With Full Slate, Planning Punts Possible Airbnb Regs to Summer Review

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Photo: The Airbnb web page for Belmont.

With so much currently on its plate and with little data to move forward on, Belmont’s Planning Board decided to “punt” for now on a review of the town’s bylaws in respect to residents who rent rooms through Airbnb, the popular website for people to list, find and rent lodging.

“We are not scrapping for items to take up,” said Liz Allison, Planning Board chair at the board’s Tuesday, Dec. 5 public meeting, as its members decided it would take up a comprehensive review of the town’s bylaws this summer of this new way of casual lodging for people in the market for “something between hotels and couch-surfing.”

Since starting in 2008, the private company, now valued at more than $20 billion, has more than 1,500,000 listings in 34,000 cities and 190 countries. Approximately 1 million rooms worldwide were rented using the website for the New Year’s Eve/Day celebration.

While close to Boston and Cambridge, which have hundreds of Airbnb hosts renting thousands of spaces, Belmont is like many suburban communities, with just over two dozen hosts currently lending room(s) from between $49 a night for a double bed off Belmont Street to $333 a night for a room and bath on Belmont Hill. The average per night rental in Belmont is $132.

Under existing Belmont zoning code, residents who rent rooms through Airbnb are viewed as a bed and breakfast. Those residents living in the general residential area can “by right” to rent up to three bedrooms as long as it is for a week or longer.

Those seeking to provide rooms for fewer than seven days requires a Special Permit, which are granted or rejected by the Zoning Board of Appeals. 

Since most Airbnb rentals are two to four nights, it’s likely many hosts will be impacted by a negative ZBA vote.

Last month, the ZBA voted 3-2 to approve the first Special Permit for an Airbnb “host” on Betts Road but since a “Special” requires a “super majority,” the application was rejected. 

Several ZBA members, including one who voted against the request, said they wanted to seek guidance from the Planning Board for a more precise definition of the town’s lodging bylaws.

Residents opposed to the new web-based rental said last month they view Airbnb as a quality of life issue, projecting strangers with rolling suitcases roaming town streets, being brought to residences by “Uber cars” at all hours of the day and night.

There have been attempts by municipalities to place restrictions on the business model, mostly by large cities protecting hotel tax revenue. San Francisco required Airbnb to charge a 14 percent hotel tax yet failed to limit rooms being rented out for more than 75 days consecutively annually. Boston is contemplating regulations while Somerville attempted to impose a six percent tax but had no way of collecting the fee. 

Allison noted currently none of the surrounding towns comparable to Belmont – such as Arlington, Winchester, Bedford, Lexington to name four – “have as yet any zoning regulation” for Airbnb rentals.

“This is clearly a new area” and while there is a discussion on the subject, “there are no models within comparable communities,” said Allison, adding that it would be advantageous for the Planning Board to learn from the experience of other towns before imposing its regulations.

Since there are approximately 30 Airbnb hosts in town, the board unanimously decided to make a review of existing bylaws “a summer project” after the Planning Board clears its plate of current projects including work on imposing height and size restrictions on new construction, in general residential zone district. 

State Places $100 Million Belmont High Renovation in Final Funding Review

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Photo: Belmont High School

Ten consecutive times the state agency created to assist Massachusetts communities in financing new school projects rejected the Belmont School District’s request to renovate the increasingly threadbare high school building on Concord Avenue.

That dubious streak may finally come to an end in 2016 as the Massachusetts School Building Authority selected the nearly $100 million renovation of the 45-year-old Belmont High School and the construction of a new science wing as one of 26 projects across the state the authority has chosen for a final funding review.

“This is great news for the town of Belmont as it represents a unique opportunity for our community as we have submitted an application for this project annually for over ten years,” said Belmont District Superintendent John Phelan. 

This year, nearly 100 Statement of Interests from nearly the same number of school districts were submitted to the MSBA, Authority spokesperson Matt Donovan told the Belmontonian two weeks ago. 

The Authority will make its decision on which projects it will approve for eventually financing at its monthly meeting on Jan. 27, 2016. Last year, the MSBA selected 16 projects from a group of 28. 

If picked, Belmont will enter a 270-day “eligibility period” in which the district and town will shape the building plan to meet state requirements.
 
Joining Belmont in the final group include neighboring Arlington which is seeking to renovate its 101-year-old high school, and Framingham’s Fuller Middle School. (Arlington has been requesting funding for only two years)

While being passed over by the MSBA for a decade, it did not come as a complete surprise that Belmont’s “time” for a final review was close at hand. In October 2014, a team of architects and engineers associated with the School Building Authority conducted a “senior study” of the 45-year-old brick and concrete structure, asking a lot of questions of school and town officials while poking around the building. 

Proposed projects that receive a “senior study” are seen as having a high level of being recommended to “move forward with an invitation” of being in the final group. 

If current trends continue, Belmont should be reimbursed by the MSBA for approximately a third of the total construction costs. 

The renovation price tag based on an updated 2008 estimation of the 2004 masterplan which would include using a single general contractor over four years was $79.6 million. With eight years of inflation added to the 2008 figure, the total cost is now close to $100 million.

With a third coming from the MSBA, the total cost to Belmont taxpayers is likely to be in the $66 to $70 million range.

A MSBA-financed project similar to Belmont is taking place in Winchester where a new high school that includes three new buildings is currently one-third finished. The $131.9 million project received 34 percent state reimbursement, requiring Winchester to pass a $90 million debt exclusion. 

Under the 2004 Belmont High School master plan revised in 2008:
  • Construction at the school will take place in four phases over four years so students will remain on the existing campus,
  • All construction will be held within the current 257,000 sq.-ft. footprint of the current building, and 
  • A 34,000 sq.ft. modern science wing will be built in the proximity of the parking lot adjacent the Wenner Field House and the Higginbottom Pool.

The renovation of the five-decade-old school building is critical as it is currently “structurally unsound” and “jeopardize the health and safety of the school children,” according to Belmont’s 2014 SOI submitted to the MSBA.

With the building of a science center, which will add 13.5 percent more classroom and lab space to the school, “it will eliminate the existing severe overcrowding” at the school. The district is also predicting an additional 254 students at the high school by fiscal 2024. 

The SOI notes that Belmont High School is in danger of losing its regional accreditation due to the “negative impact on students … to achieve a 21st Century learning experience” in a building where critical infrastructure are now “beyond its normal life span.” This year, more than a million dollars was directed to rebuild the school’s fire alarm system which is so dated there is a lack of parts to repair the mechanism. 

This year, more than a million dollars was directed to rebuild the school’s fire alarm system which is so dated there is a lack of parts to repair the mechanism. Without the change, the Belmont Fire Department warned the building could be closed for safety. 

 

Graham Resigns from School Committee; Three Seats Up in April Town Election

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Photo: Laurie Graham at the Friends of Belmont Education Spelling Bee in Nov. 2015. 

Long-time Belmont School Committee member Laurie Graham has resigned after serving nearly eight years on the board, three of those as chair leading the committee during some of the most financially challenging times in recent history. 

Graham’s resignation, announced at last week’s school committee meeting, is effective Jan. 20, 2016.

“I hope that I have added in some measure to a more cordial and respectful working relationship with other committees but one that is not only less tense but which also produces positive results and outcomes for our students,” Graham told the Belmontonian. 

Her departure will likely result in three seats being filled at the 2016 Town Election on Tuesday, April 5. While traditionally, the seat of someone who resigns is occupied by a nominee selected by a joint meeting of the School Committee and Board of Selectmen, with the resignation coming within four months of Town Election, it is likely the two bodies will allow the one-year position to be picked by the voters. 

The other two seats are three-year appointments currently held by incumbents Laurie Slap, the current committee chair, and Elyse Shuster. Both have told the Belmontonian they would wait until the New Year before announcing if they will run for re-election. 

Graham, who won three town-wide elections starting in 2008 while, topped the school committee ticket in 2014 with 3,640 votes.

For the past six years, Graham worked out of her home as a contractor with a group of independent publishers reps and that has given her the flexibility to attend day-time sub-committee meetings as well as participate as a school committee liaison or appointed to other committees in town for both day and evening meetings.

That changed when she started a new job, as an office manager in a tax office, in downtown Boston. It has become clear to me that with a commute, no real time to attend meetings back in Belmont as well as the busy time coming these next few months that it made sense for me to step down now and not wait until the upcoming April election. 

“It has become clear to me that with a commute, no real time to attend meetings back in Belmont as well as the busy time coming these next few months that it made sense for me to step down now and not wait until the upcoming April election,” she said.

Selectmen OKs Feasibility Study for Proposed Community Path

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Photo: Russell Leino (center), chair of the Community Path Implementation Advisory Committee with Heather Ivestor (left) and Brian Burke.

The Belmont Board of Selectmen took a significant step in moving the idea of a town community path towards reality when it approved the hiring an engineering consultant to create a feasibility study of a dozen proposed routes from the Waltham line to the Alewife bike path off of Brighton Street.

“Once [the Selectmen] makes a decision, we can make this happen,” said Russell Leino, chair of the Community Path Implementation Advisory Committee, which is overseeing the process for the town.

“Let’s get going with a [request for proposal] and move forward,” said Selectman Mark Paolillo, after hearing from the Community Path Implementation Advisory Committee at its meeting Monday, Dec. 15 at Town Hall.

Bowing to residents along Channing Road whose south-lying properties abut a favorite proposed path, the selectmen approved a suggestion by Selectmen Chair Sami Baghdady to have an additional route, traveling along a portion of Concord Avenue, added to the list of reviewed paths.

In his presentation, Leino said the guiding principle of the five-member group is not to “reinvent the wheel” instead build on the work of its predecessor, the Community Path Advisory Committee, which did the heavy lifting of carving out the possible routes through town.

The five-member Implementation Advisory Committee (Leino, Vincent Stanton, Heather Ivestor, Michael Cicalese and Brian Burke) was created a year ago to develop recommended strategies for the design, construction and implementation of community path route options selected by the Selectmen, “diving deep” into the routes recommended by CPAC, focusing on any choke points including rough terrain or intersections on busy roadways.

In addition to the pathway, the committee looked into an underpass from Alexander Avenue to the south side of the commuter rail tracks that would allow residents and students transverse from the Winn Brook neighborhood to Belmont High School safely. 

After spending a great deal of time adhering to the mandate, “we are now at the stage to put pen to paper” by moving to a feasibility study,” said Leino.

During the initial process, the study will help determine “what things did we missed? What are things that CPAC missed? Are there alternatives that we should be thinking of?” said Leino. 

With the Selectmen’s approval in hand, a draft request for proposal (RFP) will be put out to bid in early January. Leino expects to hire a firm in late spring and have a completed feasibility study by the end of 2016. A group will decide on a final recommended route that will be sent to the Selectmen in the Spring of 2017.

The $100,000 to hire the engineering consultancy comes from a grant from the Community Preservation Committee that was approved by the 2015 Town Meeting.

In addition to the CPC funds, the Massachusetts legislature approved a $100,000 earmark that would pay for a study. If Gov. Baker releases the funding – no small feat in this time of fiscal restraint – the state money could replace or, supplement the town’s funds.

According to Leino, once the final route has been selected, the committee can then focus on funding a project, which could be the least difficult portion of the project. A Belmont community path is in line for both national and federal grants that would pay for nearly 90 percent of the total cost of approximately $10 million for the 2.2-mile route. 

Leino said because Belmont is a significant link to an extensive bike path from Somerville to Berlin, Mass and will lie close to other popular community routes nearby in Cambridge, Watertown, and Arlington, “we’d be right up there in priority for funding.”

The federal and state money would be available once the town invests about $1 million into the trail as they “want us to have some skin in the game,” said Leino.

Despite that the feasibility study is more than a year away, there is pushback from residents in two neighborhoods – Channing Road and homes on Clark Lane adjacent to Clark Road – to the path’s proximity to the property lines and the chance that homeowners on Clark Lane and the Boston Housing Authority could lose a portion of their land to the path.

Baghdady’s request for the feasibility study to look into using Concord Avenue and School Department land at Belmont High School came after some Channing Road residents felt the Community Path Advisory Committee did not give that proposal enough consideration.

Leino said that the Advisory Committee found the Concord Avenue route was “impractical” for several reasons including busy intersections, traffic, active driveways and other impediments. Also, a Concord Avenue route would effectively end financing plans for an underpass at Alexander Avenue, said Paolillo. 

But Baghdady did not see an additional route as overburdening the feasibility study.

“The objective is to have a community path and to me, the more options we have before us, the better decision we can make,” said Baghdady, winning the argument. 

Spike in Average Property Tax Bill Anticipated As Override Comes Dues

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Photo: Board of Assessors’ (from left) Robert Reardon, Martin Millane, Jr. and Charles Laverty III

Belmont property owners can expect the equivalent of a lump of coal in their next two quarterly tax bill arriving in February 2016 as residents prepare to pay for the Prop 2 1/2 override voters passed in April.

The average household can expect to see its next two tax bills jump by $350, according to Robert Reardon, chair of the Belmont Board of Assessors which presented its recommendations for next fiscal year’s property tax rate to the Belmont Board of Selectmen at its Monday, Dec. 14 meeting.

While the assessors are recommending a significant drop in the tax rate – $12.56 per $1,000 in fiscal 2016, down from $12.90 in fiscal ’15 – any possible dip in taxes was offset by a dramatic increase of 11 percent in assessed values of all property town-wide, from $5.928 billion in 2015 to 2016’s $6.598 billion.

Approximately $4.5 million of the $6.9 million spike in assessed values comes from the Proposition 2 1/2 override that passed comfortably by voters at this year’s Town Election to stabilize school finances.

In comparison, assessed values rose in fiscal year 2015 by $2.3 million and by $1.9 million in fiscal ’14.

The value of an “average,” or median priced Belmont house has rocketed to $928,003 from $847,900 in fiscal 2015

For the “average” Belmont home, taxes next fiscal year will be $11,655, an increase of $717.45 from the $10,938. 

In comparison, property taxes increased $373 between fiscal 2014 and fiscal 2015.

Reardon said after the new fiscal year begins on July 1, 2016, the increase will be spread over four quarters, and the average customer’s bill will be about $180 higher.

Suspecting many Belmont residents would “notice” the large change in their tax bill, Reardon said the Assessors’ Office would include in the next two bills a two-page “explanation to the taxpayers on why the levy was increased and the approximate increase can is the result of the change.”

“Just so they have a better understanding and cut down the number of questions they may have,“ said Reardon, who was accompanied to the meeting by his colleagues, Martin Millane, Jr. and Charles Laverty III

The Massachusetts Department of Revenue has a handy primer on calculating the tax levy.

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.

“We are not raising more money by having a commercial rate, we are only shifting it” onto businesses while the savings for residential ratepayers would be “negotiable,” said Reardon.

“One of the dilemmas is because our residential property values are so high, I think it artificially drives up a lot of our commercial properties,” said Baghdady.

“Commercial rents to justify the value is tough to absorb by a business,” said Baghdady.

The Loading Dock Starts Dinner Service as Bistro Increases Seating

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Photo: The Loading Dock on Brighton Street. (Courtesy, Loading Dock)

When Fuad Mukarker received a full liquor license from the town a year-and-a-half ago in May 2014, he mentioned his new business, The Loading Dock on Brighton Street, “would become a destination for shopping and eating”

It took a while for his promise to come to fruition, but Mukarker is now just about ready to begin serving dinner at 11 Brighton St. within a week after the Zoning Board of Appeals approved on Monday, Dec. 7 his request to add 36 seats (30 inside, 6 outside) for a total of 60 on site.

The bistro/market with liquor sales held its grand opening in April. Since then, Mukarker has been slowing gearing up the operation, with an eye on serving dinner from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on three nights, Thursday through Saturday.

“We are finally ready to ask for the seating,” said Mukarker, who came with more than 100 signatures of support backing his move.

The one big issue for the Board was that Mukarker could find the required 18 parking spots for the nearly 40 extra seats. With construction continuing across his parking lot on Belmont Light’s new electrical substation, Mukarker made arrangements with two local businesses, a nearby service center and a business across Brighton Street.

While his fellow commercial condominium client, attorney Joe Noone (whose office is located less than a block away from The Loading Dock), thought Mukarker was attempting to grab a hold on to too many spaces that were not sited adjacent to the bistro, the ZBA approved the request on the condition that Mukarker placed signs that clearly tells patrons where his spots are located.

With the parking issue resolved, Mukarker said he is looking to showcase events at the location, starting with a reading by four children’s authors this Sunday, Dec. 13 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

ZBA Grounds Airbnb, Punts Internet Lodging to Planning Board

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Photo: The room that Joanne Sintiris rents for $85 a night as an Airbnb host.

Joanne Sintiris found herself uncomfortably close to the edge of a financial cliff. 

A divorce left the Betts Road resident wrestling to make ends meet and seeking some way to make a little extra money. 

“I needed some way to supplement my income. It was hard to see how I was going to do that,” she said.

Then Sintiris discovered the wildly popular online service Airbnb where homeowners can rent out one or more rooms in their house, condo or apartment for a nightly, weekly or monthly fee.

“It turned out to be a real savoir,” said Sintiris, who rents a spare room out for $85 a night, below the $135 average for the Boston area.

The “room” includes a private entrance, one bedroom, living room, private bathroom, use of a washer/dryer, a shared garden and patio with a grill.

“It was crazy. I was turning people away, many people who I didn’t want,” said the Cambridge native. 

And her guests raved about the experience.

“Joanne was a wonderful host, she was easy to communicate with, friendly, and we felt very welcome in the apartment. The location was quiet, relaxing, yet still easy to get to the best parts of Boston,” wrote a lodger who stayed in October.

Sintiris will now see her windfall slashed dramatically after the Belmont Zoning Board of Appeals Monday night, Dec. 7, rejected her request by a single vote for a special permit to would allow her to continue renting the room for less than seven days.

In a debate that once veered off to include the threat of sex offenders and all guests requiring CORI background checks, the board Monday essentially punted the issue off to the Planning Board, which will be asked to create, or at least, modernize the town’s antiquated lodging and boarder bylaws for the 250 residents who host Airbnb visitors in Belmont.

“If it is correct that there will be 250 people with rooms to rent, then in that case it must be thought out in a comprehensive way which is the role of the Planning Board,” said ZBA Chairman Eric Smith. 

Sintiris’ case is the first of what could be several hundred the Office of Community Development anticipates to bring before the ZBA. The town contends that under existing town bylaws, anyone renting for less than seven days must obtain a special permit under the town’s bylaws. Sintiris just happened to be the first Airbnb provider plucked from the website to be required to rent the room for seven plus days. 

Since a majority of lodgers stay less than four days, Sintiris sought the special permit since those potential customers are decamping across the town line in Cambridge (with a 1,000 Airbnb listings), Boston (2,000), and other neighboring communities that have no or very limited restrictions.

“I need to have the flexibility to provide a room for a weekend or a week,” she said.

Airbnb is now one of the biggest success stories coming from the new internet service industry, reporting Monday a net worth exceeding $25 billion.

While there is the occasional sensational negative event, Airbnb have become the “go to” lodging experience for a rapidly growing number of travels around the world. In the seven years since Airbnb was founded, more than 60 million people have used the service, listing almost two million homes in 34,000 cities (Paris alone has 60,000 hosts) in approximately 190 countries worldwide.

Municipalities have scratched the surface of regulating these new fangled rentals; Somerville proposed a six percent tax (but had no way of implementing it) and Boston is pondering restrictions.

For the handful of residents who opposed the special permit, the issues created by this “disrubting ” range from noise to fear of those coming into the community. 

Opponents such as Patrice Shea of Talyor Street, who lives close by another Airbnb location, said her street has vehicles coming in “from all over the country” in addition to “Uber cars” – the online, on-demand car service – as people arriving at “very unusual hours,” while many strangers are seen walking with suitcases on the sidewalk. She also wondered if the town wasn’t loss of town revenued in taxes and fees.

“It’s just plain creepy,” Shea said after her testimony. 

“I get the fiscal benefit to the host … and the renter, they pay less money. [But] what does it do to me?” said JP Looney who lives eight houses up Betts from Sintiris, wondering if “a boarding house” in the vacinity will likely reduce his property values.

Looney also pondered safety issues with unfamiliar people coming into the area.

“Is Airbnb doing a criminal background check? That’s not what I understand from the website,” Looney ask. “We are opening up a can of worms by allowing this.”

Picking up on the critic’s line of questioning, board member Nicholas Iannuzzi said without CORI and sexual offendors background checks, “you should in fear of our own safety with anyone in your house for $85 a night.” 

Sintiris countered that she has had a “great experience with everyone,” including university educators and professionals who are coming to town for work or to visit children at school.  

In the end, the board voted 3-2 (Iannuzzi and Jim Zarkadas voting no) in favor of Sintiris’ special permit; while a purality, it was one vote shy of the necessary threshold for the issuance of the license. 

While Iannuzzi’s negative response was towards the distrubtor aspect of the technology, Zarkadas’ ran towards finding a more precise definition of the town’s lodging bylaws.

“It really is up to the Planning Board to make updated laws because there has been a lot of changes and I’m pretty sure they were written back in … the 1800s. While I’m open to business, but when it starts to cross the line of running and operating a business in a neighborhood, there is a lot of unknowns that need to answered,” he said.

Sami Baghdady, the current chair of the Board of Selectmen and former chair of the Planning Board, said it is incumbent for the bylaw writing entity to fill in the gaps in taxes, zoning and licenses that new technology brings to the town.

“The Planning Board needs to address this quite quickly, just because there is more than 200 units now doing business,” he said.

For Sintiris, the change to seven days minimum stay that began this fall “has already hurt me,” saying the current regulations has cut her income by $1,000 a month. 

“I’m not asking for much. Just enough,” she said.

First Look: Will Belmont Run to a New Dunkin’ Donuts on Pleasant Street?

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Photo: The Dunkin’ Donuts building on Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, that a Belmont store on Pleasant Street would look like.

Vincent and Nick Leo knows something about selling donuts. The Cambridge-based family operation runs 17 Dunkin’ Donut franchises in Massachusetts and Florida. In fact, if you go to Fresh Pond for your morning donut and coffee, it’s a Leo-run business. The DD in Alewife Station? Most of the Dunkins’ in Medford? Those are Leo’s too. And if you have a hankering for a “coffee regular” in Clearwater, Florida, say hello to someone from the Leo family who’s behind the counter.

And now, the Leos hope to expand their donut and coffee empire to Belmont.

Tonight, the Leos will be before the Zoning Board of Appeals seeking a special permit and site review of their proposed 18th franchise location at 344 Pleasant St. at the intersection of Brighton Road, a hop and a skip from Route 2 and Arlington.

The location, a hop, and a skip from Route 2 and Arlington are the former home of a gas station/repair shop that the Leos hope to build a 3,500 sq.-ft. building in which the franchise would take half the space with a pair of 1,000 sq.-ft. store fronts, creating a small strip mall.

The building, which will look like the family’s franchise at 2480 Mass Ave. in Cambridge, will have 21 indoor seats and eight outdoor. Like its Mass. Ave. store, parking for about ten vehicles will be in the rear of the building. 

The proposed hours of operation are 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.

The restaurant operation will abut the intersection with the small retail operations along Pleasant. There will be a free standing “Dunkin’ Donuts” sign – approximately three feet by five feet – along Pleasant Street 

The Belmont operation will not have a drive-thru component like many of Leos operations. All food will be made off-site and delivered to the store. The store will employ between one and six employees on each shift. Trash would be collected three times during the week. 

The Leos had commissioned a traffic study by Design Consultants that said a restaurant “will not negatively impact the neighborhood by increasing traffic to the site,” as it would have “less impact traffic than the current gas station.”

How the community views the Leos coming into their neighborhood is not yet known. While there are several letters of support for the business (the Leos posted flyers on their Fresh Pond outlets asking patrons to write to Belmont officials with kind words), a town official said that several people have been calling his office for the past month to know the date of the meeting “so they can say what a bad idea this is.” 

In April 2014, the neighborhood banded together to persuaded the town to deny a retail liquor license to Waltham-based D&L Liquor to put its fourth store in the former Mini-Mart opposite Brighton Street from the proposed Dunkin’ Donuts.

And They’re Off: Paolillo Pulls Nomination Papers As Election Season Starts

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Photo: Mark Paolillo.

One week after the official start of the 2016 Town Election contest, there has been a steady stream of residents who have picked up nomination papers to begin their efforts to be elected town-wide or to Town Meeting.

Town Election will take place on April 5, 2016. 

On the town-wide front, it comes as no surprise that two-term incumbent Selectman Mark Paolillo has taken out papers. The long-time Pilgrim Road resident indicated in the fall his intentions to run one final time to the three-person board. 

Joining Paolillo as early birds grabbing their papers in the first week are Mark Carthy seeking re-election to the Board of Library Trustees, Ellen Cushman for Town Clerk and Charles R. Laverty III who raced into the Town Clerk’s Office last Monday to get the process started for his return to the Board of Assessors.

Cushman, who is Belmont’s current Town Clerk, said there has been good interest in becoming and retaining their seats as Town Meeting members, with some already completing the task of returning their nomination sheets with the necessary number of signatures.

More activity is expected as letters from the Clerk’s Office will go out this week to Town Meeting members whose terms expire in 2016 asking if they want to be considered a candidate for re-election. Those letters must be returned to the Clerk’s office by 5 p.m. on Jan. 26 to exempt the incumbent members from collecting signatures. 

Those seeking to be new Town Meeting members or those selected at a precinct caucus must collect 25 signatures from residents in the precinct being represented and submit the papers back to the Clerk’s office no later than 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2016.

Bag Those Leaves: Final Week of Yard Waste Collection

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Photo: Bagged leaves at the curbside.

If you have been delaying your leaf collecting and garden cleanup, you’re just about out of time as this week, Dec. 7 to Dec. 11, is the final week for yard collection in Belmont.

Place all bagged leaves, sticks and garden waste curbside on the day of your scheduled trash collection.

If you have any questions concerning the policy, contact the Belmont Public Works Department at 617-993-2680. 

Yard collection returns in April.