Crossing Guard Hit By Vehicle at Burbank Elementary, Hospitalized

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Photo: The location of the accident.

A crossing guard was struck by a motor vehicle in front of the Mary Lee Burbank Elementary School at approximately 8:18 a.m. this morning, Wednesday, Jan. 11, according to a press release from the Belmont Police Department.

The guard, who are hired by the Belmont Police to assist residents and students to cross busy main roadways, was transported by Belmont Fire Rescue from the scene to a local area hospital with non-life threatening injuries, said Belmont Police Assistant Chief James MacIsaac.

The motor vehicle heading westbound on School Street struck the crossing guard in the crosswalk at School Street and Sharpe Road. The preliminary investigation indicates that speed was not a factor.

The vehicle driver was cited at the scene for Failure to Yield to a Pedestrian in the Crosswalk, according to Belmont Police.

Town Election ’17: Dash Pulls Papers To Enter Selectmen’s Race

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Photo: Adam Dash

Adam Dash has launched a website, made public statements and has been putting together a campaign team. Heck, he even has a prototype bumper sticker designed and ready to hand out.

And today Goden Street resident Adam Dash has taken the penultimate step in the process of officially running for a seat on the Board of Selectmen as the Cambridge-based attorney took out nomination papers from the Belmont Town Clerk on Monday, Jan. 10.

Dash has until St. Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, to return the document with 50 signatures of registered voters to qualify to have his name placed on the April 4 Town Election ballot.

Dash joins Woodfall Road resident Guy Carbone having “pulled papers for a run for the board. Incumbent Sami Baghdady has yet to declare for a re-election run.

While the future is unwritten and he may change his mind running for town-wide elected office, Dash and his campaign team have all but committed to a run for Selectmen: he has already set a date to launch his campaign with a reception at Patou Thai restaurant in Belmont Center on Saturday, Jan. 28, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Health Dept. Holding Community Meeting On Opioid Crisis Tues at 2:30PM

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Photo: Opioid abuse.

The Belmont Health Department is holding a public forum on Tuesday, Jan. 10 from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. to determine the town’s opioid needs assessment.

The meeting will take place in the Board of Selectmen’s Meeting Room located in Belmont Town Hall, 455 Concord Ave.

The meeting – funded through the Mt. Auburn Hospital Community Health Department – is designed to gather insights and ideas for Belmont’s response to the statewide opioid epidemic, and to strengthen collaborations addressing the issue.

The forum will focus on:

  • The overview of epidemic
  • Review of findings from local needs assessment
  • Local efforts and resources
  • And a discussion on what is needed from the town and its residents to battle the crisis.                

To let us know you are coming, please call 617-993-2720 or email wchin@belmont-ma.gov.

Selectman To Solicit No Transfer Vow As Loading Dock Seeks New Alcohol License

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Photo: At the initial meeting on the transfer of a full alcohol license with Selectmen Williams (left) and Paolillo.

The Loading Dock‘s owner Faud Mukarker will be before the Belmont Board of Selectman on Monday seeking a second town-issued alcohol license for his Brighton Street establishment, coming less than four months after his controversial transfer of his town-issued retail all-alcohol liquor license for a $400,000 “compensation fee” to the regional supermarket chain Star Market.

And when the Belmont businessman makes his request before the board at its Jan. 9 meeting, one selectman will be asking Mukarker to voluntarily place a “no transfer” restriction to the license.

“I’ll ask [Mukarker] to prospectively put a limitation on the transfer of [a new] license,” said Selectmen Chair Mark Paolillo at the board’s final working session of 2016 in December.

Mukarker is seeking an On-Premises retail liquor license – commonly referred to as a “pouring license” – which the Selectmen can grant to restaurants, hotels, clubs, taverns, or war veterans clubs. The license fee and its annual renewal is $4,000. 

Paolillo said due to the use and then “sale” of the all retail license issued by the board to Mukarker in May 2014; he has “concerns” a new permit would become principally a financial asset to the businessman rather than a license to serve beer and wine. 

“I’m only asking that the license stays at least with the property,” said Paolillo.

Mukarker did not respond to a pair of requests for comments this past week.

What makes Mukarker’s current application noteworthy is the Belmont entrepreneur’s history with board-issued alcohol permits. A year after being awarded a retail liquor license at a public meeting in May 2015, Mukarker sought and received permission from the Board of Selectmen to use the license as collateral for a $300,000 loan to keep his new business solvent.

Around the same time, Mukarker requested the town to add a pour license to the existing retail permit but was informed existing state law prevented the town from issuing more than one license to a single entity. That law was changed this summer by the Legislature.

During the spring and summer of 2016, Mukarker began “shopping around” the retail license, according to Belmont retailers, seeking to transfer the permit which he described 

Mukarker was able to attempt the transfer his license when it was discovered that the enabling legislation granting the town additional licenses failed to have language written in a 2006 bill establishing alcohol sales in Belmont placing limitations on the movement and “sale” of licenses.

After two public meetings, the Board of Selectmen voted on Oct. 6, 2-1, to approve the transfer. Selectmen Jim Williams and Sami Baghdady voted for the Star Market acceptance stating there was no legal impediment to the move. Paolillo said at the time he believed the license should have been returned to the town. At that time both Star Market and Mukarker could apply for permits, starting the public application process which would required hearings and public meetings.

In December, the state’s Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission OK’d the transfer. Later that month, Star Market opened its new alcohol department in the Waverley Square store.

Mukarker’s transfer raised hackles from residents and town businesses who noted the licenses were created by Town Meeting to be issued to small locally-owned retailers. 

The mostly negative reaction by residents to the transfer is one of the impetus for a possible Special Town Meeting in February to address the question of transferability of town-issued liquor licenses.

But before a Town Meeting convenes. Paolillo said the board could only ask Mukarker to voluntarily impose a ban on any future transfer of the license. 

“We as a board can only deny a license for established reasons including traffic, noise, and proximity to schools and houses of worship,” he said.

“Right now, we can’t impose restrictions to collateralize or transfer a license,” said Paolillo. 

Running for Office/Town Meeting: Belmont’s Nomination Process [VIDEO]

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Photo: The steps to get you on the ballot.

Thinking about running for Belmont Town Meeting? Or maybe taking a step up and seeking town-wide office?

What eligible voters need first to understand is the nomination process to place your name on the ballot for the 2017 Town Election which takes place on Tuesday, April 4.

And the person to ask those and other questions is Belmont’s Town Clerk, Ellen Cushman. In this video, Cushman gives interested residents the basics of getting on the ballot.

More information can be found at the Town Clerk’s web page located on the town’s website.

After Tax Dispute Resolved, Town’s Substation Sold to Eversource for $45M

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Photo: The 60-megawatt Blair Pond substation off Brighton Street.

After being delayed for several days to resolve a last-minute tax dispute, the most expensive transaction in the Town of Belmont’s history was approved Dec. 15 when the Light Board OK’d the sale of the newly-constructed Belmont Light’s 60-megawatt Blair Pond substation off Brighton Street and three new 115kV transmission lines to utility giant Eversource for $45 million.

The push back of the agreement’s closing date was due to an objection initiated by Selectman Sami Baghdady – the Board of Selectmen makes up the Light Board – who questioned Eversource’s assumption it was exempt from paying local taxes on contractual services which would reduce its tax burden to the town by nearly 90 percent.

In the end, the town’s contention made by Town Assessors’ Chair Robert Reardon that Eversource would be required to pay the full tax won the day as the utility will send an estimated $350,000 in annual taxes to the town.

The $45 million for the new cables and the 10,000 square-foot electrical substation off Brighton Street on Flanders Road on the Cambridge line will be used to pay off the $26 million in short-term loans used to construct the project.

The town’s new system that is connected to New England Electric Grid at Alewife will provide “an effective energy distribution solution for Belmont residents and businesses for the next forty years,” stated a press release from Belmont Light

In February 2012, Belmont Town Meeting voted unanimously to authorize $53.7 million in new bonding capacity to finance the new system which doubled electrical capacity increasing reliability for Belmont customers.

In its Joint Development Agreement, Eversource reimburses Belmont $45 million for the cost of constructing the transmission line and for the utility to take permanent ownership and maintenance responsibilities for the transmission line moving forward.

With the transfer of ownership, Belmont’s construction costs for the Blair Pond Substation and Transmission Line project, anticipated to be $53.7 million, closed out at $26.1 million, a $27.6 million savings for Belmont ratepayers.

A corresponding rate increase associated with the cost of this project that was initially anticipated to be approximately 14 percent for Belmont Light customers is instead 6 percent, an increase that has already been factored into rates, according to Belmont Light calculations.

“At the end of the day, in working with Eversource, we [can] deliver a critical project for Belmont electric users that addresses our serious capacity concerns, skyrocketing maintenance costs and power quality issues, in the most modernized and efficient manner,” said Belmont Light General Manager Jim Palmer in the press release.

“Just as important, due to our agreement with Eversource, we are able to do so substantially under the original cost estimates approved by Town Meeting and save the Belmont ratepayers $27.6 million while providing the best possible solution for our future needs.”

GOP Stalwart Guy Carbone Pulls Papers for Selectmen Race

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Photo: Guy Carbone (courtesy photo c. 2010)

Guy Carbone, a perennial candidate for statewide and congressional offices, is eyeing a much more down ballot race in 2017 as the former head of the Metropolitan District Commission has taken out nomination paper to run for Belmont Board of Selectmen.

If he submits signatures from 50 registered voters by Feb. 14, the octogenarian attorney will join incumbent Sami Baghdady and challenger Adam Dash as likely candidates for the one Selectmen’s seat up for grabs this year.

The 2017 town election takes place on Tuesday, April 4.

A call to the Woodfall Road resident was not returned as of 5 p.m.

While a bit of a surprise for Carbone to run for the seat – he made no recent statement on issues or concerns he had that would prompt him taking out papers – earlier this year Carbone was part of a contentious hearing before the Belmont Zoning Board of Appeals in 2015-16 when a relative sought a special permit to replace a large bay garage on Holt Street with a storage space. After challenges by neighbors, the ZBA denied the permit which Carbone took considerable issue.

Carbone, who holds several engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a degree from Suffolk University Law School, is a long-time member of Belmont’s Republican Town Committee who served as commissioner of the Metropolitan District Commission for two years, from 1979 to 1980. He also served on the Noise By-Law Review Committee in 2002.

He is best known for committing to several quixotic runs for statewide office, campaigning as a Republican in a very blue state. He ran – and lost – three times for the Republican nomination for Attorney General, was barely defeated by Jonathan Raymond in the Massachusetts’s 5th congressional district Republican primary in 1996 (Raymond later was dispatched by Barney Frank), and lost 75 percent to 25 percent in the 1998 Middlesex and Suffolk Massachusetts Senate district general election to Steven Tolman.

Residents Give Good Tidings (and Coffee) to Town Crews Working Christmas

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Photo: Brighton Street on Christmas Eve.

It was already a cold and dank Christmas Eve afternoon as the sun was setting on two crews from Belmont Water Department’s Distribution and Maintenance services.

After spending hours digging up Brighton Street next to the Hill Estates seeking a major water main leak, the workers discovered the break was not in the 10-inch main but a six-inch pipe – bearing the date “1888” – on the other side of the street.

“It occasionally happens that our best guess is wrong,” said Mike Bishop, the Department of Public Works’ Water Division manager on Tuesday, Dec. 27. It would mean filling in the first trench and dig a new one in the dark hours before Christmas.

Around the same time, homeowners on Washington Street called the town to report a “geyser” of water was gushing out of a manhole cover directly across from the entry of the Chenery Middle School.

‘That turned out to be an eight-foot long slit in a 10-inch main,” said Bishop, likely caused by air in the system introduced into the pipe from recent work along Common Street.

“That pocket of air was just looking for a weak point in the system,” said Bishop.

Two major breaks at the same time which just happened to be on Dec. 24th.

“Unfortunately we can’t predict when these will happen. We just have to send the crews out and get the job done,” said Bishop.

As the employees began breaking up the street for the second time, word got out among those living on Pond Street, Hill Road and Brighton Street of those workers preparing for a long night to provide town services.

First one, then another and still more came by to drop off coffee, pastries, food and a “thank you” to the half-dozen or so digging for a pipe in the dark. The Brighton Street work was completed just before St. Nick flew into Belmont around midnight.

When the crews came to make the repairs on Washington in the late morning of Christmas Day, residents from around the site stopped to wish them Merry Christmas and leave off gifts of food and drinks.

For Bishop, the response of residents was gratifying.

“It was phenomenal,” he said of the gestures of good will.

“It’s the little things that go a long way for the crews,” said Bishop, who used social media to thank the town folks.

“Sometimes [the employees] don’t see how appreciated their work is. But this one time that [residents] just coming by did a lot of good.”

Selectmen Considering Feb Special Town Meeting To Tackle Transfer Loophole

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Photo: Alcohol transfer on the agenda.

The Belmont Board of Selectmen is considering calling a February Special Town Meeting to resolve the controversal inability of the town to control the transfer of alcohol and liquor licenses.

“We want to tackle the non-transferability of [alcohol] licenses sooner than later,” Mark Paolillo, selectmen chair told the Belmontonian at the end of the board’s meeting on Monday, Dec. 19.

“There’s a lot of folks in town that are concerned about … these licenses,” he said. “And there is unanimity on the board to follow that recommendation,” said Paolillo.

When asked when the meeting could be held, Paolillo said: “it would be in the February time frame.”

The proposed action comes on the heels of a controversial 2-1 vote by the Selectmen approving the transfer in October of a full-retail alcohol license from the Loading Dock to Star Market for a $400,000 fee. It was discovered during the public hearings that legislation from 2013 increasing the number of liquor licenses in town did not have the same limiting language on transferring licenses as in the first retail liquor licenses approved in 2006. 

Paolillo said a memo to the board from Town Counsel George Hall recommended moving forward with a special home rule petition that would request the Massachusetts legislature to approve a Town Meeting article creating “an umbrella” bylaw covering regulations including transfer limitation overall alcohol licenses including full, pour, retail, and wine and beer.

A home rule petition would be required as the town is taking action that will effect liquor licenses which are granted by the state to municipalities.

The Selectmen can call a Special Town Meeting at any of its public meetings with the agenda posted with minimum 48 hours notice to the public.

Selectmen must then sign and or post the warrant with at least 14 calendar days notice to the public before the Special Town Meeting. For instance, if it signs the order on a Monday, Tuesday is day 1 of 14. There is no requirement that the warrant stays open for any amount of time – it can open it and close it right away – and it does not have to accept another article a resident or Town Meeting member may want to add to the warrant.

The estimated cost of a three hour, one night Special Town Meeting would cost approximately $2,776, according to the Town Clerk’s Office.

Paolillo acknowledged the expense of holding a meeting but deemed the issue important enough to push for an early resolution.

“We certainly appreciate the cost of having a Special Town Meeting, and we will take that into consideration,” said Paolillo. “We have to weigh that against the expense of a possibility of another transfer happening before the [annual Town Meeting which begins in May 2017].”

“Lots of folks have expressed concern that legislation in 2013 didn’t have a non-transferability provision within it and they want to see that reinstated,” said Paolillo.

Smaller Real Estate Tax Bill Jump in ’17 as Property Values Cool

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Photo: Belmont’s Assessors’ (from left) Charles R. Laverty, III, Robert P. Reardon, Martin B. Millane, Jr.

Real estate taxes on the average-valued home in Belmont will increase by the least amount in the past four years after the Belmont Board of Selectmen approved at its Monday, Dec. 19 meeting the recommendation of the town’s Board of Assessors’ to up the town’s property tax rate 14 cents in 2017.

The annual tax bill for the average assessed valued property – currently $941,700 – would increase by $311 to $11,960, less than half of last year’s hike of $717 under the new tax rate of $12.70 per $1,000 of assessed value. The current rate is $12.56 per $1,000.

Under the new rate, the annual tax for a property assessed at $750,000 will be $9,525, or $2,381.25 per quarterly tax bill.

The increase in the tax rate “is a result of a slight increase in real property values with an increase in the tax levy capacity,” wrote Assessors’ Chair Robert P. Reardon in the board’s yearly report to the Selectmen.

Reardon told the Belmontonian the town data showed a significant cooling in real estate values in Belmont this year. After increases of $55,300 ($782,600 to $847,900) from 2014 to 2015 and $79,500 between 2016-15 ($847,900 to $927,400), assessed values increased just $14,300 in 2017 compared to 2016.

After years of five percent increases in average assessed values, “[y]ou expect it to pull back, and it did this year,” said Reardon, who predicts home values will continue to level off in 2017 with two interest rate hikes anticipated by the Federal Reserve.

Under the new rate, Belmont will collect $85.6 million from residential, commercial, open land and personal properties. Last fiscal year, the town raised $82.9 million in real estate taxes.

Reardon noted a healthy increase in new property growth totaling $788,000 from the construction of the Belmont Uplands and the sale of prime properties on Woodland Road provided a “nice” bump into the town’s coffers.

As with past years, the assessors’ recommended, and the selectmen agreed to a single tax classification for all properties and no real estate exemptions.

Reardon said Belmont does not have anywhere near the amount of commercial and industrial space – at a minimum 20 percent – to creating separate tax rates for residential and commercial properties. Belmont’s commercial base is 4.24 percent of the total real estate.

“People always assumes there’s money if you go with the split rate and that’s not true,” Reardon told the Belmontonian.