Driver Killed In Single-Vehicle Truck Accident on Common Street [Video]

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Photo: An accident on Common Street involving a box truck left the driver dead

The driver of a box truck was killed in an early-morning one-vehicle accident on Common Street on Thursday, March 4.

According to Belmont Fire Capt. Rick Nohl, Belmont Police and Fire arrived at the scene near the World War 1 memorial triangle at Dunbarton Road after receiving a 911 call at 2:50 a.m. They found a white box truck on its side and a 45-year-old man dead inside the severely damaged diver’s compartment.

It is believe the driver lost control of the vehicle and rolled it over while driving on Common Street, said Belmont Police Chief James MacIsaac in a press release.

Nohl said his department began a recovery operation which took some time to retrieve the body. By daybreak, two large recovery trucks uprighted the truck, which was fully loaded with produce, before it was taken from the scene around 8:30 a.m.

The accident is under investigation by Belmont Police and the Massachusetts State Police’s Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Unit, according to Nohl.

Breaking: Belmont Preparing For April Return Of Full-Time In-Person Classes For Elementary Students

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Photo: Belmont will offer full-time learning for K-5 in April

The Belmont School District will announce next month two learning options for its youngest students one of which will be full-time, in-person learning beginning in April, according to a press release from Belmont Superintendent John Phelan released on Friday, Feb. 26.

The statement marks the first time the district has announced it would move to all-day in-person learning during the current school year.

Yet still to be answered as the district heads to a return of “normal” school days are issues that have existed since the summer: the existing space limitations at the four elementary schools and the need to negotiate all changes of staffing levels and scheduling with the teachers union.

The impetus for the move came as the state is forcing Belmont’s – and many other school districts – hand when Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Commissioner Jeff Riley announced Tuesday, Feb. 23 he will ask the DESE Board to vote on March 22 on giving him the authority to eliminate all hybrid learning options in the elementary grades statewide.

Belmont is currently working in separate hybrid programs for elementary, middle and high schools.

“With COVID cases and hospitalizations continuing to decline and vaccines well underway, it is time to set our sights on eliminating remote learning by April, starting with elementary schools,” said Gov. Charlie Baker at a news conference on Tuesday.

If the board OKs the authorization, Phelan said Riley will then direct districts to provide elementary school students with one of two learning models: full in-person or a return to or continuation of remote learning. 

Riley said his goal is to require all districts starting on Monday, April 5 to have an in-person, full-time option for students in kindergarten through 5th grade.

In his response to Riley’s announcement, Phelan said Belmont is ahead of where the state stands in moving towards in-person reopening for all students, pointing to the recently formed Return to In-Person Learning Working Group (RIPLWG) with its “goal of providing more in-school time for students who want it.”

“Because Commissioner Riley’s goal of increasing live instructional time for students is very much in line with our own goals, we will not wait until March 22 to begin the important work of considering the implications of this change,” said Phelan.

“We will continue to plan thoughtfully and thoroughly so that we are ready to adjust to any changes that may be mandated,” said Phelan. “We await the Commissioner’s plan and updated guidance to ensure our work is directed toward the intended goal.”

As soon as the district gets a clearer picture of what the two models will look like in Belmont, it will survey families “so you can make an informed decision” on which plan to accept. The survey will also be determining staffing levels in the schools and remote.

“It is important that families have a full picture of what either model will be before committing,” said Phelan.

That process begins next week as “[w]e intend to be very public and transparent about our work, and will share all of the materials and data we are using with the entire community,” said Phelan. Those resources will include classroom enrollment data, room capacity measurements, and other information, most of which can be found on the Return to In-Person Learning webpage.

Phelan said the next communication with the community will be on Tuesday, March 1, after the next RIPLWG meeting.

“There will be many details to come in the weeks to follow that we will need to discuss and operationalize for this next step to take place successfully,” said Phelan.

But there remain several questions that have been left unanswered. The first that has plagued the district is the lack of space in the four elementary schools to provide 6-feet social distancing to allow the full capacity of students to attend. There is also the issue of incorporating one grade at the Chenery Middle School into the full-time schedule. Along with expected expenses is the knowledge that all significant changes the district will need to put forth to accomplish the mandate are required to take to collective bargaining with the Belmont Education Association, the local teachers union. It is not known if Riley has the ability to waive state labor laws when he sets forth his agenda.

At this time, Phelan said he is moving towards the goal of in-class learning.

“The Belmont Public Schools is committed to more in-person learning for students, whether the mandate is handed down or not. We will continue working to provide greater in-school time to those students who want it, while also maintaining a remote option,” said Phelan.

“We will do this work as we always do: thoroughly, thoughtfully, and in conjunction with all stakeholders – students, families, and educators,” said Phelan.

With The Pressure On, School District Introduces Group To Lead Belmont Back To In-Person Learning

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Photo: A working group has been created to facilitate to return students back to school full time.

With pressure increasing to bring back students to the classroom, the Belmont Schools District announced this week the formation of a working group whose charge is to create a roadmap to quickly reopen the district to in-school learning.

“It is our full intention. as a district, to identify the challenges and … to see where we can look for opportunities and also anticipate some updated guidance,” said Belmont Superintendent John Phelan before the Belmont School Committee on Tuesday, Feb. 2 as he introduced the “Return to In-Person Learning Group” which will hold its first meeting on Monday, Feb. 22.

The district is running under a hybrid school day which provides a limited amount of in-school instruction.

Unlike past committees and groups that produced a final summery that “lies gathering dust,” Phelan said this group is committed to producing “rolling recommendations” where breakthroughs and solutions can be rapidly implemented.

“This committee is really charged with identifying those challenges and giving us a roadmap for when those challenges [become] opportunities … and how we can move forward,” he said.

The new working group, introduced by Phelan on Jan. 19, is established just as the district and school committee is feeling the pushback from national and state governments and local groups and residents to find some way to put kids back in schools full-time, which hasn’t occurred since mid-March of last year.

The day after the superintendent’s announcement, newly-appointed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said “[t]here is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen” without the need for teachers to be vaccinated. She also said schools would need to meet a myriad of safety protocols – masks, distancing, ventilation and surveillance testing – to open safely.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has been advocating for the return of in-person learning whether it is hybrid or full time instruction since the school year began in September, providing incentives such as testing . Locally, the frustration of parents on the slow roll out in September of the hybrid plan and no indication of a date certain for person to person instruction has led some to run for the two school committee seats

The district is also feeling the push from the local teachers union. While silent throughout the COVID crisis, it is clear the Belmont Education Association has emphasized safety of its members during the nearly-year long pandemic.

The state union, the Massachusetts Teachers Association has asked been adamant that districts wait until all teachers are vaccines before educators back into classrooms.

On Tuesday, the School Committee voted to join a letter signed by 42 superintendents and 23 union presidents endorsing the calling for teachers to be given preference in receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Currently, Massachusetts teachers are part of the third group in Phase 2 of the state’s vaccine timeline which start later in February.

“In order to do our jobs at the level desired by [the state], the professionals working in our field should be vaccinated as quickly as possible so they can continue to work with the children they come in contact daily,” said Prestwich reading from the letter.

The working group will be led by independent veteran educators with connections to the Harvard Graduate School of Education; Michelle Rinehart and Dr. Drew Echelson,

“The purpose … for this working group is to develop specific and actionable tools that will support Belmont public schools in determining when and how to bring more students back to in-person learning,” said Rinehart.

The group’s charge is three fold: Discover the conditions which will allow the schools to increase the level of in-person learning, determine the current conditions and what are the “roadblocks” impeding students return to the classroom and finally submit draft rolling recommendations to the superintendent that will outline the path to person-to-person learning.

The working group will be divided into subgroups which will focus on critical areas for a safe return such as social distancing, vaccination, testing, classroom capacity, PPE and health supplies and transmission rates.

The working group will also pay attention to changes in and emerging guidance and regulations from national and state government entities – the CDC, the Massachusetts departments of Elementary and Secondary Education and of Public Health – on opening schools, follow COVID cases and trends as well as focusing on possible additional funding available from the Biden administration which will be in line with his initiative of ramping up the opening of a majority of K-8 schools in the first 100 days of the Biden presidency.

The group will be one of the largest in town history: 27 members – represented by teachers, students, residents, health officials and the school committee – meeting weekly with biweekly public gatherings to provide updates and receive feedback and insight from the public and other stakeholders. The members will be selected Feb. 9.

Phelan sees the working group laboring through February and March with its final recommendations submitted to him by late March/Early April.

“There’s going to be a lot of work to do with the context of the work ever changing,” Phelan said on Jan. 19.

Emergency Parking Ban Starts At 6 PM; No School Tuesday; Trash Pickup Delayed One Day

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Photo:

Town officials have announced a snow emergency parking ban on all roadways, municipal parking lots and Belmont Public School parking lots, effective at 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 1 and will continue into Tuesday, February 2, 2021 until further notice.  All vehicles parked in violation of the ban will be towed at the owner’s expense.

The Belmont School District has also announced there will be no school Tuesday, Feb. 2, due to the impending snow storm. Please know that all classes, hybrid and remote-only, are cancelled.

All scheduled public meetings scheduled for tonight will be held virtually. 

There will be no trash pickup on Tuesday, Feb. 2.  The trash, recycling and yard waste pickup schedule will be delayed by a day through the end of the week.

Upland Road Rage Charges Upped To Murder As Select Board Calls Special Public Forum For Wednesday

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Photo: Participants in the rally to remember Henry Tapia.

The Belmont Select Board will be hosting a special community forum on Wednesday, Jan. 27 at 7 p.m. to discuss the death of Henry Tapia who was killed in an alleged road rage incident a week ago on Upland Road.

On Monday, Jan. 25, at Cambridge District Court, the assailant, Dean Kapsalis, saw an additional charge of leaving the scene of an accident causing death added to his existing charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and a civil rights violation.

He was ordered held without bail with his next court appearance on March 1.

Nearly 200 residents and citizens joined Tapia’s friends and family for a rally to celebrate Tapia’s life on Thursday, Jan. 21 in Cushing Square. Kim Haley-Jackson, vice chair of the Belmont Human Rights Commission, Belmont Police Chief James MacIsaac, Middlesex DA and Belmont resident Marion Ryan, Select Board’s Adam Dash, State Rep. Rogers, State Sen. Will Brownsberger each spoke to the impact of a race-based killing in a town that at times seems, as one attendee said, “devoid in discussing” the racial issues affecting the country.

“What I want to say to everyone is: Yes, Belmont. You too,” said Haley-Jackson.

“What I want to ask from my town is to think about your everyday actions. You think about your neighbors who don’t look like you. We are a community and not everyone is the same. We don’t all have the same belief system, we don’t all live the same lives but we all live together,” she said.

An agenda has not been published for the community forum. People can attend by going to the Zoom site: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82245770498?pwd=Smt2a3llQUp0OXRQMzhodTJxWFIvdz09 Meeting ID: 822 4577 0498

Tapia’s friends created a GoFundMe page to help his partner, Courtney Morton, and his three children. It has raised $152,800 as of Wednesday morning.

Tapia, a Black/Latino Boston resident living with his partner in Belmont, was killed when Kapsalis, a 54-year-old from Hudson who was living with his girlfriend on Upland Road, hit and dragged the victim after the pair squared off during what is alleged to have been a road rage incident sometime after 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 19.

In court Monday, prosecutors from the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office said witnesses heard as well as an alarm system recorded as Kapsalis “yelled racial slurs” at Tapia during the confrontation.

“There was a Ring doorbell near the scene of this incident, and it captured the audio of the interaction between the victim and the defendant,” said prosecutor Nicole Allain.

“The defendant can be heard calling the victim a series of derogatory terms, which culminated in his use of the N-word. Seconds later, that’s when the vehicle accelerates. A loud ‘thud’ noise can be heard, and the defendant’s red truck can be seen on video driving [away from] the scene,” said Allain.

MacIsaac’s said the first responding officers found Tapia conscious but in distress, reportedly saying “I can’t breathe.” Tapia was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital where he died soon after arriving.

“My officers were shocked to hear that he had died,” said MacIsaac. “It has effected the department.”

Select Board Approves Placing $6.4M Override On April’s Town Election Ballot

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Photo: An override will be on the April 6 town election ballot.

The Belmont Select Board unanimously accepted the Financial Task Force’s recommendation to place a $6.4 million Proposition 2 1/2 override on the April 6, 2021, town election ballot.

While the vote comes in the midst of a year long pandemic which has wounded the local and national economy, there is few alternatives other than huge cuts in town services – with massive layoffs – and a retreat on nearly a decade of investments in teaching and student growth.

“It’s never the right time or a good year to ask for this … but the situation has put us in a point where we have no choice,” said the Select Board’s Adam Dash.

Select Board’s Tom Caputo, who also chaired the Task Force, said working for the past two years using a multi-year financial forecasting modeling tool from the Collins Center at UMass/Boston to help make more precise results from projections and data allowed him to “appreciate the financial challenges ahead of us and the importance of an override to maintain fiscal stability for the town.”

I am very comfortable with the recommendation that we brought to the town,” he said.

If approved by voters, homeowners would see a $900 pop in property taxes on the “average” valued house pegged at $1.25 million.

The override amount is approximately half the $12.5 million the Select Board approved back in July.

“I think that’s progress,” said Roy Epstein, chair of the Select Board.

Flush with nearly $11.2 million in free cash certified by the state – an amount historically higher than most years through minimizing expenditures during last year’s COVID crisis – and the recent forecast of state and local revenues will be higher than pervious years, town will leverage the onetime windfall to help moderate the override’s size, said Caputo.

After setting aside portions of free cash according to decade long town guidelines, the town will take $8.2 million in free cash and spread it over three years from ’22 to ’24. Include $3.2 million in additional state aid in fiscal ’22 split between fiscal years ’23 and ’24.

The task force forecasts that Belmont would be facing a debt of $8.3 million by fiscal ’24 on an annual budget of $166.7 million.

The override would allow the town to support a “minimal level service budget” as it will maintain town services with “very very small additional positions” such as a social worker at the Senior Center, said Dash.

But for several residents who commented during the public comment portion of the meeting, just the tiniest jump in taxes would be devastating to many.

“Any dollar increase for us right now is too much considering the thousands of dollars in revenue that we’ve all lost and the percentage of business down,” said Deran Muckjian, a lifelong resident and owner of The Toy Shop of Belmont on Leonard Street.

Dawn McCarren said a lot of good ideas have come from the task force “but the town will survive without an override.”

“I realize that there will be cuts but families are at stake and this is extremely difficult pill to swallow, forcing some to sell homes where residents lived for multigenerationd,” she said.

No short-term solution

But the Board contend the town has not other short-term option but to back placing the override on the ballot.

“I recognize that we have a lot of folks in the community that are in economically challenging times as a result of COVID, that are on fixed incomes for which this tax is an incredible burden and it’s hard for us to solve,” said Caputo.

“At the end of the day, this override is indicated by the facts and the realities and as such it needs to be put on the ballot,” Caputo said.

A delay, said Epstein, would made a bad situation even worse, as cuts would be made to services, nearly the entire free cash account would be used in one year which would imperil the town’s “gold standard” AAA bond rating and ultimately require a much more robust override amount in 2023.

Epstein also wanted to dampen down any suggestions that, as one resident said in an email, voters suspect the funds raised through the override would be spent on “grandiose capital projects.” The reality, he said, was the additional funds will be directed to operating expenses such as paying for teacher salaries while continue vital infrastructure projects.

Epstein did acknowledge the fiscal ’22 education expenses accedes what he believes is a minimal level but that is due to the district introducing a new school – the Chenery Middle School at the high school location – in the next two years and to maintain “considerable progress” its has invested in over the past five years.

School costs will continue to lead the way adding more than 32 FTE (Full-time equivalent) positions in the next three years “to address increase in enrollment, grade configuration and what the school committee’s vision for the future,” said Patrice Garvin, town administrator, at last week’s meeting of the Select Board.

Enrollment changes FY ’20 to FY ’24

Yet also noting that an override will have little impact on the town’s structural deficit in which revenues are unable to match expenses due to annual limits on property tax increases while education costs due to students entering the district – a 1,000 new pupils in just the past few years – has far outpaced revenues.

Dash said the town has created two new committee, the Structural Budget Impact Group and Long-term Capital Budget Planning Committee, which will look for opportunities to increase revenues and decrease expenses. Around March, the town will open a portal on the town’s web site where people will be able to put in any structural change suggestions for the boards to review.

“There are no stupid ideas, every idea will be looked at and vetted, put into a matrix and analyzed,” said Dash.

Looking into the horizon, Epstein believes Belmont may finally see by 2026 some stability or even slight decrease in the decade of sky rocking enrollment – greater than 10 percent over the past 10 years – in town schools which will in turn decrease the need to hire teachers, staff and other expenses.

“As soon as there’s stability in the number of schoolchildren instead of this continuous very rapid growth that will give us a lot more flexibility in managing the budget,” he said.

Greater detail on the budget planning for the next three fiscal years can be found in the documents at the Town of Belmont website.

In addition, Belmont Media Center has recorded Financial Task Force meetings.

Breaking: Caputo Will Not Run For Re-election To Select Board

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Photo: Tom Caputo

Citing time away from his family and work demands, first term member Tom Caputo will not seek re-election to the Belmont Select Board.

“I am making this decision to not seek reelection so that I can prioritize my family and my full-time work,” he said.

Caputo’s announcement, made Friday, Jan. 22, comes with less than a month remaining for residents to submit nomination papers to the Town Clerk’s Office by the deadline, Feb. 16 at 5 p.m.

Caputo has worked with current members Adam Dash and Roy Epstein for approximately two years serving as the steady moderating element of an efficient team, relying on his business acumen and good nature to find compromise in tackling issues before the town. He also chaired the Financial Task Force II whose recommendation for a $6.4 million override was accepted unanimously by the Select Board earlier on Friday.

Caputo won his seat on the board with 94 percent of vote in 2018. The year previously, he won a full-term on the school committee topping the ballot with 51 percent of the vote. Caputo served as chair of the board in 2019-2020.

Caputo entered elected office when he joined the school committee in November 2014 as an appointed member to fill the interim vacancy left by the resignation of Kevin Cunningham. He won the election to serve the two years remaining on Cunningham’s term in 2015 with 99.3 percent of the vote.

“It has been a privilege to serve the Belmont community as a member of the Select Board for the last three years, but I have decided that I will not seek reelection in April.”

Below is Caputo’s press release:

“The time requirements of the Select Board role in the last year have become increasingly demanding, and I anticipate that pace will continue for the foreseeable future. I am making this decision to not seek reelection so that I can prioritize my family and my full-time work.”

“This was not an easy decision. I have always been committed to community service, and it has been rewarding to work with our deeply committed Town and School staff and volunteers. We have accomplished a lot together – building a new school and renovating the police station and DPW facility; rezoning the McLean parcel for development and affordable housing; advancing the community path design; financial modeling and planning for the town’s future; and much more. It is challenging work filled with purpose, and I will miss it.”

“I particularly want to thank everyone I have met along the way. It has been an honor to get to know you and serve as a member of your Select Board.”

“I hope that I can continue to play a role in the town in the days and months ahead. But for now, I look forward to maximizing the time with my family before my teenage daughters head off to college.”

After Year End Review, Belmont Records 13 ‘Extra’ COVID-19 Deaths, 10 Since Thanksgiving

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Photo: COVID-19 deaths in Belmont is higher than originally thought.

A year-end review of official death records maintained by the Belmont Town Clerk’s Office revealed 13 additional Belmont deaths attributed to COVID-19 in 2020, according to the Belmont Health Department.

The revised total brings the town’s total COVID-19 death count since March 2020 to 74 resident including a death since the beginning of the new year, said Wesley Chin, Belmont’s Health Department director in his weekly health report dated Friday, Jan. 8.

And the Belmont health director is anticipating more cases and possible deaths in the near future.

“It’ll be a tough winter,” Chin told the Select Board last week due to the record number of COVID cases and deaths in the US and state over the past five weeks, as residents traveled to see relatives and were more likely to be at social events during the holiday season.

According to Chin:

  • Ten Belmont residents – all living outside long-term facilities – have died from COVID-19 since Thanksgiving.
  • COVID-19 deaths have disproportionately older residents, with the average age of death being approximately 85 years old.
  • 22 of these all deaths occurred among community members who were not residing in a local long-term care facility.

Belmont has 737 cumulative confirmed cases of COVID-19, which is an increase of 48 cases since a Jan. 4 report.

Due to the new case count over the past two weeks, this puts Belmont in the state’s “yellow” zone according to the new color designation metrics; lower than 10 average cases/100,000 or five percentage positivity, as reported in the last two weeks.

The Town Clerk’s Office will continue to provide information for COVID-19 death statistics; the data will contribute to the town’s COVID-19 dashboard on Fridays.

The COVID-19 Vaccine

The Belmont Health Department is monitoring the availability of COVID-19 vaccines and preparing for the eventual vaccination of the general public. The Town is updating plans for large-scale vaccination of residents to ensure that doses of the vaccine are given quickly and efficiently when they arrive in Belmont.

At this time, Massachusetts is currently in Phase 1 of its vaccine distribution plan, and vaccines in Massachusetts are reserved for healthcare workers doing direct and COVID-facing care as well as employees and residents of Long-Term Care facilities. Vaccine requests for these groups are being
approved and overseen by the state.

Belmont is participating in a regional collaborative to administer vaccinations to first responders, the third priority group within Phase 1 of the Commonwealth’s vaccine distribution timeline. First responder vaccinations will begin on Tuesday, Jan 12.

At this time, the Belmont Health Department does not currently have access to COVID-19 vaccine, other than the vaccine that has already been allocated to the Town’s first responders, Chin said. Currently, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health has not determined that local health departments will be involved with additional vaccine administration prior to the general public in Phase 3 of the State’s distribution plan, but that is subject to change.

No Big Surprise: Snow Storm Closes Belmont Schools Thursday; Townwide Parking Ban Starts At Midnight

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Photo: Remote snow day

No big surprise here: There will be no school for all students on Thursday, Dec. 17, as a result of the winter storm.

“This means that there will be no remote learning and no in-person learning tomorrow and our buildings will be closed,” read a press release from Belmont Superintendent John Phelan.

Parking ban for Thursday

Due to the foot of snow expected from the storm, a SNOW EMERGENCY PARKING BAN has been declared for all roadways and municipal and Belmont Public School parking lots.

The ban goes into effect at midnight, Dec. 17, and will last until further notice, according to Michael Santoro, assistant director of the Department of Public Works.

All vehicles parked in violation of the ban will be towed at the owner’s expense.

Belmont’s FY’22 Property Tax Rate Jumps To $11.55 per $1,000 Driven By New School Borrowing

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Photo: The second $100 million borrowing for the new Middle and High School has driven the property tax rate higher.

Belmont taxpayers will see their property tax rate increase by four bits and a nickel as the Board of Assessors recommended a rate for fiscal year 2022 during its annual presentation before the Select Board on Thursday morning, Dec. 10.

“This [coming fiscal] year the tax rate will be going up 55 cents … from $11 to $11.55,” Reardon told the board. According to the assessors, the impact on a residential property valued at $1,285,000 – what the average single family house in Belmont is worth – will be $706. The annual tax bill for that average house comes out to $14,842.

While property values calculated by the assessors cooled off from the past years of double digit increases – this year single families are up 3 percent (as opposed to 18 percent last year), condos 5 percent, two and three families increased by 4 percent and commercial property was flat – the biggest impact on property taxes is the second phase of borrowing for the Middle and High School project. The new $100 million borrowing added 56 cents to the tax bill, said Reardon.

As in past years, the assessors recommended and the selectmen agreed to a single tax classification and no real estate exemptions. Reardon said Belmont does not have anywhere near the amount of commercial and industrial space (at must be least a minimum of 30 percent, said Reardon) to creating separate tax rates for residential and commercial properties. Belmont’s commercial base is approximately four percent of the total real estate inventory.

As for exemptions, the administrative costs to run such a program would be prohibitive for a revenue neutral imitative. And as with the split rate, the majority of taxpayers would see little in reductions or increases in their tax bill.

The Board of Assessors will officially set the fiscal year ‘22 property tax rate on Friday, Dec. 11.