to bring a second citizens’ petition to ease restrictions and increase the number of liquor licenses to stimulate business activity in the fall special town meeting.

A Rink With A View: Public Invited Monday, April 14, To Take A Peak Inside The New Ice Skating Facility

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Photo: The new Belmont Municipal Skating Rink under construction

While it’s still eight months – fingers crossed! – away from the first blades to hitting the ice, the Municipal Skating Rink Building Committee is inviting the public a sneak peak on the new municipal skating rink on Monday, April 14, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The public will be able to take a view of the facility’s interior to see the latest construction; while a chance to ask questions of committee members and their construction partners including contractor Skanska and CHA, owner’s project manager and architecture TGAS.

Are you coming? Come via the construction entrance on Concord Avenue. Closed-toed shoes and pants are recommended to attend the open house.

Town Clerk Set To Conduct Recount Of Moderator Race On Thursday, April 17

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Photo: Mark Paolillo (left) and Mike Crowley

The margin of Mike Crowley’s victory over Mark Paolillo to be Belmont’s Town Moderator on April 1 was razor thin – just nine votes out of 4,481 cast. With little to lose and much to gain, Paolillo submitted on a certified petition for a recount of the race which was accepted by the Board of Registrars of Voters on Friday, April 11.

The recount will be conducted by the Town Moderator, Ellen Cushman, on Thursday, April 17, at 9 a.m. in the Town Hall auditorium.

“Mark is entitled to a recount,” said Crowley in a text message. “I plan to be at Town Hall to observe the recount and we’ll see what happens.”

Incident At Belmont Middle And High Schools Leaves Two Belmont Light Workers Hospitalized

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Photo: Belmont Middle and High School

A pair of Belmont Light workers are hosptialized in stable condition after a electical accident in a manhole at Belmont Middle and High School on Tuesday, April 8.

The blast cut power to the building housing the high and middle school, forcing the school to use generators for the remainder of the school day.

In a press release from the Belmont Fire Department, personnel were called to the school’s front parking lot shortly after 9:45 a.m. “Upon arrival, firefighters found two injured electrical workers that had been working in a manhole when an accident occurred.”

“This morning two Belmont Light line workers were involved in an electrical flash incident while working inside a manhole near Belmont High School,” according to a press release from the town’s electric utility.

“The line workers were wearing appropriate protective equipment and were able to exit the manhole under their own power. Both line workers were transported to Massachusetts General Hospital where they are in stable condition and are being treated for their injuries.”

In an email addressed to high school students and their families sent at 10:15 a.m., Belmont High School Principal Isaac Taylor said “[a]ll staff and students are safe and not impacted by the accident.”

Taylor said the accident “resulted in a power outage” throughout the building that houses grades 7-12. While lighting inside the schools were “limited,” the school day continued using in-house generators, which allowed hot lunches to be served.