New Underwood Pool in Flux as Low Bidder Leaves Belmont High and Dry

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The sudden departure of the construction company set to build the new Underwood Pool complex has left the future the town’s facility in flux as officials prepare to convene to discuss Belmont’s options in completing the project by next year.

“We are disappointed that Seaver Construction decided to withdraw its bid, as we were looking forward to working with them to build the new Underwood Pool,” said Adam Dash, the vice chair of the Underwood Pool Building Committee which oversees the pool’s design and construction.

The Belmont Board of Selectmen has announced that it will be holding a special meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 3 at 8 a.m. to discuss the fate of the new complex with the Underwood Pool Building Committee at Town Hall.

Under the Building Committee’s tentative timeline, construction on the two-pool complex was scheduled to begin in September with completion by the first day of summer 2015, replacing the 102-year-old existing structure.

There is no official word whether the committee’s time schedule remains viable at this late date.

Not only was the Woburn-based company the lowest of four bids to build the $5.2 million project, Seaver was also the only firm to stay within the established budget.

According to a press release from the Belmont Department of Public Works, Seaver withdrew its bid “on the grounds of having made a clerical error” in determining their cost in completing the project.

Under state law, public construction regulations prevent adjustments from being made after bids are submitted.

But even calculating in the error, according to the DPW, Seaver’s bid would have still been within the project’s budget and would have remained the low bid.

Seaver has built several projects in Belmont, including il Casale Restaurant in Belmont Center, converting a private house into the Belmont Hill School new Alumni Center and a high-end residential home at 365 Marsh St.

Dash said the committee “would like to review the options going forward with the Town Administrator [David Kale] and the Board of Selectmen.”

 

Starbucks Staying Put During Cushing Village Build

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Like the little house in the Pixar film, “Up,” the Cushing Square Starbucks Coffee cafe will stay put at its current location as the proposed Cushing Village development – the three building, 186,000-sq.-ft. residential housing, retail and garage complex – goes up around the popular cafe, according to a town official.

And when Starbucks does move, it will not require 20,000 balloons but a few hand trucks to transport the shop as it will go into one of the newly-completed building.

According to Glenn Clancy, Belmont’s director of the town’s Office of Community Development, Starbucks will remain in the former Friendly’s restaurant structure at 112 Trapelo Rd. “with relocation coordinated with the construction of the new buildings.”

The announcement comes as developer Acton-based Smith Legacy Partners withdrew its application before the Belmont Zoning Board of Appeals last week to temporary relocated the busy Cushing Square Starbucks to a pair of store fronts at 6-8 Trapelo Rd.

Residents who have been critical of the proposed relocation plans by Cushing Village’s developer Chris Starr to place the national coffee retailer to the corner of Belmont Street and Trapelo Road across from the neighborhoods where they live.

“We are pleased that the proposal was withdrawn and that [Mr.] Starr seems to have found a way to uphold his original statements that Starbucks would not need to relocate during construction,” said a joint statement to the Belmontonian from four neighborhood residents.

Since the proposal was made public at the May meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals, residents voiced their concerns the store would generate additional parking on nearby side streets while promoting greater trash and litter, creating safety issues and other nuisances.

The development team was scheduled to present the latest proposal incorporating mitigation plans on Sept. 9.

By pulling its application, the developer has “withdrawn without prejudice which means they retain the right to resubmit in the future should they choose to do that,” said Clancy.

The town has yet to receive the development team’s new development scheme or construction timetable.

“[W]e are waiting on final confirmation,” Clancy told the Belmontonian.

The neighborhood group is also waiting to catch the latest word on the development team’s plans.

“Commenting on a possible future proposal would be premature, though the arguments made by the neighbors remain valid, and we will, of course, closely monitor developments over the coming months,” said the group made up of Rita Carpenter, Doug Koplow, Mark Clark and Dr. David Alper.

Developer Drops Plan To Move Starbucks … For Now

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A controversial proposal before the Belmont Zoning Board of Appeals to relocate the Cushing Square Starbucks for nearly a year to a site near residential neighborhoods near the intersection of Belmont Street and Trapelo Road was suddenly scuttled this week by the applicant, developer Smith Legacy Partners.

But a source within Belmont Town Hall noted Smith Legacy’s action could lead to a new proposal being brought before the ZBA in October.

The developer’s withdrawing the requests scheduled to be heard at the ZBA’s Sept. 9 meeting agenda shuts the door on Smith Legacy’s proposal to decamp Starbucks to a pair of store fronts at 6-8 Trapelo Rd.

The move was deemed necessary as construction is reportedly scheduled to begin in October on Cushing Village, the 186,000 sq.-ft. multi-building residential/retail/parking complex being built by developer Chris Starr, Smith Legacy Partners’ lead partner.

The developer’s trial balloon, first floated in May, was met with considerable consternation from residents who live on nearby streets during a pair of ZBA meetings in May and June. Residents believed the store would have a negative impact on parking while generating greater trash and litter, creating safety issues and other nuisances.

ZBA members also expressed concerns on placing the busy cafe in a semi-residential area where a popular ice cream business would be just a few feet away.

While an initial assessment of Smith Legacy’s action would appear to close the door on the developer’s attempts at relocating the popular store, a Town Hall insider said the move can be seen as a strategic retreat.

If the ZBA denied Smith Legacy’s application at the Sept. 9 meeting, it would have been effectively barred from returning back with a similar proposal for the next 24 months, said the Town Hall source.

By withdrawing the application, Smith Legacy can submit a new plan to the ZBA at the board’s following meeting. Just how significantly different a new proposal will need to be – in terms of location, size and parking – will become clearer with a closer examination of the ZBA’s rules and regulations, said the source.

E-mails and calls have been sent to Smith Legacy and the town. Return to the Belmontonian for updates on Friday morning, Aug. 22.

The End: Clark House Now Just Rubble

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The Thomas Clark House was built by a master housewright in 1760.

It was demolished two-and-a-half centuries later by a mid-sized excavator this afternoon, Thursday, Aug. 21.

The pre-Revolutionary War era house, that stood on its Common Street homestead until 2012 before being moved to its last site on Concord Avenue, was torn down by a general contractor hired by the deed holder, the Architectural Heritage Foundation

The demolition of the center-entrance Georgian-style structure took place after a significant amount of material, from floorboards to window sills, were removed over the past week.

By this afternoon, all left of one of Belmont’s oldest and historic homes was reduced to a pile of wood, bricks and plumbing, waiting to be loaded on a flatbed truck to be taken to a landfill.

Restoring Memories: Group Set to Mend Belmont’s Vet Memorials

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The pain of John Ray’s brother’s death nearly half-a-century ago still haunts him.

“Even to this day, I still have dreams that he comes back to me,” said Ray speaking of his older brother, Walter “Donny” Ray, killed in action in Vietnam in November 1967.

Ray, along with Edward “Teddy” Lee – his teammate on Belmont High School’s 1964 state championship football team – and six other young men died fighting in Vietnam. They join the nearly 200 from Belmont, who died for their country in conflicts ranging from the Civil War to Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Monday, a group of veterans and friends and relatives of Ray and Lee came before the Belmont Board of Selectmen Monday, Aug. 18, to seek its support to raise nearly $350,000 to restore three monuments honoring those young residents who sacrificed their lives in defense of the country.

“This is about honoring our soldiers … and to find the capital to do this and really recognizing what the veterans have done for us,” said former selectman William Skelley, speaking for the newly-formed Belmont Veterans’ Memorial Project.

Kevin Ryan, a retired US Army brigadier general and currently a director at Harvard’s Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, said the group’s mission is to repair two existing monuments – the World War I monument across from the MBTA commuter rail station abutting Common Street and the flag pole memorial for all veterans at Clay Pit Pond near Belmont High School – and creating a new site for the WWII dead.

While Belmont has done what he believes is an excellent job acknowledging veterans, over the years, the locations have fallen in disrepair, said Ryan. Vegetation has overgrown the Clay Pit Pond site, and the location is not tidy and the memorial is small and not well presented. The WWI memorial is threadbare under years of gray paint with the stone work in need of repair.

“What we want to do is refurbish some of the sites, spruce them up and add a couple of sites as memorial for veterans” including moving the memorials for World War II, Korea, Vietnam and subsequent conflict currently located in the main lobby of the Belmont Public Library, said Ryan.

“We want it out into the open so people can [see] them more readily,” said Ryan.

“I don’t know about you but the library was not a place I hung out all the time as a kid or as an adult,” said Ryan.

A portion of the $350,000 will be used to clean and repair the WWI monument revealing the pink granite and also for repairs. Additional funds will create a WWII memorial possibly in the front of the White Field House abutting Concord Avenue named for James Paul White, who died in the Battle of the Bugle.

The majority of the funds, approximately $240,000, will go into major improvements at the Clay Pit Memorial. It will include renovating the site and adding plaques from each conflict with the names of those who died mounted on boulders or low stone walls “blending with the current monument and the surrounding landscape,” Ryan said.

The group said it hoped to raise from veteran and donations such as $150 for brick paver, $20,000 for a memorial bench and $10,000 each from major donors.

At the suggestion of the Selectmen, the group will approach the town’s Community Preservation Committee in September on the possibility of qualifying for a grant from the town’s Community Preservation Act Fund. Grants from the fund – supplied by a surcharge of the real estate tax levy – and used for open space protection, historic preservation, affordable housing and outdoor recreation.

After the Selectmen enthusiastically approved the project’s goals and efforts, both the veterans and family of those who will be recognized celebrated this initial victory.

Teddy Lee’s sister, Patty and Barbara, hugged many who came to support the new group’s efforts.

“It’s very touching,” said Patty.

“You can’t forget these young men, and it’s important to everyone to know what they did,” added Barbara.

Belmont Resident Caught in Insider Trading Scheme

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When providing a friend a tip at the Oakley Country Club on Belmont Street, best leave it to what club to use off the 18th hole and not what financial institution your bank is about to purchase.

If Belmont resident John Patrick O’Neill had heeded that advice, he and his golfing partner and fellow Oakley member, Robert Bray, wouldn’t have found themselves under arrest Monday by the United States Attorney’s Office. That office, along with a separate civil action filed by the Securities & Exchange Commission, accused the pair of an alleged blatant case of insider stock trading.

O’Neill, who currently works at TD Bank, was released on $200,000 bond after his arrest on conspiracy to commit securities fraud charges.

According to a series of press releases by several law enforcement agencies released Monday, Aug. 18, O’Neill, a senior vice president and senior credit officer at the time at Eastern Bank, told his golfing buddy Bray on June 11, 2010 that his bank was close to purchasing Boston-based Wainwright Bank and Trust. O’Neill was a member of Eastern Bank’s due diligence team evaluating Wainwright in the weeks leading up to the deal.

The next trading day, Monday, June 14, the Cambridge native hot tailed it to his stockbroker to buy 25,000 shares of Wainwright stock, which he acknowledged to the broker “kinda sounds crazy” as the stock had shown little trading activity selling between $8.85 and $9.90 per share. Eventually, Bray purchased 31,000 shares over the next two weeks, accounting for a whopping 56 percent of the total trading volume in Wainwright over the fortnight.

On June 29, according the US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, Eastern Bank announced its agreement to acquire Wainwright for $19 per share in cash, a premium of nearly 100 percent more than the stock’s prior closing price. Bray then sold his 31,000 shares for a profit of more than $300,000.

But as Vincent Lisi, special agent in charge of the FBI in Boston said Monday, “there are many tripwires in place to detect suspiciously timed trades and as a result of those tripwires numerous people in the Boston area have been charged with insider trading based on parallel FBI and SEC investigations.”

“The risk versus reward calculation for insider trading should be clear based on the increasing number of those recently charged,” said Lisi.

The maximum sentence under the statute is five years in prison and a fine of the greater of $250,00 or twice the gross gain or loss.

 

Conners Retiring as Belmont Library Director

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“Everything has to come to an end, sometime,” wrote L. Frank Baum in “The Marvelous Land of Oz.” And on Halloween, Oct. 31, that “sometime” will occur at the Belmont Public Library as Maureen Conners, its long-serving director, will retire from the position she has held for nearly three decades. “I’m leaving before I turn into a pumpkin,” Conners told the Belmontonian on Monday, Aug. 18. Conners decision to turn in her library card was due in large part to the retirement of her husband from his job a year ago. “He has been saying that we should do things while we’re not ‘too old old’, and that sounded good to me,” the Medford-resident said. The Belmont Board of Library Trustees will discuss hiring a new director at its Tuesday, Aug. 19 meeting while the town has issued a job posting. Conners believe a new director could be named by mid-November. The salary range is $76,859 to $109,140 commensurate with experience and includes a full benefit package. Conners, a Cambridge-native who received a master’s in Library Science from Simmons College, has been at the helm of the library for the past 18 years, coming to the library from Watertown where she worked her way up from children’s librarian to assistant library director. Conners points to the introduction and use of technology as a significant accomplishment in her time at the library located on Concord Avenue. “When I got here, the computers were still in their boxes, waiting to be used,” said Conners, who also hired a technology librarian to allow the library to meet the need of a changing library clientele. The library has increased its digital services to include library-wide WiFi, tablets and e-books, computers for patrons and the introduction of Kindle and shared software. She is also responsible for establishing the Young Adults Room on the library’s main floor and the hiring of a young adult librarian to accommodate the needs of Middle and High School students. Conners said her greatest disappointment during her tenure was returning back to the state three separate grants from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners when the town would not approve either the spending for or location of a new library. “Hopefully, a new director will have more success,” said Conners.

So, What Is a ‘Belmontonian’?

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Belmont now has a daily independent media outlet covering the “Town of Homes.”

The Belmontonian – a word used by several local writers to describe someone living within Belmont’s five-square miles – is dedicated to comprehensive, consistent local coverage based on honest journalism, without agenda or partisanship.

Well, that’s all well and good, but why does our “small” town – which is the 75th largest community in the Commonwealth so it’s not really that tiny – needs a new outlet?

To put it bluntly, Belmont is too interesting a community not to have one. The Belmontonian will be the local venue for news and all things media.

More than ever, Belmont is in the midst of fundamental change on such far-ranging issues from financing basic government and its world-class schools, the growing diversity of its population and the need to pull commerce into town.

And there are neighbors who all have a story to be told, teachers and students who are doing exciting things in and out of the classroom, families and parents seeking interesting events and activities.

With other local media outlets are undergoing rounds of cuts in coverage and staff or moving dramatically to publishing articles with little or no Belmont content, the Belmontonian is a response to public demand for hyperlocal news that others can no longer produce.

The Belmontonian will endeavor to embrace our entire town from politics, arts and culture, business, education, and sports; if it is about Belmont, you can see it here. And each morning, those who sign up for the morning newsletter will receive a list of the most recent stories and other media in your email.

The Belmontonian brand will include extensive use of social media such as the already popular “Belmontonian” Facebook page, Twitter, a Youtube channel and anything else I can get my hands on.

I’m a three-decade Belmont resident (still referred to as a “newcomer” by some), a proud parent of a child (“The Boy”) who spent 13 years in the Belmont School District, a dozen years as a hockey dad, an award-winning journalist and editor (including at the Belmont Patch for nearly four years) who can be found at my three home offices: the Starbucks’ in the Center and Cushing Square and in the library.

The web page will undergo improvements and design changes as technology and as my own tastes change but it will remain the go-to site for all media concerning Belmont.

But this site will only grown with your involvement: sending story ideas, telling me interesting facts, spending time talking at “the office” and, or course, advertise and sponsor those businesses which (hopefully) will place ads on the site.

Thanks for taking the time and bookmark the site right now!

Franklin B. Tucker, Publisher and editor, The Belmontonian.