Photo:
The annual Belmont League of Women Voters® Education Fund Candidates’ Night will take place on Thursday, March 21 at the Chenery Middle School, 95 Washington St.
Belmont’s Town Election day is Tuesday, April 2.
Photo: It’s getting close to the deadline for nomination papers to be submitted.
Ellen Cushman, Belmont’s Town Clerk, announced this week that nomination papers for Town Offices are available for those running for office.
All candidates must be registered voters of Belmont.
Belmont’s form of government is a representative Town Meeting and we have seven elected boards, commissions and committees. Town Meeting makes all of the decisions about the Town’s budgets, local bylaws and town-wide initiatives. As a representative Town Meeting, only elected Town Meeting Members can debate and vote, unlike the Open Town Meeting some smaller towns use. Annual Town Meeting takes place in the spring, and typically is held for four evenings, (customarily Monday and Wednesday) in early May then early June for another two to four evenings. All sessions start at 7 p.m.
Each voting precinct in Belmont has 36 Town Meeting Members, elected by voters of that precinct at the April Town Election. Twelve Representative Town Meeting Members for each precinct are elected annually for a three year term. In 2019 there are also a few partial-term openings for Town Meeting; vacancies are created by Members moving or resigning. Serving in Town Meeting is a great way to represent your neighbors and neighborhood concerns, get to know other residents and become informed about issues and opportunities ahead of Town.
Stop by the Town Clerk’s office to pick up nomination papers; have your neighbors and friends, who are voters of your precinct, sign your papers and submit the signed forms to the Town Clerk by the deadline, Feb. 12, at 5 p.m. The Town Clerk’s web pages contain quite a bit of information to help make a decision to seek office at www.belmont-ma.gov select Town Clerk, then select Running for Elected Office and Campaigning or feel free to call us at 617-993-2600, or email at townclerk@belmont-ma.gov
Running for election is simple:
Here’s the list of offices that will be filled by the April 2 annual Town Election as of Jan. 24:
Town Meeting Members for Each of the Eight Precincts: Vote for 12 (three year terms)
Partial-Term Town Meeting Members:
For Precinct 1: Vote for one, two-year term.
For Precinct 1: Vote for one, one-year term.
For Precinct 5: Vote for one, two-year term.
For Precinct 7: Vote for one, one-year term.
| Town-wide Offices | Number of Seats | Term of Office |
| Moderator | Vote for One | 1 year |
| Board of Selectmen | Vote for One | 3 years |
| Town Clerk | Vote for One | 3 years |
| Board of Assessors | Vote for One | 3 years |
| Board of Cemetery Commissioners | Vote for One | 3 years |
| Board of Health | Vote for One | 3 years |
| Members of the Housing Authority | Vote for One | 5 years |
| Trustees of the Public Library | Vote for Two | 3 years |
| Members of the School Committee | Vote for One | 1 year |
| Members of the School Committee | Vote for Two | 3 years |
Photo: Roy Epstein
It didn’t take long for the race to fill the open seat on the Board of Selectmen to became a real contest.
Warrant Committee Chair Roy Epstein picked up nomination papers at the Town Clerk’s Office on Friday morning, Jan. 11, two days after Town Meeting member Jessica Bennett obtained hers, setting up a particularly interesting town election with two – for now – possible candidates with strong views on the direction the town should take.
A well-known member of numerous boards, working groups and committees – he currently serves on four and sat on five others in the past – the 24 year resident touts his extensive knowledge working on the financial and policy nuts and bolts of Belmont’s town government.
“Why me? I have the professional background and actual town experience that has an unmatched record of solving the hardest problems and saving the town millions of dollars,” said the adjunct professor of finance at Boston College who earned a PhD in Economics for Yale after matriculating at Wesleyan University.
“I think I will do the best job for the town as a whole. I will continue to be an independent, reliable voice and will always welcome public input from everyone; left, right, or center,” said Epstein who lives with his family on Cushing Avenue.
(The Belmontonian will conduct detailed interviews with all candidates after nominations close on Feb. 12).
Photo: Jessie Bennett receiving her nomination papers on Wednesday at the Town Clerk’s office.
It’s the photo all candidates – or potential candidates – should take, when they make the leap and take out nomination papers for local office. On Wednesday morning, Jan. 10, Jessica Bennett got “the shot” as she was handed her papers at the Town Clerk’s office for her run to occupy the seat of retiring selectman Mark Paolillo.
“I’m running for the Board of Selectmen because the work of local government is vital and touches all of our lives every day, regardless of age, race, income, political affiliation, and citizenship status,” said the 11-year resident who lives with her family on Trowbridge Street.
“We all bring the trash to the curb and have to get across town in traffic, and turn on the lights and expect that electricity to be there. I know that none of this happens magically and that the Board of Selectmen is an integral part of that process,” she said in an email interview.
While Bennett is the first out of the gate – less than two days after Paolillo first told the Belmontonian after Monday’s Selectmen’s meeting he would not seek a fourth term – to seek a seat on the important three-member board, she’s is almost certainly not the last to see Town Clerk Ellen Cushman seeking their own nomination sheets and the reason comes down to simple math: do it now or end up in the political equivalent of the Registry of Motor Vehicles waiting room.
The selectman’s race in April will be a contest for an “open” seat, so there is no pesky incumbent with a slew of supporters ready for a re-election campaign. Everything (meaning every vote) is up for grabs without having to craft a message and a campaign around the person who already has the job. Everyone who enters the race this year is starting from square one in this political game of Candy Land.
Even the most casual of town government observers that the current collection of selectmen – made up of Paolillo, Tom Caputo and Chairman Adam Dash – is one of the strongest bodies in terms of policy and process in recent memory. Whether it is the community path, the future of the incinerator site, attempting to militate (or just mitigate) the Gordian knot of local traffic along with the myriad of the important ongoing issues such as budgets and planning for revenue shortfalls, there has been an acknowledgment that its service along with no-longer-new Town Administrator Patrice Garvin has Belmont on the right course.
So, let’s say you’re a person interested in taking the leap and run for selectman. If you decide this is not the “right” time to throw your hat into the ring, look at what faces you. Over the next two years – if the longtime trend of selectmen likely to seek a second term – you will likely first have to challenge Dash (who won his first election with 64 percent of the vote against a well-known conservative) and then Caputo (94 percent against token opposition), both well-liked and well-known to voters, a deadly combination for anyone to attempt to unseat incumbents. And the third year will be the winner of this year’s race. And it could be longer for an open seat to arise again if Dash and Caputo decide to match Paolillo’s nine years of service.
In many ways, if not for a better job out of state, retirement to Florida or burnout that could produce an open seat sooner, it’s now or never for those who envisioned themselves spending alternative Monday nights – and at least one other night talking to residents or being a liaison at the Warrant/Capital Budget/Community Preservation committees – at three hour meetings.
Bennett is an attractive candidate with an inspiring back story – she left college (she would graduate later) to assist her parents financially, working as a teller then rising through the banking ranks before changing fields to high tech before moving to the Boston area when her wife was appointed a professor. If just going by Facebook “likes” and comments, Bennett has her supporters.
(The Belmontonian will conduct detailed interviews with all candidates after nominations close on Feb. 12)
Keen observers of town going-ons will have noticed Bennett’s increasing presence at Town Meeting and involvement with causes such as Yes for Belmont, parent/teacher groups and the Foundation for Belmont Education and at meetings including the Belmont High School Building Committee and the various traffic boards – she lives just a slingshot away from the new 7-12 school building. She was recently appointed to the High School Traffic Working Group. No surprise that she was in attendance at the most recent Selectmen’s meeting on Monday, Jan. 7.
Bennett is at the starting line, now it’s who’ll join her for the race.
Photo: Nomination papers.
Belmont Town Clerk Ellen Cushman announced Friday, Jan. 3 that nomination papers for elected town-wide 0ffices are available for those who wish to run. All candidates must be registered voters of Belmont.
In addition to those races, 12 representative Town Meeting Members are elected for three-year terms from each of the town’s eight voting precincts. This year, there are also some partial-term openings for Town Meeting; vacancies are created by Members moving or resigning.
Stop by the Town Clerk’s office to pick up nomination papers; have your neighbors and friends, who are voters, sign your nomination papers and submit the signed forms to the Town Clerk by the deadline, Feb. 12, at 5 p.m.
The Town Clerk’s web pages contain quite a bit of information to help make a decision to seek office at www.belmont-ma.gov select Town Clerk, then select Running for Elected Office and Campaigning or feel free to call us at 617-993-2600, or email at townclerk@belmont-ma.gov
Running for election is simple:
Running for re-election to Town Meeting: current Town Meeting Members whose term of office expires in 2019 have already been sent a letter asking if the person wants to seek re-election. Deadline for return of those letters to the Town Clerk is January 22nd at 4 PM.
Here’s the list of offices that will be filled by the April 2 annual Town Election as of January 3, 2019:
| Town -wide Offices | Number of Seats | Term of Office | |||
| Moderator | Vote for One | 1 year | |||
| Board of Selectmen | Vote for One | 3 years | |||
| Board of Assessors | Vote for One | 3 years | |||
| Board of Cemetery Commissioners | Vote for One | 3 years | |||
| Board of Health | Vote for One | 3 years | |||
| Members of the Housing Authority | Vote for One | 5 years | |||
| Trustees of the Public Library | Vote for Two | 3 years | |||
| Members of the School Committee | Vote for Two | 3 years | |||
| Member of the School Committee | Vote for One | 1 year | |||
| Town Meeting Members for
Each of the Eight Precincts |
Vote for Twelve | 3 years | |||
| Partial-Term Town Meeting Members:
For Precinct 1 |
Vote for One | 2 years | |||
| For Precinct 1 | Vote for One | 1 year | |||
| For Precinct 5 | Vote for One | 2 years | |||
| For Precinct 7 | Vote for One | 1 year | |||
Photo: Peter Pantazopoulos (Linkedin)
Peter Pantazopoulos doesn’t know which Belmont School Committee seat he’ll be seeking at Town Election in April.
But he will be running.
He also got Belmont-specific on a pair of fronts.