Special Town Meeting: Confusion Sinks Senior Center Citizens’ Petition

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Photo: Bob McGaw (left) speaking on the Citizens’ Petition at the Special Town Meeting

A citizens’ petition that would upend the transition of Recreation Department staffers into the Beech Street Center collapsed as Special Town Meeting voted on Wednesday, May 21, to table the Special Town Meeting article after members said the language of the article was “confusing” about what it was proposing to do.

“This is seemingly a simple motion. But, in fact, it’s rather confusing,” said Jack Weis (Precinct 1). “We are being asked to vote for something that is apparently not fully baked, and we haven’t even been given detailed information on what we’re being asked to approve.”

During the Special Town Meeting held on the final night of the annual Town Meeting season, the citizens’ petition—STM Article 3: “To Protect the Beech Street Center”—presented by petitioners Robert McGaw and Paul Joy was the most discussed article this spring. Senior Center supporters raised concerns about a proposal from the town to relocate three recreation personnel and the town’s Veterans Agent from the Homer Building to the Beech Street Center.

Supporters of the status quo believe the transfer violated a 2011 Memorandum of Understanding between the town and the Friends of Belmont Council on Aging in which the primary operation of the Center would be senior-based until 2049 unless Town Meeting by a two-thirds vote authorized a change of use. 

While it received approximately 300 resident signatures, the petition had an uphill battle in its attempt to undo the movement of personnel. The town presented a legal opinion by the Boston law firm Anderson & Kreiger saying that adding three staffers within the administrative offices did not constitute a change of use of the mission of the Senior Center and thus did not trigger the requirement of a two-thirds vote by Town Meeting, said Town Moderator Mike Crowley. 

Even if it came before members, a “yes” vote on the citizens’ petition article would be a “non-binding resolution that expresses an opinion about the [town’s] plan,” according to the Town Council. The town noted that the legal opinion was authored by the same person, Town Council George Hall, who wrote the MOU 15 years before.

Finally, the petition’s wording didn’t assist the petitioner’s case. Claiming the MOU did not specify how to stop changes to the Senior Center, the supporters were asking members to defeat the town’s proposal by voting “no” rather than writing the article where it would seek a “yes” vote.

The debate

Crowley placed a tight hold on the debate by establishing rules, including “experimenting” with a 40-minute limit (with a 20-minute extension if needed) on questions and comments. While saying members can certainly talk about proposed changes and advisability, Crowley said the meeting would not debate the legality of the 2011 memorandum nor question the management structure of the Beech Street Center or how senior services are managed, as all would be deemed out of scope.

Joy (Precinct 7) kicked off the debate by proclaiming Belmont to be more than “just a place. It’s a promise of community, trust, and care for every generation.” He evoked the work of former town meeting member Barbara Miranda, who was a leader in constructing the Senior Center, and how her legacy isn’t just history—”it’s a living promise. The 2011 memorandum is not just legal jargon. It’s Belmont’s word to the people who poured their lives into this town.”

Reiterating the article’s main argument, Joy said the MOU’s requirement that Town Meeting approve a change of use by a 2/3 vote is “not a suggestion, it’s a contract, it’s someone’s word binding us to those that came before and those still to come.” 

“Is it not unreasonable to conclude that these plans come with significant long-term implications,” Joy warned. “We must ask how these changes will affect the seniors’ identity as a senior center over time, especially if recreation expands.”

“So I ask you tonight, from the bottom of my heart, will you stand with them? Will you vote ‘no’ on Article 4 and tell the world that Belmont is a town that listens, that it keeps its word, that it believes in its people.”

McGaw (Precinct 2) pointed to the April 23rd COA meeting, which alarmed seniors and saw them sign the petition “to seek to protect the Senior Center, to keep the town focused on senior needs, to maintain the ability of the Senior Center to provide additional programming, to serve an increasing senior population, which is now over 25 percent of Belmont.” 

“Our position is simply this: if the town wants to convert portions of the Senior Center to other uses, it should follow the process outlined in the 2011 memorandum,” and obtain a 2/3 approval from the Town Meeting, said McGaw.

Select Board Vice Chair Matt Taylor—also the board’s liaison to the Council on Aging—defended the move, saying the Rec Department personnel “time and again” assist in tasks for a short-staffed COA to sustain COA services for seniors. This is a team effort.” 

“What the petitioners saw in April was us collaborating and consulting with the COA” without any demands by the town to create a separate space for the Rec Department staff,” said Taylor. “All of this was to support seniors in programming,” he said.

Taylor also reiterated the board’s support for a trial run of the staffers at the Center, which will monitor, gather data, and ” be responsive to any issues that may arise affecting Senior Services.”

“No one at any time is suggesting or trying to change the primary purpose of the Beech Street Center,” Taylor said. 

After Maryann Scali (Precinct 2) helped define what “junior” seniors and “senior” seniors as she advocated for a no-vote, the first whiff of trouble for the petitioners came from the third speaker, Mary Lewis (Precinct 1), who said she found “this motion … deeply confusing.” Lewis said the article required a no vote to support preventing the proposed alterations, conversion, and use of space at the Center by the Recreation Department staff. But at recent presentations, the town has said it will not be building out areas of the Senior Center, such as creating a new door to accommodate the recreation-related business.

“So if we vote yes, we are affirming something untrue. If we vote no, we are agreeing with something that we might disagree with,” Lewis said, summing up the dilemma facing members.  

“This is fundamentally a decision around the utilization of office space by town departments, and I would submit that a body of 288 people who have been given scant information about this is not the right body and not the right time for us to make a decision about that,” said Weis who said he would be voting “abstain.”

Angus Abercrombie (Precinct 8) was the first of three members who questioned whether the best use of the Beech Street Center would be accomplished by placing restrictions on having recreation personnel in the building. Taylor said that the town has “robbed the Recreation [Department] of staff and attention in order to sustain the services at the COA.” Having the recreation staff in the office space will allow 

Judith Feinleib (Precinct 6), who authored a lengthy online defense of voting no, said the debate isn’t about “all the great things” at the Beech Street Center but rather “whether the nature of the agreement between the town and its citizens, especially seniors, is being changed.” Since she believed it would be, Feinleib said voting no is the only option. 

After Ade Bapista (Precinct 3) attempted to call the question early on —it failed by a wide margin—Ann Marie Mahoney (Precinct 1) went before the microphone to outline the history of the choices and decisions made regarding creating the Beech Street Center.

Mahoney said her message was that “we make choices and that things change,” noting that Chenery Middle School was designed and built for grades five through eight but now houses grades four, five, and six, which have very different requirements. “The Chenery is still a school regardless of which grades are housed, and we’ve adjusted and created a wonderful environment.” 

“I view this reorganization of our department heads and staff as an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for senior programming, not an intrusion or incursion. With careful planning, the primacy of the senior citizens can be respected and promoted at the Beach Street Center, and the vibrancy of recreation opportunities can be added.”

“We make changes. We are one town. We should make changes for the positive. If I can close with my favorite person, Winston Churchill, “To improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often.”

Jean Widmer (Precinct 5) said that as the former School Committee chair, teacher, and educator, she had repeatedly contacted seniors to ask for their support of many Prop 2 1/2 overrides and debt exclusions for the town and schools. “Without the support of those seniors, the overrides would never have passed,” she said, and Town Meeting members should repay that debt by keeping the Center for seniors.

Christine Doyle, (Precinct 6) who is also the chair of the Comprehensive Capital Budget Committee, said no matter where citizens stood on the 2023 override vote, “both sides begged to the town staff and Select Board to look for ways to increase revenues and reduce expenses.”

“In my mind, this potential proposal improves services for constituents and residents, it improves services for employees … and improves space optimization” in several town buildings, said Doyle.

Glenn Wong (Precinct 7) came on Zoom to make a motion to dismiss. His reason for the postponement was the general confusion of the main motion, where a yes vote “did not reflect my understanding of the situation and voting no didn’t [reflect his] understanding from the debate.”

Several members attempted to use the debate to continue advocating, only to have calls of “point of order!” as the body had heard enough. After one hour and 40 minutes, the citizens’ petition was dismissed, 172-68-4.

And the rest of the night

A Special Town Meeting overwhelmingly passed a long-promised Senior and Veterans Tax Relief (STM Article 2), 227-3-1. However, members were far from happy with the details, feeling the amount of relief and the number of elder residents being helped were insufficient compared to the levels of support in cities such as Somerville and Cambridge.

Chair of the Senior Relief Task Force Geoff Lubien admitted to the body that the article was not the easiest to explain, but he got through it. The package is made up of several provisions: 

  • Adopting a state law providing an additional real estate exemption for taxpayers,
  • Adjust the veteran’s exemption to the state’s inflation rate,
  • Adopting a second state law allowing residents to pay less in taxes if their exemption is greater than the previous year, 
  • Provide a statutory exemption for low-income seniors with limited assets of $40,000,
  • Reduce the minimum eligibility age from 70 to 65.

Only 21 homeowners are currently taking advantage of the town’s existing program, but Lubein said that number is “the foundation of the future program.” 

Liz Allison (Precinct 3) asked how much the new program would cost the town and where it would be made up. Lubien said the immediate impact could be up to $50,000 in maximum benefits. The Select Board’s Matt Taylor said the Board of Assessors Overlay account – a state-required withholding to cover abatements and exemptions – will pay for the expense. Jack Weis (Precinct 2) said the amount in relief would have an “inconsequential marginal impact” on the town’s $150 million operational budget, so as “a matter of fairness,” it should pass. 

Town Administrator Patrice Garvin presented STM Article 4 on using $600,000 released from the Board of Assessors Overlay account for three one-time funding needs:

  • $100,000 to the Conservation Commission towards work required to establish a conservation restriction for Rock Meadow,
  • $275,000 to the Capital Stabilization Fund, and 
  • $225,000 to begin a playing field maintenance program.

Speaking on the first motion, Conservation Commission Chair Chris Morris said the funds will go towards resource mapping, title research, and creating a master plan for the popular conservation area—which includes the town’s Victory Garden—which will result in the land being placed under a conservation restriction, a legal agreement designed to permanently protect the conservation values of a property by defining allowed uses.

“This is step one … of all the work that will require us to be good stewards of this property and to actively maintain it appropriately,” said Morris.

Anyone who has walked or played on the town’s 23 acres of parks and playing fields will know “deteriorating conditions are becoming more evident to users each day,” said Town Administrator Patrice Garvin. The reduction of DPW staff, budget constraints, the continuous activity by youth athletics teams, and the damage from unrestricted dog use have resulted in the town “triaging our fields rather than maintaining them with a formal plan,” she said.

With an infusion of $225,000, the town proposes “ramping up maintenance by outsourcing professional expertise” to help the fields recover from years of deferred upkeep and “allow for a better understanding of usage patterns and long-term sustainability,” said Garvin.

“This is not a short-term fix. It’s the beginning of a smarter, more sustainable building management strategy that addresses past conduct and sets up the future,” she said.

Ira Morganstern (Precinct 7) asked if this plan is the best use of town funds, saying it’s not clear what the true cost of this long-term program will be.

Yes,” answered Garvin. “We have to start somewhere.”

Taken together, the three measures were approved 208-4-2. 

Back to the Town Meeting for a final article, the Community Preservation Committee approved $472,338 to revitalize the West of Harris Field softball field and effectively complete the Middle and High School campus. The restored JV softball diamond and grass soccer and field hockey pitch have been discussed for years by the School Committee that controls the field. Work will begin this fall, just as the rink construction is completed, with an opening date of Spring 2026.

Peg Callahan (Precinct 7) reiterated a point made by several members that the only reason the town is picking up the nearly half-million dollar tab for the renovation is that the Middle and High School Building Committee “completely abandoned” the $3 million reconstruction of the fields it had promised to complete as part of the original 2018 plan approved in a $213 million debt exclusion approved by voters.

“Fitzie” Cowing (Precinct 8), who is a strong proponent of youth sports, proclaimed, “I’m really sorry softball” when she said she’d be voting no as she believed that the funding “is an expenditure of community funds without a community process.” Had there been a public engagement on WoHF, citizens would have shown a lack of support, as the town can not maintain the current fields. Rather, the town should invest in “turf” or synthetic fields to take the burden off grass fields.

Chris Doyle said that under current state restrictions, a turf field can not seek Conservation Preservation Commission funding. Thus, any synthetic surface pitch, which would cost nearly $2 million to install, must be in the CCBC’s inventory, which is backlogged with a slew of projects, including replacing the Harris Field turf in two years at $1.9 million. 

Instead, Doyle advised the Town Meeting to “grab the money and run” from the CPC, but continue the dialogue to obtain the needed turf pitch.

The WoHF measure passed 167-19-5, and with the clock reading 11:23 p.m., the Town Meeting came to a quiet end. It will be back for the fall Special in October.

Town Meeting Day Three: Clean Sweep For CPC Proposals

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Photo: Chair Aaron Pikcilingis, Community Preservation Committee  

It was CPC Night on the third session of Belmont’s annual Town Meeting as six of the eight applications from the Community Preservation Committee were overwhelmingly approved by the members at the meeting held Monday, May 12, at the Belmont High School auditorium. One proposal was removed for future consideration, and another will be voted on at the Special Town Meeting on May 21.

“The main thing we do is review applications for funding of the Community Preservation Act,” said the committee’s new Chair, Aaron Pikcilingis. 

He pointed out that this year “is a little unusual, due mainly to a change in our policy about how much money – about $5 million – we hold in reserve. There is more money available this year … In future years, we’ll return to having about a year’s revenue available.”

Pikcilingis said CPA funding has reached $20.5 million since voters passed the measure in 2011 – $15.5 million from the real estate surcharge and $4.5 million in state contribution—with the CPC sending $4.9 million in projects this year to the Town Meeting. 

The list of Community Preservation Committee projects (italics indicates project not receiving a vote; Bold indicatesa vote on Wednesday, May 21)

Amount10 percent Reserve Project NameCategory
$ 2,000,000$ 200,000Chenery Park Renovation – Phase 2Open Space/ Recreation
$ 100,000Clay Pit Pond Walking Path – Full Design with Construction Document and DrawingsOpen Space/ Recreation
$ 429,433$ 42,900West of Harris Softball FieldOpen Space/ Recreation
$ 650,000Predevelopment Planning for Redevelopment of Belmont VillageCommunity Housing
$ 60,000Complete Restoration of “Burial Hill” Original Cemetery – DesignHistoric Preservation
$ 550,396$ 55,000Homer Building Restoration (Town Hall Annex)Historic Preservation
$ 750,000$ 75,000Restore Failed Retaining Wall, Town HallHistoric Preservation

The night began with a visit from State Rep. Dave Rogers who discussed the upcoming Fiscal ’26 state budget – thatincludes critical local aid to municipalities – and how it will be affected by “a high level of uncertainties” coming from the Trump administration and slower than expected state growth. “Things were level funded that might have otherwise gottenincreased,” said Rogers.

That being said, Rogers said his year’s House Budget has increased Chapter 70 funding for K-12 received a 5.6 percent increase via the new “millionaires” surtax passed by voters last year. He also highlighted his efforts to increase funding for immigrant legal defense to hire attorneys to represent those in deportation proceedings, including “some whose due process rights may not be being observed.”

Rogers said he tries to find a few bucks in the budget to direct to the town. “While I can’t get a ton of money, I fight for earmarks for Belmont,” Rogers said. These include:

  • $75,000 for renovations – adding a fifth court – to the Winn Brook tennis courts.
  • $75,000 to expand the town’s tree canopy.

There were also two earmarks from the state’s supplement budget – that’s the millionaire’s surtax – including:

  • $75,000 for sidewalk safety improvements.
  • $100,000 towards the Chenery Park revitalization.

Warrant Committee Chair Paul Rickter gave a standard overview of the fiscal ’26 budget, including how the $166.2 million budget is segmented (education receives 43 percent or $70.9 million) and some historical context, such as the fact that exempted debt has increased by 247 percent in the past 12 years, from $4.8 million to $16.6 million. 

But what Rickter stressed in his report was the importance of the “revenue-first balanced budget” process, first used by town and school budget writers for the fiscal ’25 budget, a development he and the committee were “overjoyed” to see being used as it created a disciplined approach to the process.

“Keep doing it,” advised Rickter. 

The projects

The CPC approved and sent to the Town Meeting a request for $650,000 allocated to Belmont Village, one of Belmont’s three public housing projects. The funds will go to complete the conceptual design for the revitalization of the nearly 70-year-old development, with the opportunity to double the number of units to 200 apartments on the 6.6-acre site. In 2020, the Town Meeting approved $173,000 in an initial request. 

With the funding, site planning work will kick off in the summer with a study draft by the end of the year. An additional $1.2 million will then be needed for final architectural and engineering plans, consultants’ fees, and extra costs to finish the pre-development phase.

Gloria Leipzig, chair of the Belmont Housing Trust, which sponsored the measure, told the members that their support for the redevelopment efforts at Belmont Village and Sherman Gardens “will provide housing for our residents, seniors, those with disabilities, and families. And very importantly, we’ll also create additional and much-needed affordable housing here in Belmont.” 

Matt Zajac of the Cambridge Housing Authority—which has partnered with Belmont as a co-developer of the Belmont Housing Authority’s sites since 2021 —said that after the study is completed, the BHA/CHA can begin to leverage state and federal financing sources. He said that it will take three, five, or ten years before construction will take place.

During the questions, members asked about spending funds on a project in which millions of dollars in funding will be required to upgrade units and construct new structures that have not been secured. “Is there any visibility for funding sources to carry out these plans? Otherwise, this is income transfer to white-collar professionals, not improvements in the affordable housing conditions,” asked Liz Allison (Precinct 3). Zajac replied that the most likely potential funding source will be the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program.

Some members were disappointed that the CPC wasn’t banking the funding remaining in this year’s housing “bucket” for future housing requests. Angus Abercrombie, Precinct 8, said he would vote against the other CPC measures—despite being in favor of their approval—as a symbolic protest against the town’s inaction. 

The measure passed 222-6-3.

Laura Burnes and Nicole O’Connell, Friends of Chenery Park

The biggest ticket item before members Monday was $2 million—$200,000 from the CPA and $1.8 million from the undesignated fund balance—to renovate the dilapidated Chenery Upper Middle School grounds and play area. This request came on top of a $1 million CPC request approved by the Town Meeting last year for construction costs and $300,000 for the project’s design and engineering.

Laura Burnes and Nicole O’Connell, the co-chairs of the Friends of Chenery Park, said the groundwork for this application to redo the nearly quarter-century-old field and playground with outreach to the community, sports leagues, and the town to develop an overview of the project. When the first chunk of funding was received in 2024, the Friends began holding community engagement events to collect data and comments on what the public wanted to see in the project.

On Monday, the Friends presented a final design dubbed the Play Sandwich, in which sports programming is the “bread” and the play area is the “middle” filling. “We’ve got lots of multi-sports use … tennis as well as street hockey and soccer and basketball, but the space can also accommodate volleyball and badminton,” said O’Connell. The main field holds two renovated softball diamonds. 

While the request totals a whopping $3.3 million, the project had broad support. Many members said visiting the site would convince those initially skeptical to support the measure. Just as crucial to its passage was Burnes and O’Connell’s well-planned public participation blueprint, which allowed the wider community to enthusiastically buy in on the project. Future large projects would be wise to use the Friends playbook as a template for a successful campaign.

The Chenery playground renovation – which begins this summer – passed 222-5-1.

Facilities Director Dave Blazon says the Homer Building restoration will allocate $550,396 to repair and replace deteriorating architectural elements. The bill passed 222-7-6.

Restoring the failed Town Hall retaining wall so the ramp and stairs on the Concord Avenue entrance don’t collapse, said Blazon. Members, by a 231-6-4 margin, thought spending $850,000 for the job was a good thing.

The commissioning of a design to completely restore the “Burial Hill” area of Belmont Cemetery got out of the CPC by a single vote, 4-3-1, which usually spells trouble for a measure. However, the request was initiated by resident Ron Sacco, who told DPW Director Jay Marcotte this past August of his difficulty finding an ancestor’s grave in the northeast corner of Belmont Cemetery, which holds its oldest internments. Upon inspection, the steep incline was overgrown and deteriorating, making identifying the exact locations of graves impossible. 

When Sacco asked the DPW if it could “start digging,” Marcotte said he had a better plan and approached a consultant. A design plan focusing on headstone repairs and restoration, searching for missing headstones, erosion control, and vegetation options would cost $60,000. This would be followed by a CPC request in 2026 for the still-to-be-determined cost of the construction.

What closed the deal was that Sacco’s relative is buried among veterans. When a member didn’t believe the request was “a wise use of funds because somebody can’t find this relative” as it would “[set] a precedent which is not good,” Ann Marie Mahoney (Precinct 1) rose to say “as the daughter, spouse and mother of veterans, we owe these people no matter how many hundreds of years ago they were down for we owe them the restoration and the appropriate care.”

“It’s also for the respect for everyone that made a commitment and the expectation that they will be taken care of basicallyforever. And it’s just respect for the dead and to care for those that entrusted us to take care of the burial site forever,” said Mahoney.

The measure passed 218-10-8.

The issue with the Clay Pit Pond Walking Path is that while nearly 2/3 of the trail has been completed, the remaining path clashes with an established asphalt lane bordering Belmont Middle and High School. The town didn’t believe the Town Meeting would approve the Conservation Commission’s request to seek a parallel footpath. For allowing the town to remove the request, the town is proposing to an request seeking a parallel footpath. For allowing the town to remove the request, the town is proposing to allocate an equivilant amount towards improvements at Rock Meadow Conservation Land.

League Of Women Voters, Warrant Committee Host Warrant Briefing On Town Meeting Articles

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Photo: The Warrant Briefing is Monday, April 28

The Belmont League of Women Voters and the Warrant Committee will be holding the traditional Warrant Briefing on Monday, April 28, at 7:30 p.m.

The briefing, held prior to the annual Town Meeting starting on Monday, May 5, will be a virtual meeting to discuss and ask questions of articles to town officials and department heads. Paul Rickter, chair of the Warrant Committee will host the informational session.

Viewing Options:

Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85272057494 

Meeting ID: 852 7205 7494

Live broadcast: Belmont Ch 8 (Comcast); Ch 28 (Verizon)

On-demand: belmontmedia.org/govtv

Paul Rickter
Chair of the Warrant Committee will preside

Cosponsored by: the Warrant Committee and the

Annual Town Meeting Warrant Set By Select Board, All In One Session With A Hybrid Twist

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Photo: The town prepares for the annual Town Meeting

It’s said that you can’t tell who the players are without a scorecard, and you can’t tell what’s going on at Town Meeting without the warrant.

Now, the members and public are all set to attend. On Thursday, April 10, the Belmont Select Board voted unanimously to sign off on this year’s annual Town Meeting beginning on May 5. Other dates for the Town Meeting include May 7, 12, 14, 19, and 21.

This year’s meeting will set precedence by taking place over a single, three-week session, as opposed to the decade-long bifurcated assembly, when the meeting was divided into a May general session followed in June by the budget articles.

“We’re entering into an experiment, and it is an experiment to do a single session,” said Select Board Chair Elizabeth Dionne, who said the final number of articles could reach 26. She said the change came down to a pair of considerations: A budget segment scheduled in mid-June prevented the town from closing its books in a timely fashion on June 30. The second reason is to “ease pressure on people’s schedules in June.” 

This year, we will also see the introduction of a hybrid meeting that allows members to attend online. The option in attending was a chief election promise of Mike Crowley, the newly-elected Town Moderator.
The select board has supported and will support a hybrid town meeting, said Dionne, noting it will be a “very ambitious agenda” as it will take place with a new town IT director, Chris McClure, and Crowley in place. While Belmont will employ a mixed meeting, nearby towns, such as Arlington and Needham, remain on-site only. 

But Dionne said her one caveat in supporting the hybrid meeting will be if the members believe the benefit of not meeting in June is worth the pain in May. “So this is a one-year experiment.”

The list of articles before members includes appropriations, the first of two parts in repairing the Chenery Upper Elementary school roof, the seven Community Preservation Committee projects, a lengthy flood plain district zoning bylaw, and a slew of articles that appear every year on the warrant.

Article 16 is to approve a four-year term to finance the purchase of iPads, which the school district has targeted. Dionne noted there had been social media “chatter” questioning the “found money” as any extra one-time funds should be made available for the fiscal year 2026 town budget, which is anticipated to increase by 2.5 percent as opposed to the 5.8 percent rise in the school’s budget. Dionne explained that the money was found during a “clean-up” of the town’s book from check-offs on residents’ property tax bills directed to schools. 

“So in some ways, it is found money. But it was originally meant to be spent on school projects,” said Dionne. 

A significant article before the approximate 290 Town Meeting members is senior tax relief, an important pledge by the Select Board to ease the tax burden on homeowners after voters passed the Proposition 2 1/2 override in 2024.

“The very diligent [senior tax relief] working group had brought us a number of articles that I think we all enthusiastically support,” said Dionne, including a mix of volunteering at town departments and donations by residents to assist qualified elder homeowners. 

The senior tax relief will be discussed in a special town meeting within the regular meeting, as the town legal counsel requires a little more time to discuss last-minute changes. 

Another article in the special will be to release the overlay funds within the assessor’s department. This reserve budget line has built up over time so that some of the funds can be released to the town for one-time bills. 

A single citizen’s petition will come before Town Meeting requesting the Select Board to file a Home Rule Petition with the state legislature granting Belmont the authority to prohibit or restrict the use of second-generation phosphides to control rats. If passed, it would allow a future Town Meeting to prohibit the poisoning by the town. Sponsored by the Belmont Citizen Forum, the article points out the evidence rodents that ingest the poison can harm and kill predators who feed on rats. Currently, the town’s departments have rejected the use of poison.

The Select Board will likely bring a late attempt to bring a second citizens’ petition to ease restrictions and increase the number of liquor licenses to stimulate business activity in the fall special town meeting.