BREAKING: Another Delay for Cushing Village; Now It’s Starbucks Missing Lease

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Photo: Starbucks lack of a lease causes another delay. 

After a contentious meeting Friday morning, it appears Belmont town officials would rather the corporate suits at Starbucks’ Seattle headquarters switch from drinking the decaf Caffè Lattes to the high power Clover Brewed Coffee with espresso shots when they are closing real estate deals.

On what should have been a historic day for Belmont and the future of the troubled 167,000 sq.-ft. Cushing Village project turned into a frustrating case of deja vu as the Belmont Board of Selectmen approved Friday, Sept. 30 to push back by three weeks the closing date of the sale of the municipal parking lot adjacent Trapelo Road.

Initially, the town expected developer Pennsylvania-based Toll Brothers to execute the purchase and sale of the lot with a check ($1 million less any credits to the company) heading into town coffers. But it became apparent after returning from an executive session on Sept. 20, the selectmen had little choice but move the expiration date for the final closing to Friday, Oct. 21. 

Bu unlike past issues, it was not actions by the developer, Toll Brothers, nor the town necessitating the delay. In fact, they have been ready to “seal the deal” days earlier. Rather it is officials at one of the leading retail corporations worldwide who are dragging their feet much like many of their Monday morning customers. 

According to Belmont’s Town Counsel George Hall, the delay is due to a lack of a new lease from Starbucks corporate headquarters that spells out a multiyear agreement between Toll and the coffee giant on yearly payments and the location of the cafe. It will also spell out what financial compensation Toll would provide Starbucks if at any point the store would be forced to shut down during construction.

Hall said the lease “is also integral to the transaction between Toll and the former developer Smith Legacy Partners” which still owns four parcels – including the old S.S. Pierce and A&P/CVS locations – that will make up most of the project’s footprint. 

Since Toll can not move forward with knowledge of the primary tenant, the closing has been held hostage to Starbucks’ inaction. 

“Starbucks is a very large company with many sites … and they move on their own schedule,” said Hall, suspecting the new lease will arrive “hopefully in a few business days but we have no controls over the parties.” 

With all the paperwork complete, deeds ready to be passed and funds transferred a compromise called an “escrow closing” has been agreed to between the town and Toll Brothers. 

Much like a standard real estate closing, all the relative signed documents – including the town’s land development agreement and the deeds to the four parcels currently held by Smith Legacy – and the several payments dated for Friday will be delivered by 5 p.m. to a Westborough attorney who is the escrow agent.

“The agent is ready to go to the Registry of Deeds to record the documents and disburse the funds as soon as he’s given the go-ahead to do so once Toll when it takes the property of the new lease,” said Hall.

“All parties will have to agree for this escrow to move forward,” he said. 

Not that everyone was enthralled with the last-minute arrangement.

“Of course this is frustrating because we’d like to know that by the end of today the funds would have been into our account,” said Selectmen Vice Chair Sami Baghdady. 

While he would be more comfortable if Toll committed “hard money” into Belmont’s bank account, said Baghdady, “but I feel we have made a leap and it would be a shame if we did not support this deal and risk Cushing Square being in its current condition for eight or ten years [until it is] redeveloped.”

Tennis Players, Rejoice: Selectmen Backing Reconstruction of Grove Courts

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Photo: The drone view of the Grove Street Playground tennis courts.

Belmont residents could soon see another set of tennis courts undergo a complete renovation as the Board of Selectmen voted at its Monday night meeting, Sept. 26, to sponsor a proposal before the Community Preservation Committee to replace the courts at the Grove Street Playground.

The project adjacent Dalton Road, which will cost $336,000, is the third of three repairs to tennis courts town-wide the board has backed in recent years. Work is set for the Winn Brook courts adjacent to the elementary school and Joey’s Park at Cross Street while the renovation of the Pequosette Park courts has been completed. 

The new courts, which will include replacing the surface and laying a new foundation, are expected to last for up to 20 years, said David Kale, Belmont town administrator.   

The project still needs the approval of the Community Preservation Committee and finally Town Meeting in May 2017. 

Selectmen Question Proposed Liquor License Transfer to Star Market

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Photo: The Loading Dock’s Fuad Mukarker (left center, arms folded) before the Belmont Board of Selectmen Monday. 

At a meeting that grew more impassioned as the night wore on, the owner of a Belmont business came before the Belmont Board of Selectmen on Monday evening, Sept. 19, seeking its approval of a deal that could change the face of alcohol licensing in Belmont for years to come.

Before the three-member board was the unlikely pairing of Fuad Mukarker, the owner of the popular dining location The Loading Dock on Brighton Street and the regional supermarket heavyweight, Star Market, which Mukarker is hoping to transfer his business’ full-liquor license for $400,000 in “compensation.” 

Bringing hundreds of signatures and approximately 40 supporters to make passionate pleas allow their “friend and neighbor” to bank nearly half a million dollars for the license the town provided him almost 18 months ago, the selectmen were noticeably wary of possibly creating a precedent of rubber stamping a deal that disregards what the three said is the all-important application process.

“This is not about [Mukarker],” said Mark Paolillo, Selectmen chair who said the board would attempt to help him continue operating the Mediterannian-theme cafe that has received excellent reviews in local media. ‘This is about the applicant [Star Market].” 

The town established retail “to provide a license to local business such as the Loading Dock” and not to provide “Star Market with 2,000 sq.-ft. of alcohol sales.” 

“So I’m uncomfortable with the transfer,” said Paolillo. “I’m leaning to deny this.” 

That did not sit well with some members of the public.

“Can we help out an average small time guy. Can we do the right thing here?” said Stephen Kerins, of Sandrick Road and Precinct 8 Town Meeting member. 

After another resident had suggested the board was unfairly targeting the store/cafe, Paolillo lashed out uncharacteristically to the citizen. (He would later apologize via a Facebook posting to the resident.)

While the transfer of a license is a standard business practice across the Commonwealth – last month the Selectmen approved one to the new owner of Vintages in Belmont Center – the issue is the location and who benefits from the transaction.

Full alcohol licenses are coveted by merchants as only two are set aside for retail/store operations in Belmont. The number was purposely limited in an attempt to discourage large retail liquor stores coming to Belmont. 

The selectmen said the intention of past town meetings which approved the lifting of the 140-year ban on alcohol in the late 1990s was to use the licenses approved by the state legislature to “create economic diversity in vulnerable communities and not to establish package stores in Belmont,” said Paolillo. 

The last time a new license was presented in 2014, Mukarker beat out applications from Waltham-based D&L Liquors and the Craft Beer Cellar of Belmont Center to sell beer, wine and spirits at his store, The Loading Dock, which the Belmont resident transformed from a White Hen Pantry franchise and later an independent convenience store.

Star Market’s attorney Joseph Hanley, a partner at Boston-based McDermott, Quilty & Miller, noted that it is “common custom” for the owner of the license to be “compensated” for the purchase and sale of his license. 

“This happens in towns and cities in the Commonwealth routinely,” said Hanley.
 
Hanley said his review of Belmont’s 2014 Home Rule petition that provided for full alcohol licensing indicated no prohibition on transfers which the could have included two years ago but did not.
 
“We are here to provide economic and community development in the town of Belmont,” said Hanley, noting several times that Star Market has been a fixture in town for a quarter century and is about to undergo a $2.4 million renovation in which the transfer is an essential component.
 
Handley said with this investment into the store, “customers will come to expect a certain amount of amenities, and the alcohol license is critical to that [economic development] and folks who live in this town,” said Hanley.
 
Handley said the Belmont store has an experience manager in Steve Duran who ran the Cambridge store which has a thriving retail liquor operation. Additionally, the four current Star locations in Massachusetts – in Cambridge, Franklin and two in Boston – has been cited by the state’s alcohol control board just once in a decade for a violation of sales to minors.
 
With this transfer, the area of alcohol sales will triple from 700 to 20,000 sq.-ft. (although Handley believes the actual square footage to be utilized is far less) and move from a fledgling business area along Brighton Road to Waverley Square, a highly-traveled location in Belmont.
 
Asked why Star did not apply for a license in 2014, Duran said the company was limited to four licenses in Massachusetts due to state statute protecting small liquor retailers from large entities that have greater pricing advantages. That ceiling has been raised recently, allowing the corporation to pursue these licenses.

A $400,000 lifeline

While the transfer would be a great addition to a newly remodeled store, the transaction would be a lifeline for Mukarker, who indicated Monday that he needs the $400,000 to “keep the Loading Dock afloat” as the turns around his operation into a full-time restaurant.
 
Mukarker told the board “I loved this license from day one” and always wanted to keep it. But due to money spent on the building and other expenses, the former banker who became the owner of White Hen Pantry that once stood on the site needed some way to increase sales at the cafe. 
 
Determining that serving beer and wine with meals would meet his cash flow issue, Mukarker applied to the town for a beer and wine “pour” license that he could use at his expanding restaurant. 
 
But according to Mukarker, just days before his “pour” application was to be presented before the Selectmen earlier this year, his attorney was told by Belmont’s Town Counsel George Hall about “an absurd law” from 1964 preventing retail owners to have both a retail and pour license in the same establishment. (Selectman Jim Williams would later say that calling a state law “absurd” “is a silly one. It’s on the books, and we don’t do things that violate the law.”)
 
Hall, who attended Monday’s meeting, told the Selectmen a state’s high court ruling of a Cambridge case confirmed the law’s intent preventing such a dual arrangement.

When he heard  the decision, Mukarker said the full liquor license “was like hot lava in my hand; I wanted to get rid of it.”

Mukarker proceeded to reach out to both Foodies – the supermarket slated for a 2017 opening in Belmont Center – and D&L, which the selectmen rejected two years ago, but could not come up with a deal. With limited options before him, Mukarker received a call from Star Market. 

Later in the meeting, Mukarker said the transfer “is a crucial thing” and any delay in the conveyance “has a lot of bad implications for the business.”

While for Mukarker, Star and the residents in the audience, the license transfer is a win-win-win for the Loading Dock, the local supermarket, and fans of great meals, the implications of signing off on the deal looks dicier from the other side of the conference table, according to the Selectmen.

One issue that troubled the selectmen was when Hanley told Selectman Sami Baghdady that a list of restrictions placed on the license in 2014 preventing the sale of tobacco products and lottery tickets at the location “do not transfer automatically … with the license.” Hanley attempted to placate the board by saying lottery sales and tobacco products would be sold far from the alcohol area.

Paolillo told Hanley the restrictions have “always been a condition that we have taken in consideration on rewarding all license.” 

“Very consistent.”

“I understand your point of not transferring, but if you have watched our public hearings, we have been very consistent with this board in rewarding licenses,” said Paolillo. 

Hanley countered by saying that Star would follow each of the standard conditions the selectmen placed on the all-liquor license presented to Foodies including a detailed alcohol sales plan and a ban on the sale of kegs, single bottles and flashing neon lights.

But when it came to lottery and tobacco, “we would ask for, after 25 years, a little bit of flexibility with respect to the current restrictions,” said Hanley. Later, Dolan said the store would drop cigarettes from the store with the transfer. 

Mukarker said he understands Star’s reluctance to accept the limitations, saying he lost “over 50 percent” of his customers by giving up his lottery and tobacco businesses, a comment Paolillo found wanting of sympathy. 

“You’re saying that we put a burden on you when we granted you this license? That was a huge benefit to you,” said Paolillo.

“If I knew what was going to happen [accepting the license], I would have not even applied for [the all-liquor license],” said Mukarker.

To those who spoke – overwhelmingly for the transfer and in support of Mukarker – any delay in allowing the transaction to take place was threatening the livelihood of a local family and denying the public an opportunity to purchase alcohol in a convenient location.

“This is a no-brainer,” said Erin Lubien of Unity Avenue. “There are things we do in Belmont that are just difficult for business owners. They are families who live here … who employ our people here. You have to do this,” she said to loud applause. 

But it appeared a majority of selectmen were unwilling to OK the transfer without further discussion and input from more residents and businesses.

“We need to continue the hearing and talk to Star Market some more,” said Williams. 

Mukarker’s attorney Thomas Orlandi informed the board of his client’s displeasure for not voting immediately to approve the transfer, noting “you are elected officials” not to ignore the people in the gallery and the numerous signatures in support.

“We also represent the entire community,” said Paolillo. 

After Williams had explained the delay, Orlandi said that considerable amount of money had been spent by Star Market on architectural designs while Mukarker needs the transfer funds to continue his business. 

“How can you rely on the transfer [funds] when it hasn’t been approved?” wondered Williams. “I think as a matter of business practice, you should not rely on an approval unless you have it.”  

As Orlandi and Williams bickered, the public began chiming in and the meeting came close to resembling a cable news debate. Paolillo then stepped forward to tell everyone to “calm down.”

With everything that needed to be said, the Selectmen scheduled an additional meeting on Oct. 3 to finalize a decision on the possible transfer. 

Toll Bros. Agrees to Parking Lot Sale Sept. 30; Cushing Village Under Way

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Photo: Cushing Village.

If you were not listening for it, the announcement would have quietly passed by without much notice.

But the news from the Board of Selectmen on Monday, Sept. 19, that national developer Toll Brothers will sign the purchase and sale agreement to obtain the municipal parking lot adjacent Trapelo and Williston roads on Sept. 30, has brought to an effective end more than three years of delays and controversey that has haunted Cushing Village, the 164,000 sq.-ft. apartment/retail/parking complex set to be built in the heart of Belmont’s Cushing Square.

After a brief unceremonial signing of the documents by the selectmen concerning easement rights and updated land and parking agreements, the town will wait for a check for reportedly $1 million while Toll will soon retain the deed to the property, said Town Consel George Hall. 

“This is the light at the end of the tunnel we have been waiting for,” said Belmont Selectmen Chair Mark Paolillo.

There was no representative at the signing from Toll Brothers’ Apartment Living subsidiary that will construct and own the property for the Horsham, Penn.-based firm.

It is believed demolition of the existing structures on the site – the former S.S. Pierce & Co. building at the corner of Common and Trapelo and the First National/CVS at Common and Belmont – will proceed within the next two months. Speculation is that Starbucks, which is adjacent to the parking lot and is a key tenant for the new complex, will continue to operate at its location for the time being. 

Bill Lovett, a senior development manager at Toll Brothers’ Apartment Living, said in August the earliest date for construction to begin on Cushing Village is late spring of 2017 with a completion date of the summer of 2019.

The development consists of three separate buildings with approximately 38,000 square feet of commercial space, 115 dwellings units – 60 two-bedroom units and 55 one-bedroom unit – and 225 parking spaces including 50 municipal spaces provided as a result of the sale of the municipal parking lot.  The development will also include 12 affordable housing units.

After more than two-and-a-half years of delays and broken promises to begin construction, the long-troubled multiuse development was sold in March to Toll Brothers which purchase of the project’s development rights and two land parcels from the original owner, Smith Legacy Partners.

It was Smith Legacy which shepherd the project through an 18-month permiting process, winning the right to build the complex in July 2013. But a failure to find the necessary funding doomed the project for the owner.

Toll Partners With Former Owner To Lease Cushing Village’s Retail Space

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Photo: Bill Lovett,  a senior development manager at Toll’s Apartment Living, before the Board of Selectmen.

It wasn’t the one-month extension the town gave Toll Brothers to close on the municipal parking lot adjacent Trapelo Road critical to the building of the long-delayed Cushing Village project that created the big buzz at the Belmont Board of Selectmen meeting on Monday, Aug. 22.

It was who the new developer is partnering with on a significant feature of the $80 million project that was a total surprise to the nearly dozen residents who sacrificed a beautiful summer evening to attend the meeting at Belmont’s Town Hall.

Chris Starr, the Bedford resident who spent almost a decade of his life attempting to construct the three building complex before giving up and relinquishing the site to the Pennsylvania -based firm, will either control “whole or in part” the leasing of 38,000 sq.-ft. of retail space in the new development.

Revealed by the Selectmen at the meeting, the news of Starr’s return to the project that he failed to complete was a startling announcement to those in attendance.

“This just didn’t make much sense at all,” said Doug Koplow of Oak Avenue.

Bill Lovett,  a senior development manager at Toll’s Apartment Living – a relatively new whole-owned subsidiary within the Horsham, Penn.-based firm – would only say the details for the company’s arrangement with Starr are in the new draft Land Development Agreement, the nuts and bolts legal document describing what will occur during the construction.

The LDA notes Starr’s involvement as taking “whole or part” of the commercial portion of the project once the space is built out and the town has provided a temporary certification of occupancy. The earliest that will take place is at least two years away.

Speculation of Starr’s return leans towards Toll’s expertise in the residential development yet having little knowledge of commercial leasing. Having spent the better part of a year attempting to land a big retail operation for his project, Starr’s contacts would be seen as valuable to Toll. 

Some residents expressed a worry that Starr’s background – during his tenure he could not put together the necessary financing to build the project nor find an anchor store for the site – could lead to further troubles for the project.

“[Starr] hasn’t shown much competence when he had Cushing Village and I don’t see much changing,” said Rita Butzer Carpenter of Precinct 6.

But for Selectmen Chair Mark Paolillo – who said the board was equally “surprised” by the arrangement between the present and past owners – a new near-luxury development on three town blocks at the intersection of Common and Trapelo would be a draw for most commercial retailers.

“We have the confidence that the commercial space will be very appealing to a wide range of retailers once [Cushing Village] is built,” said Paolillo. “It will be a very beautiful place to be located, and you’ll have 115 units of people who are customers inside the building.” 

Before the Starr bombshell landed, most residents were eager to hear why Toll was seeking to an extension on the deadline for the parking lot purchase and, as Lovett noted, seeking next month before the Planning Board to move the deadline for the Special Permit on Dec. 3 up by several months.

In March when Toll Brothers took tentative control of the project’s development rights from Starr, Lovitt sought and received a six-month extension, until Aug. 26, to sign the Purchase and Sale for the municipal parking lot.

Since then, the firm has been performing environmental tests and other audits as part of the company’s due diligence of the site and past agreements.

Lovett said the company’s reviews “just took a bit longer than anticipated.” The delay forced Toll to push back the start of its negotiations with “a retail component” (i.e., Starbucks), said Lovitt.

“We needed to dot the ‘Is’ and cross the ‘Ts’ before moving forward,” said Lovett.

While the added month may, as Selectman Jim Williams noted, be standard fare for a project of this size and past difficulties, one selectman was less than pleased.

“I feel let down by you,” Selectman Sami Baghdady told Lovett, who said that many residents saw Toll as the “white knight” when it rescued the project in March.

“There are many frustrated people as you can tell,” Baghdady said of those in the audience, wondering what assurances does the town have that Toll will not come back in the third week in September “asking for more time?”

Lovett said the company has spent “thousands of dollars” in preconstruction costs and is eager to add Cushing Village to its portfolio of projects including a completed apartment complex in Westborough and one soon to be under construction in Natick.

While saying Toll Brothers “will not find [another extension] here” should it come back in a month with the similar request, Paolillo said the added time “is our last best chance” at guiding the project towards construction.

“There is not option B,” he said as the extension was approved. 

Cushing Village Deal With Town ‘Close’ As Deadline Looms

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Photo: Cushing Village.

Will the final chapter of the saga known as Cushing Village be written tonight?

Or will the Belmont Board of Selectmen and national developer Toll Brothers go down to the last few days before striking a deal on the cusp of a late August deadline?

Answering the question will occur at the Selectmen meeting on Monday afternoon, Aug. 8, as the three-member board, will discuss and possibly vote on a series of amendments to the joint development agreement and other documents concerning the $80 million three-building project in the heart of Cushing Square.

As of this weekend, a final deal between town and developer is “close,” according to one Belmont selectman.

But, said Selectman Chair Mark Paolillo on Sunday, “I don’t know if it will be done by [Monday’s meeting.]”

“We still haven’t gotten the [joint development] documents back [from Toll Brothers],” he said. 

With a deadline of Aug. 26 for both sides to agree to a purchase and sale of the municipal parking lot adjacent to Trapelo Road, time is running short in finding consensus on a final agreement between the town and Toll.

“It really is one minor but important issue that needs to be resolved,” said Paolillo, who would not reveal what is the sticking point other than said it has to do with finances. . 

Paolillo said the board is “holding firm” that there will be no significant changes to the joint development agreement between the town and developer. 

The Horsham, Penn.-based company did not return calls for comment.

Toll Brothers purchased the parking lot’s development rights and two adjacent land parcels from the original owner, Smith Legacy Partners, on March 14. Since 2009, Smith Legacy shepherd the project through the permitting process and appeared ready to begin construction on the structure with 115 condominiums, 230 parking spaces and nearly 40,000 sq.-ft of shops in 2013 but could never secure the financing necessary to start construction.

Belmont’s selectmen voted unanimously on March 22 to approve a one-time only extension of the purchase and sale agreement to Aug. 26 for the sale of the municipal parking lot at the corner of Williston and Trapelo roads. As part of the deal, Toll agreed to pay the town $1 million for the parking lot and an additional $150,000 in fees to complete the transfer.

In March, Bill Lovett, senior development manager at Toll’s Apartment Living subsidiary, said the extension would allow the firm to do its due diligence of the property before committing to developing the site.

Lovett told the board it is taking the project “as is” with no plans to ask for changes to the massing and basic design that the Planning Board took 18 months to create in July 2013.

In the little more than four months since the extension, a deal once described by the former owner’s attorney who dubbed the agreement “complicated.” 

While it appears the selectmen and Toll Brothers are willing to take the negotiations to the board’s Aug. 22 meeting – only four days from the self-imposed deadline – Paolillo said: “both sides want this to go through.” 

“I know that [Belmont Town Counsel] George [Hall] is going through the documents which may mean we’ll have something to agree to in principal on Monday,” said Paolillo. 

“I really think we are going to be fine,” he said. 

Selectmen Discuss Dates for Minuteman Vote And A Possible Escape

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Photo: The possibility of an election and a Special Town Meeting.

With a vote in 16 communities to decide the future of the Minuteman Tech Regional High School less than two months away, the Belmont Board of Selectmen unveiled the tentative dates the town will discuss, vote and possibly severe its ties with the vocational school the town has sent its students for nearly five decades.

“This is a first step regarding coming to a conclusion of the Minuteman High School project and its financing,” David Kale, Belmont’s town administrator, told Selectmen on Monday, July 25.

In May, a Special Town Meeting voted against Minuteman’s $145 million financing plan as it was deemed too large for the limited number of students coming from district schools. 

• Monday, Sept. 12: The Belmont League of Women Voters and the town’s Warrant Committee will jointly hold an informational meeting at 7 p.m. at the Beech Street Center, 266 Beech St., where questions can be asked by voters to town and school officials. It could also be the date the Selectmen can make a recommendation on the plan’s passage or defeat. 

• Tuesday, Sept. 20: The district-wide vote on the project’s financing will take place between noon and 8 p.m. at Belmont’s seven polling stations. When the district-wide vote was first announced in mid-July, Minuteman officials – who are paying for the election – announced that each town would be voting at a single polling location (in Belmont at the High School’s field house) to keep expenses to approximately $11,000. 

But that plan was scuttled after both Arlington and Belmont protested the move, accusing it of an attempt to suppress voter turnout for no real cost savings.

“That was a good solution so not to cause disruptions at the high school,” which would be in session, said Kale. 

If Belmont votes against the bonding scheme, but the district-wide vote is in favor, the Selectmen will have 60 days to call and hold a Special Town Meeting to vote to withdraw from the district. 

• Monday, Sept. 26: 

“You’ll have to make some decisions depending what transpired in September,” said Kale at the first board meeting after the election. 

If the board does call for a Special Town Meeting, Town Meeting member can expect the following October dates to be put into play. 

• The week Monday, Oct. 10: The League of Women Voters will hold an informational and precinct meetings. 

• Wednesday, Oct. 19: Kale said the town has tentatively set the day for the Special Town Meeting, likely at the Chenery Middle School, as the first available date that it can be done. 

If the town votes to remove itself from the district but the other 15 voting member town refuse, Belmont will remain in the group but will not be responsible for the additional debt service, said Kale.

Currently, the town would be responsible for between $350,000 to $500,000 in annual assessments to build the new $145 million school. 

Mark Paolillo, Selectmen’s chair, said as part of the board’s deliberation, it will need to be informed by Belmont’s School Superintendent, John Phelan, “on alternatives for those students now attending Minuteman.”

Belmont Allege Minuteman Seeking To Depress Vote On New School

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Photo: The Wenner Field House.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That decision is yet to be made. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time Running Out To Find New Home For Belmont Food Pantry

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Photo: A busy Belmont Food Pantry on Belmont Serves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Belmont Joins Ranks With Communities on Gas Leak Legislation

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

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

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

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

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

In a comprehensive analysis of Belmont by Mother’s Out Front reported in the May/June Belmont Citizens Forum newsletter, there are 80 gas leaks throughout town – the majority in the heavily residential neighborhoods inside an area bordered by Trapelo Road, Pleasant Street, Concord Avenue and Grove Street –  part of the 20,000 leaks statewide that is spewing tons of methane into the atmosphere.
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‘[Methane] has been described as carbon on steroids,” Marusiak said of the greenhouse gas that’s nearly 90 percent more efficient than CO2 in trapping heat. It also exacerbates the effects of asthma and kills trees.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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