Marijuana High On Resident’s Questions At Town Meeting Preview

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Photo: (Left) Warrant Committee Chair Roy Epstein and Town Counsel George Hall

April 20 – better known as 4/20 – is, in short, a holiday celebrating marijuana where people gather to consume cannabis and get high.

(Why 4/20 – pronounced four-twenty – ? Blame it on California.)

And in Belmont, 5/2 (May 2) will be marijuana day at the 2018 annual Town Meeting as next Wednesday weed will likely dominate the night’s debate as Town Meeting Members will be asked to decide whether to move forward on a citizens’ petition allowing Belmont to “opt-out” of allowing the retail sale of pot in the “Town of Homes.”  

And if the discussion at Monday’s annual Town Meeting warrant preview co-sponsored by the Belmont League of Women Voters and Warrant Committee is any indication, marijuana will take center stage when the Special Town Meeting is called on Wednesday.

In 2016, Bay State voters approved a ballot measure that legalized recreational cannabis and its sale by retail operators. While Belmont followed the state by endorsing the question by a 53-47 percent margin, a group of residents – many affiliated with the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – has sought to remove Belmont from authorizing the sale of pot and cannabis-related “eatables.” Under the current state law, Belmont can approve a single state retail license under a formula that takes into account the number of retail liquor licenses in town.

The pro-opt out group contends a vote to legalize pot statewide does not mean the voters wish to have a marijuana store in the community. Others, including two current members of the Board of Selectmen, believe the majority of Belmont voters in November 2016 represent the “will of the people” on all aspects of the new law, according to Selectman Mark Paolillo.

From what the questioners asked to Warrant Committee Chair Roy Epstein who hosted the meeting and from Town Counsel George Hall, it appears members and residents wanted some clarity on what Wednesday’s vote by Town Meeting will begin or end in terms on Belmont’s pot future.

Hall explained that if the article to approve an opt-out provision passes on a majority vote – 50 percent of voters plus one extra vote – a general election will need to be called sometime in the summer by the Board of Selectmen (the only group allowed to request an election) to ask for town-wide approval.

“It needs to be approved twice. Both need to happen,” said Hall.

But Hall pointed out that approval of the opt-out clause at Town Meeting is a “recommendation” to the Selectmen to ask for a town-wide vote; it does not compel the Board to call for one. And Adam Dash, the selectmen’s chair, reiterated the board’s majority opinion that it would look unfavorably at such an election. 

Undeterred by the board’s reluctance to the article, Pam Eagar, who presented the opt-0ut citizens’ petition to the town clerk, showed her group’s potential strategy on bypassing the selectmen when he quired Hall on a possible public referendum on the measure. 

Under Belmont bylaws, a referendum – a direct vote in which all voters are invited to vote on a particular proposal to adopt a new bylaw – is allowed, although Hall said it would be a bit “strange” for proponents of the measure to overturn an article accepted by Town Meeting using the referendum process. 

But all the political wrangling on opting in or out will be mute if the article doesn’t pass muster on May 2. And if history is any measure, the supporters of the measure could find themselves fighting an uphill battle due to the time-honored practice of placing amendments to an article. 

Amendments are just that, addition or substitution to an article’s language used to clarify a measure or to correct misprints or errors. As of this week, there are six separate amendments to the marijuana proposal. 

But as seen in past Town Meetings, the greater the number of amendments attached to the articles, the more likely members will determine the original to be “unwinding” and “complicated,” as one member of Monday’s meeting said. 

Pot wasn’t the only subject discussed as residents raised questions on amendments regarding changing the number of Selectmen from three to five members and zoning issues related to the General Residence districts.

With Clock Running, Selectmen Calls A Public Meeting On Incinerator’s Future

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Photo: The entrance to the former Belmont incinerator site.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

With the clock now running on the future of the town’s former incinerator location near the Lexington/Belmont line, the Belmont Board of Selectmen will look to residents to supply some ideas on the site’s future.

“We will need to open it up to the public,” said Adam Dash, Selectmen’s chair. “All of them are clever and really good, but we can only do so much on that site.” Dash added he sees public meetings – much like those held last year on trash collection – sometime in June to gather resident input. The meeting will likely take place on June 9 at the Board’s first scheduled meeting at the conclusion of annual Town Meeting. 

When the town took ownership of the site from the state 11 months ago – the deed for the property was transferred from the state on May 17, 2017 – the state required the town to construct a mitigation plan to remediate the site of contaminated soil and groundwater by “capping” the land polluted by ash produced in the burning of garbage. That work will need to be completed in the next few years.

The 16-acre property is located on upper Concord Avenue and the Rock Meadow Conservation about 1,500 feet from the Lexington town line. Opened in 1959, the incinerator operated until 1975, then becoming the town’s transfer station for decades before the state took control of the land. The Belmont Department of Public Works currently utilizes the site for equipment storage, leaf composting and the placement of debris.

As of fiscal 2016, Belmont had $3.5 million in a reserve account to clean the property.

Suggestions for future use include a dog park, solar farm, bike and recreation path, an expanded DPW operation, and even a marijuana farm. One use discussed in the past few months has been a new town skating rink. 

At its last meeting, the selectmen and Town Administrator Patrice Garvin felt that before capping the site, a specific post-closure usage needs to be decided rather than moving immediately with full site remediation. What will be placed on the site will determine what type of cap is used; a passive recreational use will require a less intrusive barrier than one supporting a building.

“Because if you use all the money to cap it, you won’t have anything left if you want to do a recreational type of use,” said Garvin. 

In the past month, Selectman Mark Paolillo said he and Garvin had met with Belmont Youth Hockey Association which is lining up funding for a proposed facility on the Belmont High School site, to ask if the skating rink “could work” on upper Concord Avenue. 

“It does align with what we are doing at the High School site, so we have to start thinking about this sooner than later,” said Paolillo, who believes the rink could be located at the site, but legal matters remain on whether the facility would qualify as a municipal use which is allowed under the deed. 

‘Be Heard’: Update, Workshop On Design For New High School Thursday, April 26

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Photo: Design update and workshop on the new Belmont High School.

The Belmont High School Building Committee wants residents to “Be Heard, Be Involved, Be Informed” as it holds a Design Update and Design Workshop concerning the proposed new Belmont High School this Thursday, April 26 at 7 p.m. at the Wellington Elementary School cafeteria, 121 Orchard St.

The night’s agenda will include:

  • Project Design Updates
  • Design Workshop – South Plaza
  • Questions and comments

Upcoming Community Meetings include:

  • Tuesday, May 8 at 7 p.m.: Design Update with Virtual Reality Presentation, a joint School Committee & High School Building Committee Meeting at the Chenery Middle School Community Room.
  • Wednesday, May 16 at 7 p.m. – Traffic Solutions Discussion at the Wellington Elementary School cafeteria

To sign up for email updates and to learn more about the Belmont High School Building Project, including project timelines, videos, meeting schedules, presentations, and more, visit www.belmonthighschoolproject.org. If you have them to BHS-BC@belmont-ma.gov

Belmont OKs First Housing Production Plan; Keys On Seniors, Young Families

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Photo: The leaders of the effort to bring a Housing Production Plan to Belmont: (from left), Charles Clark, Judy Singler,  Judith Feins, Rachel Heller, Gloria Leipzig.

With the median sales price of single-family homes reaching seven figures and new residential construction being gobbled up for well over a million dollars, it wouldn’t appear the residents choosing to live in affluent “Town of Homes” would have a problem obtaining and keeping their homes 

In fact, one of four Belmont households is eligible for affordable housing.

According to the Belmont Housing Trust, more than one in four Belmont homeowners and nearly half of all renters are cost-burdened when it comes to paying for basic housing expenses, more than 30 percent of their income for the places they live.

While the demand is there, the supply of “affordable” units is wanting; only 6.7 percent of Belmont properties are deemed as affordable, according to data compiled by the Metro West Collaborative Developers.

“We were pretty surprised and you may be too to see how disproportion the need relative to the affordable house that we have,” said Judith Feins, chair of the Belmont Housing Trust, established nearly two decades ago to investigate ways of bringing people and affordable housing together.

Now, in a historic vote, the Board of Selectmen unanimously approved Belmont’s first Housing Production Plan directing the town to assist in the building and preservation of affordable units that will assist residents such as elderly households and young families which are disproportionately impacted by the current housing stock. 

“We can finally say Belmont is moving in the right direction increasing housing that’s desperately needed,” said Feins.

“These are all laudable goals and it leverages additional funding from the state. This is long overdue,” said Adam Dash, Selectmen chair. 

The town’s new housing blueprint has been a long-time coming as the Housing Trust first approached the town seven years ago to begin the process that most municipalities in eastern Massachusetts have approved. 

A major delay was due to the strung-out approval process for the Cushing Village (known today as The Bradford) project which acted like a black hole for all other board business and previous Planning Boards did not see the urgency to take up the proposal.

That changed with the appointment of Charles Clark as chair and with a majority of new members coming on the board last fall. A long-time supporter of the Trust’s goals, Clark said the plan was finally able to pass – on a unanimous vote – seeing the proposed plan was needed.

“You have to want it to happen and you have to think it’s important,” said Clark.

The plan is a proactive strategy for planning and developing housing “that can shape their future in developing community and affordable housing,” Feins told the selectmen. It also determines how the town reaches the target of 10 percent affordability housing stock set by the state in General Law Chapter 40B.

The plan’s goal is to increase affordable housing by 337 units to meet the state’s affordability standard with the spotlight on creating more housing for three specific groups:

  • senior households
  • young newly-formed families and
  • extremely and very low-income households

The Planning Board early this year suggested some clarity changes to the Trust’s original plan which the Trust came back after “rethinking” the plan with those “constructive ideas” incorporated into the revised plan, said the Trust’s Gloria Leipzig.

The Trust proposes to increase housing production via a number of “concrete strategies,” including:

  • Redevelop abandoned or underutilized parcels on South Pleasant Street, the McLean Senior Residence site, the Purecoat factory adjacent Belmont High School, the vacant gas station on Blanchard Road and property on church and other religious properties.
  • Maximize housing development at transportation hubs such as the Moraine Street and increase housing over shops and stores.
  • Invest in the revitalization and preservation of the town’s stock of community housing such as Sherman Gardens and Belmont Village.
  • Use Community Preservation Act funds on new programs such as spending annually 10 percent of the total CPA on housing, use the funds to leverage the purchase and development of community housing when land becomes available. 

The plan now heads for approval by the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development. If the OK comes quickly, the town will be able to become a state Housing Choice Community by its April 30 deadline for Belmont to be eligible for state funds. 

Leipzig said the Trust and the Planning Board and Selectmen will continue working on implementing the plan through town government action – such as seeking zoning changes to help facilitate the creation and preservation of housing – and acquiring state grants and loans.

Town Meeting Preview: Warrant Briefing Monday Night

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Photo: Belmont Town Meeting in action.

The Belmont League of Women Voters and Warrant Committee is co-sponsoring the annual warrant briefing to acquaint Town Meeting members with the non-financial articles on the Town Meeting warrant.

The meeting will take place Monday evening, April 23 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the Beech Street Center, 266 Beech St. This is an opportunity for Town Meeting members and the general public to ask questions of town officials and department heads concerning any of the warrant articles prior to the 2018 Town Meeting beginning in one week on Monday, April 30

Warrant Committee Chair Roy Epstein will preside.

New Belmont School Committee Meets … And Needs One More Member

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Photo: The new School Committee: (from left) Lisa Fiore, Andrea Prestwich, Susan Burgess-Cox, Tara Donner and Catherine Bowen. 

The first meeting of the newly-constituted Belmont School Committee after the town’s election on April 3, was quick – just a little bit more than a half-hour long – as the committee’s big vote was to select its new leader.

For the next year, Susan Burgess-Cox, who won re-election for another three-year term in last week’s election, was unanimously selected committee chair by the five members. She succeeds Lisa Fiore who takes on a one-year term on the board. The committee also welcomed newcomer Tara Donner, who was elected to the other three-year seat. They join Andrea Prestwich and Catherine Bowen on the committee.

Yet there is unfinished business on the committee; namely, it’s missing one member. With Tom Caputo’s election to the Board of Selectmen, the committee has an unfilled slot for the remainder of Caputo’s term, ending April 2019. To rectify the empty seat, the committee will fill the position by an appointee chosen jointly by the School Committee and the Board of Selectmen.

Anyone interested in filling this vacancy can submit a letter of interest to Cathy Grant in the Superintendent’s office by Thursday, May 3 at 4 p.m. via email to cgrant@belmont.k12.ma.us or U.S. mail to Cathy Grant c/o Belmont Public Schools, 644 Pleasant St.

The two boards will meet jointly on Friday, May 11 at 8:30 a.m. in the Board of Selectmen’s meeting room in Town Hall to interview applicants and to vote to appoint the new member of the School Committee.

Belmont Hires State Bureau Director To Run Town/School Facilities

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Photo: Stephen Dorrance.

Belmont has been on a hiring spree since the beginning of the New Year with a new Town Administrator, Light Department director and a principal for the Wellington all coming on board.

And this week, the town welcomes a new facilities director who comes from the ranks of the state bureau of facilities.

“We finally found someone,” said Town Administrator Patrice Garvin as she introduced Stephen Dorrance – an hour later than expected – to the Board of Selectmen at its Thursday night meeting, April 12. Garvin said Dorrance was one of four finalists and his qualifications rose to the top.

Dorrance comes to Belmont having worked for the past four years as a multi-site facilities director for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, responsible for the building management and maintenance, regulatory compliance and environmental services at four hospital campuses – Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children, Tewksbury Hospital and Western Massachusetts Hospital – that houses 45 buildings, 800 beds, high pressure boiler/power plants, 10 miles of roadway, 1,000 acres of land, and 20 acres of parking.

“I’m looking forward to this. I’ve been a member of the National Trust for Historical Preservation for 20 years and love the character of Belmont,” Dorrance said, and will seek to “make these old, beautiful buildings even more beautiful.” 

Dorrance, who has a BS from Suffolk and a Master’s from Harvard, is now responsible for maintaining more than one million square feet of buildings and grounds under the control of the Board of Selectman and the School Committee since the operations merged seven years ago.

Concord’s Assistant Director Selected To Head Belmont Light

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Photo: Christopher Roy.

Christopher Roy, the assistant director of the electrical utility in neighboring Concord, was selected Monday afternoon by the town’s Light Board.

Roy “is a rising star in the field. He’s got a vision, a drive and the ability to take Belmont Light to the next level,” said Light Board Chair Adam Dash as the board voted unanimously for Roy who was interviewed by the board, April 9, along with the other finalist, acting Belmont Light General Manager Craig Spinale.

According to Rick White from Groux-White Consulting who facilitated the candidate search, Roy will be hired once a successful negotiation of a contract is finalized, The contract will be from three to five years with a salary ranging from $140,000 to $180,000. 

Tall and confident, Roy carries himself like the athlete he was a 6’4″, 240-pound tight end playing for Tufts back in 2004. In fact, Roy said he values the discipline and respect that a sports background provides him.

The assistant director in Concord for the past five years, Roy said he comes to Belmont knowing the way municipal utilities are structured today may not fit that same way in the future.

“The role of the general manager is to oversee your operation and make sure the utility is growing. In the short term, it’s personnel” with career paths and succession plans while long term, it’s rate adjustments and implementing the greenhouse gas reduction programs” in 2050. “But you have to establish a foundation today.” 

Rates in Belmont, Roy said, are poised to provide revenue for progressive initiatives … “everything is there, the potential is there. It just has to be unlocked.”

The board struggled with the decision saying the decision was “a close call; it would be a tough choice” noting how Spinale took over the general manager’s position in September after “a very difficult and tumultuous time,” said Dash, while also taking up the task of decommissioning the town’s three retired substations.  

I don’t know what more [Spinale] could do and he has done a really, really great job,” said Dash.

If there was one area that impressed the board was Roy’s ability to break down an issue and produce a solution. The members each pointed to Roy’s answer of one of the interview questions which required each candidate to make a seven-minute presentation on Belmont’s electric rates which are higher than surrounding communities and how to maintain or lower them as residents demand energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gases.  

Member Mark Paolillo – a self-professed “numbers guy”  – was “fascinated” how Roy dug deep into the Belmont data with an “in-depth analytical analysis of the rates” that showed many areas where Belmont could make great savings. Dash said Roy looked through the numbers and “saw the issue and called it out … and that shows some level of sophistication and then took the numbers and ran with it.” 

Roy also stated while under state general law he has the ability to set policy apart from the board, he would always first look to town government and residents priorities in a collaborative manner rather than strike out on his own. 

“He’s someone who is focused on building a team, the importance of cultivating that team … and a keen idea of making it succeed,” said new board member Tom Caputo. 

“Chris seems really passionate by public power and where he wants to go,” said Paolillo. 

Somerville’s Franke Selected Next Wellington Principal

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Photo: Allison Franke (Linkedin)

Wellington Elementary has found its new principal.

“I am happy to announce that Allison “Alli” Franke has accepted the position of Principal of the Wellington Elementary School. Her work in the District will begin on July 1,” said Mary Pederson, the district’s director of human resources. 

Franke takes the school’s reins from Amy Spangler, who left after five years at the school.

Franke is an assistant principal of Somerville’s Capuano Early Education Center, a pre-K, and Kindergarten school, for nearly four years, after working for four years as a literacy specialist at the Franklin Elementary School in West Newton. She’s held numerous posts in and out of elementary education – including two years as a teacher at Boston Renaissance Charter Public School – after starting her career as a kindergarten and second-grade teacher in the Los Angeles schools for nearly four years beginning in 1998.

A DC native, Franke graduated with a computer science degree from Amherst, earned an Ed.M in Language and Literacy from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, and a masters in organizational management from Endicott. 

Town Election ’18: Donner, Burgess-Cox Heading To School Board As Few Voters Venture Out To The Polls

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Photo: Asst. Town Clerk Meg Piccione reading the results of the Belmont Town Election on April 3.

In a town election that saw one of the lowest turnouts in the past decade, a teacher topped the ballot in the race to run the Belmont’s schools. 

In the only competitive town-wide race, newcomer Tara Donner outpaced incumbent Susan Burgess-Cox, 1,767 to 1,517, to fill the two three year seats on the school committee as fellow newbie Jill Souza Norton just missing out finishing third with 1,349 votes. School Committee Chair Lisa Fiore ran unopposed for a one-year term on the committee.

Read all the unofficial results of the town-wide and Town Meeting races here.

A last-minute write-in candidacy by well-known resident Tomi Olsen was swept aside by the vote for current School Committee member Tom Caputo who ran as the only official candidate for the Board of Selectman, garnering 2,106 votes, or 94 percent of those who cast ballots.

Over on the Town Meeting side of the ballot, some interesting results were noted including two longtime ballot toppers who just barely held onto their seats; both Lydia Ogilby (Precinct 1) and Donald Mercier (Precinct 8) both came in 12th with Mercier taking the last slot by a mere nine votes over Mark Smith.

In the race of town-wide candidates battling it out on the Town Meeting ballot, Burgess-Cox topped Caputo, 214 to 203, to “win” Precinct 2’s top spot while Precinct 1’s Peter Dizikes garnered the most votes of all the precincts with 324. In the closest race, Linda Levin-Scherz defeated Elizabeth Khan by three votes, 125-122, to take the one-year seat in Precinct 2. 

Stopping by a crowded Town Clerk’s Office to pick up the unofficial results, first-time candidate Dovie Yoana King learned she tied for second receiving 164 votes. The newly-elected Precinct 7 member said she was “very excited” to become heading to Town Meeting in a month as her presence will add much-needed diversity in Belmont’s legislative body. With her son by her side, King said she hopes to give a voice to survivors of domestic violence but also represent all people in the precinct which she noted is populated by the most varied groups in Belmont.

A cold, wet miserable afternoon and the lack of competitive races appeared to have kept residents from the polls as participation was an anemic 16.5 percent as 2,816 residents voted at Belmont’s eight precincts. This election’s number is well below the 28 percent seen last year and 22 percent in 2016. The 2015 town election which included a $3.5 million override on the ballot brought out 51 percent.

Belmont isn’t a stranger to unenthusiastic participation on election day; in 2009, only 1,438 voters or 5.89 percent of total registered voters came out.