With Census Underway, Belmont Push All Residents To Be Counted

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Photo: US Census 2020

With nearly 58 percent of residents already checked in, Belmont town officials are eager to have those remaining citizens join their neighbors and be counted in the 2020 US Census.

Belmont Assistant Town Administrator Jon Marshall is asking residents to take the time to fill out the census form whether it’s online, over the phone or through the mails – they don’t even need to wait for a traditional census worker to come by your dwelling.

“With the flexibility and support of Belmont residents, we will achieve a complete and accurate count which helps guide funding decisions for things like health centers, roads and emergency services,” said Marshall.

Census data is used to determine legislative districts, determine state representation in Congress, calculate how federal funding is allocated to states and municipalities, and develop vital information that helps us understand our town, attract new businesses, and identify areas of need for support services, health care, and more. 

Both phone and online options are available in 13 languages, and assistance in many more languages is available on 2020Census.gov.

Mandated by the U.S. Constitution, the Census is a once-in-a-decade count of every person living in the United States, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. The 2020 Census asks nine questions and takes less than ten minutes to complete.

The information provided to the Census is confidential and protected by federal law. Answers can only be used to produce statistics and cannot be used against you by any government agency or court.

Belmont has created a page with some helpful information. On the page are a number of quick links including: How’s Belmont Doing: Track Here, This allows residents to see the town’s response rate.

See the tracking page at the Town’s Website at https://www.belmont-ma.gov/2020-census

Bag Your Trash To Help Out Those Who Take It Away

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Photo: Waste Management truck

Washing your hands, putting on a cloth mask and staying indoors; those are acts all people should be doing to protect themselves and others during this long pandemic.

Add to that list one more thing: Bag your trash.

That’s the advice coming from Waste Management, the town’s trash and recycling hauler.

According to the national collector, due to increased concerns for worker safety due to the COVID-190 coronavirus, residents are being asked to place all household trash into large trash bags before placing them into the black carts and taking them to the curb for collection. The company also asks that all bags are properly sealed to prevent contents from spilling out as it is placed into the trucks.

The company reminds all customers that latex and other gloves used to protect individuals from spreading the virus be placed in the trash; they do not belong in the blue recycling containers.

First Death To COVID-19 In Belmont, Infected Cases Doubled In Three Days

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Photo: Belmont Health Department

The Belmont Health Department announced the first death of a Belmont resident related to COVID-19 in a press release dated Thursday, April 2.

The victim was a resident at a long-term care facility in Belmont, said Wesley Chin, Belmont’s Health Department director.

As of April 2, Belmont has 32 confirmed positive COVID-19 cases, according to data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. The number of positive residents has more than doubled since 14 residents were confirmed on March 30.

While he did not identify the facility, Belmont Manor in the Waverley neighborhood acknowledged this week that it had a confirmed case.

“This patient developed symptoms consistent with COVID-19 while they were at the long-term care facility, and was transported to a local hospital for more advanced care where they died,” said Chin.

Chin said the facility has 14 residents who are confirmed positive cases.

Chin said that due to the infectious nature of COVID-19, “the long-term care facility is dedicating a wing of the facility to isolate patients suspected to be positive with the virus. The facility is also designating staff that will only work with patients exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms.”

Staff of the long-term care facility is working with Belmont town departments (Belmont Emergency Management Agency [BEMA], Health Department, Fire Department EMS) and state agencies (Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency [MEMA], Massachusetts Department of Public Health [MDPH], and Massachusetts Bureau of Health Care Safety & Quality) to continue to identify all contacts and to proactively implement infection control measures to prevent spread.

To identify any additional patients positive for COVID-19, BEMA has requested assistance from MEMA to request that the Nursing and Rest Home testing program operated by the National Guard and MDPH conduct patient testing of all residents in the long-term care facility.

For updated information and news on the COVID-19 virus, go to https://www.belmont-ma.gov/home/urgent-alerts/covid-19-information-for-the-town-of-belmont-find- all-updates-here .

Budget Bloodbath: Belmont Finances ‘Severely Impacted’ Due To COVID-19; Cuts In Basic Services, A Call For Layoffs, Furloughs

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Photo: Patrice Garvin, Belmont Town Administrator

It’s ugly. And it’s likely to get uglier.

That’s the first impression of Belmont’s town finances after initial estimates of the impact on the current and next year’s budgets by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Town Administrator Patrice Garvin speaking before the Warrant Committee via video conference on April 1.

With all town departments already “running lean” before the pandemic struck “another cut is going to severely impact the operations and the services we provide the residents of the town,” said Garvin.

While there are “too many uncertainties” to make any good estimates of the likely shortfall, it’s nearly certain that the anticipated pronounced loss of revenue will place a strain on the current fiscal year 2020 budget while triggering real pain in next year’s fiscal 2021 budget – which begins July 1 – from lose of basic government services and likely layoffs and furloughs of town workers, according to Garvin.

“Direr but probably realistic,” said Warrant Committee Chair Laurie Slap hearing members reiterate their belief that revenues will drop significantly with resulting cuts in expenditures.

The sudden shut off of the revenue spigot comes as the town was close to finalizing the fiscal ’21 budget that was going to be brought before Town Meeting by the Select Board. The last draft presented to the Warrant Committee, the Town Meeting’s financial “watchdog,” projected the ’21 budget at $136.6 million.

For instance, a 10 percent cut in just one line item, total state aid in fiscal ’21, would force the town to slash $1.2 million from the budget that has a revenue gap of $5.6 million. Garvin noted state aid was reduced by 20 percent between 2008 and 2009 when the last economic downturn occurred.

The town is currently looking back at town budgets in 2008 and 2009 when the country last entered into recession to get an idea of how revenues took a hit.

Override in doubt?

In addition to services, Belmont, according to Select Board Chair Tom Caputo “will need to think long and hard about whether or not … our plans for an override in November still, in fact, make sense.” The proposed “operational” override – in the $6 million range – was seen as critical in meeting town services and needs by the school district in managing a continued surge in enrollment.

The rapidly moving series of events of the past six weeks due to strategies to halt the spread of the coronavirus has Garvin and her staff attempting to hit a moving target to provide the Warrant Committee some semblance of confidence it is receiving figures it can analyze.

When the seriousness of the spreading pandemic was fully understood two weeks ago, “we quickly came to the realization that fiscal year ’21 and some of fiscal ’20 could be severely impacted” most notably by the loss of state and local revenue, said Garvin.

Now and moving forward, the town has been “scrambling” to review its revenue projections from its February budget estimates, said Garvin.

Caputo said the massive disruption in the economy from the coronavirus requires the town “to rethink our [fiscal] ’21 budget that we laid out several months” which “was one that was going to work if everything remained as we had hoped” before the COVID-19 virus caused commerce and life to be upended.

While the largest sources of revenue, real estate property taxes with an estimated revenue of $92.2 million in fiscal ’21, continue to show high compliance levels, the town is preparing for significant reductions in the aforementioned state aid and local revenue collected from fees and services.

In a four-page overview of the ’21 budget, the town has been working on, the majority of line items are color-highlighted as likely to experience a drop in revenue.

Areas where revenue numbers will shrink from the February earlier estimates will be in new growth (expected at $920,000), meals ($234,000) and excise taxes ($3.7 million) and as will parking tickets and fees from building permits. The Recreation Department was seen as generating $1 million into the town’s coffers yet now could see receipts plummet if the Underwood Pool can not open for the summer recess.

While many of the fees are relatively small – from a few thousand to over a million dollars – if each takes a significant hit, they will add to a larger deficit in the fiscal year ’21 budget projections.

“In a nutshell, [fiscal year] ’21 is just a work in progress,” said Garvin. “We’re going to just keep running different scenarios … and seeing where the [Select] Board and the Warrant Committee wants to go.”

Warrant Committee member Ellen Schrieber noted that losses in fees and other revenue in the current year will likely damped estimates of the number of reserves – mostly from the town’s free cash account – which was expected to be passed forward into fiscal ’21 to fund gaps in the budget.

Garvin agreed, saying free cash “is where we’re going to get the hit next year.”

Hiring Freeze, Layoffs Possible

While the budget outlook is far from clear, the town is already formulating “initiatives” to begin filling the gulf of red ink facing the town. The likely first step will be a “thoughtful” hiring freeze, according to Caputo, as well as keeping a cap on overtime payments with the exception of public safety and a possible town-wide spending freeze with only “the most critical and essential items.” according to Garvin.

One significant area the town and Select Board are “brainstorming” to reduce expenses is looking hard at salaries which is the “primary” expenditure in the budget, said Caputo.

Warrant Committee member Geoffrey Lubien breached the topic of possibly furloughing town employees, noting that while not ideal, it would allow those individuals to secure unemployment benefits.

Garvin said that such conversations are occurring with the Belmont town counsel as nearly all the employees are union-represented and there needs to “decipher” the difference between a furlough and a layoff.

Lubien did followup saying reducing the workforce should be a last resort since “to let people go and then try to get them back is very difficult.”

One area of town that was only briefly touched but which looms large in town finances was schools. Yet Warrant Committee member Chris Doyle was blunt on her view that significant savings should come from the district that she believes isn’t functioning at full capacity with the schools closed and students being taught remotely.

“There is zero chance that teachers are spending anywhere close” to the same time they were in school “and it makes me want to be very encouraging for a broad furlough in the school department,” said Doyle.

Mike Crowley, the school committee representative to the Warrant Committee, felt layoffs “isn’t going to help the kids” during a difficult and at times problematic transition from educating students in a classroom setting to one at home in front of a computer.

The town is also discussing the possibility of using a provision in Gov. Charlie Baker’s Declaration of Emergency which allows municipalities to run a budget deficit due to “natural disasters on direct coronavirus expenses” The law gives a city or town breathing room to recover from a calamity by allowing the deficit to be paid off over the subsequent three fiscal years.

But for now, Garvin will be meeting with department heads and the school district to discuss where cuts can be made in an already lean program while waiting for more information from the state and town.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty and we’re just kind of moving along, keeping our eyes on what we think is going to be most impacted and go from there,” said Garvin. “I could put something together for today and a month [from now] it could be completely different.”

Belmont Approves Declaration of Emergency

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Photo: Belmont’s declaration of emergency.

The town of Belmont has joined the state of Massachusetts and the United States of America in issuing a formal declaration of emergency “to protect the health and welfare of the people of Belmont” during the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

“There’s not some dramatic new information that we have become aware of,” said Tom Caputo, Select Board chair at its March 27 meeting held via video conference. “I think this is more of an opportunity for the town to acknowledge the situation that we’re in.”

Caputo said the Belmont Emergency Management Agency first raised a declaration earlier in the month as being beneficial in communicating to the community the urgency of the town’s response to the virus.

“It makes a statement that Belmont understands that we are in a pretty severe emergency at this time,” said the Select Board’s Adam Dash.

The EMA also speculated the possibility that in the event funding or other resources were made available by the state or federal government, those communities that issued an emergency “might accrue benefits to the town,” said Caputo.

“I don’t see any downside to it, particularly that it makes us eligible for special funding that might become available,” said member Roy Epstein.

Read the declaration here.

Health Dept: Resident Hospitalized, 14 Positive With COVID-19; Those Infected ‘Much Higher’ Than Reported

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Photo: Wesley Chin, director of the Belmont Board of Health.

A Belmont resident is hospitalized, one of 14 town citizens which the state’s Department of Public Health has confirmed tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus, said Wesley Chin, director of the Belmont Health Department.

During a video conference of the Belmont Board of Health on Monday, March 30, Chin said the number of positive cases in Belmont “are much higher than what we have posted on our website.”

“[T]hese numbers only reflect what’s reported to us from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. So we suspect numbers are higher out there because we do receive phone calls from residents that report experiencing COVID-19-like symptoms, and for whatever reason, they either do not go get tested or cannot get a test,” said Chin.

In addition to those testing positive, 29 residents are in quarantine and 24 have completed a 14-day quarantine, according to Chin. Belmont is within the most effected county – Middlesex – in the state, with 1,141 out of 5,752 statewide.

Once the Health Department is told by the state of a positive case in Belmont, they set up a follow up interview with them and do a contact tracing “to see from the start of their symptoms who have made, who may have been potentially exposed to them, and then start the process of making those notifications so that anyone that was potentially exposed to them,” said town nurse David Neylon. Then it is 14 days in isolation in a secure location

Chin said looking at the preliminary data, the ratio of male to female cases here in Massachusetts is roughly 51 percent female and 49 percent male [and] that’s a little bit different than what had been reported in the media coming out of some other countries.

“It’s important to note that a large number of cases are coming from the under 60 age group,” said Chin.

“It doesn’t discriminate who it impacts.”

In the course of the meeting, Chin and his staff, Neylon and Diana Ekman, discussed a number of issues that have been discussed over the past weeks as the pandemic continues spreading.

Neylon said a lot of people have been calling the department “upset about seeing certain groups gather at the parks, whether it’s just to hang out or to play sports” requiring the staff to contact the Belmont Police to disband the assembly.

Social distancing: Chin said one of the catchphrases of the pandemic should better be thought of as “physical distancing” because “we will want people to engage with family and friending socially through phone calls or Facetime video chat because that’s really important as we become more physically isolated from one another.”

Most questions his staff has received on social distancing involve small gatherings – playdates with children, a dinner with friends – which Chin said should be avoided.

Essential businesses: People have quandaries on what is an essential service. Turns out, house cleaning services and housekeepers are not essential while landscaping services are essential.

Ekman said the Health Department is providing a lot of guidance to food establishments on how to guide them through state restrictions such as not having dine-in service. “We had pretty good compliance” on the dining ban, she said.

Other Health Department business: During the current “stay at home” period, the department has temporarily suspended a lot of its in-person inspections, and dealing with them remotely, said Chin. An example he pointed to was a recent call about no heat in an apartment building.

“We were able to work together with the tenant and the landlord to resolve the matter, within 24 hour period. So we definitely appreciate the cooperation of everyone in the community for things like that,” he said.

The same goes for routine restaurant inspections as they are “on pause” with the exception of an emergency that we’re gonna come up,” said Ekman.

David Alper, the former chair of the Board of Health, commended the Health Department’s staff on its “calm demeanor” is a perfect example how “Belmont is handing this with a thoughtful appropriate approach.”

Belmont School’s Remote Learning To Begin This Week, Lasting Until May 4

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Photo: A photo of Belmont Superintendent John Phelan via the internet.

Assignments, reading and a “regular” school day.

Those are the highlights of the new way of education as Belmont School District begins this week “Phase 2 Remote Learning” for the nearly 5,000 students enrolled in the town’s public schools.

The change to learning through the internet and email, which will run until May 4, is another way the COVID-19 novel coronavirus has fundamentally altered the norm.

In an email dated March 30 to the community, John Phelan, Belmont district superintendent, provided a timeline for the next month detailing the approach Phelan and the district leadership team, made up of principals, teachers and directors, are taking in creating an off-campus curriculum for K-12 following the guidelines from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The “Phase 2” will emphasize “reinforcing skills, curriculum advancement, and new and meaningful learning opportunities [in] remote learning,” wrote Phelan.

The timeline for Phase 2 is:

  • On Tuesday, March 31, Belmont’s six school principals will hold faculty meetings to outline the framework of Phase 2 Remote Learning.
  • Those specific details will be emailed by the principals to families on Tuesday, March 31 following the faculty meetings.
  • Principals will set times for staff to access their school and classrooms to gather needed materials during the remainder of the week.
  • Educators will spend time working to review, plan, and prepare for this work with the goal of contacting students and families starting this week and no later than Monday, April 6.
  • The enrichment and re-teaching work “Phase 1” provided students and families for this week should remain in place unless your students/teacher(s) are prepared to move forward with the Phase 2 plan.

The timeline for Phase 2 will be in effect at least until May 4.

Unlike Phase 1 which was student-led reteaching and enrichment of what was learned during the school year, Phase 2 will be teacher-directed with pupils will be expected to spend at least three hours a day working on the reinforcing skills and new and meaningful remote learning opportunities.

Under Phase 2, students in 5th to 12th grade will:

  • Complete and submit work within a set deadline.
  • Open and address daily morning emails from educators.
  • Read for an hour a day.

Younger students, from K-4, will:

  • Engage in daily activities that their families will receive daily via email.
  • Read for a half-hour a day.

Teachers will be tasked with doing what they have been previously, just doing it through the internet. Those tasks include being an instructor and facilitator, collecting and grading assignments, creating resources for students, and even hold “office hours” to allow for a more personal “human touch.”

For more about Phase 2, head to the Belmont Public School link.

Phelan also apologized for the delay in communicating how the remote learning process was being developed and implemented.

“I take responsibility for the role of communicating the hard work we have engaged in over the last week, in order to provide a more direct form of Remote Learning in Belmont,” he said.

Moving forward, Phelan said the district is meeting the challenge the community is facing.

“The community of Belmont has always been a great supporter of public schools. This support has always been valued and appreciated by the faculty and staff in Belmont. Please know that your teachers, directors, and principals have been working hard and will continue to do so on behalf of their students,” said Phelan.

Belmont Confirmed COVID-19 Cases In Double Digits, But More Likely Unreported

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Photo: Wesley Chin, Belmont Health Department director during the Select Board’s video conference.

Belmont is not being spared by the COVID-19 pandemic as the number of residents the state has confirmed “positive” has risen to 10, according to Wesley Chin, Health Department director, speaking before the Select Board via video conference on Thursday, March 26.

But the cases in Belmont are those reported by the state’s Department of Public Health and likely don’t indicated the actual number of individuals who have the virus, according to Chin.

Read the latest update from the Town of Belmont on all things COVID-19.

Belmont’s underreporting is not unusual as many people remain asymptomatic – showing no signs of illness – or have very mild “common cold” symptoms in addition to a shortage of testing kits that pushes down the actual number of positive samples.

And while just two weeks ago all the cases in Belmont were linked to a late-February Biogen sales meeting at the Marriott Long Wharf Hotel in Boston, now the source is more insidious.

“Out of our [10] positives, I can share that four are related to Biogen. The rest are related to workplace exposures in health care institutions and just community spread,” said Chin.

As of March 27, Belmont has 10 cases with 20 individuals currently undergoing monitoring or are under quarantine. Twenty-four have completed monitoring and are no longer in quarantine.

Town Election Pushed Back To June 23; A Virtual Town Meeting In The Cards

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Photo: Wear your shorts, it’s summer time voting in Belmont

In response to the continued COVID-19 pandemic, the Belmont Select Board approved moving the annual Town Election from April 7 to Tuesday, June 23 at its March 26 meeting held via video conference.

In addition to a new day for voters to head for a summertime election, Town Meeting members could be debating the 2021 budget sitting in front of their computers rather than in the Chenery Middle School auditorium as plans are underway to possibly hold a virtual annual Town Meeting in May if the novel coronavirus continues to force social distancing.

Saying “it seemed imprudent to proceed with an election for April 7,” Select Board Chair Tom Caputo complimented the state legislature for passing a bill allowing city and towns to postpone local elections until June 30.

Town Clerk Ellen Cushman and Town Moderator Micheal Widmer, who led the effort to establish a new election date, believed that “for the people who work the elections and the voters in general, the longer we can push that off, the better,” said Cushman. They also had to consider a date in which Belmont public schools had shut down for the summer recess as three of the town’s eight polling stations – at the Winn Brook, Burbank and Butler elementary schools – are located in district buildings.

In the end, the pair came up with three dates; June 16, 23 and 25 with the 23rd receiving the highest favorable response from volunteers who work the elections.

Yet a June date would come after the completion of the annual Town Meeting, which begins on May 27. Traditionally, a new Town Meeting is held after a Town Election to allow new representatives to debate and cast ballots.

But as the Select Board’s Adam Dash noted, there is also no requirement in the new town election legislation compelling towns to hold elections before Town Meeting – as is usually the case.

Cushman said that whoever is actually elected to serve as a Town Meeting member and in town-wide office would be the ones who represent at Town Meeting.

“So it’s possible that you might have [a] group who would represent at the annual town meeting … before the election, and then a completely different group would be at a Special Town Meeting that deals with those zoning articles and other items that took place after the election,” said Cushman.

“I certainly don’t want to set a date … in May, and then it turns out we’re still quarantined and then we have to pump it a second time, which would not be ideal,” said Dash.

Board Member Roy Epstein – whose background image suggested he was speaking from along the pre-1940 Maginot line in France – asked Cushman if the town could hold the election via absentee ballot to lessen the anxiety of voters concerning contacting COVID-19 at polling stations.

Belmont Select Board’s Roy Epstein.

“I guess there’s some possibility that even in June, it wouldn’t be wise to have an election with live polling places,” he said.

Cushman noted that the state has recently altered its criteria for casting an absentee ballot to include voters who are avoiding a polling place as a precautionary measure in response to COVID-19. The state has also extended early voting to municipal elections for the remainder of 2020.

Yet there is one catch; under state law, the town must have at least one “live” polling station on election day to allow voting for anyone who didn’t vote early or with an absentee ballot.

“[I]f people do show up, then you might put them in jeopardy because suddenly you’d have a lot of people located in one location. So there are a lot of considerations,” said Cushman.

In addition to settling on a new election day, Cushman said Belmont and other towns are watching another piece of state legislation. They are hoping language will be added to allow towns to run “remote access Town Meetings” if necessitated by the continued presence of COVID-19 in late May.

Cushman said her office has been in discussions with Turning Technologies, the town’s electronic voting vendor, which indicated there needs to be coordination between its software and Zoom, the remote conferencing service, to make it work.

“But for Town Meeting members, the experience would be virtually seamless. Roll call votes would … be instantaneous, and it’s part of our existing license so it wouldn’t cost us anything,” said Cushman

“So I already have people taking training and webinars … so should [if enabling language] happens in the legislature, we will be pretty much ready to start turning on,” said Cushman.

Caputo said he had recently participated in a work meeting with 254 people, “and it actually worked remarkably well.”

And on the plus side of a Town Meeting via Zoom, suggested Dash, “if you go beyond the time limit [the Town Moderator] can just mute them.”

Here’s Your List Of Belmont Eateries Open For Business

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Photo: The menu is ready for your order!

If there was ever a time to be a patron of Belmont’s restaurants, cafes, pizzerias, and takeout places, now is that time. With the COVID-19 pandemic halting sit-down eating, the town’s eateries can now only provide takeout service to their customers at a significant financial hit.

Thanks to Bonnie Friedman and Belmonthelps.org who created the Belmont Covid-19 Resource list, Belmont residents now have an updated list of restaurants and eateries that are still open and their hours.

“Please support them, if you can,” said Bonnie.

And an honorary Belmont restaurant

  • Conley’s Pub & Grille, https://conleyspub.com, 617-393-0237, open for take-out, noon to 9, 164 Belmont Street, Watertown