Light Board Names Asst. GM Craig Spinale To Belmont Light’s Top Post

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Photo: Craig Spinale, Belmont Light

Craig Spinale will be dropping the “assistant” from his title as he was named the new General Manager at Belmont Light.

The eight-year veteran of Belmont’s independent electric utility was appointed to Belmont Light’s top position by the town’s Light Board – which is made up of the three members fo the Select Board – at a brief meeting on Monday, June 22.

“I really appreciate the confidence you putting me,” said Spinale, who will be the acting general manager on July 14 when Roy leaves until a contract is agreed.

“I’m excited to continue my work at Belmont Light and to lead the organization” in regards to green energy and Energy Saving Motors programming that we go to great pains to put in place, he said.

Negotiations on Spinale’s contract will get underway next week.

Spinale is the director of operations overseeing the day-to-day internal operations including utility line functions, customer service, meter operations, line operations, and engineering operations.

Spinale takes the helm from Chris Roy who accepted the GM’s position in Shrewsbury. Spinale was a finalist for the GM’s position in 2018 but lost out to Roy.

Before coming to Belmont in 2012, Spinale spent 14 years with National Grid as a Lead Design Engineer and a Supervisor of Distribution Design. Spinale holds an associate’s degree and bachelor’s of science from Wentworth Institute of Technology.

Tuesday’s Belmont Annual Election Will Be A 10 And 2 Event

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Photo: Belmont Town Election will take place Tuesday, June 23.

The usual combination of heavy sweaters, boots and gloves will be traded in for summer outfits, sandals and shorts as Belmont’s annual town election was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic from its traditional early April date to the first two days of summer.

The Town Election will be held Tuesday, June 23 with new special hours for voting. Poll hours are limited to 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Belmont’s eight voting precincts. Only voters will live in Precinct 2 will vote at Town Hall. 

“Voting in person will be different with social distancing protocols and other safety measures in place to protect Belmont’s election workers and voters,” said Town Clerk Ellen O’Brien Cushman. 

“Ideally most people who want to vote in the local election will do so by mail to limit exposure. Voters choosing absentee voting must submit a written signed request to receive ballots by mail,” said Cushman.

This year with expanded voting, approximately 2,000 Belmont voters have received Absentee and Early Voting ballots. All ballots must be received by the Town Clerk by 2 p.m., the close of polls on June 23. To ensure your ballot gets counted, we ask you to deposit your voted ballot in our Town Clerk dropbox, located at the base of the steps to Town Hall at the parking lot level. 

For those who have not yet filed an application to receive an Absentee or Early Voting ballot, time is running out to apply for and receive a ballot. Though the legal deadline to submit an application is Monday, June 22 at noon, per Mass General Laws, the likelihood that a ballot will reach the voter by US Mail on June 23 is slim. 

Leonard Street Altered To One Way Traffic At Behest Of Belmont Center Businesses

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Photo: Traffic and parking has returned to Belmont Center.

One week after Leonard Street in Belmont Center was shut down for the summer, drivers today – Thursday, June 18 – discovered the street now allows one-way traffic through Belmont’s business hub after town officials implemented a traffic plan from business owners that they hope will help retail shops as well as restaurants that have been closed for the past three months due to COVID-19.

The change comes four days after businesses expressed their concerns to the Select Board on Monday, June 15.

Starting today, traffic from Pleasant Street can travel through the center to the commuter rail tunnel. Vehicles can also use the parking spaces along Leonard Street. Jersey barriers are used to create bump-outs into the street to allow outside dining and seating for three eateries – rancatore’s ice cream & yogurt, il Casale and El Centro – along the western side of the street.

Vehicles traveling from the tunnel towards the Center will need to detour at Moore Street as the street to Alexander Avenue is closed to accommodate outdoor dining and retail space.

Town officials said the change to the street is an effort to follow through with the concerns of the town’s business leaders.

“The Town was eager to be responsive to the merchants in Belmont Center,” said Patrice Garvin, town administrator.

“We hoped the first plan would be received well, but we quickly realized we needed to give the merchants and patrons more flexibility. We implemented the current plan and will be monitoring its progress,” said Garvin.

Retailers said they were happy that the town took quick action on what they felt was a workable compromise that will assist all businesses in the center.

“I expected that they would move quickly because there were so many people that weren’t happy,” said Lisa Castagno, owner of Revolve who helped generate a response to the initial plan.

Gerry Dickhaut, owner of Champions Sporting Goods and president of the Belmont Center Business Association, said the group used a portion of the $4,600 raised from businesses and landlords to rent the jersey barriers along the street to create a safety border between vehicles and customers and employees. It will use the remaining funds to beautify the barricades and bring in live music to the newly pedestrian street.

“I’ve got to tell you the Select Board, [Garvin], Glenn Clancy [town engineer] and Mike Santoro [director of the DPW’s Highway Department] all have been so helpful to get this going. It took just a week from when we approach them for the compromise to be in place. We all worked together and got it done.”

Town To Take Second Look On Closing Leonard As Stores Seek Compromise

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Photo: Lauren Castagno, manager at Revolve Boutiques on Pleasant Street.

Laura Castagno said she had growing hope the first-week Revolve Boutiques in Belmont Center was reopened would get increasingly busy after three months being locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve been open since the first day we were able to open on Monday [June 8]” and customers were coming back to the store, said the manager of the Leonard Street consignment store.

But on Thursday morning, June 10, as she and other retailers were opening their doors, DPW trucks were outside their shops delivering crowd control barriers and earthmovers had placed jersey barriers at either end of the street to block traffic from entering.

By 11:30 a.m., the roadway through Belmont’s largest commercial district was closed to all traffic until Labor Day. The only exceptions: MBTA buses and emergency vehicles.

Since then, Castagno has seen the town’s business center grind to a halt.

“I’ve never seen Belmont Center in the morning as quiet as it has been for the last few days” as the lack of foot traffic had “significantly reduced sales,” she said.

The shutting down of the Center’s main thoroughfare was approved three days earlier by the Belmont Select Board in an effort to assist the town’s restaurants with alfresco dining after Gov. Charlie Baker approved outdoor service as the state slowly begins reopening from the economic standstill caused by the coronavirus.

The only information she and her commercial colleagues received on the closing was “via an email for the Belmont Center Business Association, but that didn’t provide all the details,” said Castagno, daughter of Lisa Castagno who owns Revolve stores in Winchester, Lexington, Newton, two in Belmont and one on Boston’s Newbury Street.

“We were just a little bit disheartened with the decision to close Leonard Street … with minimal consulting of retail businesses,” said Castagno. “We feel that that didn’t really happen in Belmont so we’re a little bit upset about that,” she said.

It was that concern that Castagno and her mother joined several fellow retailers on the Select Board’s Monday, June 15, Zoom meeting as the town was scheduled to review the new setup for Belmont Center.

Deran Muckjian, the owner of The Toy Shop of Belmont on Leonard Street, spoke for the center’s business association members saying many of their customers are unwilling to park in the Claflin Street lot behind the shops and trek around the buildings – there is no direct cut through from the lot to the Center – while seniors with mobility issues require on-street and handicap parking close to the shops they patronize.

“Retail these days is really about the experience, the actual shopping in the store and it’s also about the convenience,” Castagno said.

Castagno said Belmont’s traffic plan is similar to Waltham’s layout for Moody Street that relies on the street being closed. Yet the two locations are quite different as Waltham is “very restaurant heavy center and so that’s why people go there. So I understand a 24/7 closure there [but] I think a modified closure would be what’s best” along Leonard Street, she said.

She points to Winchester, where she managed one of the company’s operations, where all sides appeared to be heard. There, the main business district is closed from 5 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and all day on Sunday, allowing the restaurants to bring their tables and chairs out for the afternoon and night service. And parking is allowed all day from Monday to Wednesday.

With the Winchester plan in hand, Castagno said the center’s business owners meet on Friday, to layout their own blueprint for the street. The proposal, approved by a 19-7 vote, would make Leonard Street one way going north to south from the fire station to the commuter bridge. Barriers would remain on the eastern side of Leonard where most of the Center’s restaurants are located.

The western side of Leonard would allow on-street parking while the only barriers would be in front of il Casale and El Centro restaurants to allow tables to be placed on the sidewalk and in the street.

After hearing the difficulties store owners are facing, town officials are taking a second look at the layout with an eye on a possible compromise that will allow some parking and traffic to return to Leonard Street.

And while it appears the business association’s proposal is doable, Town Administrator Patrice Garvin said there are two caveats facing any change to the status quo. The first is safety. According to Glenn Clancy, director of Community Development, the inclusion of an active roadway adjacent to diners will require far more stringent barriers to separate the two on Leonard Street.

The second is money. “The cost is going to be directly related to any public safety measures,” said Garvin. After an initial consultation with Belmont Police Chief James MacIsaac, Garvin said it appears the only option to address keeping everyone safe is installing concrete jersey barriers, a far less aesthetic measure, even if you can find them at a reasonable cost.

Garvin noted the town’s fiscal 2021 budget had been cut by $5 million due to COVID-19 reductions in state and local revenue receipts.

“[The town] won’t have the DPW that would have the ability to break down or set up anything during the day and necessarily don’t have the ability to purchase the barriers that we would need to make it so that the public was safe,” said Garvin.

But business leaders such as Lee Gaston, owner of Bessie Blue, a clothing store at the southern end of the center, believe once the plan is fleshed out and presented, the retail and restaurant owners will step up with money already pledged to both make their plan workable, safe and appealing to the public.

The town and business association will be meeting this week to create a plan and present it to public safety for review and to Community Development on the final price tag. It will come before the board at its next meeting in June.

For Castagno, “[t]he businesses in the center of town are like a team. And so what we need to find a decision that’s best for everyone. We feel like the decision that’s made right now doesn’t really strike the best compromise for both the restaurants and the retailers.”

One-Time Cardboard Curbside Pickup Starts June 22 With ‘Blue Monday’

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Photo: Waste Management is putting a cardboard only truck on the road for eight weeks.

One of the consequences of the COVID-19 lockdown has been a tsunami of corrugated board spilling out of every nook and cranny of many Belmont homes.

While families are living on deliveries from Amazon, UPS and Federal Express, the pandemic has forced the cancellation of the several town-sponsored “cardboard events” as it has discouraged the gathering of large groups.

“The last three months, I would say with 100 percent certainty the number one phone call that we’ve had at DPW is what do I do with all my cardboard,” Jay Marcotte, director of Department of Public Works told the Belmont Select Board Monday, June 15, as the pandemic has amplified the town’s cardboard ‘situation” (“It’s not an emergency,” said Marcotte.)

Now, the town has come up with a solution to the growing menace of cardboard overload.

Rather than residents bringing the cardboard to the town, the town is coming for the cardboard. Starting next week on Blue (carts) Monday (the resident’s recycling day) June 22, residents will get a one time only “get out of jail” cardboard card as the town’s hauler Waste Management will put a truck on the road dedicated solely for cardboard pickup.

And best yet, there’s not limit of cardboard the truck will carry away. If you can pile it, flattened and neatly stacked, on the curbside, they’ll take it.

Any questions? Contact DPW at 617-993-2680.

Belmont Playgrounds Are Open; But Pickup Games Are Not OK

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Photo: The play area at PQ

Swings, slides and jungle gyms are back in business!

Good news for Belmont’s youngest residents: the town’s playgrounds are officially open beginning Monday, June 15, according to the Belmont Health Director Wesley Chin.

Parents will find newly installed signs with five reminders on using the playgrounds during a pandemic. Chin said the most important information is that the town does not have the ability to clean or disinfect the equipment so “it’s sort of users beware.”

There will be times when the play equipment is being overused and guardians will need to make a decision whether their young charges should find another, less crowded play area, said Chin.

As the state doesn’t have any specific rules and regs for playgrounds, residents should follow the standard health and safety precautions including social distancing – six yards separation – and face coverings.

While parks and playgrounds have been open for a week, one activity associated with playing fields is not yet approved: pickup athletic events. Despite what people may witness at these locations, such as young adults at Harris Field playing football, practicing lacrosse or soccer, “the grounds are only for general use,” said Chin.

Slight Rise In COVID Positive Cases; No New Deaths In Past 2 Weeks

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Photo: The latest update on COVID-19 in Belmont.

The number of new cases of COVID-19 in Belmont has slowed to less than one a day in the past two weeks as the virus continues to trend downward for the past month, according the the Belmont Health Department.

As of Friday, June 12, Belmont had 229 cumulative confirmed cases of COVID-19, a slight rise from 220 on May 29. In the past two weeks, the town has not registered a death from the coronavirus as the total remain steady at 60.

Daily updates on COVID-19 and local cases will continue to be posted on the Town of Belmont’s COVID-19 webpage.

Gov. Baker’s reopening plan: Phase 2
On June 6, Governor Baker announced that the first part of Phase 2 of the state’s plan to Reopening Massachusetts businesses and industries would begin on June 8. This update included specific information about which businesses will be allowed to re-open and when under the different phases of the Reopening Plan.

Below is a summary of industries permitted to reopen during the first part of Phase 2:

  • Retail, with occupancy limits;
  • Childcare facilities and day camps, with detailed guidance;
  • Restaurants, outdoor table service only;
  • Hotels and other lodgings, no events, functions or meetings;
  • Warehouses and distribution centers;
  • Personal services without close physical contact, such as home cleaning, photography, window washing, career coaching and education tutoring;
  • Post-secondary, higher education, vocational-tech and occupation schools for the purpose of completing graduation requirements;
  • Youth and adult amateur sports, with detailed guidance;
  • Outdoor recreation facilities
  • Professional sports practices, no games or public admissions;
  • Non-athletic youth instructional classes in arts, education or life skills and in groups of less than 10;
  • Driving and flight schools
  • Outdoor historical spaces, no functions, gatherings or guided tours;
  • Funeral homes, with occupancy limits
  • Non-urgent health care procedures, like routine dental care and in-person check-ups, are also included in the first part of Phase 2.

If you would like more information on the Massachusetts Reopening, visit the Reopening Massachusetts website.

Kindness Rocks! Beech Street Center/Belmont Helps Join To Brighten The Town

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Photo: Say it with kindness.

Belmont Helps in partnership with the Beech Street Center would like to invite participants of all ages to a “Brighten Belmont” initiative aimed to paint the town with kindness.

The Beech Street Center at 266 Beech St. has rocks available for pickup that you and your family to decorate your own thoughtful messages on. (See examples in the photos.) Afterwards, take pictures of your finished rocks and post them on social media with the hashtags #brightenbelmont and #belmonthelps.

Call Dana Leavitt at 617-993-2977 or e-mail Dleavitt@belmont-ma.gov so she can put the rocks outside the Beech Street Center for you to pick up.

“We can’t wait to see messages of kindness all around town!” said Dana Leavitt, director of the Beech Street Center.

What To Know When Eating Out(side) In Belmont

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Photo: Tables and chairs are ready for customers.

As more restaurants receive permits to serve outdoor meals, Belmont resident will have the chance to go out for a meal for the first time in three months. And there is a lot new for diners and eateries to know before servers approach their customers.

The most recognizable change is taking place in Belmont Center where the greatest concentration of eateries in town are located. The Select Board Monday, June 8 approved a plan to close Leonard Street between Moore Street and Alexander Avenue to increase outdoor seating areas for restaurants adversely impacted by the COVID-19 shutdown. Leonard Street will remain closed to all through traffic, with the exception of a 15-foot center lane to allow for the passage of emergency vehicles, delivery trucks,and MBTA buses, from June 11 until Sept. 8.

Restaurants in other locations will also be provided the opportunity to have outdoor seating on the sidewalks outside their establishments.

Below is a list of basic safety standards that restaurants must comply with in order to provide dining services at outdoor seating areas.

  • Tables must be positioned to maintain at least a 6-foot distance from all other tables and any high foot traffic areas. Tables may be positioned closer together if they are separated by protective/nonporous barriers (i.e. structural walls or plexiglass dividers).
  • The size of a party seated at a table cannot exceed six people.
  • Customers are encouraged to call ahead to make dining reservations before arriving to a restaurant.
  • All customers and workers are required to wear face coverings at all times, except when eating or if an individual is unable to wear a face covering due to a medical condition or disability.
  • All workers must wash hands frequently, and table servers must wash their hands or apply hand sanitizer between each table interaction.
  • Condiments and similar products (i.e. salt, pepper, ketchup, etc.) should not be pre-set on tables and should instead be provided upon request either in single-serving portions(i.e. individual packets) or in serving containers that are sanitized between each use.
  • Menus must be one of the following: 1) paper, single-use menus disposed of after each use, 2) displayed menu (i.e. digital, whiteboard, chalkboard, etc.), or 3) electronic menus viewed on customers’ phones/mobile devices.
  • Utensils and place settings must be either single-use or sanitized after each use; utensils should be rolled or packaged. Tables should not be pre-set to reduce opportunity for exposure.
  • Tables and chairs must be cleaned and sanitized thoroughly between each seating.

The Summer Of Al Fresco: Belmont Closes Leonard Street To Help Eateries Recover [VIDEO]

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Photo: Work closing Leonard Street in Belmont Center

When the Belmont Select Board voted to allow the closure of Leonard Street for the summer at its Monday, June 8 meeting, most people were expecting the actual shutdown of the roadway through Belmont’s largest business center to take place sometime during the summer.

But only two and a half days later on Thursday morning, jersey barriers were in place, a long-line of rusting crowd-control steel barricades were coming being set up by Belmont Department of Public Works crews and town officials had completed the task they said they would do be done.

And while some business owners were caught unawares and the stray parked SUV was suddenly fenced in, the operation was completed without that much of a snag and Belmont Center will be vehicle free until the day after Labor Day, Tuesday, Sept. 8.

And if the change to a walkable center is a success, it could continue into the late fall.

The closing of the street – from Alexander and Moore streets – is an attempt to help restaurants and eateries during the Phase 2 reopening of the state economy during the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. During this stage, restaurants are allowed to serve al fresco with outdoor dining.

Belmont town officials decided to help out the eatery owners by providing added space to the limited sidewalk area they could use by expanding in the street.

And despite some hiccups, by Saturday, the first tables and chairs were out in the warm spring night with customers waiting to finally eat out by eating outside.