Photo: Adam Dash in focus.

If you’re going to have a campaign event for more than a dozen people in Belmont, it’s going to be in one of two places: the basement of the VFW Hall on Trapelo Road (where the bar is located) or Patou Thai in Belmont Center.

You will soon discover that while each location has its distinct ambiance, they both have one feature in common: they are the worst locations in eastern Massachusetts to take photos. Let’s just say you haven’t experienced tungsten lighting this harsh since they closed the interrogation rooms of Soviet-era prisons in the Ukraine.

But the light fixtures did not deter the 60-plus Belmontians from showing up to hear from Adam Dash as the Goden Street resident officially launched his campaign for a Selectmen’s seat this spring.

The Somerville attorney was there with his wife and younger daughter and campaign staff including co-chairs Ellen Schreiber and Sara Masucci – whom just so happened to be co-chairs of the Yes for Belmont effort that passed the Prop 2 1/2 override two years ago – and its chairman Ralph Jones.

Jones introduced Dash expanding on the candidate’s themes of vision, experience, and action.

“After last week, experience is needed” on the board, said Jones to a significant amount of laughter, not realizing his reference to the departure of Belmont’s Town Administrator David Kale would also be interpreted as a swipe at the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and his team that bungled a recent executive order.

He noted Dash’s membership on the Warrant Committee, Zoning Board of Appeals, Town Meeting and as vice chair of the Underwood Pool Building Committee, “the best building project this town has ever seen.” 

Dash joked to the audience that he has “met a million people or so” (What? Another swipe?) as he walked the streets knocking on doors and listening to residents who told him there needs to be a better way to conduct important town business “and then do it.”

He explained how he and neighbors including former Selectman Anne Marie Mahoney got the town to stop parking on both sides of Goden during high school football games which prevented vehicles from traveling on the narrowed street. 

“But not everyone is plugged in” as he and his neighbors.  

Action should be “top down rather than bottom up” when it comes to government, said Dash, who added that it was easy to just “kick the can” down the road; he would rather take the more challenging course of “getting the stone rolling for change.”

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