Despite Gov. Baker Ending State Mask Mandate Feb. 28, Belmont Schools Will Wait Until School Committee Decision March 8

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Photo: Belmont School Committee will likely vote on the future of the mask mandate on March 8

The Belmont School District will keep its mask mandate in effect until at least Tuesday, March 8 despite Gov. Charlie Baker’s recent announcement calling for the lifting of the state’s school mask requirement on Monday, Feb. 28.

Belmont Schools Superintendent John Phelan said in a press release the district will wait for both the Belmont Board of Health and the School Committee to discuss and then possibly vote on the future of its mask mandate on Monday, March 7 and Tuesday, March 8 respectively.

At its Monday, Feb. 7 meeting, the Health Board said it would be revisiting the issue at its next meeting on March 7 when it will review the latest state and county data on Covid-19 infection and hospitalization rates with the goal of possibly lifting the town-wide mandate which includes the six Belmont public schools.

Two days later, on Wednesday, Feb. 9, Baker and the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education announced the end of the state mask mandate, at which time, “masking policies will revert to local control.”

“In response to this updated information and given the Board of Health’s schedule, the School Committee plans to discuss this matter at their March 8, 2022 meeting,” said Phelan.

A New York Times article, “Why Liberal Suburbs Face a New Round of School Mask Battles” dated Feb. 10 points to the competing camps and difficult decision the Health Board and School Committee will face on the future of masks in Belmont schools.

Maskless in March? Belmont Health Board Moving Towards Recommending Lifting Town, Schools Mask Mandate Next Month

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Photo: This sign could be obsolete in March.

With nationwide positive rates of Covid-19 infection are falling as quickly as they skyrocketed two months ago, the Belmont Board of Health declared it will take a vote on lifting the town-wide and school mask mandate in the next month.

“That’s our intent,” Board of Health Chair Donna David said affirming the board’s decision. “We see masking coming to our March meeting” after the board appeared ready to change how it will determine the green light for ending the mandate.

When David asked the town’s Health Department Director Wesley Chin if he will provide a heads up to Belmont Superintendent John Phelan to prepare for a possible lifting of the school mandate put in place when students came back to class in March 2021, an unknown resident who had not muted themselves after speaking earlier, spouted out “Yes! Yes!”

The Board of Health has sole responsibility on imposing and ending mask mandates in public schools; the Select Board will take the Health Board’s recommendation into consideration whether to move on cancelling the mandate for businesses, town buildings and other public locations.

Starting the portion of the meeting, David proclaimed “Let’s talk about masks, Wesley” who said his office has been receiving “a number of calls” on the subject.

The Health Board’s “update” comes as states and municipalities across the country have suddenly begun dismantling mandates and other preventive measures.

Health Agent Lindsey Sharp told the board the latest Covid infection data is showing “a definite down swing” in the past month as the number of positive cases has fallen from more than 200 a week two months ago to 156 last week and 86 for the current seven days while 80 percent of those infected have been vaccinated.

But while saying the “numbers are better, we’re not there yet,” said Chin, stating he would not recommend voting Monday to take down the mask mandate as February vacation week is about to occur and Chin wanted to see the numbers of infections. He also noted that there has not been a vaccine approved for the youngest residents under the age of five.

The meeting witnessed a coordinated group of residents whose mission was to press the point that requiring masks indoors in buildings and the six town schools had passed its expiration date. Pat Whittemore, who said his opinions on masks “are very well known” claimed children with positive cases are not likely to be hospitalized when infected with Covid. He advocated “a nice middle step” of making mask wearing voluntary in schools.

John Link said mask wearing is not effective for children as “kids have zero chance to die” when they catch the coronavirus. He also said mask wearing by children can potentially lose 10 points from their IQ. Rather than an “onerous regime of wearing masks,” he also believes masks should be up to the discretion of the parents. In the same vein, David McLaughlin said there is a greater danger for children to be masked than being stricken by the Covid Omnicron variant. (Board member Adrienne Allen noted approximately 800 pediatric deaths in the US have been caused by Covid “so it’s not trivial.”)

Other residents was concerned about the town mandating vaccine passports (the Health Board and Select Board have not considered a vote on these regulations currently used in Boston) while other pointed to the high rate of student vaccination – in the higher grades up to 90 percent – as being enough to deter Covid’s debilitation effects.

Some residents wanted to take a slower approach on ending the mask mandate. “Thank you for following the science,” said Marina Atlas who felt really confident by the board’s appropriate use of data that show that masks work on Covid and other air pollutants.

It soon became clear that the board would not take action at its meeting but “we should consider another few weeks” after the February break to review the Covid data in Middlesex country.

“But [mandates are] not going on forever,” said David, who suggested taking a vote at the board’s next meeting in a month’s time.

“I agree this is not forever, as long as [the data] improves,” said Allen. Member Julie Lemay suggested the board change the data rubric for ending the mandate from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rates and rely on one which uses number of hospitalizations to cases as a possible standard.

”I like that,” said David.

Belmont Schools, Library Closed Friday Due To Winter Storm, Hazardous Roads

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Photo: Hazardous weather closed schools Friday

While it’s not a snow day, Belmont public school students will be sleeping in Friday as school has been cancelled due to bad winter weather.

“Due to the storm and the projected flash freezing of roads, Belmont Public Schools are closed on Friday, February 4, 2022,” reported John Phelan, superintendent of schools on Thursday.

The Belmont Public Library will also be closed on Friday.

The National Weather Service issued a Winter Weather Advisory in effect from 4 a.m. on Feb. 4, until 7 p.m. for eastern Massachusetts. The forecast calls for rain changing to freezing rain and sleet between 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. impacting the morning commute as roads become hazardous as surfaces will be impacted by flash freeze as temperatures drop into the 20s by late Friday morning.

Chronicling Our Far-Flung Past: Belmont’s Andrew Knoll Honored For Revealing The Earliest History Of The Earth

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Photo: Andrew H. Knoll (Credit: Wikimedia Commons, The Royal Society Academy of Sciences)

The list of honors bestowed to Belmont’s Andrew Knoll just gets longer by the year. The foremost natural history scientist today has been acknowledged in the past for his seminal work unearthing the history of the planet from when it was nothing more than a molten rock peppered by meteors. The author of last year’s bestseller “A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters,” Knoll is the preeminent chronicler of the geological mysteries of how life on Earth evolve over its first three billion years.

On Monday, Harvard University’s Fisher Research Professor of Natural History and a Research Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences was awarded the prestigious Crafoord Prize for 2022 from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences which, since 1982, has promoted international basic research in the disciplines Mathematics and Astronomy, Geosciences, Biosciences and Polyarthritis.

“[Knoll] has developed and combined methods for geological, biological and chemical analysis, which are now widely used by researchers around the globe. Using these methods, he has succeeded in determining the age of strata in bedrock and studied microscopically tiny fossils of unicellular and multicellular organisms from deep time,” reads the Academy’s

In preparation of the ceremony, Senior Producer Katie Hunt of CNN Digital produced a primer of Knoll’s works and discoveries in his 50 years of academic study beginning in the 1970s as a graduate student.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/30/americas/earth-extinction-andrew-knoll-crafoord-prize-scn/index.html

The Society produced a video in which its members described Knoll’s research and breakthroughs in geoscience while Knoll described receiving word that he was named this year’s prize winner.

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And Knoll has been a frequent guest on Belmont Media Center’s program “Contemporary Science Issues and Innovations,” the latest being on Dec. 9, 2021.

https://www.belmontmedia.org/watch/contemporary-science-issues-and-innovations-human-earth-12092021

Belmont Socked With More Than A Foot-And-A- Half Of Snow From Blizzard Of ‘22

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Photo: It was a bomb of a storm Saturday with 19 inches of snow left behind

While not as bad as Boston and the South Shore, Belmont received its fair share of snow and wind from the “bomb cyclone” winter storm that sat over the town for the 24 hours of Saturday, Jan. 29.

According to the Department of Public Works, the Town of Homes received 19 inches of snow that left driving nearly impossible during the afternoon hours as 50 mph winds limited visibility.

Belmont Light reported a single large outage early in the storm when 811 customers on Horace, Gilbert, Slade and Creeley lost power at 7:30 a.m. The lights were restored in just under an hour.

While the near gale forced gusts swept over the town, there were no reports of any trees lost, “but several good size limbs come down or broke and were hanging,” said DPW Director Jay Marcotte, who said that 40 pieces of equipment between the town and the town’s contractors.

“Wind and temperatures were most challenging during this storm,” said Marcotte. “Light fluffy snow causes an overspray of snow that hits the windshield and would instantly freeze. [Our] drivers needed to constantly clear windshields and with the limited visibility, it slowed things down considerably.”

Since Sunday, “clean up is still ongoing and will commence for the next few days,” he said.

Despite Recent Covid Surge, DPW Sees No Change Clearing Town Roads Of Blizzard’s Snow

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Photo: Rest assured, the Belmont DPW will handle the snow from the blizzard

With 18 to 26 inches of snow expected to arrive during Saturday’s blizzard, the historic spike of Covid-19 infections that swept through the nation will not impact Belmont’s response to the day-long storm, according to the director of the town’s Department of Public Works.

“Covid or no Covid, this is a snow event and the residents of Belmont can be rest assured that its DPW is prepared and ready for it,” said Jay Marcotte.

“We are fortunate that the recent surge has not caused too much disruption, fingers crossed, within the DPW and our contractors. We are prepared and ready for whatever outcome this storm may have,” said Marcotte. “We secured our contractors back in the fall and in preparing for this storm, we have had discussions with them about their staffing and equipment readiness.”

“Everything will be business as usual,” he said, meaning there will the usual complement of vehicles to plow Belmont’s roadways.

“Between our equipment and our contractors we will have 35 to 40 pieces of equipment,” said Marcotte, who arrived in Belmont in 2015 weeks before a series of four storms left a record 110 inches of the white stuff to move. Even before the trucks begin moving snow, the streets will be pretreat with salt and chemicals which Marcotte said is “very effective” in getting the streets ready for vehicle traffic as the storm finally passes.

As for the DPW’s plan to keep streets cleared during and after blizzard, Marcotte said “we plow all the streets equally, some have multiple pieces of equipment.”

Hockey: Boys’ Back In The Win Column With Win Vs Burlington; Girls’ Hang On For Victory Against Red Devils

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Photo: Belmont High defender junior Peter Grace.

After taking a first loss of the season – shut out 2-0 against a rising Wellesley High team on Wednesday – Belmont High School Boys’ Hockey took the most of the opportunity to return to the win column with a dominate 3-0 victory against Middlesex Freedom Division foe Burlington on Saturday, Jan. 22 at the Skip.

The W gives Belmont a 13–1-1 overall record and 8-0-1 in the Middlesex Liberty division.

Once again, it was Belmont’s first offensive line on the power play that wreak havoc against an opponent as two of Belmont’s scores came with the man advantage as senior senior Matt Rowen and junior Cam Fici potted goals in the second and third periods. In the past three games, the Marauders scored six of eight goals on the power play with Rowen (3) and Fici (4) tallying. Fici gained the brace against the Red Devils with a pretty even-strength first period goal in close with the assist coming from line mate junior Shay Donahue who helped on each Belmont goal.

A stubborn opponent for the better part of the past decade, the Red Devils had a hard time to keep up with Belmont’s team speed with arguably one of the best defensive pairing in eastern Mass – juniors Peter Grace and Joe Gaziano – shutting off the Red Devils’ incursions into the zone with senior net-minder Ryan Griffin adding his seventh clean sheet of the season.

Belmont will visit Wilmington on Wednesday, Jan. 26.

Belmont High Girls hang on for sixth victory

A great second period led to a very nervy third as the Belmont High Girls upped its record to 6-4 (5-4 in the league) defeating Burlington High at the Skip, 3-2, as the Marauders’ relied on standout goaltending from Bridget Gray on Seniors Night on Jan. 22.

You could say that Belmont’s forwards “stole” this victory as freshman Sadie Taylor and senior Jaelyn Marchetta intercepted clearing passes in the Burlington end and scored – Taylor’s a rocket from the left circle three minutes into the second while Marchetta grabbed the puck on the penalty kill and put in a shorthand tally late in the same period – to go along with senior Molly Dacey’s second chance opportunity just outside the crease at the four minute mark in the first period.

It was Gray’s stellar play in the final stanza securing the win as Burlington stormed the crease time and time again as the Marauders tired down the stretch. Two of the best saves came in the final 1:40, one off Gray’s helmet and a deflection off her glove with seven ticks left.

Belmont will host Lexington on Friday, Jan. 28 at 5 p.m.

DPW: At First Glance, No Increase In Water, Sewer Rates for Fiscal ‘23

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Photo: Water and sewer rates are likely to stay where they are into fiscal ‘23.

While inflation has reached seven percent over the past 12 months, Belmont property owners will likely have some good news when it comes to the water and sewer rates for the next fiscal year. And that change is no change for the fourth year – as the Director of the Department of Public Work reported to the Select Board on Monday, Jan. 24.

DPW head Jay Marcotte told the board based on discussions with Town Administrator Patrice Garvin and Town Accountant Glen Castro and the current view of the budgets and the level of retained earnings, “we’re potentially looking at another zero percent for [water and] sewer rates.”

The water and sewer rates are traditionally voted on by the Select Board in late March or April when each line item is based on hard and true numbers, said Belmont Select Board Chair Adam Dash.

In terms of the water budget as of the last week in January, the department’s biggest expense – the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority assessment to the town for supplying water which accounts for 43 percent of the budget – is anticipated to fall by approximately five percent from last year’s $3,336,000 valuation, a marked reduction from the nearly 10 percent increase for fiscal ‘22.

”It’s not official yet we are still waiting on the official document [which is delivered in early March] … but from circles of people we know at the MWRA, that’s the estimated number,” said Marcotte. In addition, there is a reduction of $62,850 in MWRA loan payments – now at $854,200 – as the town continues to pay down that line item.

As for the Water Department’s big ticket items in the coming year, the department will spend $250,000 to continue its multi-decade water main project while parceling out $169,000 for equipment replacement.

At the end of January, the water department fiscal ‘23 budget grand total comes in at $7,838,000, up by 1 percent with the department using last year’s MWRA assessment as a placeholder.

”So basically the water budget’s flat when you do all the pluses and minuses,” said Select Board Chair Adam Dash.

Unlike the water budget, sewer “is a different animal … with a variety of pressures,” said Marcotte, including a higher MWRA assessment, larger debt load and far more regulations that puts pressured on expenses.

“There are just more costs associated with sewer,” said Marcotte, pointing to the department needing to transfer $600,000 to the Community Development Office allocated for the town’s sewer and stormwater improvement plan so the town remains in compliance with the federal and state departments of environmental protection.

The MWRA’s sewer assessment is expected to increase by 4.5 percent, said Marcotte. The grand total for sewer in fiscal ‘23 is currently $10,806,000, an increase of $356,500 or 3.8 percent.

The saving grace for residents is the significant level of retained earning for both entities enterprise funds: Marcotte reported that certified retained earning for water is $2,810,724 and $2,894,974 for sewer.

”We try every year to balance the retained earnings and how much we use … to offset rates and that’s why we’ve been lucky enough for the last four years to not have a rate increase,” said Marcotte.

A definition of retained earnings is below:

Massachusetts Department of Revenue

Goodbye Trolleys: MBTA Prepares For Rechargeable Buses On 73 Line By 2024 With 2 Yrs Of Diesel Vehicles Starting In March

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Photo: Goodbye, old friend: The trackless trolley will run for the final time in March.

One of Belmont’s most notable features, the MBTA’s trackless trolley with the accompanying electric wires running nearly the entire length of the town along Belmont Street and Trapelo Road, will be coming to an end in March after more than 60 years in service.

As part of the MBTA’s modernization plan for bus travel, the heavily-used 73 bus line from Harvard to Waverley squares will be serviced by a fleet of new electric-powered buses that will be recharged at the T’s bus service facility in North Cambridge thus making the overhead cables obsolete, said Patrice Garvin, town administrator in a report to the Select Board on Monday, Jan. 24.

The town was notified last week the final trackless trolley trip will travel through Belmont sometime in March, said Garvin.

But until the MBTA completes a two-year refitting of its facility to allow for recharging to take place, Belmont commuters and travelers will be hopping on the authority’s diesel buses, similar to those running on the 75 line from Harvard Square to Belmont Center. At that time, the cables will be removed.

”So [the MBTA is] saying they’re gonna take down the electric wires that run the electric buses to run diesel buses to convert to electric buses which makes zero sense. Welcome to the MBTA,” said Board Chair Adam Dash.

While Dash noted any work to remove the cables will be “massively disruptive” for residents, Community Development Director Glenn Clancy said with his experience with the MBTA on the Trapelo Road Reconstruction project, it’s likely that work will be done at night when volumes are down.

The trackless trolley – a bus retrofitted to use the overhead cables – replaced the historic streetcars in the 1940s that ran on rail tracks along the same route for nearly 75 years. The rails were never removed and lie under the blacktop along the route.

A history of the trackless trolley era in and around Boston – with several mentions of Belmont – can be found on the Boston Streetcars website.

Streetcar #396, built for Boston’s West End Street Railway in 1900. Converted to an electrical test car in 1922, it was sold to the Seashore Trolley Museum in 1954. In 1962, the MTA restored it to its 1915 appearance (BERy livery) for the film The Cardinal, with scenes filmed in Belmont. (Credit: Elizabeth K. Joseph from San Francisco, United States, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Select Board Place More Streets Off Limits To Student HS Parking, Adding Spots Along Concord, Pool

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Photo: The Underwood Pool parking lot will be available for student parking this week.

Based on recommendations from the Middle and High School Traffic Working Group, the Belmont Select Board added three new streets to an expanding number of side streets in which High School students are banned from parking on school days while expending the time the existing “temporary” restricts will be in place by three weeks.

The new streets were added to the inventory of roadways at the board’s Jan. 24 meeting after residents complained their streets were impacted by students migrating from side streets placed under parking restrictions approved by the Select Board on Dec. 20.

“This announcement has generated quite a response,” said Roy Epstein, the Select Board’s vice chair who ran the meeting as Chair Adam Dash recused himself as he lives on one of the streets [Goden Street] under the regulations.

Epstein noted the Task Force recommendations are prompted by resident complaints of student drivers parking along side streets since the opening of the high school wing of the Belmont Middle and High School that is under construction.

“It has created a situation that we had to address. It made the streets dangerous for pedestrians and impassable for vehicles on numerous occasions and we felt we had to act,” said Epstein. The first set of restrictions – no parking from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. beginning on January 3 – were focused on Oak and Orchard streets off the southside of Concord Avenue.

The result of the initial action was students migrated over to nearby Stone and Louise roads. The reaction by those residents were as expected: move the kids.

The new streets with restricted parking bans include:

  • Stone Road,
  • Louise Road from Concord Avenue to the intersection with Emerson Street, and
  • Emerson Street from Concord Avenue to the intersection with Louise Road.

The ban takes effect Jan. 31.

The Board also extended the end date of the trial from Jan. 28 to Feb. 18 to allow the board to consider further recommendations from the Traffic Working Group to be presented on Valentines Day.

But Epstein wanted to make it clear: the committee’s aim is to disperse student parking and not to make it impossible for students to park. In recognition that parking options are being taken off the board on the three streets, the task force made three endorsements to make up for those lost spaces.

The first is to remove the reserved parking spaces on the north (or school) side of Concord Avenue from Underwood Street to the light pole across from Becket Road as “virtually no students have parked there since September,” said Epstein. The school administration provided 100 permits at the beginning of the school year to seniors with corresponding spaces. Yet only 50 to 55 of the spaces are filled on a daily basis, said Lawrence Link, one of the resident members of the working group.

While the committee did not speculate why the spaces were unused, there is some indication that many of the first time drivers find it unnerving to parallel park on a busy roadway such as Concord Avenue during the morning rush hour and feel safer sliding into a space on a quiet side street.

This action will allow more parking along Concord Avenue for students who did not receive permits and the public.

The second and third recommendations are to allow all-day parking in the Underwood Pool lot and on the Concord Avenue pool drop-off area stretching from Myrtle Street to the library exit, freeing up an additional 15 spaces.

While there has been some parents questioning the steps taken by the task force as targeting students, Link believes more parents will “now feel more comfortable because they know spots are available.”

Epstein said the committee’s expectation is to fill in the unused space on Concord Avenue and use new spots near the pool “to accommodate all of the students currently parking on the side streets.” If it becomes evident that more spaces are needed, there is a possibility the task force will recommend a limited number of student drivers via permits to park on side streets, said Epstein.

The adjustments will allow the Task Force ample time to conduct a complete evaluation before presenting final recommendations to the Select Board on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14.