Minuteman Relents on Election; Belmont To Use Usual Polling Precincts

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Photo: Voting will take place in the customary locations.

In a decision affecting an all-important vote in two months time, the Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School District will allow Belmont to use its customary polling locations for the Sept. 20 election rather than a single, centralized site to determine whether the district can go ahead with the financing of a new $145 million vocational high school. 

Belmont Town Clerk Ellen Cushman told the Belmontonian that she received word of the reversal from Minuteman Regional School District Superintendent Edward Bouquillon on Friday night, July 15.

“Belmont requested that for the district-wide Minuteman election that voters were able to vote at our usual seven locations, eight precincts … and they were kind enough to allow that to occur,” said Cushman to a question on whether Minuteman had responded to her request and a letter in support from the Belmont Board of Selectmen. 

Belmont’s Selectmen were highly critical of the earlier single location decision, saying it was a deliberate attempt by Minuteman – which under state law is allowed to call for a district-wide vote if it could not convince the 16 communities Town Meetings to move forward on the $100 million bonding plan – to stifle the vote in Belmont, the only of the district municipalities whose Town Meeting members voted down the financing plan at a Special Town Meeting earlier this year. 

If the district vote passes the bonding issue, Belmont ratepayers could find themselves paying an additional maximum of $500,000 annually in capital costs in addition to the tuition to allow the roughly 30 Belmont students to attend the school in Lexington. 

The selectmen joined Cushman in hailing the change. 

“I’m thrilled to hear that [Minuteman] has allowed at least Belmont to vote in our regular precincts,” said Mark Paolillo, the board’s chair. 

“I think they heard the concerns of the Town Clerk and [the board’s] letter … because we do expect a relatively high voter turnout,” said Sami Baghdady, vice chair of the board. 

“There is nothing more discouraging to the democratic process than heavy traffic, waiting in lines and with only one polling station, it would have a big dampening effect,” he said.

While many town officials believe voter turnout of registered voters in the other 15 district communities will be in the low teens and even single digits, Cushman expects upwards of 30 percent coming out to vote. 

“The way I looked at it, it wasn’t because I supported a point of view, I just want broad representation to vote either way on this,” said Paolillo.

Earlier this month, Minuteman’s recommendation was to use only one location for a vote, which Cushman said would place a hardship on Belmont voters by causing confusion on where to place their ballot not only on Sept. 20 but in state and national elections before and after the financing polling. 

Cushman said the only location in Belmont that could accommodate up to 6,000 voters would be the Wenner Field House on the Belmont High School campus off Concord Avenue. 

With the need for added transportation, police coverage and mailings to voters, Cushman noted the total cost to the town to use one location would eventually cost Minuteman – which is paying for the election – about the same amount, about $16,000, as using the seven sites. 

With the reversal on Minuteman’s part, Belmont voters will head to their familiar polling locations on Tuesday, Sept. 20, but with one distinct difference. 

“Polls will be open from noon until 8 p.m.; we will not open at our usual 7 a.m. start,” said Cushman.

Belmont Center Roadways Repaved Starting Tuesday, July 19

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Photo: Leonard Street to be paved.

Finally!

After more than a year of construction on the infrastructure and sidewalks in Belmont Center, the long-anticipated paving of Leonard Street and connecting streets will begin Tuesday, July 19 and hopefully be completed by Thursday, July 21.

Beginning Tuesday, Watertown’s Charles Contracting – the project’s general contractor – will begin milling (the process of removing at least part of the surface of a paved area the roadway surface) within the Belmont Center project limits. The hours of construction will take place between 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

There will be no parking along the affected streets while construction is underway. Belmont Center businesses will remain open with parking available in the Claflin Street Parking Lot behind Leonard Street during construction.

The paving work is one of the final segments of the $2.8 million Belmont Center Reconstruction Plan, a project whose genesis began with a report from the transportation advisory firm the BSC Group in 2010.

When the funding for the project was approved by a Special Town Meeting in Nov. 2014, it was anticipated the project would be completed by Oct. 30, 2015. 

The schedule of roads to be milled, 

Tuesday, July 19:

  • Mill the roadway surface on Channing Road (during the morning) and Moore Street (afternoon). 
  • One travel lane in one direction will be provided at all times during the milling operations. The other direction of travel will be detoured. The travel and detoured lanes will be determined based on where the milling operation is occurring.
  • There will be no parking between the hours of 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. on both sides of Channing Road, from Leonard Street to Farm Road, and Moore Street, from Pleasant Street to Leonard Street.

Wednesday July 20, and Thursday July 21:

  • Mill the roadway surface on Concord Avenue (next to the US Post Office and near the Lions Club Building) and continuing under the bridge onto Leonard Street extending to Pleasant Street.
  • There will be no parking between the hours of 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. on both sides of Concord Avenue, from the Post Office to the Lions Club Building, and both sides of Leonard Street, from under the bridge to Pleasant Street. Please note: Individual parking spaces along Concord Avenue and Leonard Street will be made available as soon as possible after the milling operation has cleared an area.
  • Two lanes of traffic will be accommodated on Concord Avenue. One travel lane providing one direction of travel will be provided at all times on Leonard Street. The other direction of travel will be detoured. The travel and detoured lanes will be determined based on where the milling operation is occurring. 

For any questions or concerns about the project please contact Robert Bosselman, resident engineer in the Office of Community Development, at 617-993-2665.

With Temps In The 90s, Belmont Light Asks Consumers to Save By Using Less

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Photo: It is going to be a scorcher.

With the high-temperature in New England today, Monday, July 18, expected to hit the low to mid-90 degrees, electrical utilities across the region – including Belmont’s Light Department – are anticipating a high electricity use day, putting a strain on the power grid.

To save energy and money by reducing electricity consumption, Belmont Light and the Woburn-based energy efficiency firm Sagewell are asking customers to turn down their electrical consumption today between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.

The utility and its partner are asking Belmont residents and businesses to take at least two steps listed below to reduce their peak electricity consumption:

  • Adjust your AC a few degrees warmer and turn off the AC in rooms that are not in use. Changing the thermostat by two or three degrees makes a big difference.
  • Enjoy the sunny weather and cook outside on a grill, or visit a local Belmont restaurant for dinner
  • Don’t cook with an electric stove or oven.
  • Shift laundry and dishwasher use until after 6 p.m.
  • If you have an electric water heater, wait to bathe or use hot water until after 6 p.m.
  • Run pool pumps or use hot tubs before three p.m. or after 6 p.m.
  • Shift other electricity uses to before 3 p.m. or after 6 p.m.

“Every bit of electricity reduced during peak times will help Belmont mitigate rising electricity costs,” said a joint press release dated Sunday, July 17.

Because Belmont Light is town-owned, any savings from this program are passed onto ratepayers,” it read.

Any questions or advice on how to decrease peak energy consumption, contact Sagewell’s Belmont Light Peak Reduction Program at:
support@sagewell.com or
617-963-8141

Belmont Begins, Yet Again, Search to Find Source Polluting Mystic Watershed

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Photo:

Glenn Clancy may not look like Benedict Cumberbatch, but like the hugely popular sleuth the actor plays on BBC television, Belmont’s town engineer will be doing his best Sherlock Holmes as he attempts to find the source of what has been dirtying up a nearby major watershed that has been dogging the town for more than 15 years. 

“Am I confident that we are going to get it this time?” Clancy rhetorically pondered to the Belmontonian after this past Monday’s Board of Selectmen’s meeting.  

“How confident are the Red Sox when they step on the field for a ballgame? We are going in with the idea that we will get it done,” he said.

With a finite budget and state and national environmental regulatory agencies breathing down his neck, Clancy is pinning his hopes on a game of elimination to pinpoint where the worst of the contaminants are coming from and marshal his resources there. 

Belmont has been on the state’s Department of Environmental Protection going back to January 2000 of being noncompliant of acceptable water quality standards leading to pollutants entering the Mystic River Watershed, a collection of rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds that drain an area of approximately 76 square miles and 21 municipalities north of Boston.

And for the past decade, the town has sunk into the ground several million dollars to repair and replace infrastructure to improve the quality of the water entering the system. But the work so far has had little impact on several water sources within Belmont with locations such as the Little River and the Winn’s Brook receiving poor or failing mark for water quality. 

It’s not a mystery what is creating the problem, said Clancy.

“This is strictly about the sanitary sewage system mingling with our stormwater system. So in Belmont, the biggest contributors to this problem are deteriorating sewage pipes to where that sewage is leeching up and finding its way into the storm drain system,” he said. 

The other source is toilets that contractors or homeowners have placed over a storm drain pipe. “While the decaying pipes are our most important issue, we have found 10 to 15 illicit direct connections to the storm drain system that we have already mitigated,” said Clancy. “We expect to discover more with this testing.” 

Clancy, who is also the director of the Office of Community Development, told the Selectmen Monday that the $70,000 (from a total of $200,000 the town approved to seek a solution) to conduct sample testing of 15 outfalls sites to determine which of those are responsible for the majority of pollution being sent into one of the Mystic River watershed tributaries located in Belmont. 

“We’ve done [testing and remedies] two or three times in the past decade with construction work totaling $8 million and the next phase to identify specific problems,” Clancy told the Belmontonian.

“The sampling is the first step in what ultimately will be another construction process,” said Clancy. 

“Once you identify the outfall as ‘dirty,’ you then have to determine where the source of that contamination is coming from,” Clancy told the Belmontonian.

The fix has mostly been lining the deteriorated pipe which “still in a structural condition that allows us to line it with concrete,” he said. If it is too far gone, the main will need replacing. 

If the survey discovers issues with toilets or interior plumbing, “we find a way to work with the property owner to solve the problem whether that is reconnecting a pipe to the proper main or eliminating the source altogether. The conditions will usually dictate the best way to mitigate.” 

And it won’t be cheap; the town could be open to another $4 million to $6 million over several years to make the necessary repairs, according to Clancy.

Saying that he understands the frustration from residents who will end up paying for the repairs, Clancy said the repairs in the past and the future would begin to show results.

“We spent eight million [dollars] plus already, and every dollar of that eight million plus has fixed some problem. I want people to understand while we still have a problem doesn’t mean that the money that has already been spent has not been spent properly. It has fixed problems that we have identified. The challenge that we have more problems that need to be identified and mitigated,” he said.

“I could never look someone in the eye and say this is going to be the time when we get it because I understand the nature of the problem. All we can continue to do is make a good faith effort to find the sources and mitigate them,” said Clancy. 

Belmont Allege Minuteman Seeking To Depress Vote On New School

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Photo: The Wenner Field House.

Calling restrictions on communities including Belmont a “deliberate attempt to depress the vote,” the Board of Selectmen is sending an urgent letter to the Minuteman Regional Tech School Committee to reconsider its recommendation of using only one location for a vote that could increase Belmont’s property taxes by half a million dollars over nearly three decades. 

“To limit the number of polling places ensures there will be lower voter turnout. And if that what you are attempting to do, then we disagree,” said Selectmen Chair Mark Paolillo of a series of moves by Minutemen officials that he and the board believes will dampen voter turnout in Belmont to decide, for a second time, on the future of a new technical school on the Lexington/Lincoln border that will cost nearly $145 million. 

The comments, made during the Selectmen’s Monday, July 11, meeting at Town Hall, came after the board heard from Belmont Town Clerk Ellen Cushman that unless Minuteman retreats from its earlier position, nearly 6,000 voters will be forced to abandon their regular polling locations and tramp over to Belmont High School to vote on the final days of summer. 

Paolillo said a possible reason for Minuteman’s effort to suppress the vote specifically in Belmont is to thwart any avenue town officials have to leave the district. Belmont Town Meeting member rejected the current project as being too large for the ten communities – six towns have petitioned to leave the community once a final vote is cast on the new school – which will remain in the Minuteman system after the election.

If approved by an aggregate of voters in the 16 communities and with Belmont remaining in the district, taxpayers would likely foot a bill of up to $500,000 in annual capital costs– on top of tuition expenses – to house the approximately 30 students the town averages annually at the technical school.

Paolillo said Belmont would still be able to exit the district if a majority of voters reject the plan on Sept. 20. That would start the clock for town officials to call a Special Town Meeting 60 days after the election where those seeking to withdraw from the district will need to capture a two-thirds majority of Town Meeting members.

“So it’s in [Minuteman’s] interest to keep overall voter participation down while they push [the new school] supporters to come out to vote,” Paolillo told the Belmontonian after the meeting.

The vote was called by the Minuteman School Board after Belmont rejected the earlier plan at the town’s May Town Meeting. Under state law, since the regional district could not convince the Town Meeting in each of the 16 municipalities to approve the bonding for a $144 million project, the school committee was able to use a “second chance” that calls for a referendum in which a majority vote will determine if the $100 million bonding package – the state is expected to pitch-in $44 million – is approved.

Since it “called” the election and is paying $100,000 to hold it in the district communities, state law allows the Minuteman district “alone, in consultation with the Selectmen, gets to decide how this vote for the debt occurs” including what day and times it will take place and number of locations where the vote will take place, said Cushman.

The Minuteman Board has set the time and date of the referendum, to be held on Tuesday, Sept. 20 from noon to 8 p.m.

While Belmont usually opens seven polling stations for its eight precincts, Cushman said Minuteman is expected to limit voting to a single location as one way to control costs. While clerks in the other towns – whose Town Meetings voted for the bonding plan – are expected very low voter participation in single digits, Cushman expects a healthy turnout of about a third of registered voters, which would likely be the highest among the towns voting.

Cushman heard from Kevin Mahoney, the tech school’s assistant superintendent of finance who is heading the election campaign, that Arlington has also requested Minuteman to approve that town’s request to allow it to use its usual ten voting locations (for 22 precincts) rather than a central spot. 

That decision is yet to be made. 

Belmont has until July 22 to petition Minuteman to utilize its seven polling places, “however they have the final say since the warrant is issued by them and not you,” said Cushman, who has already sent that request to the school district. 

Cushman said the only site large enough to handle the estimated 6,000 voters expected to vote is the Wenner Field House on the Belmont High School campus off Concord Avenue. It would require placing a temporary floor on top of the new court and install between 50 to 60 polling booths.

While Minuteman’s reasoning for a single site for the vote is cost, Cushman told the Selectmen it’s likely the cost of holding the election at the high school will likely exceed the $12,000 expected cost of using the traditional seven locations and could pass the $16,000 price tag to use the seven sites for an all-day election.

Also, the Field House, home to Belmont High School volleyball home games and the locker rooms for the fall season, will need to be closed on that Monday and Tuesday to prepare for the vote. The midweek election would likely impact a varsity girls’ swimming meet on that Monday and cross country races on the Tuesday election.

The Belmont Selectmen feels the unfamiliar voting location and difficulty for residents using the site – a limited amount of parking is on the other end of the campus from the field house which could be a  burden for the many older voters – is troublesome for what it implies. 

“I’m all for wide voter turnout, and there is no [better] way to suppress the vote than to limit the locations, change where people are accustomed to and make it inconvenient because of long lines,” said Selectman Sami Baghdady. 

Complicating matters further, since voters will not be using their regular voting locations, Cushman is required by state statue to send an official notification to all voters 20 days, on Sept. 1, for the election of the change of voting venue. 

She noted that mailing would occur a week before voters head to the polls for the Massachusetts state party primaries a week later on Sept. 8. Cushman worries that many residents will misunderstand the notice and head for the high school to vote during the primary and Presidential election in November or ignore the document and attempt to vote at their regular precincts on Sept. 20.

Speaking about the difficulty of conducting a vote at the Field House during a school day and restricting locations both in Belmont and Arlington, “how can this not result in lower turnout? It has to,” asked Paolillo. 

“Whether you’re for or against the building project, it’s important to have as broad a representation as possible regarding community involvement,” said Paolillo. 

It is likely that the Board of Selectmen will call for an informational meeting sometime before the election to “educate the public on the ramifications of their vote,” said Paolillo. 

Preliminary Applications For 2017 Community Preservation Funding Now Available

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Photo: A path along Clay Pit Pond has received funding from the Community Preservation Committee.

Do you or your group have a community project that could use a few dollars to complete?

Does the project involve acquiring or improving open space and recreation land, rehabbing or preserving historic sites, or goes to support affordable housing? If you can say “yes” to those two criteria, the town’s Community Preservation Committee has about a million dollars waiting to spend on your worthy venture in the coming fiscal year. 

The committee, which distributes the total of a 1.5 percent surcharge on property taxes and an annual contribution of state funds for a wide-range of proposals, has released preliminary applications for the 2017 funding cycle. 

The deadline for the initial applications – which is available online here – is Sept. 30 for those projects to be eligible for the next round in the process.

The CPC will also hold a public meeting on Sept. 9, at which time interested parties can ask questions regarding the application process.

In the past, CPC funding has been distributed to the Belmont Housing Authority for much-needed infrastructure upgrades of housing under its control, to jump start the construction of the new Underwood Pool, the design and construction of a multiuse path around Clay Pit Pond, updating Town Clerk’s records, and for the repair of tennis courts around town. 

For more information, contact the Community Preservation Hotline at 617-993-2774 or send an e-mail to Michael Trainor at mtrainor@belmont-ma.gov

Olmsted Selected to Fill Library Trustee Post

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Photo: Corinne McCue Olmsted

Corinne McCue Olmsted joins the Belmont Board of Library Trustees at a time when the library, once again, is moving forward with a vision for a new building and its place as a resource for town residents.

Appointed unanimously by a joint committee of the Board of Selectmen and the Library Trustees on May 21, the Stone Road resident joins the “team” as it moves forward with its important feasibility study for the renovation or construction of a new library, ready to help in the development of programs and using the new physical space efficiently.

“I think that libraries are moving towards … places where people can gather,” she told the joint boards, moving away from being a quiet spot to “becoming more noisy, frankly, and that will be a good thing.” 

“I want to see it become more vibrant community space so where more people like me would come in,” McCue Olmsted said, and increasing the percentage of residents with library cards from the current 65 percent. 

Growing up on Long Island and matriculating at Skidmore, McCue Olmsted earned her Master’s and Ph.D. in Economics at UConn. She worked in research before moving to Nexus Associates and then seven years as a transfer pricing economist at Ernst & Young. She and her husband, who is also an economist, are parents of a six-year-old and nearly three-year-old twins.

McCue Olmsted joins the six-member board to finish the single year left of the term and will be up for election in April 2017 and then will need to run again for election in April 2018.

Her favorite book is “Four Kitchens: My Life Behind the Burner in New York, Hanoi, Tel Aviv, and Paris” by Lauren Shockey, a book on cooking, travel, and life.

The Belmontonian: As a trustee, you’ll be bringing the prospectus of a young woman with children, which is a considerable percentage of library users. Do you see yourself being the point person for that important constituency?

McCue Olmsted: Yes, and I would like to be that person. When enrollment in schools increases, the uses of the children’s area of the library does so also. I will be an advocate for expanding programs for both adults and children. For children, I’d like to see similar space changes to the children’s room because it’s small and a little dark. While the librarians do a wonderful job with the arrangement of books and material, we can do more with this room.

Q: What would you like to see in a new or renovated building?

A: While the building shape is still the same [since its opening in 1967] … I would like to see this become more of a communal social space so that people just don’t come to take out books but to socialize. We should also commit in a new building to more energy efficient practices, more natural light and recycling, the same concepts used at the Wellington [Elementary].

Q: Does digital media have a role in your plans?

A: I see the library evolving into more of a space where people can come together and use the digital resources. The types of media products the library provides will continue to expand and [the library] can become the place where information literacy is taught in the community including the schools. But I still have an affinity for physical books. That’s the reason people continue to go to bookstores. Children get interested in things by looking at them physically, and that’s why the Children’s Room is so important to the community. 

Q: What is the first item that you’re interested in tackling as a Trustee?

A: I would like to take a look at the programs. To see if there are places that can be expanded or filled in. I also want to talk to Peter [Struzziero, Belmont Public Library Director] how he is increasing space. While other challenges are facing the town such as the construction of a renovated Belmont High School that will likely take precedence, the library still faces urgent problems such as the boiler issue [which will need to be replaced], the type of non-exciting things that need to be resolved to keep the building running. 

Time Running Out To Find New Home For Belmont Food Pantry

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Photo: A busy Belmont Food Pantry on Belmont Serves.

It’s nail-biting time for the Belmont Food Pantry.

With a little more than five weeks before the non-profit will be forced to move from its current home in a modular unit at the rear of Belmont High School, the pantry – which assists more than 200 residents with much-needed food staples and sundries – is scrambling to find a space to continue its charitable work.

“What we are asking we know that we need to come together as a community to provide this service to the people,” Laurie Graham, former Belmont School Committee chair, and a pantry director, told the Belmont Board of Selectmen on Monday, June 27.

“We’ve known since December and to solve this problem now is acuter with this short fuse,” said Chairman Mark Paolillo of the August 1 deadline.

The pantry will need to move as the school department is running short of classroom space due to rocketing enrollment levels at Belmont High and throughout the district.

But despite the best efforts of the town administration, houses of worship, non-profits and businesses, as of the last week in June, there simply isn’t a location of a similar size – about 1,600 sq.-ft. – to meet the pantry’s needs.

Currently, the pantry is open five times a month: in the mornings on the first and third Saturday of the month and on afternoons on the second and fourth Tuesday evening with an additional day on the last Sunday of the month at Plymouth Congregational Church on Pleasant Street.

Belmont residents can use the service twice a month to pick up canned goods, baking supplies, sundries and, during the summer, fresh vegetables from gardens run by volunteers.

While the Belmont community has been “very supportive” of the pantry financially and with food donations, “we need space,” said Graham.

David Kale, Belmont’s town administrator, said he had discussions with department heads on available space, but so far there isn’t any local site that could handle the pantry.

A recent walk through of the former Belmont Municipal Light Department headquarters adjacent to the Police Headquarters and across Concord Avenue from Town Hall, which three years ago was the pantry’s home, was deemed unavailable as the building has deteriorated over that time and would need substantial rehabilitation to bring up to code. 

There had been discussions of using two empty storefronts near the intersection of Belmont Street and Trapelo Road adjacent to Moozies that are owned by developer Chris Starr or parking a trailer in the Beth El Temple Center’s parking lot. But both some with significant restrictions such as lack of running water and electricity and a small footprint.

“But while saying that, we’d love to have anything on a temporary basis,” said Graham.

With nothing available at this time, the pantry is looking at stop gap measures to continue service, including sharing space with pantries in Watertown and Arlington, although the Watertown space is problematic since they hand out bags of food rather than allowing residents select what they need which is done in Belmont.

Graham said there had been discussions by the pantry’s board of directors of possibly allowing the pantry become part of town government similar to the way Watertown runs its food service.

“There are pros and cons to this [approach],” said Graham including giving up the pantry’s non-profit status. The pantry could find a commercial storefront and pay market rent although that would mean fewer supplies for residents. 

“But I think for us an issue is sustainability … and that means we need to have a place,” she noted. 

Saying the food pantry serves “a very important need,” Selectman Sami Baghdady said he has reached out to several large property owners if there is any available storefront in an accessible commercial location. 

“When I say ‘food pantry,’ everyone’s attention spikes, and there is a strong desire to help,” said Baghdady, saying he is now waiting for a call back to resolve the predicament, “sooner rather than later.” 

Belmont Joins Ranks With Communities on Gas Leak Legislation

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Photo: Yvonne Brown (left) and Jennifer Marusiak of Mothers Out Front.

The rotten egg smell associated with leaking natural gas – it’s actually a chemical additive called mercaptan – is an annoyance that dampens your outdoor activities or forces windows to be closed on summer nights. But the problem of leaking gas mains goes beyond the odor it emanates; the hydrocarbon mixture is harming the environment and draining resident’s pocketbooks.

That’s the warning Jennifer Marusiak of Chester Road and Yvonne Brown of Highland Road brought to the Belmont Board of Selectmen on Monday, June 27, as they sought the board’s backing for state legislation that would put a modest plug in what has become an epidemic throughout the state.

“It’s serious that we have these uncontrolled leaks in every Belmont neighborhood and the consequences are to climate change,” said Marusiak, who with Brown are members of the Belmont chapter of Mothers Out Front, a national grassroots organization seeking to implement policies to transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy.

And with the Selectmen’s official endorsement of the legislation making its way through Beacon Hill, Belmont joins 36 communities across Massachusetts supporting the effort to limit the level of gas leaks statewide.

In a comprehensive analysis of Belmont by Mother’s Out Front reported in the May/June Belmont Citizens Forum newsletter, there are 80 gas leaks throughout town – the majority in the heavily residential neighborhoods inside an area bordered by Trapelo Road, Pleasant Street, Concord Avenue and Grove Street –  part of the 20,000 leaks statewide that is spewing tons of methane into the atmosphere.
Screen Shot 2016-06-29 at 1.32.34 PM

‘[Methane] has been described as carbon on steroids,” Marusiak said of the greenhouse gas that’s nearly 90 percent more efficient than CO2 in trapping heat. It also exacerbates the effects of asthma and kills trees.

In addition to the environmental damage, the leaks cost ratepayers and consumers $90 million annual in lost product, which could power 200,000 homes each year.

The reason leaks occur is due to an aging infrastructure, said Marusiak. National Grid, the gas utility in Massachusetts, told Mom’s Out Front that half the pipes running through town are cast iron or unprotected steel “which makes them leak-prone” due to changing temperatures and corrosion, said Marusiak.

National Grid will repair leaks immediately if they are indoors and in an enclosed space with the real potential of an explosion, she said. There is a second level of severity are pipes that could become dangerous if they are close to residential buildings, but the company can wait six months before fixing them.

All other leaks don’t have any timeframe on repairs, which has resulted in two Belmont locations which have had been leaking gas since 1996, said Marusiak.

“And the shocking thing [about replacing leaking pipes] it has absolutely nothing to do with the volume [escaping] … they could sit there forever,” Marusiak said, noting that National Grid acknowledged it doesn’t know the volume of escaping gas from any of the Belmont problem areas.

The women were seeking backing on two bills in front of the state legislature on Beacon Hill: House 2870 would prohibit company from passing on costs from leaks to customer – this bill has been sent to a Study Committee – while Senate 1767 would mandate utilities check for leaks when roads with gas pipes are dug up, and fix any leaks found within one calendar year.

“The support from towns are vital,” said Marusiak. “The main benefit of passing this resolution is to keep up the pressure by saying ‘we need action now’.”

“This is an issue that the town itself can’t do and so political pressure that you’re proposing is the only way to get action,” said Selectman Jim Williams, who joined Chair Mark Paolillo and Selectman Sami Baghdady to sponsor an official resolution backing the measures.

Despite a stall on the House bill and the Senate measure still to be voted on to be included in the Senate’s omnibus energy legislation, Marusiak said communities, citizens, and groups “will just continue to keep on pushing for its passage, now or in the next session.” 

Minuteman To Hold District-Wide Vote Sept. 20 To OK $144M Building Project

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Photo: Belmont may have voted no, but it could be on the hook for nearly $500,000 in annual costs to construct a new regional technical school.

Belmont may have voted “no” in May, but that hasn’t stopped the Minuteman School Committee from getting a second bite at the apple to approve a $100 million bonding issue to build a new regional technical school on the Lexington/Littleton town line.

On Monday, June 27, the school’s school committee voted 12-1 with one abstention to bring a referendum to build the school to the entire 14 community district.

The vote – funded by the Minuteman School Committee – will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 20 from noon to 8 p.m. 

“It’s a simple vote across all the [d]istrict towns,” said Edward Bouquillon, Minuteman’s Superintendent-Director in a statement issued on June 28.

“It’s done on the same day during the same hours. The votes are totaled. If there are more “yes” votes than “no” votes, the project is approved,” he said.

According to data from Minuteman Tech, renovations and repairs are projected to cost local taxpayers roughly $100 million and take six to ten years to complete. With the MSBA grant, the local share would be roughly the same amount, to be paid by local taxpayers and by out-of-district communities through a new capital fee assessed by the state.

The new vote comes about two months after a Special Town Meeting overwhelmingly rejected the bonding issue, the only Town Meeting to vote down the proposal that would saddled Belmont with an annual bill of $350,000 to $500,000 to pay for its portion of the nearly $100 million to build the school.

And despite Belmont having expressed its opinion on the issue and while many in town would like the town to commit its own “Brexit”-style departure from the district, “it has there really is no practical way for Belmont to leave the District before the vote is taken. It’s simply not possible,” said Jack Weis, Belmont’s representative to the Minuteman School Committee.

In the view of the Minuteman officials, they were left with only one option after Belmont’s legislative body rebuffed the proposal.

“We tried the traditional Town Meeting route and won by overwhelming margins just about everywhere,” said Bouquillon, winning approval in the other 13 Town Meetings. “But we were unable to make the case properly in one town [Belmont] and, given the rules of this process, that was enough to require going directly to citizens through a formal referendum.”

In hopes of saving a $44 million grant from the Massachusetts School Building Authority to build the school, said Bouquillon, the Minuteman School Committee will submit the issue directly to the voters of its member towns.

In a press release issued on Tuesday, June 28, Minuteman and officials from other communities in the Minuteman district met with Belmont officials on June 20 “to determine whether Minuteman should attempt to bring the matter back to Belmont Town Meeting or, alternatively, go to a referendum.”

Under the town meeting approval process, the project could only move forward if no member town voted to object. 

Belmont officials told the committee there was no indication that Town Meeting members would change their opposition to the project which it considers far too large for the number of students coming from district communities.

“[The] sensible course would be to proceed directly to referendum,” said Bouquillon. “Fortunately, state law gives multi-town districts such as Minuteman a second option for getting capital projects approved.”

“Under the new Regional Agreement, any community can petition to leave the District at any time.  The first step is to have a Special Town Meeting and to have the two-thirds of the Town Meeting members vote in favor of leaving. But, the actual departure isn’t effective for three years after that. So, there is no way to leave the District before the vote is taken.

Even if Belmont could decamp from the district, “communities are still obligated for their share of any debt incurred prior to the withdrawal date,” said Weis.