Belmont Town Meeting Resumes at 7 PM

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After an opening session that was a two dog (article) night, the 2014 annual Belmont Town Meeting will resume at 7 p.m., Wednesday, May 7, with the remaining non-budgetary articles with a real chance of finishing the May portion of the yearly assemblage of the town’s legislative body.

The approximately 300 representatives who will gather at Belmont High School’s auditorium are tackling a number of new issues and others returning to Town Meeting for subsequent votes.

Representatives are asked to be in the auditorium before 7 p.m. so the meeting can start on time.

A copy of the warrant which contains the articles can be found here on the Town Clerk’s web page.

Tonight’s meeting will be broadcasted live by the Belmont Media Center.

First up for debate and a vote tonight will be the two articles concerning the funding of the proposed new Underwood Pools complex scheduled to replace in June, 2015 the 102-year-old swimming “pond” adjacent to the Belmont Public Library at the corner of Concord Avenue.

Reps will vote on a $2 million grant from the town’s Community Preservation Committee as well as allowing the town to borrow $2.9 million the town’s voters approved by 62 percent on Town Election on April 1.

Next will be the remaining six CPA grants including a first-time homebuyer’s program that could come under some questioning as the Warrant Committee overwhelmingly voted against the funding. 

Back for a second try is a proposed bylaw regulating yard sales to three a year. The citizen’s petition was defeated in the Special Town Meeting in November. 

A second citizen’s petition will attempt to kill a bylaw that passed in November: the new residential snow removal bylaw that has been enforced for just one snow “event” this year.

The last article on tonight’s agenda will be where residents will have to travel to get their medical marijuana with the creation of an overlay district.

Housing Trust’s CPA Affordable Housing Plan Gets Mixed Results

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For the majority of articles being brought before the Belmont Town Meeting tonight, Monday, May 5, the Warrant Committee and the Board of Selectmen are of one mind; they will be nodding in sync approvingly with nearly all the proposals facing the approximate 300 representatives.

But there is one article where the two groups have decided to take diverging paths on the Community Preservation Committee’s $375,000 grant to the Belmont Housing Trust’s first-time homebuyer’s proposal.

The plan will help three homebuyers –  it would target those making less than 80 percent of the area median household income which is approximately $92,000 – to lower their mortgages by approximately $125,000 each to make them affordable. In return, the three units will remain affordable “in perpetuity” due to a deed restriction that limits the amount the homeowner can receive in a resale.

“There are six units of this same housing in Belmont, on Oakley and B Street,” noted Gloria Leipzig, the Housing Trust’s vice chair at a Warrant Briefing meeting in April.

While the Warrant Committee – which is the Town Meeting’s financial watchdog – voted overwhelmingly against the plan by 10-3 in April, the Belmont Board of Selectmen, in a two to one vote, will be supporting the proposal when it comes before the Town Meeting likely at Monday’s first night.

The disagreement between backers of the Housing Trust’s initiative and those opposed is not based on support of affordable housing as all members believe that Belmont should push to increase the supply of this housing – Belmont has about 300 units or 3.8 percent of the total housing stock.

Rather it’s the approach the Housing Trust hopes to use to increase affordable housing that has come under fire. According to several Warrant Committee members and Selectman Sami Baghdady, using nearly $400,000 to move a limited number of people into moderate-rate housing is simply not cost effective.

With Belmont nearly 600 units away from reach the state’s goal of 10 percent affordability in housing (which will also prohibit developers from using the Chapter 40B law allowing developers of affordable housing to override most town zoning bylaws and other requirements), the money would better be spent as part of a larger expenditure to build a great number of units or on other causes. 

“[The Community Preservation Act] is all tax money and it shouldn’t be used as a slush fund” for ineffective programs, said Baghdady at a May 1 Selectmen’s meeting.

Supporters of the CPA request contend that any increase in housing is better than staying pat on this societal problem.

“Our goal is to increase the number of affordable housing in Belmont, just to show the state we are trying to meet its requirements,” said Leipzig. 

For Selectman Mark Paolillo, the realization that the town may “never” meet the 10 percent goal doesn’t mean that the town should seek the perfect at the expense of doing nothing.

“It’s not perfect but I support the concept,” said Paolillo.

“We need to show our commitment to affordability and this is a fairly easy way to do it,” said Selectmen’s chair Andy Rojas.

Three Words: Belmont Town Meeting

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Regulating dog day care, removing the snow removal bylaw, financing a new pool and grants to several organizations will be debated and voted on in the first part of the Belmont annual Town Meeting beginning tonight at 7 p.m. in the Belmont High School auditorium.

As with recent custom, the first part of this year’s Town Meeting – now in its 155th edition – will take up non-budgetary issues such as voting on bylaws, changes to the zoning regulations and the approval of funds through the Community Preservation Act.

To view the articles, head to this PDF page on the Town Clerk’s website.

If Town Meeting can not finish its business tonight, it will continue on Wednesday, May 7 and then Monday, May 12 and Wednesday, May 14.

The approximately 290 representatives, moderated by Michael Widmer, will debate the fiscal year 2015 budget on Monday, June 2 when Town Meeting will reconvene.

According to Town Clerk Ellen Cushman, the articles will be called in the following order:

1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 12, 16, 17, 15, 7, 6, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 3, 14.

Brighton Street’s Loading Dock Lands Full-Liqour License … with Conditions

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Citing a chance to bring economic development to Brighton Street, the Belmont Board of Selectmen unanimously approved a full liquor license to The Loading Dock at 11 Brighton St. during a public meeting held before 90 residents and applicants at the Beech Street Center last night, Thursday, May 1.

“This is what I wanted for the store since I [first] arrived seven years ago,” said The Loading Dock’s owner and Belmont resident Faud Nicolas Mukarker after the vote.

Mukarker beat out applications from Waltham-based D&L Liquors and the Craft Beer Cellar of Belmont Center for the coveted full-liqour license, the only one to be presented.

The Belmont Board of Selectmen; (from left) Mark Paolillo, Andy Rojas and Sami Baghdady.

The Belmont Board of Selectmen; (from left) Mark Paolillo, Andy Rojas and Sami Baghdady.

While granting the license, the Selectmen placed a number of conditions on their approval, the most significant is that Mukarker must end the sale of tobacco and lottery tickets at the location as he transforms it into an “international bistro and cafeteria,” according to the Park Road resident.

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Drawings of the proposed beer, wine and liquor area in an anticipated renovated The Loading Dock on Brighton Street.

In addition, the store can not sell individual cans of beer or “nips” – a tiny taster bottle of liquor usually 50 milliliters which is about a shot of liquor – employees must under go training on controlling sales to minors, the portion of the store reserved for liquor can not exceed 750 square feet and the business must hold a certification of occupancy from the town when the long-anticipated renovation of the site is completed. 

Mukarker said he will complete renovations at the site – which is another condition the Board is requiring of the owner before he can operate with the license – by August, dedicating between 500- to 750-square feet (about a third of the store’s footprint) to beer, wine and liquor.

In a separate vote, the Board declined an application for a wine and beer license to LC Variety on Trapelo Road due to space, cleanliness and management issues.

The native of Jerusalem left a position at Fleet Bank to become the manager of the then-White Hen Pantry at the location in 2006 before buying the location in 2011.

‘Growth Spurt’ Has Belmont School Budget Bursting at the Seams

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With just three months left in the fiscal year, it appears the Belmont School District will likely finish the fiscal swimming in a pool of red ink.

In a report highlighting the district’s third quarter financial status, Director of Finance and Administration Anthony DiCologero reported the Belmont’s schools are running an $220,000 deficit for the fiscal 2014 budget, which is $44.3 million excluding state and federal grants.

“There has been unanticipated events that began in the summer” resulting in the financial shortfall, said DiCologero, which Belmont School Committee member Kevin Cunningham said is caused by “a growth spurt” within the district since the bulk of the new expenses are directly related to a continued influx of students into the already brimming district.

According to DiCologero, approximately $450,000 of additional funds were spent on hiring 18 FTE (full-time equivalent) positions – many aides – to fill gaps in the system created by an increase of more than 100 students into the system.

An additional amount – not yet calculated – went to direct students services in Special Education as the actual amount spent in fiscal ’14 far outpaced what was anticipated at the beginning of the fiscal year in July, 2013.

“This continues to be a [line item] in flux,” said DiCologero.

On other unanticipated costs, the need to install a new exhaust system at the High School’s Higginbottom Pool required the expenditure of $50,000.

In addition to higher expenses, the district missed out on opportunity savings when an oil feeder pipe burst in the basement of the High School. This has delayed switching the final of the three heating burners from oil to natural gas, resulting in lost savings in the energy account, said DiCologero.

According to Belmont School Superintendent Dr. Thomas Kingston, the deficit will be resolved with a request of $200,000 from the town’s reserve account as well as clamping down on hirings – each most be reviewed by Kingston and DiCologero before being approved this fiscal year – while also restricting spending on supplies, material and services. In addition, facility maintenance and repairs will be limited.

While the ’14 fiscal budget needs a shot of cash to finish the year, the pending fiscal year 2015 budget – which the School Committee will hold a public meeting and discuss before approving on May 13 – which stands at $46.2 million is in balance.

Resident Seeks Snow Removal Bylaw Repeal, Focus on Fairness

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Eric Anderson knows what happens when it snows in Belmont.

Born and raised in town, Anderson said he spent many a winter day with his father shoveling his fair portion of the frozen precipitation off the sidewalks adjacent to his family’s home.

“I’ve been shoveling snow for 37 years … and I’ll continue to do so for the rest of my life,” Anderson told The Belmontonian.

But Anderson doesn’t believe he or any other resident should be forced to perform this normal winter task by a town edict that he has determined is both legally and philosophically questionable.

On Monday night, April 28, before more than 100 residents attending the annual Warrant Briefing sponsored by the Belmont League of Women Voters and the Warrant Committee at the Beech Street Center, Anderson defended his citizens petition – Article 6 – that would strike down the town’s newly-installed residential snow removal bylaw at this year’s annual Town Meeting set to begin Monday, May 5.

“This is, from every angle, a bad law,” he told the audience.

Yet supporters of the bylaw are advocating that the regulations be allowed to stand for the remaining two years of its existence to see how this “experiment” to make Belmont “a better, walkable community” can be improved, according to Michele Banker of Scott Road.

“I’m sure we will have a robust discussion [on the article],” said meeting moderator Michael Libenson, chair of the Warrant Committee.

Eric Anderson (sitting) and moderator Michael Libenson at the annual Warrant Briefing.

Eric Anderson (sitting) and moderator Michael Libenson at the annual Warrant Briefing.

Anderson said the town shouldn’t force residential property owners to be “good neighbors” under a threat of increasing fines and penalties within the bylaw passed at the Special Town Meeting last November that instructs home and property owners to remove any “sizable” snow that falls on sidewalks bordering their property within 36 hours after the snow stops.

One reason for quashing the bylaw is practical for Anderson. After living in the Midwest for a dozen years, he moved back to Belmont in 2011 to settle in a house at the corner of two major town thoroughfares, Pleasant and Leonard streets.

When it snows, the sidewalks outside his house become magnets as the white stuff gets pushed and falls into the walkway.

“If there is a foot of snow on the ground, there is about three feet piled up on my sidewalk and contrary to town officials, a lot of snow gets re-plowed onto the sidewalk,” said Anderson.

The bylaws legal responsibility to clear the sidewalk is “just one I can’t meet so I am subject to fines every year by no fault of my own,” he told the Belmontonian, noting to the audience earlier that penalizing him and his neighbors “is completely unjust.”

A question of community

But his objection isn’t just one of physical effort. Anderson joins past critics who question a legal requirement that residents must improve the accessibility of sidewalks that are town owned.

“It’s not our property. How can the town force us to labor for it?” Anderson told the Belmontonian.

“Who knows, we could be required next year to fill in pot holes.”

But Anderson believes the debate that is sure to come at Town Meeting should include the understandable rational behind the bylaw’s creation: enjoining Belmont residents to act responsibly.

“The worse part of this is the way it undermines community in Belmont,” Anderson told those in attendance, asking resident if they “want to live in a police state where every inconvenience gets addressed with a law and a schedule of fines and punishments?”

Rather, neighbors should speak to those who are not shoveling “and talk to them politely” concerning the necessity to shovel, for both safety and convenience.

Anderson’s “sense of community” was questioned by Anne Paulsen, the former Selectman and State Representative, who said for the first time in her now half-century living in Belmont, she was able to walk from her house on School Street nearby the Wellington School to Waverley Square where “every sidewalk was shoveled.”

“Don’t you think that’s a sign of a good sense of community?” queried Paulsen.

“I think that’s a sign of fear of being fined,” said Anderson, whose answer brought a few hisses and some good-natured laughing from some in the crowd.

Other supporters of the new bylaw spoke out concerning the spirit of the bylaw “was just to get people to have more of a sense of responsibility,” said Lucia Sullivan, and that before its enactment, “almost no one shoveled. But after, those who could, did.”

Others hoped the town would allow the bylaw to work for the next two winters as a test to see “what kinds of changes that are able to be made and what we need to do and how we need to change the wording” to better adapt the regulations to real world conditions, according to Banker.

Belmont Town Administrator David Kale, confirmed the bylaw is set to be expire on April, 30, 2016. If the bylaw is not reintroduced at the 2016 Town Meeting, it will be struck from the regulations.

Recount Comes Up a Vote Short for Veteran Town Meeting Member

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At the start of the day, Marty Cohen was only four votes away from keeping his seat on Belmont’s town meeting after serving on the town’s legislative body for 39 consecutive years.

And over two hours in the spacious Town Hall auditorium, as a small army of volunteer town election officials viewed each ballot cast in Precinct 3 on April 1 at the annual Town Election, Cohen sat quietly hoping that the day’s recount would see him overcome fellow Precinct 3 representative David Chase’s three-vote margin of victory, 323 to 320, for the 12th and final precinct seat.

“I wouldn’t have asked for one if not for the discrepancy in the count,” said Cohen, referring to the difference between the ballots placed into the optical-scanning voting machine and the number from election officials checking off names in the precinct book of registered voters.

It was a small number – less than five ballots – but enough that Town Clerk Ellen Cushman said she would support Cohen’s request for a second look at the votes cast.

The recount, the first in about a dozen years, was run by the four-member Board of Registrars of Voters under rules specified under state law. Cushman, who along with assistant Town Clerk Meg Piccione and staff member Nancy Casale, assisted the 14 volunteers on how to read each ballot, which to deem “blank” (fore instance, a voter selecting more than the 12 votes they are limited to) and those that would require a vote of the Board to decide.

What the readers would be seeking “is the intent of the voters,” Cushman told the voters.

The box holding the paper ballots was opened, the votes placed into piles of 50 and brought to tables where a pair of volunteers recorded each valid vote cast in the third.

“Let the games begin,” said Cushman as red pencils and rulers began counting and recording as observers hovered close by to  view the recount.

When the recount finished and the numbers tabulated, the new vote count came out in favor of Cohen … but by not enough. The second look total gave Chase 324 votes to Cohen’s 323, a margin of a single vote deciding the last representative from Precinct 3.

“The voters have spoken,” said Cohen who went over to Chase to chat a while on if he should run next year.

“I feel so bad for Marty. It doesn’t feel like a victory,” said Chase, who has been on Town Meeting for approximately 15 years.

As for the recount process, Cushman had no complaints.

“Everything worked out well. I want to thank my staff and the volunteers for the work they did,” she said.

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Liquor, Beer & Wine Licenses to be Heard Thursday, Beech Street Center

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The Belmont Board of Selectmen will hold a public meeting on Thursday, May 1, at the Beech Street Center, 266 Beech St., at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the four applicants for the full-liquor and beer and wine retail licenses.

These are the first new permits to be made public after the State Legislature voted to approve a 2013 town meeting bylaw increasing the number of licenses.

The meeting is a continuation of the hearings held at 8 a.m. on April 22 that brought more than 50 residents to show their interest in the four applicants.

There are three applicants for the single all-alcohol license available this year are:
• Nicolas Market and Deli doing business as The Loading Dock; 11 Brighton St.
• Craft Beer Initiative doing business as Craft Beer Cellar; 51 Leonard St.
• D&L Wine and Spirits Inc. doing business as D & L Wine Shop; 334 Pleasant St.

For one of the two wine and beer licenses available this year is:
• Shri Manohar Corp. doing business as LC Variety; 326 Trapelo Rd.

Those interested residents are invited to attend the meeting and provide public comment on the retail liquor licenses under consideration.

If an individual or organization is unable to attend the hearing but wishes to express a comment or concern for the record, they must do so in writing, send it to the Selectmen’s Office, 455 Concord Ave., Belmont, Ma or via e-mail to: selectmen@belmont-ma.gov.

Written comments and concerns must be received in advance of the hearing if they are to be included.

Town Clerk’s Office Closed Monday for Recount Vote

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The Belmont Town Clerk’s office is closed today, Monday, April 28, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. to perform a recount of the April 1 town election results.

“We will not be monitoring e-mail or telephones during this time,” said Ellen Cushman, town clerk. 

The recount will begin at 9 a.m. in the Town Hall auditorium on the second floor. The public is invited to come watch the proceedings inside a designated area in the hall. 

Cushman said the Belmont Board of Registrars of Voters received a valid petition signed by the requisite number of registered voters seeking to recount the votes cast in Precinct 3 for town meeting member seeking a three-year term. 
While the Town Clerk’s office did not release the name of the person seeking the recount, it appears that long-time Town Meeting stalwart and frequent speaker at the biannual event Martin Cohen is seeking the recount. Cohen came in 13th with 320 votes, three behind another current Town Meeting representative, David Chase.
Cohen will be seeking a four vote swing to recapture his three-year term.

Residents having an emergency that requires immediate attention by the Town Clerk should call the Town Administrator’s office at 617-993-2600.

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Higher Gas Prices Set to Increase Belmont Light Bills

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Despite a record amount of natural gas being pumped out of wells in the US, the combination of higher world-wide demand for the energy source and a colder than expected winter is about to have a very local impact on Belmont homeowners in the coming months.

In what he is calling “unprecedented” increases in gas prices throughout New England, Belmont Light‘s General Manager Jim Palmer is predicting an “immediate escalation in electric rates” in the six-state region, and that includes customers of the municipal utility.

“Unfortunately, customers will see an increase in their bills during the next several months as a result of this unprecedented surge in the winter demand of natural gas. As always, we encourage all our customers to conserve electricity whenever possible,” he said in a recent press release.

The reason for the cost spike is two fold; first, natural gas has recently become the primary resource for electric generation, power and heating throughout New England as homeowners and energy companies transition from “dirty” fuels such as coal and oil. In addition, world-wide demand for natural gas is increasing by about 65 percent for the next quarter century, according to the outlook released by ExxonMobil.

Second, it was cold. During this year’s extremely cold winter, demand for natural gas reached record levels and the region suffered capacity constraints, resulting in drastic price volatility for gas-fired generation, said Palmer.

The result was that regional energy generation costs reached historically high levels, with the average price of natural gas in New England approximately eight times higher than those in other areas of the country.

According to Independent Service Operators of New England (ISO-New England), New England wholesale electric prices in January and February 2014 were the highest they have been in more than a decade. These high wholesale energy production prices have in turn caused increased supply costs for all New England electric utilities.

In the final analysis, Belmont Light customers can expect to see higher-than-usual electric rates in their upcoming bills, said Palmer.

“Belmont Light will continue to monitor the situation with ISO-New England to ensure that our rates remain stable as we deal with the increased costs of purchasing wholesale electricity from the electric grid,” said Palmer.

Palmer is advising customers to visit the Belmont Light’s website for information on financial assistance and energy efficiency programs that might help residents offset some of the costs of the rising electricity prices.