Schools Mask Mandate Will Stay Until The New Year: Board Of Health Chief

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Photo: A sign you’ll see in schools by the holiday break

Parents and students hoping for a quick end to the mask mandate in Belmont schools – specifically for high school students – saw their wishes dashed as the head of the Belmont Board of Health believes masks will be a part of the school day up to the holiday break in the last weeks of December.

The declaration by Chair Donna David came during the Board of Health’s Aug. 16 meeting during which the board clarify aspects of the town-wide indoor mask mandate that passed on Aug. 6 as well as make clear that the schools and town will have different standards of when to end mask requirements.

Based on public feedback after the previous week’s Belmont School Committee’s, there was a desire to clarify the confusion of when the town-wide mask mandate would end in the Belmont schools, said Wesley Chin, Belmont’s Health Department director. Under a sunset clause in the town-wide directive, the face covering requirements will be lifted when Middlesex county records two consecutive weeks of lower infection rates.

In the board’s new plan, the schools’ mask mandate is now a separate from the town’s document. “Pretty simple and straightforward,” said David.

The new regulation states: “Face coverings are required for all individuals aged two years and above except where an individual is unable to wear a face covering dude to a medical condition disability.”

Under the new regulation, the board will incorporate guidance and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the state’s Department of Health to decide when the mask mandate will be dropped.

While the board will be monitoring the data and taking daily advice from the town’s health department, David said until the Covid-19 vaccine is available to children under 12 – both Pfizer and Moderna say they anticipate sharing results and seeking authorization for their vaccine in ages 5 to 11 as early as September or October – and the number of overall cases are declining, she doesn’t see a reason to remove the mandate and “this could easily be in effect through December.”

”This brings a little stability to what we’re doing and what our line of thinking is,” said David. Until the under 12 vaccine is available, “‘we’re kind of in a holding pattern because, in the schools particular, we’re doing this to protect those who cannot be vaccinated.”

The board also voted to bring greater clarity to the town’s mandate after receiving public comments on the document the Select Board approved last week.

The four clarifications are:

  • Indoor performers at public spaces such as the Beech Street Center, restaurants or schools are required to wear face coverings,
  • Private residences are excluded from the mandate,
  • Residents and employees in multi-unit homes and apartments are required to wear face coverings when inside common hallways and spaces, and
  • Members and employees in private membership clubs are required to wear face coverings while indoors.

“It’s not drastically different, just more detailed,” said Adam Dash, chair of the Select Board which reviewed the changes at its Monday night meeting.

Belmont Enacts Town-Wide Indoor Mask Mandate Starting Monday

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Photo: A town-wide mask mandate takes effect in Belmont at midnight, Aug. 9.

Belmont will enact a town-wide indoor mask mandate starting at midnight, Monday, Aug. 9, after the Health Board voted unanimously to approve the requirement and the Select Board endorsed the decision 3-0 at an emergency meeting held on Friday morning, Aug. 6.

The mandate will impact all establishments that has public indoor spaces including stores, eateries and offices. (See the order below) The town-wide regulation comes days after the Select Board placed a mask mandate on town buildings.

Belmont’s order mirrors the order passed by the community of Provincetown after the Cape Cod community saw a significant surge in infected residents despite having a 95 percent vaccination rate.

The return of the covering ordinance comes as the Covid-19 Delta variant is sweeping across the country increasing the number of positive coronavirus cases. After nearly a month when the town saw a single positive infection, Belmont has seen a significant uptick of 18 new cases over the past two weeks, with several being “breakthrough”, in which a fully vaccinated person is infected. The CDC has designated Middlesex county as having substantial level of infection.

The town-wide mandate will end when the level of community transmission for Middlesex county as recorded by the CDC is designated as either low or moderate for two consecutive weeks. That information is released by the CDC on Sunday afternoon.

Indoor Mask Mandate At Town Buildings Return Wednesday; ‘Emergency’ Meeting Friday To Discuss Possible Town-Wide Order

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Photo: Belmont welcomes back masks to town

Beginning Wednesday, August 4, visitors and employees in town offices and buildings will be required to wear a mask as Belmont responds to a recent surge of positive cases of Covid-19.

“It’s erring on the side of being cautious. It’s the best thing for the public health and safety of everybody,” said Health Board Chair Donna David as the Select Board approved the sudden return to a mandate after speaking to health and town officials at its Monday meeting. In addition, public meetings will revert back to being held via Zoom or other virtual software.

At this time, there is no scheduled date for the mandate to end.

On Friday morning, Aug. 6, the town’s health and select boards will hold an emergency meeting to discuss expanding the indoor mask mandate to local stores, offices and restaurants. While the town building mandate was a straightforward call, the Select Board appeared less eager to re-establish a full town-wide indoor mask requirement.

“I think the business community’s going to be really upset with us” if masks make a return, said the Select Board’s Mark Paolillo.

It appears Belmont’s schools will continue requiring masks indoors at the district begins the new school year in mid-September, according to Donna David, chair of the Health Board. “They are onboard,” she said.

Adam Dash, chair of the Select Board, told the meeting that in the past when cases were on the rise the town had followed closely recommendations from the state’s health department on mask “but now the state’s basically saying ‘it’s on you’. So here we are.”

At Monday’s meeting, Health Department Director Wesley Chin told the Select Board that after going more than three weeks without a case in early summer, the town has seen 20 Covid cases since July 4, half of which are “breakthrough” cases; when an individual tests positive after they’ve been fully vaccinated against the disease.

“So far, we’ve been lucky we haven’t had any hospitalizations or deaths with these breakthrough cases,” said Chin, noting that those exposed were in their 40s and 50s and relatively healthy. While Belmont has not entered the state’s designated “red” zone of new cases, David said it is moving into that range, with the added complication that within the next three weeks, children – many under 12 and unvaccinated – will be returning to town from family vacations and trips as they settle in before heading back to school.

David said since it has made a “very strong” recommendation to the School Committee to continue its mask mandate, he said her board was “pretty much in alignment that [masks] should extend to the town buildings and offices, whether you are vaccinated or not.”

The reason for being vigilant even with a majority of adults being vaccinated, said David, is due to what is being learned about the variant on a daily basis.

“Each day unfolds new information in terms of the viral load and how it spreads to others,” she told the board. “If you’re at work and you’re exposed and asymptomatic and take it home to your unvaccinated child or somebody who’s immunosuppressed.”

Paolillo said he would support masks for workers and those visiting town-owned facilities “as a way of protecting our employees” especially since the town will not ask who is vaccinated inside a building.

While Town Administrator Patrice Garvin had hoped to give the employees a level of expectation of when the order may cease, it will be up to the Health Board working closely with the town to determine when the mandate will end.

Belmont Ends Its COVID Emergency Regs; A Month To Plan Reopening Of Town

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Photo: Belmont Town Hall which has been closed to the public for the past 14 months

On the same day Gov. Charlie Baker said the state would lift all remaining COVID-19 restrictions effective Memorial Day, May 29, the Belmont Select Board approved rescinding the town’s emergency regulations requiring residents to wear masks and social distancing.

“Belmont will end the temporary regulations to mirror the state’s mask guidelines,” said Chair Adam Dash at the Select Board’s meeting on Monday, May 17.

“The state will just be implementing a new advisory for face coverings that’s going to replicate what the CDC guidance is around face coverings for the moment,” said Diana Ekman, assistant director of the Belmont Health Department. Residents who are fully vaccinated don’t have to a need to wear a face covering indoors except under certain circumstances such as schools, using public transportation, visiting child and elder care settings, said Ekman.

Those who have yet to be vaccinated should continue to use mask, said Ekman. In addition, Belmont business owners can still require customers to wear masks.

The town and the board can now begin the work to reopen town’s offices and revert back to public meetings once the Massachusetts state of emergency – in effect since March 10, 2020 – is lifted on June 15, approximately a month after Monday’s meeting.

“So we have a lot of planning to do in a very short amount of time,” said Dash. “We’re going to have to start meeting in person sooner than later which overall is a good thing except we weren’t really prepared” as Baker said last month it would be mid-August when the state of emergency would be retracted.

One event that will not take place will be Town Meeting which will take up the budget segment beginning June 2.

Town Administrator Patrice Garvin said after speaking to Wes Chin, Belmont’s health director, once Baker issues the order to lift the emergency order, “Town Hall will most likely be open.” As for a return to board and committee meetings and the open of locations such as the Beech Street Center, “we have to figure this all out,” said Dash, which will include maintaining a virtual presence at meetings which have been popular and a success in upping public participation.

“It’s going to be a bit of a transition back to the old ways with hopefully some taste of the new ways … but we have a little time to play with it.”

Latest Rink Configuration OK’d By School Committee; Tennis Courts Remain A ‘?’

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Photo: The scheme approved by the school committee for a new skating rink in Belmont

The Belmont School Committee unanimously approved on Wednesday, May 12, the latest design scheme for a new skating/hockey rink located near the present location adjacent to Harris Field.

The joint meeting with the Belmont Select Board did not address a pair of vital issues that still require answers: how to find the $18 million to replace the dilapidated half century old rink, and how to resolve a consistent clarion call of the town’s tennis community seeking to squeeze five courts into a site already bursting at the seams.

“We do need to close this matter out and move the discussion forward. It’s not fair to anyone to just keep dragging it out and providing any group with any false expectations,” said Adam Dash, the Select Board chair who co-hosted the meeting with the School Committee’s Amy Checkoway whose committee controls the land use where the rink would reside.

Responding to a request from the town, Steven Stefton, lead of the sports and recreation practice of Perkins&Will’s Boston office, presented a trio of schemes in which the rink, parking, and three sports fields occupy the area west of Harris Field. In quick order, the most attractive of the plans had the single-sheet rink place adjacent to the commuter rail tracks and Harris Field, about 90 parking spaces with three sports fields occupying the remainder of the land.

Steven Sefton, Perkins&Will

The two-level 45,900 square-foot facility would top off around 35 feet tall. The rink’s program would be quite modest with locker rooms that would be available for hockey and teams playing at Harris Field. The site will also allow for a three sports field configuration with a limited amount of overlap. It would take 15 months to build – the shortest time frame of the three schemes – at a total cost of $20.3 million with a $2.25 million credit from the Middle and High School Building project.

“There’s a myriad of opportunities with this design that we think we could really create a high-performing facility in the future. And then ultimately it’s the most cost-effective solution that can be phased easily,” said Stefton.

Checkoway said while the committee does have a preference on design, it will be necessary to “at some point figures out a way to finance it.”

“This [meeting] is really about holding a place for a potential new rink at some point in the future,” said Checkoway.

But for many of the 100 residents on the virtual meeting, the topic on the top of their agenda was finding some way to place five tennis courts on the site. Belmont High was once the home of ten courts – located on the northeast side of the existing building – before construction began on the new Middle and High School.

A decision in 2017 by the Middle and High School Building Committee in consultation with Perkins&Will (the architects of the new school) eliminated the courts in favor of new fields and parking on the site. In January 2020, the School Committee reiterated the earlier action with a promise to add courts at the nearby Winn Brook Playground.

Dash noted the select board and school committee devised a compromise in which an extra court would be built at the Winn Brook to allow the varsity tennis teams a “home” facility, albeit without changing and restrooms. The Community Reinvestment Committee will present a proposal to Town Meeting in June to pay for a single court at the playground for a total of five.

Not feeling heard

But even with a partial solution at the Winn Brook, “there are a lot of tennis players in town, tennis parents that feel disenfranchised,” said Select Board member Mark Paolillo.

Those advocating a return of courts to the school’s site gravitated towards two possible options, one of which would reduce the number of parking spaces from 90 to approximately 20 and install the courts close to Concord Avenue.

The School Committee’s Mike Crowley said with the need to deal with the climate crisis and for more sustainable approaches to transportation, “I don’t know that I want to see those students driving to school. So I’m looking at that space, I’m seeing tennis court potential.”

Planning Board Chair Stephen Pinkerton was then recognized who said while “it’s aspirational” to limit student driving, the reality is if those drivers are coming and if they can’t find parking at the school, they will on side streets.

Any attempt to reduce parking would require tampering with the agreement between the school district and the Planning Board on parking at the new school. As part of the Site Planning Approval encompassing the entire project, an agreement was reached where the project would have 400 parking spaces with 90 of those spaces located west of Harris Field, a settlement Pinkerton said was hammered out with numerous parties – residents from nearby neighborhoods, transportation groups – involving long and at times contentious dialogue.

In an apparent compromise that would return the high school tennis teams on campus, Select Board member Mark Paolillo raised the point of the need for a junior varsity baseball field west of the campus.

“Can we program around JV baseball so that we can get the tennis courts on the campus,” said Paolillo, noting the popularity of tennis and the removal of half the courts’ town-wide in the past decade.

“It seems strange to me that there are junior varsity fields on the campus and yet we can’t get a varsity sport on the campus and yet we can’t get a varsity sport on the campus,” said resident Lou Miller.

Town and school officials said removing baseball isn’t that simple due to the lack of an appropriately-sized baseball field in town. Jon Marshall, assistant town administrator and recreation director, said moving the JV team to another field “would have a ripple effect” on the high school and town sports teams as it would require altering small diamonds into “90-foot fields” – referring to the number of feet between bases on the standard adult playing grounds – which would affect the playing choices for regional and town baseball teams.

After the committee voted to OK its favorite scheme, it appears a formally installed working group to established to find answers to financing, parking, and land use will be a result of the meeting.

Fire Department Ups Fees For Ambulance Service Adding $290K To ’22 Budget

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Photo: Belmont Fire Chief David DeStefano

A jump in the fees to call a Belmont Fire Department ambulance will add more than a quarter of a million dollars to the town budget after the Belmont Select Board unanimously approved the cost hike at its virtual meeting on Monday, May 11.

The changes to what was called an out-of-date fee structure came after Chief David DeStefano compared the costs being charged for ambulance services in neighboring and comparable towns and finding Belmont should bump up its fees.

“Certainly it’s a forecast at this point, but it will come to fruition one day. I think that would definitely put us on the right path.” said DeStefano, who came before the board with an initial proposal three weeks earlier and was asked by the members to return with a more flushed out draft.

The new fee structure will be:

Service Former feeNew fee
Basic Life Service (BLS)$1,850$1,999
Advance Life Service 1 (ALS)$2,350$2,475
Advance Life Service 2 (ALS2)$2,800$2,950
Source: Belmont Fire Department

What does BLS, ALS all mean? Here’s a short explainer.

The per mile charge will rise to $40.

According to DeStefano, the estimated annual revenue in fiscal 2022 using the new fee structure – using historical data from 2020 – will bring in $953,000, compared with $662,000 in 2020. The change will result in an additional $291,000 coming into the town’s coffers.

“Clearly … the rates that we’re using are outdated and we need to get to higher rates so I’m full steam ahead,” said Board member Mark Paolillo.

Using a conservative estimate of $250,000 in new revenue coming to the ’22 budget, Town Administrator Patrice Garvin told the board the added monies could be used to fill critical personnel holes in several departments. “Any additions would have to have recurring revenue behind it, at least that’s my guiding philosophy on the budget,” said Garvin.

One such need is reinstating a Building Automation Systems Manager for the new Middle and High School who will oversee the efficient running of the building beginning in September. That post was set aside after the Proposition 2 1/2 override was defeated at the April Town Election.

The second position is a diversity coordinator the town could share with the Belmont schools. While there are “further discussions on how to develop and incorporate this position, either with the schools, the town or both,” Garvin would “park that position in the town’s budget” for now. Both positions would run between $105,000 to $110,000 in salary and benefits.

Dash said the two positions have been discussed in detail with the facilities department “having a dire need for sure” for the systems manager. “If we don’t maintain our [buildings], we’re just going to pay more later,” said Dash.

Paolillo did push back on the hiring of a full-time diversity director for the town suggesting the schools assume financial responsibility initially for the position and the town wait for the town’s diversity task force to make its recommendations before committing to a hire. He suggested diversity training for all employees could be a more impactful use of the new revenue.

Resident Bill Anderson told the board that new employees add to the town’s pension and OPEB obligations “and those could very easily add up.”

“There needs to be taken caution when adding permanent employees to a town that claims to be in a structural deficit,” he said.

Paolillo (Re)Joins Select Board

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Photo: The team that runs Belmont: (from top left clockwise) Select Board Chair Adam Dash, vice-chair Roy Epstein, Town Administrator Patrice Garvin, Select Board member Mark Paolillo, and Jon Marshall, assistant town administrator.

When Mark Paolillo served on the Belmont Select Board in the 2010s he would be continually fighting a losing battle with Boston traffic to get to the Board’s Monday evening meetings on time, which resulted in good-natured comments from colleagues when he would eventually come flying into Town Hall.

The three-term (2010-19) “selectman” returns to the board after running unopposed to secure his fourth term at the April 6 Town Election. And the next day, at the annual organizational meeting, it was as if Paolillo hadn’t missed a beat … as he was running three minutes late.

Paolillo said there will be a lot of work facing the Board in the coming year after the rejection of the Prop 2 1/2 override by the voters 12 hours earlier.

“We need to come together as a board and, frankly, as a community. It was an emotionally charged election and I think it’s up to us as members of the board to help the community move past its differences,” said Paolillo, pointing to reengage on fiscal issues within the town.

“That’s going to be my primary focus on the board, but there are other things that are in the back of my mind like the community path and our climate action plan,” he said. “I know we have a diversity initiative that I’m fully engaged and committed to.”

At Wednesday’s meeting, Adam Dash returned for his second turn leading the Select Board after he was named chair for the coming year. Dash said he will run the meetings – they have been pushing close to four hours – using three simple rules:

  1. No drama,
  2. Be respectful, and
  3. Don’t waste anybody’s time because there’s a lot to do this year.

Dash also mentioned the failed override vote resulting in “a lot of work to do in a very short time getting ready for Town Meeting” which will occur at the end of April.

Roy Epstein, who ran the board for the past year is now vice-chair. Epstein said he will continue his work of making Select Board meeting material available to the public via the board’s website.

“There’s been some difficulty in getting that organized as it’s logistically cumbersome and sometimes we have 15 to 20 and 30 documents. But I think it’s a good practice just to make everything available so nobody feels that they’ve been at some informational disadvantage at the time of the meeting,” said Epstein.

Belmont Will Keep Voting Precincts At Elementary Schools Despite Students Return

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Photo: Voting will take place at elementary school locations in Belmont

Belmont Town Clerk Ellen Cushman thought she had everything planned to manage the upcoming Town Election on Tuesday, April 6 as well as one can during a pandemic.

Cushman had her volunteers at the ready, enough PPE’s (personal protective equipment) on supply, and eight ballot locations with plenty of space to allow for six feet of personal distance for everyone. Three of those locations – the Winn Brook (Precinct 8), Butler (Precinct 4), and the Burbank (Precinct 7) – are located in the gyms of elementary schools closed due to COVID-19.

That all changed last week when Belmont School Superintendent John Phelan announced the town’s elementary students will be returning back full-time to the classroom one day before the election on Monday, April 5. And due to social distancing requirements and safety concerns on spreading the coronavirus, schools are using every nook and cranny have to turn into learning spaces: storage spaces, libraries, lunchrooms, and those previously empty gyms.

“We recognize that it could be somewhat challenging especially since the children will be returning to school just one day prior,” said Cushman.

Cushman wanted to “make sure that everyone feels comfortable, everyone is safe” working at those precincts. To accomplish those goals, there needed to be some thought on “what constraints and restraints we might be able to put in place to make sure that happens.”

A meeting was held with Cushman, Phelan, school staff, Town Health Director Wes Chen and Town Administrator Patrice Garvin to evaluate the town’s ability to run the election from those locations, with questions like is there any chance to move the precincts to other locations which are large enough to accommodate a very spread out election process.

But, considering all kinds of factors such as our ability to run these elections in other places, do we have sizes of buildings and facilities that are going to be large enough to accommodate a very physically spread out election process which has been done since the previous year. There were also issues of accessibility for voters and having enough parking, all the while “making sure that we could keep all these various populations separated properly,” said Cushman.

At the end of the evaluation, the group decided that it could “accommodate the voting activity in the elections at the three elementary schools in addition to our other five locations,” said Cushman.

“We will work with the principals of each of those schools as well as [the] facilities department to make sure that we make appropriate accommodations in line with any health guidance,” she said.

Belmont To Receive $8.6M From American Rescue Plan … With COVID Strings Attached

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Photo: President Joe Biden signing the American Rescue Plan. Creator: Adam Schultz | Credit: White House

Not only will most Belmont residents receive a $1,400 check from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan signed into law by President Biden on March 11, but their Town of Homes is also set to be a beneficiary from the same stimulus package created to lessen the economic repercussions of COVID-19.

According to State Sen. Will Brownsberger, preliminary information from the state shows Belmont will receive approximately $8.6 million from the Rescue Plan with $1 million of the total targeted to Belmont schools.

“I would just like to underline that most of this money is coming from the federal government,” Brownsberger told the Belmont Select Board at its meeting held virtually on Monday, March 15. “This is rain comes falling from US Sen. [Elizabeth] Warren, Sen. [Ed] Markey and US Rep. [Katherine] Clark, so credit to them.”

In addition, both Brownsberger and State Rep. Dave Rogers, also at the meeting, said due to revenues coming into state coffers stronger than expected despite the pandemic’s economic downturn due to the pandemic, state aid to cities and towns will be greater than earlier forecast.

But before anyone in Town Hall or the school department begins spending this one-time windfall, Brownsberger told the board “that aid comes with a number of strings in terms of … how it can be used.” And nearly all of the threads have to do with COVID.

Brownsberger said the funding comes with defined eligibility criteria that will determine “how much of that money can be used for general government purposes and how much of it can be used only for particular projects” related to COVID relief.

According to preliminary reports, the money can be spent on one of four categories which includes:

  • Reimburse town funds spent responding to the public health emergency of COVID,
  • Lessen the negative economic impact on the community, (“So it could be broadly used to provide aid to small businesses, households,” Brownsberger said.)
  • Replace town revenue lost to the COVID recession, and
  • Make investments in water, sewer, or broadband.

To receive the funds, the town will commit to a certification process – rather than applying for the money – in which the town tells the state (which is running the program for the federal government for municipalities smaller than 50,000 people) that it understands the constraints of how the funds will be used.

Rogers said regulations are still being written by the US Treasury “on how the money can be spent as much of it is earmarked and targeted in very specific ways.”

Patrice Garvin, Belmont’s town administrator, said she has “not received enough information on how this money can be used.”

On the state side of the fiscal ledger, Rogers said the state budget is “in reasonably good shape given everything that has happened” and the legislature is now expected to have the ability to fund Chapter 70 general education aid formula at a level above Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s estimate for state aid announced on Jan. 27.

“We’re very committed to funding the Student Opportunity Act designed to increase local school aid to a level that’s really commensurate with a town’s need or actual spending, particularly for Belmont on the cost of health care and special education,” said Brownsberger. The end result is Belmont could see “maybe a few $100,000” more in Chapter 70 aid in fiscal 22.

One area the state is advising cities and towns not to do is make concrete fiscal decisions using these figures.

“[The Secretary of State’s office which distributed the data] said the information … should be viewed as preliminary and subject to change,” said Brownsberger reading from notes. “We’d strongly advise against the town making plans based on this preliminary information as the US Treasury will ultimately calculate the final amounts. So towns should not make plans about overrides based on these estimates.”

And that is the word coming from the campaigners seeking to pass the override on April 6.

Unfortunately, the stimulus money “doesn’t change the fundamentals concerning Belmont’s structural deficit, which is projected to be almost $20 million over three years even after spending down our cash reserves,” said Nicole Dorn, co-chair of Yes for Belmont which is advocating for the passage of a $6.2 million Prop 2 1/2 override on the April 6 town election ballot.

“This one-time infusion of funds won’t cover our operating expenses because it is restricted to certain programs or needed for COVID-related expenses. Every year we delay addressing our budget issues only makes our structural deficit worse, and means we’ll need a bigger override that is more expensive for taxpayers,” she said.

One Way Leonard: Town Seeks Comments On A Return To One Lane Traffic

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Photo: Leonard Street down to one lane last summer

The Select Board will hold a public meeting to discuss a proposal to restrict Leonard Street to one lane of traffic between Moore Street and Alexander Avenue from April through October. The virtual meeting will take place on Monday, March 8 at 7 p.m.

“The town is eager to hear comments and get feedback to determine the level of interest of this proposal,” according to the announcement sent by the Town Clerk’s Office.

Last year, the Select Board instituted the one way traffic plan to allow restaurants to expand their al fresco dining area onto Leonard Street to assist those business owners impacted by COVID-19 restrictions on indoor operations. While many enjoyed the increased pedestrian opportunities created by the measure, retail shops said the loss of parking spaces on Belmont’s main commercial center hampered their businesses.

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